CH. I.]

CHAPTER I.

A GENERAL REVIEW.

193

THE MIDDLE AGES AND MODERN TIMES CONTRASTED. -CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. COINCIDENCE OF THE

WITH THE AGRESSIVE POLICY OF RUSSIA.

FRENCH REVOLUTION

We have carried our history of the revolutionary period down to the time when the Communist democracy unfolded its victorious banner for the first time in France; and after a temporary check, prepared itself for the last decisive struggle. We have at the same time traced the effects of the Revolution on the Continental States of Central Europe. Germany has been forced into a defensive war; Belgium, Switzerland and Italy, are threatened with dangerous invasions. At the same time the example of the French lust of conquest begins to find imitators in Vienna and Berlin, and the first symptoms appeared of the approaching extension of the movement, beyond its previous sphere, to Eastern Europe and the Ocean. In every direction, therefore, the call to freedom, raised in 1789, appeared like the signal for despotism and military violence. The history of the world can scarcely shew a turn of affairs so tragical-so terrible a fall after such vigorous efforts, such a grand developement, and such enthusiastic hopes. It is a moment well suited to ask ourselves the question, whether those hopes bore within them the seeds of decay, whether that developement was, from the very first, necessarily unfruitful.

He who draws this conclusion from the failure of the Revolution, and utterly condemns the movement of 1789, must overlook an indestructible impulse of the human heart, and pronounce the history of Europe for the last three hundred years to be one great lie.

Ever since the close of the Middle Ages, the nations of Europe had been struggling to reach the same object—though not with the same political programme-which the French Assembly of 1789 hoped to obtain for France. That object was the removal of all unfounded and imaginary authority, the loosing of all arbitrary bonds, the overthrow of all unnatural barriers. The world called to mind the venerable words of Holy writ: "Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, nor the likeness of anything that is in Heaven above, nor in the earth beneath ..... thou shalt not bow down to them nor worship them." Hitherto they had practised idolatry in every department of life, for they had attributed to all the institutions of human society, a heavenly origin and a divine consecration. The visible Church in the Middle Ages included the State, Commerce and Education, in its own sphere, and thereby imparted to them its own character of holiness and immutability. All that existed therefore was unassailable, not because it was good but simply because it existed. All things moved on in a clearly defined, constant and unalterable course. The artisan adhered inviolably to the path laid down for him by his fathers; the merchant set out on certain fixed days to travel over and over again the same eternal route; and the mode of tilling the land was as unchangeable as the land itself. There was no employment which was not handed over to a close corporation, no possession which was not subjected to some irreversible privilege; so that the man who did not belong to one of the privileged classes had no means of raising himself to a position worthy of a human being. All progress was excluded from the world, every where form prevailed over substance, and all forms were stamped with the

MEN "BREAK THEIR BONDS ASUNDER."

195

CH. I.] same general pattern. During five hundred years of the Middle Ages, the world underwent, indeed, many territorial dislocations, but far less internal change than takes place in fifty years of modern times.

But just because all those privileges which ruled the world formed a single closely connected chain, the effect was all the more tremendous when the mind of man, in its eager aspirations after nature and truth, had broken a single link of its galling fetters. When Columbus changed men's views of the surface of the earth, and Copernicus, of the universe— when Luther had reformed the Church-the spirit of criticism was roused to the examination of every department of life, in all countries and among all peoples. Mankind acquired the power of rejection, and began to feel a delight in restlessness, and an eager desire of progress. They resolved never again to acknowledge an authority which was not founded on the nature of things; or a barrier, the necessity of which was not clearly proved; or a government, which did not recommend itself by genuine usefulness. The developement of the whole man, untrammelled by arbitrary bonds, and supported by the laws of his own moral nature—this was the great aim which now animated the nations with irresistible force. It was this thought which glowed in the bosoms of the champions of the Reformation, who, without regard to the authority or the power of the ancient Church, only asked their own hearts where the Spirit of God was to be found. It was this thought which in art and science struggled towards the light, deserting traditionary types and forms, and looking only for absolute truth and natural beauty. It is this thought which has brought about that revolution in the practical business of life, which since the last century has changed the conditions of men, and burst every commercial fetter, to the cry of unbounded freedom of labour. And lastly, it worked with no less energy in the field of politics than in society, education and religion. We see that every Order in turn endeavoured to open a future

career for itself by its own power. First it was the kings and princes of Europe, who in the name of the public good, the national weal, and the common rights of man, commenced the contest against the ancient institutions. The example of Louis XIV. was followed and improved upon by the monarchs of Prussia; and these again by the majority of the German princes. Bold and gifted rulers in Denmark and Sweden, Spain and Portugal, followed in the same track; and, lastly, even the Austrian State--the truest representative of the old system-was shaken to its very foundation by an imperial hand. There is not a spot in Europe where the spirit of innovation, the impulse towards sterling truth and genuine philanthropy, was not deeply felt.

This spirit-as it needs few words to prove-was creative and benevolent in its aspirations, but at the same time destructive and intractable in its whole nature and character. The ancient order of things had passed away, but the new laws were very far from being acknowledged or carried into execution. The very ground on which men had to build was still heaving beneath their feet, strewed in wild confusion with the ruins of the past, and the rude germs of the future; all the passions of the human heart were set in motion, and force alone appeared to rule the world. The century to which we owe a national provision for the instruction of the people, an active attention to the condition of the poorer classes, and general respect for the life of the individual man-this century, we say, was in its own mode of action both brutal and unmerciful. Whoever shall choose to denounce it as the very native soil of barbarity and selfishness, will be able to bring forward as many facts in support of his views, as he who expects to find in it the birth-place of a blissful futurity. For because this generation of men felt strong enough to refuse to worship idols, they too often worshipped nothing at all but their own strength. While they sought to rid themselves of all factitious authorities and arbitrary enactments, they forgot the