THE MONTHLY CHRONICLE; NATIONAL JOURNAL OF Politics, Literature, Science, and Art. VOL. VII. LONDON: LONGMAN, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS, PATERNOSTER-ROW. THE MONTHLY CHRONICLE, FRENCH AND ENGLISH ALLIANCE. THAT the present state of civilised nations, and the changes which such civilisation has produced, may be accounted, if not amongst the phenomena of modern history, at least amongst those facts which must at once arrest our attention, is a position that few will deny. That in this new state of things we are to clearly see the operation of a new principle in the government and guidance of these nations, and therefore in the preservation of their peace and union, may be a position less tenable, at least with certain classes of people, and must, of course, depend on the light in which it is viewed; for, certainly, to judge from the severity of those conflicts which we have witnessed to judge from the tears, the treasures, the blood which the last half century has seen lavished even in those nations calling themselves the leaders in such civilisation, we might sometimes conclude that we had retrograded instead of advanced; that the wrath of God had been poured down upon us in his mercies; and that it was only through the purifying influence of new agencies, more enlarged and more enlightened, that we could arrive at that state whereby union could be secured amongst us, and wars thus banished for ever. To enter into the causes, remote or proximate, by which such changes have been produced and are still producing, is here useless. We all know them; we all know in what manner they have operated; we all know the rapid transition going on in society, and the pass to which we have now arrived: but yet, in reference to one subject, and in order to glance at the general character of these changes, we must first ask what this civilisation really consists of, what it has really done, what new lessons or laws has it revealed, and what is its ultimate aim? Civilisation is a large term—it is a loose term-it is one of those lofty highflown dresses taken out of the wardrobe of language, under whose cover we can safely commit mistakes; or, as Burke says, one of those terms ever ready to fling off the shackles of a definition. Terms and definitions, says D'Alembert, are half the battle; and if we have only something like a glossary to begin with, away go half our battles or our books. Civilisation, we may fairly say, is a strange mixture-a genus more than a species; a term about which nations have been ever quarrelling, and, like most other terms, the more used the more abused. If we accept it in its common loose signification, what does it prove? and if we appeal to those nations themselves, what do we find? The Egyptians were civilised; so were the Greeks; so were the Romans: but how different from each other, and from |