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HISTORY

CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND,

niSTORY

CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.

B¥
HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE.

VOLUME I.

FROPwl -THE SECOND LONDON EDITION,
TO wnicn IS added an
ALPHABETICAL INDEX.

NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
34", <fe 348 BROADWAY.
M DCCC LVIII.

J-'j-'/Grj b S 7 b c

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER L
STATEMENT OP THB EESOUEOES POE INVESTIGATING HISTOET, AND PEOOFS OF
THE EEGITLAEITT OF HUMAN ACTIONS. THESE ACTIONS AEB GOVEENED BT
MENTAL AND PHTSIOAL LAWS ." THEKEFOEB BOTH SETS OP LAWS MUST BE
STUDIED, AND THEEB CAN BE NO HISTOET WITHOUT THE NATUEAL SCIENCES. PAGE
Materials for writing history ...... 1-2
Narrow range of knowledge possessed by historians . . 3-4
Object of the present work ...... 4
Human actions, if not the result of fixed laws, must be due to chance
or to supernatural interference ..... 6
Probable origin of free-will and predestination . . . 7-11
Theological basis of predestination, and metaphysical basis of free-will 10-13
The actions of men are caused by their antecedents, which exist either
in the human mind or in the external world . . . 13-14
Therefore history is the modification of man by nature, and of nature
by man ........ 15
Statistics prove the regularity of actions in regard to murder and other
crimes . . . . . . . . 17-19
Similar proof respecting suicides ..... 19-22
Also respecting the number of marriages annually contracted . . 23
And respecting the number of letters sent undirected . . 24
The historian must ascertain whether mind or nature has most influ
enced human actions ; and therefore there can be no history with
out physical science ....... 26
Note A. — Passages from Kant on free-will and necessity . . 26-28

VI TABLE OF CONTENTS.

OHAPTEE IL
INFLUENCE BXBEOIBED BT PHTSIOAL LAWS OVBE THE OEGANIZATION OP 80CIETT,
AND OVBE THB CHAEACTEE OF INDIVIDUALS. PAGE
Man is afiected by four classes of physical agents ; namely, climate,
food, soil, and the general aspect of nature ... 29
Operation of these agents on the accumulation of wealth . . 80-37
Their operation on the distribution of wealth .... 38-47
Illustration of these principles from Ireland ... 47
Prom Hindustan ....... 50-59
From Egypt ....... 59-66
From Central America ....... 07
And from Mexico and Peru . . . . . 68 s^.
Operation of physical laws in Brazil ..... 74
Influence of the general aspects of nature upon the imagination and
the understanding ....... 85
Under some aspects, nature is more prominent than man, under others
man more than nature ...... 86
In the former case the imagination is more stimulated than the un
derstanding, and to this class all the earliest civilizations belong 86-87
The imagination is excited by earthquakes and volcanoes . . 87
And by danger generally . . . . . . 89
Also by an unhealthy climate, making life precarious . . . 91-93
From these causes the civilizations exterior to Europe are mainly in
fluenced by the imagination, those in Europe by the understanding 93
This proposition illustrated by a comparison between Hindustan and
Greece ........ 95-105
Further illustration from Central America . . , 105
Chemical and physiological note on the connexion between food and
animal heat ....... 106-108

CHAPTER IIL
EXAMINATION OP THE METHOD EMPLOTED BT METAPHTSICIANS FOE DIS-
OOVEEING MENTAL LAWS.
In the last chapter, two leading facts haye been estabUslied, which
broadly separate Europe from other parts of the world . 109-112
Hence it appears that of the two classes of mental and physical
laws the mental are the more important for the history of
Europe  . ..112-113
Examination of the two metaphysical methods of generalizing raeii-
tal la^s  115-119
Failure of these methods ...... 11 9-1 on

TABLE or CONTENTS,

VU

CHAPTER IV.

MENTAL LAWS AEE KITUEK MOEAL OE INTBLLEOTUAL. OOMPAilSON OF MOEAL
AND INTELLECTUAL LAWS, AND INQUIET INTO THE EFFECT PEODUOED BY
EACH ON THE PE0GHE8B OF SOCIETY. pAaE
The historical method of studying mental laws is superior to the
metaphysical method ...... 121-125
The progress of society is two-fold, moral and intellectual . 125
Comparison of the moral with the intellectual element . • 126
There is no evidence that the natural faculties of man improve . 128
Progress, therefore, depends on an improvement in the circumstances
under which the faculties corae into play . . . 128
The standard of action having varied in every age, the causes of
action must be yariable ...... 129
But moral truths have not changed .... 129
And intellectual truths are constantly changing . . . 130
Intellectual truths are the cause of progress . . . 131
Ignorant men are mischievous in proportion to their sincerity . 132
lUustrations of this from Rome and Spain . . . 133
The diminution of religious persecutioii is owing to the progress of
knowledge . . . . . . . 136
The diminution of the warlike spirit is owing to the same cause 137-139
Illustrations from Russia and Turkey .... 140-141
As civilization advances, men of inteUect avoid becoming soldiers 142
Illustrations of this from ancient Greece and modern Europe . 143-144
The three principal ways in which the progress of knowledge has
lessened the warlike spirit are :
1. The invention of gunpowder . . . . . 146-150
3. The discoveries made by political economists . . . 150-158
3. The application of steam to purposes of travelling . . 158-160
Inferences to be drawn as to the causes of social progress . 161-163

CHAPTER V.
INQUIEY INTO THE INFLUENCE BXEECISED BT EELIGION, LlTEEATUEB, AND
GOVEENMENT.

Recapitulation of preceding arguments . . . .164
Moral feelings influence individuals, but do not afifect society in the
aggregate. ....... 165-166
This being as yet httle understood, historians have not collected
proper materials for 'writing history .... 166
Reasons why the present history is restricted to England . 168-169

viu

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Comparison of the history of England with that of France .
With that of Germany ..•••'
Vyith that of the United States of America . • •
Necessity of ascertaining the fundamental laws of mtellectual pro
gress . . • • • ¦ ' .' „
Much may be gained in that respect from studymg the histories ot
Germany, America, France, Spain, and Scotland
Deductive spirit in Scotland
Influence of religion on the progress of society
Illustration from the efibrts of missionaries
Illustration from the Hebrews
Illustration from the early history of Christianity
And from Sweden and Scotland
Influence of literature on the progress of society .
Influence of government on the progress of society .
IHtistrated by repeal of the corn-laws
The best legislation abrogates former legislation
Th« interference of politicians with trade has injured trade
Legislators haye caused smuggling with all its attendant crimes
They have also increased hypocrisy and perjury .
By their laws against usury they have increased usury
By other laws they haye hindered the advance of knowledge
En^5ind has been less interfered with in these ways than any other
nation, and is therefore more prosperous than they

PAGE
169-171171-173 174176
176-177177-182184-191185-186186-187 187
191-193 193197198 199
200-201202-20420^205 206
206-207 207

CHAPTER VL
OEIGIN OF HISTOET, AND STATE OF HISTOEIOAL LlTEEATUEB DUEING
THB MIDDLB AGES.
-Conclusions arrived at by the preceding investigations . . 209
An inquiry into the changes in historical researches will throw light
on the changes in society ...... 209-211
T?he earliest histories are ballads ..... 212-215
One cause of error in history was the invention of writing . . 215-217
A change of religion in any country also tends to corrupt its early
history ........ 218-222
But the most active cause of all was the influence of the clergy 222-223
Absurdities which were consequently believed . . . 223-230
Illustration of this from the history of Charlemagne by Turpin 231-232
And from the history of the Britons by Geoflfrey .. . . 232-234
The first improvement in writing history began in the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries ..'.... 235
But credulity was still prevalent, as is seen in Comines . . 236-238
And in the predictions of StoeflBer respecting the Deluge . . 239
Also in the work of Dr. Horst on the Golden Tooth . . 24i)-241

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

tx

CHAPTER VII.

•OUTLINE OF THE HISTOKY OF TIIE ENGLISH INTELLECT FROM TUB MIDDLE OP
THE SIXTEENTH TO THE END OF TIIE EIGHTEENTH OENTUEY.

This absurd way of writing history was the natural result of the
state of the age .......
The spirit of doubt was a necessary precursor of improvement .
Hence the supreme importance of scepticism ....
Origin of religious toleration in England ....
Hooker contrasted with Jewel .....
Scepticism and spirit of inquiry on other subjects
This tendency displayed in Chillingworth ....
Chillingworth compared with Hooker and Jewel .
Subsequent movement in the same direction, and increasing indiffer
ence to theological matters .....
Great advantage of this . . . .
'Under James I. and Charles I. this opposition to authority assumes
a political character .....
Under Charles II. it takes a frivolous form at court
Influence of this spirit upon Sir Thomas Browne
Its influence upon Boyle ......
It causes the establishment of the Royal Society
Impetus now given to physical science, and attempts of the clergy to
oppose it .
The clergy are naturally hostile to physical science because it lessen
their own power ......
Illustration of this by the superstition of sailors and agriculturists
as compared with soldiers and mechanics
Legislative improvements in the reign of Charles II. in spite of politi
cal degradation ......
These improvements were due to the sceptical and inquiring spirit
Aided by the vices of the king ....
And by his dislike of the church .....
He encouraged Hobbes, and neglected the ablest of the clergy
The clergy, to recover their ground, allied themselves with James II.
This alliance was dissolved by the Declaration of Indulgence
The clergy then united with the dissenters, and brought about the
Revolution of 1688 .....
Importance of the Revolution .....
But the clergy regretted it, and repented of their own act
Hostility between them and William III.
Hence a schism in the church ....
Fresh encouragement thus given to scepticism . '^ .
¦Convocation first despised, and then abolished

241242''
243-244 244
248-249
250-251 251-252 252
253-254 254-259259-260 261
263-265 265-268 269270 271
271-272 274
279-280 280281
281-282284-285
286-287 287-288 289290293
294-295295-296 298

X

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

After the Revolution the ablest men confined themselves to secular
professions, and avoided entering the church . • 299
The clergy lost all offices out of the church, and their numbers
diminished in both Houses of Parliament . • • 300-301
The church rallied for a moment under Anne . . • 301
But was weakened by the dissenters, headed by Wesley and White-
field  303-305.
Theology separated from morals and frora politics . • 306-307
Rapid succession of sceptical controversies . . • 307-308
-Knowledge begins to be diffused, and takes a popular form . 309-310
Political meetings, and publication of parliamentary debates . 311
Doctrine of personal representation, and idea of independence . 312
-Corresponding change in the style of authors . . ¦ 313-314
Hence great reforms became inevitable .... 315-316
This tendency was aided by George I. and George II. . . 316—318
But discouraged by George III., under whom began a dangerous po
litical reaction .... 319
Ignorance of George III. . ..... 319-320
Subserviency of Pitt ....... 321
Incompetence of other statesmen, and the king's hatred of great
men ... .... 322-323
Deterioration of the House of Lords .... 324
Ability and accomplishments of Burke .... 325-329
He opposed the views of George III., and was neglected by hira . 330-333
Burke's subsequent hallucinations and violence . . 334-339
The king now favoured him ..... 341-342
Policy of George III. respecting America . . . 342-344
This policy reacted upon England ..... 345-
Policy in regard of France . . . . 346
This also reacted upon England ..... 348
And produced arbitrary laws against the liberties of England 349
Which were zealously enforced by the executive . . . 350
Gloomy political prospects of England late in the eighteenth century 351-355
But, owing to the progress of knowledge, a counter reaction was
preparing ........ 357-358
To which, and to the increasing power of public opinion, England
owes her great reforms of the nineteenth century . . 358-362

CHAPTER VIII.
OUTLINE OF THE HISTOET OF THB FEENCH INTELLECT FEOM THE MIDDLE OF THB
SIXTEENTH CBNTUET TO THB ACCESSION TO POWEE OF LOUIS XIV.
Importance of the question, as to whether the historian should
begin with studying the normal or the abnormal condition of
society .  363-364

TABLE OF CONTENTS. XI
PAOB
Greater power of the church in France than in England . . 864^365
Hence in France during the sixteenth century every thing was more
theological than in England ..... 366-367
Hence, too, toleration was impossible in France . . . 367
But at the end of the sixteenth century scepticism appeared in
France, and with it toleration began, as was seen in the edict of
Niintes ........ 368-372
The first sceptic was not Rabelais, but Montaigne . . 372-373
Continuation of the movement by Charron .... 375
Henry IV. encouraged the Protestants .... 376
And they were tolerated even by the queen-regent during the
minority of Louis XIII. ...... 379
The most remarkable steps in favour of toleration were, however.
taken by Richefieu, who effectually humbled the church . 381
He supported the new secular scheme of government against the old
ecclesiastical scheme ...... 382
His liberal treatment of the Protestants .... 383-392
They are deserted by their temporal leaders, and the management of
the party falls into the hands of the clergy . . . 393-396
Hence the French Protestants, being headed by the clergy, become
more intolerant than the French Catholics, who are headed by
statesmen ....... 397-398
Evidence of the iUiberality of the French Protestants . . 399-405
They raise a civil war, which was a struggle of classes rather than
of creeds ........ 406-409
Richelieu put down the rebellion, but still abstained from persecut
ing the Protestants ...... 415-417
This liberal policy on the part of the government was only part of a
much larger movement ...... 417
Illustration of this from the philosophy of Descartes . . 419-427
Analogy between Descartes and Richelieu .... 428-429
The same anti-ecclesiastical spirit was exhibited by their contempo
raries ........ 429-430
AndbyMazarin ....... 431-432
It was also seen in the wars of the Fronde .... 433
But notwithstanding all this, there was a great difference between
France and England; and the prevalence of the protective
spirit prevented the French from- becoming free . . .438-439

CHAPTER IX.
HISTOET OF THE PEOTEOTIVE SPIEIT, AND OOMPAEISON OF IT IN FEANOB
AND ENGLAND.
About the eleventh century the spirit of inquiry began to weaken the
church ........ -440-441
Coinciding with this, the feudal system and an hereditary aristocracy
... 442

^

XU TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE
The nobles displace the clergy, and celibacy is opposed by the prin
ciple of hereditary rank ....-• 442
In England the nobles were less powerful than in France . 444
And were glad to ally themselves with the people against the crown 446
Hence a spirit of popular independence unknown in France, where
the nobles were too powerful to need the help of the people . 447
Effects of this difference between the two countries in the fourteenth
century ........ 448
Centralization was in France the natural successor of feudality . 449
This state contrasted with that of England .... 450
Power of the French nobles ...... 455
Illustration from the history of chivalry .... 456
Another illustration from the vanity of the French and pride of the
English ........ 460
Also from the practice of duelling .... 480
The pride of Englishmen encouraged the Reformation . . 461
Analogy between the Reformation and the revolutions of the seven
teenth century ....... 462
Both were opposed by the clergy and nobles. Natural aUiance be
tween these two classes ...... 462
In the reign of Elizabeth both classes were weakened . . 463-468
James I. and Charles I. vainly attempted to restore their power 468

CHAPTER X.
THE ENBEGT OF THE PEOTECTIVE SPIEIT IN FEANOB EXPLAINS THE PAILUEE OF
THB FEONDB. OOMPAEISON BETWEEN THE PEONDE AND THB OONTEMPOEAET
' ENGLISH EEBELLION.
Difference between the Fronde and the great English rebellion . 469
The English rebellion was a war of classes . . . 469-476
But in France the energy of the protective spirit and the power otOCf
the nobles made a war of classes impossible . . 47/-479
Vanity and imbecility of the French nobles -j; ¦ • ^1 ^^
As such men were the leaders of the Fronde, the rebellion naturally
failed ........ 483-488
But the English rebellion succeeded because it was a democratic ^*^
movement headed by popular leaders . . . 488-489

kt%

CHAPTER XL

THE PEOTECTIVE SPIEIT CAEEIBD BT LOUIS XIV. INTO LlTEEATUEB. EXAMINA
TION OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF THIS ALLLiNCE BETWEEN THE rNTBLLBOTUAL
CLASSES AND THE GOVEKNING CLASSES.
The protective spirit in France, haying produced these political
evils, was carried into literature under Louis XIV., and caused
an alliance between literature and government . . . 4qA

TABLE OF CONTENTS. iXw

PAGE

Servility in the reign of Louis XIV. Jf/Zf . . . 491-498
Men of letters grateful to Louis XI Vfyif^/ .... 499
But his system of protecting literature is injurious . . 499-500
Its first effect was to stop the progress of science . . . 500-501
Even in mechanical arts, nothing was effected . . . 502
Decline in physiology, in surgery, and in medicine . . . 503-505
Also in zoology and in chemistry ..... 505
Nor was any thing done in botany ..... 505-507
Intellectual decay under Louis XIV. was seen in every department
of thought, and was the natural consequence of patronage . 507-511
Illustrations from the history of French art .* . . 511-512
And from every branch of literature ..... 513
Universal decline of France during the latter part of the reign of
Louis XIV  514-516

CHAPTER XIL
DEATH OP LOUIS XTV. EBAOTION AGAINST THE PEOTECTIVE SPIEIT, AND
PEEPAEATlONS POE THE FEENCH EEVOLUTION.
English Uterature unknown in France in the reign of Louis XIV. ..517-518
But began to be studied after his death, when the most eminent
Frenchmen visited England. This caused a junction of French
and English intellects ...... 519-527
Admiration of England expressed by Frenchmen . . . 528
Hence fiberal opinions in France, which the government attempted
to stifle ........ 529
Consequent persecution of literary men by the French government 529-533
Violence of the government ...... 533-540
In Prance literature was the last resource of liberty . . 541
Reasons why literary men at flrst attacked the church and not the
government ....... 542-546
Hence they were led to assail Christianity . . . 547-550
But until the middle of the reign of Louis XV. the political institu
tions of France might have been saved ; after that period all
was over . . . . . . . 550-552
CHAPTER XIII.
STATE OF HISTOEIOAL LITEEATUKB m PEANCE FEOM THE END OF THE
SIXTEENTH TO THE END OF THE EIGHTEENTH CBNTUKT.

Historical literature in France before the end of the sixteenth cen
tury . . . ' . . . . .553
Improvement in the method of writing history late in the sixteenth
century . . §T^PvT^^^ • — 5^6-SS7

XIV

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

StiU furthep progress early in the seventeenth century
Which became more marked in Mezeray's history in 1643
Retrograde movement under Louis XIV.
lUustration of this from the work of Audigier
And from that of Bossuet . . . . •
Immense improvements introduced by Voltaire .
His History of Charles XIL . ...
His Age of Louis XIV. ...•••
His Morals, Manners, and Character of Nations
His views adopted by Mallet, Mably„VeUy, VUlaret, Duclos, and
H6nault .......
His habit of looking at epochs .....
A remark of his adopted by Constant
He advocated free trade ......
His anticipation of Malthus .....
His attack on the Middle Ages .....
And on the pedantic admirers of antiquity
He weakened the authority of mere scholars and theologians
Who had repeated the most childish absurdities respectmg the
early history of Rome .....
In attacking which Voltaire anticipated Niebuhr .
Ignorant prejudice against hira in England
His vast labors were aided by Montesquieu
The works of Montesquieu, and value of his method
The discourses of Turgot, and their influence
All this hastened the advance of the French Revolution

PAGE
557-560560-561562-565 566-568 569-574 575^576
578-579 580581 583583584585585
586-588 588
588-589 589
. 591
592
593-596 596
597-598

CHAPTER XIV.
PEOXIMATE CAUSES OF THE FEENCH EEVOLUTION AFTBE THB MIDDLE OF
THE EIGHTEENTH OENTUET.
Recapitulation of preceding views ..... 599-600
Difference between certainty and precision . . . 600-601
The intellect of France began to attack the state about 1750 . 602-603
Rise of the poUtical economists ..... 603-604
Influence of Rousseau ....... 604-605
Just at the same time the government began to attack the church 606
And to favour religious toleration . • . . . 607-608
AboUtion of the Jesuits . .¦-.'. . . 608
Calvinism is democratic ; Arminianism is aristocratic . . 610-613
Jansenism being allied to Calvinism, its revival in France aided the
democratic movement, and secured the overthrow of the Jesuits
whose doctrines are Arminian ..... 614-616
After the fall of the Jesuits the ruin of the French clergy was in
evitable ........ 617

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

XV

But was averted for a time by the most eminent Frenchmen direct
ing their hostility against the state rather than against the
church ........
Connexion between this movement and the rise of atheism
Same tendency exhibited in Helv6tius ....
And in CondUlac .......
The ablest Frenchmen concentrate their attention on the external
world .......
Effects of this on the sciences of heat, light, and electricity
Also on chemistry and geology ....
In England during the same period there was a dearth of great
thinkers .......
But in France immense impetus was given to zoology by Cuvier and
Bichat ......
Bichat's views respecting the tissues
Connexion between these views and subsequent discoveries .
Relation between inventions, discoveries, and method ; and immense
importance of Bichat's method ....
Bichat's work on Ufe .
Great and successful efforts made by the French in botany .
And in mineralogy by De Lisle and Haiiy
Analogy between this and Pinel's work on insanity .
AU these vast results were part of the causes of the French Revolu
tion .......
Physical science is essentially democratic ....
The same democratic tendency was observable in changes of dress
And in the establishment of clubs ....
Influence of the American RebeUion ....
Summary of the causes of the French Revolution
General reflections ......

618-619 C19
621-624 624 627
627
629-635 636-638 638-640 640
641-644645-648 648-651 652-654 654:-657 657 658
659-662 662
664r-666 666
668-670 670 672

"JaUp'^O

LIST OF AUTHOKS QUOTED.

In order to as.slst those wlio wish to verify my rofei-ences, and also with the yiow of Inaicatiug
the nature and extent of the materials whicli I have used, I have drawn up the following list
ot the principal works quoted in the present yolumo. When no edition is mentioned, tho size
is 8vo et infra.
Abd-x\.Uatif, Relation de I'Egypte, traduite par Silvestre de Sacy. Paris,
1810. 4to. •)¦ )
Adolphus (J.), History of England from the accession of George III. Lond.
1840-1845. 7 vols.
Aguesseau (Chancelier d'), Lettres infedites. Paris, 1823. 2 vols.
Aikin (L.), Life of Addison. Lond. 1843. 2 vols.
Albemarle (Earl of), Memoirs of the Marquis of Rockingham. Lond. 1852.
2 vols.
AUson (Sir A.), History of Europe, from the comraenceraent of the French
Revolution to 1815. Edinb. 1849-1850. 14 vols.
Allen (J.), Rise and Gro'wth of the Royal Prerogative in England. Lond.
1849.
Arnold (Dr.), Lectures on Modern History. Lond. 1843.
Asiatic Researches. Lond. and Calcutta, 1799-1836. 20 vols. 4to.
Aubrey (J.), Letters and Lives of Eminent Men. Lond. 1813. 2 vols.
Audigier (M.), L'Origine des Frangois. Paris, 1676. 2 vols.
Azara (F.), Voyages dans l'Arai§rique M§ridionale. Paris, 1809. 4 vols.
Bakewell (R.), Introduction to Geology. Lond. 1838.
Balfour (J. H.), A Manual of Botany. Lond. 1849.
Bancroft (G.), History of the American Revolution. Lond. 1852-1854.
3 vols.
Barante (M.), Tableau de la Litt^rature Frangaise au XVIII" Siecle. Paris,
1847.
Barrington (D.), Observations on the Statutes. 5th edit. Lond. 1796. 4to.
Barruel (L'Abbe), Memoires pour I'Histoire du Jacobinisrae. Hambourn:,
1803. 5 vols.
Barry (G.), History of the Orkney Islands. Edinb. 1805. 4to.
Bassompierre (Marechal de), M6moires. Paris, 1822, 1823. 3 vols.
Bates (G.), Account of the late Troubles in England. Lond. 1685. 2 vols.
Baxter (R.), Life and Times, by Himself. Published by M. Sylvester. Lond.
1696. Folio, 3 parts.
Bazin (M. A.), Histoire de France sous Louis XIII. Paris, 1838. 4 vols.
Beausobre (M.), Histoire Critique de Manich^e et du Manich§isme. Amster
dam, 1734-9. 4to, 2 vols.
Bdclard (P. A.), Elements d' Anatomic Gdn6rale. Paris, 1852.
Bedford Correspondence, edited by Lord J. Russell. 1842-1846. 3 vols.
Beechey (F. W.), Voyage to the Pacific. Lond. 1831. 2 vols.
Belsham (W.), History of Great Britain, from 1688 to 1802. Lond. 1805.
12 vols. (Of this work I have used only the last seven volumes, which
refer to a period for which Belsham was a contemporary authority. The
earlier volumes are worthless.)
(Benoist), Histoire de I'Edit de Nantes. Delft, 1693-1695. 4to. 5 vols.
¦RoTirplfiv CRishoD of Cloyne), Works, Lond. 1843. 2 vols.

XVlll LIST OF AUTHOES QUOTED.
Bichat (X.), Traits des Membranes. Paris 1802.
Bichat (X.), Anatomie Gtin6rale. Paris, 1821. 4 vols.
Bichat (X.), Recherches sur la Vie et la Mort, edit. Magendie. Paris, 1829.
Biographie IJniverselle. Paris, 1811-1828. 52 vols.
Birch (T.), Life of Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury. Lond. 1753.
Bisset (R.), Life of Edmund Burke.' 2d edit. Lond. 1800. 2 vols.
Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England. Lond. 1809. 4 vols.
BlainviUe (D.). Physiologie G6n6rale et Comparee. Paris, 1833. 3 vols.
Blanqui (M.), 'Histoire de I'Economie Politique en Europe. Paris, 1845.
2 vols.
Bogue (D.) and Bennett (J.), History of the Dissenters, from 1688 to 1808.
Lond. 1808-1812. 4 vols.
Bohlen (P.), Das alte Indien, mit besonderer Rucksicht auf .lEgypten.
Konigsberg, 1830. 2 vols.
Bordas-Demoulin, Le Cartdsianisme. Paris, 1843. 2 vols.
Bossuet (Eveque de Meaux), Discours sur I'Histoire UniverseUe. Paris, 1844.
Bouillaud (J.), PhilOsophie M6dicale. Paris, 1836.
Bouill6 (M. de), Memoires sur la Revolution Fran^aise. Paris, 1801-9.
2 vols.
BoulainviUiers (Comte), Histoire de I'Ancien Gouvernement de la France. La
Haye, 1727. 3 vols.
BouUier (M.), Histoire des divers Corps de la Maison Militaire des Rois de
France. Paris, 1818.
Bowdioh (T. B.), Mission to Ashantee. Lond. 1819. 4to.
Bowles (W. L.), Life of Bishop Ken. Lond. 1830, 1831. 2 vols.
Boyle (R.), Works. Lond. 1744. 5 vols, folio.
Brande (W. T.), A Manual of Chemistry. Lond. 1848. 2 vols.
Brewster (Sir D.), Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton. Edinb. 1855. 2 vols.
Brienne (L. H. de Lom^nie), M6moires in^dits. Paris, 1828. 2 vols.
Brissot (J. P.), Memoires. Paris, 1830. 2 vols.
British Association for Advancement of Science, Reports of. Lond. 1833-
1853. 21 vols.
Brodie (Sir B.), Lectures on Pathology and Surgery. Lond. 1846.
Brodie (Sir B.), Physiological Researches. Lond. 1851.
Brougham (Lord), Sketches of Statesmen in the time of George III. Lond.
1845. 6 vols.
Brougham (Lord), Lives of Men of Letters and Science in the time of George
IIL Lond. 1845-1847. 2 vols.
Brougham (Lord), Political Philosophy. 2d edit. Lond. 1849. 3 vols.
Broussais (F. J. V.), Examen des Doctrines M6dicales. Paris, 1829-1834.
4 vols.
Broussais (F. J. V.), Cours de Phrfoologie. Paris, 1836.
Brown (T.), Lectures on the Philosophy of the Mind. Edinb. 1838.
Browne (Sir Thomas), Works and Correspondence, by S. Wilkin Lond
1836, 4 vols. ¦ ¦
Buchanan (F.), Journey through Mysore, Canara, and Malabar, Lond, 1807
3 vols, 4to.
Buchanan (J.), Sketches of the North- American Indians. Lond. 1824.
Buckingham (Duke of), Memoirs of George III. Lond. 1853 2 vols
Bullock (W.), Travels in Mexico. Lond. 1824.
Bulstrode (Sir R.), Memoirs of Charles I. and Charles II. Lond. 1721.
Bunbury (Sir H.), COTrespondence of Sir Thomas Hanmer. Lond. 1838.
• Bunsen (C. C. J.), Egypt's Place in Universal History. Lond. 1848-1854
2 vols.
Burckhardt (J. L.), Travels in Arabia. Lond. 1829. 2 vols.
Burdach (C. F.), Traite de Physiologie considferee comme Science d'Observa
tion. Paris, 1837-1841. 9 vols.
Burke (E.), Works, by H. Rogers. Lond. 1841. 2 vols.

LIST OF AUTHOES QUOTED. XIX
Burke (E.), Correspondence with Laurence. Lond. 1827.
Burke (E.),.Correspondenco between 1744 and 1707. Lond. 1844. 4 vols.
Burnos (Sir A.), Travels into Bokhara. Lond. 1834. 3 vols.
Burnet (Bishop), History of his own Tirae. Oxford, 1823. 6 vols.
Burnet (Bishop), Lives and Characters, edit. Jebb. Lond. 1833.
Burton (J. IL), Life and Correspondence of D. Hume. Edinb. 1846. 2 vols.
Burton (R. P.), Sindh, and the Knce.'i in the Valley of the Indus. Lond. 1851.
Burton (T.), Diary, from 1655 to 1659. Lond. 1828. 4 vols.
Butler (C), Memoirs of the English, Irish, and Scottish Catholics. Lond.
1822. 4 vols.
Butler (C), Reminiscences. Lond. 1824-1827. 2 vols.
Cabanis (P. J. G.), Rapports du Physique et du Moral de I'Homme. Paris,
1843.
Calamy (E.), Account of my own Life, 1671-1731. Lond. 1829. 2 vols.
Campan (Madame), Memoires sur Marie Antoinette. Paris, 1826. 3 vols.
CampbeU (Lord), Lives of the Lord Chancellors of England. 3d edit. Lond.
1848-1850. 7 vols.
Campbell (Lord), Lives of the Chief-Justices of England. Lond. 1849. 2 vols.
Campion (H. de), M6moires. Paris, 1807.
Capeflgue (M.), Histoire de la Rdforme, de la Ligue, et du Regne de Henri
IV. BruxeUes, 1834, 1835. 8 vols.
Capeflgue (M.), Richelieu, Mazarin, et la Fronde. Paris, 1844. 2 vols.
Capeflgue (M.), Louis XIV. Paris, 1844. 2 vols.
Cappe (C), Memoirs, written by herself. Lond. 1822.
Carlyle (T.), Letters and Speeches of Cromwell. 2d edit. Lond. 1846. 3 vols.
Carpenter (W. B.), Principles of Human Physiology. Sd edit. Lond. 1846.
Cartwright (Major), Life and Correspondence. Lond. 1826. 2 vols.
Carus (0. G.), Comparative Anatomy of Animals. Lond. 1827. 2 vols.
Carwithen (J. B. S.), History of the Church of England. Oxford, 1849.
2 vols.
Cassagnac (M. A. G. de), Causes de la Revolution Frangaise. Paris, 1850.
3 vols.
Catlin (G.), Letters on the North-Araerican Indians. Lond. 1841. 2 vols.
Charron (P.), De la Sagesse. Amsterdam, 1782. 2 vols.
Chatham (Earl of), Correspondence. Lond. 1838-1840. 4 vols.
Chillingworth (W.), The Religion of Protestants. Lond. 1846.
Clapperton (H.), Second Expedition into the Interior of Africa. Lond.
1829. 4to.
Clarendon's History of the Rebellion ; and Life, by Hiraself. Oxford, 1843.
Clarendon Correspondence and Diary, by S. W. Singer. Lond. 1828. 2 vols.
4to.
Cloncurry (Lord), Recollections and Correspondence. Dublin, 1849.
Clot-Bey (A. B.), De la Peste observ^e en Egypte. Paris, 1840.
Colebrooke (H. T.), A Digest of Hindu Law. Calcutta, 1801. 3 vols.
Coleman (C), Mythology of the Hindus. Lond. 1832. 4to.
Coleridge (S. T.), Literary Remains. Lond. 1836-1839. 4 vols.
Coleridge (S. T.), The Friend. Lond. 1844. 3 vols.
Combe (G.), Notes on the United States of North America. Edinb. 1841.
3 vols.
Comines (P. de), M6moires, edit. Petitot. 1826. 3 vols.
Comte (A.), Cours de Philosophic Positive. Paris, 1830-1842. 6 vols.
Comte (C), Traite de Legislation. Paris, 1835. 4 vols.
Condillac (B. B.), Traite des Sensations. Paris, 1798.
Condorcet (Marquis de), Vie de Turgot. Londres, 1786.
Condorcet (Marquis de), Vie de Voltaire, in vol. i. of CEuvres de Voltaire.
Paris, 1820.
Conrart (V.), M6moires. Paris, 1825.

XX LIST OF AUTHOES QUOTED.
Cook (J.), Three Voyages round the World. Lond. 1821. 7 vols.
Cooke (G. W.), History of Party. Lond. 1836, 1837. 3 vols.
Copleston (E.), Inquiry into the Doctrines of Necessity and Predestination.
Lond. 1821.
Cousin (V.), Cours de I'Histoire de la Philosophie moderne, I. serie. Paris,
1846. 5 vols.
Cousin (V.), Idem. idem. IL sine. Paris, 1847. 3 vols.
Crantz (D.), History of Greenland. Lond. 1767. 2 vols.
Crawfurd (J.), History of the Indian Archipelago. Edinb. 1820. 3 vols.
Cudworth (R.), The True, InteUectual System of the Universe. Lond. 1820.
4 vols.
Currie (J.), Life and Correspondence, by his Son. Lond. 1831. 2 vols.
Custine (Marquis de), La Russie'en 1839. Paris, 1843. 4 vols.
Cuvier (G.), Recueil des Eloges Historiques. Paris, 1819-1827. 3 vols.
Cuvier (G.), Histoire des Sciences NatureUes depuis leur Origine. Paris, 1831.
Cuvier (G.), Histoire des Progres des Sciences NatureUes depuis 1789.
BruxeUes, 1837, 1838. 2 vols.
Cuvier (G.), Le Regne Animal. Paris, 1829. 5 vols.
Dabistan (The), translated from the Persian, by D. Shea and A. Troyer.
Paris, 1843. 3 vols.
Dacier (M.), Rapport sur les Progres de I'Histoire et de la Litterature depuis
1789. Paris, 1810. 4to.
Dalrymple ( J.^, History of Feudal Property in Great Britain. Lond. 1758.
Dalrymple (J.), Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland. Lond. 1790. 3 vols.
Daniel (G.), Histoire de la Milice Frangoise. Paris, 1721. 2 vols. 4to.
Daniell (J. F.), Meteorological Essays. Lond. 1827.
Darwin (C), Journal of Researches in Geology and Natural History. Lond.
1840. ,
Davis (J. F.), The Chinese. Lond. 1844. 3 vols.
De Lisle (Rome), Essai de CristaUographie. Paris, 1772.
De Lisle f Rome), CristaUographie. Paris, 1783. 4 vols. 8vo.
Denhara (D.). Travels in Northern and Central^ Africa. Lond. 1826. 4to.
Descartes (R.), Oiluvres, par V. Cousin. Paris,' 1824^1826. 11 vols.
De Stael (Madame), Considerations sur la Revolution Franqoise. Paris, 1820.
3 vols.
De Thou (J. A.), Histoire UniverseUe, depuis 1543 jusqu'en 1607. Londres
1734. 16 vols. 4to. '
Des Maizeaux (P.), Life of OhUUngworth. Lond. 1725.
Des Redux (Tallemant), Les Historiettes. Paris, 1840. 10 vols.
Diderot (D.), Memoires et Correspondance. Paris, 1830, 1831. 4 vols.
Diodori Siculi Bibliotheca Historica ; recensione Wesselineii. Binont 1793-
1807. 11 vols. '
Diogenes Laertius, De Vitis PhUosophorum, edit. Meibomius. Arastel. 1692
2 vols. 4to. .
Disney (J.), Life of Dr. John Jebb, in vol. i. of Jebb's Works. Lond. 1787.
Dobell (P.), Travels in Kamtchatka and Siberia. Lond. 1830. 2 vols.
Doblado's Letters from Spain (by Rev. B. White). Lond. 1822.
Doddridge (P.), Correspondence and Diary. Lond. 1829-1831. 5 vols
Doubleday (T.), The True Law of Population. Lond. 1847.
Dowling (J. G.), Introduction to the Study of Ecclesiastical History. Lond.
1838.
15'Oyly (G.), Life of Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury. Lond. 1840.
Duclos (M.), Memoires secrets sur Louis XIV. et Louis XV. Paris' 1791
2 vols. ' ¦
Du Deffand (Madame), Correspondance inedite. Paris, 1809. 2 vols.
Du Deffand (Madarae), Lettres a H. Walpole. Paris, 1827 4 vols
Dufau (P. A.), Traite de Statistique. Paris, 1840.

LIST OF AUTHOES QUOTED. XXI
Du Mesnil (M.), M6mou-es sur le Prince Le Brnn. Paris, 1828.
Dumont (E.), Souvenirs sur Mirabeau. Londres, 18B2.
Duplessis Mornay (P.), Memoires et Correspondance. Paris, 1824. 1825.
12 vols.
Dutens (L.), Jiemoires d'un Voyageur qui se repose. Londres, 1806. 3 vols.
Duvernet (J.), Vie de Voltaire. Geneve, 1786.

•), Hi

Duvernet (J.), Histoire de la Sorbonne. Pai-is, 1791. 2 vols.
Eccleston (J.), Introduction to EngUsh Antiquities. Lond. 1847.
Edwards (M.), Zoologie. Paris, 1841, 1842. 2 parts.
BUiotson (J.), Hum.an Physiology. Lond. 1840.
BUis Correspondence (The), 1686-1688, edited by G. A. Ellis. Lond. 1829.
2 vols.
Ellis (Sir H.), Original Letters of Literary Men. Camden Soc. 1843. 4to.
Ellis (W.), A Tour through Hawaii. Lond. 1827.
BUis (W.), Polynesian Researches. Lond. 1831. 4 vols.
Ellis (W.), History of Madagascar. Lond. 1838. 2 vols.
Elphinstone (M.), The History of India. Lond. 1849.
Encyclopaedia of the Medical Sciences. Lond. 1847. 4to.
Epinay (Madame d'), Memoires et Correspondance. Paris, 1818. 3 vols.
Brman (A.), Travels in Siberia. Lond. 1848. 2 vols.
Bschbach (M.), Introduction a I'Btude du Droit. Paris, 1846.
Bsquirol (B.), Des Maladies Mentales. Paris, 1838. 2 vols.
Evelyn (J.), Diary and Correspondence. Lond. 1827. 5 vols.
Fairfax Correspondence (The), edited by G. W. Johnson and R. BeU. Lond.
1848, 1849. 4 vols.
Felice (G.), History of the Protestants of France. Lond. 1853.
Feuchtersleben (B.), The Principles of Medical Psychology. Sydenham Soc.
1847.
Flassan (M.), Histoire de la Diplomatie Franpaise. Paris, 1811. 7 vols.
Flourens (P.), Histoire des Travaux de Cuvier. Paris, 1845.
Fontenay-MareuU (Marquis de), Memoires. Paris, 1826. '2 vols.
FonteneUe (B. de), Eloges, in vols. v. and vi. of CEuvres. Paris, 1766.
Forbes (J.), Oriental Memoirs. . Lond. 1834. 2 vols.
Forry (S.), Climate of the United States, and its Endemic Influences. New
York, 1842.
Forster (J.), Life and Times of Goldsmith. 2d edit. Lond. 1854. 2 vols.
Fox (C. J.). History of the Early Part of the Reign of James II. Lond.
1808. 4tb.
Franklin (B.), Private Correspondence. Lond. 1817. 2 vols.
Franklin (B.), Life, by himself. Lond. 1818. 2 vols.
Galfridus Monumetensis, Historia Britonum, edit. Giles. Lond. 1844.
Gardner (G.), Travels in the Interior of BrazU. Lond. 1849.
Genlis (Madame de), Memoires sur le XVIIP Siecle. Paris, 1825. 10 vols.
Gent (T.), Life, by himself. Lond.' 1832.
Geoffroy Saint Hilaire (I.), Histoire des Anomalies de POrganisation chez
I'Homme et les Animaux. BruxeUes, 1837. 3 vols.
Georgel (L'Abbe), Memoires. Paris 1817-1818. 6 vols.
Georget (M.), De la Folie. . Paris, 1820.
Giraud (C), Precis de I'Ancien Droit coutumier Franqais. Paris, 1852.
Godwin (W.), Of Popula;tion ; or the Power of Increase in Mankind. Lond.
1820.
Goethe (J. W.), Wahrheit und Dichtung, in vol. ii. of Werke. Stuttgart,
1837.
Grant (R. E.), Comparative Anatomy. Lond. 1841.
Grant (R.), History of Physical Astronomy. Lond. 1852.

XXll LIST OF AUTHOES QUOTED.
Gregoire (M.), Histoire des Confesseurs. Paris, 1824.
GrenvUle Papers (The), edited by W. J. Smith. Lond. 1852, 1853. 4 vols.'
Grieve (J.), The History of Karatschatka, translated from the Russian. Glou
cester, 1764. 4to.
Grimm et Diderot, Con^espondance Litteraire. Paris, 1813, 1814. 17 vols.
(This important work consists of three parts, besides a supplement ; but
in quoting it, I haye always followed the ordinary lettering, making the
supplement vol. xvii.)
Grose (F.), Military Antiquities ; a History of the English Army. Lond. 1812.
4to. 2 vols.
Grosley (M.), A Tour to London. Lond. 1772. 2 vols.
Grote (G.), History of Greece. Lond. 1846-1856. 12 vols. 1st edit, of vols.
i. ii. iii. iv. ix. x. xi. xii. , 2d edit, of vols. y. 'vi. vii. viii.
GuLzot (M.), Histoire de la Civilisation en France. Paris, 1846. 4 vols.
Quizot (M.), Histoire de la CiviUsation en Europe. Paris, 1846.
Guizot (M.), Essais sur I'Histoire de France. Paris, 1847.
Halhed (N. B.) Code of Gentoo Laws. Lond. 1777.
Halkett (J.), Notes respecting the Indians of North America. Lond. 1825.
HaUam (H.), Constitutional History of England. Lond. 1842. 2 vols.
Hallam (H.), Introduction to the Literature of Europe. Lond. 1843. 3 vols.
Hallam (H.), Europe during the Middle Ages. Lond. 1846. 2 vols.
Hallam (H.), Supplemental Notes to Europe during the Middle Ages. Lond.
1848.
Hamilton (W.), .Slgyptiaca. Lond. 1809. 4to.
Hamilton (Sir W.), Notes and Dissertations to Reid. Edinb. 1852.
Hamilton (Sir W.), Discussions on Philosophy and Literature. Lond. 1852.
Hare's Guesses at Truth. First and second series. Lond. 1847, 1848. 2 vols.
Hartford (J. S.), Life of T. Burgess, Bishop of Salisbury. Lond. 1841.
Harris (G.), Life of Lord ChanceUor Hardwicke. Lond. 1847. 3 vols.
Harris (W.), Lives of James I., Charles I., Cromwell, and Charles II. Lond.
1814. 5 vols.
Hausset (Madame du), Memoires. Paris, 1824.
Haiiy (R. J.), Traite de Min6ralogie. Paris, 1801. 5 vols.
Hawkins (B.), Elements of Medical Statistics. Lond. 1829.
Heber (Bishop), Life of Jeremy Taylor, in voL i. of Taylor's Works. Loud.
1828.
Heber (Bishop), Journey through the Upper and Southern Provinces of
India. Lond. 1828. 3 vols.
Heeren (A. H. L.), Politics, Intercourse, and Trade of the African Nations.
Oxford, 1838. 2 vols.
Heeren (A. H. L.), Politics, Intercourse, and Trade of the Asiatic Nations.
Lond. 1846. 2 vols.
Helvetius (C. A.), De I'Bsprit. Amsterdam, 1759. 2 vols.
Henderson (3.), History of Brazil. Lond. 1821. 4to.
Henle (J.), Traite, d' Anatomie Generale. Paris, 1843. 2 vols.
Henslow (J. S.), Descriptive and Physiological Botany. Lond. 1837.
Herder (J. G.), Ideen zur Geschichte der Menschheit. Stuttgart, 1827,
1828. 4 vols. '
Herodoti Musae, edit. Baehr. Lipsise, 1830-1835. 4 vols.
Herschel (Sir J.), Discourse on the Study of Natural PhUosophy. Lond.
Hitchcock (E.), The Religion of Geology. Lond. 1851.
Hodgson (R.), Life of Porteus, Bishop of London. Lond. 1811.
Holcroft (T.), Memoirs, by himself: continued by Hazhtt. Lond. 1816. 3 y
HoUand (Sir H.), Medical Notes. Lond. 1839.
Holland (Lord), Memoirs of the Whig Party. Lond. 1852-1854. 2 vols .
Holies (Lord), Memoirs. Lond. 1699.

LIST OF AUTHOES QUOTED. XXIU
Hooker (R.), Ecclesiastical Polity. Lond. 1830. 3 vols.
HoweU (J.), Letters. Lond. 1754.
Huetius (P. D.), Commentarius de Rebus ad eum pertinentibus. Amstel.
1718.
Humboldt (A.), Essai sur la Nouvelle Bspagne. Paris, 1811. 2 vols. 4to.
Humboldt (A.), Cosmos. Lond. 1848-1852. 4 vols.
-Hume (D.), Philosophical Works. Edinb. 1826. 4 vols.
Hume (D. )', Letters of Eminent Persons to. Edinb. 1849.
Hunt (F. K.), History of Newspapers. Lond. 1850. 2 vols.
Hutchinson (Colonel), Memoirs of, by his Widow. Lond. 1846.
Hutton (W.), Life of, by himself. Lond. 1816.
James IL, The Life of, from Memoirs by his own hand, by J. S. Clarke. Lond.
1816. 2 vols. 4to.
Ibn Batuta, Travels in the Fourteenth Century, translated from Arabic by S.
Lee. Lond. 1829. 4to.
Jefferson (T.), Memoirs and Correspondence, by Randolph. Lond. 1829.
4 vols.
Jehangueir (The Braperor), Memoirs, by himself, translated from Persian by
D. Price. Lond. 1829. 4to.
Jewel (J.), Apologia BcclesiK Anglicanae. Lond. 1581.
Jobert (A. C. G.), Ideas or Outlines of a New System of Philosophy. Lond,
1848, 1849. 2 vols.
Joly (G.), Memoires. Paris, 1825.
Jones (C. H.), and Sieveking (E. H.), Pathological Anatomy. Lond. 1854.
Jones (R.), Oi^anization of the Aniraal Kingdom. Lond. 1855.
Jones (Sir W.), Works. Lond. 1799. 6 vols. 4to.
Jones (W.), Life of G. Home, Bishop of Norwich. Lond. 1795.
Journal Asiatique. Paris, 1822-1827. 11 vols.
Journal of the Asiatic Society. Lond. 1834^-1851. 14 vols.
Journal of the Geographical Society. Lond. 1833 (2d edit, of vol. i)-1853.
23 vols'.
Jussieu's Botany, by J. H. Wilson. Lond. 1849.
Ixtlilxochitl, Histoire des Chichimeques ou des anciens Rois de Tezcuco.
Paris, 1840. 2 vols. ,
Kaemtz (L. F.), Course of Meteorology. Lond. 1845.
Kant (J.), Werke. Leipzic, 1838, 1839. 10 vols.
Kay (J.), Condition and Education of the People in England and Europe.
Lond. 1850. 2 vols.
Kemble (J. M.), The Saxons in England. Lond. 1849. 2 vols.
Ken (Bishop of Bath and Wells), Life of, by a Layman. Lond. 1854. 2 vols.
King (Lord), Life of J. Locke. Lond. 1830. 2 vols.
Klimrath (H.), Travaux sur I'Histoire du Droit Frangais. Paris, 1843.
2 vols.
Koch (M.), Tableau des Revolutions de I'Europe. Paris, 1823. 3 vols.
Kohl (J. G.), Russia. Lond. 1842.
Lacretelle (C), Histoire de France pendant le XVIIP Siecle. BruxeUes,
1819. 3 vols.
Lafayette (General), Memoires, Correspondance et Manuscrits. BruxeUes,
1837-1839. 2 vols.
Laing (S.), Sweden in 1838. Lond. 1839.
Laing (S.), Notes on the Social and Political State of Europe. Lond. 1842.
Lamg (S.), Second Series of Notes on Europe. Lond. 1850.
Laing (S.), Denmark, being the Third Series of Notes. Lond. 1852.
Lamartine (A. de.), Histoire des Girondins. BruxeUes, 1847. 8 vols.
Lankester (E.), Memorials of John Ray. Ray Soc. 1846.

XXIV LIST OF AUTHOES QUOTED.
Larenaudiere (M. de), Mexique et Guatemala. Paris, 1843.
Lathbury (T.), History of the Convocation of the Church of England. Lond.
1842.
Lathbury (T.), History of the Nonjurors. Lond. 1845.
Lavaliee (T.), Histoire des Fran?ais. Paris, 1847. 4 vols.
Laurence (W.), Lectures on Comparative Anatomy, and the Natural History
of Man. Lond. 1844.
Le Blanc (L'Abbe), Lettres d'un Francois. Lyon, 1758. 3 vols.
Ledwich (B.) Antiquities of Ireland. Dublin, 1804. 4to.
Le Long (J.), Bibliotheque Historique de la France. Paris, 1768-1778.
5 vols, folio.
Lemontey (P. E.), L'Etablissement Monarchique de Louis XIV. Paris, 1818.
Lenet (P.), Memoires. Paris, 1826. 2 vols.
Lepan (M.), Vie de Voltaire. Paris, 1837.
LepeUetier (A.), Physiologie Medicate. Paris, 1831-1833. 4 vols.
Lerminier (E.), PhUosophie du Droit. Paris, 1831. 2 vols.
Leslie (Sir J.), Natural and Chemical PhUosophy. Edinb. 1838.
Le Vassor (M.), Histoire du Regne de Louis XIIL Amst. 1701-1711. 10 vols.
Liebig (J.), Animal Chemistry. Lond. 1846.
Liebig and Kopp's Reports of the Progress of Chemistry and the aUied
Sciences. Lond. 1849-1853. 4 vols.
Liebig (J.), Letters on Chemistry in its relation to Physiology. Lond. 1851.
Lmdley (J.V The Vegetable Kingdom. Lond. 1847.
Lindley (J.), An Introduction to Botany. Lond. 1848. 2 vols.
Lingard (J.), History of England. Paris, 1840. 8 vols.
Lister (M.), An Account of Paris at the close of the Seventeenth Century.
Shaftesbury, n.d.
Lister (T. H.), Life and Correspondence of the first Earl of Clarendon. Lond.
1837, 1838. 3 vols;
Llorente (D. J. A.), Histoire critique de Plnquisition d'Espagne. Paris, 1817,
1818. 4 vols.
Locke (J.), Works. Lond. 1794. 9 vols.
Longchamp et Wagniere, Memoires sur Voltaire. Paris, 1826. 2 vols.
Loudon (J. C), an EncyclopEedia of Agriculture. Lond. ¦1844.
Low (H.), Sarawa^ ; its Inhabitants and Productions. Lond. 1835.
Ludlow (E.), Memoirs. Bdinb. 1751. 3 vols.
Lyell (Sir C), Principles of Geology. Lond. 1853.
Mably (L'Abbe), Observations sur I'Histoire de France. Paris, 1823. 3 vols.
Macaulay (T. B.), History of England. Lond. 1849-1855. 1st edit. 4 vols.
Mackay (R. W.), The Progress of the Intellect in the Religious Development
of the Greeks and Hebrews. Lond. 1850. 2 vols.
Mackintosh (Sir J.), Memoirs, by his Son. Lond. 1835. 2 vols.
Mackintosh (Sir J.), History of the Revolution in England in 1688. Lond.
1834. 4to.
Mackintosh (Sir J.), Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy.
Bdmb. 1837.
M'OuUooh (J. R.), The Principles of Political Economy. Edinb. 1843.
M'CuUoh (J. H.), Researches concerning the Aboriginal History of America
Baltimore, 1829.
Macpherson (J.), Original Papers, from the Restoration to the Accession of
the House of Hanover. Lond. 1775. 2 vols. 4to.
M'William (J. 0.), Medical History of the Expedition to the Niger, Lond.
1843. I
Mahon (Lord), History of England, from 1713 to 1783. Lond. 1853 1854
7 vols. . ' ¦
Maintenon (Madame de), Lettres inedites avec la Princesse des Ursins. Paris
1826. 4 vols.

LIST OF AUTHOES QUOTED. XXV
Malcolm (Sir J.), History of Persia. Lond. 1829. 2 vols.
Mallet's Northern Antiquities, edit. Blackwell. Lond. 1847.
Mallet du Pan, Memoirs and Correspondence. Lond. 1852. 2 vols.
Malthus (T. R.), An Essay on the Principles of Population. Lond. 1826.
2 vols.
Manning (W. 0.), Commentaries on the Law of Nations. Lond. 1839.
Marchmont Papers, from 1685 to 1750. Lond. 1831. 3 vols.
Marmer (W.), An Account of the Natives of the Tonga Islands. Lond. 1818.
2 vols.
Marmontel (J. F.), Memoires. Paris, 1805. 4 vols.
Marsden (W.), History of Sumatra. Lond. 1783. 4to.
Matter (M.), Histoire du Gnosticisme. Paris, 1828. 2 vols.
Matter (M.), Histoire de I'Ecole d'Alexandrie. Paris, 1840-1844. 2 vols.
Matthsei Paris Historia Jlajor, edit. Wats. Lond. 1684. folio.
Matthsei Westmonasteriensis Flores Historiarum. Lond. 1570. folio, 2 vols.
Maury (L. F. A.), Legendes Pieuses du Moyen Age. Paris, 1843.
May (T.), History of the Long ParUament. Lond. 1647. folio, 3 books.
Mayo (H.), OutUnes of Human Physiology. Lond. 1837.
Meadley (G. W.), Memoirs of W. Paley. Edinb. 1810.
Meincrs (E.), Betrachtungen iiber die Fruchtbarkeit &c. der Lander in Asien.
Lubeck, 1795, 1796. 2 vols.
Mercier (j\I.), J. J. Rousseau considere comme I'un des premiers Auteurs de
la Revolution. Paris, 1791. 2 vols.
Meyen (F. J. F.), Outlines of the Geography of Plants. Lond. 1846.
Meyer (J. D.), Esprit, Origine et Progres des Institutions Judiciaires. Paris,
1823. 5 vols.
Mezeray (F. B.), Histoire de France. Paris, 1643-1651. 3 vols, folio.
Michelet (M.), Origmes du Droit FranQais, in vol. ii. of CEuvres. BruxeUes,
1840.
Mill (J.), Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind. Lond. 1829.
2 vols.
MUl (J.), The History of British India, edited by H. H. Wilson- Lond. 1848
¦ (the first two vols. only).
MUl (J. S.), Principles of Political Economy. Lond. 1849. 2 vols.
MiUs (C). History of Chivalry. Lond. 1825. 2 vols.
Moffat (R.), Southern Africa. Lond. 1842.
Monconys (M. de). Voyages de. Paris, 1695. 5 vols.
Monk (Bishop of Gloucester), Life of R. Bentley. Lond. 1833. 2 vols.
Montaigne (M.), Essais. Paris, 1843.
Montbarey (Prince de), Memoires. Paris, 1826, 1827. 3 vols.
Monteil (A. A.), Histoire des Frangais des divers Btats. BruxeUes, 1843.
8 vols.
Montesquieu (C), CEuvres completes. Paris, 1835.
Montglat (Marquis de), Memoires. Paris, 1825, 1826. 3 vols.
Montlosier (Comte de), La Monarchie Frangaise. Paris, 1814. 3 vols.
Montucla (J. F.), Histoire des Mathematiques. Paris, 1799-1802. 4 vols 4to.
MoreUet (L'Abbe), Memoires. Paris, 1821. 2 vols.
Mosheim (J. L.), Ecclesiastical History. Lond. 1839. 2 vols.
MottevUle (Mme.), Memoires, edit. Petitot. Paris, 1824. 5 vols.
MtiUer (J.), Elements of Physiology. Lond. 1840-1842. 2 vols.
Murchison (Sir R.), Siluria. Lond. 1854.
Mure (W.), History of the Language and Literature of Ancient Greece. Lond.
1850-1853. 4 vols.
Murray (A.), Life of J. Bruce. Bdinb. 1808. 4to.
Musset Pathay (V. D.), Vie de J. J. Rousseau. Paris, 1822. 2 vols.
Neal (D.), History of the Puritans, from 1517 to 1688. Lond. 1822. 5 vols.
^Neander (A.), History of the Christian Religion and Church. Lond. 1850-
1852. 8 vols.

XXVl LIST OF AUTHOES QUOTED.
Newman (F. W.), Natural History of the Soul, as the Basis of Theology.
Lond. 1849.
Newman (F. W.), Phases of Faith. Lond. 1850.
-Newman (J. H.), Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. Lond.
1845.
Newton (Bishop of Bristol), Life of, by himself. Lond. 1816.
NichoUs (J.). Recollections. Lond. 1822. 2 vols. , ,„,„
Nichols ( J.X Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century. Lond. 1812-
1815. 9 vols. ^ , ^. , ^ .,. ^ X
Nichols (J.), lUustrations of Literary History of the Eighteenth Century.
Lond. 1817-1848. 7 vols.
Niebuhr (C), Description de 1' Arable. Amsterdam, 1774. 4to.
Noble (D.), The Brain and its Physiology. Lond. 1846.
Noble (M.), Memoirs of the House of Cromwell. Birmingham, 1784. 2 vols.
Noble (M.), Lives of the English Regicides. Lond. 1798. 2 vols.
North (R.), The Lives of the Norths. Lond. 1826. 3 vols.
Orme (W.), Life of John Owen. Lond. 1820.
Otter (W.), Life of B. D. Clarke. Lond. 1825. 2 vols.
Owen (R.), Lectures on the Anatomy &c. of Invertebrata. Lond. 1855.
Paget (J.), Lectures on Surgical Pathology. Lond. 1853. 2 vols.
Palgrave (Sir P.), Rise and Progress of the EngUsh Commonwealth. Lond.
1832. 2 vols. 4to.
PaUssot (M.), Memoires pour PHistoire de notre Litterature. Paris, 1803.
2 vols.
Pallme (I.), Travels in Kordofan. Lond. 1844.
Palmer (W.), A Treatise on the Church. Lond. 1839. 2 vols.
Park (Mungo), Travels in Africa. Lond. 1817. 2 vols.
Parker (Bishop), History of his own Time. Lond. 1727.
Parliamentary History of England, to 1803. Lond. 36 vols.
Parr (S.), Works. Lond. 1828. 8 vols.
Patin (G.), Lettres. Paris, 1846. 3 vols.
Peignot (G.), Dictionnaire des Livres condamnes au feu. Paris, 1806. 2 vols.
PeUew (G.), Life and Correspondence of Lord Sidmouth. Lond. 1847. 3 vols.
Pepys (S.), Diary, from 1659 to 1669. Lond. 1828. 5 vols.
Percival (R.), Account of the Island of Ceylon. Lond. 1805. 4to.
Petrie (G.), Ecclesiastical Architecture and Round Towers of Ireland. Dub-
Un, 1845.
Phillimore (R.), Memoirs of Lord Lyttelton, from 1734 to 1773. Lond. 1845,
2 vols.
Phillips (B.), Scrofula, its Nature, Causes, and Prevalence. Lond. 1846.
Pinel (P.), Traite sur I'AUfenation Mentale, 2d edit. Paris, 1809.
Pontchartrain (P. de), Memoires. Paris, 1822. 2 vols.
Porter (G. R.), The Progress of the Nation. Lond. 1836-1843. 3 vols.
Pouillet (M.), Biemens de Physique. Paris, 1832. 2 vols.
^Prescott (W. H.), History of Ferdinand and IsabeUa. Paris, 1842. 3 vols.
Prescott (W. H.), History of the Conquest of Mexico. Lond. 1850. 3 vols.
Prescott (W. H.), History of the Conquest of Peru. Lond. 1850. 3 vols.
Prichard (J. C), A Treatise on Insanity. Lond. 1835.
Prichard (J. C), Insanity in relation to Jurisprudence. Lond. 1842.
Prichard (J. C), Researches into the Physical History .of Mankind. Lond.
1841-1847. 5 vols.
Priestley (J.), Memoirs by himself, continued by his Son. Lond. 1806, 1807.
2 vols.
Prior (J.), Life of 0. Goldsmith. Lond. 1837. 2 vols.
Prior (J.), Memoir of B. Burke. Lond. 1839.
Prout (W.), Bridgewater Treatise on Chemistry, &c. Lond. 1845.

LIST OF AUTHOES QUOTED. XXVU
Pulteney (R.), Historical Sketches of the Progress of Botany in England.
Lond. 1790. 2 vols.
Quatremere (E.), Recherches sur la Langue et la Litterature de I'Egypte.
Paris, 1808.
Querard (J. M.), La France Litteraire. Paris, 1827-1839. 10 vols.
Quetelet (A.), Sur I'Homme et le Developpement de ses Facultes. Paris,
1835. 2 vols.
Quetelet (A.), La Statistique Morale, in vol. xxi. of Mem. de I'Acad. de Bel-
gique. BruxeUes, 1848. 4to.
Quick (J.), Synodioon in GalUa ; the Acts &c. of the Councils of the Re
formed Churches in France. Lond. 1692. 2 vols. foUo.
Rabelais (F.), CEu-vres. Amsterdam, 1725. 5 vols.
Raffles (Sir T. S.), History of Java. Lond. 1830. 2 vols.
Rammonun Roy, Translations from the Veds and works on Brahmunical
Theology. Lond. 1832.
Rammohun Roy on the Judicial and Revenue Systems of India. Lond. 1832.
Ranke (L.), Die Rdmischen Papste. Berlin, 1838, 1839. 3 vols.
Ranke (L.), Civil Wars and Monarchy in France in 16th and 17th Centuries.
Lond. 1852. 2 vols.
Ray (J.), Correspondence, edited by E. Lankester. Ray Soc. 1848.
Reid (T.), Essays on the Powers of the Human Mind. Bdinb. 1808. 3 vols.
Relations des Ambassadeurs Venitiens sur les Affaires de France au XVP
Siecle. Paris, 1838. 2 vols. 4to.
Renouard (P. V.), Histoire de la Medecine. Paris, 1846. 2 vols.
Reports on Botany by the Ray Society. Lond. 1846.
Reresby (Sir J.), Travels and Memoirs during the Time of Cromwell, Charles
IL, and James II. Lond. 1831.
Retz (Cardinal de), Memoires. Paris, 1844. 2 vols.
Rey (J. A.), Theorie et Pratique de la Science Sociale. Paris, 1842. 3 vols.
Reynier (L.), De I'Economie Publique et Rurale des Arabes et des Juifs.
Geneve, 1820.
Reynolds (Sir J.), Literary Works. Lond. 1846. 2 vols.
Rhode (J. G.), Religiose Bildung, Mythologie und Philosophie der Hindus.
Leipzig, 1827. 2 vols.
Ricardo (D.), Works. Lond. 1846.
Richard (A.), Nouveaux Elements de Botanique. Paris, 1846.
Richardson (J.), Travels in the Desert of Sahara. Lond. 1848. 2 vols.
Richardson (J.), A Mission to Central Africa. Lond. 1853. 2 vols.
Richardson (Sir J.), Arctic Searching Expedition. Lond. 1851. 2 vols.
Richelieu (Cardinal), M6moires sur le Regne de Louis XIIL Paris, 1823. 10
vols.
Rig-Veda-Sanhita, translated from Sanscrit by H. H. WUson. Lond. 1850-
1854. 2 vols.
Ritter (H.), History of Ancient Philosophy. Lond. 1838-1846. 4 vols.
Rivarol (M.), Memoires. Paris, 1824.
Robertson (W.), Works. Lond. 1831.
Robin (C.) et VerdeU (F.), Traite de Chimie Anatomique. Paris, 1853. 8
vols.
Rochefoucauld (Duo de la), Memoires. Paris, 1826. 2 vols.
Rohan (H. Due de), Memoires. Paris, 1822.
Roland (M™-), Memoires. Paris, 1827. 2 vols.
RomUly (Sir S.), Life, written by himself. Lond. 1842. 2 vols.
Roscoe (H.), The Life of W. Roscoe. Loud. 1833. 2 vols.
Russell (Lord J.), Memorials and Correspondence of C. J. Fox. Lond. 1853,
1854. 3 vols.

XXVIU LIST OF AUTHOES QUOTED.
Sadler (M. T.), The Law of Population. Lond. 1830. 2 vols.
Sainte-Aulaire (Le Comte de), Histoire de la Fronde. Paris, 1843. 2 yols._
Sainte-Palaye (De la Curne), Memoires sur I'Ancienne Chevalerie. Paris,
1759-1781. 3 vols.
Schlosser (F. C), History of the Eighteenth Century. Lond. 1843-5. 6 vols.
Scriptores post Bedam Rerum AngUcarum. Lond. 1596. folio.
Segur (Le Oorate de), Memoires ou Souvenirs. Paris, 1825-1827. 3 vols.
Sevigne (Madame de), Lettres. Paris, 1843. 6 vols.
SeweU (W.), Christian Politics. Lond. 1845.
Sharp (Sir C), Memorials of the RebeUion of 1569. Lond. 1840.
Sharp (Archbishop of York), Life, edited by T. Newcome. Lond. 1825.
2 vols. ¦ ¦
Sharpe (S.), History of Egypt. Lond. 1852. 2 vols.
Short (Bishop of St. Asaph), History of the Church of England, to 1688.
Lond. 1847.
Simon (J.), Lectures on General Pathology. Lond. 1850.
Simon (J. F.), Animal Chemistry. Lond. 1845, 1846. 2 vols.
Simpson (T.), Discoveries on the North Coast of America. Lond. 1843.
Sinclair (Sir J.), History of the PubUc Revenue of the British Empire.
Lond. 1803, 1804. 3 vols.
Sinclair (Sir J.), The Correspondence of. Lond. 1831. 2 vols.
Sismondi (J. C. L. S. de), Histoire des Frangais. Paris, 1821-1844. 31 vols.
Smedley (B.), History of the Reformed Religion in France. Lond. 1832-1834.
3 vols. 8vo.
Smith (A.), Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Edinb. 1839.
Smith (Sir J. B.), Memoir and Correspondence of. Lond. 1832. 2 vols.
Somers Tracts, edited by Sir W. Scott. Lond. 1809-1815. 13 vols. 4to.
Somerville (M.), Connexion of the Physical Sciences. Lond. 1849.
SomervUle (M.), Physical Geography. Lond. 1851. 2 vols.
Sorbiere (M.), A Voyage to England. Lond. 1709.
Sorel (M. C), La Bibliotheque Frangoise. Paris, 1667.
Soulavie (J. L.), Memoires du Regne de Louis XVI. Paris, 1801. 6 vols.
Southey (R.), History of BraaU. Lond. 1822-1819. 3 vols. 4to. (2d edit, of
vol. i.)
Southey (R.), The Life of Wesley. Lond. 1846. 2 vols.
Spence (G.), Origin of the Laws and Political Institutions of Europe. Lond.
1826.
Spix (J. B.) and Martius (C. F.), Travels in BrazU. Lond. 1824. 2 vols.
Sprengel (K.), Histoire de la Medecine. Paris, 1815-1820. 18 vols.
Squier (E. G.), Travels in Central America. New York, 1853. 2 vols.
Statistical Society (Journal of). Lond. 1839-1855. 18 vols.
Staudlin (C. F.), Geschichte der theologischen W'issenschaften. Gottingen,
1810, 181L 2 vols.
Stephens (A.), Memoirs of J. H. Tooke. Lond. 1813. 2 vols.
Stephens (J. L.), Travels in Central America. Lond. 1842, 1843. 4 vols.
Stewart (D.), Elements of the PhUosophy of the Human Mind. Lond 1792-
1827. 3 vols.
Story (J.), Commentaries on the Conflict of Laws. Lond. 1841.
Sully (Due de), Memoires des Sages et Royales CEconomies, edit. Petitot.
Paris, 1820, 1821. 9 vols.
Swainson (W.Y Discourse on the Study of Natural History. Lond. 1834.
Swainson (W.), Geography and Classiflcation of Animals. Lond. 1835.
Swinburne (H.), The Courts of Europe at the close of the last Century.
Lond. 1841. 2 vols.
Symes (M.), Embassy to the Kingdom of Ava. 2d edit. Lond. 1800. 3 vols.
Talon (Omer), Memoires. Paris, 1827. 3 vols.

LIST OF AUTHOES QUOTED, XXIX
Talvi's Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic Nations,
New York. 1850.
Taylor (A. S.), Manual of Medical Jurisprudence. Lond. 1846.
Temple (Sir W.), Works. Lond. 1814. 4 vols.
Tennemann (W. G.), Geschichte der Philosophie. Leipzig, 1798-1819. II
vols.
Thirlwall (Bishop of St. David's), History of Greece. Lond. 1835-1850.
8 vols.
Thomson (T.), History of the Royal Society. Lond. 1812. 4to.
Thomson (T.), History of Chemistry. 2 vols. n.d.
Thomson (T.), Chemistry of Vegetables. Lond. 1838.
Thomson (T.), Chemistry of Animal Bodies. Bdinb. 1843.
Thornton (W. T.), Over-Population, and its Remedy. Lond. 1846.
--Ticknor (G.), History of Spanish Literature. Lond. 1849. 3 vols.
Timour's PoUtical and MUitary Institutes, edited by Davy and White. Ox
ford, 1783. 4to.
TocqueviUe (Le Comte de), Histoire PhUosophique du Regne de Louis XV.
Paris, 1847. 2 vols.
TocqueviUe (A. de), De la Democratic en Amerique. BruxeUes, 1840. 5
vols, in 2 parts.
TocqueviUe (A. de), L'Ancien Regime et la Revolution. Paris, 1856.
Tomline (Bishop of Winchester), Life of W. Pitt. Lond. 1821. 2 vols. 4to.
— Townsend (J.), Journey through Spain in 1786 and 1787. Lond. 1792. 3
vols.
Trail (W.), Account of the Life and Writings of Robert Sirason. Lond. 1812.
4to.
Transactions of the Literary Society of Bombay. Lond. 1819-1823. 3 vols.
4to.
Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society. Lond. 1827-1835. 3 vols. 4to.
Trotter (J. B.), Memoirs of the Latter Years of 0. J. Fox. Lond. 1811.
Tschudi (J. J.), Travels m Peru. Lond. 1847.
Tucker (G.), The Life of T. Jefferson. Lond. 1837. 2 vols.
Tuckey (J. K.), Expedition to the Zaire, in South Africa. 1818. 4to.
Turgot (M.), CEuvres. Paris, 1811. 9 vols.
Turner (B.), Elements of Chemistry. Lond. 1847. 2 vols.
Turner ^Samuel), An Embassy to Tibet. Lond. 1800. 4to.
Turner (Sharon), History of England. Lond. 1839. 12 vols.
Turpinus, De Vita Caroli Magni, edit. S. Ciampi. Florent, 1822.
Twiss (H.), The Life of Lord Chancellor Eldon. Lond. 1846. 2 vols.
Twiss (T.), Progress of PoUtical Economy in Europe. Lond. 1847.
Vattel (M. de), Le Droit des Gens. Paris, 1820. 2 vols.
Vaughan (R.), The Protectorate of OromweU. Lond. 1839. 2 vols.
Vernon (J.), Letters, from 1696 to 1708. Lond. 1841. 3 vols.
ViUemaui (M.), De la Litterature au XVHP Siecle. Paris, 1846. 4 vols.
ViUemarque (T. H.), Chants Populaires de la Bretagne. Paris, 1846. 2 vols.
(Introduction only quoted).
Vishnu Purana ; a System of Hindu Mythology, translated from the Sanscrit
by H. H. WUson. Lond. 1840. 4to.
UUoa (A.), A Voyage to South America. Lond. 1772. 2 vols.
Vogel (J.), The Pathological Anatomy of the Human Body. Lond. 1847.
Vohiey (0. F.), Voyage en Syrie et en Egypte. Paris, an yu. 2 vols.
Voltaire, CEuvres completes. Paris, 1820-1826. 70 vols.
Voltaire, Lettres inedites. Paris, 1856. 2 vols.
Vyse (H.), Operations at the Pyramids. Lond. 1840-1842. 3 vols.
Wagner (R.), Elements of Physiology. Lond. 1841.
Wakefield (G.), Life of, by himself. Lond. 1804. 2 vols.

XXX LIST OF AUTHOES QUOTED.
Walker (C), The History of Independency. Lond. 1660, 1661. 4 parts. 4to.
Walpole (H.), Memoirs of George IL Lond. 1847. 3 vols.
Walpole (H.), Memoirs of the Reign of George IIL Lond. 1845. 4 vols.
Walpole (H.), Letters, from 1735 to 1797. Lond. 1840. 6 vols.
Walsh (R.), Notices of BrazU. Lond. 1830. 2 vols.
Warburton's Letters to Hnrd. Lond. 1809.
Ward (H. G.), Mexico. Lond. 1829. 2 vols.
Ward (W.), A View of the History, Literature, and ReUgion of the Hmdoos.
Lond. 1817-1820. 4 vols.
Ward (W. G.), The Ideal of a Christian Church. Lond. 1844.
Warwick (Sir P.), Memoirs of the Reign of Charles I. Lond. 1702.
Watson (R., Bishop of Llandaff), Life, by himself. Lond. 1818. 2 vols.
Watson (R.), Observations on Southe'y's Life of Wesley. Lond. 1821.
WeUsted (J. R.), Travels in Arabia. Lond. 1838. 2 vols.
Wesley (John), the Journals of. Lond. 1851.
Wbately (Archbishop of Dublin), The Errors of Romanism traced to their
Origin in Human Nature. Lond. 1830.
Wbately (Archbishop of Dublin), Essays on some of the Dangers to Christian
Faith. Lond. 1839.
Wheaton (H.), History of the Northmen, to the Conquest of England by
WiUiam of Normandy. Lond. 1831.
Whewell (W.), History of the Inductive Sciences. Lond. 1847. 3 vols.
Whewell (W.), Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, founded upon their
History. Lond. 1847. 2 vols.
Whewell (W.), Bridgewater Treatise. Lond. 1852.
Whewell (W.), Lectures on the History of Moral PhUosophy in England.
Lond. 1852.
Whiston (W.), Memoirs, written by himself. Lond. 1749.
White (Blanco), Practical and Internal Evidence against Catholicism. Lond.
1826.
Whitelocke (Comraissioner), Journal of the Swedish Embassy in 1653 and
1654. Lond. 1772. 2 vols. 4to.
Wilberforce (W.), Life, by his Sons. Lond. 1838. 5 vols.
Wilkinson (Sir J. G.), Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians. 1st
series, edit. 1842 ; 2d series, edit. 1841. 5 vols.
WUliams (C. J. B.), Principles of Medicine. Lond. 1848.
Wilson (H.), Account of the Pelew Islands. 2d edit. Lond. 1788. 4to.
WUson (H. H.), Specimens of the Theatre of the Hindus, translated from the
Sanscrit. Calcutta, 1827. 3 vols.
Wilson (W.), Memoirs of Daniel Defoe. Lond. 1830. 3 vols.
Winckler (E.), Geschichte der Botanik. Frankfurt-am-M. 1854.
Winstanley (W.), The Loyal Martyrology. Lond. 1665.
Wordsworth (C), Ecclesiastical Biography. Lond. 1839. 4 vols.
Wrangel (P.), Narrative of an Expedition to the Polar Sea. Lond. 1840.
Wright (T.), Biographia Britannica Literaria ; Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-
Norman Periods. Lond. 1842-1846. 2 vols.
Yonge (W.), Diary, from 1604 to 1628, edited by G. Roberts. Camd. Soc.
1848. 4to.

HISTORY

OF

CIYILIZATION U EI(GLAND.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
CHAPTER I.
STATEMENT OF THE EESOUECES FOE INVESTIGATING HISTOET, AND PEOOPS OF
THE EEGDXAEITT OF HUMAN ACTIONS. THESE ACTIONS AEE GOVEENED BY
MENTAL AND PHY8ICAI, LAWS : THEEEFOEE BOTH SETS OF LAWS MUST
BE STUDIED, AND THEEE CAN BE NO HISTOET WITHOUT THE NATUEAL
SCIENCES. ^
Of aU the great branches of human knowledge, history is that
upon which most has been written, and which has always been
most popular. And it seems to be the general opinion that the
success of historians has, on the whole, been equal to their in
dustry ; and that if on this subject much has been studied, much
also is understood.
This confidence in the value of history is very widely dif
fused, as we see in the extent to which it is read, and in the
share it occupies in all plans of education. Nor can it be de
nied that, in a certain point of view, such confidence is perfectly
.justifiable. It cannot be denied that materials have been, col
lected which, when looked at in the aggregate, have a rich and
imposing appearance. The political and military annals of all
the great countries in Europe, and of most of those out of Eu
rope, have been carefully compiled, put together in a convenient
form, and the evidence on which they rest has heen tolerably
well sifted. Great attention has been paid to the history of leg
islation, also to that of religion : while considerahle, though
inferior, labour has heen employed in tracing the progress of
science, of literature, of the fine arts, of useful inventions, and,
latterly, of the manners and comforts of the people. In order to
increase our knowledge of the past, antiquities of every kind
VOL. I. — 1

3 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
have been examined ; the sites of ancient cities have been laid
bare, coins dug up and deciphered, inscriptions copied, alphabets
restored, hieroglyphics interpreted, and, in some instances, long-
forgotten languages reconstructed and re-arranged. Several of
the laws which regulate the changes of human speech have heen
discovered, and, in the hands of philologists, have been made to
elucidate even the most obscure periods in the early_ migration oi
nations. Political economy has been raised to a science, and by
it much light has been thrown on the causes of that unequal dis
tribution of wealth which is the most fertUe source of social dis?
turbance. Statistics have been so sedulously cultivated, that
we have the most extensive information, not only respecting
the material interests of men, but also respecting their moral
peculiarities ; such as, the amount of different crimes, the^ro-
portion they bear to each other, and the influence exercised over
them by age, sex, education, and the like. With this great
movement physical geography has kept pace ; the phenomena of
climate have been registered, mountains measured, rivers ""sur
veyed and tracked to their source, natural productions of all
kinds carefully studied, and their hidden properties unfolded :
while every food which sustains life has been chemically ana
lyzed, j^constituents numbered and weighed, and the nature of
the coWlxion between them and the human frame has, in many
cases, been satisfactorily ascertained. At the same time, and
that nothing should be left undone which might enlarge our
knowledge of the events by which man is affected, there have
heen instituted circumstantial researches in many other depart
ments ; so that in regard to the most civilized people, we are
now acquainted with the rate of their mortality, of their mar
riages, the proportion of their births, the character of their em
ployments, and the fluctuations both in their wages and in the
prices of the commodities necessary to their existence. These
and similar facts have heen collected, methodized, and are ijpe
for use. Such results, which form, as it were, the anatomy of a
nation, are remarkable for their minuteness ; and to them there
have been joined other results less minute, but more extensive.
Not only have the actions and characteristics of the great nations
been recorded, but a prodigious number of different tribes in all
parts of the known world have heen visited and described hy
travellers, thus enabling us to compare the condition of mankind
in every stage of civilization, and under every variety of circum
stance. When we moreover add, that this curiosity respecting
our fellow-creatures is apparently insatiable ; that it is constant
ly increasing ; that the means of gratifying it are also increas
ing, and that most of the observations which have heen made

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 3
are stni preserved ; — when we put all these things together, we
may form a faint idea of the immense value of that vast body of
facts which we now possess, and by the aid of which the progress
of mankind is to be investigated.
But if, on the other hand, we are to describe the use that has
heen made of these materials, we must draw a very different pic
ture. The unfortunate peculiarity of the history of man is, that
although its separate parts have been examined with considera
ble ability, hardly any one has attempted to combine them into
a whole, and ascertain the way in which they are connected with
each other. In all the other great fields of inquiry, the necessity
of generalization is universally admitted, and noble efforts are
being made to rise from particular facts in order to discover the
laws^by which those facts are governed. So far, however, is this
from being the usual course of historians, that among them a
strange idea prevails, that their business is merely to relate
events, which they may occasionaUy enliven hy such moral and
pohtical reflections as seem likely to be useful. According to
this scheme, any author who from indolence of thought, or from
natural incapacity, is unfit to deal with the highest branches of
knowledge, has only to pass some years in reading a certain
number of books, and then he is qualified to he an histmaan ; he
is able to write the history of a great people, and his work be
comes an authority on the subject which it professes to treat.
The estabhshment of this narrow standard has led to results
very prejudicial to the progress of our knowledge. Owing to it,
historians, taken as a body, have never recognized the necessity
of such a wide and preliminary study as would enable them to
grasp their subject in the whole of its natural relations. Hence
the singular spectacle of one historian being ignorant of political
economy ; another knowing nothing of law ; another nothing of
ecclesiastical affairs and changes of opinion ; another neglecting
tl^ philosophy of statistics, and another physical science ; al
though these topics are the most essential of all^ inasmuch as
they comprise the principal circumstances by which the temper
and character of mankind have heen affected, and in which they
are displayed. These important pursuits being, however, culti
vated, some hy one man, and some by another, have heen iso
lated rather than united : the aid which might he derived from
analogy and from mutual illustration has been lost ; and no dis
position has been shown to concentrate them upon history, of
which they are, properly speaking, the necessary conjponents.
Since the early part of the eighteenth century, a few great
thinkers have indeed arisen, who have deplored the backwardness
of history, and have done every thing in their power to remedy

4 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
it. But these instances have been extremely rare : so rare, that
in the whole literature of Europe there are not more than three
or four reaUy original works which contain a systematic attenapt
to investigate the history of man according to those exhaustive
methods which in other branches of knowledge have proved; suc
cessful, and hy which alone empirical observations can be raised
to scientific truths.
Among historians in general, we find, after the sixteenth cen
tury, and especially during the last hundred years, several indi^
cations of an increasing comprehensiveness of -view, and of a will
ingness to incorporate into their works subjects^ which they
would formerly have excluded. By this means their assemblage
of topics has become more diversified, and the mere collection
and relative position of parallel facts has occasionally sugMsted
generalizations no traces of which can be found in the earlier lit;-
erature of Europe. This has heen a great gain, in so far as it
has familiarized historians with a wider range' of thought, and
, encouraged those habits of speculation, which, thojigh HaMe to
abuse, are the essential condition of all real knowledge, hecause
without them no science can he constructed.
But, notwithstanding that the prospects of historical litera
ture aje^ertainly more cheering now than in any former age, it
must Be allowed that, with extremely few exceptions, they are
only prospects, and that as yet scarcely any thing has heen done
towards discovering the principles which govern the character
and destiny of nations. What has been actually effected I shall
endeavour to estimate in another part of this Introduction : at
present it is enough to say, that for all the higher purposes of
human thought history is stiU miserably deficient, and presents
that confused and anarchical appearance natural to a subject of
which the laws are unknown, and even the foundation unset
tled. '
Our acquaintance with history being so imperfect, while our
materials are so numerous, it seems desirable that something
should he done on a scale far larger than has hitherto heen at
tempted, and that a strenuous effort should be made to bring up
this great department of inquiry to a level with other depart
ments, in order that we may maintain the balance and harmony
of our knowledge. It is in this spirit that the present work has
been conceived. To make the execution of it fully equal to the
' A living writer, who has done more than any other to raise the standard of
history, contemptuously notices " I'incoherente compilation de faits deji impropre-
ment quahfiee cPhistoire." Comte, Philosophie Positive, vol. v. p. 18. There is
much in the method and in the conclusions of this great work with which I cannot '
agree ; but it would be unjust to deny its extraordinary merits.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 6
conception is impossible : stiU I hope to accomplish for the his
tory of man something equivalent, or at all events analogous, to
what has heen effected by other inquirers for the different
branches of natural science. In regard to nature, events appar
ently the most irregular and capricious have been explained, and
have heen shown to he in accordance with certain fixed and uni
versal laws. This has heen done because men of ability, and,
above all, men of patient, untiring thought, have studied natural
events with the view of discovering their regularity : and if
human events were subjected to a similar treatment, we have
every right to expect simUar results. For it is clear that they
who afiirm that the facts of history are incapable of being gen-
eraHzed, take for granted the very question at issue. Indeed they
do more than this. They not only assume what they cannot
pro'\^, hut they assume what in the present state of knowledge
is highly improbable. Whoever is at aU acquainted with what
has heen done during the last two centuries, must be aware that
every generation demonstrates some events to be regular and
predictable, which the preceding generation had declared to be
irregular and unpredictable : so that the marked tendency of ad
vancing civUization is to strengthen our belief in the universality
of order, of method, and of law. This being the case, it ^follows
that if any facts, or class of facts, have not yet been reliiced to
order, we, so far from pronouncing them to he irreducible, should
rather be guided by our experience of the past, and should admit
the probabUity that what we now caU inexpKcahle wiU at some
future time be explained. This expectation of discovering regu
larity in the midst of confusion is so famUiar to scientific men,
that among the most eminent of them it becomes an article of
faith ; and if the same expectation is not generaUy found among
historians, it must be ascribed partly to their being of inferior
abiUty to the investigators of nature, and partly to the greater
complexity of those social phenomena with which their studies
are concerned.
Both these causes have retarded the creation of the science
of history. The most celebrated historians are manifestly in
ferior to the most successful cultivators of physical science : no
one having devoted himself to history who in point of inteUect is
at all to be compared with Kepler, Newton, or many others that
might he named.^ And as to the greater complexity of the
phenomena, the philosophic historian is opposed by difSculties
far more formidable than is the student of nature ; since, while
' I speak merely of those who have raade history their main pursuit. Bacon
wrote on it, but only as a subordinate object ; and it evidently cost him nothing Uke
the thought which he devoted to other subjects.

b CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
on the one hand, his observations are more Uable to those causes
of error which arise from prejudice and passion, he, on the other
hand, is unable to employ the great physical resource of experi
ment, hy which we can often simplify even the most intricate
problems in the external world.
It is not, therefore, surprising that the study of the move
ments of Man should be stiU in its infancy, as compared with
the advanced state of the study of the movements of Nature.
Indeed tbe difference between the progress of the two pursuits is
so great, that while in physics the regularity of events, and the
power of predicting them, are often taken for granted even in
cases stiU unproved, a simUar regularity is in history not only
not taken for granted, but is actuaUy denied. Hence it is that
whoever wishes to raise history to a level with other branches of
knowledge, is met by a preUminary obstacle ; since he is told
that in the affairs of men there is something mysterious and pro-.
vidential, which makes them imper'yious to our investigations^'
and which will always hide from us their future course. To this
it might be sufiicient to reply, that such an assertion is gratui
tous ; that it is by its nature incapable of proof ; and that it is
moreover opposed by the notorious fact that every where else in
creasing knowledge is accompanied by an increasing confidence
in the uniformity with which, under the same circumstances, the
same events must succeed each other. It will, however, he more
satisfactory to probe the difficulty deeper, and inquire at once
into the foundation of the common opinion that history must
always remain in its present empirical state, and can never he
raised to the rank of a science. We shall thus he led to one vast
question, which indeed Ues at the root of the whole subject, and
is simply this : Are the actions of men, and therefore of societies,
governed by fixed laws, or are they the result either of chance
or of supernatural interference ? The discussion of these alter
natives wiU suggest some speculations of considerahle interest.
For, in reference to this matter, there are two doctrines, which
appear to represent different stages of civUization. According
to the first doctrine, every event is single and isolated, and is
merely considered as the result of a blind chance. This opinion,
which is most natural to a perfectly ignorant people, would soon
be weakened hy that extension of experience-which suppUes a
knowledge of those uniformities of succession and of co-existence
that nature constantly presents. If, for example, wandering
tribes, without the least tincture of civUization, lived entirely by
hunting and fishing, they might weU suppose that the appearance
of their necessary food was the result of some accident which ad
mitted of no explanation. The irregularity of the supply, and

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 7
the apparent caprice with which it was sometimes abundant and
sometimes scanty, would prevent them from suspecting any thing
like method in the arrangements of nature; nor could their minds
even conceive the existence of those general principles which
govern the order of events, and by a knowledge of which we are
often able to predict their future course. But when such tribes
advance into the agricultural state, they, for the first time, use
a food of which not only the appearance, but the very existence,
seems to he the result of their own act. What they sow, that
likewise do they reap. The provision necessary for their wants
is brought more immediately under their own control, and is
more palpably the consequence of their own labour. They per
ceive a distinct plan, and a regular uniformity of sequence, in the
relation which the seed they put into the ground hears to the corn
when arrived at maturity. They are now able to look to the
future, not indeed with certainty, but with a confidence infinitely
greater than they could have felt in their former and more pre
carious pursuits.' Hence there arises a dim idea of the stability
of events ; and for the first tim« there begins to dawn upon the
mind a faint conception of what at a later period are called the
Laws of Nature. Every step in the great progress 'wUl make
their view of this more clear. . As their observations accumulate,
and as their experience extends over a wider surface, they meet
with uniformities that they had never suspected to exist, and
the discovery of which weakens that doctrine of chance with
which they had originaUy set out. Yet a little further, and a
taste for abstract reasoning springs up; and then some among
them generalize the observations that have been made, and de
spising the old popular opinion, believe that every event is linked
to its antecedent by an inevitable connexion, that such antece
dent is connected with a preceding fact; and that thus the whole
world forms a necessary chain, in which indeed each man may
play his part, but can by no means determine what that part
shaU be.
Thus it is that, in the ordinary march of society, an increas
ing perception of the regularity of nature destroys the doctrine
of Chance, and replaces it hy that of Necessary Connexion. And
it is, I think, highly probable that out of these two doctrines of
Chance and Necessity there have respectively arisen the subse
quent dogmas of Free WUl and Predestination. Nor is it diffi-
' Some of the moral consequences of thus diminishing the precariousness of food
are noticed by M. Charles Comte, in his Traite de Legislation, vol. ii. pp. 273-275.
Compare MilVs History of India, vol. i. pp. 180, 181. But both these able writers
have omitted to observe that the change facilitates a perception of the regularity of
phenomena.

8 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
cult to understand the manner in which, in a more advanced
state of society, this metamorphosis would occur. In every countiy,
as soon as the accumulation of wealth has reached a certain
point, the produce of each man's labour becomes more than
sufficient for his oyyn support : it is therefore no longer necessary
that aU should work; and there is formed a separate class, the
members of which pass their Uves for the most part in the pursuit
of pleasure ; a very few, however, in the acquisition and diffusion
of knowledge. Among these last there are always found some
who, neglecting external events, turn their attention to the study
of their own minds; * and such men, when possessed of great
abUities, become the founders of new philosophies and new re-
Ugions, which often exercise immense influence over the people
who receive them. But the authors of these systems are them
selves affected by the character of the age in which they Uve. It
is impossible for any man to escape the pressure of surrounding
opinions ; and what is called a new philosophy or a new reUgion
is generally not so much a creation of fresh ideas, hut rather a
new direction given to ideas already current among contemporary
thinkers.^ Thus, in the case now hefore us, the doctrine of
Chance in the external world corresponds to that of Free WUl in
the internal : whUe the other doctrine of Necessary Connexion
* On the relation between this and' the previous creation of wealth, see Tenne
mann, Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. i. p. 30 : "Ein gewisser Grad von Cultur und
Wohlstand ist eine nothwendige aussere Bedingung der Entwickelung des philoso-
phischen Geistes. So lange der Mensch noch mit deu Mitteln seiner Existenz und
der Befriedigung seiner thierischen Bediirfnisse beschaftiget ist, so. lange gehet die
Entwickelung und Bildung seiner Geisteskrafte nur langsam von statten, und er
nahert sich nur Schritt vor Schritt einer freiern Vernunftthatigkeit." ..." Daher
findeu wir, dass man nur in denen Nationen anfing zu philosophiren, welohe sich zu
einer betrachtlichen Stufe des Wohlstandes und der Cultur empor gehoben hatten."
Hence, as I shall endeavor to prove iu the next chapter, the immense importance of
the physical phenomena which precede and often control the metaphysical. In the
history of the Greek mind we can distinctly trace the passage from physical to meta
physical inquiries. See Groteh History of Greece, vol. iv. p. 519, edit. 1847. That
the atomic doctrine, in its relation to chance, was a natural precursor of Platonism,
is remarked in Broussais, Examen des Doctrines Medicates, vol. i. pp. 53, 64, an able
though one-sided work. Compare, respecting the Chance of the atomists. Miner's
History of Ancient Philosophy, vol. i. p. 553 ; an hypothesis, as Eitter says,
" destructive of aU inner energy ;" consequently autagonisitic to the psychological
hypothesis which subsequently sprang up and conquered it. That physical researches
came first, is moreover attested by Diogenes Laertius : Mepii Sh '<l>iKiia-o(j>ias -rpia,
(!)v<riKhv, TiBMhv, Sia\€KTiK6v tpuaiichv jneV, rb irepl ic6<rp.ov, Kal rap ev awTij)- riBiichv 8^,
Tb-ircpX piov Kal tSi/ nphs r|^l.ns• Sm\€KTiKi)y 5f, rh a.n<l>0Tepav robs \6yovs irpeaPfvoV
ral fiexP' Mf 'Apxe\dov rh tjjvtrixhv etSos ?iv ajrh Sh 2aiKpciTo«s, &s irpoeipriTm, rh ^Bmiv
anb Si ZVwoj ToO •E\edTou, -rb Sia\€KTi«<!y. De Vitis Philosophorum Proem.
segm. 18, vol. i. p. 12 : compare lib. ii. segm. 16, vol. i. p. 89.
'Beausobre has some good remarks on this in his learned work Histoire Critiaue
de Mamchee, vol. i. p. l|79, where he says that the great religious heresies have been
founded on previous philosophies. Certainly no one acquainted with the history of
ODinions will admit t.\,c cwAnv.;„.. non^^^.-..^ «f it cii..i_, ..,..,,,, ... , . •'_.

opinions will admit the sweeping assertion of M. Stahl that " la philosonhie d'l
peuple a sa racme dans sa thcologie." Klimrath, Travaux, vol. ii. p. 454, Paris, 184

un
1843.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION, 9
is equally analogous to that of Predestination ; the only difference
being that the first is a development by the metaphysician, tho
second by the theologian. In the first instance, the metaphysi
cian, setting out with the doctrine of Chance, carries into the
study of the mind this arbitrary and irresponsible principle, which
in its new field becomes Free Will ; an expression by which all
difficulties seem to be removed, since perfect freedom, itself the
cause of aU actions, is caused hy none, but, like the doctrine of
Chance, is an lUtimate fact admitting of no further explanation.^
In the second instance, the theologian taking up the doctrine of
Necessary Connexion recasts it into a reUgious shape; and
his mind being already full of conceptions of order and of uni
formity, he naturaUy ascribes such undeviatiag regularity to the
prescience of Supreme Power; and thus to the magnificent no
tion of one Grod there is added the dogma that by Him all things
have from. the beginning been absolutely pre-determined and
pre-ordained. These opposite doctrines of free wiU and predestination' do,
no doubt, supply a safe and simple solution of the obscurities of
our being; and as they are easUy understood, they are so suited
to the average capacity of the human mind, that even at the
present day an immense majority of men are divided between
them; and they have not only corrupted the sources of our
knowledge, but have given rise to religious sects, whose mutual
animosities have disturbed society, and too often embittered the
relations of private life. Among the more advanced European
thinkers there is, however, a growing opinion that both doctrines
are wrong, or, at aU events, that we have no sufficient evidence
of their truth. And as this is a matter of great moment, it is
" " Also ist ein Wille, dem die blose gesetzgebende Form der Maxime allein zum
Gesetze dienau kann, ein freier Wille." Kritik der prahtischen Vernunft in Kant's
Werke, vol. iv. p. 128. "Hat selber fur sich eigenthch keinen Bestimmungsgrund."
Metaphysik der Sitten in Werke, vol. v. p. 12. "Die unbedingte Causalitat der
Ursache." Kritik der reinen Vernunft in Werke, vol. ii. p. 339. See also Prolego
mena zujeder kiinftigen Metaphysik in vol. iii. p. 268.
' That these doctrines, when treated according to the ordinary methods of reason
ing, not only oppose, but exclude each other, would be universally admitted if it were
not for a desire generally felt to save certain parts of each : it being thought dan
gerous to give up free will on account of weakening moral responsibility, and equally
dangerous to give up predestination on account of impugning the power of God.
Various attempts have therefore been made to reconcile liberty with necessity, and
make the freedom of man harmonize with the foreknowledge of the Deity. Com
pare on this point a remarkable letter from Locke to Molyneux {Locke's Works, vol.
viii. p. 305), with the argument in one of Bentley 's Sermons {Monk's Life of Dentley,
vol. ii. pp. 7, 8) ; also Hitter's Hist, of Ancient Philosophy, vol. iv. pp. 143, 144 ;
Tennemann, Gesch. dm- Philosophie, vol. iv.pp. 301-304 ; Gopleston's Inquiry into the
Doctrines of Necessity and Predestination, pp. 6, 7, '46, 69, 70, 85, 92, 108, 136 ;
Mosheirris Ecclesiastical Hist. vol. i. p. 207, vol. ii. p. 96 ; Neander'aHist.ofthe Church,
vol. iv. pp. 294, 389-391 ; Bishop of Lincoln on Tertullian, 1845, p. 323 ; Hodgson on
Buddhism, in Transac. of Asiatic Society, vol. ii. p. 232.

10 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
important, hefore we proceed further, to clear up as much of it
as the difficulties inherent in these subjects yyill enable us to do.
Whatever doubts may be thrown on the account which I
have given of the probable origin of the ideas of free will and
predestination, there can, at all events, be no dispute as to the
foundation on which those ideas are now actuaUy based. The
theory of predestination is founded on a theological hypothesis;
that of free will on a metaphysical hypothesis. The advocates
of the first proceed on a supposition for which, to say the least of
it, they have as yet brought forward no good evidence. They
require us to believe that the Author of Creation, whose benefi
cence they at the same time 'wiUingly aUow, has, notwdthstand-
ing His supreme goodness, made an arbitrary distinction between
the elect and the non-elect; that He has from aU eternity
doomed to perdition mUlions of creatures yet unborn, and whom
His act alone can caU into existence : and that He has done
this, not in virtue of any principle of justice, but by a mere
stretch of despotic power.^ This doctrine owes its authority
among Protestants to the dark though powerful mind of Calvin :
hut in the early Church it was first systematically methodized
by Augustin, who appears to have borrowed it from the Mani-
chseans.' At aU events, and putting aside its incompatibility
with other notions which are supposed to he fundamental,'" it
must, in a scientific investigation, be regarded as a barren hypoth
esis, because, being beyond the province of our knowledge, we
have no means of ascertaining either its truth or its falsehood.
The other doctrine, which has long been celebrated under the
name of Free Will, is connected with Arminianism > hut it in
reality rests on the metaphysical dogma of the supremacy of
human consciousness. Every man, it is aUeged, feels and knows
that he is a free agent : nor can any subtleties of argument do
' Even Ambrose, who never went so far as Augustin, states this principle in its
repulsive nakedness : " Deus quos dignat vocat, quos vult religiosos facit." Neander,
vol. iv. p. 287. Calvin declares " that God, iu predestinating from all eternity one
part of mankind to everlasting happiness, and another to endless misery, was led to '
make this distinction by no other motive than His own good pleasure and free will.''
Mosheim's Eccles. Hist. vol. ii. p. 103 ; see also p. 100 ; and Carwithen's Hist, of the
Church of England, vol. i. p. 552.
71 ET*,*^"^ *® Manichsean origin of Augustin's opinions, compare Potter, Esprit de
lEghse, vol. ii. p. 171, Paris, 1821 ; Tomline's Refutation of Calvinism, 1817, pp.
671-576; Southey's Book of the Church, 1824, vol. i. p. 301, 302: Matter, Hist, du
Gnosticisme, 1828, vol. i. p. 325. However, Beausobre {Histoire de Maniehee, vol. ii.
that of B Td"^ *° '^'^"^ proved a difference between the election of Augustin and
nf »noh° ^^^ ^bsur<Jity of "an omnipotent arbitrary Deity," and on the incongruity
T^Tak J?™*'"'i>'t;?.i-«'ith <pio-« Kc,\bv Ko! S/k-o,,, see Cndwm-th's Intellect. Syst. vol.
vol Vi no 147°i:i9"- P-.^l^'/°i- '"; P; "S: ^"" ''^^ Theodicee in Kant's Werhe,
I^LrVl^oi • ' * ' ^°'i ^««'»P%»«* d^r Sitten, in vol. v. p. 332, upon "den gott-
lichen Zweck m Ansehung des menschhchen Geschlechts." ^ ' ^ ^^ S"""

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 11
away with our consciousness of possessing a free will. ' ' Now the
existence of this supreme jurisdiction, which is thus to set at
defiance all the ordinary methods of reasoning, involves two as
sumptions : of which the first, though possibly true, has never
heen proved; and the other is unquestionably false. These as
sumptions are, that there is an independent faculty, called con
sciousness, and that the dictates of that faculty are infallible.
But, in the first place, it is by no means certain that conscious
ness is a faculty ; and sbme of the ablest thinkers have heen of
opinion that it is merely a state or condition of the mind.'=
Should this turn out to be the case, the argument falls to the
ground; since, even if we admit that all the faculties of the
mind, when completely exercised, are equaUy accurate, no one
¦wUl make the same claim for every condition into which the mind
itself may be casuaUy thrown. However, waiving this objection,
we may, in the second place, reply, that even if consciousness is
a faculty, we have the testimony of all history to prove its ex
treme falUbiUty." AU the great stages through which, in the
" Johnson said to Boswell, " Sir, we know our will is free, and there's an end
on't." Boswell's lAfe of Johnson, edit. Croker, 1848, p. 203. "La question:
Sommes nous Ubres ? me paraft au-dessous de la discussion. EUe est rfisolue par le
tilmoignage de la conscience attestant que dans certains cas nous pourrions faire le
contraire de ce que nous faisons." Cousin, Hist, de la Philosophie, I. S^rie, vol. i. pp.
190, 191. "Die Freiheit des Menschen, als moralischen Wesens, griindet sich auf
das sittliche Bewuastseyn." Tennemann, Gesch. der Philosophie, vol. v. p. 161 . That
this is the only ground for believing in the freedom of the will is so evident, that we
need not notice the mystical proof of Philo {Hitter's Ancient Philosophy, vol. iv. p.
447) ; nor the physical one of the Basilidian monads {Beausobre, Hist de Maniehee,
vol. ii. p. 23) ; stiU less the argument of Bardesanes, who thought to demonstrate
freedom by the variety of human customs ! Matter, Hist du Gnosticisme, vol. i. p.
323, which should be compared with Burdach's Physiologie comme Science d' Observa
tion, vol. V. p. 50, Paris, 1839.
'' Mr. James MiU {Analysis of the Mind, vol. i. pp. 171, 172) says that conscious
ness and beUef are the same, and that great error has arisen from calling " con
sciousness a feeling distinct from aU other feelings." According to Locke {Essay
concerning Human Understanding, book ii. chap, i.. Works, vol. i. p. 89) "conscious
ness is the perception of what passes in a man's own mind." Brown {Philosophy of
the Mind, pp. 67, 68) denies that consciousness is a faculty : and Sir W. Hamilton
complains of "Eeid's degradation of consciousness into a special faculty." Notes to
Heid's Works, pp. 223, 297, 373. M. Cousin (Hist, de la Philosophie, II. S^rie, vol.
i. p. 131) pronounces consciousness to be " phlnom&ne complexe ;" and at p. 94 "la
condition n^cessaire de I'inteUigence c'est la conscience ;" while a still later writer
{Jobert's New System of Philosophy, vol. i. p. 25) declares that " we have the con
sciousness of our consciousnesi) — this is certain." The statement in Alciphron,
Dialogue vii. {Berkeley's Works, vol. i. pp. 505, 506) is equaUy unsatisfactory: and
what StiU further perplexes the question is the existence of what is now recognised
as "double consciousness." See on this extraordinary phenomenon Elliotson's
Physiology.,j^p.~3fi'J-369, 1165 ; Mayo's Physiology, pp. 195, 196 ; Prichard' s Treatise
on Insanity, pp. 450, 451 ; Carpenter's Human Physiology, p. 379.
" This requires explanation. Consciousness is infallible as to the fact of its
testimony ; but falUble as to the truth. That we are conscious of certain phenomena,
is a proof that those phenomena exist in the mind, or are presented to it ; but to say
that this demonstrates the truth of the phenomena is to go a step further, and not
only offer a testimony, but also pass a judgment. The moment we do this, we intro-

13 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
progress of civiUzation, the human race has successively passed^
have heen characterized by certain mental pecuUarities or con
victions, which have left their impress upon the reUgion, the
philosophy, and the morals of the age. Each of these convic
tions has been to one period a matter of faith, to another a mat
ter for derison ;'^ and each of them has, in its own epoch, been
as intimately bound up with the minds of men, |pd become as
much a part of their consciousness, as is that opinion which we
now term freedom of the wiU. Yet it is impossible that all
these products of consciousness can be true, "because many of
them contradict each other. Unless, therefore, in different ages
there are different standards of truth, it is clear that the testi
mony of man's consciousness is no proof of an opinion being true;
for if it were so, then two propositions diametrically opposed to
each other might both be equally accurate. Besides this, another
view may be drawn from the common operations of ordinary
Ufe. Are we not in certain circumstances conscious of the ex
istence of spectres and phantoms ; and yet is it not generaUy ad
mitted that such beings have no existence at aU ? Should it be
attfempted to refute this argument by saying that such conscious
ness is apparent and not real, then I ask. What is it that judges
between 'the consciousness which is genuine and that which is
spurious ? '' If this boasted faculty deceives us in some things,
duce the element of falUbUlty ; because consciousness and judgment put together
cannot be always right, inasmuch as judgment is often wrong.
The late Blanco White, a thinker of considerable subtlety, says : " The important
distinction between libertas a necessitate and libertas a coactione, is seldom attended
to. Nothing whatever can force my will ; every man is more or less conscious of
that fact : but at the same time we are, or may be, equally conscious that we are
never decided without a motive." Life of B. White, by Himself, 1845, vol. iii. p. 90.
But how can a man be conscious that " nothing whatever can force his will?" This
is not consciousness, but judgment : it is a judgment of what may be, not a con
sciousness of what is. If there is any meaning in the word 'consciousness,' it must
refer solely to the present, and can never include future contingencies as to what
may be or can be.
" As Herder says, " Was diese Nation ihrem Gedankenkreise unent behrUchhalt,
daran hat jene nie gedacht oder halt es gar fur schadlich." Ideen zur Gesch. der
Menschheit, vol. ii. p. 130.
" Plato was struck by the extreme difficulty of finding a, standard iu the human
mind whereby we may test the truth or falsehood of spectral phenomena and dreams.
And the only conclusion to which this consummate thinker could arrive was, that
whatever appears true to the individual mind is true for him : which, however, is an
evasion of the problem, not a solution of it. See the Thesetetus, -where Plato, as
usual, puts his own speculations into the mouth of Socrates. He opens the question
at the beginning of sec. 39 {Platonis Opera, vol. ui. p. 426, edit. Bekker, London,
1826), M}) Toivuv cLTToKi-iruiiev 'iaov iXKit-Kov ah-rov. AeiVcrai 6f ivtj-rvioiv re iripi Kal
vdaav, ruv re i,\\uv Kal jiavia^, &c. These are the supposed sources of error ; but
Socrates, after discussing them, and entangling Theaitetua in a maze, sums up at the
end oi sec. 45, p. 434, a\,,6),s &pa itwi r, €>i, cXaditais. See further p. 515, on the
lormatiou oi erroneous judgments ; and respecting the assertions made by many of
tuelrreeks that wSo-a <^avraA!'m &\n0^f and naa-a Bd|a ctX7)e5)i, compare Cudworth, rol,
in. p. 379, vol. IV. p. 118. For physiological considerations concerning the preser-

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 13
what security have we that it wUl not deceive us in others ? If
there is no security, the faculty is not trustworthy. If there is
a security, then, whatever it may be, its existence shows the
necessity for some authority to which consciousness is subordinate,
and thus does away with that doctrine of the supremacy of con
sciousness, on which the advocates of free wiU are compelled to
construct the whole of their theory. Indeed, the uncertainty as
to the existence of consciousness as an independent faculty, and
the manner in which that faculty, if it exists, has contra
dicted its own suggestions, are two of the many reasons which
have long since convinced me that metaphysics wiU never be raised
to a science by the ordinary method of observing .indi'vidual
minds; (^ but that its study can only be successfully prosecuted
hy the deductive appUcation of laws which must be discovered
historically, that is to say, which must be evolved by an examina
tion of the whole of those vast phenomena which the long course
of human affairs presents to our -view.
Fortunately, however, for the object of this work, the heUever
in the possibility of a science of history is not caUed upon to hold
either the doctrine of predestined events, or that of freedom of
the wUl ;" and the only positions which, in this stage of tjie in
quiry, I shaU expect him to concede are the following: That
when we perform an action, we perform it in consequence of some
motive or motives; that those motives are the results of some
antecedents; and that, therefore, if we were acquainted with the
whole of the antecedents, and with aU the laws of their move
ments, we could with unerring certainty predict the whole of
their immediate results. This, unless I am greatly mistaken, is
the 'view which must be held by every man whose mind is un-
vation of consciousness in dreams and in insanity, see Broussais, Examen des Doc
trines Medicales, vol. i. p. 406 ; his Cours de Phrenologie, p. 49 ; Esquirol, Maladies
Mentales, vol. i. p. 97, vol. ii. p. 790 ; Simon's Pathology, p. 204 ; Holland's Medical
Notes, p. 434 ; Henle, Anatomie Generale, vol. ii. p. 287 ; Burdach, Traite de Physi
ologie, vol. V. p. 223. See, too, the passages in Tennemann which connect this diffi
culty with the theory of representation {Geschichte der Philosophic, vol. i. p. 357, vol.
ii. pp. 119, 159, vol. iii. p. 406, vol. iv. p. 418) ; and the attempt of Berkeley ( IForAs,
vol. i. pp. 93, 101, 176) to turn it into a defence of his own system, ou the ground
that our beUef respecting the external world may be as false when we are awake as
when we dream. The solution offered by the Stoics is merely a verbal and unproved
distinction : dioupepet 5e (pavraaia Kal (pdvrafffia' tpdyraa-fia fiev yap iari B6K7]<ris Siavoias
o'ia. yiifirai Kara touj v-irvovs' fpavraaia Se iari r-imuxns iv ^VXV rovreirriv aWolatiTi^, oiy
& XpiKFi-invos iy r^ SvuBe'ciirri trepl ^vxv^ ufpicrrarat. Diog. Laert. de Vitis Philos. lib.
vii. segm. 50, vol. i. p. 395.
" Meaning by free wiU, a cause of action residing iu the mind, and exerting itself
independently of motives. If any one says that we have this power of acting with
out motives, but that in the practical exercise of the power we are always guided by
motives either conscious or 'Unconscious, — if any one says this, he asserts a barren
proposition, which does not interfere with my views, and which may or may not bp
true, but which most assuredly no one has ever yet succeeded in proving.

14 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
biased by system, and who forms his opinions according to the
evidence actuaUy before him.'' If, for example, I am intimately
acquainted with the character of any person, I can frequently tell
how he wiU act under some given circumstances. Should I fail
in this prediction, I must ascribe my error not to the arbitrary
and capricious freedom of his wiU, nor to any supernatural pre-
arrangement, for of neither of these things have we the sUghtest
proof, hut I must be content to suppose either that I had been
misinformed as to some of the circumstances in which he was
placed, or else that I had not sufficiently studied the ordinary
operations of his mind. If, however, I were capable of correct
reasoning, and if, at the same time, I had a complete knowledge
both of his disposition and of all the events hy which he was sur
rounded, I should be able to foresee the line of conduct which,
in consequence of those events, he would adopt."
Kejecting, then, the metaphysical dogma of free yyill, and the
theological dogma of predestined events," we are driven to the
conclusion that the actions of men, being determined solely by
their antecedents, must have a character of uniformity, that is
" That is, according to the phenomenal evidence presented to the understand
ing, an^d estimated by the ordinary logic with which the understanding is conversant.
But Kant has made a most remarkable attempt to avoid the practical consequences
of this, by asserting that freedom, being an idea produced by the reason, must be
referred to transcendental laws of the reason ; that is, to laws which are removed
from the domain of experience, and cannot be verified by observation. In regard,
however, to the scientific conceptions of the understanding (as distinguished from the
Eeason) he fuUy admits the existence of a Necessity destructive of Liberty. In Note
A, at the end of this chapter, I shaU put together the most important passages iu
which Kant unfolds thjs view.
" This is, of course, an hypothetical case, merely given as an illustration. We
never can know the whole of any man's antecedents, or even the whole of our own ;
but it is certain that the nearer we approach to a complete knowledge of the antece
dent, the more Ukely we shall be to predict the consequent.
"° The doctrine of providential interference is bound up with that of predestina
tion, because the Deity, foreseeing all things, must have foreseen His own intention
to interfere. To deny this foresight, is to Emit the omniscience of God. Those,
therefore, who hold that, in particular cases, a special providence interrupts the or
dinary course of events, must also hold that in each case the interruption had been
predestined ; otherwise they impeach one of the Divine attributes. For, as Thomas
Aquinas puts it {Neander's History of the Church, vol. vni. p. 176), " knowledge, as
kno-wledge, does not imply, indeed, causaUty ; but in so far as it is a knowledge be
longing to the artist who forms, it stands in the relation of causality to that which
is produced by his art."
The same argument is stated by Alciphron, though not quite so conclusively ;
Dialogue, yu. sec. 20 iu Berkeley's Works, vol i. p. 515 : and as to the impossibiUty
of Omniscience having new knowledge or an afterthought, see Hitclhcock's Religion ,
of Geology, 1851, pp. 267, 328 ; an ingenious work, but one which leaves aU the
real difficulties untouched. Compare Ritter's Hist, of Ancient Philos. vol. iv. pp.
326, 327, with Tennemann, Gesch. der Philos. vol. vi. pp. 151, 342-345, vol. ix. pp.
81-94, vol. xi. p. 178; and in particular, the question raised (vol. viii. p. 242) "Ob
das Vorherwissen Gottes die Ursache der kiinftigen Dinge sey, oder nicht." It was
to meet all this, that some asserted the eternity of matter, and others the existence
ot two original principles, one good and one evil. Beausobre, Histoire de Manichk,
vol. 11. pp. 145, 146, 252, 336.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 15
to say, must, under precisely the same circumstances, always
issue in precisely the same results. And as all antecedents are
either in the mind or out of it, we clearly see that all tho varia
tions in the results — in other words, all the changes of which his
tory is full, all the vicissitudes of the human race, their progress
or their decay, their happiness or their misery — must be the fruit
of a double action; an action of external phenomena upon the
mind, and another action of the mind upon the phenomena.
These are the materials out of which a philosophic history
can alone be constructed. On the one hand, we have the human
mind obeying the laws of its own existence, and, when uncon-
troUed hy external agents, developing itself according to the
conditions of its organization. On the other hand, we have
what is caUed Nature, obeying lUfewise its laws; but incessantly
coming into contact with the minds of men, exciting their pas
sions, stimulating their inteUect, and therefore giving to their
actions a direction which they would not have taken without
such disturbance. Thus we have man modifying nature,; and
nature modifying man; whUe out of this reciprocal modification
aU events must necessarily spring.
The problem immediately before us, is to ascertain the meth
od of discovering the laws of this double modification : and
this, as we shaU presently see, leads us into a preUminary inqui
ry as to which of the two modifications is the more important;
that is to say, whether the thoughts and desires of men are more
influenced by physical phenomena, or whether the physical phe
nomena are more influenced hy them. For it is e'vident that
whichever class is the more active, should if possible be studied
hefore the other ; and this, partly hecause its results will be
more prominent, and therefore more easy to observe; and partly
because by first generaUzing the laws of the greater power we
shaU leave a smaUer residue of unexplained facts than if we had
begun by generaUzing the laws of the lesser power. But before
entering into this examination, it wUl be convenient to state
some of the most decisive proofs we now possess of the regularity
¦with which mental phenomena succeed each other. By this
means the preceding views wUl be considerably strengthened;
and we shaU, at the same time, be ahle to see what those re
sources are which have heen already employed in elucidating
this great subject.
That thei results actually effected are extremely valuable, is
evident not only from the wide surface which the generaUzations
cover, but also from the extraordinaiy precautions with which
they have heen made. For while most moral inquiries have de
pended on some theological or metaphysical hypothesis, the in-

16 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
vestigations to which I aUude are exclusively inductive ; they
are based on coUections of almost innumerable facts, extending
over many countries, thrown into the clearest of all forms, the
form of arithmetical tables ; and finally, they have been put to
gether by men who, being for the most part mere government
officials,^" had no particular theory to maintain, and no interest
in distorting the truth of the reports they were directed to
make. The most comprehensive inferences respecting the actions of
men, which are admitted by aU parties as incontestable truths,
are derived from this or from analogous sources; they rest on statis
tical evidence, and are expressed in mathematical langiiagej Aiid
whoever is aware of how much has been discovered by this single
method, must not only recognise the uniformity with which
mental phenomena succeed each other, but must, I think, feel
sanguine that stUl more important discoveries will be made, feo
soon as there are brought into play those other powerful re
sources which even the present state of knowledge yyUl abun
dantly supply. Without, however, anticipating future inquiries,
we are, for the moment, only concerned with those proofs of the
existence of a uniformity in human affairs which statisticians
have been the first to bring forward.
The actions of men are by an easy and obvious di-yision sepa
rated into two classes, the virtuous and the vicious ; and as these
classes are correlative, and when put together compose the total
of our moral conduct, it foUows that whatever increases the one,
will in a relative point of 'view diminish the other ; so that if we
can in any period detect a uniformity and a method in the vices
of a people, there must he a corresponding regularity in their
virtues ; or if we could prove a regularity in their virtues, we
should necessarUy infer an equal regularity in their vices ; the
two sets of actions being, according to the terms of the division,
merely supplementary to each other." Or, to express this pro
position in another way, it is evident that if it can he demon
strated that the bad actions of men vary in obedience to the
'" Dufau, Traite de Statistique, pp. 75, 148.
• Jfe Some moralists have also estabUshed a third class of actions, which they caU
inditterent, as belonging neither to virtue nor to vice ; and hence there arose the fa-
"t?" 1 ^''v"°^ °^ probability, set up by several eminent Romish casuists, and hotly
attacked by Pascal. But this, if we put aside its worst feature, namely its practical
iVnn ftft'v,'^™r ?u l^'t^*'"" of definition; inasmuch as every indifferent act must
esorv to whtif -i^^V^ ^""^ °J °^ ^°P^' ^""^ "^y therefore be referred to the cat-
riatfvelv tlioll? '"." ,°'' ' ^l^ certainly every increase of vice diminishes virtue
TscMsm on thf« r- f''^r''''''°^^'^T- .^?°°ethe Greek philosophers there was
a scmsm on this point: 'Ap4o-K,i Sh airoTs (i. e. Stoics) ^l.¦«Sh a4,rov^hat fioeTSr Kal
DitLlZy.VP^'^r, ^^7«* *''"^' "«' '"'^"^ iahly7ZZr7p TpZX
Diog. Laert. de Vitis Philosophorum, lib. vii. segm. 127, vol. i. p.445. '''""""''"'•

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 17
changes in the surrounding society, we shall he obliged to infer
that then- good actions, which are, as it were, the residue of their
bad ones, vary in the same manner ; and we shaU be forced to
the fiirther conclusion, that such variations are the result of large
and general causes, which, working upon the aggregate of socie
ty, must produce certain consequences, without regard to the
volition of those particular men of whom the society is com
posed. Such is the regularity we expect to find, if the actions of men
are governed by the state of the society in which they occur ;
whUe, on the other hand, if we can find no such regularity, we
may heUeve that their actions depend on some capricious and
personal principle pecuUar to each man, as free wUl or the Uke.
It becomes, therefore, in the highest degree important to ascer
tain whether or not there exists a regularity in the entire moral
conduct of a given society ; and this is precisely one of those
questions for the decision of which statistics supply us with ma-r
terials of immense value.
For the main object of legislation being to protect the inno
cent against the guilty, it naturaUy foUowed that European gov
ernments, so soon as they became aware of the importance of
statistics, should begin to coUect evidence respecting the crimes
they were expected to punish. This evidence has gone on accu
mulating, untU it now forms of itself a large body of literature,
containing, with the commentaries connected with it, an im
mense array of facts, so carefully compUed, g,nd so well and
clearly, digested, that more may be learned from it respecting the
moral nature of Man than can be gathered from aU the accumu
lated experience of preceding ages.'''' But as it wUl he im
possible in this Introduction to give any thing Uke a complete
statement of those inferences which, in the actual state of statis
tics, we are authorized to draw, I shall content myself with ex
amining two or three of the most important, and pointing out
the connexion between them.
Of aU offences, it might weU be supposed that the crime of
murder is one of the most arbitrary and irregular. For when we
" I say this advisedly : and whoever has examined these subjects must be aware
of the way in which writers on morals repeat the commonplace and hackneyed no
tion of their predecessors ; so that a man, after reading every thing that has been
written on moral conduct and moral philosophy, wiU find himself nearly as much iu
the dark as when his studies first began. The most accurate investigators of the
human mind have hitherto been the poets, particularly Homer and Shakspeare ; but
these extraordinary observers mainly occupied themselves with the concrete phe
nomena of life ; and if they analyzed, as they probably did, they have concealed
the steps of the process, so that now we can only verify their conclusions empiri-
caUy. The great advance made by the statisticians consists in applying to these in
quiries the doctrine of averages, which no one thought of doing before the eighteenth
century. VOL. I. — 2

18 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
consider that this, though generaUy the crowning act of a long
career of vice, is often the immediate result of what seems a sud
den impulse ; that when premeditated, its committal, even with
the least chance of impunity, requires a rare combination of favor*
able circumstances for which the criminal wiU frequently wait ;
that he has thus to bide his time, and look for opportunities he
cannot control ; that when the time has come, his heart may fail
him ;. that the question whether or not he shaU commit the
crime may depend on a balance of conflicting motives, such as
fear of the law, a dread of the penalties held out hy religion, the
prickings of his own conscience, the apprehensions of future re
morse, the love of gain, jealousy, revenge, desperation ; — ^when
we put aU these things together, there arises such a compUca-
tion of causes, that we might reasonably despair of detecting any
order or method in the result of those subtle and shifting agen^
cies hy which murder is either caused or prevented. But now,
how stands the fact ? The fact is, that murder is committed
¦with as much regiUarity, and hears as uniform a relation to cer
tain known circumstances, as do the movements of the tides,
and the rotations of the seasons. M. Quetelet, who has spent
his life in coUecting and methodizing the statistics of different
countries, states, as the result of his laborious researches, that
" in every thing which concerns crime, the same numbers re-oc
cur with a constancy which cannot he mistaken ; and that this
is the case even with those crimes which seem quite independent
of human foresight, such, for instance, as murders, which are
generally committed after quarrels arising from circumsitances
apparently casual. Nevertheless, we know from experience that
every year there not only take place nearly the same number of
murders, but that even the instruments by which they are com
mitted are employed in the same proportion.""^ This was the
language used in 1835 hy confessedly the first statistician in
Europe, and every subsequent investigation has confirmed its
accuracy. ITor later inquiries have ascertained the extraordi
nary fact, that the uniform reproduction of crime is more clearly
marked, and more capable of being predicted, than are the phys
ical laws connected with the disease and destruction of our
'" " Dans tout ce quije rapporte aux crimes, les m^mes nombres se reproduisent
avec une Constance teUe, qu'U serait impossible de la m^connaftre, m^me pour ceux
des crimes qui sembleraient devoir ichapper le plus i toute provision humaine, tels
que les meurtres, puisqu'ils se commettent, eu g^nfiral, a la suite de rixes qui nais-
sent sans motifs, et dans les circonstances, en apparence, les plus fortuites. Cepen-
dant I'expSrience prouve que non-seulement les meurtres sont annueUement h peu
pr^s en mfeme nombre, mais encore que les instrumens qui servent a les commettre
sont employes dans les mfimes proportions." Quetelet mr VHmnme, Paris, 1836,
vol. i. p. 7 ; see also vol. ii. pp. 164, 247.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 19
bodies. Thus, for instance, the number of persons accused of
crime in France between 1826 and 1844 was, by a singular coin
cidence, about equal to the male deaths which took place in
Paris during the same period, the difference being that the fluc
tuations in the amount of crime were actually smaUer than the
fluctuations in the mortality ; whUe a simUar regularity was ob
served in each separate offence, aU of which obeyed the same law
of uniform and periodical repetition.'*
This, indeed, yrill appear strange to those who heUeve that
human actions depend more on the pecuUarities of each individ
ual than on the general state of society. But another circum
stance remains behind stUl more striking. Among puhUc and
registered crimes, there is none which seems so completely de
pendent on the individual as suicide. Attempts to murder or to
rob may be, and constantly are, successfuUy resisted ; baffled
sometimes by the party attacked, sometimes by the officers of
justice. But an attempt to commit suicide is much less liable
to interruption. The man who is determined to kiU himself, is
not prevented at the last moment by the struggles of an enemy ;
and as he can easUy guard against the interference of the civU
power," his act becomes as it were isolated ; it is cut off from
foreign disturbances, and seems more clearly the product of his
ovm voUtion than any other offence could possibly be. We may
"* "Thus, in twenty years' observations, the number of persons accused of vari
ous crimes in France, and registered under their respective ages, scarcely varies at
any age from year to year, comparing the proportion per cent, under each age with
the totals. The number of persons accused in aU France, iu the years 1826 to 1844,
was about equal to the deaths of males registered in Paris ; but singularly enough,
the former results are more regular than the latter, notwithstanding the accidental
causes which might affect them ; — notwithstanding even a revolution in Paris, which
convulsed society and brought in a new dynasty." Brown on the Uniform Action
of the Human Will, in The Assurance Magazine, no. viii. July, 1852, pp. 849, 360.
That the variations in crime are less than those of mortaUty, is also noticed in Sta-
tistigriK Morale, pp. 18, 34, inMlmoires de PAcademie deBelgique, vol. xxi. BruxeUes,
1848, 4to.
^ Thp folly of lawgivers thinking that by their enactments they can diminish
suicide, is exposed by M. C. Comte in his Traite de Legislation, vol. i. p. 486. See
also some good remarks by Jefferson, in his observations on Criminal Law, in Ap
pendix to Jefferson's Memoirs, by Randolph, vol. i. pp. 126, 127. Heber {Jowneu
through India, vol. i. pp. 389, 390) found that the EngUsh Government had vainly
attempted to check the suicides frequently committed at Benares by drowning ;'
and iu our country the interference of legislators is met by the perjury of jurors,
since, as Bentham says, English juries do not hesitate to violate their oaths by de
claring the suicide to be non compos. Principles of Penal Law, in Bentham's
Works, edit. Bowring, 1843, vol. i. pp. 479, 480. In regard to the determination of
the individual, and the impossibUity of baffling his intention, there are cases re
corded of persons who, being deprived of the ordinary means of destruction, put
au end to Ufe by holding their breath ; whUe others effected their purpose by turn
ing back their tongue so as to exclude air from the larynx. Mliotson's Simian
Physiology, pp. 491, 492.

20 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
also add that, unlike crimes in general, it is rarely caused by the
instigation of confederates ; so that men, not being goaded into
it by their companions, are uninfluenced by one great class of
external associations which might hamper what is termed the
freedom of their 'wUL It may, therefore, very naturally be
thought impracticable to refer suicide to general principles, or to
detect any thing Uke regularity in an offence which is so eccentric,
so soUtary, so impossible to control by legislation, and which the
most vigilant poUce can do nothing to diminish. There is also an
other obstacle that impedes our view ; this is, that even the best
evidence respecting suicide must always be very imperfect. In
cases of drowning, for example, deaths are liable to be returned
as suicides which are accidental ; while, on the other hand, some
are caUed accidental which are voluntary."* Thus it is, that self-
murder seems to he not only capricious and uncontroUahle, hut
also very obscure in regard to proof ; so that on aU these grounds
it might he reasonable to despair of ever tracing it to those gen
eral causes hy which it is produced.
These being the peculiarities of this singular crime, it is
surely an astonishing fact, that aU the evidence we possess re
specting it points to one great conclusion, and can leave no doubt
on our minds that suicide is merely the product of the general
condition of society, and that the individual felon only carries
into effect what is a necessary consequence of preceding circum
stances."' In a given state of society, a certain number of per
sons must put an end to their own life. This is the general
law ; and the special question as to who shaU commit the crime
depends of course upon special laws ; which, however, in their
total action, raust obey the large social law to which they are
aU subordinate. And the power of the larger law is so irresisti
ble, that neither the love of life nor the fear of another world can
avail any thing towards even checking its operation. The causes
of this remarkable regularity I shaU hereafter examine ; but the
•
"" This also applies to other cases besides those of drowning. See Taylor's Med
ical Jurisprudence, 1846, pp. 587, 597 ; and on the difficulty of always distinguish
ing a real suicide from an apparent one, see Esquirol, Maladies Mentales, vol i. p. 575.
From a third to a half of aU suicides are by drowning. Compare Dufau, Traiti de
Statistique,^. 804; Winslam's Anatomy of Suicide, ISiO, p. 211 ; Quetelet, Statis
tique Morale, p. 66. But among these, many are no doubt involuntary ; and it is
certain that popular opinion grossly exagg^rate3 the length of time during which it is
possible to remain under water. Brodie's Surgery, 1846, pp. 89-92.
Tout semble dfipendre de causes dStermin^es. Ainsi, nous trouvons annueUe
ment &. peu pr^s le mfime nombre de suicides, non-seulement en general, mais encore
en faisaut la distinction des sexes, ceUe des ages, ou meme ceUe des instruments em-
f ^ZT"^ ^? d^truire. Une ann^e reproduit si fid61ement Ies chiffres de I'annfie qui
a pr6c6d6, qu on pent pr^voir ce- qui doit arriver dans Tanufe qui va suivre." Quetelet,
btatistique Morale, 1848, p. 35 ; see also p. 40.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 21
existence of the regularity is familiar to whoever is conversapt
vfith. moral statistics. In the different countries for which we
have returns, we find year by year the same proportion of persons
putting an end to their own existence ; bo that, after making al
lowance for the impossibiUty of coUecting complete evidence, we
are ahle to predict, yrithin a very smaU limit of error, the num
ber of voluntary deaths for each ensuing period ; supposing, of
course, that the social circumstances do not undergo any marked
change. Even in London, notwithstanding the 'vicissitudes in
cidental to the largest and most luxurious capital in the world,
we find a regularity greater than could he expected hy the most
sanguine heUever in social laws ; since poUtical excitement, mer-
cantUe excitement, and the misery produced hy the deamess of
food, are aU causes of suicide, and are aU constantly varying."'
Nevertheless, in this vast metropolis, about 240 persons every
year make away vrith themselves ; the annual suicides osciUat-
ing, from the pressure of temporary causes, between 266, the
highest, and 213, the lowest. In 1846, which was the great
year of excitement caused hy the railway panic, the suicides in
London were 266 ; in 1847 began a sUght improvement, and
they fell to 256 ; in 1848 they were 247 ; in 1849 they were
213 ; and in 1850 they were 229."
Such is some, and only some, of the evidence we now
possess respecting the, regularity with which, in the same states
of society, the same crimes are necessarUy reproduced. To ap
preciate the full force of this evidence, we must remember that
it is not an arbitrary selection of particular facts, but that it is
generalized from an exhaustive statement of criminal statistics,
consisting of many mUUons of observations, extending over coun
tries in different grades of civiUzation, with different laws, differ
ent opinions, different morals, different habits. If we add to
this, that these statistics have heen coUected by persons speciaUy
employed for that purpose, with every means of arriving at the
truth, and with no interest to deceive, it surely must be admit
ted that the existence of crime, according to a fixed and uniform
" On the causes of suicides. Bee Burdach's Traiti de Physiologie, voh v. pp. 476-
478 ; and Fm-ry's Climate and its Endemic Influences, p. 329. The latest researches
of M. Casper confirm the statement of earlier statisticians, that suicide is more fre
quent among Protestants than among Catholics. Casper, Denkwurdigkeiten zur
tnedicinischen Statistik, Berlin, 1846, p. 139.
™ See the tables in 7%e Assurance Magazine, no. iv. p. 309, no. v. p. 34, no. viii.
p. 350. These are the only complete consecutive returns of London suicides yet
published; those issued by the police being imperfect. _ Assurance Magazine,' uo. v.
p. 53. From inquiries made for me at the General Eegister Office, in January, 1856,
I learnt that there was an intention of completing the yearly returns, but I do not
know if this has since been done.

32 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
scjieme, is a fact more clearly attested than any other in the
moral history of man. We have here paraUel chains of evidence
formed yrith extreme care, under the most different circum
stances, and all pointing in the same direction ; aU of them
forcing us to the conclusion, that the offences of men are the re
sult not so much of the vices of the individual offender as of the
state of society into which that individual is throym.'" This is
an inference resting on broad and tangible proofs accessible to all
the world ; and as such cannot be overturned, or even impeach
ed, hy any of those hypotheses with which metaphysicians and
theologians have hitherto perplexed the study of past events.
Those readers who are acquainted with the manner in which
in the physical world the operations of the laws of nature are
constantly disturbed, wUl expect to find in the moral world dis
turbances equaUy active. Such aberrations proceed, in both in
stances, from minor laws, which at particular points meet the
larger laws, and thus alter their normal action. Of this, the science
of mechanics affords a good example in the instance of that beauti
ful theory caUed the paraUelogram of forces ; according to which
the forces are to each other in the same proportion as is the di
agonal of their respective parallelograms.^' This is a law preg- "
nant with great results ; it is connected with those important
mechanical resources, the composition and resolution of forces ;
and no one acquainted with the e'vidence on which it stands,
ever thought of questioning its truth. But the moment we
avaU ourselves of it for practical purposes, we find that in its ac
tion it is warped by other laws, such as those concerning the
friction of air, and the different density of the bodies on which
we operate, arising from their chemical composition, or, as some
suppose, from their atomic arrangement. Perturbations being
thus let in, the pure and simple action of the mechanical law
disappears. StUl, and although the results of the law are inces
santly disturbed, the law itself remains intact.'" Just in the
same way, the great social law, that the moral actions of men
are the product not of their volition, hut of their antecedents, is
_ ™ L'exp^rience d^montre en effet, avec toute T6vidence possible, cette opinion,
qui pourra sembler paradoxale au premier abord, que c'esi la societe qui prepare le
crime, et que le coupable n'est que I'instrument qui ^execute." Quetelet sur PHomme,
vol. ii. p. 325.
"The diagonal always giving the resultant when each side represents a force ;
and if we look on the resultant as a compound force, a comparison of diagonals be-
""""f/ "¦ comparison of compounds.
A law of nature being merely a generalization of relations, and having no ex
istence exc«pt in the mind, is essentiaUy intangible ; and therefore, however small
tne law may be, it can never admit of exceptions, though its operation may admit of
innumerable exceptions. Hence, as Dugald Stewart {Philosophy of the Mind, vol. ii.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 23
itself liable to disturbances which trouble its operation without
affecting its truth. And this is quite sufficient to explain those
slight variations which we find from year to year in the total
amount of crime produced by the same country. Indeed, look
ing at the fact that the moral world is far more abundant in
materials than the physical world, the only ground for astonish
ment is, that these variations should not be greater ; and from
the circumstance that the discrepancies are so trifling, we may
form some idea of the prodigious energy of those vast social laws,
which, though constantly interrupted, seem to triumph over
every obstacle, and which, when examined hy the aid of large
numbers, scarcely undergo any sensible perturbation."
Nor is it merely the crimes of men which are marked by this
uniformity of sequence. Even the number of marriages annu-
aUy contracted, is determined, not hy the temper and wishes of
individuals, hut by large general facts, over which individuals
can exercise no authority. It is now known that marriages bear
a fixed and definite relation to the price of corn ;^* and in Eng
land the experience of a century has proved that, instead of
p. 211) rightly says, we can only refer to the laws of nature " by a sort of figure or
metaphor." This is constantly lost aght of even by authors of repute ; some of
whom apeak of laws as if they were causes, and therefore Uable to interruption by
larger causes ; while other writers pronounce them to be " delegated agencies" from
the Deity. Compare Prout's Bridgewater Treatise, pp. 318, 435, 495 ; Sadler's Law
of Population, voh ii. p. 67 ; BurdacKs Physiologie, vol. i. p. 160. Mr. Paget, in his
able work. Lectures on Pathology, vol. i. p. 481, vol. U. p. 542, with much greater
accuracy caUs such cases " apparent exceptions" to laws ; but it would be better to aay,
" exceptions to the operations of laws." The context clearly proves that Mr. Paget
distinctly apprehends the difference ; but a aUght alteration of thia kind would prevent
confuaion in the minds of ordinary readers.
'' Mr. Eawson, in his Inquiry into the Statistics of Crime in England and Wales
(pnbUshed in the Journal of the Statistical Society, vol. H. pp. 316-S44), says, p. 327,
"No greater proof can be given of the poaaibiUty of arriving at certain constants
with regard to crime, than the fact which appears in the following table, that the
greateat variation which has taken place during the last three years, in the propor
tion of any class of criminals at the same period of Ufe, has not exceeded a half per
cent." See also Report of Briiish Association for 1839, Transac. of Sec., jp. 118. —
Indeed aU writers who have examined the evidence are forced to admit this regular
ity, however they may wish to explain it. M. Dufau {Traite de Statistique, p. 144)
says, " Les faits de I'ordre moral sont, auasi bien que ceux de I'ordre naturel, le pro-
duit de causes conatantes et rdgulifirea," &c. ; and at p. 367, " C'est ainsi que le monde
moral se presente k nous, de ce point de vue, comme offrant, de mSme que le monde
physique, un ensemble continu d'effets dus a des causes constantea et r^uUferea,
don il appartient surtout ^la statistique de constater Taction." See to the same ef
fect Moreau-Christophe des Prisons en France, Paris, 1838, pp. 53, 189.
^ " It is curious to observe how intimate a relation exists between the price of
food and the number of marriages." .... " The relation that subsists between
the price of food and the number of marriages is not confined to our own country ;
and it is not improbable that, had we the means of ascertaining the facts, we should
see the Uke result in every civiUzed community. We possess the necessary returns
from France, and these fuUy bear out the view that has been given." Porter's Pro
gress of the Nation, vol. ii. pp. 444, 245, London, 1838.

24 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
having any connexion 'with personal feeUngs, they are simply
regulated by the average earnings of the great mass of the peo
ple :'^ so that this immense social and religious institution is
not only swayed, hut is completely controlled, hy the price of
food and hy the rate of wages. In other cases, uniformity has
been detected, though the causes of the uniformity are stUl un
known. Thus, to give a curious instance, we are now ahle to
prove that the aberrations of memory are marked hy this gene
ral character of necessary and invariable order. The post-offices
of London and of Paris have latterly published returns of the
number of letters which the writers, through forgetfiilness, omit
ted to direct ; and, making allowance for the difference of cir
cumstances, the returns are year after year copies of each other.
Year after year the same proportion of letter-writers forget this
simple act ; so that for each successive period we cah actuaUy
foreteU the number of persons whose memory wdU faU them in
regard to this trifling and, as it might appear, accidental occur
rence.'* To those who have a steady conception of the regularity of
events, and have firmly seized the great truth that the actions of
men, being guided by their antecedents, are in reaUty never in
consistent, but, however capricious they may appear, only form
part of one vast scheme of universal order, of which we in the
present state of knowledge can harely see the outline, — to those
who understand this, which is at once the key and the basis of
history, the facts just adduced, so far from being strange, wUl be
precisely what would have heen expected, and ought long since
to have been known. Indeed, the progress of inquiry is he-
coming so rapid and so earnest, that I entertain Uttle doubt that
before another century has elapsed, the chain of evidence yrill be
complete, and it 'wUl be as rare to find an historian who denies
the undeviating regularity of the moral world, as it now is to
find a philosopher who denies the regularity of the material
world. _ It wUl be observed, that the preceding proofs of our actions
being regulated by law, have been derived from statistics ; a
branch of knowledge which, though stUl in its infancy," has
"The marriage returns of 1860 and 1851 exhibit the excess which since 1750
has been invariably observed when the substantial earnings of the people are above
a?^^™^®"" ¦'°"™«' o/ Statistical Society, vol. xv. p. 185.
See Somerville's Physical Geography, vol. ii. pp. 409-411, which, says this able
writer, proves that " forgetfulness as weU as free wiU is under conatant laws." But
this w using the word free wUl in a sense different from that commonly employed.
?T, •*^''^'"'^''> '>» the middle of the eighteenth century, is usually considered to
be the first systematic writer on statistics, and is said to have given them their pre
sent name. See Lewis, Methods of Observation and Reasoning in Politics, 1862,

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 25
already thrown more Ught on the study of human nature than
aU the sciences put together. But although the statisticians
have been the first to investigate this great subject by treating
it according to those methods of reasoning which in other fields
have been found successful ; and although they have, by the ap
pUcation of numbers, brought to hear upon it a very powerful
engine for eUciting truth, — we must not, on that account, sup
pose that there are no other resources remaining by which it
may Ukeyrise be cultivated ; nor should we infer that hecause the
physical sciences have not yet been applied to history, they are
therefore inappUcable to it. Indeed, when we consider the in
cessant contact between man and the external world, it is cer
tain that there must be an intimate connexion between human
actions and physical laws ; so that if physical science has not
hitherto been brought to bear upon history, the reason is, either
that historians have not perceived the connexion, or else that,
ha^ying perceived it, they have heen destitute of the knowledge
hy which its workings can be traced. Hence there has arisen
an unnatural separation of the two great departments of inquiry,
the study of the internal, and that of the external : and although,
in the present state of European Uterature, there are some un
mistakable symptoms of a desire to break dowh this artificial
harrier, stiU it must be admitted that as yet nothing has been
actuaUy accomplished towards effecting so great an end. The
moraUsts, the theologians, and the metaphysicians, continue to
prosecute their studies without much respect for what they deem
the inferior labors of scientific men ; whose inquiries, indeed,
. they frequently attack, as dangerous to the interests of reUgion,
and as inspiring us with an undue confidence in the resources of
the human understanding. On the other hand, the cultivators
of physical science, conscious that they are an advancing body,
are naturally proud of their own success ; and, contrasting their
discoveries ¦with the more stationary position of their opponents,
vol. i. p. 72; Biographie UniverseUe, vol. i. p. 140; Dufau, Traits de Statistique, pp.
9, 10. Even so late as 1800, the Bishop of Llandaff wrote to Sir John Sinclair, "I
muat think the kingdom is highly indebted to you for bringing forward a species of
knowledge (statistics) wholly new in this country, though not new in other parts of
Europe." Sinclair's Correspondence, vol. i. p. 230 Sinclair, notwithstanding hiain-
duatry, was a man of slender powers, and did not at all understand the real impor
tance of statistics, of which, indeed, he took a mere practical view. Since then sta
tistics have been appUed extensively to medicine ; and stUl more recently, and on a
smaUer scale, to phUology and to jurisprudence. Compare Bouillaud, Philosophie
Medicale, pp. 96, 186 ; Renouard, Hist, de la Medicine, vol. ii. pp. 474, 476 ; Es
quirol, Maladies Mentales, vol. u. pp. 665-667 ; Hollands Medical Notes, pp. 5, 472.
Vogel's Pathological Anatomy, pp. 15-17 ; Simon's Pathology, p. 180 ; Phillips on
Scrofula, pp. 70, 118, &c. ; Prichard's Physical Hist, of Mankind, voh iv. p. 414;
EscKbach, Etude du Droit, pp. 392-394.

28' CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
are led to despise pursuits the barrenness of which has now he-
come notorious.
It is the business of the historian to mediate between these
two parties, and reconcUe their hostile pretensions by showing
the point at which their respective studies ought to coalesce.
To settie the terms of this coaUtion, yyUl be to fix the hasis of aU
history. For since history dea;ls with the actions of men, and
since their actions are merely the product of a collision between
internal and external phenomena, it becomes necessary to exam
ine the relative importance of those phenomena ; to inquire into
the extent to which their laws are known ; and to ascertain the
resources for future discovery possessed by these two great
classes, the students of the mind and the students of nature.
This task I shall endeavor to accompUsh in the next two chap
ters ; and if I do so with any thing approaching to success, the
present work \yUl at least have the merit of contributing some
thing towards fiUing up that wide and dreary chasm, which, to
the hindrance of our knowledge, separates subjects that are inti
mately related, and should never be disunited.

Note A.
"Der Begriff der Freiheit ist ein reiner Vernunftbegriff, der eben darum fur die
theoretische PhUosophie transcendent, d. i. ein solcher ist, dem kein angemessenes
Beispiel in irgend einer mogUchen Erfahrung gegeben werden kann, welcher also
keinen Gegenstand einer uns mogUcheu theoretischen Erkenntniaa ausmaoht, und
schlechterdings nicht fiir ein conatitutives, aondern ledigUoh als regulatives, und
zwar nur bloa negativea Prinoip der apeculativeu Vernunft gelten kann, im praoti-
Bohen Gebrauche der selben aber seine Eealitat durch praktiache Grundaatze heweist,
die, als Gesetze, eine CausaUtat der reinen Vernunft, unabhangig von alien empiri-
Bcheu Bedingungen (dem SinnUcheu iiberhaupt) die WUUtiihr zu bestimmen, und
einen reinen Willen in uns beweisen, in welchem die sittUchen Begriffe und Gesetze
ihren Ursprung haben." Metaphysik der Sitten, in Kant's Werke, vol. v. pp. 20, 21.
" Wurdeu die Gegenstande der Sinnenwelt fiir Dinge an sich aelbat genommen, und
die oben angefiihrten Naturgeaetze fiir Gesetze der Dinge an sich selbst, so ware der
Widerspruch " {i.e. between Liberty and Necessity) " unvermeidhch. Ebenao, wenn
daa Subject der Freiheit gleich den iibrigen Gegenatanden als bloae Erscheinung
vorgeateUt wurde, ao konnte ebenaowohl der Widerapruch nicht vermieden werijen;
denu es wurde ebendaaselbe von einerlei Gegenstande in derselben Bedeutung zu-
gleich bejaht und verneiut werden. Ist aber Naturnothwendigkeit bios a;uf Ersohei-
nUngen bezogen, und Freiheit bios auf Dinge an sich selbst, so entspringt kein
Widerspruch, wenn man gleich beide Arten von CausaUtat annimmt oder zugibt, so
achwer Oder unmoglich es auoh seiu mochte, die von der letzteren Art begreiflieh
zu machen.  "Natur also und Freiheit ebendemselben Dinge, aber in verschie-
.fih * f i^r§' ®'™*' ^^ Erscheinung, das audremal als einem Dinge an sich
Wid_^l,^^ 'P'",f tJ^'Selegt werden konnen."  "Nun kann ich ohne
Widerspruch sagen: alle Handlungen verniinftiger Wesen, soferu sie Eracheinungen

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 27
Bind, (in irgend einer Erfahrung angetroffen werden) stehen unter der Naturnoth
wendigkeit ; ebendieaelben Handlungen aber, bios respective auf daa vernfinftige
Subject und deasen Vermogen, naoh bloser Vernunft zu handeln, aind frei." Pro
legomena zu jeder kunftigen Metaphysik, in Kant's Werke, vol. iii. pp. 268-270.
"Denn ein Geschopf zu sein und als Naturwesen bios dem WUleu seines Urhebers
zu folgen ; dennoch ab^r als freihandelndes Wesen, (welches seinen vom iiusseren
Einflusa unabhangigen WiUen hat, der dem ersteren vielfaltig zuwider sein kann,)
der Zurechnung ftihig zu sein, und seine eigene That doch auch zugleich als die
Wirkung eines hoheren Wesens anzuaehen : iat eine Vereinbarung von Begriffen,
die wir zwar in der Idee einer Welt, als des hochsten Gutes, zusammen denken
miissen ; die aber nur der einsehen kann, welcher bis zur Kenntnisa der iibersinn-
Uchen (intelUgiblen) Welt durchdringt und die Art einsieht, wie sie der Sinnenwelt
zum Grunde liegt." Theodieee, in Kant's Werke, vol. vi. p. 149. "Nun woUen wir
annehmen, die durch unsere Kritik nothweudig gemachte Unterscheidung der
Dinge, als Gegenstande der Erfahrung, von eben denselben, als Dingen an sich selbst,
ware gar nicht gemacht, so miisste der Grundsatz der CausaUtat und mithin der
Naturmechanismus in Bestimmung derselben durchaus von aUen Dingen iiberhaupt
als wirkenden Ursachen gelten. < Von eben demaelben Wesen also, z. B. der mensch
hchen Seele, wiirde ich nicht sagen konnen, ihr WiUe sei frei, und er sei doch zu
gleich der Naturnothwendigkeit unterworfen d. i. nicht frei, ohne in einen offenbaren
Widerapruch zu gerathen ; well ich die Seele in beiden Satzen in eben derselben
Bedeutung, namUch als Ding iiberhaupt (ala Sache an aich aelbat), genommen habe,
und, ohne vorhergehende Kritik, auch nicht anders nehmen konnte. Wenn aber
die Kritik nicht geirrt hat, da sie das Object in zweierlei Bedeutung nehmen lehrt,
nahmUch als Erscheinung, oder ala Ding an sich selbst ; wenn die Deduction ihrer
Verstandeabegriffe richtig iat, mithin auch der Grundsatz der CausaUtat nur auf
Dinge im ersten Sinne genommen, nanJich so fern sie gegenstande der Erfahrung
aind, geht, eben dieaelben aber nach der zweiten Bedeutung ihm nicht unterworfen
Bind, so wird eben derselbe WiUe in der Erscheinung (den aichtbaren Handlungen)
als dem Naturgeaetze nothwendig gemass und so fern nicht frei, und doch anderer-
aeits, als einem Dinge an sich selbst angehorig, jenem nicht unterworfen, mithin als
frei gedacht, ohne daa hiebei ein Widerspruch vorgeht." Kritik der reinen Ver
nunft, in Kanfs Werke, vol ii. p. 24. " Und hier zeigt die zwar gemeine, aber
betriigUohe Vorauasetzung der abaoluten BeaUtat der Eracheinungen sogleich ihren
nachtheiUgen Einfluss, die Vernunft zu verwirren. Denn sind Erscheinungen Dinge
an sich aelbat, ao ist die Freiheit nicht zu retten. Alsdenn ist Natur die voUatandige
und an sich hinreichend bestimmende Ursache jeder Begebenheit, und die Bedingung
derselben ist jederzeit nur in der Eeihe der Erscheinungen enthalten, die sammt ihrer
Wirkung unter dem Naturgesetze nothwendig sind. Wenn dagegen Erscheinungen
fur nichts mehr gelten, als sie in der That aind, namUch nicht fiir Dinge an sich,
sondern bloae Voratellungen, die nach empiriachen Gesetzen zusammenhangen, ao
mussen sie selbst noch Griinde haben, die nicht Erscheinungen sind." . . . . " Hier
habe ich nur die Anmerkung machen woUen, daaa, da der durchgangige Zusammen-
hang aUer Erscheinungen in einem Context der Natur ein unnachlaasUches Geaetz
iat, dieaea aUe Freiheit nothwendig umstiirzen miisste, wenn man der EeaUtat der
Erscheinungen hartnackig anhangen woUte. Daher auch diejenigen, welche hierin
der gemeinen Meinung folgen, niemals dahin haben gelangen konnen, Natur und
Freiheit mit einander zu vereinigen." Kritik, in Kant's Werke, vol. ii. pp. 419, 420.
FinaUy, at p. 433, " Man muss wohl bemerken dass wir hiedurch nicht die Wirklichkeit
der Freiheit, als eines der Vermogen, welche die Ursache vou den Eracheinungen
unserer Sinnenwelt enthalten, haben darthun wollen. Denn ausser dass dieses gar
keine transcendentale Betrachtung, die bloa mit Begriffen zu thun hat, gewesen sein
wilrde, so konnte es auch nicht gelingen, indem wir aus der Erfahrung niemala auf
etwas, was gar nicht nach Erfahrungsgesetzen gedacht werden muss, aohliessen
konnen. Ferner haben wir auch gar nicht einmal die MogUchkeit der Freiheit be
weisen woUen ; denn dieses ware auch nicht gelungen, well wir Iiberhaupt von
keinem Bealgrunde und keiner CausaUtat aus blosen Begriffen a priori die MogUch
keit erkennen konnen. Die Freiheit wird hier nur als transcendentale Idee behan-
delt, wodurch die Vernunft die Eeihe der Bedingungen in der Erscheinung durch daa
ainnlich Unbedingte schlechthin anzuheben denkt, dabei sich aber in eine Antinomie
mit ihren eigenen Gesetzen, welche sie dem empiriachen Gebrauche des Verstandes

28

CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.

vorschreibt verwickelt. Dasa nun diese Antinomie auf einem blosen Scheine beruhe
und dass Natur der CausaUtat aus Freiheit wenigstens nicht widerstreite, das
war das J!,inzip, was wir leisten konnten und woran es uns auch einzig und aUein
These passages prove that Kant saw that the phenomenal reality of Free WiU is
an indefensible doctnne: and as the present work is an investigation of the lawa of
phenomena his transcendental phUosophy does not affect my conclusions. Accord-
3 rt f ^ TT ^^"^ "^'^ ^^'"'^ ^ *" '""'^e'l *" ag'-ee) the ordinary metaphysical
and theological treatment of this dark problem is purely empirical, and therefore
i'nZ,r'"'- ^^^- '^f'"' °^,'^' supremacy of consciousness foUows Ta a natural
the bTe ont " ' ''"^* "^ *' ^""*'"° phUosophy, and not, as is often sJd

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 29

CHAPTER II.
INFLUENCE EXEECISED BT PHYSICAL LAWS OVEE THE OEGANIZATION OF
SOCIETY AND OVEE THE CHAEACTEE OF INDIVIDUALS.
If we inquire what those physical agents are hy which the hu
man race is most powerfuUy influenced, we shaU find that they
may be classed under four heads : namely, OUmate, Food, SoU,
and the Greneral Aspect of Nature ; hy which last, I mean those
appearances which, though presented chiefly to the sight, have,
through the medium of that or other senses, directed the asso
ciation of ideas, and hence in different countries have given rise
to different habits of national thought. To one of these four
classes may be referred aU the external phenomena hy which
Man has been permanently affected. The last of these classes,
or what I caU the General Aspect of Nature, produces its prin
cipal resiUts hy exciting the imagination, and hy suggesting
those innumerable superstitions which are the great obstacles to
advancing knowledge. And as, in the infancy of a people, the
power of such superstitions is supreme, it has happened that the
various Aspects of Nature have caused corresponding varieties in
the popular character, and have imparted to the national reUgion
peculiarities which, under certain circumstances, it is impossible
to efface. The other three agents, namely, CUmate Food, and
SoU, have, so far as we are aware, had no direct influence of this
sort ; hut they have, as I am ahout to prove, originated the most
important consequences in regard to the general organization of
society, and from them there have foUowed many of those large
and conspicuous differences between nations, which are often as
cribed to somie fundamental difference in the various races into
"which mankind is divided. But whUe such original distinctions
of race are altogether hypothetical,' the discrepancies which are
' I cordially Bubacribe to the remark of one of the greateat tliinkers of our time,
who aaya of the supposed differences of race, "of aU vulgar modes of escaping from
the consideration of the effect of social and moral influences on the human mind, the
most vulgar is that of attributing the diversities of conduct and character to inhe
rent natural differences." MilPs Principles of Political Economy, voK i. p. 390. Or
dinary writers are constantly faUing into the error of assuming the/existence of this

30 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
caused by difference of cUmate, food, and soU, are capable of a
satisfactory explanation, and, when understood, wiU he found to
clear up many of the difficulties which stiU obscure the study of
history. I purpose, therefore, in the first place, to examine the
laws of these three vast agents in so far as they are connected
with Man in his social condition ; and ha'ying traced the work
ing of those laws with as much precision as the present state of
physical knowledge wiU aUow, I shaU then examine the remain
ing agent, namely, the General Aspect of Nature, and shaU en
deavor to point out the most important divergencies to which
its variations have, in different countries, naturaUy given rise.
Beginning, then, with cUmate, food, and soU, it is evident
that these three physical powers are in no smaU degree depend
ent on each other ; that is to say, there is a very close connexion
between the climate of a country and the food wliich wiU ordina
rily he grown in that country ; while at the same time the food
is itself influenced hy the soU which produces it, as also hy the
elevation or depression of the land, by the state of the atmos
phere, and, in a word, hy aU those conditions to the assemblage
of which the name of physical Geography is, in its largest sense,
commonly given."
The union between these physical agents being thus inti
mate, it seems ad^yisahle to consider them not under their own
separate heads, hut rather under the separate heads of the effects
produced by their united action. In this way we shaU rise at
once to a more comprehensive 'view of the whole question ; we
shaU avoid the confusion that would he caused hy artfficia,Uy
separating phenomena which are in themselves inseparable ; aind
we shall be ahle to see more clearly the extent of that remarka
ble influence which, in an early stage of society, the powers of
Nature exercise over the fortunes of Man.
Of all the results which are produced among a people hy their
climate, food, and soU, the accumulation of wealth is the earUest,
and in many respects the most important. For although thel/-
difference ; which may or may not exist, but which moat assuredly has never been
proved. Some singular instances of thiswiU be found in Alison's History of Europe,
vol. u. p. 336, vol. vi. p. 136, vol. viu. pp. 526, 526, vol. xiu. p. 847 ; where the his
torian thinks that by a few strokes of his pen he can settle a question of the greatest
difficulty, connected with some of the most intricate problems in physiology. On-
the supposed relation between race and temperament, see Comte, Philosophie Posi
tive, vol. iu. p. 355.
" As to the proper Umits of physical geography, see Prichard on Ethnology, in
Report of the British Association for ISil, p. 285. The word 'climate' I always
use in the narrow and popular sense. Dr. Forry and many previous writera make it
nearly coincide with ' physical geography :' " CUmate constitutes the aggregate of
all the external physical circumstances appertaining to each locaUty in its relation to
organic nature." Forry's Climate of the United States and its Endemic Influences,
New York, 1842, p. 127.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 31-
progress of knowledge eventually accelerates the increase of
wealth, it is nevertheless certain that, in the first formation of
society, the wealth must accumulate hefore the knowledge can
begin. As long as every man is engaged in coUecting the mate-
ris^s necessary for his own subsistence, there wUl be neither lei
sure nor taste for higher pursuits ; no science can possibly he
created, and the utmost that can he effected wiU be an attempt
to economize labor hy the contrivance of such rude and imper
fect instruments as even the most barbarous people are ahle to
invent. In a state of society like this, the accumulation of wealth is
the first great step that can be taken, hecause without wealth
there can be no leisure,, and without leisure there can be no
knowledge. If what a people consume is always exactly equal
to what they possess, there wiU be no residue, and therefore, no
capital being accumulated, there vriU he no means hy which the
unemployed classes may be maintained.' But if the produce is
greater than the consumption, an overplus arises, which, accord
ing to weU-known principles, increases itself, and eventuaUy he-
comes a fund out of which, immediately or remotely, every one
is supported who does not create the wealth upon which he Uves.
And now it is that the existence of an inteUectual class first he-
comes possible, because for the first time there exists a previous
accumudation, by means of which men can use what they did not
produce, and are thus enabled to devote themselves to subjects
for which at an earUer period the pressure of their daily wants
would have left them no time.
Thus it is that of aU the great social improvements the accu
mulation of wealth must be the first, because without it there
can he neither taste nor leisure for that acqiUsition of knowledge
on which, as I shaU hereafter prove, the progress of ci'vilization
depends. Now, it is evident that among an entirely ignorant
people, the rapidity with which wealth is created yrill be solely
regulated by the physical peculiarities of their country. At a
later period, and when the wealth has been capitalized, other
causes come into play ; hut untU this occurs, the progress can
only depend on two circumstances : first, on the energy and regu
larity with which labor is conductedj and secondly, on the returns
made to that labor by the bounty of nature. And these two
causes are theibselves the result of physical antecedents. The
returns made to labor are governed by the fertiUty of the soU,
which is itself regulated partly by the admixture of its chemical
' By unemployed classes, I mean what Adam Smith caUs the unproductive class
es ; and thougli both expressions are strictly apeaking inaccurate, the word ' unem
ployed ' aeema to convey more clearly than any other the idea in the text.

32 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
components, partly by the extent to which, from rivers or from
other natural causes, the soil is irrigated, and partly hy the heat
and humidity of the atmosphere. On the other hand, the energy
and regularity with which labor is conducted, wUl be entirely de
pendent on the influence of climate. This wUl display itself in
two different ways. The first, which is a very ob'vious consider
ation, is, that if the heat is intense, men vrill he indisposed,
and in some degree unfitted, for that active industry which in a
mUder cUmate they might yviUingly have exerted. The other
consideration, which has been less noticed, but is equaUy im
portant, is, that cUmate influences labor not only by enervating
the laborer or hy invigorating him, but also hy the effect it pro
duces on the regularity of his habits.* Thus we find that no
people Uving in a very northern latitude have ever possessed that
steady and unfiinching industry for which the inhabitants of
temperate regions are remarkable. The reason of this becomes
clear, when we remember that in the more northern countries
the severity of the weather, and, at some seasons, the deficiency
of Ught, render it impossible for the people to continue their
usual out-of-door employments. The result is, that the work
ing-classes, being compelled to cease from their ordinary pur
suits, are rendered more prone to desultory habits ; the chain of
their industry is as it were hroken, and they lose that impetus
which long-continued and uninterrupted practice never fails to
give. Hence there arises a national character more fitful and
capricious than that possessed hy a people whose cUmate per
mits the regular exercise of their ordinary industry. Indeed, so <
powerful is this principle, that we may perceive its operation
even under the most opposite circumstances. It would be diffi
cult to conceive a greater difference in government, laws, reli
gion, and manners, than that which distinguishes Sweden and
Norway on the one hand, from Spain and Portugal on the other.
But these four countries have one great point in common. In
aU of them, continued agricultural industry is impracticable. In
the two southern countries, labour is interrupted by the heat, by
the dryness of the weather, and by the consequent state of the
soU. In the two northern countries, the same effect is produced
hy the severity of the winter and the shortness of the days. The
consequence is, that these four nations, though so different in
other respects, are aU remarkable for a certain instabiUty and
fickleness of character ; presenting a striking contrast to the
* This has been entirely neglected by the three most philosophical writers on
eUmate : Montesquieu, Hume, and M. Charles Comte in his li-aiti de Legislation.
It is also omitted in the remarks of M. Guizot on the influence of cUmate, Civilisa
tion en Europe, p. 97.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 33
more regular and settled habits which are established in coun
tries whose cUmate subjects the working-classes to fewer inter
ruptions, and imposes on them the necessity of a more constant
and unremitting employment.'
These are the great physical causes by which the creation of
wealth is governed. There are, no doubt, other circumstances
which operate with considerable force, and which, in a more ad
vanced state of society, possess an equal, and sometimes a su
perior, influence. But this is at a later period ; and looking at
the history of wealth in its earUest stage, it wUl he found to de
pend entirely on soil and cUmate : the soU regulating the returns
made to any given amount of labour ; the cUmate regulating the
energy and constancy of the labour itself. It requires but a
hasty glance at past events, to prove the immense power of these
two great physical conditions. For there is no instance in his
tory of any country being civUized by its own efforts, unless it
has possessed one of these conditions in a very favourable form.
In Asia, civUization has always heen confined to that vast tract
where a rich and aUuvial soU has secured to man that wealth
yyithout some share of which no inteUectual progress can begin.
This great region extends, with a few interruptions, from the
east of Southern China to the western coasts of Asia Minor, of
Phoenicia, and of Palestine. To the north of this immense belt,
there is a long line of barren country which has invariably heen
peopled hy rude and wandering tribes, who are kept in poverty
by the ungenial nature of the soU, and who, as long as they re
mained on it, have never emerged from their uncivilized state.
How entirely this depends on physical causes, is evident from
the fact that these same MongoUan and Tartarian hordes have,
at different periods, founded great monarchies in China, in India,
and in Persia, and have, on aU such occasions, attained a civUi
zation nowise inferior to that possessed by the most flourishing
of the ancient kingdoms. For in the fertile plains of Southern
Asia,' nature has supplied all the materials of wealth ; and there
it was that these barbarous tribes acquired for the first ' time
some degree of refinement, produced a national literature, and
° See the admirable remarks in Laing's Denmark, 1852, pp. 204, 366, 367;
though Norway appears to be a better iUustration than Denmark. In Rey's Science
Sociale, vol. 1. pp. 195, 196, there are some calculations respecting the average loss
to agricultural industry caused by changes in the weather ; but uo notice is taken
of the connexion between these changes, when abrupt, and the tone of the national
character. ° This expression has been used by different geographers in different senses ; but
I take it in its common acceptation, without reference to the more strictly physical
view of Ritter and his foUowers in regard to Central Asia. See Prichard!s Physical
History of Mankind, vol. iv. p. 278, edit. 1844. At p. 92, Prichard makes the Him
alaya the southern boundary of Central Asia.
VOL. .1 — 3

34 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
organized a national poUty ; none of which things they, in their
native land, had been able to effect.'^ In the same way, the
Arabs in their own country have, owing to the extreme aridity
of their soU,* always been a rude and uncultivated people ; for in
their case, as in aU others, great ignorance is the fruit of great
poverty. But in the seventh century they conquered Persia ;'
in the eighth century they conquered the best part of Spain ;'¦»
in the ninth century they conquered the Punjaub, and eventu
aUy nearly the whole of India." Scarcely were they estabUshed
in their fresh settlements, when their character seemed to under
go a great change. They, who in their original land were Uttle
else than ro'ying savages, were now for the first time able to ac
cumulate wealth, and, therefore, for the first time did they make
some progress in the arts of civiUzation. In Arabia they had
been a mere race of wandering shepherds ;'" in their new abodes
they became the founders of mighty empires, — they huUt cities,
endowed schools, coUected Ubraries ; and the traces of their
¦" There is reason to believe that the Tartars of Tibet received even their alpha
bet from India. See the interesting Essay on Tartarian Coins in Journal of Asiatic
Society, vol. iv. pp. 276, 277 ; and on the Scythian Alphabet, see vol. xii. p. 336.
' In Somerville's Physical Geography, vol. i. p. 132, it is said that in Arabia
there are "no rivers;" but Mr. WeUsted {Travels in Arabia, vol. U. p. 409) men
tions one which empties itself into the sea five miles west of Aden. On the streams
in Arabia, see Meiners iiber die Fruchtbarkeit der Lander, vol. i. pp. 149, 150. That
the sole deficiency is want of irrigation appears from Burckhardt, who says {Travels
in Arabia, vol. i. p. 240), " In Arabia, wherever the ground can be irrigated by
wells, the sands may be soon made productive." And for a striking description of
one of the oases of Oman, which ahowa what Arabia might have been with a good
river system, see Journal of Geographical Society, vol. vu. pp. 106, 107.
" Mr. Morier {Journal of Geog. Soc. voh vii. p. 230) says, " the conquest of
Persia by the Saracens a. d. 651." However, the fate of Persia was decided by the
battles of Kudseah and Nahavund, which were fought in 638 and 641 : see Malcolm's
History of Persia, vol. i. pp. xvi. 139, 142.
'» In 712. Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 369.
" They were estabUshed in the Punjaub early in the ninth century, but did not
conquer Guzerat and Malwa until five hundred years later. Compare 'Wilson's note
in the Vishnu Purana, pp. 481, 482, with Asiatic Researches, vol. ix. pp. 187, 188,
203. On their progress in the more southern part of the Peninsula, see Journal of
Asiatic Society, vol. iu. pp. 222, 223, vol. iv. pp. 28-30.
" "A race of paatoral barbariana." Dickinson on the Arabic Language, in
Journal of Asiat. Society, vol. v. p. 323. Compare Reynier, Economic des Arabes,
pp. 27, 28 ; where, however, a very simple question is needlessly complicated. The
old Persian writera beatowed on them the courteous appellation of " a band of naked
lizard-eaters." Malcolm's Hist, of Persia, vol. i. p. i33. Indeed, there are few
things in history better proved than the barbarism of a people whom some writers
wish to invest with a romantic interest. The eulogy passed on them by Meiners is
rather suspicious ; for he concludes by Baying, " die Eroberungen der Araber waren
hochst selten so blutig und zerstOrend, als die Eroberungen der Tataren, Persen,
TUrken, u. s. w. in altern und neuern Zeiten waren." Fruchtbarkeit der Lander, vol,
i. p. 153. If thia is the best that can be said, the comparison with Tartars and Turks
does not prove much ; bui it is aingular that thia learned author should have forgot
ten a passage in Diodorus Siculus which gives a pleasant description of them nineteen
centuries ago on the eastern side : Bibliothec. Hist. Ub. ii. vol. ii. p. 137. ix'^vai tk
$'iOV f^-r/arpmbv, Kal iroWiiv rris 6i>.6pov xiipos Kurarpexovres h-partiovtriv, &c.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 35
power are stiU to be seen at Cordova, at Bagdad, and at Delhi.'"
Precisely in the same manner, there is adjoining Arabia at the
north, and only separated from it elsewhere by the narrow waters
of the Red Sea, an immense sandy plain, which, covering the
whole of Africa in the same latitude, extends westward until it
reaches the shores of the Atlantic.'* This enormous tract is,
like Arabia, a barren waste ;'' and therefore, as in Arabia, the
inhabitants have always been entirely uncivilized, acquiring no
knowledge, simply hecause they have accumulated no wealth. '^
" The only branch of knowledge which the Arabians ever raised to a science
was astronomy, which began to be cultivated under the caliphs about the middle of
the eighth century, and went on improving imtU "la ville de Bagdad fut, pendant
le dixieme siecle, le theatre principal de I'astronomie chez les orientaux." Montucla,
Histoire des Mathematiques, vol. i. pp. 365, 864. The old Pagan Arabs, Uke most
barbarous people Uving iu a clear atmosphere, had such au empirical acquaintance
with the celestial phenomena as was useful for practical purposes ; but there ia no
evidence to justify the common opinion that they studied this subject as a science.
Dr. Dorn {jfi-ansactions of the Asiatic Society, vol. ii. p. 371) says, " of a scientific
knowledge of astronomy among them no traces can be discovered." Beausobre
{Histoire de Maniehee, vol i. p. 20) is quite enthusiastic about the philosophy of the
Arabs in the time of Pythagoras ! and he teUs ua, that " ces peuples ont toujours
cultiv^ les sciences." To establish this fact, he quotes a long passage from a Ufe of
Mohammed written early in the eighteenth century by BoulainviUiers, whom he caUs
" un des plus beaux gfeies de France." If this ia an accurate description, those who
have read the works of BoulainviUiers wiU thint that France was badly off for men
of genius ; and as to his life of Mohammed, it is little better than a romance : the
author was ignorant of Arabic, and knew nothing which had not been already
communicated by Maracci and Pococke. See Biographie UniverseUe, vol. v. p. 321.
In regard to the later Arabian astronomers, one of their great merits was to ap
proximate to the value of the annual precession much closer than Ptolemy had done.
See Grant's History of Physical Astronomy, 1852, p. 319.
" Indeed it goes beyond it : " the trackless sands of the Sahara desert, which is
even prolonged for mUes into the Atlantic Ocean in the form of sandbanks." Som^
erville's Physical Geography, vol. i. p. 149. For a singular instance of one of these
sandbanks being formed into an island, see Journal of Geograph. Society, vol. u. p.
284. The Sahara desert, exclusive of Bornou and-Darfour, covers an area of 194,-
000 square leaguea ; that is, nearly three times the size of France, or twice the size
of the Mediterranean. Compare Lyell's Geology, p. 694, with Somerville's Connexion
of the Sciences, p. 294. As to the probable southern Umits of the plateau of the
Sahara, aee Richardson's Mission to Central Africa, 1853, vol. U. pp. 146, 156 ; and
as to the part of it adjoining the Mandingo country, see Mungo Park's Travels, vol.
i. pp. 237, 238. Eespecting the country south of Mandara, some scanty information
was coUected by Denham in the neighbourhood of Lake Tchad. Denham's Northern
and Central Africa, pp. 121, 122, 144-146.
'^ Eichardson, who traveUed through it south of TripoU, notices its "features of
steriUty, of unconquerable barrenness." Richardson's Sahara, ISiS, \ol. i. p. 86;
and see the striking picture at p. 409. The long and dreary route from Mourzouk
to Teou, on Lake Tchad, is described by Denham, one of the extremely few. Euro
peans who have performed that hazardous journey. Denham's Central Africa, pp.
2^60. Even on the shore of the Tchad there is hardly any vegetation, " a coarse
grass and a small beU-flower being the only plants that I could discover." p. 90.
Compare his remark on Bornou, p. 317. The condition of part of the desert in the
fourteenth century is described in the Travels of Ibn Batuta, p. 233, which should
be compared with the account given by Diodorus Siculus of the journey of Alexan
der to the temple of Ammon. Bibliothec. Historic. Ub. xvU. vol. vu. p. 348.
'" Eichardson, who traveUed in 1850 from TripoU to within a few days of Lake
Tchad, was struck by the stationary character of the people. He says, "neither in

36 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
But this great desert is, in its eastern part, irrigated by the
waters of the Nile, the overfiowdng of which covers the sand with
rich alluvial deposit, that yields to labour the most abundant,
and indeed the most extraordinary, returns."' The consequence
is, that in that spot, wealth was rapidly accumulated, the culti
vation of knowledge quickly followed, and this narrow strip of
land " became the seat of Egyptian civilization ;. a civUization
which, though grossly exaggerated," forms a striking contrast to
the barbarism of the other nations of Africa, none of which have
been able to work out their own progress, or emerge, in any de
gree, from the ignorance to which the penury of nature has
doomed them.
These considerations clearly prove that of the two primary
causes of ci'vilization, the fertility of the soil is the one which in
the ancient world exercised most influence. But in European
civiUzation, the other great cause, that is to say, climate, has
the desert nor in the -kingdoms of Central Africa is there any march of civiUzation.
AU goes on according to a certain routine established for ages past." Mission to
Central Africa, vol, i. pp. 304, 305. See simUar remarks in Pallme's Travels in
Kmdofan, pp. 108, 109.
" Abd-AUatif, who was in Egypt early in the thirteenth century, gives an mter-
esting account of the rising of th^ Nile, to which Egypt owes ita fertiUty. Abd.
Allatif, Relation de I'Egypte, pp. 329-340, 874-376, and Appendix, p. 604. See also
on these periodical inundations, Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, vol. iv. pp. 101-104 ;
and on the half-astronomical half-theological notions connected with them, pp. 372-
377, vol. V. pp. 291, 292. Compare on the reUgious importance of the Nile Bunsen's
Egypt, vol. i. p. 409. The expression, therefore, of Herodotus (book ii. chap. v. vol.
i. p. 484), Sapov rod irora/iov, ia true in a much larger sense than he intended ; since
to the Nile Egypt owes aU the physical pecuUarities which distinguish it from Arabia
and the great African desert. Compare Heeren's African Nations, vol. n. p. 58 ;
Reynier, Economic des Arabes, p. 3 ; Postans on the Nile and Indus, in Journal of
Asiatic Society, vol vii. p. 275 ; and on the difference between the soU of the Nile
and that of the surrounding desert, see Volney, Voyage en Syrie et en Egypte,. vol.
i. p. 14.
18 11 rjjjg average breadth of the valley from one mountain-range to the other,
between Cairo in Lower, and Edfoo in Upper Egypt, is only about seven miles ; and
that of the cultivable land, whose Umits depend on the inundation, scarcely exceeds
five and a half" Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, vol. i. p. 216. According to
Gerard, " the mean width of the valley between Syene and Cairo is about nine
mUes." Note in Heeren's African Nations, vol. ii. p. 62.
'° I will give one instance of this from an otherwise sensible writer, and a man
too of considerable learning : " As to the physical knowledge of the Egyptians, their
cotemporaries gave them credit for the astonishing power of their magic; and as
we cannot suppose that the instances recorded in Scripture were to be attributed to
the exertion of supernatural powera, we must conclude that they were in possession
of a more intimate knowledge of the laws and combinations of nature than what is
professed by the most learned men of the present age." Hamilton's ^gyptiaca, pp.
61, 62. It is a shame that such nonsense should be written in the nineteenth cen
tury : and yet a still more recent author {Vyse on the Pyramids,YO], i. p. 28) assures
us^ that " the Egyptians, for especial purposes, were endowed with great wisdom and
science.''^ Science properly so caUed, the Egyptians had none ; and as to their
wisdom, it was considerable enough to distinguish them from barbarous nationa Uke
the old Hebrews, but it was inferior to that of the Greeks, and it was of course
immeaaurably below that of modern Europe.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION, 37
been the most powerful ; and this, as we have seen, produces an
effect partly on the capacity of the labourer for work, partly on
the regularity or irregularity of his habits. The difference in
the result has curiously corresponded with the difference in the
cause. For although all civiUzation must have for its antece
dent the accumulation of wealth, stiU what subsequently occurs
wiU he in no small degree determined by the conditions under
which the accumulation took place. In Asia, and in Africa, the
condition was a fertile soil, causing an abundant return : in Eu
rope, it was a happier climate, causing more successful labour.
In the former case, the effect depends on the relation between
the soU and its produce ; in other words, the mere operation
of one part of external nature upon another. In the latter case,
the effect depends on the relation between the climate and the
labourer ; that is, the operation of external nature not upon
itself, hut upon man. Of these two classes of relations, the first,
being the less complicated, is the less liable to disturbance, and
therefore came sooner into play. Hence it is, that, in the march
of civUization, the priority is unquestionably due to the most fer
tUe parts of Asia and Africa. But although their civUization
was the earUest, it was very far, indeed, from being the best or
most permanent. Owing to circumstances which I shall pre
sently state, the only progress which is really effective depends,
not upon the bounty of nature, but upon the energy of man.
Therefore it is, that the civUization of Europe, which, in its ear
Uest stage, was governed hy climate, has shown a capacity of de
velopment unknown to those ci'vilizations which were originated
by soU. For the powers of nature, notwithstanding their appa
rent magnitude, are Umited and stationary ; at aU events, we
have not the slightest proof that they have ever increased, or
that they wUl ever he able to increase. But the powers of man,
so far as experience and analogy can guide us, are unUmited ;
nor are we possessed of any evidence which authorizes us to as
sign even an imaginary boundary at which the human inteUect
will, of necessity, be brought to a stand. And as this power which
the mind possesses of increasing its own resources, is a pecu-
Uarity confined to man, and one eminently distinguishing him
from what is commonly called external nature, it becomes evi
dent that the agency of climate, which gives him wealth hy
stimulating his labour, is more favourable to his ultimate pro
gress than the agency of soil, which likewise gives him wealth,
but which does so, not hy exciting his energies, but by virtue of
a mere physical relation between the character of the soil and
the quaUty or value of the produce that it almost spontaneously
affords.

38 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
Thus far as to the different ways in which cUmate and soU
affect the creation of wealth. But another point of equal, or
perhaps of superior, importance remains behind. After the
wealth has heen created, a question arises as to how it is to be
distributed ; that is to say, what proportion is to go to the upper
classes, and what to the lower. In an advanced stage of society,
this depends upon several circumstances of great complexity, and
which it is not necessary here to examine."" But in a very early
stage of. society, and before its later and refined complications
have begun, it may, I think, be proved that the distribution of
wealth is, like its creation, governed entirely hy physical laws ;
and that those laws are moreover so active as to have invariably
kept a vast majority of the inhabitants of the fairest portion of
the globe in a condition of constant and inextricable poverty. If
this can he demonstrated, the immense importance of such laws
is manifest. For since wealth is an undoubted source of power,
it is evident that, supposing other things equal, an inquiry into
the distribution of wealth is an inquiry into the distribution of
power, and, as such, yyiU throw great Ught on the origin of those
social and political inequalities, the play and opposition of which
form a considerable part of the history of every civUized country.
If we take a general view of this subject, we may say that
after the creation and accumulation of wealth have once fa,irly
begun, it will be distributed among two classes, those who labour,
and those who do not labour ; the latter being, as a class, the
more able, the former the more numerous. The fund by which
both classes are supported is immediately created by the lower
class, whose physical energies are directed, comhined, and as it
were economized, hy the superior skUl of the upper class. The
reward of the workmen is called their wages ; the reward of the
contrivers is called their profits. At a later period, there will
arise what may he called the saving class ; that is, a body of
men who neither contrive nor work, but lend their accumulations
to those who contrive, and in return for the loan, receive a part
of that reward which belongs to the contriving class. In this
case, the members of the saving class are rewarded for their ab
stinence in refraining from spending their accumulations, and
''" Indeed many of them are atiU unknown; for, as M. Rey juatly observes, most
writers pay too exclusive an attention to the production of wealth, and neglect the
la-ws of its distribution. Rey, Science Sociale, vol. ni. p. 271. In confirmation of
this, I may mention the theory of rent, which was only discovered about half a cen
tury ago, and which is connected with so many subtle arguments that it is not yet
generally adopted ; and even some of its advocates have shown themselves unequal
to defending their own cause. The great law of the ratio between the cost of labour
and the profits of stock, ia the highest generalization we have reached respectingthe
distribution of wealth ; but it cannot be consistently admitted by any one who holds
that rent enters into price.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 39
this reward is termed the interest of their money ; so that there
is made a threefold division, — Interest, Profits, and Wages. But
this is a subsequent arrangement, which can only take place to
any extent when wealth has been considerably accumulated ; and
in the stage of society we are now considering, this third, or sav
ing class, can hardly be said to have a separate existence."' For
our present purpose, therefore, it is enough to ascertain what
those natural laws are, which, as soon as wealth is accumulated,
regulate the proportion in which it is distributed to the two classes
of labourers and employers.
Now, it is evident that wages being the price paid for labour,
the rate of wages must, Uke the price of all other commodities,
vary according to the changes in the market. If the supply of
labourers outstrips the demand, wages wiU fall ; if the demand
exceeds the supply, they yyiU rise. Supposing, therefore, that in any
country there is a given amount of wealth to be divided between
employers and workmen, every increase in the number of the
workmen wiU tend to lessen the average reward each can receive.
And if we set aside those disturbing causes by which all general
views are affected, it wiU be found that, in the long-run, the
question of wages is a question of population ; for although the
total sum of the wages actuaUy paid, depends upon the large
ness, of the fund from which they are drawn, stUl the amount of
wages received hy each man must diminish as the claimants in
crease, unless, owdng to other circumstances, the fund itself
should so advance as to keep pace with the greater demands made
upon it.""
"' In a still more advanced stage, there is a fourth division of wealth, and part
of the produce of labour is absorbed by Rent. This, however, is not an element of
price, but a conaequence of it ; and in the ordinary march of affairs, considerable
time must elapse before it can begin. Eent, in the proper sense of the word, is the
price paid for using the natural and indestructible powers of the aoil, and muat not
be confused with rent commonly ao caUed ; for this last also includes the profits of
stock. I notice thia because several of the opponents of Ricardo have placed the
beginning of rent too early, by overlooking the fact that apparent rent is very often
profits disguised.
22 11 \yages depend, then, on the proportion between the number of the labouring
population, and the capital or other funds devoted to the purchase of labour; we
wiU say, for shortneaa, the capital. If wagea are higher at one time or pla,ce than at
another, if the subsistence and comfort of the class of hired labourers are more
ample, it is, and can be, for no other reason than because capital bears a greater
proportion to population. It ia not the absolute amount of accumulation or of pro
duction that ia of importance to the labouring class ; it is not the amount even of
the funds destined for distribution among the labourers ; it is the proportion between
those funds and the numbers among whom they are shared. The condition of the
class can be bettered in no other way than by altering that proportion to their
advantage ; and every scheme for their benefit which does not proceed on this as its
foundation, is, for aU permanent purposes, a delusion." Mill's Principles of Politi
cal Economy, 1849, vol. i. p. 425. See also vol. ii. pp. 264, 265, and M'Culloch's
Political Economy, pp. 379, 380. Ricardo, in his Essay on the Influence of a Low
Price of Corn, has stated, with his usual terseness, the three possible forma of this

40 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
To know the circumstances most favourable to the increajse of
what may be termed the wages-fund is a matter of great mo
ment, hut is one with which we are not immediately concerned.
The question we have now before us, regards hot the accumula
tion of wealth, but its distribution ; and the object is, to ascer
tain what those physical conditions are, which, by encouraging
a rapid growth of population, over-supply the labour-market, and
thus keep the average rate of wages at a very low point.
Of all the physical agents by which the increase of the labour
ing classes is affected, that of food is the most active and universal.
If two countries, equal in aU other respects, differ solely in this,
— that in one the national food is cheap and abundant, and in
the other scarce and dear, the population of the former country
will inevitably increase more rapidly than the population of the
latter."' And, by a parity of reasoning, the average rate of
wages wiU be lower in the former than in the latter, simply be
cause the labour-market wUl he more amply stocked."^ An in
quiry, therefore, into the physical laws on which the food of
different countries depends, is, for our present purpose, of the
greatest importance ; and fortunately it is one respecting which
we are able, in the present state of chemistry and physiology, to
arrive at some precise and definite conclusions.
The food consumed by man produces two, and only two,
effects necessary to his existence. These are, first to supply him
with that animal heat without which the functions of life would
stop ; and secondly, to repair the waste constantly taking place
in his tissues, that is, in the mechanism of his frame. For each
of these separate purposes there is a separate food. ' .The tem
perature of our body is kept up hy substances which contain no
nitrogen, and are caUed non-azotized ; the incessant decay in
our organism is repaired hy what are known as azotized sub
stances, in which nitrogen is always found. "^ j In the former
question : " The rise or faU of wages is common to'aU states of society, whether it
be the stationary, the advancing, or the retrograde state. In the stationary state, it
is regulated whoUy by the increase or falUng-off of the population. In the advancing
state, it depends on whether the capital or the population advance at the more rapid
course. In the retrograde state, it depends on whether population or capital decrease
with the greater rapidity." Ricardo' s Works, p, 379.
"' The standard of comfort being of course supposed the same.
" " No point ia- better estabUshed, than that the supply of labourers wiU always
ultimately be in proportion to the meana of supporting them." Principles of PoUti
cal Economy, chap, xxi., in Ricardo's Works, p. 176. Compare Smith's Wealth of
Nations, book i. chap. xi. p. 86, and M'Culloch's Political Economy, p. 222.
_ " The division of food into azotized and non-azotized ia said to have been first
pointed out by Magendie. See Mailer's Physiology, vol. i. p. 525. It ia now recog
nised by most of the best authorities. See, for instance, Liebig's Animal Chemistry,
p. 134; Carpenter's Human Physiology, p. 685 ; Brande's Chemistry, voLU. pp. 1218,
1870. The first tables of food constructed according to it were by Bouaaingault ;
see an elaborate essay by Messrs. Lawes and Gilbert on ITie Composition of Foods,

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 41
case,^the carbon of non-azotized food combines with the oxygen
we take in, and gives rise to that internal combustion by which
our animal heat is renewed. In the latter case, nitrogen having
little affinity for c^ygen,"' the nitrogenous or azotized food is,
as it were, guarded against combustion f and being thus pre
served, is able to perform its duty of repairing the tissues, and
supplying those losses which the human organism constantly
suffers in the wear and tear of daily Ufe.
', These are the two great divisions of food ;"' and if we in
quire into the laws which regulate the relation they bear to man,
we shall find that in each division the most important agent is
cUmate. When men Uve in a hot country, their animal heat is
more easUy kept up than when they live in a cold one ; there
fore they require a smaller amount of that non-azotized food, the
sole business of which is to maintain at a certain point the tem
perature of the body. In the same way, they, in the hot coun
try, require a smaUer amount of azotized food, hecause on the
whole their bodily exertions are less frequent, and on that ac
count the decay of their tissues is less rapid."'
in Report of British Association for 1852, p. 323 ; but the experiments made by these
gentlemen are neither numerous nor diversified enough to establish a general law ;
StiU less can we accept their singular assertion, p. 346, that the comparative prices of
different foods are a test of the nutriment they comparatively contain.
" " Of all the elements of the animal body, nitrogen has the feeblest attraction
for oxygen ; and, what ia still more remarkable, it deprives aU combustible elements
with which it combines, to a greater or less extent, of the power of combining with
oxygen, that is, of undergoing combustion." Liebig's Letters on Chemistry, p. 372.
" The doctrine of what may be called the protecting power of some substances
is still imperfectly understood, and until late in the eighteenth century its existence
was hardly suspected. It is now known to be connected with the general theory of
poisons. See Turner's Chemistry, vol. i. p. 516. To this we must probably ascribe
the fact, that several poisons which are fatal when applied to a wounded surface, may
be taken into the stomach with impunity. Brodie's Physiological Researches, 1851,
pp. 137, 138. It seems more reasonable to refer thia to chemical lawa than to hold,
with Sir Benjamin Brodie, that son^e poisons "destroy Ufe by paralysing the muscles
of respiration without immediately affecting the action of the heart."
^ Prout's weU-known division into aaccharine, oily, and albuminous, appears to
me of much inferior value, though I observe that it is adopted iu the last edition of
Elliotson's Human Physiology, pp. 66, 160. The division by M. LepeUetier into " lea
aUmens soUdea et lea boiaaona" is of course purely empirical. LepeUetier, Physiologie,
Midicale, vol. ii. p. 100, Paris, 1832. In regard to Prout's classification, compare
BurdacKs Traite de Physiologie, voh ix. p. 240, with Wagner's Physiology, p. 452.
'^ The evidence of au universal connexion in the animal frame between exertion
and decay, is now almost complete. In regard to the muscular system, see Carpen
ter's Human Physiology, pp. 440, 441, 581, edit. 1846 : " there is strong reason to
beUeve the waste or decomposition of the muscular tissue to be in exact proportion
to the degree in which it is exerted." Thia perhaps would be generaUy anticipated
even in the absence of direct proof; but what is more interesting, is that the same
principle holds good of the nervous system. The huihan brain of an adult contains
about one and a half per cent, of phosphorus ; and it has been ascertained, that after
the mind baa been much exercised, phosphates are excreted, and that in the case of
inflammation of the brain their excretion (by the kidneys) is very conaiderable. See
Pagefs Lectures on Surgical Pathology, 1863, vol. i. pp. 6,'7, 434 ; Carpenter's Human
Physiology, pp. 192, 193, 222 ; Simon's Animal Chemistry, vol. U. p. 426 ; Henle,

42 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
Since, therefore, the inhabitants of hot cUmates do, in_ their
natural and ordinary state, consume less food than the inhabitants
of cold ones, it inevitably follows that, pro^vided other things
remain equal, the growth of population will* he more rapid in •
countries which are hot than in those which are cold. For prac
tical purposes it is immaterial whether the greater plenty of a
substance by which the people are fed arises, from a larger sup-
ply, or whether it arises from a smaUer consumption. When
men eat less, the result wUl be just the same as if they had
more ; because the same amount of nutriment will go further,
and thus population wiU gain a power of increasing more quickly
than it could do in a colder country, where, even if provisions
were equally abundant, they, owing to the climate, would be
sooner exhausted.
This is the first point of view in which the laws of climate
are, through the medium of food, connected with the laws of
population, and therefore with the laws of the distribution of
wealth. But there is also another point of view, which follows
the same line of thought, and wUl be found to strengthen the
argument just stated. This is, that in cold countries, not only
are men compelled to eat more than in hot ones, hut their food
is dearer, that is to say, to get it is more difficult, and requires a
greater expenditure of labour. The reason of this I wUl state as
briefly as possible, without entering into any detaUs beyond those
which are absolutely necessary for a right understanding of this
interesting subject.
The objects of food are, as we have seen, only two : namely,
to keep up the warmth of the body, and repair the waste in the
tissues." Of these two objects, the former is effected by the
oxygen of the air entering our lungs, and, as it travels through
the system, combining with the carbon which we take in oiir
food.'' This combination of oxygen and carbon never can occur
Anatomie Ginirale, vol. ii. p. 172. The reader may also consult reapecting the phos
phorus of the brain, the recent very able work of MM. Eobin et VerdeU, Chimie
Anatomique, vol. i. p. 215, vol. ii. p. 348, Paria, 1853. According to these writers
(vol iii. p. 445), ita existence in the brain waa first announced by Henaing, in 1779.
" Though both objects are equaUy essential, the former is usually the more
pressing ; and it has been ascertained by experiment, what we should expect from
theory, that when animals are starved to death, there is a progressive decline in the
temperature of their bodies ; ao that the proximate cause of death by starvation is
not weakness, but cold. See William.s's Principles of Medicine, p. 36 ; and on the
connexion between the loss of animal heat and the appearance of rigor mortis in the
contractUe parts of the body, see Vogel's Pathological Anatomy of the HumanBody,
p. 632. Compare the important and thoughtful work of Burdach, Physiologie comiM
Science d^ Observation, vol. v. pp. 144, 487, vol ix. p. 231.
^' Until the last twenty or five-and-twenty years, it used to be supposed that this
combination took place in the lungs ; but more careful experiments have made it
probable that the oxygen unites with the carbon in the circulation, and that the blood-
corpuscules are the carriers of the oxygen. Comp. Liebig's Animal Chemistry,"}.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 43
without producing a considerable amount of heat, and it is in
this way that the human frame is maintained at its necessary
temperature. "_ By virtue of a law famUiar to chemists, carbon
and oxygen, like aU other elements, wUl only unite in certain
definite proportions ;" so that to keep up a healthy balance, it
is needful that the food which contains the carbon should vary
according to the amount of oxygen taken in ; whUe it is equally
needful that we should increase the quantity of both of these
constituents whenever a greater external cold lowers the temper
ature of the body. Now it is obvious that in a very cold climate,
this necessity of providing a nutriment more highly carbonized
wUl arise in two distinct ways. In the first place, the air being
78; Letters on Chemisb-y, pp. 335, 886 ; Turner's CJiemistry, vol ii. p. 1319 ; Mailer's
Physiology, vol. i. pp. 92, 159. That the combination does not take place in the air-
cells is moreover proved by the fact that the lungs are not hotter than other parts of
the body. See Muller, vol. i. p. 348 ; Thomson's Animal Chemistry, p. , 633 ; and
Brodie's Physiol. Researches, p. 33. Another argument in favour of the red corpus-
culea being the carriers of oxygen, is that they are most abundant in those clasaes
of vertebrata which maintain the highest temperature : while the blood of inverte
brata contains very few of them ; and it has been doubted if they even exist iu the
lo-wer articulata and moUusea. See Carpenter's Human Physiol, pp. 109, 632 ; Grant's
Comparative Anatomy, p. 472; Elliotson's Human Physiol, p. 159. In regard to
the different dimensions of corpuscules, see Henle, Anatomie Generale, vol. i. pp.
457-467, 494, 495 ; BlainviUe Physiologie Comparee, voL i. pp. 298, 299, 301-304 ;
Milne Edwards, Zoologie, part i. pp. 64-56 ; Fourth Report of British Association,
pp. 117, 118; Simon's Animal Chemistry, vol. i. pp. 108, 104; and, above all, the
important observations of Mr. GuUiver {Carpenter, pp. 105, 106). These additions
to our knowledge, besides being connected with the lawa of animal heat and of nutri
tion, wiU, when generaUzed, aasiat apeculative minds in raising pathology to a science.
In the mean time I may mention the relation between an examination of the corpus
cules, and the theory of inflammation which Hunter and Broussais were unable to
settle : this is, that the proximate cause of inflammation is the obstruction of the
vessels by the adhesion of the pale corpuaculea. Respecting thia atriking generaU-
zation, which ia atiU on its trial, compare Williams's Principles of Medicine, 1848,
pp. 258-265, with Pagefs Surgical Pathology, 1853, vol. i. pp. 313-317 ; Jones and
Sieveking's Pathological Anatomy, 1854, pp. 28, 105, 106. The difficulties connected
with the scientific study of infiammation are evaded in Vogel's Pathological Anato
my, p. 418; a work which appears to me to have been greatly overrated.
^ On the amount of heat disengaged by the union of carbon and oxygen, see
the experiments of Dulong, in Liebig's Animal Chemistry, p. 44 ; and those of Dea-
pretz, in Thmnson's Animal Chemistry, p. 634. Just in the same way, we find that
the temperature of plants is maintained by the combination of oxygen with carbon :
see Balfour's Botany, pp. 231, 232, 322, 323. As to the amount of heat caused
generaUy by chemical combination, there ia an essay weU worth reading hy Dr.
Thomas Andrewain Report of British Association for 1849, pp. 63-78. See also Report
of British Association for 1849, pp. 63-78 ; See also Report for 1862, Transac. of
Soc. p. 40, and Liebig and Kopp's Reports on the Progress of Chemistry, vol. i. p. 34,
vol. iu. p. 16, vol. iv. p. 20 ; also Pouillet, Elhnens de Physique, Paris, 1832, vol. i.
part i. p. 411.
¦ ^ The law of definite proportions, which, aince the brUUant discoveries by Balton,
is the corner-stone of chemical knowledge, is laid down with admirable clearneaa in
Turner's Elements of Chemistry, vol. i. pp. 146-151. Compare Brande's Chemistry,
vol. i. pp. 139-144 ; Cuvier Progrh de Sciences, vol. u. p._ 255 ; Somerville's Con
nexion bf the Sciences, pp. 120, 121. But none of these writers have considered the
law so philosophicaUy as M. A. Comte, Philosophie Positive, vol. iii. pp. 183-176,
one of the best chapters in his very profound, but iU-understood book.

44 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
denser, men imbibe at each inspiration a greater volume of oxy
gen than they would do in a cUmate where the air is rarefied by
heat.'^ In the second place, cold accelerates their respiration,
and thus obliging them to inhale more frequently than the in
habitants of hot countries, increases the amount of oxygen which
they on an average take in.'' On both these grounds the con
sumption of oxygen becomes greater : it is therefore requisite
that the consumption of carbon should also be greater ; since hy
the union of these two elements in certain definite proportions,
the temperature of the body and the balance of the human frame
can alone be maintained.'*
Proceeding from these chemical and physiological principles,
we arrive at the conclusion, that the colder the country is
in which a people live, the more highly carbonized wiU be their
food. And this, which is a purely scientific inference, has been
verified by actual experiment. The inhabitants of the polar re
gions consume large quantities of whale-oU and blubber ; while
within the tropics such food would soon put an end to life, and
therefore the ordinary diet consists almost entirely of fruit, rice,
and other vegetables. Now it has heen ascertained, by careful
analysis, that in the polar food there is an excess of carbon : in
" " Ainsi, dans des temps figaux, la quantity d'oxygfene consommfie par le
mfime animal est d'autant plus grande que la temperature ambiante est moins filev^e."
Robin et VerdeU, Chimie Anatomique, voh u. p. 44. Compare Simon's Lectures m
Pathology, 1850, p. 188, for the diminished quantity of respiration in a high temper
ature ; though one may question Mr. Simon's inference that therefore the blood is
more venous in hot countries than in cold ones. This is not making aUowance for
the difference of diet, which corrects the difference of temperature.
^^ " The consumption of oxygen in a given time may be expressed by the num
ber of respirations." Liebig's Letters on Chemistry, p. 314; and see Thomson's An
imal^ Chemistry, p. 611. It is also certain that exercise increases the number of
respirations ; and birds, which are the moat active of aU animala, consume more
oxygen than any others. Milne Edwards, Zoologie, part i. p. 88, part u. p. 371;-
Flourens, Travaux de Cuvier, pp. 153, 154, 265, 266. Compare, on the connection
between respiration and the locomotive organs, Beclard, Anatomie Genirale, pp. 39,
44; Burdach, Traite de Physiologie, vol. ix. pp. 485, 556-559; Carus' Comparative
Anatomy, vol. i. pp. 99, 164, 368, vol. ii. pp. 142, 160 ; Grant's Comparative Anato
my, pp. 455, 495, 522, 629, 637 ; Rymer Jones's Animal Kingdom, pp. 369, 440, 692,
714, 720 ; Owen's Invertebrata, pp. 322, 846, 386, 606. Thua too it has been experi
mentally ascertained, 'that in human beings exercise increases the amount of car
bonic acid gas. Mayo's Human Physiology, p. 64; lAebiq and Kopp's Reports, vol. iii,
p. 359.
_ If we now put these facts together, their bearing on the propositions in the text
wUl become evident ; because, on the whole, there is more exercise taken in cold
climatea than in hot ones, and there muat therefore be an increased respiratory ac-
*'°"- ¦^o'' proof that greater exerciae ia both taken and required, compare Wran
gel s Polar Expedition, pp. 79, 102; Richardson's Arctic Expedition, vol. i. p. 385 ;
Simpson s North Coast of America, pp. 49, 88, which ahould be contrasted with the
contempt for such amusements iu hot countries. Indeed, in polar regions aU this
la so essential to preserve a normal state, that scurvy can only be kept off in the
northern part of the American continent by taking considerable exercise ; see
Grantz History of England, vol. 1. pp. 46, 62, 338.
bee the note at the end of this chapter.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 45
the tropical food an excess of oxygen. Without entering into
detaUs, which to the majority of readers would be distasteful, it
may be said generaUy, that the oUs contain about six times as
much carbon as the fruits, and that they have in them very Uttle
oxygen ;" while starch, which is the most universal, and, in re
ference to nutrition, the most important constituent in the vege
table world,'' is nearly half oxygen."
The connexion between this circumstance and the subject
before us is highly curious : for it is a most remarkable fact, and
one to which I would caU particular attention, that oyying to
some more general law, of which we are ignorant, highly carbon
ized food is more costly than food in which comparatively Uttle
carbon is found. The fruits of the earth, of which oxygen is the
most active principle, are very abundant ; they may he obtained
yyithout danger, and almost without trouble. But that highly
carbonized food which in a very cold climate is absolutely neces
sary to life, is not produced in so facUe and spontaneous a man
ner. It is not, like vegetables, thrown up by the soil ; but it
consists of the fat, the blubber, and the oU," of powerful and
ferocious animals. To procure it, man must incur great risk,
and expend great labour. And although this is undoubtedly a
contrast of extreme cases, stUl it is evident that the nearer a
people approach to either extremity, the more subject wUl they
he to the conditions by which that extremity is governed. It is
evident that, as a general rule, the colder a country is, the more
" " The fruits used by the inhabitants of southern climes do not contain, in a
fresh state, more than 12 per cent, of carbon ; while the blubber and train-oU which
feed the inhabitants of polar regions contain 66 to 80 per cent, of that element.
Liebig's Leiters on Chemistry, p. 320; see also p. 376, and Turner's Chemistry, vol.
u. p. 1315. According to Prout {Mayo's Human Physiol, p. 136), "the proportion
of carbon in oUy bodies varies from about 60 to 80 per cent." The quantity of oil
and fat habituaUy consumed in cold countries ia remarkable. Wrangel {Polar Ex
pedition, p. 21) says of the tribes in the north-east of Siberia, " fat is their greatest
deUcacy. They eat it in every possible shape — raw, melted, fresh, or spoilt." See
also Simpson's Discoveries on the North Coast of America, pp. 147, 404.
'^ " So common that no plant is destitute of it." Lindley's Botany, vol. i. p.
Ill; and at page 121, " starch is the most common of all vegetable productions."
Dr. Lindley adds (vol. i. p. 292), that it is difficult to distinguish the grains of starch
secreted by plants, from cytoblasts. See also on the starch-granules first noticed
by M. Link, Reports on Botany by the Ray Society, pp. 223, 370 ; and respecting its
predominance in the vegetable world, compare Thomson's Chemistry of Vegetables,
pp. 650-652, 876 ; Brande's Chemistry, vol. U. p. 1160 ; Turner's Chemistry, vol. ii.
p. 1236 ; Liebig and Kopp's Reports, vol. ii. pp. 97, 98, 122.
^ The oxygen is 49'39 out of 100. See the table in Liebig's Letters on Chemis
try, p. 379. Amidin, which is the soluble part of starch, contains 53'33 per cent.
of oxygen. See ThamsorCs Chemistry of Vegetables, p. 664, on the authority of
Prout, who has the reputation of being an accurate experimenter.
" Of which a single whale wiU yield " cent vingt tonneaux." Cmiier Regne Ani
mal, voh i. p. 397. In regard to the solid food. Sir J. Eichardson {Arctic Expedi
tion, 1851, vol. i. p. 243) says that the inhabitanta of the Arctic regions only main
tain themselves by chasing whales and " consuming blubber."

46 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
its food wUl he carbonized ; the warmer it is, the more its food
wUl be oxidized.^' At the same time, carbonized food, being
chiefiy drawn from the animal world, is more difficult to obtain
than oxidized food, which is drawn from the vegetable world.^"
The result has been, that among nations where the coldness of
the cUmate renders a highly carbonized diet essential, there is
for the most part displayed, even in the infancy of society, a
bolder and more adventurous character than we find among those
other nations whose ordinary nutriment, being highly oxidized,
is easily obtained, and indeed is suppUed to them, by the bounty
of nature, gratuitously and without a struggle.'" From this
original divergence there follow many other consequences, which,
however, I am not now concerned to trace; my present object
being merely to point out how this difference of food affects the
proportion in which wealth is distributed to the different classes.
The way in vv^hich this proportion is actually altered has, I
hope, been made clear by the preceding argument. But it may
be useful to recapitulate the facts on which the argument is
based. The facts, then, are simply these. The rate of wages
fluctuates with the population; increasing when the labour-mafi
ket is under-supplied, diminishing when it is over-supplied.
The population itself, though affected hy many other circum
stances, does undoubtedly fluctuate with the supply of food;
advancing when the supply is plentiful, halting or receding when
the supply is scanty. The food essential to life, is scarcer in
cold countries than in hot ones ; and not only is it scarcer, but
" It is aaid, that to keep a person in health, his food even in the temperate
parts of Europe, should contain " a full eighth more carbon in winter than in sum
mer." Liebig's Animal Chemistry, p. 16.
" The most highly carbonized of all foods are undoubtedly yielded by animals ;
the most highly oxidized by vegetables. In the vegetable kingdom there ia, how
ever, so much carbon, that its predominance, accompanied with the rarity of nitro
gen, has induced chemical botanists to characterize plants as carbonized, and animals
as azotized. But we have here to attend to a double antithesis. Vegetables are
carbonized in so far as they are non-azotized ; but they are oxidized in opposition
to the highly carbonized animal food of cold countries. Besides this, it is impor
tant to observe that the carbon of vegetables ia moat abundant in the woody and
unnutritious part, which is not eaten ; while the carbon of animals is found in the
fatty and oUy parta, which are not only eaten,' but are, in cold countriea, greedily
devoured. *^ Sir J. Malcolm {History of Persia, vol u. p. 380) speaking of the cheapness
of vegetables in the East, says, " in some parts of Persia fruit has hardly any value."
Cuvier, in a striking passage {Regne Animal, vol. i. pp. 73, 74) has contrasted vege
table with animal food, and thinks that the former, being so easily obtained, is the
more natural. But the truth is that both are equally natural ; though when Cuvier
wrote scarcely any thing was known of the laws which govern the relation between
cUmate and food. On the skiU and energy required to obtain food in cold countrieSj
see Wrangel' s Polar Expedition, pp. 70, 71, 191,192; Simpson's Discoveries on th
North Coast of America, -p. 249; Grantz, History of Greenland, vol. i. vV. 22, 82,
105, 131, 154, 155, vol. n. pp. 203, 265, 824.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 47
more of it is required ;^^ so that on both grounds smaller encour
agement is given to the growth of that population from whose
ranks the labour-market is stocked. To express, therefore, tho
conclusion in its simplest form, we may say, that there is a
strong and constant tendency in hot countries for wages to be
low, in cold countries for them to he high.
Applying now this great principle to the general course of
history, we shall find proofs of its accuracy in every direction.
Indeed, there is not a single instance to the contrary. In Asia,
in Africa, and in America, all the ancient civiUzations were
seated in hot climates; and in all of them the rate of wages was
very low, and therefore the condition of the labouring classes
very depressed. In Europe for the first time, civilization arose
in a colder climate : hence the reward of labour was increased,
and the distribution of -^'ealth rendered more equal than was
possible in countries where an excessive abundance of food stimu
lated the growth of population. This difference produced, as
we shaU presently see, many social and poUtical consequences of
immense importance. But before discussing them, it may be re
marked, that the only apparent exception to what has been
stated, is one which strikingly verifies the general law. There is
one instance, and only one, of a great European people possess
ing a very cheap national food. This people, I need hardly say,
are the Irish. In Ireland the labouring classes have for more
than two hundred years been principally fed by potatoes, which
were introduced into their country late in the sixteenth, or early
in the seventeenth century." Now, the peculiarity of the potato
is, that until the appearance of the late disease, it was, and per
haps stUl is, cheaper than any other food equaUy wholesome. If
we compare its reproductive power with the amount of nutri-
" Cabanis {Rapports du Physique et du Moral, p. 313) says, "Danales temps et dana
lea pays froids on mange et I'on agit davantage." That much food ia eaten in cold coun
tries, and little in hot ones, is mentioned by numerous travellers, none of whom arc
aware of the cause. See Simpson's Discov. on the North Coast of America, p. 218 ;
Custine's Russie, vol. iv. p. 66; Wrangel's Expedition,^^. 21, 327; Grantz, History
of Greenland, voh i. pp. 145, 360 ; Richardson's Central Africa, vol. ii. p. 46 ; Ricli-
ardson's Sahara, vol. i. p. 137; Denham's Africa, p. 37; Journal of Asiatic iSociety,
vol. V. p. 144, vol. viii. p. 188 ; Burckhardt's Travels in Arabia, vol. U. p. 266 ;
Neibuhr, Description de V Arabic, p. 45 ; Ulloa's Voyage to South America, vol. i. pp.
403, 408 ; Journal of Geograph. Society, vol. iii. p. 283, vol. vi. p. 85, vol. xix. p.
121; Spix and Martius' s Travels in Brazil, -vol. i. p. 164; Southey's History of Brazil,
vol. iu. p. 848 ; Volney, Voyage en Syrie et en Egypt, vol. i. pp. 379, 380, 460 ; Low's
Sarawak, p. 140.
*^ Meyen {Geography of Plants, 1846_, p. 313) says that the potato was intro
duced into Ireland in 1586 ; but according to Mr. M'CuUoch {Dictionary of Com
merce, 1849, p. 1048), " potatoes, it is commonly thought, were not introduced into
Ireland tiU 1610, when a smaU quantity was eent by Sir Walter Raleigh to be planted
in a garden on his estate in the vicinity of YoughaU." Compare Loudon's Encyclop.
of Agriculture, p. 845 ; " first planted by Sir Walter Baleigh on his estate of Youg
haU, near Cork."

48 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
ment contained in it, we find that one acre of average land sown
wdth potatoes wdU support twice as many persons as the same
quantity of land sown with wheat.^' The consequence is, that
in a countiy where men live on potatoes, the population wiU, if
other things are tolerably equal, iacrease twice as fast as in a
country where they live on wheat. And so it has actuaUy oc
curred. UntU a very few years ago, when the face of affairs was
entirely altered by pestUence and enugration, the population of
Ireland was, in round numbers, increasing annually three per
cent.; the population of England during the same period in
creasing one-and-a-half per cent.*' The result was, that in
these two countries the distribution of wealth was altogether dif
ferent. Even in England the growth of population is somewhat
too rapid; and the labour-market being overstocked, the work
ing-classes are not sufficiently paid for their labour.*' But their
condition is one of sumptuous splendour, compared to that in
which only a few years ago the Irish were forced to live. The
misery in which they were plunged has no doubt always been
aggravated by the ignorance of their rulers, and by that scanda
lous misgovernment which, untU very recently, formed one of the
darkest blots on the glory of England. The most active cause,
however, was, that their wages were so low as to debar them,
not only from the comforts, hut from the common decencies of
civUized life; and this evil condition was the natural result of
that cheap and abundant food, which encouraged the people to
so rapid an increase, that the labour-market was constantly
gorged." So far 'was this carried, that an inteUigent observer
who travelled through Ireland twenty years ago, mentions that at
that time the average wages were fourpence a-day; and that even
" Adam Smith ( Wealth of Nations, book i. chap. xi. p. 67) supposes that it will
support three times as many ; but the statistics of this great writer are the weakest
part of his work, and the more careful calculations made since he wrote, bear out
the statement in the text. " It admits of demonstration that an acre of potatoes
wUl feed double the number of people that can be fed on an acre of wheat." Lm-
don's Encyclop. of Agriculture, 6th edit., 1844, p. 845. So, too, va. M'Culloch's Bid.,
p. 1048, " an acre of potatoes will feed double the number of individuals that can
be fed from an acre of wheat." The daUy average consumption of an able-bodied
labourer in Ireland is estimated at nine-and-a-half pounds of potatoes for men, and
seven-and-a-half for women. See Phillips on Scrofula, 1846, p. 177.
" Malthus, Essay on Population, voh i. pp. 424, 425, 431, 435, 441, 442 ; M'Od-
loch's Political Economy, pp. 381, 382.
¦" The lowest agricultural wagea in our time have been in England, about Is. a
day ; whUe from the evidence coUected by Mr. Thornton in 1845, the higheat wages
then paid were in Lincolnahire, and were rather more than 13s. a-week ; those in
Yorkshire and Northumberland being nearly as high. Thornton on Over-Population,
pp. 12-16, 24, 26. Godwin, writing in 1820, eatimatea the average at Is. 6d. a-day.
Godwin on Population, p. 674. Mr. PhiUips, in his work On Scrofula, 1846, p. 345,
says, "at present the ratio of wages is from 9«. to 10s."
*" The most miserable part, namely Connaught, in 1733, contained 242,160 in
habitants ; and in 1821, 1,110,229. See Sadler's Law of Population, voh u. p. 490.

GENERAL INTEODUCTION. 49
this wretched pittance could not always he relied -upon for regu
lar employment.^" Such have heen the consequences of cheap food in a country
which, on the whole, possesses greater natural resources than any
other in Europe." ' And if we investigate on a larger scale the
social and economical condition of nations, we shaU see the same
principle every where at work. We shall see that, other things
remaining equal, the food of a people determines the increase of
their numbers, and the increase of their numbers determines the
rate of their wages. We shaU moreover find, that when the
wages are invariably low,'" the distribution of wealth being thus
very unequal, the distribution of poUtical power and social infiu-
ence wUl also be very unequal; in other words, it wiU appear
that the normal and average relation between the upper and
lower classes vdU, in its origin, depend upon those pecuUarities
of nature, the operations of which I have endeavoured to indi
cate." After putting all these things together, we shall, I trust,
°° Mr. Inglia, who in 1834 travelled through Ireland with a particular view to its
economical state, says, as the result of very careful inquiries, " I am quite confident
that if the whole yearly earnings of the labourers of Ireland were divided by the
whole number of labourers, the result would be under thia snm^— Fourpence a-day
for the labourera of Ireland." Inglis, Journey throughout Ireland in 1884, Lond.
1835, 2d edit, voh ii. p. 300. At BaUnaeloe, in the county of Galway, "A gentle
man with whom I waa accidentaUy in company offered to procure, on an hour's warn
ing, a couple of hundred labourers at fourpence even for temporary einployment."
Inglis, vol. u. p. 17. The same writer says (vol. i. p. 263), that at Tralee " it often
happens that the labourers, after working in the canal from five in the morning un
til eleven in the forenoon, are discharged for the day with the pittance of twopence."
Compare, iu Cloncurry's Recollections, DubUn, 1849, p. 310, a letter from Dr. Doyle
written in 1829, describing Ireland as " a country where the market is always over
stocked with labour, and in which a man's labour is not worth, at an average, more
than threepence a-day."
" It is singular that so acute a thinker as Mr. Kay should, in his otherwise just
remarks on the Irish, entirely overlook the effect produced on their wagea by the iu-
creaae of population. Kay's Social Condition of the People, vol. i. pp. 8, fl, 92, 223,
306-324. This is the more observable, because the disadvantages of cheap food have
been noticed not only by several common writers, but by the highest of all authori
ties on population, Mr. Malthus : aee the sixth edition of his ' Essay on Population,
voh L p. 469, vol. u. pp. 123, 124, 388, 884. If these things were oftener consid
ered, we should not hear so much about the idleness and levity of the Celtic race ',
the simple fact being, that the Irish are unwiUing to work, not because they are
Celts, but because their work ia badly paid. When they go abroad, they get good
wagea, aud therefore they become as industrious as any other people. Compare
Journal of Statistical Society, voL vu. p. 24, with Thornton on Over-Population, p.
425 ; a very valuable work. Even in 1799, it waa observed that the Irish aa aoon
as they left their own country became induatrious and energetic. See Parliamenta
ry History, vol. xxxiv. p. 222. So too, in North America, " they are most wUling to
work hard." LyelVs Second Visit to the United States, 1849, voh i. p. 187.
'" By low wagea, I mean low reward of labour, which is of course independent
both of the coat of labour and of the money-rate of wagea.
'^ In a recent work of conaiderable ingenuity {Doubleday's True Law of Popu
lation, 1847, pp. 25-29, 69, 78, 123, 124, &c.) it ia noticed that countriea are more
populous when the ordinary food is vegetable than when it is animal; and an at
tempt is made to explain this on the ground that a poor diet is more favourable to
VOL. I. — 4

50 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
be ahle to disoern, with a clearness hitherto unknown, the inti
mate connexion between the physical and moral world ; the laws
by which that connexion is governed ; and the reasons why so
many ancient civilizations reached a certain stage of develop
ment, and then feU away, unable to resist the pressure of nature,
or make head against those external obstacles by which their pro
gress was effectually retarded.
If, in the first place, we turn to Asia, we shall see an admi
rable Ulustration of what may be caUed the colUsion between in
ternal and external phenomena. Owing to circumstances al
ready stated, Asiatic civUization. has always been confined to
that rich tract where alone wealth could be easily obtained.
This immense zone comprises some of the most fertile parts of
the globe; and of aU its provinces, Hindostan is certainly the one
which for the longest period has possessed the greatest civiliza
tion."* And as the materials for forming an opinion respecting
India are more ample than those respecting any other part of
Asia," I purpose to select it as an example, and use it to Ulus-
fecundity than a rich one. But though the fact of the greater increase of popula
tion ia indisputable, there are several reasons for being dissatisfied with Mr. Double-
day's explanation.
1st. That the power of propagation is heightened by poor living, is a proposition
which has never been estabUshed physiologicaUy ; while the observations of travel
lers and of governmenta are not sufficiently numeroua to establish it statisticaUy.
2d. Vegetable diet is as generous for a hot country as animal diet is for a cold
country ; and since we know that, notvrithstanding the difference of food and cli
mate, the temperature of the body varies Uttle between the equator and the poles
(compare lAebig's Animal Chemistry, p. 19 ; Holland's Medical Notes, p. 473 ; Pouil
let, Elemens de Physique, vol i. part i. p. 414 ; Burdach's Traiti de Physiologie, vol.
ix. p. 663), we have no reason to believe that there is any other normal variation,
but should rather suppose that, in regard to aU essential functions, vegetable diet
and external heat are equivalent to animal diet and external cold.
3d. Even conceding, for the sake of argument, that vegetable food increases the
procreative power, thia would only affect the number of births, and not the density
of population ; for a greater number of birtha may be, and often are, remedied by a
greater mortaUty ; a point in regard to which Godwin, in trying to refute Malthus,
falla into aerious error. Godwin on Population, p. 317.
Since writing the above, I have found that these views of Mr. Doubleday's were
in a great measure anticipated by Fourier. See Rey, Science Sociale, vol. i. p. 185.
" I use the word ' Hindostan' in the popular sense, as extending south to Cape
Comorin ; though, properly speaking, it only includes the country north of the Ner-
budda. Gom^&re Mill's History of India, -vol. ii. p. 178; Bohlen, das alte Indien,
vol. i. p. 11 ; Meiners uber die Lander in Asien, vol i. p. 224. The word itself ia not
found in the old Sanscrit, and is of Persian origin. Hallied's Preface to the Gen
too Laws, pp. XX. xxi. ; Asiatic Researches, vol. ui. pp. 868, 869.
"' So that, in addition to works pubUshed on their philosophy, religion, and juris
prudence, a learned geographer stated several years ago, that " kein anderes Asiat-
isches Reich ist in den letzten drey Jahrhunderten vou so vielen und so einsichts-
voUen Europaern durchreist, und beschrieben worden, als Hindostan." Meiners Lan
der in Asien, vol. i. p. 225. Since the time of Meiners, such evidence has become
still more precise and extensive; aud is, I think, too much neglected by M. Rhode
in his valuable work on India. " Dem Zwecke dieser Arbeit gemaaa, betraohten wir
Wer nur Werke der Hindus selbst, oder Auszuge aus denselben als QueUen." Rhodt,
Religiose Bildung der Hindus, vol. i. p. 43.

GENERAL INTEODUCTION. 51
trate those laws which, though generaUzed from political econo-
niy, chemistry, and physiology, may be verified hy that more ex
tensive survey, the means of which history alone can supply.
In India, the great heat of the cUmate brings into play that
law already pointed out, hy virtue of which the ordinary food is
of an oxygenous rather than of a carbonaceous character. This,
according to another law, obliges the people to derive their usual
diet not from the animal, hut from the vegetable world, of which
starch is the most important constituent. At the same time the
high temperature, incapacitating men for arduous labour, makes
necessary a food of which the returns wUl be abundant, and
which will contain much nutriment in a comparatively small
space. Here, then, we have some characteristics, which, if the
preceding views are correct, ought to he found in the ordinary
food of the Indian nations. So they aU are. From the earliest
period the most general food in India has been rice,'" which is
the most nutritive of all the cereaUa;^' which contains an enor
mous proportion of starch;"' and which yields to the labourer an
average return of at least sixty fold."'
Thus possible is it, by the appUcation of a few physical laws,
to anticipate what the national food of a country wUl be, and
therefore to anticipate a long train of ulterior consequences.
What in this case is no less remarkable, is that though in the
south of the peninsula, rice is not so much used as formerly, it
has been replaced, not hy animal food, but hy another grain
called ragi."° The original rice, however, is so suited to the cir-
" This is evident from the frequent and familiar mention of it in that remarka
ble reUc of antiquity, the Institutes of Menu. See the Institutes, in Works of Sir
W. Jones, vol. iii. pp. 87, 132, 156, 200, 215, 366, 400, 408, 434. Thus too, in the
enumeration of foods in Vishnu Purana, pp. 46, 47, rice is the first mentioned. See
further evidence in Bohlen, das alte Indien, vol. i. p. 22, vol. ii. pp. 159, 160 ; Wil
son's Theatre of the Hindus, vol. i. part U. pp. 16, 16, 37, 92, 95, vol. U. part u. p. 35,
part iii. p. 64 ; Notes on the Mahabharata, in Journal of Asiatic Society, vol. vii. p.
141; Travels of Ibn Batuta in Fourteenth Century, p. 164; Colebrook' s Digest oj
Hindu Law, vol. i. p. 499, vol. u. pp. 44, 48, 436, 669, vol. ui. pp. 11, 148, 205, 206,
207, 266, 364, 530 ; Asiatic Researches, vol. vu. pp. 299, 302 ; Ward on the Hin
doos, vol. i. p. 209, vol. Ui. p. 105.
^' " It contains a greater portion of nutritious matter than any of the cereaUa."
Somerville's Physical Geography, vol. u. p. 220.
'" It contains from 83'8 to 85'07 per cent of starch. Brande's Chemistry, voh
u. p. 1624 ; Thomson's Chemistry of Organic Bodies, p. 883.
™ It is difficult to coUect sufficient evidence to strike an average : but in Egypt,
according to Savary, rice " produces eighty bushels for one." Loudon's Encyclop.
of Agriculture, p. 173. In Tennasserim, the yield ia from 80 to 100. Low's Histo
ry of Tennasserim, in Journal of Asiatic Society, vol. iii. p. 29. In South America,
250 fold, according to Spix and Martius {Travels in Brazil, vol. ii. p. 79) ; or from
2O0 to 300, according to Southey (History of Brazil,^ vol. iii. pp. 668, 806). The
lowest estimate given by M. Meyen is forty fold ; the highest, which is marsh rice in
the Philippine Islands, 400 fold. Meyen's Geography of Plants, 1846, p. 301.
°° Elphinstone' s History of India, p. 7. Eagi is the Cynosurus Corocanus of Linnae
us ; and, conaidering its importance, it has been strangely neglected by botanical

52 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
cumstances I have described, that it is stUl the most general food
of nearly aU the hottest countries of Asia," ' from which at differ
ent times it has been transplanted to other parts of the world.""
In consequence of these pecuUarities of cUmate, and of food,
there has arisen in India that unequal distribution of wealth
which we must expect to find in countries where the labour-
market is always redundant." ' If we examine the earliest Indian
records which have been preserved, — records between two and
three thousand years old, — we find evidence of a state of things
similar to that which now exists, and which, we may rely upon
it, always has existed ever since the accumulation of capital once
fairly began. We find the upper classes enormously rich, and
the lower classes miserably poor. We find those hy whose labour
the wealth is created, receiving the smallest possible share of it;
the remainder being absorbed hy the higher ranks in the form
either of rent or of profit. And as wealth is, after inteUect, the
most permanent source of power, it has naturaUy happened that
a great inequaUty of wealth has heen accompanied by a corre
sponding inequaUty of social and poUtical power. It is not, there-
writers. The beat account I have seen of it ia in BuchanarCs Journey through the
Countries of Mysore, Canara, and Malabar, vol. i. pp. 101-104, 285, 286, 375, 376,
403, vol. U. pp. 103, 104, vol. iu. pp. 239, 240, 296, 297. In the large cities, millet
ia generally used ; of which " a quantity sufficient for two meals may be purchased
for about a half-penny." Gibson on Indian Agriculture, in Journal of Asiatic So
ciety, vol. viu. p. 100.
"' Marsden's History of Sumatra, pp. 66, 59; Raffles' History of Java, vol i.
pp. 39, 106, 119, 129, 240 ; Percival's Ceylon, pp. 337, 864; Transac. of Society of
Bombay, voh ii. p. 155 ; TVansac. of Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 510 ; Journal of Asi
atic Society, vol. i. pp. 228, 247, vol. u. pp. 44, 64, 251, 257, 262, 336, 344, vol iii.
pp. 8, 25, 300, 840, vol. iv. pp. 82, 83, 104, vol. v. pp. 241, 246; Asiatic Researches,
voh V. pp. 124, 229, voh xii. p. 148, vol. xvi. pp. 171, 172; Journal of Geograph. So
ciety, vol. u. p. 86, vol. iii. pp. 124, 295, 300, vol. v. p. 263, vol. viu. pp. 341, 359,
voh xix. pp. 132, 137.
"^ Eice, ao far as I have been able to trace it, has traveUed weatward. Besides
the hiatorical evidence, there are phUological probabiUties in favour of its being in
digenous to Aaia, and the Sanscrit name for it has been very widely diffused. Com
pare Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. u. p. 472, with Craufurd's History of the Indian Ar
chipelago, vol. i. p. 358. In the fourteenth century, it was the common food on
the Zanguebar coast ; and is now universal in Madagascar. Travels of Ibn Batuta
in Fourteenth Century, p. 56 ; Ellis's History of Madagascar, vol. i. pp. 39, 89, 297-
304, vol. ii. p. 292; Journal of Geograph. Society, voh iu. p. 212. From Madagas
car ita aeeds were, according to M'Culloch's Dictionary of Commerce, p. 1105, car
ried to CaroUna late in the seventeenth century. It is now cultivated iu Nicaragua
(Squier's Central America, vol. i. p. 88) and iu South America {Henderson's Hist, of
Brazil, pp. 292, 807, 395, 440, 488), where it is said to grow wild. Compare Mey-
eri's Geography of Plants, pp. 291, 297, vihh. Azara, Voyages dans P Amerique Meri-
dionale, vol. i. p. 100, vol. u. p. 80. The ancient Greeks, though acquainted with
rice, did not cultivate it ; and ita cultivation waa first introduced into Europe by the
Arabs. See Humboldt, Nouvelle Espagfie, vol. u. pp. 409, 410.
So far aa food is concerned, Diodorus Siculus notices the remarkable fertility
of India, and the consequent accumulation of wealth. See two interesting passages
in Bibliothec. Hist. Ub. U. vol. u. pp. 49, 50, 108, 109. But of the economical laws
of distribution he, lUie all the ancient writers, was perfectly ignorant.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 53
fore, surprising that from the earUest period to which our knowl
edge of India extends, an immense majority of the people,
pinched hy the most galUng poverty, and just Uving from hand
to mouth, should always have remained in a state of stupid de
basement, broken by incessant misfortune, crouching hefore their
superiors in abject submission, and only fit either to he slaves
themselves or to he led to battle to make slaves of others.'*
To ascertain the precise value of the average rate of wages in
India for any long period, is impossible ; because, although the
amount might be expressed in money, stUl the value of money,
that is, its purchasing power, is subject to incalculable fluctua
tions, arising from changes in the cost of production."" But, for
OUT present purpose, there is a method of investigation which
win lead to results far more accurate than any statement could
be that depended merely on a coUection of evidence respecting
the wages themselves. The method is simply this : that inas
much as the wealth of a country can only be divided into wages,
rent, profits, and interest, and inasmuch as interest is on an
average an exact measure of profits,"" it foUows that if among
any people rent and interest are both high, wages must he low."
If, therefore, we can ascertain the current interest of money, and
the proportion of the produce of the soil which is absorbed hy
" An able and very learned apologist for thia miserable people says, " The ser
vility so generaUy ascribed to the Hindu is never more conspicuous than when he is
examined as an evidence. But if it be admitted that he acts as a slave, why blame
him for not possessing the virtues of a free man ? The oppression of ages has
ta-ught him implicit suhnission." Vans Kennedy, in Transactions of Society of Bom
bay, vol. iu. p. 144. Compare the observations of Charles Hamilton in Asiatic Re
searches, vol. i. p. 306.
" The impoaaibiUty of having a standard of value is clearly pointed out in Tur
gors Reflexions sur la Formation et la Distribution des Richesses, in (Euvres, vol. v.
pp. 51, 52. Compare Ricardo's Works, pp. 11, 28-30, 46, 166, 253, 270, 401, with
M'Culloch's Principles of Political Economy, pp. 298, 299, 307.
°° Smith's Wealth of Nations, book i. chap. ix. p. 37 ; where, however, the pro
position is stated rather too absolutely, since the risks arising from an insecure state
of society must be taken into consideration. But that there ia an average ratio
between interest and profits is obvious, and is distinctly laid down by the Sanscrit
jurists. See Colebrooke's Digest of Hindu Law, vol. i. pp. 72, 81.
"' Ricardo {Principles of Political Economy, chap. vi. in Works, p. 65) says,
"whatever increases wages, necessarUy reduces profits." And in chap. xv. p. 122,
" whatever raisea the wages of labour, lowers the profit of stock." In several other
places he makes the same assertion, very much to the discomfort of the ordinary
reader, who knows that in the United States, for instance, wages and proflta are both
high. But the ambiguity is in the language, not in the thought ; and in these and
similar paaaages Ricardo by wages meant cost of labour, in which sense the propo
sition is quite accurate. If by wages we mean the reward of labour, then there is
no relation between wages and profits ; for when rent ia low, both of them may be
high, as is the case in the United States. That this was the view of Ricardo ia
evident from the foUowing passage : " Profits, it cannot be too often repeated,
depend on wages ; not on nominal but real wages ; not on the number of pounds
that may be annuaUy paid to the labourer, but on the number of days' work necessary
to obtain those pounds." Political Eccmomy, chap, vu., Ricardo's Works, p. 82.
Compare Mill's Principles of Political Economy, voh i. p. 609, vol. ii. p. 225.

54 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
rent, we shaU get a perfectly accurate idea of the wages; because
wages are the residue, that is, they are what is left to the labour
ers after rent, profits, and interest have been paid..
Now it is remarkable, that in India both interest and rent
have always been very high. In the Institutes of Menu, which
were drawn up about B. c. 900," the lowest legal interest for
money is fixed at fifteen per cent, the highest at sixty per cent."'
Nor is this to be considered as a mere ancient law now fallen into
disuse. So far from that, the Institutes of Menu are stUl the
basis of Indian jurisprudence ;''" and we know on very good au
thority, that in 1810 the interest paid for the use of money varied
from thirty-six to sixty per cent.' '
Thus much as to one of the elements of our present calcula
tion. As to the other element, namely, the rent, we have infor
mation equaUy precise and trustworthy. In England and Scot
land, the rent paid by the cultivator for the use of land is esti
mated in round numbers, taking one farm yyith another, at a
fourth of the gross produce." In France, the average proportion
is about a third;" while in the United States of North America
it is well known to be much less, and, indeed, in some parts, to
he merely nominal.'* But in India, the legal rent, that is, the
"* I take the estimate of Mr. Elphinstone {History of India, pp. 225-228) as mid
way between Sir William Jones ( Works, vol. iu. p. 66) and Mr. Wilaon {Rig Veda
Sanhita, vol. i. p. xlvii.).
°° Institutes of Menu, chap. viii. sec. 140-142, in Works of Sir W. Jones, vol
iu. p. 296. The aubsequent Sanacrit commentators recognize nearly the same rate
of interest, the minimum being fifteen per cent. See Colebrooke's Digest of Hindu
Law, vol. i. pp. 29, 36, 43, 98, 99, 237, vol. ih p. 70.
'•" In Colebrooke's Digest, vol. i. p. 454, and vol. iii. p. 229, Menu ia called " the
higheat authority of memorial law," and "the founder of memorial law." The most
recent historian of India, Mr. Elphinstone, says {Hist, of India, p. 83), " the code '
of Menu is stUl the basis of the Hindu jurisprudence ; and the principal features
remain unaltered to the present day." Thia remarkable code is also the basis of the
laws of the Burmese, and even of those of the Laos. Journal of the Asiatic Society,
vol. u. p. 271, vol. iii. pp. 28, 296, 332, vol. v. p. 252.
" See, in MilVs History of India, vol. i. p. 317, the report of a committee of
the House of Commons in 1810, in which it ia stated that the ryots paid "the heavy
interest of three, four, and five per cent per month." Ward, writing about the same
time, mentiona aa much as aeventy-five per cent, being given, and this apparently
without the lender incurring any extraordinary risk. Ward on the Hindoos, voh ii.
p. 190. "^ Compare the table in LoiudorHs Encyclopaedia of Agriculture, p. 778, with Mor
vor's note in Tusser's Five Hundred Points of Husbandry, p. 195, Lond. 1812, and
M'Culloch's Statistical Account of the British Empire, 1847, vol. i. p. 560.
''' This is the estimate I have received from persons well acquainted with French
agriculture. The rent, of course, varies in each separate instance, according to the
natural powers of the soU, according to the extent to which thoae powers have been
improved, and according to the facilities for bringing the produce to market. But,
notwithstanding these variations, there muat be in every country an average rent,
depending upon the operation of general cauaea.
Owing to the immense aupply of land preventing the neceasity of cultivating
thoae inferior soils which older countriea are glad to use, and' are therefore wiUmg
to pay a rent for the right of uaing. In the United Statea, profita and wages (i. e.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 55
lowest rate recognized hy the law and usage of the country, is
one-half of the produce; and even this cruel regulation is not
strictly enforced, since in many cases rents are raised so high,
that the cultivator not only receives less than half the produce,
but receives so little as to have scarcely the means of providing
seed to sow the ground for the next harvest.'"
The conclusion to he drawn from these facts is manifest.
Rent and interest being always very high, and interest varying,
as it must do, according to the rate of profits, it is evident that
wages must have heen very low; for since there was in India a
specific amount of wealth to he divided into rent, interest, prof
its, and wages, it is clear that the first three could only have
been increased at the expense of the fourth ; which is saying, in
other words, that the reward of the labourers was very small in
proportion to the reward received by the upper classes. And
though this, being an ine-vitable inference, does not require ex
traneous support, it may be mentioned that in modern times, for
which alone we have direct evidence, wages have in India always
heen excessively low, and the people have been, and stUl are,
ohUged to work for a sum barely sufficient to meet the exigencies
of Ufe.'"
the reward of the labourer, not the cost of labour) are both high, which would be
impossible if rent were also high.
'^ See Rammohun Roy on the Judicial and Revenue Systems of India, 1882, pp.
59-61,68, 69, 92, 94. At p. 69, this high authority says of the agricultural peasantry
of Bengal : " In an abundant season, when the price of corn is low, the sale of their
whole crops is required to meet the demands of the landholder, leaving Uttle or noth
ing for seed or subsistence to the labourer or his family." In Cashmere, the sovereign
received half the produce of the rice-crop, leaving the other half to the cultivator.
Moorcroft's Notices of Cashmere, in Journal of Geog. Society, vol. ii. p. 266.
" Heber {Journey through India, voh i. pp. 209, 356, 357, 369) gives some curi
ous instances of the extremely low rate at which the natives are glad to work. As
to the ordinary wagea in India in the preaent century, aee Journal of Asiatic Soci
ety, vol. i. p. 255, vol. V. p. 171 ; Rammohun Roy on the Judicial arid Revenue Sys
tems, pp. 105, 106 ; Sykes's Statistics of the Deccan, in Reports of the British Asso
ciation, vol. vi. p. 321 ; Ward's View of the Hindoos, voh Ui. p. 207 ; Colebrooke's
Digest of Hindu Law, vol. u. p. 184. On wages in the south of India, the fuUest
information wiU be found in Buchanan's valuable- work. Journey through the Mysore,
Canara, and Malabar, vol. i. pp. 124, 125, 133, 171, 175, 216, 217, 298, 390, 415,
voh u. pp. 12, 19, 22, 37, 90, 108, 132, 217, 218, 315, 481, 523, 525, 562, voh Uh
pp. 35. 181, 226, 298, 321, 349, 863, 398, 428, 556. I wish that aU traveUera were
equaUy minute in recording the wagea of labour ; a subject of far greater impor
tance than those with which they usually fill their books.
On the other hand, the riches poaaesaed by the upper clasaes have, owing to this
mal-distribution of wealth, been always enormous, and sometimes incredible. See
Forbes' s Oriental Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 297 ; Bohlen, das alte Indien, voh ii. p. 119;
Travels of Ibn Batuta,. p. 41 ; Ward^s Hindoos, vol. iii. p. 178. The autobiography
of the Emperor Jehangueir contains such extraordinary atatementa of hia immense
wealth, that the editor. Major Price, thinks that some error must have been made
by the copyist ; but the reader wiU find in Grate's History of Greece (vol. xii. pp.
229, 245) evidence of the treasures which it waa poaaible for Aaiatic rulers to col
lect in that state of society. The working of this unequal distribution ia thus stated

56 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
This was the first great consequence induced in India hy the
cheapness and abundance of the national food." But the evil
hy no means stopped there. In India, as in every other country,
poverty provokes contempt, and wealth produces power. When
other things are equal, it must he with classes of men as with
individuals, that the richer they are, the greater the influence
they wiU possess. It was therefore to be expected, that the un
equal distribution of wealth should cause an unequal distribution
of power; and as there is no instance on record of any class pos
sessing power without abusing it, we may easUy understand how
it was that the people of India, condemned to poverty hy the
physical laws of their climate, should have fallen into a degrada
tion from which they have never heen ahle to escape. A few in
stances may be given to iUustrate, rather than to prove, a prin
ciple which the preceding arguments have, I trust, placed be
yond the possibility of dispute.
To the great body of the Indian people the name of Sudras
is given;" and the native laws respecting them contain some
minute and curious provisions. If a member of this despised
class presumed to occupy the same seat as his superiors, he was
either to be exiled or to suffer a painful and ignominious punish
ment." If he spoke of them with contempt, his mouth was
by Mr. Glyn {Transac. of Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 482) : "The nations of Europe
have very little idea of the actual condition of the inhabitants of Hindustan ; they
are more wretchedly poor than we have any notion of. Europeans have hitherto
been too apt to draw their opinions of the wealth of Hindustan from the gorgeous
pomp of a few emperors, sultans, nawabs, and rajas ; whereas a more intimate and
accurate view of the real state of society would have shown that these princea and
nobles were engrossing. all the wealth of the country, whilst the great body of the
people were earning but a bare subaistence, groaning under intolerable burdena, and
hardly able to supply themselvea with the necessaries of Ufe, much less with its lux
uries." ¦" Turner, who traveUed in 1783 through the north-eaat of Bengal, says: "In
deed, the extreme poverty and wretchedness of these people wiU forcibly appear,
when we recoUect how little is necessary for the subsistence of a peasant in these
regions. The value of thia can seldom amount to more than one penny per day,
even allowing him to make his meal of two pounds of boUed rice, with a due pro
portion of salt, oU, vegetables, fish, and chiU." Turner's Embassy to Tibet, p. 11.
Ibn Batuta, who travelled in Hindostan in the fourteenth century, saya : " I never
aaiw a country in which provisions were so cheap." Travels of Ibn Batuta, p. 194.
'• The Sudras are eatimated by Ward ( View of the Hindoos, vol. iu. p. 281) at
" three-fourths of the Hindoos." At aU events, they comprise the whole of the
working-classes ; the Vaisyas not being husbandmen, as they are often caUed, but
landlords, owners of cattle, and traders. Compare Institutes of Menu, chap.ix. sec.
826-333, in Works of Sir W. Jones, vol. iii. pp. 380, 381, with Colebrooke's Digest,
¦™'- '• P- 15, from which it appears that the Vaisyas were always the maatera, and
that the Sudra waa to " rely on agriculture for his subaistence." The division,
therefore, between "the induatrioua and the servile" {Elphinstone' s History of
7?Mi«a, p. 12) is too broadly stated ; and we must, I think, take the definition of M.
Ehode : ' Die Kaate der Sudraa umfaaat die ganze arbeitende, oder um Lohn dien-
ende Olaase des Volks." Relig. Bildung der Hindus, vol. n. p. 561.
" Either be banished with a mark on his hinder parts, or the king shaU cause
a gash to be made on hia buttock." Institutes of Menu, chap. viu. sec. 281, inWorks

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 57
to he burned;'" if he actually insulted them, his tongue was to
be slit;" if he molested a Brahmin, he was to be put to death;'"
if he sat on the same cai-pet •with a Brahmin, he was to he maim
ed for life;" if, moved hy the desire of instruction, he even Ust-
ened to the reading of the sacred hooks, burning oU was to be
poured into his ears;'* if, however, he committed them to memo
ry, he was to he kUled;'" if he were guilty of a crime, the pun
ishment for it was greater than that inflicted on his superiors;'*
hut if he himself were murdered, the penalty was the same as for
killing a dog, a cat, or a crow." Should he marry his daughter
to a Brahmin, no retribution that could he exacted in this world
was sufficient; it was therefore announced that the Brahmin
must go to hell, for having suffered cont9,mination from a woman
immeasurably his inferior." Indeed, it was ordered that the
mere name of a labourer should he expressive of contempt, so
that his proper standing might be immediately known." And
lest this should not be enough to maintain the subordination of
society, a law was actuaUy made forbidding any labourer to ac
cumulate wealth;'" whUe another clause declared, that even
of Sir W. Jones, vol. ui. p. 315. See also Ward's View of the Hindoos, vol. iii.
p. 67. *" Menu, chap. viu. sec. 271, in Jones's Works, vol. iu. p. 314.
" Menu, chap. viu. sec. 270.
" " If a Sooder gives much and frequent molestation to a Brahmin, the magistrate
shaU put him to death." Halhed's Code of Gentoo Laws, p. 262.
'^ Halhed's Code of Gentoo Laws, p. 207. As to the case of striking a Brahmin,
see Rammohun Roy on the Veds, p. 227, 2d edit. 1832.
" "And if a Sooder Ustens to the Beida of the Shaater, then the oil, heated as
before, shall be poured into hia ears ; and arzeez and wax shaU be melted together,
and the orifice of his ears ahaU be stopped up therewith." Sallied, p. 262. Compare
the prohibition in Menu, chap. iv. sec. 99, chap, x, see. 109-111, in Jones's Works,
voh iih pp. 174, 898.
^ Halhed, p. 262 : " the magistrate ahall put him to death." In Mriohchakati,
the judge aays to a Sudra, " If you expound the Vedas, will not your tongue be cut
out?" WilsorCs Theatre of the Hindus, vol. i. part ii. p. 170.
" Ward's View of the Hindus, vol. iv. p. 308. To this the only exception waa
in the case of theft. MilVs History of India, vol. i. pp. 193, 260. A Brahmin could
" on no account be capitally punished." Asiatic Researches, vol. xv. p. 44.
" Menu, chap, xh sec. 132, in Works of Sir W. Jones, vol. iii. p. 422.
** " A Brahmin, if he take a Sudra to hia bed ashis first wife, ainks to the regions
of torment." Institutes of Menu, chap. in. sec. 11, \tl Jones, voh iii. p. 121. Compare
the denial of funeral ritea, in Colebrooke's Digest of Hindu Law, vol. iii. p. 328. And
on the different heUs invented by the Hindu clergy, aee Vishnu Purana, p. 207 ,
War^s View of the Hindoos, vol. u. pp. 182, 183 ; Coleman's Mythology of the Hin
dus, p. 118. The curioua details in Rhode, die Religiose Bildung der Hindus, voh i.
pp. 392, 393, rather refer to Buddhism, and should be compared with Journal Asi
atique, I. s6rie, vol. viu. pp. 80, 81, Paris, 1826.
Menu, chap. ii. sec. 31, in Jones, vol. in. p. 87 ; also noticed in Rhode Relig.
Bildung, vol. ii. p. 561 : "sein Name soU schon Verachtung ausdriicken." So, too,
Mr. Elphinstone {History of India, p. 17) : " the proper name of a Sudra is directed
to be expreaaive of contempt." Compare Origines du Droit, iu (Euvres de Michelet,
vol. ii. p. 887, BruxeUes, 1840.
™ Menu, chap. x. sec. 129, in Jones, vol. in. p. 401. This law is pointed out by

58 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
though his master should give him freedom, he would in reality
stUl he a slave; "for," says the lawgiver, — "for of a state which
is natural to him, hy whom can he be divested .? ""
By whom, indeed, could he be divested ? I ween not where
that power was by which so vast a miracle could be worked.
For in India, slavery, abject, eternal slavery, was the natural
state of the great body of the people ; it was the state to which
they were doomed by physical laws utterly impossible to resist.
The energy of those laws is, in truth, so invincible, that wherever
they have come into play, they have kept the productive classes
in perpetual subjection. There is no instance on record of any
tropical country, in which wealth having been extensively accu
mulated, the people have escaped their fate; no instance in which
the heat of the climate has not caused an abundance of food,, and
the abundance of food caused an unequal distribution, first of
wealth, and then of poUtical and social power. Among nations
subjected to these conditions, the people have counted for nothing;
they have had no voice in the management of the state, no con
trol over the wealth their oyvn industry created. Their only busi
ness has been to labour; their only duty to obey. Thus there
have been generated among them, those habits of tame and ser-
vUe submission, hy which, as we know from history, they have
always heen characterized. For it is an undoubted fact, that
their annals furnish no instance of their ha^ving turned upon their
j rulers, no war of classes, no popular insurrections, not even one
great popular conspiracy. In those rich and fertUe countries
there have been many changes, hut aU of them have been from
above, not from below. The democratic element has been alto
gether wanting. There have been in abundance, wars of kings,
and wars of dynasties. There have heen revolutions in the gov
ernment, revolutions in the palace, revolutions'" on the throne ;
hut no revolutions among the people,'" no mitigation of that hard
lot which nature, rather than man, assigned to them. Nor was
it untU civilization arose in Europe, that other physical laws
came into operation, and therefore other results were produced.
MiU {History of India, vol. i. p. 195) aa an evidence of the miserable state of the
people, which Mr. Wilson (note in p. 194) vainly attempts to evade.
" "A Sudra, though emancipated by his master, is not released from a atate of
servitude ; for of a state which is natural to him, by whom can he be divested ?"—
Institutes of Menu, chap. viu. sec'. 414, in Works of Sir W. Jones, vol. ui. p. 333.
°' _ An intelligent observer says, " It ia also remarkable how little the people of
Asiatic countries have to do in the revolutions of their governments. They are
never guided by any great and common impulse of feeling, and take no part in
events the most interesting and important to their country and their own prosperity."
M'Murdoonthe Country of Sindh, in Journal of Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 260.
Compare similar remarka in Herder's Ideen zur Geschichte, voh iu. p. 114 ; and even
in Alison's History of Europe, vol. i. pp. 419, 420.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 59
In Europe, for the first time, there was some approach to equaU-
ty, some tendency to correct that enormous disproportion of
wealth and power, which formed the essential weakness of the
greatest of the more ancient countries. As a natural conse
quence, it is in Europe that every thing worthy of the name of
civUization has originated; because there alone have attempts
heen made to preserve the balance of its relative parts. There
alone has^ society heen organized according to a scheme, not in
deed sufficiently large, hut stUl wide enough to include aU the
different classes of which it is composed, and thus, hy leaving
room for the progress of each, to secure the permanence and ad
vancement of the whole.
The way in which certain other physical peculiarities confined
to Europe, have also accelerated the progress of Man by dimin
ishing his superstition, wiU he indicated towards the end of this
chapter; hut as that wUl involve an examination of some laws
which I have not yet noticed, it seems advisable, in the first
place, to complete the inquiry now hefore us; and I therefore
purpose proving that the Une of argument which has been just
appUed to India, is Ukewise applicable to Egypt, to Mexico, and
to Peru. For hy thus including in a single survey, the most
conspicuous civiUzations of Asia, Africa, and America, we shaU
be ahle to see how the preceding principles hold good of different
and distant countries; and we shaUhe possessed of evidence suf
ficiently comprehensive to test the accuracy of those great laws
which, without such precaution, I might be supposed to have
generalized from scanty and imperfect materials.
The reasons why, of aU the African nations, the Egyptians
alone were civilized, have heen already stated, and have heen
shown to depend on those physical peculiarities which distin
guished them from the surrounding countries, and which, hy fa
cUitating the acquisition of wealth, not only supplied them with
material resources that otherwise they could never have obtained,
but also secured to their inteUectual classes the leisure and the
opportunity of extending the boundaries of knowledge. It is,
indeed, true that, notyrithstanding these advantages, they effect
ed nothing of much moment ; but this was owing to circum--
stances which wUl he hereafter explained; and it must, at aU
events, he admitted that they raised themselves far above every
other people hy whom Africa was inhabited.
The civUization of Egypt being, Uke that of India, caused hy
the fertUity of the soU, and the cUmate being also very hot,"
" Yolney {Voyage en Egypte, voh i. pp. 58-63) has a good chapter on the cUmate
of Egypt.

60 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
there were in both countries brought into play the same laws;
and there naturaUy foUowed the same results. In both countries
we find the national food cheap and abundant: hence the labour
market over-supplied; hence a very unequal di'vision of wealth
and power; and hence all the consequences which such inequali
ty ¦will inevitably produce. How this system worked in India, I
have just attempted to examine; and although the materials for
studying the former condition of Egypt are much less ample, they
are stUl sufficiently numerous to prove the striking analogy be
tween the two ci^yUizations, and the identity of those great prin
ciples which regulated the order of their social and poUtical de
velopment. If we inquire into the most important circumstances which
concerned the people of ancient Egypt, we shaU see that they
are exactly the counterpart of those that have heen noticed in
India. For, in the first place, as regards their ordinary food,
what rice is to the most fertUe parts of Asia, that are dates to
Africa. The palm-tree is found in every country from the Tigris
to the Atlantic;'* and it suppUes milUons of human beings with
their daily food in Arabia,'" and in nearly the whole of Africa
north of the equator.'" In many parts of' the great African
desert it is indeed unable to hear fruit; but naturally it is avery
hardy plant, and produces dates in such profusion, that towards
the north of the Sahara they are eaten not only hy man, hijt
also hy domestic animals." And in Egypt, where the pahn is said
°* It is, however, unknown in South Africa. See the account of the Palmaceffl
in Lindley's Vegetable Kingdom, 1847, p. 136, and Meyen's Geog. of Plants, p. 337.
"^ " Of aU eatables used by the Arabs, dates are the most favourite." Burckhardt's
Travels in Arabia, voh i. p. 66. See also, for proof of their abundance in the westpf
Arabia, vol. i. pp. 103, 157, 288, vol. ii. pp. 91, 100, 105, 118, 209, 210, 214, iSS,
800, 331. And on the dates of Oman and the east of Arabia, see Wellste^s Travels
in Arabia, vol. i. pp. 188, 189, 286, 276, 290, 349. Compare Niebuhr, Description
de V Arabic, pp. 142, 296. Indeed, they are so important, that the Arabs have dif
ferent names for them according to the stages of their growth. Djewhari says,
"La denomination balah pr^cfede le nom bosr ; car la datte se nomme d'abord tda,
en suite khalal, puis balah, puis bosr, puia rotab, et enfin tamr." De Sacy's Note to
Abdr Allatif, Relation deV Egypte, p. 74,andseep. 118. Other noticea of the dates of
Arabia wiU be found in Travds of Ibn Batuta in Fourteenth Century, p. 66 ; Jmrnid
of Asiatic Soc, vol. vui. p. 286; Journal of Geograph. Soc., vol. iv. p. 201, vohvi.
pp. 53, 65, 58, 66, 68; 74, voh vu. p. 32, vol. ix. pp. 147, 151.
'" Heeren (Trade of the African Nations, vol. i. p. 182) supposes that in Africa,
dates are comparatively little known south of 26° north Iat. But this learned writer
is certainly mistaken ; and a reference to the following passages wUl show that they
are common aa far down as the paraUel of Lake Tchad, which ia nearly the aouthern
Umit of our knowledge of Central Africa : Denham's Central Africa, p. 295 ; Clap-
perton's Journal, in Appendix to Denham, pp. 84, 59 ; Clapperton's Second Expedition,
p. 169. Further eaat they are aomewhat scarcer, but are found more to the south
than is supposed by Heeren : see Pallme's Kordofan, p. 220.
" Dates are not only the principal growth of the Fezzan oases, but the main
subsistence of their inhabitants. AU Uve on dates ; men, women, and chUdren,
horses, aases, and camels, and sheep, fowls, and dogs." Richardson' Travels in th

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 61
to he of spontaneous growth," dates, besides being the chief sus
tenance of the people, are so plentifiU, that from a very early pe
riod they have heen commonly given to camels, the only beasts
of burden generaUy used in that country,"
From these facts, it is evident that, taking Egypt as the
highest type of African civiUzation, and India as the highest
type of Asiatic ci^vilization, it may be said that dates are to the
first civiUzation what rice is to the second. Now it is observa
ble, that aU the most important physical peculiarities found in
rice, are also fotmd in dates. In regard to their chemistry, it is
weU known that the chief principle of the nutriment they con
tain is the same in both; the starch of the Indian vegetable be
ing merely turned into the sugar of the Egyptian. In regard to
the laws of cUmate, their affinity is equally oh^yious; since dates,
Uke rice, belong to hot countries, and flourish most in or near the
tropics."" In regard to their increase, and the laws of their con
nexion yyith the soU, the analogy is also exact; for dates, just the
same as rice, require Uttle labour, and yield abundant returns,
whUe they occupy so smaU a space of land in. comparison yrith
the nutriment they afford, that upwards of two hundred palm-
trees are sometimes planted on a single acre.'"'
Thus striking are the simUarities to which, in different
countries, the same physical conditions naturaUy give rise. At the
same time in Egypt, as in India, the attainment of civiUzatioii
was preceded hy the possession of a highly fertile soU ; so that,
whUe the exuberance of the land regulated the speed with which
wealth was created, the abundance of the food regulated the pro-
Sahara, vol. u. p. 328, and see vol. i. p. 843 ; as to those parts of the desert where
the palm wiU not bear, see vol. i. pp. 387, 405, voh ii. pp. 291, 363. Reapecting the
datea of Weatern Africa, see Journal of Geograph. Society, vol. xu. p. 204.
'" " It flourished spontaneously in the valley of the Nile." Wilkinson!s Ancient
Egyptians, vol. U. p. 372. As further iUustration of the importance to Africa of thia
beautiful plant, it may be mentioned, that from the high-palm there is prepared a
pecuUar beverage, which in some parts is in great request. On thia, which ia caUed
palm-'wine, aee M WiUiam! s Medical Expedition to the Niger, pp. 71, 116; Mere-
dith's Gold Coast of Africa, 1812, pp. 55, 56; Laird and Oldfeld's Expedition into
the Interior of Africa, 1837, vol. u. pp. 170, 213 ; Bowdich, Mission to Ashantee, pp.
69, 100, 152, 293, 386, 392. But I doubt if thia ia the same as the palm-wine men
tioned in Balfour's Botany, 1849, p. 632. Compare Tuckey's Expedition to the Zaire,
pp. 165, 216, 224, 356.
" Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, vol. ii. pp. 175-178. See also ou the abun
dance of datea, the extracts from an Arabian geographer iu Quatremere, Recherches
sur VEgypte, pp. 220, 221. .
"I" On their relation to the laws of cUmate, see the remarka respecting the
geographical Umita of their power of ripening, in Jussieu's Botany, edit. Wilaon,
1849, p. 734.
"' "In the valley of the Nile, a feddan (If acre) ia sometimes planted with
400 trees." Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, voh ii. p. 178. At Moorzuk an
entire date-palm is only worth about a ahiUing. Richardson's Central Africa, voL
i. p. 111.

62 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
portions into which the wealth was divided. The most fertUe
part of Egypt is the Said; '"" and it is precisely there that we find
the greatest display of skill and knowledge, the splendid remains
of Thebes, Carnac, Luxor, Dendera, and Edfou.'"' It is also in
the Said, or as it is often caUed the Thebaid, that a food is used
which multiplies itself even more rapidly than either dates or
rice. This is the dhourra, which until recently was confined to
Upper Egypt,'"* and of which the reproductive power is so re
markable, that it yields to the labourer a return of two hundred
and forty for one.'"" In Lower Egypt the dhourra was formerly
unknown; but, in addition to dates, the people made a sort of
bread from the lotos, which sprang spontaneously out of the rich
soU of the NUe.'°" This must have been a very cheap and ac
cessible food; whUe to it there was joined a profusion of other
plants and herbs, on which the Egyptians chiefiy lived.'"' In
deed, so inexhaustible was the supply, that at 'the time of the
"^ On the remarkable fertiUty of the Said, see Abd-AUatif, Relation de.
VEgypte, p. 3.
""" The superiority of the ruins in Southern Egypt over those in the northern
part is noticed by Heeren (African Nations, vol. ii. p. 69), and must, indeed, be
obvious to whoever haa studied the monuments. In the Said, the Coptic was pre
served longer than in Lower Egpyt, and is known to philologists by the name of Misr.
See Quatremere Recherches sur la Langue de VEgypte, pp. 20, 41, 42. See also on the
Saidic, pp. 134-140, and some good remarks by Dr. Prichard (Physical Hist.rol.ii.
p. 202) ; who, however, adopts the paradoxical opinion of Georgi reapecting the origin
of the language of the Thebaid.
"¦' Abd-AUatif (Relation de VEgypte, p. 32) says, that in hia time it was only
cultivated in the Said. This curious work by Abd-AUatif was written in a. d. 1203.
Relation, p. 423. Meiners thinks that Herodotus and other ancient writers refer to
the dhourra without mentioning it : " diese Durra muss daher im Herodot, wei in
andern alten Schriftstellern vorziiglich verstanden werden, wenn von hundert,
zwey hundert, und mehrfaltigen Friichten, welche die Erde trage, die Rede ist." Mei
ners, Fruchtbarkeit der Lander, vol. i. p. 139. According to Volney, it is theHolous
Arundinaceus of Linnaeus, and appears to be simUar to millet ; and though that
accurate traveller distinguishes between them, I observe that Captain Haines, in a re
cent memoir, speaks of them as being the same. Compare Haines in Journal of
Geog. Soc. vol. xv. p. 118, with Volney, Voyage en Egypte, vol. i. p. 195.
J05 11 ppjjg rgturn jg jn general not less than 240 for one ; and the average price is
about 8s. 9d. the ardeb, which ia scarcely Sd. per busheh" Hamilton's JSgyptiaca,
p. 420. In Upper Egypt " the doura constitutes almost the whole aubaistence of the
peasantry." p. 419. At p. 96, Hamilton says, "I have frequently counted 3000
grains in one ear of doura, and each stalk has in general four or five ears." For an
account of the dhourra bread, see Volney, Voyage en Egypte,\o\. i. p. 161.
"" 'Eireoi/ •trK'lip'qs yeinjrai & vorafjibs, Kal ret 7reS/a TTcAa-yfcj?, (pierai iv rip S5aTt
Kpiyea ttoWo, ra Alyliirrtoi Ka\eov(rt \bir6v ravra i-TTsav Spe^uirt, avalvovct irpbs t/i\iov'
Kat cTreiTo rb ^K rov pLeffov rov hotrod ry fi-qKuvi 4by ifiipepfs, •nriaavres ¦ffoievvrai i^
aiirov &pTovs otttoJis irupf. Herodot. ii. 92, vol. i. p. 688.
'"' Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, vol. ii. pp. 370-372, 400, voh iv. p. 69.
Abd-AUatif gives a curious account of the different vegetables grown in Egypt early
in the thirteenth century. Relation, pp. 16-36, and the notes of De Sacy, pp. 37-
134. On the Kiaftos of Herodotus there are some botanical remarks worth reading
in the Correspondence of Sir J. E. Smith, vol. ii. pp. 224-282; but I doubt the
assertion, p. 227, that Herodotus "knew nothing of any other kind of iciJaiiJosin
Egypt than that of the ordinary bean."

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 63
Mohammedan invasion there were, in the single city of Alexan
dria, no less than four thousand persons occupied in selling vege
tables to the people.'"'
From this abundance of the national food, there resulted a
train of events strictly analogous to those which took place in
India. In Africa generally, the growth of population, though on
the one hand stimulated hy the heat of the climate, was on the
other hand checked hy the poverty of the soU. But on the
hanks of the NUe this restraint no longer existed,'"' and there
fore the laws already noticed came into uncontroUed operation.
By virtue of those laws, the Egyptians were not only satisfied
with a cheap food, hut they required that food in comparatively
smaU quantities; thus hy a double process, increasing the limit
to which their numbers could extend. At the same time, the
lower orders were ahle to rear their offspring with the greater
ease, hecause, owing to the high rate of temperature, another
considerable source of expense was avoided; the heat being such
that, even for adults, the necessary clothes were few and sUght,
whUe the chUdren of the working-classes went entirely naked;
affording a striking contrast to those colder countries where, to
preserve ordinary health, a supply of warmer and more costly
covering is essential. Diodorus Siculus, who travelled in Egypt
nineteen centuries ago, says, that to bring up a chUd to man
hood did not cost more than twenty drachmas, scarcely thirteen
shillings English money; a circumstance which he justly notices
as a cause of the populousness of the country.""
To compress into a single sentence the preceding remarks, it
may be said that in Egypt the people multiplied rapidly, hecause
while the soU increased their supplies, the climate lessened their
wants. The result was, that Egypt was not only far more thick-
los ll -^hen Alexandria was taken by Amer, the lieutenant of the Caliph Omer,
no less than 4000 persons were engaged in selUng vegetables in that city." Wilkin
son's Ancient Egyptians, vol. ii. p. 372, and see vol. i. p. 277, vol. iv. p. 60. Niebuhr
(Description de V Arabic, p. 136) says, that the neighbourhood of Alexandria is so
fertUe, that "le froment y rend le centuple." See also, on its rich vegetation.
Matter, Histoire de VEcole d'Alexandrie, vol. i. p. 52.
'"" The encouragement given to the increase of population by the fertiUty arising
from the inundation of the Nile, is observed by many writers, but by none so judici
ously as Malthus; Essay on Population, vol. i. ¦pp.-161-163. This great work, the
principles of which have been grossly misrepresented, is stiU the beat which has been
written on the important aubject of population ; though the author, from a want of
sufficient reading, often errs in his lUustrations ; while he, unfortunately, had no
acquaintance with thoae branchea of phyaical knowledge which are intimately con
nected with economical inquiries.
"° TpeipouiTi Se to TraiSi'a ;UETa rivot evxfpeias oSairarau, Kal iravreXas amcrov 
aj/VTroderuv 5e rup -irKeiaruv Kal yvfivStv rpeipofieyuv 5ia rijv elKpaaiav rap .rSirui/, r^v
-iraaav da-irdinji/ oi yoveis, &XP^^ ^^ ^*^ -fiKiKiav ^Kdrj rb r^KVov, oil TrAe/w Troiouai Spaxf-^uu
rf/cori. Si &s alrla! iii\UTra ri/v Al-yvTrrov avfiPaivu Tro\vav8pair'uf Sitt(l>epeiv, Kal Sitt
rovro -TrKeiirras ex^'*' /-teydXav Hpyay KaratTKevtis. Bibliothec. Hist, book i. chap.
Ixxx. vol. i. p. 238.

64 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
ly peopled than any other country in Africa, but probably more
so than any in the ancient world. Our information upon this
point is indeed somewhat scanty, hut it is derived from sources
of unquestioned credibility. Herodotus, who the more he is un
derstood, the more accurate he is found to he,'" states that in
the reign of Amasis there were said to have heen twenty thousand
inhabited cities."" This may, perhaps, be considered an exag
geration; but what is very observable is, that Diodorus Siculus,
who travelled in Egypt four centuries after Herodotus, and whose
jealousy of the reputation of his great predecessor made him
anxious to discredit his statements,'" does nevertheless, on this
important point, confirm them. For he not only remarks that
Egypt was at that time as densely inhabited as any existing
country, hut he adds, on the authority of records which were then
extant, that it was formerly the most populous in the world,
having contained, he says, upwards of eighteen thousand cities..".*
These were the' only two ancient writers who, from personal
knowledge, were weU acquainted with the state of Egypt ;"" and
their testimony is the more valuable because it was evidently
drawn from different sources ; the information of Herodotus be-
"' Frederick Schlegel (Philos. of Hist. p. 247, London, 1846) truly says, "The
deeper and more comprehensive the researches of the moderna have been on ancient
history, the more have their regard and esteem for Herodotus increased." His
minute information respecting Egypt and Asia Minor is now admitted by aU compe
tent geographers ; and I may add, that a recent and very able traveller has given
some curious proofs of his knowledge even of the western parts of Siberia. See
Erman's valuable work. Travels in Siberia, vol. i. pp. 211, 297-801.
"^ 'Ett' 'AiiAaios Se ^aiTiKios Xeyerai PiXyvtrros pAXiara S); Tore 6irSai;uo ^ffai, Kal
rb. a-Kb rov -troraiiov r^ X^PV y^vSfieva, Kal ra a-irb rris x^PI^ Toitn avQptlyvoiai. Kal TijAts
if aiiry yeveadaL ras airiiaas r6re Bta-fivpia^ ras otKsofiivas. Herodot. book. ii. chap.
clxxvii. vol. i. pp. 881, 882.
'" Diodorus, who, though an honest and painstaking man, was in every respect
inferior to Herodotus, saya, impertinently enough, oaa /iev oTiv 'HpSSoros kbi tii'es
ruv Tcts Aiyvirriajv Trpd^eis avvra^afievuv ifrx^^tdKoffiv, eKovaias ivpoKplvavTss t^s
&\T]6eias rb -Trapado^o^oyeif, Kal fji^Bovs irKdrreij/ ^vxayt»>yias %veKa, irapiiffopev.
Biblioth. Hist, book i. chap. Ixix. vol. 1. p. 207. In other placea he aUudes to fierod-
otua in the aame tone, without actuaUy mentioning him.
"* TloXvavdpwiria Sh rb jtteu iraKaibi/ iroKh -trpoiax^ •jnivruy rav yvQipC^ofiepuv rSfroiv
Kara r^v oiKovfievTjv, Kal Ka6' Tjfuls Sk ovSevbs ruv &\\uv S0K61 \ei-irea6ai. 4-^1 p.ev yif
ruv apxaiiev xp^^"^ ^axe K^iias h.^io\6yovs, ttal Tr6Keis irXefous rStv fivpiuv Kal ohtb-
Ki(rxi\iuv, fibs 4v ra7s ai/aypa^aii &pav iari KaraKex^pia^iivov. Diod, Sic. Biblioth,
Hist, book i. chap. xxxi. vol. i. p. 89.
"" Nothwithstanding the positive assertions of M. Matter (Hist, de VEcole
d'Alexandrie, voh ii. p. 285 ; compare Hist, du Gnosticisme, vol. i. p. 48), there is
no good evidence for the auppoaed travels in Egypt of the earUer Greeks, and it is
even questionable if Plato ever visited that country. ("Whether he ever was fc
Egypt is doubtfuh" Bunsen's Egypt, vol. i. p. 60.) The Romans took little interest
in the subject (Bunsen, voh i. pp. 152-158) ; and, says M. Bunaen, p. 152, "with
Diodorus aU ayatematic inquiry into the hiatory of Egypt ceaaes, not only on the
part of the Greeka, but of the ahcienta in general." Mr. Leake, in an esaay on the
Quorra, arrives at the conclusion, that after the time of Ptolemy, the ancients made
no additions to their knowledge of African geography. Journal of Geographical
Society, vol. u. p. 9.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 65
ing chiefiy collected at Memphis, that of Diodorus at Thebes.""
And whatever discrepancies there may he between these two ac
counts, they are both agreed respecting the rapid increase of the
people, and the servUe condition into which they had fallen. In
deed, the mere appearance of those huge and costly buildings,
which are still standing, are a proof of the state of the nation
that erected them. To raise structures so stupendous,'" and
yet so useless,'" there must have heen tyranny on the part of the
rulers, and slavery on the part of the people. No wealth, how
ever great, no expenditure, however lavish, could meet the ex
pense which woiUd have been incurred, if they had heen the
work of free men, who received for their labour a fair and honest
reward.'" But in Egypt, as in India, such considerations were
disregarded, because every thing tended to favour the upper
ranks of society, and depress the lower. Between the two there
was an immense and impassable gap.'^" If a member of the in
dustrious classes changed his usual employment, or was known
to pay attention to poUtical matters, he was severely punished ;'"'
and under no circumstances was the possession of land aUowed
to an agricultural labourer, to a mechanic, or indeed to any one
except the king, the clergy, and the army.'"" The, people at
large were Uttle better than beasts of burden ; and aU that was
"° See on this some good remarks in Heeren's African Nations, vol. ii. pp. 202-
207 ; and as to the difference between the traditions of Thebea and Memphis, see
Matter, Histoire de VEcole d'Alexandrie, vol. i. p. 7. The power and importance of
the two cities fluctuated, both being at different periods the capital. Bunsen's Egypt,
vol. U. pp. 64, 65, 244, 445, 446 ; Vyse 07i the Pyramids, vol. ui. pp. 27, 100 ;
Sharpe's History of Egypt, voh i. pp. 9, 19, 24, 34, 167, 186.
"' Sir John Herschel (Disc, on Natural Philosophy, p. 60) calculates that the
great pyramid weighs twelve thousand seven hundred and sixty miUion pounds.
Compare LyelVs Principles of Geology, p. 459, where the StiU larger estimate of six
mUUon tons is given. But according to Perring, the present quantity of masonry ia
6,816,000 tons, 82,110,000 cubic feet. See Bunsen's Egypt, vol. ii. p. 155, London,
1854, and Vyse on the Pyramids, 1840, vol. ii. p. 113.
"* Many fanciful hypotheses have been put forward as to the purpose for which
the pyramids were built ; but it is now admitted that they were neither more nor
less than tombs for the Egyptian kings I See Bunsen's Egypt, voh u. pp. xvii. 88,
105, 372, 389 ; and Sharpe's History ^ Egypt, vol. i. p. 21.
"' For an estimate of the expense at which one of the pyramids could be buUt
in our time by European workmen, see Vyse on the Pyramids, vol. u. p. 268. On
account, however, of the number of disturbing causes, such calculations have
little value.
"° Those who complain that in Europe this interval ia atUl too great, may derive
a species of satisfaction from studying the old extra-European civiUzations.
"" Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, vol. u. pp. 8-9. " Nor was any one permitted
to meddle with political affairs, or to hold any civU office in the state." . ..." If
any artizau meddled with political affairs, or engaged in any other employment than
the one to which he had been brought up, a severe punishment was instantly
infficted upon him." Compare Diod. Sic. Bibliothec. Hist, book i. chap, Ixxiv.
voh i. p. 223.
"' Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, vol, i. p. 263, vol. ii. p. 2 ; Sharpe's History
of Egypt, vol. ii. p. 24.
VOL. I. — 5

66 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
expected from them was an unremitting and unrequited labour.
If they neglected their work, they were flogged ; and the same
punishment was frequently infficted upon domestic servants, and
even upon women,'"' These and similar regulations were weU
conceived; they were admirably suited to that vast social system,
which, because it was based on despotism, could only he upheld
by cruelty. Hence it was that, the industry of the whole nation
being at the absolute command of a small part of it, there arose
the possibUity of rearing those vast edifices, which inconsiderate
observers admire as a proof of ci'yiUzation,'"* but which, in reahty,
are e^yidence of a state of things altogether depraved and un
healthy ; a state ia which the skiU and the arts of an imperfect
refinement injured those whom they ought to have benefited; so
that the very resources which the people had created were turned
against the people themselves.
That in such a society as this, much regard should he paid to
human suffering, it would indeed be idle to expect.'"" StiU, we
are startled hy the reckless prodigality with which, in Egypt, the
upper classes squandered away the labour and the Uves of the
people. In this respect, as the monuments yet remaining abun
dantly prove, they stand alone and without a rival. We may
form some idea of the almost incredible waste, when w^ hear
that two thousand men were occupied for three years in carrying
a single stone from Elephantine to Sais;'"" that the Canal of
the Red Sea alone, cost the Uves of a hundred and twenty thousand
Egyptians ;'"' and that to buUd one of the pyramids required
"' Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, vol. u. pp. 41, 42, vol. iu. p. 69, vol. iv. p.
181. Compare Ammianus MarceUinus, in Hamilton's .^gyptiaca, p. 309.
"'* Vyse on the Pyramids, vol. i. p. 61, vol. ii. p. 92.
'" "Ein Konig ahmte den andern nach, oder suchte ihn zu iibertreffen; indess
das gutmiithige Volk seine Lebenstage am Bane dieser Mouumente verzehren musste.
So entstanden wahrscheinlich die Pyramiden und Obelisken ./Egyptens. Nur in den
altesten Zeiten wurden sie gebauet ; denn die; spatere Zeit und jede Nation, die ein
niitzUcher Gewerbe treiben lernte, bauete keine Pyramiden mehr. Weit gefehlt also,
dass Pyramiden ein Kennzeichen von der Gliickseligkeit und Aufklarung dea alten
.iEgyptens seyn soUten, sind sie ein unwideraprechUches Denkmal von dem Aber-
glauben un d der Gedankenlosigkeit sowohl der Armen, die da baueten, als der Ehr
geizigen, die den Bau befahlen." Herder's Ideen zur Geschichte, voh iu. pp. 103, 104 :
see also p. 293, and some admirable remarks in Volney's Voyage en Egypte, vol i.
pp. 240, 241. Even M. Bunsen, notwithstanding his admiration, says of one of the
pyramids, "the misery of the people, already grievously oppressed, was aggravated
by the construction of this gigantic buUding  The bones of the oppressors of the
people who for two whole generations harassed hundreds of thousands from day to
day," &c. Bunsen's Egypt, vol. u. p. 176, a learned and enthusiastic work.
Kal -rovro 4k6imiCov p-ev i-ir' ^rea rpia, SiirxfAioi Se oi -irpoaenrdxaro ^vS/ies
i-yoiyeis. Herodot. book u. chap, clxxv. vol. i. p. 879. On the enormoua weight of
the stonea which the Egyptians sometimes carried, see Bunsen's Egypt, vol. i. p.
379 ; aud as to the machines employed, and the use of inclined roads for the transit,
see Vyse on the Pyramids, vol. i. p. 197, vol. in. pp. 14, 38.
Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, vol. i. p. 70 : but this ' rned writer ia un
wiUing to beUeve a statement so adverse to his favourite Egyp jaus. It is likely

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 67
the labour of three hundred and sixty thousand men for twenty
years.'"' If, passing from the history of Asia and Africa, we now turn
to the New World, we shall meet with fresh proof of the ac
curacy of the preceding views. The only parts of America which
hefore the arrival of the Europeans were in some degree civiUzed,
were Mexico and Peru ;¦"' to which may probably be added that
long and narrow tract which stretches from the south of Mexico
to the Isthmus of Panama. In this latter country, which is now
known as Central America, the inhabitants, aided by the fertiUty
of the soil,"" seem to have worked out for themselves a certain
amount of knowledge; since the ruins stiU extant, prove the
possession of a mechanical and architectural skill too considerable
to he acquired hy any nation entirely barbarous. ' ' ' Beyond this,
nothing is known of their history; hut the accounts we have of
such huUdings as Copan, Palenque, and Uxmal, make it highly
probable that Central America was the ancient seat of a civiliza
tion, in aU essential points simUar to those of India and Egypt;
that is to say, similar to them in respect to the unequal distribu
tion of wealth and power, and the thraldom in which the great
body of the people consequently remained.""
enough that there is some exaggeration ; stiU no one can dispute the fact of an
enormous and unprincipled waste of human Ufe. '
"^ TpiaKovra fiev yap Kal e^ fivpiciSes hvSpav, &s fj>aa-i, rais rStv epywv \etrovpy(ais
Ttpoaiihpevaav, rb Se trav KaracKeiracrfjia re\os etrxe p.6yis iruv ^Kotn SteKOSpruv. Diod.
Sic. Bibliothec. Hist, book i. chap. bciu. vol. i. p. 188.
J29 li '5V}ieii compared with other parts of the New World, Mexico ,and Peru may
be considered as polished states." History of America, book vu. in Robertson's
Works, p. 904. See to the same effect. Journal of Geograph. Society, voh v. p. 855.
'°° Compare Squier's Central America, vol. i. pp. 34, 244, 358, 421, vol. ii. p.
807, with Journal of Geograph. Society, vol. iu. p. 59, vol. viu. pp. 319, 323.
'" Mr. Squier (Central America, vol. u. p. 68), who explored Nicaragua, says of
the statues, "the material, in every case, is a black basalt, of great hardness, which,
with the best of modern tools, can only be cut with difficulty." Mr. Stephens (Cen
tral America, vol. U. p. 355) found at Palenque "elegant specimens gf art and
models for study." See also vol. iu. pp. 276, 389, 406, vol. iv. p. 293. Of the
paintings at Chichen he says (vol. iv. p. 311), "they exhibit a freedom of touch
which could only be the result of discipUne and training under masters." At Copan
(vol. i. p. 161), "it would be impossible, with the best instruments of modern times,
to cut atones more perfectly." And at Uxmal (vol. U. p. 431), "^throughout, the
laying and polishing of the stones are aa perfect aa under the rules of the best modern
masonry." Our knowledge of Central America is almost entirely derived from theae
two writera ; and although the work of Mr. Stephens is much the more minute, Mr.
Squier says (vol. u. p. 306), what I beUeve is quite true, that untU the appearance
of hia own book in 1853, the monuments in Nicaragua were entirely unknown.
Short descriptions of the remains in Guatemala and Yucatan wiU be found in Laren-
dudiere's Mexique et Guatemala, pp. 308^327, and in Journal of Geograph. Society,
vol. iu. pp. 60-63.
"'' See the remarks on Yucatan in Prichard's Physical History of Mankind, vol.
v. p. 348 : " a great and industrious, though, perhaps, aa the writer above cited
(Gallatin) observes, an enslaved population. Splendid temples and palacea atteat
the power of the jQ^ts and nobles, whUe as usual no trace remains' of the huts in
which dwelt the mlia of the nation."

68 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
But although the evidence from which we might estimate the
former condition of Central America is almost entirely lost,'" we
are more fortunate in regard to the histories of Mexico and Peru.
There are stUl existing considerahle and authentic materials, from
which we may forra an opinion on the ancient state of those two
countries, and on the nature and extent of their civUization. Be
fore, however, entering upon this subject, it wiU he convenient
to point out what those physical laws were which determined
the locaUties of American ci'vUization; or, in other words, why
it was that in these countries alone, society should have been
organized into a fixed and settled system, while the rest of the
New World was peopled by wild and ignorant barbarians. Such
an inquiry wiU be found highly interesting, as affording further
proof of the extraordinary, and indeed irresistible, force with
which the powers of Nature have controUed the fortunes of Man.
The first circumstance by which we must be struck, is that
in America, as ia Asia and Africa, aU the original civiUzations
were seated in hot countries; the whole of Peru proper being
within the southern tropic, the whole of Central America and
Mexico yyithin the northern tropic. How the heat of the cUmate
operated on the social and poUtical arrangements of India and
Egypt, I have attempted to examine; and it has, I trust, heen
proved that the result was brought ahout hy diminishing the
wants and requirements of the people, and thus producing a very
unequal distribution of wealth and power. But, besides this,
there is another way in which the" average temperature of a
countiy affects its civiUzation, and the discussion of which I have
reserved for the present moment, hecause it may be more clearly
Ulustrated in America than elsewhere. Indeed, in the New
World, the scale on which Nature works, being much larger than
in the Old, and her forces being more overpowering, it is evident
that her operations on mankind may he studied with greater ad
vantage " than in countries where she is weaker, and where,
therefore, the consequences of her movements are less con
spicuous. If the reader will bear in mind the immense influence which
an abundant national food has heen shown to exercise, he will
"' Dr. M'CuUoh (Researches concerning the Aboriginal History of America, pp.
272-340) has collected from the Spanish writers some meagre statements respecting
the early condition of Central America ; but of ita social atate and hiatory, properly
so caUed, nothing is known ; nor ia it even certain to what famUy of nations the
inhabitants belonged, though a recent author can find " la civilisation guatemalienne
ou miateco-zapotfeque et mayaquiche, vivante pour noua encore dans les mines de
Mitla ct de Palenque." Mexique et Guatemala par Larenaudiere, p. 8, Paris, 1843.
Dr. Prichard, too, refers the ruins in Central America to "the Mayan race:" see
Prichard on Ethnology, in Report of British Association far 1847, p. 252. But the
evidence for these and simUar statements ia very unaatisfactory.

GENEEAL INTRODUCTION. 69
easUy understand how, owing to the pressure of physical phenom
ena, the civUization of America was, of necessity, confined to
those parts where alone it was found hy the discoverers of the
New World. For, setting aside the chemical and geognostic
varieties of sod, it may he said that the two causes which regulate
the fertility of every country are heat and moisture."* Where.
these are abundant, the land will be exuberant ; where they are
deficient, it will be sterUe. This rule is, of course, in its appli
cation subject to exceptions, arising from physical conditions
which are independent of it; hut if other things are equal, the
rule is invariable. And the vast additions which, since the con
struction of isothermal Unes, have heen made to our knowledge
of geographical botany, enable us to lay this down as a law of
natnre, proved not only hy arguments drawn from vegetable phys
iology, hut also by a careful study of the proportions in which
plants are actuaUy distributed in different countries.""
A general survey of the continent of America wiU iUustrate
the connexion between this law and the subject now hefore us.
In the first place, as regards moisture, aU the great rivers in the
New World are on the eastern coast, none of them on the
western. The causes of this remarkable fact are unknown;"" hut
it is certain that neither in North, nor in South America, does
one considerahle river empty itself into the Pacific; whUe on
the opposite side there are numerous rivers, some of enormous
'** Eespecting the connexion between the vegetable productions of a country
aud its geognoatic peculiarities, Uttle is yet known ; but the reader may compare
Meyen's Geography of Plants, p. 64, with Reports on Botany by the Ray Society,
1846, pp. 70, 71. The chemical laws of soil are much better understood, and have
a direct practical bearing on the use of manures. See Turner's Chemistry, vol. ii.
pp. 1310-1314 ; Brande's Chemistry, vol. i. p. 691, vol. U. pp. 1867-1869 ; Balfour's
Botany, pp. 116-122 ; Liebig and Kopp's Reports, vol. u. pp. 315, 328, vol. iu. p.
463, vol. iv. pp. 438, 442, 446.
"* As to the influence of heat and moisture on the geographical distribution of
plants, see Henslow's Botany, pp. 295-300, and Balfam's Botany, pp. 560-568.
Meyen (Geog. of Plants, p. 263) aaya, "I, therefore, after aUowing for local circum
stances, bring the vegetation of islands also under that law of nature, according to
which the number of species constantly increases with increasing heat and correa-
pouding humidity." On the effect of temperature alone, compare a note in Errnan^s
Siberia, voh i. pp. 64, 65, with Reports on Botany by the Ray Society, pp. 339, 340.
In the latter work, it ia supposed that heat is the most important of all aingle agents ;
and though thia ia probably true, atiU the influence of humidity is immense. I may
mention aa an instance of this, that it haa been recently ascertained that the oxygen
used by seeds during germination, is not always taken from the air, but ia obtained
by decompoaing water. See the curioua experiments of Edwards and OoUn in Lind
ley's Botany, vol. u. pp. 261, 262, Lond. 1848 ; and on the direct nourishment which
water supplies to vegetables, see Burdach's great work. Traits de Physiologie, vol.
ix. pp. 254, 398.
"" There is a. difference between the watersheds of the eastern and western
ranges, which explaina this in part, but not entirely ; and even if the explanation
were more satisfactory than it ia, it is too proximate to the phenomenon to have
much scientific value, and must itself be referred to higher geological considerations.

70 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
magnitude, all of great importance, as the Negro, 'the La Plata,
the San Francisco, the Amazon, the Orinoco, the Mississippi, the
Alabama, the Saint John, the Potomac, the Susquehannah, the
Delaware, the Hudson, and the Saint Lawrence. Bythis vast
water-system the soil is towards the east constantly irrigated;'"
hut towards the west there is in North America only one river
of value, the Oregon;"-' while in South America, from the Isth
mus of Panama to the Straits of Magellan, there is no great river
at all. But as to the other main cause of fertUity, namely, heat, we
find in North America a state of things precisely the reverse.
There we find that whUe the irrigation is on the east, the heat
is on the west."" This difference of temperature between the
two coasts, is probably connected with some great meteorological
law; for in the whole of the northern hemisphere, the eastern
part of continents and of islands is colder than the western.'*"
Whether, however, this is owing to some large and comprehen
sive cause, or whether each instance has a cause pecuUar to it
self, is an alternative, in the present state of knowledge, impos
sible to decide; but the fact is unquestionable, and its influence
upon the early histoiy of America is extremely curious. In con
sequence of it, the two great conditions of fertiUty have not been
united in any part of the continent north of Mexico. The
countries on the one side have wanted heat; those on the other
'^' Of this irrigation some idea may be formed from an estimate that the Amazon
drains an area of 2,500,000 aquare miles ; that ita mouth ia ninety-aix miles wide ;
and that it is navigable 2200 mUes from its mouth. Somerville's Physical Geography,
vol. i. p. 423. Indeed it is said in an Essay on the Hydrography of South America
(Journal of Geograph. Society, vol. ii. p. 250), that " with the exception of one short
portage of three miles, water flows, and is for the most part navigable, between
Buenos Ayres, in 35° aouth latitude, to the mouth of the Orinoco, in nearly %' north.
See alao on this river-system, vol. v. p. 93, vol. x. p. 267. In regard to North
America, Mr. Rogers (Geology of North America, p. 8, Brit. Assoc, for 1834) says,
" the area drained by the Mississippi and aU its tributaries ia computed at 1,099,000
aquare mUes." Compare Richardson's Arctic Expedition, vol. u. p. 164.
''" The Oregon, or Columbia as it is sometimes called, forms a remarkable botan
ical Une, which is the boundary of the CaUfornian flora. See Reports on Botany by
the Ray Society, p. 113.
"° For proof that the mean temperature of the western coast of North America
is higher than that of the eaatern coast, see Journal of Geograph. Society, vol. ix. p.
380, voh xi. pp. 168, 216; Humboldt, la Nouvelle Espagne, vol. h pp. 42,336;
Richardson's Arctic Expedition, vol. u. pp. 214, 218, 219, 259, 260. This is well
illustrated by the botanical fact, that on the west coast the conifers grow as high
as 68° or 70° north latitude ; while on the east their northern Umit is 60°. See an
Esaay on the Morphology of the Coniferse, in Reports on Botany by the Ray Society,
p. 8, which should be compared with Forry on the Climate of the United States and
its Endemic Influences, New York, 1842, p. 89.
"° " Writers on climate have remarked that the eastern coasts of continents in
the northern hemisphere have a lower mean temperature than the western coast."
Richardson on North American Zoology, p. 129, Brit Assoc, for 1836: see, also
Report for 1841, Sections, p. 28 ; Davis's China, vol. in. pp. 140, 141 ; Journal of
""'graph. Society, vol. xxu. p. 176.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 71
side have wanted irrigation. The accumulation of wealth being
thus impeded, the progress of society was stopped; and untU, in
the sixteenth century, the knowledge of Europe was brought to
hear upon America, there is no instance of any people north of
the twentieth parallel, reaching even that imperfect civUization
to which the inhabitants of India and of Egypt easUy attained.'* '
On the other hand, south of the twentieth paraUel, the continent
suddenly changes its form, and, rapidly contracting, becomes a
smaU strip of land, until it reaches the Isthmus of Panama. This
narrow tract was the centre of Mexican civUization; and a com
parison of the preceding arguments wiU easUy show why such
was the case; for the peculiar configuration of the land secured
a very large amount of coast, and thus gave to the southern part
of North America the character of an island. Hence there
arose one of the characteristics of an insular cUmate, namely, an
increase of moisture, caused hy the watery vapour which springs
from the sea.'*" WhUe, therefore, the position of Mexico near
the equator gave it heat, the shape of the land gave it humidity;
and this being the only part of North America in which these
two conditions were united, it was likewise the only part which
was at aU civilized. There can he no doubt that if the sandy
plains of California and southern Columbia, instead of being
scorched into sterUity, had been irrigated' by the rivers of the
east, or if the rivers of the east had heen accompanied hy the
heat of the west, the result of either combination would have heen
that exuberance of soU by which, as the history of the world de
cisively proves, every early civilization was preceded. But inas
much as, of the two elements of fertility, one was deficient in
"*' The Uttle that is known of the early state of the North-American tribes has
been brought together by Dr. M'CuUoh in his learned work. Researches concerning
America, pp. 119-146. He aays, p. 121, that they "Uved together without laws and
civU regulations." In that part of the world, the population has probably never
been fixed ; and we now know that the inhabitanta of the north-east of Asia have
at different times passed over to the north-west of America, aa in the case of the
Tschuktschi, who are found in both continents. Indeed, DobeU was so struck by
the simUarity between the North-American tribes and some he met with nearly as
far west as Tomsk, that he beUeved their origin to be the same. See DobeU's
Travels in Kamtchatka and Siberia, 1880, vol. U. p. 112. And on this question of
intercourse between the two continents, compare Crantz's History of Greenland, vol.
i. pp. 259, 260, with Richardson's Arctic Expedition, vol. i. pp. 862, 863, and
Prichard's Physical History of Mankind, vol. iv. pp. 458-463, vol. v. pp. 371, 378.
"* From general physical considerations, we should suppose a relation between
amount of rain aud extent of coast ; and in Europe, where alone we have extensive
meteorological records, the connexion haa been proved atatistically. "If the
quantity of rain that faUa in different parts of Europe is measured, it ia found to be
lesa, other thinga being equal, as we recede from the aea-shore." Kaemtz's Meteo
rology, 1845, p. 139. Compare pp. 91, 94. Hence, no doubt, the greater rarity
of rain as we advance north from Mexico. " Au nord du 20°, surtout depuis lea
22° au 30° de latitude, lea pluies, qui ne durent que pendant les mois de juin, de
juUlet, d'aput et de septembre, sont peu frequentes dans I'int^rieur du pays." Hum-
boldtfla Nouvelle Espagne, voh i. p. 46.

72 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
every part of America north of the twentieth paraUel, it foUowed
that, until that line was passed, civiUzation could gain no resting-
place; and there never has been found, and we may confidently
assert never will be found, any evidence that even a single ancient
nation, in the whole of that enormous continent, was ahle to make
much progress in the arts of Ufe, or organize itself into a fixed
and permanent society.
Thus far as to the physical agents which controlled the early
destinies of North America. But in reference to South America,
a different train of circumstances came into play; for-the law
by virtue of which the eastern coasts are colder than the western,
is not only inapplicable to the southern hemisphere, hut is re
placed by another law precisely the reverse. North of the
equator, the east is colder than the west; south of the equator,
the east is hotter than the west.'*' If, now, we connect this fact
with what has been noticed respecting the vast river-system
which distinguishes the east of America from the west, it becomes
e'vident that in South America there exists that co-operation of
heat and humidity in which North America is deficient. The
result is, that the soU in the eastern part of South America is
remarkable for its exuberance, not only ¦within the tropic, but
considerably beyond it ; the South of Brazil, and even part of
Uruguay, possessing a fertUity not to he found in any country of
North America situated under a corresponding latitude.
On a hasty view of the preceding generaUzations, it might
be expected that the eastern side of South America, being thus
richly endowed by nature,'** would have heen the seat of one of
those civiUzations which, in other parts of the world, simUar ,
causes produced. But if we look a little further, we shaU find
that what has just heen pointed out, by no means exhausts even
the physical hearings of this subject, and that we must take into
consideration a third great agent, which has sufficed to neutralize
the natural results of the other two, and to retain in barbarism
the inhabitants of what otherwise would have been the most
flourishing of all the countries of the New World.
143 ll ppjjg (jifference between the climates of the east and west coasts of continents
and islands, haa also been observed in the southern hemisphere ; but here the west
coasts are colder than the east, while in the northern hemisphere the east coasts
are the colder." Meyen's Geography of Plants, 1846, p. 24.
"* Mr. Darwin, who has written one of the most valuable works ever^ published
on South America, was struck by this superiority of the eaatern coaat ; and he
mentions that " fruits which ripen well and are very abundant, such as the grape
and fig, in latitude 41° on the east coaat, succeed very poorly in a lower latitude on
the opposite side of the continent." Darwin's Journal of Researches, Lond. 1840, p.
268. Compare Meyen's Geog. of Plants, pp. 26, 1 88. So that the proposition of DanieU
(Meteorological Essays, p. 104, sec. xiv.) ia expreased too generaUy, and should be
confined to continents north of the equator.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 73
The agent to which I allude is the trade-wind; a striking
phenomenon, by which, as we shaU hereafter see, all the civiUza
tions anterior to those of Europe were greatly and injuriously in
fluenced. This wind covers no less than 56° of latitude ; 28"
north of the equator, and 28° south of it.'*" In this large tract,
which comprises some of the most fertUe countries in the world,
the trade-wind blows, during the whole year, either from the
north-east or from the south-east.'*" 'The causes of this regu
larity are now weU understood, and are known to depend partly
on the displacement of air at the equator, and partly on the mo
tion of the earth ; for the cold air from the poles is constantly
flowing towards the equator, and thus producing northerly winds
in the northern hemisphere, and southerly ¦winds in the southern.
These winds are, however, deflected from their natural course hy
the movement of the earth, as it revolves on its axis from west
to east. And as the rotation of the earth is, of course, more
rapid at the equator than elsewhere, it happens that in the
neighbourhood of the equator the speed is so great as to outstrip
the movements of the atmosphere from the poles, and forcing
them into another direction, gives rise to those easterly currents
which are called trade-winds.'*' What, however, we are now
rather concerned with, is not so much an explanation of the
trade-winds, as an account of the way in which this great
physical phenomenon is connected with the history of South
America. "' The trade-winds sometimes reach the thirtieth paraUel. See DanielVs
Meteorological Essays, p. 469. Dr. Traill (Physical Geography, Edin. 1838, p. 200)
saya, " they extend to about 30° on each aide of the equator : " but I beUeve they
are rarely found so high ; though Eobertaon ia certainly wrong in supposing that
they are pecuUar to the tropics ; History of America, book iv. in Robertson's
Works, p. 781.
"' " In the northern hemisphere the trade-wind blows from the north-eaat, and
in the southern from the aouth-eaat." Meyen's Geog. of Plants, p. 42. Compare
Walsh's BrazU, voh i. p. 112, vol. ii. p. 494; and on the "tropical eaat-wind" of
the Gulf of Mexico, see Forry's Climate of the United States, p. 206. Dr. Forry saya
that it has given to the growth of the trees " an inclination from the sea."
"' Eespecting the causes of the trade-winds, see Somerville's Connexion of the
Physical Sciences, pp. 136, 187; Leslie's Natural Philosophy, p. 518; DanielVs
Meteorological Essays, pp. 44, 102, 476-481 ; Kaemtz's Meteorology, pp. 37-39 ; Prout's
Bridgewater Treatise, pp. 254-256. The discovery of the true theory ia often ascribed
to Mr. Daniell ; but Had'fey was the real discoverer. Note in Prout, p. 267. The
monsoons, which popular writera frequently confuae with the trade-winda, are aaid
to be caused by the predominance of land, and by the difference between its temper
ature and that of the sea : see Kaemtz, pp. 42-45. On what may be called the
conversion of the trades into monsoons, according to the laws very recently promul
gated by M. Dove, see Report of British Association for 1847 (Transac. of Sections,
p. 30), and Report for 1848, p. 94. The monsoons are noticed in Humboldt's Cosmos,
vol. u. p. 485 ; Asiatic Researches, vol. xviU. part i. p. 261 ; ThirlwalVs History oj
Greece, vol. vii. pp. 13, 55 ; Journal of Geograph. Society, voh ii. p. 90, vol. iv. pp.
8-9, 148, 149, 169, vol. xi. p. 162, vol. xv. p. 146-149, vol. xvi. p. 186, voh xviU. pp.
67, 68, vol. xxiu. p. 112 ; LavSs Sarawak, p. 30.

74 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
The trade-wind, blowing on the eastern coast of South
America, and proceeding from the east, crosses the Atlantic
ocean, and therefore reaches the land surcharged with the vapours
accumulated in its passage. These vapours, on touching the
shore, are, at periodical intervals, condensed into rain; and as
their progress westward is checked by that gigantic chain of the
Andes, which they are unable to pass,'*" they pour the whole of
their moisture on Brazil, which, in consequence, is often deluged
by the most destructive torrents.'*' This abundant supply, be
ing aided by that vast river-system peculiar to the eastern part
of America, and being also accompanied by heat, has stimulated
the soU into an activity unequaUed in any other part of the
world. '" ° Brazil, which is nearly as large as the whole of Europe,
is covered with a vegetation of incredible profusion. Indeed, so
rank and luxuriant is the growth, that Nature seems to riot in
the very wantonness of power. A great part of this immense
country is fiUed with dense and tangled forests, whose noble
trees, blossoming in unrivalled beauty, and exquisite with a
thousand hues, throw out their produce in endless prodigahty.
On their summit are perched birds of gorgeous plumage, which
nestle in their dark and lofty recesses. Below, their base and
trunks are crowded with brushwood, creeping plants, innumerable
parasites, all swarming with Ufe. There, too, are myriads of in
sects of every variety; reptiles of strange and singular form; ser
pents and Uzards, spotted with deadly beauty : aU of which find
means of existence in this vast workshop ahd repository of Na
ture. And that nothing may he wanting to this land of marvels,
the forests are skirted by enormous meadows, which, reeking
with heat and moisture, supply nourishment to countless herds
of wUd cattle, that browse and fatten on their herbage; while
"° LyelVs Principles of Geology, pp. 201, 714, 715 : see also Somerville's Physical
Geography, voh ii, p. 71. And on this confining power of the CordUlera of the
Andes, see Azara, Voyages dans VAmhique Meridionale, vol. i. p. 83. According
to Dr. Tschudi, the eastern chain is properly the Andes, and the weatern the Cord-
iUera; but this distinction is rarely made. Tschudi's Travels in Peru, p. 290.
"" On the rain of BrazU, see DanielVs Meteorological Essays, p. 335 ; Darwin's
Journal, pp. 11, 33 ; Spix and Martius's Travels in Brazil, vol. u. p. 113 ; Gardner's
Travels in Brazil, pp. 63, 99, 114, 175, 233, 894.
"" Dr. Gardner, who looked at theae thinga with the eye of a botanist, saya that
near Rio de Janeiro the heat and moisture are sufficient to compensate even the
poorest soil ; so that " rocks, on which aoarcely a trace of earth ia to be observed,
are covered with velloziaa, tillandaias, melastomaceae, cacti, orchidese, and ferns, and
all in the vigour of life." Gardner's Travels in Brazil, p. 9. See also on this com
bination, Walsh's Brazil, vol. u. pp. 297, 298, a curioua description of the rainy
season : " For eight or nine hours a day, during some weeks, I never had a dry shirt
on me ; and the clothes I divested myself of at night, I put on quite wet in the
morning. When it did not rain, which was very rare, there shone out in some
placea a burning sun ; and we went smoWng along, the wet exhaUng by the heat, as
if we were dissolving into vapour."

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 75
the adjoining plains, rich in another form of life, are the chosen
abode of the subtlest and most ferocious animals, which prey on
each other, hut which it might almost seem no human power can
hope to extirpate.'"'
Such is the flow and abundance of Ufe hy which BrazU is
marked above all the other countries of the earth."" But, amid
this pomp and splendour of Nature, no place is left for Man. He
is reduced to insignificance hy the majesty 'with which he is sur
rounded. The forces that oppose him are so formidable, that
he has never been able to make head against them, never ahle
to raUy against their accumulated pressure. The whole of
Brazil, notwithstanding its immense apparent advantages, has
always remained entirely unci'vUized; its inhabitants wandering
savages, incompetent to resist those obstacles which the very
bounty of Nature had put in their way. For the natives, Uke
every people in the infancy of society, are averse to enterprise;
and being unacq'uainted with the arts by which physical impedi
ments are removed, they have never attempted to grapple with
the difficulties that stopped their social progress. Indeed, those
difficulties are so serious, that during more than three hundred
years the resources of European knowledge have been vainly
employed in endeavouring to get rid of them. Along the coast
of BrazU, there has been introduced from Europe a certain
amount of that ci'yiUzation, which the natives hy their own efforts
could never have reached. But such civUization, in itself very
imperfect, has never penetrated the recesses of the country; and
in the interior there is stUl found a state of things similar to that
which has always existed. The people, ignorant, and therefore
brutal, practising no restraint, and recognizing no law, continue
to Uve on in their old and inveterate barbarism."' In their
""' On the natural history of Brazil, I have compared a few notices in Swainson's
Geography of Animals, pp. 75-87, with Cuvier, Regne Animal, vol. i. p. 460, vol. ii.
pp. 28, 65, 66, 89, vol. iv. pp. 51, 75, 258, 320, 394, 485, 561, vol. v. pp. 40, 195,
272, 884, 568 ; Azara, Amhique Meridionale, vol. i. pp. 244-388, and the greater
part of vols. in. and iv. ; Winckler, Geschichte der Botanik, pp. 378, 576-678;
Southey's History of Brazil, vol. i. p. 27, vol. in. pp. 316, 828 ; Gardner's Brazil, pp.
18, 32-34, 41-44, 131, 830 ; Spix and Martius's Brazil, vol. i. pp. 207-209, 238-248,
vol. U. pp. 131, 160-163. And as to the forests, which are among the wonders of
the worid, Somerville's Physical Geog. vol. U. pp. 204-206; Prichard! s Physical
History, vol. v. p. 497 ; Darwin! s Journal, pp. 11, 24; Walsh's Brazil, vol. i. p. 145,
vol. u. pp. 29, 30, 258.
'^ This extraordinary richness has excited the astonishment of aU who have seen
it. Mr. Walsh, who had traveUed in some very fertUe countries, mentions " the
exceeding fecundity of nature which characterizes Brazih" Walsh's Brazil, vol. ii.
p. 19. And a very emment naturaUst, Mr. Darwin, aays (Journal, p. 29), "In Eng
land, any peraon fond of natural history enjoys in hia' walks a great advantage, by
always having aomething to attract hia attention ; but in these fertile cUmates,
teeming with Ufe, the attractions are so numerous that he ia scarcely able to
walk at aU."
"' Azara (Aihirique Meridionale, yoh u. pp. 1-168) gives a curious, but occasion-

76 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
country, the physical causes are so active, and do their work on
a scale of such unrivalled magnitude, that it has hitherto been
found impossible to escape from the effects of their united action.
The progress of agriculture is stopped hy impassable forests,
and the harvests are destroyed by innumerable insects.'"*
The mountains are too high to scale, the rivers are too wide to
bridge; every thing is contrived to keep back the human mind,
and repress its rising ambition. It is thus that the energies of
Nature have hampered the spirit of Man. Nowhere else is there
so painful a contrast between the grandeur of the external world
and the Uttleness of the internal. And the mind, cowed by this
unequal struggle, has not only heen unable to advance, hut yrith-
out foreign aid it would undoubtedly have receded. For even at
present, ¦with all the improvements constantly introduced from
Europe, there are no signs of real progress; while notwithstand
ing the frequency of colonial settlements, less than one-fifteenth
of the land is cultivated. "" The habits of the people are as
barbarous as ever; and as to their numbers, it is well worthy of
remark, that BrazU, the country where, of all others, physical re
sources are most powerful, where both vegetables and animals
are most abundant, where the soU is watered by the noblest riv
ers, and the coast studded hy the finest harbours, — this immense
territory, which is more than twelve times the size of France,
contains a population not exceeding six miUions of people.'""
ally a disgusting account of the savage natives in that part of Brazil south of 16°, to
which his observations were Umited. And as to the inhabitants of other parts, see
Henderson's History of Brazil, pp. 28, 29, 107, 173, 248, 315, 473; M'Oidloh's
Researches concerning America, p. 77 ; and the more recent account of Dr. Martins,
in Journal of Geograph. Society, vol. ii. pp. 191-199. Even iu 1817, it waa rare to
see a native in Eio de Janeiro (Spix and Martius's Travels in Brazil, vol. i p. 142);
and Dr. Gardner (Travels in Brazil, pp. 61, 62) says, that " more than one nation Oi
Indians in BrazU have returned to that savage Ufe from which they had apparently
been reclaimed.
'" Sir C. Lyell (Principles of Geology, p. 682) notices " the incredible number
of insects which lay waste the crops in Brazil ; " and Mr. Swainson, who had travelled
in that country, aays, " The red ants of Brazil are ao destructive, and at the same
time so prolific, that they frequently dispute poaaession of the ground with the
husbandman, befy aU his skill to extirpate their coloniea, and fairly compel him to
leave hia fielda uncultivated." Swainson on the Geography and Classification of
Animals, p. 87. See more about these insects in Darwin's Journal, pp. 37-43;
Southey's History of Brazil, vol. i. pp. 144, 266, 833-335, 848, vol. u. pp. 366, 642,
vol. iii. p. 876 ; Spix and Marti-us's Travels in Brazil, voh i. p. 269, voh u. p. 117 ;
Cuvier, Regne Animal, vol. iv. p. 320.
"° The cultivated land is estimated at from IJ to 2 per cent. See MCidloh's
Geog. Diet., 1849, vol. i. p. 430.
"° During the present century, the population of BrazU has been differently stated
at different times ; the highest computation being 7,000,000, and the lowest 4,000,000.
Comp. Humboldt, Nouv. Espagne, vol. u. p. 855 ; Gardner's Brazil, p. 12 ; M'Cfulloeh's
Geog. Diet., 1849, vol. i. pp. 430, 434. Mr. Walsh describes BrazU as " aboundingin
lands of the most exuberant fertility, but nearly destitute of inhabitants." Walsh's '
Brazil,vo\. i. p. 248. This was in 1828 and 1829, aince which the European population
haa increased ; but, on the whole, 6,000,000 seems to be a fair estimate of what

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 77
These considerations sufficiently explain why it is, that in the
whole of BrazU there are no monuments even of the most im
perfect civUization; no evidence that the people had, at any
period, raised themselves above the state in which they were
found when their countiy was first discovered. But immediately
opposite to Brazil there is another country, which, though situa
ted in the same continent, and lying under the same latitude, is
subjected to different physical conditions, and therefore was the
scene of different social results. This is the celebrated kingdom
of Peni, which included the whole of the southern tropic, and
which, from the circumstances just stated, was naturally the
only part of South America where any thing approaching to
ci'yiUzation could he attained. In BrazU, the heat of the cUmate
was accompanied hy a twofold irrigation, arising first from the
immense river-system incidental to the eastern coast; and sec
ondly, from the abundant moisture deposited hy the trade- winds.
From this combination there resulted that unequaUed fertUity,
which, so far as Man was concerned, defeated its own ends, stop
ping his progress hy an exuberance, which, had it heen less ex
cessive, it would have aided. For, as we have clearly seen, when
the productive powers of Nature are carried beyond a certain
point, the imperfect knowledge of uncivUized men is unable to
cope with them, or in any way turn them to their own advantage.
If, however, those powers, being very active, are nevertheless
confined yyithin manageable limits, there arises a state of things
similar to that noticed in Asia and Africa; where the profusion
of Nature, instead of hindering social progress, favoured it, hy
encouraging that accumulation of wealth, without some share of
which, progress is impossible.
In estimating, therefore, the physical conditions by which
civiUzation was originaUy determined, we have to look not merely
at the exuberance, hut also at what may he caUed the managea-
hUity of Nature; that is, we have to consider the ease with which
the resources may he used, as weU as the number of the re
sources themselves. Applying this to Mexico and Peru, we find
that they were the countries of America where this combination
most happUy occurred. For though their resources were much
less numerous than those of BrazU, they were far more easy to
control; whUe at the same time the heat of the climate brought
into play those other laws hy which, as I have attempted to show,
aU the early civilizations were greatly infiuenced. It is a very
remarkable fact, which, I believe, has never heen observed, that
can only be known approximatively. In Alison's History, vol. z. p. 229, the number
given is 5,000,000, but the area also is rather understated.

78 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
even in reference to latitude, the present Umit of Peru to the
south corresponds with the ancient limit of Mexico to the north;
while, hy a striking, but to me perfectly natural coincidence,
both these boundaries are reached before the tropical line is pass
ed; the boundary of Mexico being 21° N. Iat., that of Peru 21^°
S. Iat.'"' Such is the wonderful regularity which history, when com
prehensively studied, presents to our view. And if we compare
Mexico and Peru with those countries of the Old World which
have been already noticed, we shaU find, as in aU the civiUza
tions anterior to those of Europe, that their social phenomena
were subordinate to their physical laws. In the first place, the
characteristics of their national food were precisely those met -with
in the most flourishing parts of Asia and Africa. For although
few of the nutritious vegetables belonging to the Old World-
were found in the New, their place was suppUed by others ex
actly analogous to rice and dates; that is to say, marked by the
same abundance, hy the same facility of growth, and hy the same
exuberant returns; therefore, followed hy the same social results.
In Mexico and Peru, one of the most important articles of food
has always been maize, which, we have every reason to beUevej
was pecuUar to the American continent.'"' This, like rice and
dates, is eminently the product of a hot climate; and although
it is said to grow at an elevation of upwards of 7,000 feet,'"' it
is rarely seen beyond the fortieth parallel,'"" and its exuberance
rapidly diminishes with the diminution of temperature. Thus,
'" Vidaca being the most southerly point of the present Peruvian coaat ; though
the conqueat of Peru, incorporated with the empire, extended far into Chili, and
within a few degrees of Patagonia. In regard to Mexico, the northern limit of the
erapire waa 21° on the Atlantic coaat, and 19° on the Pacific. Prescott's History oj
Mexico, vol. i. p. 2.
'*' A queation haa been raised aa to the Asiatic origin of Maize: Reynier,
Economic des Arabes, pp. 94, 95. But later and more careful researches seem to
have ascertained beyond much doubt that it waa unknown before America was
discovered. Compare Meyen's Geography of Plants, pp. 44, 303, 804 ; Walckenaer'i
notes in Azara, Amerique Meridionale, vol. i. p. 149 ; Cuvier, Progrh des Sciences
NatureUes, vol. u. p. 354; Cuvier, Eloges Historiques, vol. ih p. 178; Loudon's
Encyclopcedia of Agriculture, p. 829; M'CullocKs Diet, of Commerce, 1849, p. 831.
The casual notices of maize by Ixtlilxochitl, the native Mexican historian, shows its
general use as an article of food before the arrival of the Spaniards : aee Ixtlilxochitl,
Histoire des Chichi-meques, voh i. pp. 53, 64, 240, vol. ii. p. 19.
"° " Maize, indeed, growa to the height of 7,200 feet above the level of the sea,
but only predominatea between 8,000 and 6,000 of elevation." Lindley's Vegetable
Kingdom, 1847, p. 112. Thia refers to the tropical parts of South America; but
the Zea Maia ia said to have been raised on the slopes Of the Pyrenees " at an eleva
tion of 3,000 to 4,000 feet." See Austen on the Forty Days' Maize, in Report of
Brit. Assoc, for 1849, 7\-ans. of Soc. p. 68.
"'° M. Meyen (Geog. of Plants, p. 302) and Mr. Balfour (Botany, p. 567) suppose
that in America 40° is about its Umit ; and this is the case in regard to its extensive
cultivation ; but it is grown certainly aa high as 52°, perhaps aa high as 64°, north
latitude : see Richardson's Arctic Expedition, 1851, vol. ii. pp. 49, 234.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 79
for example, in New CaUfornia its average yield is seventy or
eighty fold;'" but in Mexico proper the same grain yields three
or four hundred fold, and, under very favourable circumstances,
even eight hundred fold.'""
A people who derived their sustenance from a plant of such
extraordinary fecundity, had little need to exercise their indus
trious energies; while at the same time they had every opportu
nity of increasing their numbers, and thus producing a train of
social and poUtical consequences simUar to those which I have
noticed in India and in Egypt. Besides this, there were, in ad
dition to maize, other kinds of food to which the same remarks
are appUcable. The potato, which, in Ireland, has brought
ahout such injurious effects by stimulating the growth of popu
lation, is said to be indigenous to Peru; and although this is de
nied hya very high authority,'"' there is, at all events, no doubt
that it was found there in great abundance when the country
was first discovered by the Europeans.'"* In Mexico, potatoes
were unknown tUl the arrival of the Spaniards; hut both Mexi
cans and Peruvians Uved to a great extent on the produce of the
banana; a vegetable whose reproductive powers are so extraordi
nary, that nothing hut the precise and unimpeachable testimony
of which we are possessed could make them at aU credible. This
remarkable plant is, in America, intimately connected with the
physical laws of climate; since it is an article of primary impor
tance for the subsistence of man whenever the temperature passes
a certain point.'"" Of its nutritive powers, it is enough to say,
'" " Soua la zone temp^r^e, entre les 33 et 38 degr6a de latitude, par exemple
dans la Nouvelle CaUfornie, le mats ne produit, en gdndral, annde commune, que 70
^ 80 grains pour un." Humboldt, la Nouvelle Espagne, vol. ii. p. 375.
™ " La feconditd du TlaoUi, ou mais mexicain, est au-deU de tout ce que I'on
pent imaginer en Europe. La plante, favoriade par de fortea chaleura et par beaucoup
d'humidite, acquiert une hauteur de deux d trois mfetres. Dans lea beUea plaines
qui a'dtendent depuia San Juan del Eio a Queretaro, par exemple dans lea terres de
la grande metairie de I'Esperanza, une fanfegue de mais en produit quelquefoia huit
centa. Des terrains fertUes en donnent annde commune trois k quatre cents."
Humboldt, Nouv. Espagne, vol. U. p. 374. Nearly the same estimate is given by Mr.
Ward: see Ward's Mexico, vol. i. p. 32, vol. U. p. 230. In Central America
(Guatemala), maize returns three hundred for one. Mexique et Guatemala par
Larenaudiere, p. 257.
™ "La pomme de terre n'eat paa indig&ne au Perou." Humboldt, Nouv. Espagne,
vol. ii. p. 400. On the other hand, Cuvier (Histoire des Sciences NatureUes, part ii.
p. 185) peremptorUy says, "il est impossible de douter qu'elle ne soit originaire du
Perou : " see also his Eloges Historiques, vol. u. p. 171. Compare Winckler, Gesch.
der Botanik, p. 92 : " Von einem gewiaaen Carate unter den Gewachsen Peru's mit
dem Namen papas aufgefiihrt."
'" And has been uaed ever since for food. On the Peruvian potato, compare
Tschudi's Travels in Peru, pp. 178, 368, 386 ; Ulloa's Voyage to South America, vol.
i. pp. 287, 288. In Southern Peru, at the height of 13,000 or 14,000 feet, a curious .
process takes place, the starch of the potato being frozen into, saccharine. See a
valuable paper by Mr. BoUaert in Journal of Geograph. Society, voh xxi. p. 119.
'" Humboldt (Nouv. Espagne, vol. u. p. 359) s.ays, " partout ou la chaleur

80 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
that an acre sown wdth it wiU support more than fifty persons;
whereas the same amount of land sown with wheat in Europe
wUl only support two persons."" As to the exuberance of its
growth, it is calculated that, other circumstances remaining the
same, its produce is forty-four times greater than that of pota
toes, and a hundred and thirty-three times greater than that of
wheat.'"' It wiU now be easily understood why it was that, in all im
portant respects, the ciyoUzations of Mexico and Peru were strict
ly analogous to those of India and Egypt. In these four
countries, as weU as in a few others in Southern Asia and Cen
tral America, there existed an amount of knowledge, despicable
indeed if tried hy an European standard, but most remarkable if
contrasted yrith the gross ignorance which prevaUed among the
adjoining and cotemporary nations. But in all of them there
was the same inabUity to diffuse even that scanty civiUzation
which they reaUy possessed; there was the same utter absence
of any thing approaching to the democratic spirit; there was the
same despotic power on the part of the upper classes, and the
same contemptible subservience on the part of the lower. For,
as we have clearly seen, all these civUizations were affected by
certain physical causes, which, though favourable to the accumu
lation of wealth, were unfavourable to a just subdivision of it.
And as the knowledge of men was stiU in its infancy,'"' it was
found impossible to struggle against these physical agents, or
prevent them from producing those effects on the social organi
zation which I have attempted to trace. Both in Mexico and in
Peru, the arts, and particularly those branches of them which
minister to the luxury of the wealthy classes, were cultivated
moyenne de I'annde exc^de vingt-quatre degrds centigrades, le fruit du banauier est
un objet de culture du plus grand intdrdt pour la aubaiatance de I'homme." Compare
Bullock's Mexico, p. 281.
"" M'Culloch's Geograph. Did. 1849, vol. ii. p. 315.
"' " Je doute qu'U exiate une autre plante sur le globe, qui, sur un petit espace
de terrain, puisse produire une masse de substance nourrissante aussi considdrable."
. . . . " Le produit des bananes est par consdquent k celui du froment comme 138 ;
1 — & celui des pommes de terre comme 44: 1." Humboldt, Nouvelle Espagne, vol ii.
pp. 362, 363. See also Prout's Bridgewater Treatise, p. 338, edit. 1845 ; Prescoth
Peru, voh i. p. 181, 132; Prescott's Mexico, vol. i. p. 114. EarUer notices, but very
imperfect ones, of this remarkable vegetable, may be found in Ulloa's South America,
vol. i. p. 74 ; and in Boyle's Works, vol. iii. p. 590.
168 fp[jg Qjjjy ggigmje with which they had much acquaintance was astronomy,
which the Mexicans appear to have cultivated with considerable success. Compare
the remark of La Place, ia Humboldt, Nouvelle Espagne, vol. i. p. 92, -with Pricharis
Physical History, vol. v. pp. 323, 829 ; M'CulloKs Researches, pp. 201-226 ; Laren-
audiere's Mexique, pp. 61, 62; Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. iv. p. 466 ; Journal of Geog.
Society, vol. vu. p. 3. However, their astronomy, as might be expected, was accom
panied by astrology: see Ixtlilxochitl, Histoire des Chichim^ques,yo\. i. p. 168, vol. ii
pp. 94, 111.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 81
with great success. The houses of the higher ranks were filled
with ornaments and utensils of admirable workmanship; their
chambers were hung with splendid tapestries; their dresses and
their personal decorations betrayed an almost incredible expense;
their jewels of exquisite and varied form; their rich and flowing
robes embroidered with the rarest feathers, coUected from the
most distant parts of the empire : all supplying evidence of the
possession of unlimited wealth, and of the ostentatious prodigali
ty with which that wealth was wasted.'"' Immediately below
this class came the people; and what their condition was, may
be easUy imagined. In Peru the whole of the taxes were paid
hy them; the nobles and the clergy being altogether exempt.""
But as, in such a state of society, it was impossible for the peo
ple to accumulate property, they were obUged to defray the ex
penses of government by their personal labour, which was placed
under the entire command of the state.'" At the same time,
the rulers of the country were weU aware that, with a system
like this, feelings of personal independence were incompatible;
they therefore contrived laws by which, even in the most minute
matters, freedom of action was controUed. The people were so
shackled, that they could neither change their residence, nor alter
their clothes, without permission from the governing powers. To
each man the law prescribed the trade he was to follow, the dress
he was to wear, the yyife he was to marry, and the amusements
he was to enjoy."" Among the Mexicans the course of affairs was
"'° The works of art produced by the Mexicans and Peruviana are underrated by
Robertson ; who, however, admits that he had never seen them. History of Amer
ica, book vu., in Robertson's Works, pp. 909, 920. But during the present century
conaiderable attention haa been paid to this subject : and in addition to the evidence
of skiU and costly extravagance coUected by Mr. Prescott (History of Peru, vol. i.
pp. 28, 142 ; History of Mexico, voh i. pp. 27, 28, 122, 256, 270, 307, vol. U. pp. 116,
116), I may refer to the testimony of M. Humboldt, the only traveUer in the New
World who haa poaaeaaed a competent amount of physical as well as historical knowl
edge. Hurnboldt, Nouvelle Espagne, vol. u. p. 488, and elsewhere. Compare Mr.
Pentland's observation on the tomba in the neighbourhood of Titicaca (Jour, of Geog.
Soc, vol. X. p. 554) with M'Culloh's Researches, pp. 864-366 ; Mexique par Laren
audiere, pp. 41, 42, 66 ; Ulloa's South America, voh i. pp. 465, 466.
170 11 ipjjg members of the royal house, the great nobles, even the pubUc function
aries, and the numerous body of the priesthood, were aU exempt from taxation. The
whole duty of defraying the expenaea of the government belonged to the people."
Prescott's History of Peru, vol. i. p. 56.
'" Ondegardo emphatically says, " Solo el trabajo de las personas era el tributo
que se dava, porque eUos no poseian otra cosa.". Prescott's Peru, vol. i. p. 67. Com
pare M'Culloh's Researches, p. 359. In Mexico,, the state of thinga was just the
same : " Le petit peuple, qui ne posaddait point de biens-fonds, et qui uefaisait point
de commerce, payait sa part des taxes en travaux de diffdrents genres ; c'dtait par
lui que les terres de la couronne dtaient cultivdes, lea ouvragea publics exdcutds, et
les diveraes maisons appartenantes k I'empereur construites ou entretenues." Laren-
a-udiere's Mexique, p. 39.
"" Mr. Prescott noticea this with surprise, though, under the circumstances, it
was in truth perfectly naturah He says (Hist, of Peru, vol. i. p. 159), " Under thia
VOL. I. — 6

82 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
similar; the same physical conditions being foUowed by the same
social results. In the most essential particular for which history
can he studied, namely, the state of the people, Mexico and Peru
are the counterpart of each other. For though there were many
minor points of difference,'" both were agreed in this, that there
were only two classes — the upper class being tyrants, and the
lower class being slaves. . This was the state in which Mexico
was found when it was discovered hy the Europeans,"* and to
wards which it must have been tending from the earliest period.
And so insupportable had aU this become, that we know, from
the most decisive evidence, that the general disaffection it pro-.
duced among the people was one of the causes which, hy facili
tating the progress of the Spanish invaders, hastened the down-
faU of the Mexican empire.""
The further this examination is carried, the more striking
becomes the simUarity between those civilizations which flourish
ed anterior to what may be caUed the European epoch of the
human mind. The division of a nation into castes would be im
possible in the great European countries; but it existed from a
remote antiquity in Egypt, in India, and apparently in Persia.'"
The very same institution was rigidly enforced in Peru;"' and
what proves how consonant it was to that stage of society, is,
that in Mexico, where castes were not estabUshed by law, it was
nevertheless a recognised custom that the son should follow the
occupation of his father.'" This was the political symptom of
extraordinary poUty, a people, advanced in many of the social refinements, well
skiUed in manufactures and agriculture, were unacquainted, as we have seen, with
money. They had nothing that deserved to be caUed property. They could follow
no craft, could engage iu no labour, no amusement, but such aa was specially provid
ed by law. They could not change their residence or their dress without a license
from the government. They could not even exercise the freedom which is conceded
to the most abject in other countries — that of selecting their own wives."
'" The Mexicans being, as Prichard says (Physical History, vol. v. p. 467), of a
more cruel disposition than the Peruvians ; but our information is too Umited to en
able us to determine whether this was mainly owing to physical causes or to social
ones. Herder preferred the Peruvian civUization : " der gebildetste Staat dieses
Welttheils, Peru." Ideen zur Geschichte der Menschheit, vol. i. p. 33.
"* See iu Humholdts Nouvell^Espagne, vol. i. p. 101, a striking summary of the
state of the Mexican people at the time of the Spanish conquest : see also History of
America, book vii., in Robinson's Works, p. 907.
"' PrescotVs History of the Conquest of Mexico, vol. i. p. 84. Compare a similar
remark on the invasion of Egypt in Bu-nsen's Egypt, vol. u. p. 414.
"° That there were castes in Persia is stated by Firdousi ; and his assertion,
putting aside its general probability,' ought to outweigh the 'silence of the Greek his
torians, who, for the most part, knew Uttle of any country except their own. Ac
cording to Malcolm, the existence of caste in the time of Jemsheed, is confirmed by
" some Mahomedan authors ;" but he does not say who they were. Malcolm! s History
of Persia, vol. i. pp. 505, 506. Several attempts have been made, but very unsuc-
cessfuUy, to ascertain the period in which castes were first instituted. Compare
Asiatic Researches, vol. vi. p. 261 ; Heeren's African Naiions, vol. U. p. 121 ; Bim-
sen's Egypt,. -vol. ii. p. 410 ; Rammohun Roy on the Veds, p. 269.
'" Prescott's History of Peru, vol i. pp. 143, 156.
"' PrescotVs History of Mexico, 124.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 83
that stationary and conservative spirit, which, as we shaU here
after see, has marked every country in which the upper classes
have monopoUzed power. The religious symptom of the same
spirit was displayed in that inordinate reverence for antiquity,
and in that hatred of change, which the greatest of aU the writers
on America has weU pointed out as an analogy between the
natives of Mexico and those of Hindostan.'" To this may be
added,_ that those who have studied the history of the ancient
Egyptians, have observed among that people a similar tendency.
Wilkinson, who is weU known to have paid great attention to
their monuments, says, that they were more unwiUing than any
other nation to alter their religious worship;"" and Herodotus,
who travelled in their country two thousand three hundred years
ago, assures us that, whUe they preserved old customs, they
ne'ver acquired new ones.'" In another point of view, the simi
larity between these distant countries is equally interesting, since
it evidently arises from the causes already noticed as common to
both. In Mexico and Peru, the lower classes being at the dis
posal of the upper, there foUowed that frivolous waste of labour
which we have observed in Egypt, and evidence of which may
also be seen in the remains of those temples and palaces that are
"° " Les Amdricaina, comme les habitans de ITndoustan, et comme toua les peu
ples qui ont gumi long-temps sous le despotisme civil et reUgieux, tiennent avec une
opiniatretd extraordinaire i leurs habitudes, a leura moeura. El leurs opinions. . . .
Au Mexique, comme dans I'Indoustan, U n'etoit paa permia aux fid^lea de changer la
moindre chose aux figures des idoles. Tout ce qui appartenoit au rite des Azt&quea
et des Hindoua dtoit aaaujdti k dea lois immuables." Humboldt, Nouv. Espagne, vol.
i. pp. 95, 97. Turgot (OSuvres, vol. u. pp. 226, 313, 314) has some admirable re
marks on this fixity of opinion natural to certain statea of society. See also Her
der's Ideen zur Geschichte, vol. iu. pp. 34, 36 ; and for other lUustrations of this uu-
pUaucy of thought, and adherence to old customs, which many writers suppose to be
an eastern pecuUarity, but which is far more widely spread, and ia, as Humboldt.
clearly aaw, the reault of an unequal distribution of power, compare Turner's Em
bassy to Tibet, p. 41 ; Forbes's Oriental Memoirs, vol. i. pp. 16, 164, vol. U. p. 286 ;
MilVs History of India, vol. ii. p. 214 ; Elphinstone' s History of India, p. 48 ; Ot
ter's Life of Clarke, vol. ii. p. 109 ; Transac. of Asiatic Society, vol. ii. p. 64 ;
Journal of Asiat. Society, vol. viu. p. 116.
'™ " How acrupulous the Egyptians were, above all people, in permitting the in
troduction of new customs in matters relating to the gods." Wilkinson's Ancient
Egyptians, vol. in. p. 262. — Compare p. 276. Thus, too, M. Bunsen notices "the
tenacity with which the Egyptians adhered to old manners and customs. " Bunsen's
Egypt, vol. u. p. 64. See also some remarks on the difference between this spirit and
the love of novelty among the Greeks, in Ritter's History of Ancient Philosophy,
voh iv. pp. 625, 626.
'" Herodot. book ii. chap. 79 : irarptouri Si xpfi^M""" vi/foiai, AWon ouSeVa
iniKriavrai : and see the note in Baehr, vol. i p. 660 : " vip-ovs priorea interpretea ex-
pUcarunt cantilenas, h-ymnos ; Schweighaeuserus rectius inteUexit instituta ac mores."
In the same way, in Timaeus, Plato repreaents an Egyptian priest saying to Solon,
"EAA^Kes ael itaiSes iare, yipav Se "EXAt)!/ ovk iariv And when Solon asked what he
meant; Ne'oi iirre, was the reply, ras ^vx^s -ndvres- oliSeiilav^ •yip 4v airaTs Hxere Si'
apxaiau liKo^v ira\aiciv Sdloc ouSe udevpia XP^"'!' ^o^'^'' ovUv. Chap. V. in Plvionis
Opera, voh vu. p. 242, edit. Bekker, Lond. 1826.

84 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
stUl found in several parts of Asia. Both Mexicans and Peru-
'vians erected immense buUdings, which were as useless as those
of Egypt, and which no country could produce, unless the labour
of the people were Ul-paid and Ul-directed."" The cost of these
monuments of vanity is unknown; hut it must have been enor
mous; since the Americans, being ignorant of the use of iron,"'
were unable to employ a resource by which, in the construction
of large works, labour is greatly abridged. Some particulars,
however, have been preserved, from which an idea may he formed
on this subject. To take, for instance, the palaces of their
longs : we find that in Peru the erection of the royal residence
occupied, during fifty years, 20,000 men;"* whUe that of Mexico
cost the labour of no less than 200,000 : striking facts, which,
if aU other testimonies had perished, would enable us to appre
ciate the condition of countries in which, for such insignificant
purposes, such vast power was expended.""
The preceding evidence, coUected from sources of unques
tioned credibUity, proves the force of those great physical laws,
which, in the most flourishing countries out of Europe, encour
aged the accumulation of wealth, hut prevented its dispersion;
and thus secured to the upper classes a monopoly of one of the
most important elements of social and poUtical power. The re
sult was, that in aU those civilizations the great body of the peo
ple derived no benefit from the national improvements ; hence
the hasis of the progress being very narrow, the progress itself was
very insecure."" When, therefore, unfavourable circumstances
"¦^ The Mexicans appear to have been even more wantonly prodigal than the
Peruvians. See, respecting their immense pyramids, one of which, Cholula, had a
base " twice aa broad aa the largest Egyptian pyrsumi," MCulloh's Researches, ^jf.
252-266; Bullock's Mexico, pp. Ill-li6, 414; Humboldt's Nouvelle Espagne, n\.
i. pp. 240, 241.
183 PrescotVs History of Mexico, vol. i. p. 117, vol. iu. p. 341; and Prescolh
History of Peru, voh i. p. 146. See also Hauy, Traite de Mineralogie, Paris, 1801,
vol. iv. p. 372.
'" Prescott's History of Peru, \ol. i. p. 18.
'"' Mr. Prescott (History of Mexico, vol. i. p. 163) aays, 'SWe are not informed
of the time occupied in building thia palace ; but 200,000 workmen, it is said, were
employed on it. However this maybe, it is certain that the Tezcucan ' monarchs,
like those of Asia and ancient Egypt, had the control of immense masses of men,
and would sometimes turn the whole population of a conquered city, including the
women, into the pubUc works. The most gigantic monuments of architecture which
the world has witnessed would never have been reared by the hands of freemen."—
The Mexican historian, IxtUlxochitl, gives a curious account of one of the royal pal
acea. See his Histoire des Chichimeques, translated by Temaux-Compans, Paris,
1840, vol. i. pp. 257-262, chap, xxxvii.
™ Thia may be iUuatrated by a good remark of M. Matter, to the effect thatwhen
the Egyptians had once loat their race of kings, it waa found impossible for the na
tion, to reconstruct itself Matter, Histoire de I'Ecole d'Alexandrie, yoli. p. ^^'t
a striking passage. In Peraia, again, when the feeling of loyalty decayed, so also
did the feeUng'of national power. Malcolm's History of Persia, vol. u. p. 130.
The hiatory of the most civiUzed parts of Europe preaenta a picture exactly the
reverse of this.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 85
arose from ¦without, it was hut natural that the whole system
should fall to the ground. In such countries, society, being
divided against itself, was unable to stand. And there can be no
doubt that long hefore the crisis of their actual destruction, these
one-sided and irregular civUizations had begun to decay; so that
their own degeneracy aided the progress of foreign invaders, and
secured the overthrow of those ancient kingdoms, which, under
a sounder system, might have been easUy saved.
Thus far as to the way in which the great ci'vUizations exterior
to Europe have heen affected by the pecuUarities of their food,
climate, and soU. It now remains for me to examine the effect of
those other physical agents to which I have given the collective
name of Aspects of Nature, and which yrill he found suggestive
of some very wide and comprehensive inquiries into the influence
exercised hy the external world in predisposing men to certain
habits of thought, and thus giving a particular tone to reUgion,
arts, Uterature, and, in a word, to aU the principal manifestations
of the human mind. To ascertain how this is brought ahout,
forms a necessary supplement to the investigations just concluded.
For, as we have seen that cUmate, food, and soil mainly concern
the accumulation and distribution of wealth, so also shaU we see
that the Aspects of Nature concern the accumulation and dis
tribution of thought. In the first case, we have to do with the
material interests of Man; in the other case, with his inteUec
tual interests. The former I have analyzed as far as I am able,
and perhaps as far as the existing state of knowledge yriU aUow.'"
But the other, namely, the relation between the Aspects of
Nature and the mind of Man, involves speculations of such mag
nitude, and requires such a mass of materials draym from every
quarter, that I feel very apprehensive as to the result ; and I
need hardly say, that I make no pretensions to any thing ap
proaching an exhaustive analysis, nor can I hope to do more than
generaUze a few of the laws of that compUcated, hut as yet
unexplored, process by which the external world has affected the
human mind, has warped its natural movements, and too often
checked its natural progress.
The Aspects of Nature, when considered from this point of
¦view, are divisible into two classes : the first class being those
which are most Hkely to excite the imagination; and the other
class being those which address themselves to the understanding
commonly so caUed, that is, to the mere logical operations of the
inteUect. For although it is true that, in a complete and well-
'" I mean, in regard to the physical and economical generaUzations. Aa to the
literature of the aubject, I am conscious of many deficiencies, particularly in respect
to the Mexican and Peruvian histories.

86 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
balanced mind, the imagination and the understanding each
play their respective parts, and are auxiUary to each other, it is
also true that, in a majority of instances, the understanding is
too .weak to curb the imagination and restrain its dangerous
Ucense. The tendency of advancing civUization is to remedy
this disproportion, and invest the reasoning powers with that
authority, which, in an eariy stage of society, the imagination
exclusively possesses. Whether or not there is ground for fear
ing that the reaction will eventually proceed too far, and that
the reasoning faculties wUl in their turn tyrannize over the im
aginative ones, is a question of the deepest interest; hut in the
present condition of our knowledge, it is probably an insoluble
one. At aU events, it is certain that nothing Uke such a state
has yet heen seen; since, even in this age, when the imagination
is more under control than in any preceding one, it has far too
much power ; as might be easUy proved, not only from the super
stitions which in every country stiU prevaU among the vulgar,
hut also from that poetic reverence for antiquity, which, thougli
it has been long diminishing, stUl hampers the independence,
blinds the judgment, and circumscribes the originaUty of the
educated classes.
Now, so far as natural phenomena are concerned, it is evident,
that whatever inspires feelings of terror, or of great wonder, and
whatever excites in the mind an idea of the vague and uncon
trollable, has a special tendency to inflame the imagination, and
bring under its dominion the slower and more deUberate opera
tions of the understanding. In such cases, Man, contrasting
himself with the force and majesty of Nature, becomes painfully
conscious of his own insignificance. A sense of inferiority steals
over him. From every quarter innumerable obstacles hem him
in, and limit his indi^yidual wiU. His mind, appalled by the
indefined and indefinable, hardly cares to scrutinize the details
of which such imposing grandeur consists. "' On the other hand,
where the works of Nature are small and feeble, Man regains
confidence : he seems more ahle to rely on his own power ; he
can, as it were, pass through, and exercise authority in every
direction. And as the phenomena are more accessible, it becomes
"" The sensation of fear, even when there is no danger, becomes strong enough
to deatroy the pleasure that would otherwise be felt. See, for instance, a description
of the great mountain boundary of Hindostan, in Asiatic Researches, vol, xi. p.
469 : "It is necessary for a person to place himself in our situation before he can
form a just conception of the scene. The depth of the valley below, the progressive
elevation of the intermediate hiUs, and the majestic splendor ofthe cloud-capt Hima
laya, formed so grand a picture, that the mind was impressed with a sensation of
dread rather than of pleasure." Compare vol. xiv. p. 116, Calcutta, 1822. In the
Tyrol, it has been observed, that the grandeur of the mountain scenery imbues the
minds of the nativea with fear, and has caused the invention of many superstitious
legends. Alison's Europe, vol. ix. pp. 79, 80.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION, 87
easier for him to experiment on them, or to observe them with
minuteness ; an inquisitive and analytic spirit is encouraged,
and he is tempted to generaUze the appearances of Nature, and
refer them to the laws by which they are governed.
Looking in this way at the human mind as affected hy the
Aspects of Nature, it is surely a remarkable fact, that aU the
great early ci^riUzations were situated within and immediately
adjoining the tropics, where those aspects are most sublime,
most terrible, and where Nature is,' in every respect, most dan
gerous to man. Indeed generaUy, in Asia, Africa, and America,
the external world is more formidable than in Europe. This
holds good not only of the fixed and permanent phenomena, such
as mountains, and other great natural harriers, but also of occa
sional phenomena, such as earthquakes, tempests, hurricanes,
pestUences ; aU of which are in those regions very frequent, and
very disastrous. These constant and serious dangers produce
effects analogous to those caused hy the sublimity of Nature, in
so far, that in both cases there is a tendency to increase the
activity of the imagination. For the pecuUar province of the
imagination being to deal ¦with the unknown, every event which
is unexplained, as weU as important, is a direct stimulus to our
imaginative faculties. In the tropics, events of this kind are
more numerous than elsewhere ; it therefore foUows that in the
tropics the imagination is most Ukely to triumph. A few lUus
trations of the working of this principle wUl place it in a clearer
light, and yviU prepare the reader for the arguments based upon it.
Of those physical events which increase the insecurity of
Man, earthquakes are certainly among the most striking, in
regard to the loss of life which they cause, as also in regard to
their sudden and unexpected occurrence. There is reason to
believe that they are always preceded hy atmospheric changes
which strike immediately at the nervous system, and thus have
a direct physical tendency to impair the intellectual powers.'"
However this may he, there can he no doubt as to the effect they
produce in encouraging particular associations and habits of
thought. The terror which they inspire, excites the imagination
even to a painful extent, and, overbalancing the judgment, pre
disposes men to superstitious fancies. And what is highly curious,
'"" " Une augmentation d'dlectricitd s'y manifesto aussi preaque toujours, et ila
sont gdneralement annoncda par le mugissement dea beatiaux, par I'inquidtude
dea animaux domestiquea, et dans lea hommes par cette sorte de malaiae qui, en
Europe, precede les orages dans les personnes nerveusea." Cuvier, Prog, des Sciences,
vol. i. p. 265. See also on thia " Vorgefuhl," the observation of Vou Hoff, iu Mr.
Mallet's valuable essay on earthquakes (Brit. Assoc, for 1860, p. 68) ; aud the "fore
boding" in Tschudi's Peru, p. 165 ; and a letter in Nichols's Illustrations of the
Eighteenth Century, vol. iv. p. 604. The probable connexion between earthquakes
and electricity ia noticed in BakewelVs Geology, p. 434.

88 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
is, that repetition, so far from blunting such feeUngs, strengthens
them. In Peru, where earthquakes appear to he more common
than in any other country,"" every succeeding visitation increases
the general dismay ; so that, in some cases, the fear becomes
almost insupportable."' The mind is -thus constantly thrown
into a timid and anxious state; and men vritnessing the most
serious dangers, which they can neither avoid nor understand,
become impressed with a conviction of their own inahiUty, and
of the poverty of their own resources."" In exactly the same
proportion, the imagination is aroused, and a heUef in super
natural interference actively encouraged. Human power faUing,
superhuman power is caUed in ; the mysterious and the invisible
are believed to be present ; and there grow up among the people
those feelings of awe, and of helplessness, on which all supersti
tion is based, and yrithout which no superstition can exist."'
Further illustrations of this may be found even in Europe,
where such phenomena are comparatively speaking extremely
rare. Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are more frequent
and more destructive in Italy, and in the Spanish and Portu
guese peninsula, than in any other of the great countries ; and
it is precisely there that superstition is most rife, and the super
stitious classes most powerful. Those were the countries where
190 11 pgru jg more subject, perhaps, than any other country to the tremendous
visitation of earthquakes." M'Culloch's Geog. Diet. 1849, vol. u. p. 499. Dr. Tschudi
(Travels in Peru, p. 162) says of Lima, "at an average forty-five shocks may be
counted on in the year." See also on the Peruvian earthquakes, pp. 43, 75, 87, 90.
"" A curioua instance of association of ideas conquering the deadening effect of
habit. Dr. Tschudi (Peru, p. 170) describing the panic says, " no famiUarity with
the phenomenon can blunt this feeUng." Beale (South-Sea Whaling Voyage, Lond.
1839, p. 205) writes, " it is said at Peru, that the oftener the nativea of the pkce
feel thoae vibrationa of the earth, inatead of becoming habituated to them, aa persons
do who are constantly exposed to other dangers, they become more filled with dis
may every time the shock is repeated, so that aged people often find the terror a
sUght shock will produce almost insupportable." Compare Darwin's Journal, pp. 422,
423. So, too, in regard to Mexican earthquakes, Mr. Ward observes, that "the natives
are both more sensible than strangers of the smaUer shocks, and more alarmed by
them." Ward's Mexico, vol. ii. p. 55. On the physiological effects of the fear
caused by earthquakes, aee the remarkable statement by Osiander in BurdacKs Physi
ologie comme Science d' Observation, voh ii. pp. 223, 224. That the fear should be
not deadened by familiarity, but increased by it, would hardly be expected by specu
lative reasonera unacquainted with the evidence ; and we find, in fact, that the Pyr-
rhoniata asserted that of ot ¦yoOy aeiapLol -ira^ oh avpex<is aworeKovvrai, o6 BavpAiourcti-
oliS' 6 ^Aios, 8ti Koff v/iepay Sparai. Diog. Laert. de Vitis Philos. Ub. xi. segm. 87,
voh 1. p. 591.
'™ Mr. Stephens, who gives a striking description of an earthquake in Central
America, emphatically says, "I never feltmyaelfso feeble a thing before." Stephens's
Central America, vol i. p. 383. See also the account of the effects produced on the
mind by an earthquake, in Transac. of Soc. of Bombay, vol. ni. p. 98, and the note
at p. 105.
'°° The effect of earthquakes iu encouraging auperstition, is noticed in Lyell's
admirable work. Principles of Geology, p. 492. Compare a myth on the origin of
earthquakes in Beausobre, Histoire Critique de ManichSe, vol. i. p. 248.

' GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 89
the clergy first estabUshed their authority, where the worst cor
ruptions of Christianity took place, and where superstition has
during the longest period retained the firmest hold. To this may
he added another circumstance, indicative of the connexion be
tween these physical phenomena and the predominance of the
imagination.^ Speaking generaUy, the fine arts are addressed
more to the imagination ; the sciences to the inteUect."* Now
it is remarkable, that all the greatest painters, and nearly a.U the
greatest sculptors, modern Europe has possessed, have heen pro
duced hy the Italian and Spanish peninsulas. In regard to sci
ence, Italy has no doubt had several men of conspicuous ahiUty ;
hut their numbers are out of all proportion smaU when compared
with her artists and poets. As to Spain and Portugal, the liter
ature of those two countries is eminently poetic, and from their
schools have proceeded some of the greatest painters the world
has ever seen. On the other hand, the purely reasoning faculties
have been neglected, and the whole Peninsula, from the earliest
period to the present time, does not supply to the history of the
natural sciences a single name of the highest merit ; not one man
whose works form an epoch in the progress of European knowl
edge."" The manner in which the Aspects of Nature, when they are
very threatening, stimulate the imagination,"" and by encourag
ing superstition, discourage knowledge, may he made stUl more
apparent by one or two additional facts. Among an ignorant
people, there is a direct tendency to ascribe all serious dangers
to supernatural intervention ; and a strong reUgious sentiment
being thus aroused,"' it constantly happens, not only that the
¦°* The greatest men in science, and in fact all very great men, have no doubt
been remarkable for the powers of their imagination. But in art the imagination
plays a far more conspicuous part than in science ; and this is what I mean to express
by the proposition in the text. Sir David Brewster, indeed, thinks that Newton was
deficient in imagination — " the weakness of his imaginative powers." Brewster's
Life of Newton, 1855, vol. U. p. 188. It ia impossible to discuss so large a queation
in a note ; but to my apprehension, no poet, except Dante and Shakespeare, ever had
an imagination more soaring and more audacious than that possessed by Sir Isaac
Newton. "" The remarks made by Mr. Ticknor on the absence of science in Spain, might
be extended even further than he has done. See Tichnor's History of Spanish Lite
rature, vol. in. pp. 222, 223. He says, p. 847, that in 1771, the University of Sala
manca being urged to teach the physical sciences, repUed, " Newton teaches nothing
that would make a good logician or metaphysician, and Gassendi and Descartes do
not agree ao well with revealed truth as Aristotle does."
"" In Asiatic Researches, vol. vi. pp. 35, 36, there is a good instance of an earth
quake giving rise to a theological fiction. See alao vol. i. pp. 154'-157 ; and compare
Coleman's Mythology of the Hindus, p. 17.
'" See, for example, Asiatic Researches, vol. iv. pp. 56, 57, vol. vu. p. 94; and
the effect produced by a volcano, in Journal of Geograph. Society, vol. v. p. 888.
See also vol. xx. p. 8, and a partial recognition of the principle by Sextua Empiricua,
in Tennemann' s Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. i. p. 292. Compare the use the clergy

90 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
danger is submitted to, hut that it is actually worshipped. This
is the case with some of the Hindus in the forests of Malabar ;".[
and many similar instances will occur to whoever has studied the
condition of barbarous tribes."" Indeed, so far is this carried,
that in some countries the inhabitants, from feelings of reveren
tial fear, refuse to destroy wUd beasts and noxious reptUes ; the
mischief these animals inflict being the cause of the impunity
they enjoy."""
It is in this way, that the old tropical civiUzations had to
struggle with innumerable difficulties unknown to the temperate
zone, where European civilization has long flourished. Thed,?:
vastations of animals hostUe to man, the ravages of hurricanes^
tempests, earthquakes,""' and simUar perils, constantly pressed
upon them, and affected the tone of their national character,
For the mere loss of life was the smallest part of the inconven
ience. The real mischief was, that there were engendered in
the mind, associations which made the imagination predominate
over the understanding; which infused into the people a spirit
of reverence instead of a spirit of inquiry ; and which encour-
made of a volcanic eruption in Iceland ( Wheaton's History of the Northmen, p. 42) ;
and see further Raffle's History of Java, vol. i. pp. 29, 274, and Tschudi's Peru, pp.
64, 167, 171.
MB ijijjg Hinijug in the Iruari forests, says Mr. Edye, " worship and respect every
thingfrom which they apprehend danger." Edye on the Coast of Malabarjm Jam-
nal of Asiatic Society, vol. U. p. 387.
"*" Dr. Prichard (Physical History, vol. iv. p. 601) says, " The tiger ia worshipped
by the Hajin tribe in the vicinity of the Garrowa or Garudus." Compare Tramae-
tions of Asiatic Society, voh iii. p. 66. Among the Garrowa themselves this feehng is
so strong, that "the tiger's nose strung round a woman's neck ia conaidered aa a great
preservative in childbirth. Coleman's Mythology of the Hindus, p. 321. The Seiks
have a curious superstition respecting wounds inflicted by tigers (Burnes' Bokhara,,
1834, voh iii. p. 140); and the Malasir beUeve that these animala are aent as apun-
iahment for irreUgion. Buchanan's Journey through the Mysore, vol U. p. 385.
™° The inhabitanta of Sumatra are, for auperstitious reasons, most unwilUng to
deatroy tigers, though they commit frightful ravages." Marsden's History of Sumor-
tra, pp. 149, 254. The Eussian account of the Kamtachatkans says, " Besides the
above-mentioned gods, they pay a religioua regard to aeveral animals from which
they apprehend danger." Chieve's History of Kamtschatka, p. 205. Bruce men
tiona that iu Abyssinia, hyaenas are considered " enchanters ;" and the inhabitants
" will not touch the skin of a hysena till it has been prayed over and exorcised by a
priest." Murray's Life of Bruce, p. 472. Allied to this, is the respect paid to bears
(Erman's Siberia, voh i. p. 492, vol. ii. pp. 42, 43) ; also the extensively-diffused wor
ship of the serpent, whose wUy movements are well calculated to inspire fear, and
therefore rouse the reUgious feeUnga. The danger apprehended from noxious rep
tiles is connected with the Dews of the Zendaveata. See Matter's Histoire du Gnosti
cisme, vol. i. p. 380, Paria, 1828.
=°i To give one inatauce of the extent to which these operate, it may be men
tioned that in 1816 an earthquake and volcanic eruption broke forth in Sumbawa,
which shook the ground "through an area of 1000 mUes iu circumference," and the
detonations of which were heard at a distance of 970 geographical mUes. Somer
ville's Connexion of the Physical Sciences, p. 288 ; Hitchcock's Religion of Geology,
p. 190 ; Low's Sarawak, p. 10 ; BakewelVs Geology, p. 488.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 91
aged a disposition to neglect the investigation of natural causes,
and ascribe events to the operation of supernatural ones.
^ Every thing we know of those countries proves how active
this tendency must have heen. With extremely few exceptions,
health is more precarious, and disease more common, in tropical
climates than in temperate ones. Now, it has heen often observed,
and indeed is very obvious, that the fear of death makes men
more prone to seek supernatural aid than they would otherwise
be. So complete is our ignorance respecting another Ufe, that it
is no wonder if even the stoutest heart should quaU at the sudden
approach of that dark and untried future. On this subject the
reason is perfectly silent; the imagination, therefore, is uncon
troUed. The operation of natural causes being brought to an
end, supernatural causes are supposed to begin. Hence it is,
that whatever increases in any country the amount of dangerous
disease, has an immediate tendency to strengthen superstition,
and aggrandize the imagination at the expense of the understand
ing. This principle is so universal that, in every part of the
world, the -vulgar ascribe to the intervention of the Deity those
diseases which are pecuUarly fatal, and especiaUy those which
have a sudden and mysterious appearance. In Europe it used
to he beUeved that every pestUence was a manifestation of the
divine anger ;""" and this opinion, though it has long heen dying
away, is by no means extinct even in the most civilized coun
tries.""' Superstition of this kind yrill of course he strongest,
^°^ In the sixteenth century, " Les diffdrentes sectes s'accordirent ndanmoina k
regarder les maladies graves et dangereuses comme un effet immddiat de la puis
sance divine ; idde que Fernel contribua encore a rdpandre davantage. On trouve
dans Pard plusieurs passages de la Bible, cjtea pour prouver que la colore de Dieu
eat la aeule cause de la peste, qu'eUe auffit fiour provoquer ce fleau, et que sans eUe
les causes dloigndes ne sauraient agir." Sprengel, Histoire de la Medecine,v6l. iu. p. 112.
The same learned writer saya ofthe Middle Agea (voh U. p. 372), "D'aprds I'esprit
gdneralement rdpandu dans ces sidclea de barbaric, on croyait la Idpre envoyde d'une
maniere immddiate par Dieu." See alao pp. 146, 346, 481. Bishop Heber saya that
the Hindus deprive lepers of caste and of the right of possessing property, because
they are objects of "Heaven's wrath." Heber's Journey through India, vol. ii. p.
830. On the Jewish opinion, see Le Clere, Bibliotheque UniverseUe, vol. iv. p. 402,
Amsterdam, 1702. Aud as to the early Christians, see Maury Legendes Pieuses, p.
68, Paris, 1843: though M. Maury ascribes to "les iddes orientales refues par le
christianisme," what is due to the operation of a much wider principle.
""^ Under the influence of the inductive phUosophy, the theological theory of
disease was seriously weakened before tbe middle of the seventeenth century ; and
by the middle, or at aU events the latter half of the eighteenth century, it had lost
all its partizans among scientific men. At present it still Ungers on among the vul
gar ; and traces of it may be found in the writings of the clergy, and in the works of
other persons Uttle acquainted with physical knowledge. When the cholera broke out
in England, attempts were made to revive the old notion ; but the spirit of the age
was too strong for such efforts to succeed; and it may be safely predicted that men
will never return to their former opiniona, unleas they first return to their former
ignorance. As aspecimen of the ideas which the cholera tended to excite, and of
their antagonism to aU scientific investigation, I may refer to a letter written in 1832

92 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
either where medical knowledge is most backward, or where dis
ease is most abundant. In countries where both these conditions
are falfiUed, the superstition is supreme ; and even where only
one of the conditions exists, the tendency is so irresistible, that,
I believe, there are no barbarous people who do not ascribe to their
good or e-yil deities, not only extraordinary diseases, hut even
many of the ordinary ones to which they are Uable.""*
Here, then, we have another specimen of the unfavourable
influence which, in the old civiUzations, external phenomena
exercised over the human mind. For those parts of Asia where
the highest refinement was reached, are, from various physical
causes, much more unhealthy than the most ci^riUzed parts of
by Mrs. Grant, a woman of some accompUshments, and not devoid of influence,
(Correspondence of Mrs. Chant, London, 1844, vol. in. pp. 216, 217), where she states
that " il appears to me great presumption to indulge so much aa people do in specu
lation and conjecture about a disease so evidently a pecuUar infliction, and different
from aU other modea of Buffering hitherto known." This desire to limit human specula
tion, is precisely the feeUng which long retained Europe in darkneaa ; since it effectually
prevented those free inquiries to which we are indebted for all the real knowledge
we possess. The doubts of Boyle upon this subject, supply a curious instance ofthe
tranaitionary state through which the mind waa paaaing in the seventeenth century,
and by which the way was prepared for the great Uberating movement ofthe next
age. Boyle, after stating both sides of the question, namely, the theological and the
scientific, adds, " and it is the less likely that these sweeping and contagious mala
dies ahould be alwaya aent for the puniahment of impioua men, because I remember
to have read in good authors, that as some plagues destroyed both men and beasts,
so some other did pecuUarly destroy brute animals of very Uttle consideration or use
to men, as cats, &c."
" Upon these and the Uke reasons, I have sometimes suspected that in the contro
versy about the origin of the plague, namely, whether it be natural or supernatural,
neither of the contending parties is altogether in the right ; since it is very possible
that some pestilences may not break forth without an extraordinary, though per
haps not immediate, interposition of Almighty God, provoked by the sins of men ;
and yet other plagues may be produced by a tragical concourae of merely natural
cauaes." Discourse on the Air in Boyle's Works, vol. iv. pp. 288, 289. " Neither of
the contending parties is altogether in the right I " — an inatructive paasage towards
understanding the compromising spirit of the seventeenth century ; standing mid
way, as it did, between the creduUty of the sixteenth, and the scepticism of the
eighteenth. ™* To the historian of the human mind, the whole question is ao fuU of interest,
that I ahall refer in this note to all the evidence I have been able to coUeot; and
whoever will compare the foUowing paaaages, may satisfy himself that there is in
every part of the world an intimate relation between ignorance reapecting the nature
and proper treatment of a disease, and the beUef that such disease is caused by
supernatural power, and ia to be cured by it. Burton's Sindh, p. 146, London, 1861 ;
Ellis's Polynesian Researches, vol. i. p. 395, voh iu. pp. 36, 41, vol iv. pp. 293, 334,
375 ; Cullen's Works, Edinb. 1827, vol. n. pp. 414, 434 ; Esquirol, Maladies Menr
tales, vol. i. pp. 274, 482 ; Cabanis, Rapports du Physique et du Moral, p. 277 ;
Volney, Voyage en Syrie, vol. i. p. 426 ; Twrner's Embassy to Tibet, p. 104; Syme's
Embassy to Ava, vol. ii. p. 211 ; Ellis's Tour through Hawaii, pp. 282, 283, 332,
383 ; Renouard, Histoire de la Medecine, vol. i. p. 898; Broussais, Examen des Doc
trines Medicales, vol. i. pp. 261, 262; Chrote's History of Greece, voh i. p. 485 (com
pare p. 251, and vol. vi. p. 213), Grieves History of Kamtschatka, p. 217 ; Journal
of Statist. Soc. vol. x. p. 10; Buchanan's North-American Indians, pp. 256, 267;
HalketVs North-American Indians, pp. 36, 37, 388, 393, 394 ; Catlin's NorthrAmeri-
can Indians, vol. i. pp. 35-41 ; Briggs on the Aboriginal Tribes of India, in Report of

GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 93
Europe.""" This fact alone must have produced a considerahle
effect on the national character,""" and the more so, as it was
aided hy those other circumstances which I have pointed out, aU
tending in the same direction. To this may he added, that the
great plagues by^yhich Europe has at different periods been
scourged, have, for the most part, proceeded from the East, which
is their natural hUthplace, and where they are most fatal. Indeed,
of those cruel diseases now existing in Europe, scarcely one is
indigenous ; and the worst of them were imported from tropical
countries in and after the first century of the Christian era.""'
Summing up these facts, it may be stated, that in the civU
izations exterior to Europe, aU nature conspired to increase the
authority of the imaginative faculties, and weaken the authority
of the reasoning ones. With the materials now existing, it would
he possible to follow this vast law to its remotest consequences, and
show how in Europe it is opposed by another law diametricaUy
Brit. Assoc, for 1850, p. 172 ; Transactions of Soc. of Bombay, vol. ii. p. 80 ; Perci-
vaTs Ceylon, p. 201 ; Buchanan's Journey through the Mysore, vol. ii. pp. 27, 152, 286,
528, vol. Ui. pp. 23, 188, 253 (so, too, M. Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, Anomalies de Or
ganisation, vol. ui. p. 380, says that when we were quite ignorant of the cause of
monstrous births, the phenomenon was ascribed to the Deity, — " de la aussi I'inter-
ventiou supposde de la divinitd ;" and for an exact verification of this, compare Bur
dach, Traite de Physiologie, vol. ii. p. 247, with Journal of Geog. Society, vol. xvi p.
113) ; Ellis's History of Madagascar, voh i. pp. 224, 225 ; Prichard's Physical His
tory, vol. i. p. 207, vol. V. p. 492 ; Journal of Asiatic Society, vol. Ui. p. 230, vol. iv.
p. 158; Asiatic Researches, vol. iu. pp. 29, 156, vol. iv. pp. 66, 58, 74, vol. xvi. pp.
215, 280; Neander' s History of the Church, voh iih p. 119; Crawford's History of
the Indian Archipelago, vol. i. p. 328; Low's Sarawak, pp. 174, 261 ; Cook's Voy-
ages,\o\. i. p. 229; Mariner's Tonga Islands, -vol. i. pp. 194, 350-360, 374, 438, voh
ii. pp. 172, 230 ; Hue's Travels in Tartary arid Thibet, voh i. pp. 74-77 ; Richardson's
Travels in the Sahara, voh i. p. 27 ; M'Culloh's Researches, p. 106 ; Jou/rnal of Geog.
Soc. vol. i. p. 41, vol. iv. p. 260, vol. xiv. p. 37. And in regard to Europe, compare
Spence, Origin of the Laws of Europe, p. 822 ; Turner's Hist, of England,, vol. ui. p.
448; Phillips on Scrofula, p. 255; Otter's Life of Clarke, -voX. i. pp. 265, 266,
which may be iUuatrated by the " sacred" disease of Cambysea, no doubt epilepsy ;
aee Herodot. Ub. in. chap, xxxiv. vol. ii. p. 63.
"" Heat, moisture, and conaequent rapid decompoaition of vegetable matter, are
certainly among the causes of thia ; and to them may perhapa be added the electri
cal atate of the atmosphere in the tropica. Compare Hollands Medical Notes, p.
477; M ' William's Medical Expedition to the Niger, pp, 157, 185; Simon's Pathol-
"ffl/j P- ^69;' Forry's Climate and its Endemic Influe-nces, p. 158; M. LepeUetier
aaya, rather vaguely (Physiologic Medicale, voh iv. p. 527), that the temperate zones
are "favorables k I'exercice complet et rd^iUer des phenomdnes vitaux."
"" And must have strengthened the power of the clergy ; for, as Charlevoix says
with great frankness, " pestUences are the harvests of the ministers of God." Southey's
History of Brazil, vol. ii. p. 254.
™' For evidence of the extra-European origin of European diseases, some of
which, auch as the amaU-pox, have passed from epidemics into endemics, compare
Encyclop. of the Medical Sciences, ito, 1847, p. 728; Transactions of Asiatic Soci
ety, voh ii. pp. 54, 55; Michaelis on the Laws of Moses, vol. in. p. 813; Sprengel,
Histoire de la Medecine j vol u. pp. 33, 195 ; Wallace's Dissertation on the Numbers
of Mankind, pp. 81, 82 ; Hvetiana, Amat. 1723, pp. 132-136 ; Sanders on the SmtUl-
Pox,'E6inb. 1813, pp. 3-4; Wilks's Hist, of the South of India, vol. iii. pp. 16-21 ;
Clot-Bey de la Peste, Paris, 1840, p. 227.

94 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
opposite, and by ¦rirtue of which the tendency of natural phe
nomena is, on the whole, to Umit the imagination, and embolden
the understanding : thus inspiring Man yrith confidence in his
own resources, and facilitating the increase of his knowledge, by
encouraging that hold, inquisitive, and scientific spirit wluchls
constantly advancing, and on which all future progress must
depend. It is not to be supposed that I can trace in detail the way iii
which, owing to these peculiarities, the cirilizatiori of Europe
has diverged from aU others that preceded it. To do this, would
require a learning and a reach of thought to which hardly any
single man ought to pretend ; since it is one thing to have a
perception of a large and general truth, and it is another thing
to follow out that truth in all its ramifications, and prove it hjf
such evidence as wiU satisfy ordinary readers. Those, indeed,
who are accustomed to speculations of this character, and ard
ahle to discern in the history of man something more than a
mere relation of events, will at once understand that in these
compUcated subjects, the wider any generalization is, the greater
wUl be the chance of apparent exceptions ; and that when the
theory covers a very large space, the exceptions may he innu
merable, and yet the theory remain perfectly accurate' The two
fundamental propositions which I hope to have demonstrated, are,
1st, That there are certain natural phenomena which act on the
human mind hy exciting the imagination ; and 2dly, That those
phenomena are much more numerous out of Europe than in it.
If these two propositions are admitted, it inevitably foUows,
that in those countries where the imagination has received the
stimulus, some specific effects must have been produced ; unless,
indeed, the effects have heen neutralized by other causes. "Whe
ther or not there have been antagonistic causes, is immaterial to
the truth of the theory, which is based on the two propositions
just stated. • In a scientific point of view, therefore, the gener
alization is complete ; and it would perhaps be prudent to leave
it as it now stands, rather than attempt to confirm it hy further
Ulustrations, since all particular, facts are liable to be erroneously
stated, and are sure to be contradicted by those who dislike the
conclusions they corroborate. But in order to famUiarize the
reader with the principles I have put forward, it does seem ad
visable that a few instances should he given of their actual
working : and I will, therefore, briefly notice the effects they
have produced in the three great divisions of Literature, EeU-
gion, and Art. In each of these departments, I ¦wiU endeavour
to indicate how the leading features have been affected by the
Aspects of Nature ; and ¦with a view of simplifying the inquiry,

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 95
I ¦will take the two most conspicuous instances on each side, and
compare the manifestations of the intellect of Greece with those
of the inteUect of India ; these being the two countries respect
ing which the materials are most ample, and in which the phys
ical contrasts are most striking.
If, then, we look at the ancient Uterature of India, even
during its best period, we shaU find the most remarkable evi
dence of the uncontroUed ascendency of the imagination. In
the first place, we have the striking fact that scarcely any atten
tion has been paid to prose composition ; all the best writers
having devoted themselves to poetry, as being most con
genial to the national habits of thought. Their works on gram
mar, on law, on history, on medicine, on mathematics, on
geography, and on metaphysics, are nearly all poems, and are
put together acording to a regular system of versification."" «
The consequence is, that while prose writing is utterly despised,
the art of poetry has been cultivated so assiduously, that the
Sanscrit can boast of metres more numerous and more compli
cated than have ever heen possessed hy any of the European
languages.""" This pecuUarity in the form of Indian Uterature, is accom
panied by a corresponding pecuUarity in its spirit. For it is
™° So verwandelt das geistige Leben dea Hindu sich in wahre Poesie, und daa
bezeichnende Merkmal aeiner ganzen Bildung iat; Herrachaft der EinbUdungskraft
iiber den Verstand ; im geraden Gegensatz mit der BUdung des Europaers, deren
aUgemeiner Charakter in der Herrschaft dea Veratandes iiber die Einbildungakraft
beateht. Es wird dadurch begreiflieh, dasa die Litcratur der Hindus nur eine poet-
ische ist ; das aie uberreich an Dichterwerken, aber arm am wissenschaftUchen
Schriften sind ; dass ihre heiUgen Schriften, ihre Gesetze und Sagen poetisch, und
grosstentheils in Versen geschrieben sind ; ja dass Lehrbiicher der Grammatik, der
HeUkunde, der Mathematik und Erdbeschreibung in Versen verfasst sind." Rhode,
Religiose Bildung der Hindus, vol. ii. p. 626. Thus, too, we are told respecting one
of their moat celebrated metaphysical systems, that " the best text of the Sanchya
ia a short treatise in verse." Celebrooke on the Philosophy of the Hindus, in Trans
actions of Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 23. And in another place the same high author
ity says (Asiatic Researclies, vol. x. p. 439), " the metrical treatises on law and othe^
sciences are almost entirely composed in this easy verse." M. Klaproth, in an analysis
of a Sanscrit history of Cashmere, says, " comme presque toutes les compositions
hindoues, il eat ecrit en vers." Journal Asiatique, I. sdrie, vpl. vu. p. 8, Paris, 1825.
See also, in vol. vi. pp. 175, 176, the remarks of M. Burnouf : " Lea phUoaophea
indiena, comme s'ils ne pouvaient dchapper aux influences podtiques de leur cUmat,
traitent lea queations de la metaphysique le plus abatraite par similitudes et mdta-
phores." Compare vol. vi. p. 4, " le gduie indien ai podtique et si reUgieux ;" and
see Cousin, Hist, de la Philosophie, II. sdrie, vol. i. p. 27.
™'' Mr. Yates says of the Hindus, that no other people have ever "presented an
equal variety of poetic compositions. The various metres of Greece and Rome have
filled Europe with astoniahment ; but what are these, compared with the extensive
range of Sanacrit metres under ita three claases of poetical writing?" Yaies on San
scrit Alliteration, in Asiatic Researches, vol. xx. p. 159, Calcutta, 1886. See also on
the Sanscrit metres, p. 821, and an Essay by Colebrooke, voh x. pp. 389-474. On
the metrical systems of the Vedas, aee Mr. WUaon's note iu the Rig Veda Sanhita,
vol. U. p. 136.

96 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
no exaggeration to say, that in that Uterature every thing is cal
culated to set the reason of man at open defiance. An imagi
nation, luxuriant even to disease, runs riot on every occasion.
This is particularly seen in those productions which are most
eminently national, such as the Eamayana, the Mahabbarat, and
the Puranas in general. But we also find it even in their geo
graphical and chronological systems, which of all others might
be supposed least Uable to imaginative ffights. A few examples
of the statements put forward in the most authoritative hooks, will
supply the means of instituting a comparison with the totally
opposite condition of the European inteUect, and wiU give the
reader some idea of the extent to which creduUty can proceed^
even among a civUized people."'"
Of aU the various ways in which the imagination has dis
torted truth," there is none that has worked so much harm as an
exaggerated respect for past ages. This reverence for antiquity
is repugnant to every maxim of reason, and is merely the indul
gence of a poetic sentiment in favour of the remote and unknown.
It is, therefore, natural that, in periods when the inteUect was
comparatively speaking inert, this sentiment should have been
far stronger than it now is ; and there can he little doubt that
it wiU continue to grow weaker, and that in the same proportion
the feeling of progress wUl gain ground ; so that veneration for
the past, wiU be succeeded hy hope for the future. But for
merly the veneration was supreme, and innumerable traces of it
may be found in the Uterature and popular creed of every coun
try. It is this, for instance, which inspired the" poets yrith their
notion of a golden age, in which the world was fiUed with peace,
in which evU passions were stiUed, and crimes were unknown.
It is this, again, which gave to theologians their idea of the prim
itive virtue and simpUcity of man, and of his subsequent fall
from that high estate. And it is this same principle which dif
fused a heUef that in the olden times, men were not only more
virtuous and happy, hut also physicaUy superior in the structure
of their bodies; and that by this means they attained to a larger
stature, and lived-to a greater age, than is possible for us, their
feeble and degenerate descendants.
Opinions of this kind, being adopted by the imagination m
spite of the understanding, it foUows that the strength of such
opinions becomes, in any country, one of the standards by which
°" In Europe, aa we shaU see in the sixth chapter of this volume, the credulity
was at one time extraordinary ; but the age was then barbarous, and barbarism ia
always credulous. On the other hand, the examples gathered from Indian Uterature,
-ffiU be taken from the works of a lettered people, written in a language extremely
rich, and so highly poUshed, that some competent judges have declared it equal, if
not superior, to the Greek.

GENERAL INTEODUCTION. 97
we may estimate the predominance of the imaginative faculties.
Applying this test to the Uterature of India, we shall find a
striking confirmation of the conclusions already drawn. The
marvellous feats of antiquity with which the Sanscrit books
abound, are so long and so compUcated, that it would occupy too
much space to give even an outUne of them ; hut there is one
class of these singular fictions which is weU worth attention,
and admits of being briefly stated. I allude to the extraordi
nary age which man was supposed to have attained in former
times. A beUef in the longevity of the human race at an early
period of the world, was the natural product of those feelings
which ascribed to the ancients an universal superiority over the
moderns ; and this we see exemplified in some of the Christian,
and in many of the Hebrew writings. But the statements in
these works are tame and insignificant when compared with
what is preserved in the Uterature of India. On this, as on
every subject, the imagination of the Hindus distanced all com
petition. Thus, among an immense number of simUar facts,
we find it recorded that in ancient times the duration of the life
of common men was 80,000 years,"" and that holy men Uved to
he upwards of 100,000."'" Some died a Uttle sooner, others a lit
tle later; but in the most flourishing period of antiquity, if we take
aU classes together, 100,000 years was the average."" Of one
king, whose name was Yudhishthir, it is casuaUy mentioned that
he reigned 27,000 years ;"'* whUe another, caUed Alarka, reigned
66,000."'" They were cut off in their prime, since there are
several instances of the early poets Uving to be about half-a-
miUion."'" But the most remarkable case is that of a very
shining character in Indian histoiy, who imited in his single per
son the functions of a king and a saint. This eminent man
'"¦ " The Umit of Ufe was 80,000 years." Asiatic Researches, vol. xvi. p. 456.
Calcutta, 1828. This was Ukewise the estimate of the Tibetan divines, according to
whom men formerly " parvenaient k I'age de 80,000 ans." Journal Asiatique, I.
sdrie, voh ui. p. 199, Paris, 1823.
°'^ "Den Hindu macht dieser Widerspruch nicht verlegen, da er aeine HeUigen
100,000 Jahre und langer leben laaat." Rhode, Relig. Bildung der Hindus, vol.
i. p. 175.
™ In the Dabistan, vol. U. p. 47, it is stated of the earUest inhabitanta of the
world, that " the duration of human Ufe in thia age, extended to one hundred thou-
aand common yeara."
"" WihTord (Asiatic Researches, voh v. p. 242) aays, "When the Puranica speak
of the kings of ancient times, they are equaUy extravagant. According to them,
King Yudhishthir reigned seven-and-twenty thousand years."
°" " For sixty thousand and sixty hundred years no other youthful monarch ex
cept Alarka reigned over the earth." Vishnu Purana, p. 408.
'"" And aometimea more. In the Essay on Indian Chronology in Works ^ Sir
W. Jones, vol. i. p. 325, we hear of " a conversation between Valmic and ¦yyaaa,
 two bards whose ages were separated by a period of 864,000 years." This
passage is also in Asiatic Researches, voh ih p. 899.
VOL. I. — 1

98 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
Uved in a pure and virtuous age, and his days were, indeed, long
in the land ; since when he was made king, he was two mUUon
years old ; he then reigned 6,300,000 years ; having done which,
he resigned his empire, and lingered on for 100,000 years more.""
The same boundless reverence for antiquity, made the Hindus
refer every thing important to the most distant periods ; and
they frequently assign a date which is absolutely bewildering.""
Their great coUection of laws, caUed the Institutes of Menu, is
certainly less than 3000 years old ; hut the Indian chronologists,
so far from being satisfied yrith this, ascribe to them an age that
the sober European mind finds a difficulty even in conceiring.
According to the best native authorities, these Institutes were
revealed to man ahout two thousand miUion years hefore the
present era.""
All this is but a part of that love of the remote, that strain
ing after the infinite, and that indifference to the present, which
characterizes every branch of the Indian intellect. Not only in
Uterature, but also in religion and in art, this tendency is su
preme. To subjugate the understanding, and exalt the imagi
nation, is the universal principle. In the dogmas of their theo
logy, in the character of their gods, and even in the forms of
their temples, we see how the sublime and threatening aspects
of the external world have fiUed the mind of the people with
those images of the grand and the terrible, which they strive to
reproduce in a visible form, and to which they owe the leading
peculiarities of their national culture.
Our view of this vast process may he made clearer hy com
paring it with the opposite condition of Greece. In Greece, we
see a country altogether the reverse of India. The works of
nature, which in India are of startling magnitude, are in Greece
far smaller, feebler, and in every way less threatening to man.
In the great centre of Asiatic civiUzation, the energies of the
human race are confined, and as it were intimidated, by the sur-
''" He was the first king, first anchoret, and first saint ; and ia therefore entitled
Prathama-Eajah, Prathama Bhicshacara, Prathama Jina, and Prathama Tirthancara.
At the time of Ms inauguration as king, hia age was 2,000,000 years. He reigned
6,300,000 yeara, and then resigned his empire to his sons; aud having employed
100,000 years in passing through the several stages of austerity and sanctity, departed
from this world on the summit of a mountain named Ashtapada." Asiatic Researches,
voh ix. p. 305.
"'" " Speculationen iiber Zahleu sind dem Inder so gelauflg, dasa aelbst die
Sprache einen Auadruck hat fur eine Dnitiit mit 68 Nullen, namUch Aaanke, eben
well die Berechnung der Weltperioden diese cnorme Grossen nothwendig ma^e,
denn jene einfachen .12,000 Jahre schienen einem Volke, welches so gerne die
hochstmogUche Potenz auf seine Gottheit iibertragen mogte, viel zu geringe zu
aeyn." Bohlen, das alte Indien, voh u. p. 248.
"° Elphinstone's History of India,p. 136, "a period exceeding 4,320,000 multi-
pUed by six times seventy-one."

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 99
roimding phenomena. Besides the dangers incidental to tropical
climates, there are those noble mountains, which seem to touch
the sky, and from whose sides are discharged mighty rivers, which
no art can divert from their course, and which no bridge has ever
been able to span. There too are impassable forests, whole
countries Uned with interminable jungle, and beyond them, again,
dreary and boundless deserts ; all teaching Man his own feeble
ness, and his inabiUty to cope with natural forces. Without,
and on either side, there are great seas, ravaged by tempests far
more destructive than any known in Europe, and of such sudden
violence, that it is impossible to guard against their effects. And
as if in those regions every thing comhined to cramp the activity
of Man, the whole line of coast, from the mouth of the Ganges
to the extreme south of the peninsula, does not contain a single
safe and capacious harbour, not one port that affords a refuge,
which is perhaps more necessary there than in any other part of
the worid."""
But in Greece, the aspects of nature are so entirely different,
that the very conditions of existence are changed. Greece, like
India, forms a peninsula ; hut whUe in the Asiatic country every
thing is great and terrible, in the European country every thing
is small and feeble. The whole of Greece occupies a space some
what less than the kingdom of Portugal,""' that is, about a for
tieth part of what is now caUed Hindostan.""" Situated in the
most accessible part of a narrow sea, it had easy contact on the
east yrith Asia Minor, on the west with Italy, on the south with
Egypt. Dangers of aU kinds were far less numerous than in
the tropical civUizations. The cUmate was more healthy ;""'
earthquakes were less frequent ; hurricanes were less disastrous ;
wUd-heasts and noxious animals less abundant. In regard to
*'" Symes (Embassy to Ava, \ol iii p. 278)aays: "From the mouth ofthe Ganges
to Cape Comorin, the whole range of our continental territory, there is not a single
harbour capable of affording shelter to a vessel of 500 tons burden." Indeed, accord
ing to Percival, there is, with the exception of Bombay, no harbour, " either on the
Coromandel or Malabar coasts, in which ships can moor in safety at aU seasons of
the year." PercivaVs Account of Ceylon, pp. 2, 15, 66.
^' "Altogether its area is somewhat less than that of Portugah" Grote's History
of Greece, vol. ii. p. 302 ; and the same remark in ThirlwalVs History of Greece, vol.
L p. 2, and in Heeren's Ancient Greece, 1845, p. 16. M. Heeren aaya, "But even if
we add aU the ialands, its square contents are a third less than those of Portugal."
™ The area of Hindostan being, according to Mr. M'CuUoch (Geog. Diet. 1849,
voh i. p. 993), " between 1,200,000 and 1,300,000 square mUes."
™ In the beat daya of Greece, thoae alarming epidemics by which the country
was subsequently ravaged, were comparatively Uttle known ; see ThirlwalVs History
of Greece, vol. ui. p. 134, vol. vui. p. 471. This may be owing to large cosmical
causes, or to the simple fact that the different forms of pestUence had not yet been
imported from the East by actual contact. On the vague accounts we possess of the
earUer plagues, see Clot Bey de la Peste, Paris, 1840, pp. 21, 46, 184. The relation
even of Thucydides is more satisfactory to scholars than to pathologists.

100 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
the other great features the same law prevaUs. The highest
mountains in Greece are less than one-third of the Himalaya, so
that nowhere do they reach the limit of perpetual snow.""* As
to rivers, not only is there nothing approaching those imposing
volumes which are poured down from the mountains of Asia,
but Nature is so singularly sluggish, that neither in Northern
nor in Southern Greece do we find any thing beyond a few
streams, which are easUy forded, and which, indeed, in the sum
mer season, are frequently dried up."""
These striking differences in the material phenomena of the
two countries, gave rise to corresponding differences in their
mental associations. For as aU ideas must arise partly from
what are caUed spontaneous operations in. the mind, and partly
from what is suggested to the mind by the external world, it was
natural that so great an alteration in one of the causes should
produce an alteration in the effects. The tendency of the sur
rounding phenomena was, in India, to inspire fear ; in Greece,
to give confidence. In India, Man was intimidated ; in Greece
he was encouraged. In India, obstacles of every sort were so
numerous, so alarming, and apparently so inexplicable, that the
difficulties of life could only be solved by constantly appealing
to the direct agency of supernatural causes. Those causes being
beyond the province of the understanding, the resources of the
imagination were incessantly occupied in studying them ; the
imagination itself was over-worked, its activity became danger
ous, it encroached on the understanding, and the equiUbrium of
the whole was destroyed. In Greece, opposite circumstances
were foUowed hy opposite results. In Greece, Nature was less
dangerous, less intrusive, and less mysterious than in India. In
Greece, therefore, the human mind was less appaUed, and less
superstitious ; natural causes began to he studied ; physical
science first became possible; and Man, graduaUy waking to" a
sense of his own power, sought to investigate events with a bold- .
ness not to be expected in those other countries, where the pres
sure of Nature troubled his independence, and suggested ideas
with which knowledge is incompatible.
The effect of these habits of thought on the national reli
gion, must he very obvious to whoever has compared the popular
^^ " Mount Guiona, the highest point in Greece, and near its northern boundary,
is 8,239 feet high. ... No mountain in Greece reaches the Umit of perpetual snow."
M'Culloch's Geo. Diet. 1849, vol. i. p. 924. Compare the table of mountains in
Baker's Memoir on North Greece, in Journal of Geographical Society, voh vii. p. 94,
with BakewelVs Geology, pp. 621, 624.
^' "Greece has no navigable river." M'Culloch's Geog. Diet. vol. l p. 924.
" Most of the rivers of Greece are torrents in early apring, and dry before the end
of the summer." Grote's History of (Greece, vol. U. p. 286.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 101
creed of India -with that of Greece. The mythology of India,
Uke that of every tropical country, is based upon terror, and
upon terror too of the most extravagant Mnd. Evidence of the
universality of this feeling abounds in the sacred hooks of the
Hindus, in their traditions, and even in the very form and ap
pearance of their gods. And so deeply is aU this impressed on
the mind, that the most popular deities are invariably those with
whom images of fear are most intimately associated. Thus, for
example, the worship of Siva is more general than any other ;
and as to its antiquity, there is reason to heUeve that it was bor
rowed by the Brahmins from the original Indians.""" At aU
events, it is very ancient, and very popular ; and Siva himself
forms, yyith Brahma and Vishnu, the celebrated Hindu Triad.
We need not, therefore, he surprised that ¦with this god are con
nected images of terror, such as nothing hut a tropical imagina
tion could conceive. Siva is represented to the Indian mind as
a hideous being, encircled hy a girdle of snakes, with a human
skuU in his hand, and wearing a necklace composed of human
bones. He has three eyes ; the ferocity of his temper is marked
by his being clothed in a tiger's skin ; he is represented as wan
dering ahout Uke a madman, and over his left shoulder the deadly
cobra di capeUa rears its head. This monstrous creation of an
awe-struck fancy has a ¦wife, Doorga, called sometimes Kali, and
sometimes hy other names."" She has a body of dark blue ;
whUe the palms of her hands are red, to indicate her insatiate
appetite for blood. She has four arms, ¦with one of which she
carries the skuU of a giant ; her tongue protrudes, and hangs
lolUngly from her mouth ; round her waist are the hands of her
¦rictims ; and her neck is adorned yrith human heads strung to
gether in a ghastly row.""'
^' See Stevenson on The Anti-Bralimanical Religion of the Hindus, in Journal oj
Asiatic Society, voh viu. pp. 881, 332, 336, 388. Mr. Wilson (Journal, vol. uh p.
204) says, " The prevaiUng form of the Hindu reUgion in the south of the peninsu
la was, at the commencement of the Christian era, and some time before it most
probably, that of Siva." See also vol. v. p. 85, where it is stated that Siva " is the
only Hindu god to whom honour ia done at EUora." Compare Transac. of Society of
Bombay, vol. iu. p. 511 ; Heeren's Asiatic Nations, 1846, vol. ii. pp. 62, 66. On the
phUoaophical relation between the foUowera of Siva and thoae of Viahnu, see Ritter's
Hist, of Ancient Philosophy, vol. iv. pp. 834, 336 ; and the noticeable fact (Buchanr
an's Mysore, voh ii. p. 410), that even the Naimar caate, whose "proper deity" ia
Vishnu, " wear on their foreheads the mark of Siva." Aa to the worahip of Siva in
the time of Alexander the Great, see ThirlwalVs History of Cfreece, vol. vu. p. 86 ;
and for further evidence of its extent, Bohlen, das alte Indien, vol. i. pp. 29, 147,
206, and Transac. of Asiatic Society, vol. ii. pp. 60, 294.
'^'' So it is generally stated by the Hindu theologians ; but according to Rammo
hun Eoy, Siva had two wives. See Rammohun Roy on the Veds, p. 90.
^° On these attributes and representations of Siva and Doorga, see Rhode, Reli
giose Bildumg der Hindus, vol. ii. p. 241 ; Coleman's Mythology of the Hindus,
pp. 63, 92 ; Bohlen, das alte Indien, vol. i. p. 207 ; Ward's Religion of the Hindoos,
vol. i. pp. xxxvii 27, 145 ; Transac. of Society of Bombay, vol. i. pp. 215, 221. Com-

102 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
If we now turn to Greece, we find, even in the infancy of its
reUgion, not the faintest trace of any thing approaching to this.
For in Greece, the causes of fear being less abundant, the ex
pression of terror was less common. The Greeks, thereforOj
were hy no means disposed to incorporate into their reUdo^ those
feelings of dread natural to the Hindus. The tendencyraAsiatic
civiUzation was to widen the distance between men and their
deities; the tendency of Greek civiUzation was to diminish it.
Thus it is, that in Hindostan aU the gods had something mon
strous about them ; as Yishnu with four hands, Brahma with
five heads, and the like.""" But the gods of Greece were always
represented in forms entirely human."'" In that country, no
artist would have gained attention, if he had presumed to por
tray them in any other shape. He might make them stronger
than men, he might make them more beautiful; hut stUl they
must he, men. The analogy between God and man, which ex
cited the religious feelings of the Greeks, would have heen fatal
to those of the Hindus.
This difference between the artistic expressions of the two
reUgions, was accompanied by an exactly simUar difference be
tween their theological traditions. In the Indian books, the
imagination is exhausted in relating the feats of the gods ; and
the more obviously impossible any achievement is, the greater
the pleasure with which it was ascribed to them. But the Greek
gods had not only human forms, hut also human attributes, hu
man pursuits, and human tastes."" The men of Asia, to whom
pare the curioua account of an image supposed to represent Mahadeo, in Jour
nal Asiatique, I. sdrie, voh i. p. i. 364, Paris, 1822.
"'" Ward on the Religion of the Hindoos, vol. i. p. 36 ; Transac. of Society of
Bombay, vol. i. p. 228. Compare the gloss in the Dabistan, vol ii. p. 202.
'''" The Greek gods were formed Uke men, with greatly increased powers and
faculties, and acted aa men would do if so circumatan-ced, but with a dignity and
energy suited to their nearer approach to perfection. The Hindu gods, on the other
hand, though endued with human passions, have always aomething monstrous in their
appearance, and wild and capricious in their conduct. They are of various colours,
red, yellow, and blue ; some have twelve heads, and most have four hands. They
are often enraged without a cause, and reconcUed without a motive." Elphinstone's
History of India, pp. 96, 97. See also Erskine on the Temple of Elephania, in
Transac. of Soc. of Bombay, vol. i. p. 246 ; and the Dabistan, vol. i. p. cxi.
''" " In the material polytheism of other leading ancient nationa, the Egyptians, for
example, the incarnation of the Deity was chiefly, or exclusively, confined to ani
mals, monsters, or other fanciful emblems  In Greece, on the other
hand, it was an almost necessary result of the spirit and grace with which the deities
were embodied in human forms, that they should also be burdened with human
interests and passions. Heaven, like earth, had ita courts and palaces, its trades
and professions, ita marriages, intrigues, divorces." Mure's History of the Literal.
ture of Ancient (freece, vol. i. pp. 471, 472. So, too, Tennemann ((rescAicte der
Philosophie, vol. iii. p. 4,19) : " Diese Gotter liaben Menschengestalt 
Haben die Gotter aber nicht nur menschliche Gestalt, sondern auch einen mensch-
liohen Korper, so aind sie ala Menachen' auch denaelben UnvoUkommenheiten,
Krankheiten und dem Tode unterworfen ; dieaea atreitet mit dem Begriffe" i. e. of

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 103
every object of nature was a source of awe, acquired such habits
of reverence, that they never dared to assimUate their o\yn
actions with the actions of their deities. The men of Europe,
encouraged by the safety and inertness of the material world,
did not fear to strike a paraUel, from which they would have
shrunk had they lived amid the dangers of a tropical country.
It is thus, that the Greek di'vinities are so different from those of
the Hindus, that in comparing them we seem to pass from one
creation into another. The Greeks generaUzed their observa
tions upon the human mind, and then appUed them to the gods."'"
The coldness of women was figured in Diana ; their beauty and
sensuaUty in Venus ; their pride in Juno ; their accomplish
ments in Minerva. To the ordinary avocations of the gods, the
same principle was applied. Neptune was a sailor ; Vulcan was
a smith ; ApoUo was sometimes a fiddler, sometimes a poet,
sometimes a keeper of oxen. As to Cupid, he was a wanton
boy, who played with his how and arrows ; Jupitfr*was an
amorous and good-natured king ; whUe Mercury was jndiffer-
ently represented either as a trust-worthy messenger,*or else as
a common and notorious thief.
Precisely the same tendency to approximate human forces
towards superhuman ones, is displayed in another pecuUarity of
the Greek reUgion. I mean, that in Greece we for the first time
meet yrith bfitorworship, that is, the deification of mortals. Ac
cording to the principles already laid down, this could not he
expected in a tropical civiUzation, where the Aspects of Nature
fiUed Man with a constant sense of his oyvn incapacity. It is,
therefore, natural that it should form no part of the ancient In
dian reUgion ;"" neither was it known to the Egyptians,"'*
to the Persians,"'" nor, so far as I am aware, to the Arabi-
Epicurus. Compare Grote's History of Greece, vol. i, p. 596 : " The mythical age
waa peopled with a mingled aggregate of goda, heroes, and men, so confounded
together that it was often impoaaible to diatinguish to which class any individual
name belonged." See also the complaint of Xenophanes, in Mailer's Hist, of Lit. of
Greece, London, 1856, p. 251.
"" The same remark appUes to beauty of form, which they first aimed at in the
statues of men, and then brought to bear upon the statues of the gods. This ia
weU put in Mr. Grote'a important work. History of Greece, vol. iv. pp. 188, 134,
edit. 1847.
^' " But the-worahip of deified heroea ia no part of that syatem.'' Colebrooke on
the Vedas, in Asiatic Researches, voh viii. p. 495.
^* Mackay's Religious Development, vol. U. p. 53, Lond. 1850. Compare Wil
kinson's Ancient Egyptians, voh iv. pp. 148, 318 ; and Matter, Histoire de VEcole
d'Alexandrie, voh i. p. 2; the "culte des grands hommea," which afterwarda arose
in Alexandria (Matter, voh i. p 54), must have been owing to Greek influence.
™ There are no indications of it in the Zendavesta ; and Herodotus Bays, that
the Persians were unUke the Greeks, in so far as they disbeUeved in a god having a
human form ; book i. chap, cxxxi. voh i. p. 308 : ouk avBpmruipvias ivdpiKrav robs
dfohf, Kard-irep oi "EWr^ves eXyai.

104 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
ans."'" But in Greece, Man being less humbled, and, as it were, less
eclipsed, hy the external world, thought more of his own powers,
and human nature did not fall into that discredit in which it
elsewhere sank. The consequence was, that the deification of
mortals was a recognized part of the national reUgion at a very
early period in the history of Greece ;"" and this has heen found
so natural to Europeans, that the same custom was afterwards
renewed with eminent success hy the Eomish Church. Other
circumstances, of a very different character, are graduaUy erad
icating this form of idolatry; but its existence is worth observing,
as one of the innumerable illustrations of the way in which
European ci-vUization has diverged from all those that preced
ed it."'" It is thus, that in Greece every thing tended to exalt the dig
nity of Man, whUe in India every thing tended to depress it.""
To sum up the whole, it may he said that the Greeks had more
respect* for human powers; the Hindus for superhuman. The
first dealt more yrith the knoyyn and avaUahle; the other with
the unknown and mysterious."*" And hy a parity of rea
soning, the imagination, which the Hindus, being oppressed hy
the pomp and majesty of nature, never sought to control, lost its
supremacy in the Uttle peninsula of ancient Greece. In Greece,
for the first time in the history of the worid, the imagination was,
in some degree, tempered and confined by the understanding.
Not that its strength was impaired, or its vitaUty diminished.
It was hroken in and tamed; its exuberance was checked, its
"° I am not acquainted with any evidence connecting this worship with the old
Arabian reUgion ; and it was certainly most alien to the spirit of Mohammedanism.
'" Mure's History of Literature of Greece, vol. i. pp. 28, 500, vol U. p. 402:
very good remarks on a subject handled unsatisfactorily by Coleridge; Literary Re
mains, voh i. p. 185. ThirlwaU (History of Greece, vol. i. p. 207) admits that "the
views and feeUngs out of which it (the worship of heroes) arose, seem to be clearly
discernible in the Homeric poems." Compare CvdmortKs Intellectual System, vol.
u. pp. 226, 372. In the Cratylus, chap, xxxiu., Socrates is represented as askmg,
O'vK olaBa 'in riiiiBeoi oi ijpcoer ; Flatonis Opera, vol. iv. p. 227, edit. Bekker, Lond.
1826. And in the next century, Alexander obtained for his friend Hephastion the
right of being " worshipped as a hero." Grote's History of Chreece, voh xii. p. 339.
''^ The adoration of the dead, and particularly the adoration of martyrs, was one
great point of opposition between the orthodox church and the Manichteans
(Beausobre, Histoire Critique de Maniehee, vol. i. p. 316, vol. ii. pp. 651, 669); and
it is eaay to understand how abhorrent such a practice must have been to the
Persian heretics.
''^ M. Cousin, in his eloquent and ingenious work (Histoire de la Philosophie, II.
sdrie, vol. i. pp. 188-187), has some judicious observations on what he calls "I'dpoque
de rinfini " of the East, contrasted with that " du fini," which began in Europe. But
as to the physical causes of thia, he only admita the grandeur of nature, overlooking
thoae natural elements of mystery and of danger by which reUgious sentiments were
constantly excited.
™ A learned orientaUst says, that no people have made such efforts as the
Hindua "to aolve, exhaust, comprehend, what ia insolvible, inexhaustible, incompre
hensible." Troyer's Preliminary Discourse on the Dabistan, vol. i. p. cviu

GENERAL INTEODUCTION. 105
foUies were chastised. But that its energy remained, we have
ample proof in those productions of the Greek mind which
have survived to our own time. The giiin, therefore, was com
plete ; since the inquiring and sceptical faculties of the
human understanding were cultivated, without destroying the
reverential and poetic instincts of the imagination. Whether
or not the balance was accurately adjusted, is another ques
tion; but it is certain that the adjustment was more nearly
arrived at in Greece than in any previous civiUzation.''" There
can, I think, he Uttle doubt that, notwithstanding what was
effected, too much authority was left to the imaginative faculties,
and that the purely reasoning ones did not receive, and never
have received, sufficient attention. StUl, this does not affect the
great fact, that the Greek literature is the first in which this
deficiency was somewhat remedied, and in which there was a
deUherate and systematic attempt to test aU opinions by their
consonance yrith human reason, and thus 'rindicate the right of
Man to judge for himseU" on matters which are of supreme and
incalculable importance.
I have selected India and Greece as the two terms of the
preceding comparison, because our information respecting those
countries is most extensive, and has been most carefully arranged.
But every thing we know of the other tropical civiUzations, con
firms the views I have advocated respecting the effects produced
hy the Aspects of Nature. In Central America, extensive ex
cavations have heen made; and what has heen brought to Ught
proves that the national religion was, like that of India, a system
of complete and unmitigated teiTor."*" Neither there, nor in
'"¦ This is noticed by Tennemann, who, however, has not attempted to ascertain
the cause : " Die EinbUdungskraft des Griechen war schopferiach, sie schuf in seinem
Innern neue Ideenwelten ; aber er wurde doch nie verleitet, die idealische Welt mit
der wirklichen zu verwechseln, weU sie immer mit einem richtigen Verstande und
geaunder Beurtheilungskraft verbunden war." Geschichte der Philosophie, voh i. p.
8 ; and vol. vi. p. 490, he says, " Bei alien diesen Mangein und Fehlern aind doch die
Griechen die einzige Nation der alten Welt, welche Sinn fur Wisaenschaft hatte, und
zu diesem Behufe forschte. Sie haben doch die Bahn gebrochen, und den Weg zur
Wisaenschaft geebnet." To the same effect, Sprengel, Histoire de la Medecine, vol.
i. p. 215. And on this difference between the Eastern and the European mind, see
Matter, Histoire du Gnosticisme, vol. i. pp. 18, 233, 234. So, too, Kant (Logik, in
Kants Werke, vol. i. p. 350), " Unter aUen Volkern haben also die Griechen erst
angefangen zu phUosophiren. Denn sie haben zuerst versucht, nicht an dem Leit-
faden der Bilder die Vemunfterkenntnisse zu cultiviren, sondern in abstraSto ; statt
dass die anderen Volker sich die Begriffe immer nur durch Bilder in concreto ver-
standlich zu machen auchten."
^'^ Thus, of one of the idols at Copan, " The intention of the sculptor seems to
have been to excite terror." . Stephens's Central America, vol. i. p. 152 ; at p. 169,
" The form of sculpture most generaUy uaed waa a death's head." At Mayapan (vol.
Ui. p. 133), " repreaentationa of human figures, or animala with hideoiis^eatures and
expressiots, in producing which the skiU of the artist seems to have been expended ; "
and again, p. 412, "unnatural aud grotesque faces."

106 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
Mexico, nor in Peru, nor in Egypt, did the people desire to repre
sent their deities in human forms, or ascribe to them human
attributes. Even their temples are huge huUdings, often con
structed yrith great skiU, hut showing an evident wish to impress
the mind with fear, and offering a striking contrast to the
lighter and smaUer structures which the Greeks employed for
religious purposes. Thus, even in the style of architecture do
we see the same principle at work ; the dangers of the tropical
civilization being more suggestive of the infinite, while the safety
of the European civilization was more suggestive of the finite.
To follow out the consequences of this great antagonism, it
would he necessary to indicate how the infinite, the imaginative,
the synthetic, and the deductive, are all connected ; and. are
opposed, on the other hand, hy the finite, the sceptical, the
analytic, and the inductive. A complete iUustration of this,
vrould carry me beyond the plan of this Introduction, and would
perhaps exceed the resources of my oyvn knowledge ; and I must
now leave to the candour of the reader what I am conscious is
but an imperfect sketch, hut what may, nevertheless, suggest to
him materials for future thought, and, if I might indulge the
hope, may open to historians a new field, hy reminding them that
every where the hand of Nature is upon us, and that the history
of the human mind can only be understood hy connecting with it
the history and the aspects of the material universe.

Note 36 to p. 44.
As theae views have a social and economical importance quite independent of their
physiological value, I wiU endeavour, in this note, to fortify them stiU further, by
showing that the connexion between carbonized food and the respiratory functions
may be Ulustrated by a wider survey of the animal kingdom.
Tbe gland moat universal among the different classes of animals is the liver ; ¦
and ita principal business is to reUeve the system of ita auperfluous carbon, which it
accomplishes by secreting bUe, a highly carbonized fluid.'' Now, the connexion
between thia process and the respiratory functions is highly curious. For if we take
a. general view of animal Ufe, we shaU find that the liver and lungs are nearly always
compeuiatory ; that is to say, when one organ is small and inert, the other is large
a " The most constant gland in the animal kiDgdom is the liver." Grant's Oomp. Ana,t. p. 576.
Bee also Mclard, Anat. Qim. p. 18, and Burdach, Traiti de Plvysiol. vol. ix. p. B80. Buxdacli
says, " II existe dans presqne tout le rfigne animal ; " and the latest researches have detected the
rudiments of a liver even in the Entozoa and Botifera. Bymer Jones's Animal Kmgdmn,, 1855, p.
188, and Owen's Invertebrata, 1855, p. 104.
i" Until the analysis made by Demarfay in 188T, hardly any thing was known of the compoK-
tion of bile ; but this accomplisued chemist ascertained tuat its essential constituent, is choloftte
of soda, and that the choleic acid contains nearly 8ixty-i;liree per cent, of carbon. Compare
Thomson's Animal Chemistry, pp. 59, 60, 412, 602, with iSimon's Chemistry, vol. ii. pp. lT-21.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 107
And active. Thus, reptiles have feeble lungs, but a considerable livor ;» and thus
too in fishes, which have no lungs, in the ordinary sense of the word, the size of the
Uver is often enormous.'' On the other hand, insects have a very large and com
plicated system of air-tubes ; but their Uver is minute, and ita functions are habitu
ally sluggish." If, instead of comparing the different classes of animals, we compare
the different stages through which the same animal paaaca, we shall find further
confirmation of this wide aud striking principle. For the law holds good even before
birth ; since in the unborn infant the lungs have scarcely any activity, but there is
an immense Uver, which is fuU of energy, and pours out bile in profusion.' And so
in-variable is this relation, that in man, the Uver is the first organ which is formed ;
it is preponderant during the whole period of foetal life ; but it rapidly diminiahea,
when, after birth, the lunga come into play, and a new acheme of compensation is
estabUshed in the system. s
These facts, interestmg to the philosophic physiologist, are of great moment in
reference to the doctrines advocated in this chapter. Inasmuch as the liver and
lungs are compensatory in the history of their organisation, it is highly probable
that they are also compensatory in the functions they perform ; and that what is
left undone by one, will have to be accomplished by the other. The Uver, therefore,
fulfilling the duty, as chemistry teaches us, of decarbonizing the system by secreting
a carbonized fluid, we should expect, even in the absence of any further evidence,
that the lungs would be likewise decarbonizing ; in other words, we should expect
that if, from any cause, we are aurcharged with carbon, our lunga muat asaiat iu
remedying the evil. Thia bringa us, by another road, to the conclusion that highly
carbonized food has a tendency to tax the lungs ; so that the connexion between a
carbonized diet and the respiratory functions, instead of being, aa some assert, a
crude hypothesis, is an eminently scientific theory, and is corroborated not only by
chemistry, but by the general scheme of the animal kingdom, and even by the
observation of embryological phenomena. The views of Liebig, and of his followers,
are indeed supported by so many analogies, and harmonize so well with other parts
of our knowledge, that nothing but a perverse hatred of generalization, or an inca
pacity for dealing with large apeculative truths, can explain the hostility directed
against conclusions which have been graduaUy forcing themselves upon us since
Lavoisier, seventy years ago, attempted to explain the respiratory functions by sub
jecting them to the laws of chemical combination.
In this, and previous notes (see in particular notes 30, 31, 35), I have considered
the connexion between food, respiration, and animal heat, at a length which will
0 " The size of the liver and the quantity- of the bile are not proportionate to the quantity of
the food and frequency of eating ; but inversely- to the size and perfection of the lungs  The
liver is proportionately larger in reptiles, wliicn have lungs with large cells incapable of rapidly
decarbonizing the blood." Good^s Study of Medicine, 1829, vol. i. pp. 32, 33. See Ouvier, Eegne
Animal, vol. ii. p. 2, on " la petitesse des vaisseaux pulmonaires " of reptiles.
-d Carus's Comparative Anatomy, vol. ii. p. 230; Granfs Comp. Anai. pp. 885, 596 ; Bymer
Jones's Animal Kingdom, p. 646.
e Indeed it has been supposed by M. Gagde that the '* vaisseaux biliaires " of some insects were
not " secretenrs ;" but this opinion appears to be erroneous. See Latreille, in C^wier, Begne Ani
mal, vol. iv. pp. 297, 298.
' " La predominance da foie avant la liaissance " is noticed by Bichat (Anatomie Generale, vol .
ii. p. 272), and by many other physiologists ; but Dr. Elliotson appears to have been one of the
first to understand a fact, the explanation of which we might vainly seek for in the earlier -writers.
"The hypothesis, that one great use of the liver was, like that of the lungs, to remove carbon
from the system, -with this difference, that the alteration of the capacity of the air caused a
reception of caloric into the blood, in the case of the lungs, while the hepatic excretion takes
place without introduction of caloric, was, I recollect, a great favourite with me when a student.
.... The Heidelberg professors have adduced many arguments to the same effect. In the foetus,
for whose temperature the mother's heat must be sufiicient, the lungs perform no function ; but
the liver is of great size, and bile is secreted abundantly, so that the meconium accumulates con
siderably during the latter mouths of pregnancy." Elhotson's Ewman Physiology, 1840, p. 102.
In Lepmetier's Physiologie Medicale, vol. i. p. 466, vol. ii. pp. 14, 546 550, all this is sadly confused.
e -"The liver is the first-formed organ iu the embryo. It is developed from the alimentary
canal, and at about the third week fills the whole abdomen, and is one half the weight of the en
tire embryo  At birth it is of very large size, and occupies the whole upper part ofthe
abdonieu  The liver diminishes rapidly after birth, probably from obliteration of the um
bilical vein." Wilson's Hwma/ti Anatom/y, 1851, p. 638. Compare Burdach's Physiologie, vol. iv.
p. 447, where it is said of the liver in childhood, " Cet organe croit avec lenteur, surtout compara-
tivement aux poumons ; le rapport de ceux-ci au foie 6taut a peu pr6s de 1 : 3 avant la respira
tion, il 6tait de 1 : l'S6 aprfis r6tablissement do cette derni6re fonction." See also p. 91, and^vol.
iii. p. 488; and on the predominance of the liver in fcetal life, see the remarks of Serres (Geoffroy
Saint Silaire, Anomalies de V Organisation, vol. ii. p. 11), whose generalization is perhaps a little
premature.

108 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
appear tedioua to readers uninterested in physiological pursuits ; but the investiga
tion has become necessary, on account of the difficulties raiaed by experimenters,
who, not having atudied the subject comprehensively, object to certain parts of it.
To mention what, from the ability and reputation of tbe author, is a conapicuous
instance of thia. Sir Benjamin Brodie haa recently pubUshed a volume (Physiological
Researches, 1851) containing some ingeniously contrived experiments on dogs and
rabbits, to prove that heat is generated rather by the nervous system than by the
respiratory organs. Without foUowing thia eminent aurgeon into aU his details, I
may be permitted to observe, Iat, That aa a mere matter of hiatory, no great physi
ological truth haa ever yet been diacovered, nor haa any great phyaiological faUacy
been deatroyed, by such Umited experiments on a single class of animals ; and this
is partly because in physiology a crucial instance is impracticable, owing to the fact
that we deal with resisting and Uving bodies, and partly because every experiment
produces an abnormal condition, and thus lets in fresh cauaes, the operation of which
is incalculable ; unless, as often happens in the inorganic world, we can control the
whole phenomenon. 2d, That the other department of the organic world, namely,
the vegetable kingdom, has, so far as we are aware, no nervous system, but never
theless possesses heat ; and we moreover know that the heat is a product of oxygen
and carbon (see note 32 to chapter ii.). 3d, That the evidence of traveUers
respecting the different sorts of food, and the different quantities of food, used in
hot countries and in cold ones, is expUeable by the respiratory and chemical
theories of the origin of animal heat, but is inexplicable by the theory of the
nervous origin of heat.

GENEEAL INTRODUCTION. 109

CHAPTEE III.
EXAMINATION OF THE METHOD BT METAPHTSICIANS FOE DI800VEEING
MENTAL LAWS.
The evidence that I have coUected, seems to estabUsh two lead
ing facts, which, unless they can he impugned, are the necessary
hasis of universal history. The first fact is, that in the civiUza
tions out of Europe, the powers of nature have been far great.than
in those of Europe. The second fact is, that those powers kave
worked immense mischief ; and that whUe one division of them
has caused an unequal distribution of wealth, another division
of them has caused an unequal distribution of thought, hy con
centrating attention upon subjects which inflame the imagination.
So far as the experience of the past can guide us, we may say,
that in aU the extra-European civiUzatio*ns, these obstacles were
insuperable ; certainly no nation has ever yet overcome them.
But Europe, being constructed upon a smaller plan than the
other quarters of the world — being also in a colder region, having
a less exuberant soU, a less imposing aspect, and displaying in
aU her physical phenomena much greater feebleness — it was
easier for Man to discard the superstitions which Nature sug
gested to his imagination ; and it was also easier for him to
effect, not, indeed, a just division of wealth, hut something
nearer to it, than was practicable in the older countries.
Hence it is that, looking at the history of the world as a
whole, the tendency has been, in Europe, to subordinate nature
to man ; out of Europe, to subordinate man to nature. To this
there are in barbarous countries, several exceptions ; hut in
civilized countries the rule has been universal. The great divi
sion, therefore, between European civUization and non-European
civilization, is the hasis of the phUosophy of history, since it
suggests the important consideration, that if we would under
stand, for instance, the history of India, we must make the ex
ternal world our first study, because it has influenced man more
than man has influenced it. If, on the other hand, we would

110 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
understand the history of a country like France or England, we
must make man our principal study, hecause nature being com
paratively weak, every step in the great progress has increased
the dominion of the human mind over the agencies of the exter
nal world. Even in those countries where the power of man
has reached the highest point, the pressure of nature is stiU im
mense ; but it diminishes in each succeeding generation, because
our increasing knowledge enables us not so much to control nature,
as to foreteU her movements, and thus obviate many of the erils
she would otherwise occasion. How successful our efforts have
been, is evident from the fact, that the average duration of life
constantly becomes longer, and the number of ine'ritahle dangers
fewer ; and what makes this the more remarkable is, that the
curiosity of men is keener, and their contact with each other
closer, than in any former period ; so that whUe apparent haz
ards are multiplied, we find from experience that real hazards
are, on the whole, diminished.'
If, therefore, we take the largest possible view of the history
of Europe, and confine ourselves entirely to the primary cause
of its superiority over other parts of the world, we must resolve
it into the encroachment of the mind of man upon the organic
and inorganic forces of nature. To this aU other causes are sub
ordinate." For we have seen that wherever the powers of nature
reached a certain height, the national civiUzation was irregularly
developed, and the advance of the civiUzation stopped. The first
essential was, to limit the interference of these physical pheno
mena ; and that was most likely to he accompUshed where the
phenomena were feeblest and least imposing. This was the case
with Europe ; it is accordingly, in Europe alone, that man has
really succeeded in taming the energies of nature, bending them
' This diminution of casualties is undoubtedly one cause, though a slight one,
of the increased duration of Ufe ; but the most active cause is a general improve
ment in the physical condition of man : see Sir B. Brodie's Lectures on Pathology
and Surgery, p. 212 ; and for proof that civiUzed men are stronger than uncivihzed
ones, see Quetelet sur VHomme, vol. U. pp. 67, 272 ; Lawrence's Lectures on Man,pp.
275, 276 ; Ellis's Polynesian Researches, vol. i. p. 98 ; Whatelfs Lectures on Polit
ical Economy, 8vo, 1831, p. 59 ; Journal of the Statistical Society, vol. xvu. pp. 82,
S3 ; Dufau, Traite de Statistique, p. 107 ; Hawkins's Medical Statistics, p. 232.
" The general social consequences of this I shaU hereafter consider ; but the
mere economical conaequencea are weU expressed by Mr. MiU : " Of the features
which characterize this progressive economical movement of civiUzed nations, that
which first excites attention, through its intimate connexion with the phenomena of
Production, is the perpetual, and, so far as human foresight can extend, the unlim
ited growth of man's power over nature. Our knowledge of the properties and laws
of physical objects shows no sign of approaching its ultimate boundaries; it is ad
vancing more rapidly, and in a greater number of directions at once, than in any
previous age or generation, and affording such frequent gUmpses of unexplored fields
beyond, as to justify the beUcf that our acquaintance with nature is stiU almost m
its infancy." Mill's Principles of Politicd Economy, voh ih pp. 246-7.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. Ill
to his own ¦wUl, turning them aside from their ordinary course,
and compelling them to minister to his happiness, and subserve
the general purposes of human life.
All around us are the traces of this glorious and successful
struggle. Indeed, it seems as if in Europe there was nothing
man feared to attempt. The invasions of the sea repeUed, and
whole provinces, as in the case of HoUand, rescued from its
grasp ; mountains cut through, and turned into level roads ; soUs
of the most obstinate steriUty becoming exuberant, from the
mere advance of chemical knowledge : whUe, in regard to electric
phenomena, we see the subtlest, the most rapid, and the most
mysterious of all forces, made the medium of thought, and obey
ing even the most capricious behests of the human mind.
In other instances, where the products of the external world
have heen refractory, man has succeeded in destroying what he
could hardly hope to subjugate. The most cruel dieases, such
as the plague, properly so caUed, and the leprosy of the Middle
Ages,' have entirely disappeared from the civUized parts of'
Europe; and it is scarcely possible that they should ever again
be seen there. WUd beasts and birds of prey have been extir
pated, and are no longer aUowed to infest the haunts of civiUzed
men. Those frightful famines, hy which Europe used to he
ravaged several times in every century,* have ceased; and so
successfully have we grappled yrith them, that there is not the
sUghtest fear of their ever returning with any thing like their
former severity. Indeed, our resources are now so great, that we
could, at worst, only suffer from a slight and temporary scarcity;
since in the present state of knowledge, the evU would be met
at the outset by remedies which chemical science could easily
suggest.' It is hardly necessary to notice how, in numerous other in
stances, the progress of European civiUzation has heen marked
' What this horrible disease once was, may be estimated from the fact, " qu'au
treizidme sidcle on comptait en France seulement, deux miUe leproseries, et que I'Eu
rope entidre renfermait environ dix neuf mille dtabUasemens aemblablea." Sprengel,
Histoire de la Medicine, vol. u. p. 374. Aa to the mortality caused by the plague,
see Clot-Bey de la Peste, Paris, 1840, pp. 62, 63, 185, 292.
* For a curioua liat of faminea, aee an eaaay by Mr. Farr, in Jowrnal of the Sta
tistical Society, voh ix. pp. 159-163. He says, that in the eleventh, twelfth, and thir
teenth centuries, the average waa, in England, one famine every fourteen years.
° In the opinion of one of the highest living authoritiea, famine is, even in the
preaent state of chemistry, "next to impossible." HerscheVs Discourse on Natural
Philosophy, p. 65. Cuvier (Recueil des Eloges, vol. i. p. 10) says that we have suc
ceeded " k rendre toute famine impoaaible." See also Godwin on Population, p. 500 ;
and for a purely economical argument to prove the impossibiUty of famine, see MilVs
Principles of Political Economy, vol. ii. p. 258 ; and compare a note in Ricardo's
Works, p. 191. The Irish famine may seem an exception; but it could have been
easily baffled except for the poverty of the people, which frustrated our efforts to
reduce it to a dearth.

112 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
by the diminished influence of the external world: I mean, of
course, those pecuUarities of the external world which have an
existence independent of the wishes of man, and were not created
hy him. The most advanced nations do, in their present state,
owe comparatively little to those original features of nature
which, in every civiUzation out of Europe, exercised unlimited
power. Thus, in Asia and elsewhere, the course of trade, the
extent of commerce, and many simUar circumstances, were deter-.
mined hy the existence of rivers, hy the facUity with which they
could be navigated, and by the number and goodness of the adjoining
harbours. But in Europe, the determining cause is, not so much
these physical pecuUarities, as the skiU and energy of man. For
merly the richest countries were those in which nature was most
hountiful; now the richest countries are those in which man is
most active. For in our age of the world, if nature is parsi
monious, we know how to compensate her deficiencies. If a river
is difficult to navigate, or a country difficult to traverse, our
engineers can correct the error, and remedy the evU. If we have
no rivers, we make canals; if we have no natural harbours, we
make artificial ones. And so marked is this tendency to impair
the authority of natural phenomena, that it is seen even in the
distribution of the people, since, in the most civUized parts of
Europe, the population of the towns is every where outstripping
that of the country; and it is evident fha't the more men con
gregate in great cities, the more they yrill become accustomed to
draw their materials of thought from the business of human life,
and the less attention they will pay to those pecuUarities of nature
which are the fertUe source of superstition, and hy which, in
every civUization out of Europe, the progress of man was arrested.
From these facts it may he fairly inferred, that the advance
of European civiUzation is characterized hy a diminishing influ
ence of physical laws, and an increasing influence of mental laws.
The complete proof of this generaUzation can he coUected only
from history; and therefore I must reserve a large share of the
evidence on which it is founded, for the future volumes of this
work. But that the proposition is fundamentaUy true, must be
admitted hy whoever, in addition to the arguments just adduced,
wUl concede two premises, neither of which seem susceptible of
much dispute. The first premiss is, that we are in possession of
no eridence that the powers of nature have ever been perma
nently increased ; and that we have no reason to expect that any
such increase can take place. The other premiss is, that we have
abundant evidence that the resources of the human mind have
become more powerful, more numerous, and more ahle to grapple
with the difficulties of the external world; hecause every fresh

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 113
accession to our knowledge supplies fresh means, with which we
can either control the operations of nature, or, faUing in that,
can foresee the consequences, and thus avoid what is impossible
to prevent; in both instances, diminishing the pressure exercised
on us by external agents.
If these premises are admitted, we are led to a conclusion
which is of great value for the purpose of this Introduction. For
if the measure of civiUzation is the triumph of the mind over
external agents, it becomes clear, that of the two classes of laws
which regulate the progress of mankind, the mental class is more
important than the physical. This, indeed, is assumed hy one
school of thinkers as a matter of course, though I am not aware
that its demonstration has been hitherto attempted hy any thing
even approaching an exhaustive analysis. The question, however,
as to the originaUty of my arguments, is one of very trifling
moment; but what we have to notice is, that in the present stage
of our inquiry, the problem with which we started has become
simplified, and a discovery of the laws of European history is re
solved, in the first instance, into a discovery of the laws of the
human mind. These mental laws, when ascertained, wiU be the
ultimate basis of the history of Europe; the physical laws yyUl be
treated as of minor importance,' and as merely gi'ring rise to dis
turbances, the force and the frequency of which have, during
several centuries, perceptibly diminished.
If we now inqiure into the means of discovering the laws of
the human mind, the metaphysicians are ready with an answer;
and they refer us to their own labours as supplying a satisfactory
solution. It therefore becomes necessary to ascertain the value
of their researches, to measure the extent of their resources, and,
above all, to test the vaUdity of that method which they always
foUow, and hy which alone, as they assert, great truths can be
eUcited. The metaphysical method, though necessarUy branching into
two divisions, is, in its origin, always the same, and consists in
each observer studying the operations of his own mind.* This
is the direct opposite of the historical method; the metaphysician
studying one mind, the historian studying many minds. Now,
the first remark to make on this is, that the metaphysical method
is one hy which no discovery has ever yet heen made in any
° " As the metaphysician carries within himself the materials of his reasoning,
he is not under a necessity of looking abroad for subjects of speculation or amuse
ment." Stewarts Philosophy of tlie Mind, vol. i. p. 462 ; and the same remark, al
most UteraUy repeated, at voh in. p. 260. Locke makes what passes in each man's
mind the sole source of metaphysics, and the sole teat of their truth. Essay con
cerning Human Understanding, in Locke's Works, vol. i. pp. 18, 76, 79, 12], 146,
162, 287, voh ii. pp. 141, 243.
VOL. I. — 8

114 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
branch of knowledge. Every thing we at present know, has been
ascertained hy studying phenomena, from which all casual dis
turbances having heen removed, the law remains as a conspicuous
residue.' And this can only he done by observations so numerous
as to eliminate the disturbances, or else hy experiments so del
icate as to isolate the phenomena. One of these conditions, is
essential to aU inductive science; hut neither of them does the
nqetaphysician obey. To isolate the phenomenon is for himan
iniipossibUity; since no man, into whatever state of reverie he
may be thrown, can entirely cut himself off from the influence
of external events, which must produce an effect on his mind,
even when he is unconscious of their presence. As to the other
condition, it is hy the metaphysician set at open defiance; for his
whole system is based on the supposition that, hy studying a
single mind, he can get the laws of all minds; so that whUe he,
on the one hand, is unable to isolate his observations from dis
turbances, he, on the other hand, refuses to adopt the only
remaining precaution, — ^he refuses so to enlarge his survey as
to eliminate the disturbances hy which his observations are
troubled.* This is the first and fundamental objection to which meta
physicians are exposed, even on the threshold of their science.
But if we penetrate a Uttle deeper, we shaU meet with another
circumstance, which, though less obvious, is equaUy decisive.
After the metaphysician has taken for granted that, by studying
one mind, he can discover the laws of aU minds, he finds himself
involved in a singular difficulty as soon as he begins to apply
even this imperfect method. The difficulty to which I aUude is
one which, not being met with in any other pursuit, seems to have
escaped the attention of those who are unacquainted 'with meta
physical controversies. To understand, therefore, its nature, it
' The deductive aciencea form, of course, an exception to this ; but the whole
theory of metaphysics is founded on its inductive character, and on the supposition
that it consists of generalized observations, and that from them alone the science of
mind can be raised.
° These remarks are only applicable to thoae who follow the purely metaphysical
method of investigation. There ia, however, a very smaU number of metaphysicians,
among whom M. Cousin is the most eminent in France, in whose works we find
larger views, and an attempt to connect hiatorical inqqiriea with metaphysical ones ;-^
thus recognizing the necessity of verifying their original speculations. To this
method there can be no objection, provided the metaphysical conelusiona are merely
regarded aa hypotheses which require verification to raise them to theories. But
instead of thia cautious proceeding, the almost invariable plan is, to treat the
hypothesis as if it were a theory already proved, and as if there remained nothing
to do but to give historical lUustrations of truths estabUshed by the psychologist.
This confusion between iUustration and verification, appears to be the universal fail
ing of those who, Uke Vioo andFichte, speculate upon historical phenomena apWor*.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 115
is requisite to give a short account of those two great schools, to
one of which aU metaphysicians must necessarily belong.
In investigating the nature of the human mind, according to
the metaphysical scheme, there are two methods of proceeding,
both of which are equaUy obvious, and yet both of which lead to
entirely different results. According to the first method, the in
quirer begins by examining his sensations. According to the other
method, he hegin^y examining his ideas. These two methods
always have led, and always must lead, to conclusions diametri
caUy opposed to each other. Nor are the reasons of this difficult
to understand. In metaphysics, the mind is the instrument, as
weU as the material on which the instrument is employed. The
means by which the science must he worked out, being thus the
same as the object upon which it works, there arises a difficulty
of a very peculiar kmd. This difficulty is, the impossibiUty of
taking a comprehensive view of the whole of the mental phe
nomena; because, however extensive such a view may he, it
must exclude the state of the mind by which, or in which, the
view itself is taken. Hence we may perceive what, I think, is a
fundamental difference between physical and metaphysical in
quiries. In physics, there are several methods of proceeding, aU
of which lead to the same results. But in metaphysics, it wiU
invariably be found, that if two men of equal ahiUty, and equal
honesty, employ different methods in the study of the mind, the
conclusions which they obtain yrill also be different. To those
who are unversed in these matters, a few lUustrations will set
this in a clearer Ught. Metaphysicians who begin by the study
of ideas, observe in their oyvn minds an idea of space. Whence,
they ask, can this arise ? It cannot, they say, owe its origin to
the senses, hecause the senses only supply what is finite and
contingent ; whereas the idea of space is infinite and necessary. °
It is infinite, since we cannot conceive that space has an end;
and it is necessary, since we cannot conceive the possibUity of its
" Compare Stewarts Philosophy of the Mind, vol. U. p. 194, with Cousin, Hist.
de la Philosophie, D. sdrie, voh u. p. 92. Among the Indian metaphysicians, there
was a sect which declared space to be the cause of aU things. Jowrnal of Asiatic
Soc. vol. vi. pp. 268, 290. See alao the Dabistan, vol. U. p. 40 ; which, however,
was contrary to the Vedas. Rammohun Roy on the Veds, 1832, pp. 8, 111. In
Spain, the doctrine of the infinity of space is heretical. Doblado's Letters, p. 96 ;
which should be compared with the objection of Irenseus against the Valentinians, in
Beausobre, Histoirede Manichie, vol. u. p. 276. For the different theories of space,
I may, moreover, refer to Ritter's Hist, of Ancient Philosophy, voh i. pp. 461, 473,
477, voh ih p. 814, vol. ui. pp. 195-204; Cudworth's Intellectual System, voh i. p.
191, voh ni. pp. 230, 472; Kritik de.r reinen Vernunft, in Kant's Werke, voh u. pp.
28, 62, 81, 120, 139, 147, 256, 334, 347 ; Tennemann, Geschichte der Philosophie
voh i. p. 109, vol. U. p. 303, vol. iu. pp. 130-187, voh iv. p. 284, vol. v. pp. 884-387.
voh vi. p. 99, vol. viu. pp. 87, 88, 683, voh ix. pp. 257, 355, 410, vol. x. p. 79, vol,
xi. pp. 195 885-389.

116 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
non-existence. Thus far the idealist But the sensualist, as he
is caUed," — ^he who begins, not with ideas, but yrith sensations,
arrives at a very different conclusion. He remarks, that we can
have no idea of space, until we have first had an idea of objects;
and that the ideas of objects can only be the results of the sen
sations which those objects excite. As to the idea of space being
necessary, this, he says, only results from the circumstance that
we never can perceive an object which does not hear a certain
position to some other object. This forms an indissoluble asso
ciation between the idea of position and the idea of an object;
and as this association is constantly repeated before us, we at
length find ourselves unable to conceive an object without posi
tion, or, in other words, without space." As to space being
infinite, this, he says, is a notion we get by conceiving a contin
ual addition to Unes, or to surfaces, or to hulk, which are the
three modifications of extension.'" On innumerable other points,
we find the same discrepancy between the two schools. The
idealist,'^ for example, asserts that our notions of cause, of time,
of personal identity, and of substance, are universal and neces
sary; that they are simple; and that, not being susceptible of
analysis, they must be referred to the original constitution ofthe
mind.'* On the other hand, the sensationaUst, so far from recog-
" This is tbe title conferred by M. Cousin upon nearly aU the greatest Enghah meta
physicians, and upon Condillac and aU his disciples in France, their syatem having
" le nom mdritd de aenaualisme." Cousin, Histoire de la Philosophie, II. sdrie, vol.
ii. p. 88. The same name is given to the aame school, in Feuchtersleben' s Medical
Psychology, p. 52, and in Renouard's Histoire de la Medecine, vol. i. p. 346, vol ii.
p. 868. In JoberVs New System of Philosophy, voh ii. p. 334, 8vo, 1849, it is called
" senaationaliam," which aeems a preferable expression.
" Thia ia very ably argued by Mr. Jamea MiU in hia Analysis of the Phenomena
of the Human Mind, vol. ii. pp. 32, 93-95, and elaewhere. Compare Essay con.
cerning Human Understanding, in Locke's Works, vol. i. pp. 147, 148, 154, 157, and
the ingenious distinction, p. 198, "between the idea ofthe infinity of space, and the,
idea of a apace infinite." At p. 208, Locke aarcaaticaUy aaya, " But yet, after all
this, there being men who persuade themselves that they have clear, positive, com
prehensive, ideaa of infinity, it ia fit they enjoy their privUege ; and I should be very
glad (with some others that I know, who acknowledge they have none such) to be
better informed by their communication."
'^ MilVs Analysis ofthe Mind, voh ii. pp. 96, 97. See also the ExaminatiM, of
Malcbranche, in Locke's Works, vol. vui. pp. 248, 249 ; and Midler's Elements of
Physiology, vol. ii. p. 1081, which should be compared with Comte, Philosophy
Positive, vol. i. p. 854.
" I speak of idealiata in oppoaition to sensationaUsts ; though the word idealist
is often used by metaphyaiciana in a very different aense. On the different kinds of
idealism, see Kritik der reinen Vernunft, and Prolegomena zu jeder kunftigen Meta
physik, in Kant's Werke, vol. U. pp. 223, 389, vol. in. pp. 204, 210, 806, 307.
According to him, the Cartesian idealism is empirical.
" Thus, Dugald Stewart (Philosophical Essays, Edin. 1810, p. 33) teUs us of
"the simple idea of personal identity." And Eeid (Essays on the Powers of th
Mind, vol. i. p. 364) says, " I know of no ideas or notions that have a better claim
to be accounted simple and original than thoae of space and time." In the
Sanacrit metaphyaics, time is " an independent cause." See the Vishnu Purana,
pp. 10, 216.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 117
nizing the simpUcity of these ideas, considers them to he extremely
complex, and looks upon their universality and necessity as
merely the resul of a frequent and intimate association.'"
This is the first important difference which is inevitably con
sequent on the adoption of different methods. The ideaUst is
compeUed to assert, that necessary truths and contingent truths
have a different origin. '« The sensationaUst is hound to affirm
they have the same origin." The further these two great schools
advance, the more marked does their divergence become. They
are at open war in every department of morals, of phUosophy,
and of art. The ideaUsts say that aU men have essentiaUy the
same notion of the good, the true, and the heautUul. The sen
sationaUsts affirm that there is no such standard, because ideas
depend upon sensations, and hecause the sensations of men de
pend upon the changes in their bodies, and upon the external
events by which their bodies are affected.
Such is a short specimen of the opposite conclusions to which
the ablest metaphysicians have heen driven, by the simple cir
cumstance that they have pursued opposite methods of investi
gation. And this is the more important to observe, hecause after
these two methods have been employed, the resources of meta
physics are evidently exhausted.'' Both parties agree that men-
'^ "As Space ia a comprehensive word, including all positions, or the whole of
synchronous order, so Time is a comprehensive word, including aU successions, or
the whole of successive order." MilVs Analysis of the Mind, vol. U. p. 100 ; and on
the relation of time to memory, vol. i. p. 262. In Jobert s New System, of Philosophy,
vol. i. p. 33, it is said that "time is notliing but the succession of events, and we
know events by experience only." See also p. 133, and compare respecting time
Condillac, Traite des Sensations, pp. 104-114, 222, 223, 331-333. To the same effect
is Essay concerning Human UnJderstanding, book u. chap, xiv., in Lock^s Works,
vol. i. p. 163 ; and see his second reply to the Biahop of Worcester, in Works, vol.
iii. pp. 414-416 ; and as to the idea of substance, see vol. i. pp. 285-290, 292, 308,
vol. in. pp. 5, 10, 17.
" Eeid (Essays on the Powers of the Mind, vol. i. p. 281) says, that necessary
truth " cannot be the conclusions of the senses ; for our senses testify only what is,
and not what must necessarily be." See also vol. U. pp. 53, 204, 239, 240, 281.
The same distinction is peremptorUy asserted in WheweU's Philosophy of the In
ductive Sciences, 8vo, 1847, voh i. pp. 60-78, 140 ; and see Dugald Stewarts Philo
sophical Essays, pp. 123, 124. Sir 'W. HamUton (Additions to Reid's Works, p. 764)
aays, that non-contingent truths "have their copverae abaolutely incogitable."
But this learned writer doea not mention how we are to know when any thing ia
" absolutely incogitable.'' That we cannot cogitate an idea, is certainly no proof
of ita being mcogitable ; for it may be cogitated at aome later period, when knowl
edge is more advanced.
" This is asserted by aU the foUowers of Locke ; and one of the latest productions
of that school declares, that "to say that necessary truths cannot be acquired by
experience, is to deny the moat clear evidence of our senses and reason." Jobert s
New System of PhUosophy, vol. i. p. 68.
'"'To avoid misapprehension, I may repeat, that, here and elsewhere, I mean by
metaphysics, that vast body of Uterature which is constructed on the supposition
that the lawa of the human mind can be generaUzed solely from the facta of in
dividual consciousness. For this scheme, the word " metaphysics" is rather incon-

118 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
tal laws can only be discovered hy studying individual minds,
and that there is nothing in the mind which is not the result
either of reflection or of sensation. The only choice, therefore,
Ihey have to make, is between subordinating the results of sen
sation to the laws of reflection, or else subordinating the results
of reflection to the laws of sensation. Every system of meta
physics has been constructed according to one of these schemes;
and this must always continue to he the case, hecause when the
two schemes are added together, they include the totaUty of
metaphysical phenomena. Each process is equally plausible;"
the supporters of each are equaUy confident; and by the very
nature of the dispute, it is impossible that any middle term
shoiUd he found; nor can there ever he an umpire, hecause no one
can mediate between metaphysical controversies yrithout being
a metaphysician, and no one can he a metaphysician without being
either a sensationaUst or an idealist ; in other words, yrithout
helonging to one of those very parties whose claims he professes
to judge."" On these grounds, we must, I think, arrive at the conclusion,!/
venient, but it wiU cause no confusion if this definition of it ia kept in view by
the reader.
" What a celebrated historian of phUosophy says of Platonism, ia equally true
of aU the great metaphysical systems : "Daaa sie ein zusammenhangendes harmo:
nisches Gauzes ausmachen (i. e. the leading propositions of it) f aUt in die Augen."
Tennemann, Geschichte der Philosophie, voh ii. p. 627. And yet he confesses (vol.
iU. p. 52) of it and the opposite system: "und wenn man auf die Beweise siehet, so
ist der Empirismua des Aristoteles nicht besser begriindet ala der EationaUsmus des
Plato." Kant admita that there can be only one true syatem, but is confident that
he has discovered what aU his predecessors have missed. Die Metaphysik der Sitten, .
in Kants Werke, vol. v. p. 5, where he raises the question, " ob ea wohl mehr, als
eine Philosophie geben konne." In the Kritik, and iu the Prolegomena ai jeder
kunftigen Metaphysik, he says that metaphysics have made no progress,^ and
that the study can hardly be said to exist. Werke, vol. U. pp. 49, 60, vol. iii. pp.
166, 246.
"' We find a curious instance of this, in the attempt made by M. Cousm to found
an eclectic school ; for thia very able and learned man has been quite unable to
avoid the one-sided view which is to every metaphysician an essential preUminary ;
and he adopts that fundamental diatinction between necessary ideas and contingent
ideas, by which the ideaUst ia aeparated from the sensationaUat : "la grande division
des iddes aujourd'hui dtabUe eat la diviaion des iddes contingentea et des idfcs
ndcessaires." Cousin, Hist, de la Philosophie, II. sdrie, voh i. p. 82 : see also voh
U. p. 92, and the same work, I. adrie, vol. i. pp. 249, 267, 268, 311, voh iih pp. 51-
54. M. Couain conatantly contradicta Locke, and then says he haa refiited that
profound and vigorous thinker; while he does not even state the arguments of
James MiU, who, as a metaphysician, ia the greatest of our modern sensationaliste,
and whose views, whether right or wrong, certainly deserve notice from an eclectic
historian of philosophy.
Another eclectic. Sir W. Hamilton, announces (Discussions on PMosop%, ?¦
697) " an undeveloped phUosophy, which, I am confident, ia founded upon truth.
To this confidence I have come, not merely through the convictions of my om
consciousness, but by finding in this syatem a centre and conciliation for the most
opposite of pliUosophical opinions." But at p. 589, he summarUy disposes of one
of the most important of these philosophical opinions as " the superficial edifice
of Locke."

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 119
that as metaphysicians are unavoidably, and hy the very nature
of their inquiry, hroken up into two completely antagonistic
schools, the relative truth of which there are no means of ascer
taining; as they, moreover, have but few resources, and as they
use those resources according to a method hy which no other
science has ever heen developed, — we, looking at these things,
ought not to expect that they can supply us yrith sufficient data
for solving those great problems which the history of the human
mind presents to our -view. And whoever yriU take the pains
fairly to estimate the present condition of mental phUosophy,
must admit that, notwithstanding the influence it has always
exercised over some of the most powerful minds, and through
them over society at large, there is, nevertheless, no other study
which has been so zealously prosecuted, so long continued, and
yet remains so barren of results. • In no other department has
'there heen so much movement, and so little progress. Men of
eminent ahUities, and of the greatest integrity of purpose, have
in every civilized country, for many centuries, been engaged in
metaphysical inquiries; and yet at the present moment their
systems, so far from approximating towards truth, are diverging
irom each other yrith a velocity which seems to he accelerated hy
the progress of knowledge. The incessant rivalry of the hostUe
schools, the violence yrith which they have heen supported, and
the exclusive and unphUosophic confidence with which each has
advocated its own method, — aU these things have thrown the
study of the mind into a confusion only to he compared to that
in which the study of reUgion has heen thrown hy the contro
versies of theologians."' The consequence is, that if we except
a very few of the laws of association, and perhaps I may add
the modern theories of vision and of touch,"" there is not to he
found in the whole compass of metaphysics a single principle
of importance, and at the same time of incontestable truth.
Under these circumstances, it is impossible to avoid a suspicion
that there is some fdndamental error in the manner in which
these inquiries have been prosecuted. For my own part, I heUeve
" Berkeley, in a moment of candour, inadvertently confesses what is very
damaging to the reputation of his own pursuits : " Upon the whole, I am incUned to
think that the far greater part, if not aU, of those difficulties which have hitherto
amused phUosophers, and blocked up the way to knowledge, are entirely owing to
ourselves. That we have first raised a dust, and then complain we cannot see."
Principles of Human Knowledge, in Berkeley's Works, vol. i. p. 74. Every meta-
phyaician and theologian ahould get this sentence by heart : " That we have first
raised a dust, and then complain we cannot aee."
"" Some of the lawa of aaaociation, aa stated by Hume and Hartley, are capable
of historical verification, whicli would change the metaphysical hypothesis into a
scientific theory. ' Berkeley's theory of vision, and Brown's theory of touch, have,
in the same way, been verified physiologicaUy ; so that we now know, what other
wise we could only have suapected.

120 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
that, hy mere observations of our own minds, and even hy such
rude experiments as we are ahle to make upon them, it wiU he
impossible to raise psychology to a science; and I entertain
very little doubt that metaphysics can only he successfuUy
studied hy an investigation of history so comprehensive as to
enable us to understand the conditions which govern the move
ments of the human race."'
== In regard to one of the difficulties stated in this chapter aa impeding meta
physicians, it is only just to quote the remarks of Kant : " Wie aber daa Ich, der
ich denke, von dem Ich, daa aich selbst anachaut, unterachieden (indem ich mir noch
andere Anachauungsart wenigatena als mbgUch vorsteUen kann), und doch mit die
sem letzteren als dasaelbe Subject einerlei aei, wie ich alao sagen konne : Ich als
Intelligenz und denkend Subject, erkenne mich selbst als gedachtes Object, so fern
ich mir noch iiber das in der Anschauung gegeben bin, nur, gleich anderen Phano-
menen, nicht wie ich vor dem Verstande bin, sondern wie ich mir erscheine, hat
nicht mehr auch nicht weniger Schwierigkeit bei sich, als wie ich mir selbst iiber
haupt ein Object und zwar der Anschauung und innerer Wahrnehmungen sein
konne." Kritik der reinen Vernunft, in Kants Werke, voh u. p. 144, I am
very wiUing to let the question rest on this : for to me it appears that both cases
are not only equaUy difficult, but, iu the present state of our knowledge, are
equaUy impoaaible.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 131

CHAPTEE IV.
MENTAL LAWS AEE EITHER MOEAL OE INTELLECTUAL. COMPARISON OF
MOEAL AND INTELLECTUAL LAWS, AND INQUIET INTO THE EFFECT
PRODUCED BT EACH ON THE PROGRESS OF SOCIETT
In the preceding chapter, it has, I trust, been made apparent,
that, whatever may hereafter he the case, we, looking merely at
the present state of our knowledge, must pronounce the meta
physical method to he unequal to the task, often imposed upon
it, of discovering the laws which regulate the movements of the
human mind. We are, therefore, driven to the only remaining
method, according to which mental phenomena are to he studied,
not simply as they appear in the mind of the individual observer,
hut as they appear in the actions of mankind at large. The
essential opposition between these two plans is very obvious :
hut it may perhaps he weU to bring forward further illustration
of the resources possessed hy each for the investigation of truth ;
and for this purpose, I yriU select a subject which, though stUl
imperfectly understood, suppUes a beautiful instance of the reg
ularity yrith which, under the most conflicting circumstances, the
great Laws of Nature are .ahle to hold their course.
The case to which I refer, is that of the proportion kept up
in the births of the sexes ; a proportion which if it were to he
greatly disturbed in any country, even for a single generation,
would throw society into the most serious confusion, and would
infaUibly cause a great increase in the vices of the people.'
Now, it has always been suspected that, on an average, the
male and female births are tolerably equal*; hut, untU very re-
' Thus we find that the Crusades, by diminishing the proportion of men to women
in Europe, iucreaaed Ucentiousness. See a curious paasage in Sprengel, Histoire de
la Midecine, voh n. p. 376. In Yucatan, there is generaUy a considerable excess of
women, and the result is prejudicial to morals. Stephens's Central America, vol. iU.
pp. 380, 429. On the other hand, respecting the state of society produced by an
excess of males, aee Mallets Northern Antiquities, p. 259 ; Journal of Geographical
Society, vol. xv. p. 45, vol. xvi. p. 307 ; Southey's Commonplace Book, third seriea,
p. 679.

122 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
cently, no one could teU whether or not they are precisely equal,
or, if unequal, on which side there is an excess." The hirtis
being the physical result of physical antecedents, it was clearly
seen that the laws of the births must be in those antecedents ;
that is to say, that the causes of the proportion of the sexes must
reside in the parents themselves.' Under these circumstances,
the question arose, if it was not possible to elucidate this diffi
culty by our knowledge of animal physiology ; for it was plausi
bly said, " Since physiology is a study of the laws of the body,*
and since aU births are products resulting from the body, it m-
lows that if we know the laws of the body, we shaU know the
laws of the birth." This was the 'view taken hy physiologists
of our origin ;= and this is precisely the 'riew taken by metaphy
sicians of our history. Both parties heUeved that it was possi
ble at once to rise to the cause of the phenomenon, and hy
'•' On thia question, a variety of conflicting statements may be seen in the older
writers. Goodman, early in the seventeenth century, supposed that more females were
born than males. Southefs Commonplace Book, third series, p. 696. Turgot ((Emres,
vol. ih p. 247) rightly aaya, " il nait un peu plus d'hommes que de femmes : " but
the evidence was too incomplete to make this more than a lucky guess ; and I find
that even Herder, writing in 1786, takes for granted that the proportion was about
equal : " ein ziemUches Gleichmasa in den Geburten beider Geschlechter " (Ideenar
Geschichte, vol. ii. p. 149), and was sometimes in favour of ^rls, "ja die Nachrichten
mehrerer Eeisenden machen es wahrscheinUch, daaa in manchen dieser Gegenden
wirkUch mehr Tochter als Sobne geboren werden."
' A queation, indeed, haa been raiaed aa to the influence exercised by the state
of the mind during the period of orgasm. But whatever this influence may be, it
can only affect the subsequent birth through and by physical antecedents, which iu
every case must be regarded as the proximate cause. If, therefore, the influence
were proved to exist, we should still have to search for physical laws : though such
lawa would of course be conaidered merely as secondary ones, resolvable into some
higher generalization. . ', , .
' Some writers treat physiology as a study ofthe laws of life. But thiB,;loolung
at the subject as it now stands, is far too bold a step, and several branches of
knowledge will have to be raised from their present empirical state, before the
phenomena of life can be scientificaUy investigated. The more rational mode seems
to be, to consider physiology and anatomy as correlative : the first formmg the
dynamical, and the second forming the statical part of the study of organic
structure. ° Voulez-vous savoir de quoi ddpend le sexe dea enfants? Fernel vous rdpond,
sur la foi des anciens, qu'U ddpend des quaUtds de la aemence du pdre et de la mSre."
Renouard, Histoire de la Medecine, Paria, 1846, vol. ii. p. 106: see also, at p. 18,1,
the opinion of Hippocrates, adopted by Galen ; and simUar views in LepeUetier,
Physiologie Medicale, voh iv. p. 332, and Sprengel, Hist, de la Medecine, voh i. pp.
262, 310, voh li. p. 115, vol. iv. p. 62. For further information aato the opinions
which have been held reapecting the origin of aexea, see Beausobre, Histoire de
Maniehee, vol. ii. p. 417 ; Asiatic Researches, vol. iu. pp. 368, 361 ; Vishnu Purana,
p. 849 ; Works of Sir William Jones, vol. iu. p. 126 ; Ritter's History of Ancient
Philosophy, vol. iii. p. 191 ; Denham and Clapperton's Africa, pp. 323, Z2i; Main-
tenon, Letters Inedites, vol. ii. p. 62 j and the view of Hohl (Burdach's Physiologie,
vol. U. p. 472), "que les femmea chez lesquellea prddomine le systdme artdriel pro-
crdent des garsons, au Ueu que celles dont le syatdme veineux a la prddommance
mettent au monde des fiUea." According to Anaxagoras, the question waa extremely
simple ; /ca! 6,fpiva fiiv aitb ruv BeJiSi', 6^^ea Se airb riiy apiarepuv. Diog. Laert. U'
e, voh i. p. 85.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION, 128
studying its laws predict the phenomenon itself. The physi
ologist said, "By studying individual bodies, and thus ascertain
ing the laws which regulate the union of the parents, I wUl dis
cover the proportion of the sexes, hecause the proportion is merely
the result to which the union gives rise." Just in the same way,
the metaphysician says, " By studying individual minds, I wUl
ascertain the laws which govern their movements ; and in that
yvay I wiU predict the movements of mankind, which are ob
viously compounded of the individual movements."" These are
the expectations which have heen confidently held out, hy physi
ologists respecting the laws of the sexes, and hy metaphysicians
respecting the laws of history. Towards the fulfilment, however,
of these promises, the metaphysicians have done absolutely noth
ing ; nor have the physiologists heen more successful, although
their 'riews have the support of anatomy, which admits of the
employment of direct experiment, a resource unknown to meta
physics. But towards settling the present question, aU this
avaUed them nothing ; and physiologists are not yet possessed
of a single fact which throws any Ught on this problem : Is the
number of male births equal to female births, is it greater, or is
it less ?
These are questions to which aU the resources of physiologists,
from Aristotle down to our own time, afford no means of reply.'
° " Le mdtaphyaicien se voit comme la source de I'dvidence et le confident de la
nature : Moi seul, dit-U, je puia gdndraliaer lea iddea, et ddcouvrir le germe des dvdne-
ments qui se ddveloppent journeUement dans le monde physique et moral ; et c'est
par moi seul que I'homme pent dtre dclaire." Helvetius de VEsprit, vol. i. p. 86.
Compare Herder, Ideen zwr Geschichte der Menschheit, vol. ii. p. 105. Thus too M.
Cousin (Hist, de la Philosophie, II. sdrie, voh i. p. 131) says, "Le fait de la con
science transportd de I'individu dans I'espece et dans I'histoire, est la clef de tous les
ddveloppements de I'humanitd."
¦" Considering the very long period during which physiology has been studied, it
13 remarkable how Uttle the physiologists have contributed towards the great and
final object of aU science, namely the power of predicting events. To me it appears
that the two principal causes of this are, the backwardness of chemistry, and the
stUl extremely imperfect state of the microscope, which even now is so inaccurate
an instrument, that when a high power is employed, Uttle confidence can be placed
in it ; and the examination, for instance, of the spermatozoa has led to the most
contradictory results. In regard to chemistry, MM. Eobin and Verdeil, iu their
recent great work, have ably proved what manifold relations there are between it
and the further progress of our knowledge of the animal frame ; though I venture
to think that these eminent writers have shown occasionaUy an undue disposition to
Umit the appUcation of chemical laws to phyaiological phenomena. See Robin et
Verdeil, Chimie Anatomique et Physiologique, Paria, 1868, voh i. pp. 20, 34, 167,
387, 838, 437, 661, vol. u. pp. 136, 137, 608, vol. iu. pp. 136, 144, 183, 281, 283,
351, 547. The increaaing tendency of chemistry to bring under ita control what
are often supposed to be purely organic phenomena, ia noticed cautioualy in Turner's
Chemistry, vol. u. p. 1308, London, 1847 ; and boldly in Liebig's Letters on Chemistry,
1851, pp. 260, 251. 'The connexion between chemiatry and physiology is touched
on rather too hastily in Bouilland, Philosophie Midicale, pp. 160, 267 ; Broussais,
Examen des Doctrines Midicales, vol. in. p. 166 ; Brodie's Lectures on Pathology, p.
48; Henle, Traite d' Anatomie, vol. i. pp. 26, 26; Feuchtersleben's Medical Psy
chology, p. 88 ; but better in Hollands Medical Notes, 1889, p. 270, a thoughtful and

124 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
And yet at the present day we, hy the employment of what now
seems a very natural method, are possessed of a truth which the
united abUities of a long series of eminent men faUed to discover.
By the simple expedient of registering the number of births and
theU sexes ; by extending this registration over several years, in
different countries, — we have heen ahle to eliminate all casual
disturbances, and ascertain the existence of a law which, expressed
in round numbers, is, that for every twenty girls there are horn
twenty-one hoys : and we may confidently say, that although the
operations of this law are of course Uable to constant aberra
tions, the law itself is so powerful, that we know of no country
in which during a single year the male births have not been
greater than the female ones.^
The importance and the beautiful regularity of this law,
make us regret that it stUl remains an empirical truth, not hav
ing yet been connected with the physical phenomena hy which
its operations are caused.' But this is immaterial to my present
suggestive work. On the necessity of chemistry for increasing our knowledge of
embryology, compare Wagner's Physiology, pp. l31, 132 note, with Burdach, traite
de Physiologie, vol. iv. pp. 69, 168.
' It used to be auppoaed that some of the eaatern countriea formed an exception
to this ; but more precise observations have contradicted the loose statements ofthe
-' earUer travellers, and in no part of the world, so far aa our knowledge extends, are
more girla born than boys ; whUe in every part of the world for which we have
statistical returns, there is a sUght excess on the aide of male births. Compare
Marsden's History of Sumatra, p. 234 ; Raffles' History of Java, voh i. pp. 81, 82 ;
Sykes on the Statistics of the Deccan, in Reports of British Association, vol. vi. pp.
246, 261, 262 ; Niebuhr, Description de VAritbie, p. 63 ; Humboldt, Nouv. Espagne,
vol. i. p. 139; M'William, Medical History of Expedition to the Niger, p. 113;
Elliotson's Human Physiology, p. 795; Thomson's Hist, of Royal Society, p. 5U;
Sadler's Law of Population, voh i. pp. 507, 511, voh ii. pp. 324, 336; Pom and
Fonblanque's Medical Jurisprudence, vol. i. p. 259 ; Journal of Satist. Soc., voh iii.
pp. 263, 264, vol. xvii. pp. 46, 123; Journal of Geographical Soc., voh xx. p. 17;
Fourth Report of British Association, pp. 687, 689, Report for 1842, pp. 144, 146;
Transac. of Sections for 1840, p. 174, for 1847, p. 96, for 1849, p. 87.; Dufau,
Traits de Statistique, pp. 24, 209, 210; Burdach, Traits de PAys«o%«e, vol ii. pp.
56, 57, 273, 274, 281, vol. v. p. 373 ; Hawkins's Medical Statistics, pp. 221, 222.
' In Muller' s Physiology, voh u. p. 1657, a work of great authority, it is said,
that " the causes which determine the sex of the embryo are unknown, although
it appears that the relative age of the parents has some influence over the sex of the
offspring." That the relative age of the parents does affect the sex of their children,
may, from the immense amount of evidence now coUected, be considered almost
certain ; but M. MiiUer, instead of referring to physiological writers, ought to have
mentioned that the atatiaticians, and not the physiologists, were the first to make this
discovery. On thia curioua question, see Carpenter's Human Physiology, p. 746 ;
Sadler's Law of Population, voh U. pp. 333, 336, 842; Journal of Statistical Society,
vol. in. pp. 263, 264. In regard to animals below man, we find from numerous ex
periments, that among sheep and horsea the age of the parents "has a very great
general influence upon the aex " of the offapring. Elliotson's Physiology, pp. 708,
709 ; and aee Cuvier, Progres des Sciences NatureUes, vol. ii. p. 406. As to the
relation between the origin of sex and the laws of arrested development, compare
Geojfroy Saint Hilaire, Hist, des Anomalies de V Organisation, vol. u. pp. 33, 34, 73,
vol. in. p. 278, with Lindley's Botany, vol. u. p. 81. In Esquirol, Maladies Mentaiei,
vol. i. p. 302, there is a singular case recorded by Lamotte, which would seem to

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 125
purpose, which is only to notice the method hy which the dis
covery has been made. For this method is obviously analogous
to that by which I propose to investigate the operations of the
human mind ; while the old and unsuccessful method is analo
gous to that employed hy the metaphysicians. As long as physi
ologists attempted to ascertain the laws of the proportion of
sexes by individual experiments, they effected absolutely noth
ing towards the end they hoped to achieve. But when men
became dissatisfied yrith these individual experiments, and
instead of them, began to coUect observations less minute, but
more comprehensive, then it was that the great law of nature,
for which during many centuries they had vainly searched, first
became unfolded to their view. Precisely in the same way, as
long as the human mind is only studied accordiag to the narrow
and contracted method of metaphysicians, we have every reason
for thinking that the laws which regulate its movements wUl
remain unknown. If, therefore, we wish to effect any thing of
real moment, it becomes necessary that we should discard those
old schemes, the insufficiency of which is demonstrated hy experi
ence as weU as hy reason; and that we should substitute in their
place such a comprehensive survey of facts as will enable us to
eUminate those disturbances which, owing to the impossibUity
of experiment, we shaU never he ahle to isolate.
The desire that I feel to make the preUminary views of this
Introduction perfectly clear, is my sole apology for having intro
duced a digression which, though adding nothing to the strength
of the argument, may he found useful as Ulustrating it, and wUl
at aU events enable ordinary readers to appreciate the value of
the proposed method. It now remains for us to ascertain the
manner in which, by the appUcation of this method, the laws of
mental progress may he most easUy discovered.
If, in the first place, we ask what this progress is, the answer
seems very simple : that it is a twofold progress. Moral and
Intellectual ; the first having more immediate relation to our
duties, the second to our knowledge. This is a classification
which has been frequently laid down, and with which most
persons are famiUar. And so far as history is a narration of
results, there can he no doubt that the division is perfectly
accurate. There can he no doubt that a people are not really
advancing, if, on the one hand, their increasing abUity is accom
panied hy increasing vice, or if, on the other hand, whUe they are
becoming more virtuous, they Ukeyrise become more ignorant.
This double movement, moral and inteUectual, is essential to
connect thia queation with pathological phenomena, though it is uncertain whether
the epilepsy was an effect or a cognate symptom.

126 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
the very idea of civiUzation, and includes the entire theory of
mental progress. To he yrilUng to perform our duty is the moral
part ; to know how to perform it is the inteUectual part : whUe
the closer these two parts are knit together, the greater the
harmony with which they work; and the more accurately the
means are adapted to the end, the more completely yriU the
scheme of our Ufe he accompUshed, and the more securely shall
we lay a foundation for the further advancement of mankind.
A question, therefore, now arises of great moment : namely,
which of these two parts or elements of mental progress is the
more important. For the progress itself being the result of their
united action, it becomes necessary to ascertain which of them
works more powerfiiUy, in order that we may subordinate the
inferior element to the laws of the superior one. If the advance
of civUization, and the general happiness of mankind, depend
more on their moral feelings than on their inteUectual knowledge,
we must of course measure the progress of society hy those feel
ings ; whUe if, on the other hand, it depends principally on their
knowledge, we must take as our standard the amount and suc
cess of their inteUectual activity. As soon as we know the
relative energy of these two components, we shaU treat them
according to the usual plan for investigating truth ; that is to
say, we shaU look at the product of their joint action as obeying
the laws of the more powerful agent, whose operations are casu
ally disturbed hy the inferior laws of the minor agent.
In entering into this inquiry, we are met hy a preUminary
difficulty, arising from the loose and careless manner in which
ordinary language is employed on subjects that require the
greatest mcety and precision. For the expression, Moral . and
InteUectual Progress, is suggestive of a serious faUacy. In the
manner in which it is generally used, it conveys an idea that
the moral and inteUectual faculties of men are, in the advance
of civUization, naturally more acute and more trustworthy than
they were formerly. But this, though it may possibly be true,
has never heen proved. It may he that, owing to some physical
causes still unknown, the average capacity of the brain is, if we
compare long periods of time, becoming graduaUy greater ; and
that therefore the mind, which acts through the brain, is, even
independently of education, increasing in aptitude and in the
general competence of its views.'" Such, however, is still our
'" That the natural powers of the human brain are improving because they are
capable of transmission, ia a favourite doctrine with the foUowers of GaU, and is
adopted by M. A. Comte (Philosophic Positive, vol. iv. pp. 384, 386) ; who, however,
admita that it has never been sufficiently verified: "sana que toutefois I'expdrience
ait encore sufflsamment prononcd." Dr. Prichard, whose habits of thought were
very different, aeema, nevertheless, inclined to lean in this direction ; for^his com-

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 127
ignorance of physical laws, and so completely are we in the dark
as to the circumstances which regulate the hereditary transmis
sion of character, temperament," and other personal peculiarities,
that we must consider this aUeged progress as a very doubtful
point ; and, in the present state of our knowledge, we cannot
safely assume that there has been any permanent improvement
in the moral or inteUectual faculties of man, nor have we any
decisive ground for saying that those faculties are likely to he
greater in an infant horn in the most ci-riUzed part of Europe,
than in one horn in the wUdest region of a barbarous country.'"
parison of skulls led him to the conclusion, that the present inhabitants of Britain,
"either as the result of many ages of greater intellectual cultivation, or from some
other cause, have, as I am persuaded, much more capacious brain-cases than their
forefathers." PricharcVs Physical History of Mankind, vol. i. p. 305. Even if this
were certain, it would not prove that the contents of the crania were altered, though
it might create a presumption ; and the general question must, I think, remain un
settled untU the researches begun by Blumenbach, and recently continued by Morton,
are carried out upon a scale far more comprehensive than haa hitherto been attempt
ed. Compare Burdach, Traite de Physiologie, vol. U. p. 253 ; where, however, the
question is not atated with aufficient caution.
" None of the laws of hereditary descent connected with the formation of char
acter, have yet been generaUzed; nor ia our knowledge much more advanced
respecting the theory of temperaments, which stiU remains the principal obstacle in
the way of the phrenologists. The difficulties attending the study of temperaments,
ahd the obscurity in which thia important aubject ia ahrouded, may be eatimated by
whoever wiU compare what has been said upon it by the foUowing writers : Muller's
Physiology, vol. U. pp. 1406-1410 ; Elliotson's Human Physiology, pp. 1059-1062 ;
BlainviUe, Physiologie Ginerale et Comparee, vol i. pp. 168, 264, 265, vol. ii. pp.
43, 130, 214, 328, 829, voh ui. pp. 54, 74, 118, 148, 149, 284, 285; Williams's
Principles of Medicine, pp. 16, 17, 112, 113 ; Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, Anomalies
de V Organisation, vol. i. pp. 186, 190; Broussais, Examen des Doctrines Medicales,
vol. !. pp. 204, 205, vol. in. p. 2'76 ; Renouard, Hist, de la Medecine, vol. i. p. 326 ;
Sprengel, Hist, de la Medecine, voh i. p. 380, vol. u. p. 408, vol. Ui. p. 21, vol. v. p.
325, vol. vi. 492 ; Esquirol, Maladies Mentales, voh i. pp. 39, 226, 429, 594, vol. n. p.
29 ; LepeUetier, Physiol. Medicale, vol. i. pp. 139, 281, voh Ui. pp. 372-429, vol. iv. pp.
93, 123, 133, 143, 148, 177 ; Henle, Anatomie GSn&rale, voh i. p. 474, vol. ii. pp.
288, 289, 316 ; Bichat, Anatomie Generale, voh i. p. 207, vol. U. p. 444, vol. in. pp.
810, 507, voh iv. pp. 281, 399, 400, 504 ; Bichat, mr la Vie, pp. 80, 81, 234, 286 ;
Phillips on Scrofula, p. 9 ; Feuchtersleben's Medical Psychology, pp. 143-145 ;
(Euvres de FonteneUe, Paris, 1766, vol. v. p. 110; Cullen's Works, Edinb. 1827, vol.
l pp. 214-221 ; Cabanis, Rapports du Physique et du Moral, pp. 76-83, 229-261,
520-583 ; Noble on the Brain, pp. 370-376 ; Combos North America, voh i. pp. 126-
128. Latterly, attention haa been paid to the chemiatry of the blood aa it variea in
the varioua temperamenta : and this aeema a more satisfactory method than the old
plan of merely describing the obvious symptoms of the temperament. Clark on
Animal Physiology, in Fourth Report of the British Association, p. 126; Simon's
Animal Chemistry, voh i. p. 236 ; Wagner's Physiology, p. 262.
"" We often hear of hereditary talents, hereditary vices, and hereditary virtues ;
but whoever wiU critically examine the evidence will find that we have no proof of
their existence. The way in which they are commonly proved ia in the highest
degree iUogical ; the" usual course being for writera to coUect instances of some
mental pecuUarity found in a -parent and in his child, and then to infer that the
peculiarity was bequeathed. By this mode of reasoning we might demonstrate any
propositiop ; since in all large fields of inquiry there are a sufficient number of
empirical coincidences to make a plausible case in favour of whatever view a man
chooaes to advocate. But thia ia not the way in which truth is diacovered ; and we
ought to inquire not only how many instances there are of hereditary talents, &c..

128 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
Whatever, therefore, the moral and inteUectual progress of
men may be, it resolves itself not into a progress of natural
capacity,'^ hut into a progress, if I may so say, of opportunity ;
that is, an improvement in the circumstances under which that
capacity after birth comes into play. Here, then, Ues the gist
of the whole matter. The progress is one, not of internal pow
er, hut of external advantage. The chUd horn in a -civilized
land, is not likely, as such, to he superior to one horn among
barbarians ; and the difference which ensues between the acts
of the two children wiU he caused, so far as we know, solely by
the pressure of external circumstances ; by which I mean the
surrounding opinions, knowledge, associations, in a word, the
entire mental atmosphere in which the two children are respec
tively nurtured.
On this account it is e'rident, that if we look at mankind in
the aggregate, their moral and intellectual conduct is regulated
hy the moral and inteUectual notions prevalent in their own
time. There are, of course, many persons who yriU rise above
those notions, and many others who yrill sink below them. But
such cases are exceptional, and form a very small proportion of
the total amount of those who are nowise remarkable either for
good or for evil. An immense majority of men must

remain in a middle state, neither very foolish nor,|very able,
neither very virtuous nor very vicious, hut slumbering on in a
peaceful and decent mediocrity, adopting without much difficul
ty the current opinions of the day, maMng no inquiry, excitihg
no scandal, causing no wonder, just holding themselves on a
level with their generation, and noiselessly conforming to the
but how many instances there are of such quaUties not being hereditary. Until
something of this sort ia attempted, vve can know nothing about the matter mduc-
tively ; whUe, until phyaiology and chemistry are much more advanced, we can know
nothing about it deductively.
Theae conaiderationa ought to prevent ua from receiving statements (Taylor's
Medical Jurisprudence, pp. 644, 678, and many other books) which positively affirm
the exiatence of hereditary madneaa and hereditary suicide ; and the same remark
appUea to hereditary diaeaae (on which aee aome admirable obaervationa in PhiUips
on Scrofula, pp. 101-120, London, 1846); and with atiU greater force does it apply
to hereditary vices aud hereditary virtues ; inasmuch as ethical phenomena have not
been registered as carefuUy aa physiological ones, and therefore our conclusions
respecting them are even more precarious.
'^ To what has been already stated, 1 wUl add the opinions of two of the most
profound among modern thinkers. " Men, I think, have been much the same for
natural endowments in aU times." Conduct of the Understamding, in Locke's Works,
voh ii. p. 361. "Les dispositions primitives agissent dgalement chez lea peuples barbares
et chez les peuples poliods; ils sont vraisemblablement les mdmea dana tous lesheux
et dans tous les tems. . . . Plua U y aura d'hommea, et plua voua aurez de grands
hommes ou d'hommes proprea k devenir grands." Progrh de VEsprit Humain, in
(Euvres^ de Turgot, vol. U. p. 264. The remarks of Dr. Brown (Lectures onfhe Mini,
p. 57), if I rightly understand hia rhetorical language, apply not to natural capacity,
but to that which is acquired : see the end of his ninth Lecture.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 129
standard of morals and of knowledge common to the age and
coimtry in which they live.
Now, it requires but a superficial acquaintance with history
to he aNvare that this standard is constantly changing, and that
it is never precisely the same even in the most simUar countries,
or in two successive generations in the same country. The
opinions which are popular in any nation, vary in many respects,
almost from year to year ; and what in one period is attacked
as a paradox or a heresy, is in another period welcomed as a
sober truth ; which, however, in its turn is replaced by some
subsequent novelty. This extreme mutahiUty in the ordinary
standard of human actions, shows that the conditions on whicJa
the standard depends must themselves he very mutable ; and
those conditions, whatever they may be, are evidently the origi
nators of the moral and intellectual conduct of the great average
of mankind. Here, then, we have a basis on which we can safely proceed.
We know that the main cause of human actions is extremely
variable ; we have only, therefore, to apply this test to any set
of circumstances which are supposed to he the cause, and if we
find that such circumstances are not very variable, we must
infer that they are not the cause we are attempting to dis
cover. Applying this test to moral motives, or to the dictates of
what is called moral instinct, we shaU at once see how extremely
smaU is the influence those motives have exercised over the pro
gress of civiUzation. For there is, unquestionably, nothing to
he found in the world which has undergone so Uttle change as
those great dogmas of which moral systems are composed. To
do good to others ; to sacrifice for their benefit your own yrishes ;
to love your neighbour as yourself ; to . forgive your enemies ;
to restrain your passions ; to honour your parents ; to respect
those who are set over you : these, and a few others, are the
sole essentials of morals ; hut they have been known for thou
sands of years, and not one jot or tittle has heen added to them
by aU the sermons, homiUes, and text-books which moralists and
theologians have been ahle to produce.'*
" That the system of morals propounded in the New Testament, contained no
maxim which had not been previously enunciated, and that aome of the most
beautiful passages in the ApostoUc writings are quotations from Pagan authors, is
weU known to every scholar ; and so far from supplying, as some suppose, an
objection against Christianity, it ia a atrong recommendation of it, aa indicating the
intimate relation between the doctrines of Christ and the moral_ sympathies of man
kind in different ages. But to assert that Christianity communicated to man moral
truths previously unknown, argues, on the part of the asaertor, either gross ignorance
or else wilful fraud. For evidence of the knowledge of moral truths possessed by
barbarous nations, independently of Christianity, and for the moat part previous to
VOL. I. — 9

130 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
But if we contrast this stationaiy aspect of moral truths
with the progressive aspect of inteUectual truths, the difference
is indeed startling.'^ AU the great moral systems which have
exercised much influence, have heen fundamentaUy the . same;
all the great intellectual systems have heen fundamentally
different. In reference to our moral conduct, there is not a
single principle now known to the most cultivated Europeans,
which was not likewise known to the ancients. In reference to
the conduct of our inteUect, the moderns have not only made
the most important additions to every department of knowledge
that the ancients ever attempted to study, hut besides this, they
have upset and revolutionized the old methods of inquiry ; they
have consolidated into one great scheme aU those resources of
induction which Aristotle alone dimly perceived ; and they have
created sciences, the faintest idea of which never entered the
mind of the boldest thinker antiquity produced.
These are, to every educated man, recognized and notorious
facts ; and the inference to be drawn from them is immediately
obvious. Since civiUzation is the product of moral and intellec
tual agencies, and since that product is constantly changing, it
. evidently cannot be regulated by the stationary agent ; because,
ita promulgation, compare Mackay's Religious Development, vol. ii. pp. 376-380;
Mure's Hist, of Greek Literature, voh ii. p. 898, vol. iu. p. 380 ; Prescotts History
of Mexico, vol. i. p. 31 ; Elphinstone's History of India, p. 47 ; Works of Sir W.
Jones, vol. i. pp. 87, 168, vol. iU. pp. 106, 114; MilVs History of India, vol i. p.
419 ; Bohlen, das alte Indien, vol. i. pp. 364-366 ; Beausobre, Histoire de Manichie,
vol. i. pp. 318, 319 ; Coleman's Mythology of the Hindus, p. 198 ; Transac: of Soc.
of Bombay, voh iii. p. 198; Transac. of Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 5, vol. iii. pp. 283,
284; Asiatic Researches, voh vi. p. 271, vol. vii. p. 40, vol. xvi. pp. 130, 277, vol
XX. pp. 460, 461 ; The Dabistan, vol. i. pp. 328, 338 ; Catlin's NorthAmerican
Indians, vol. ii. p. 243 ; Syme's Embassy to Ava, vol. ii. p. 389 ; Davis's Chinese,
voh i. p. 196, vol. U. pp. 186, 283; Journal Asiatique, I. adrie, voh iv. p. 77,
Paria, 1824.
'" Sir Jamea Mackintosh was so struck by the stationary character of moral
principles, that he denies the possibiUty of their advance, and boldly affirms that no
further discoveries can be made in morals : " Morality admits no discoveries. ....
More than three thousand years have elapsed since the composition of the Penta
teuch ; aud let any man, if he ia able, tell me in what important respect the rule of
Ufe has varied since that distant period. Let the Inatitutea of Menu be explored
with the aame view ; we shall arrive at the aame conclusion. Let the books of false
reUgion be opened ; it will be found that their moral syatem ia, in aU its grand
features, the same  The fact is evident, that no improvements have been made in
practical moraUty  The facts which lead to the formation of moral rules are
as accessible, and muat be aa obvious, to the simplest barbarian as to the most
enUghtened phUosopher  The case of the physical and speculative sciences is
directly opposite. There the facta are remote and scarcely accessible  • /
From the countless variety of the facta with which they are conversant, it is
impossible to prescribe any bounds to their future improvement. It is otherwise
with morals. They have hitherto been stationary ; and, in my opinion, they are
likely for ever to continue so." Life of Mackintosh,\edited by his Son-, London,
1835, voh i. pp. 119-122. Condorcet (Vie de Turgot, jA 180) says, "La morale'de
toutes les nationa a dtd la mdme ; " and Kant (Logik, in Kant's Werke, vol i. p.
366) " In der Moralphilosophie sind wir nicht weiter gekommen, als die Alten.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 131
when surrounding circumstances are unchanged, a stationary
agent can only produce a stationary effect. The only other agent
is the intellectual one ; and that this is the real mover may bo
proved in two_ distinct ways : first, hecause being, as we have
already seen, either moral or inteUectual, and being, as we have
also seen, not moral, it must be intellectual; and secondly, he-
cause the intellectual principle has an activity and a capacity for
adaptation, which, as I undertake to show, is quite sufficient to
account for the extraordinary progress that, during several cen
turies, Europe lias continued to make.
Such are the main arguments hy which my view is supported;
hut there are also other and coUateral circumstances which are
well worthy of consideration. The first is, that the inteUectual
principle is not only far more progressive than the moral princi
ple, but is also far more permanent in its results. The acquisi
tions made hy the inteUect are, in every civUized country, care
fuUy preserved, registered in certain well-understood formulas,
and protected by the use of technical and scientific language ;
they are easUy handed down from one generation to another, and
thus assuming an accessible, or, as it were, a tangible form, they
often influence the most distant posterity, they become the heir
looms of mankind, the immortal bequest of the genius to which
they owe their birth. But the good deeds effected hy our moral
faculties are less capable of transmission ; they are of a more
private and retiring character ; whUe, as the motives to which
they owe their origin are generally the result of self-discipUne and
of self-sacrifice, they have to be worked out hy every man for
himself; and thus, begun hy each anew, they derive Uttle bene
fit from the maxims of preceding experience, nor can they weU
be stored up for the use of future moralists. The consequence
is, that although moral exceUence is more amiable, and to most
persons more attractive, than intellectual excellence, stUl, it must
he confessed that, lookiiig at ulterior results, it is far less active,
less permanent, and, as I shaU presently prove, less productive
of real good. Indeed, if we examine the effects of the most
active phUanthropy, and of the largest and most disinterested
kindness, we shaU find that those effects are, comparatively
speaking, short-Uved ; that there is only a smaU number of
indi'riduals they come in contact with and benefit ; that they
rarely survive 'the generation which witnessed their commence
ment ; and that, when they take the more durable form
of founding great puhUc charities, such institutions invariably
faU, first into abuse, then into decay, and after a time are either
destroyed, or perverted from their original intention, mocking

132 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
the effort by which it is vainly attempted to perpetuate* the
memory even of the purest and most energetic benevolence. ¦
These conclusions are no doubt very unpalatable ; and what
makes them pecuUarly offensive is, that it is impossible to
refute them. For the deeper we penetrate into this question,
the more clearly shaU we see the superiority of inteUectual
acquisitions over moral feeUng." There is no instance on record
of an ignorant man who, having good intentions, and supreme
power to enforce them, has not done far more evU than
good. And whenever the intentions have heen very eager,
and the power very extensive, the evU has heen enormous.
But if you can diminish the sincerity of that man, if you
can mix some aUoy yrith his motives, you wUl Ukewise dimin
ish the evU which he works. If he is selfish as weU as
ignorant, it wiU often happen that you may play off his rice
against his ignorance, and by exciting his fears restrain his
mischief. If, however, he has no fear, if he is entirely unselfish,
if his sole object is the good of others, if he pursues that object
with enthusiasm, upon a large scale, and with disinterested
zeal, then it is that you have no check upon him, you have no
means of preventing the calamities which, in an ignorant age, an
ignorant man will he sure to inflict. How entirely this is verified
hy experience, we may see in studying the. history of reUgious
persecution. To punish even a single man for his religious
tenets, is assuredly a crime of the deepest dye ; hut to punish
a large body of men, to persecute an entire sect, to attempt to
extirpate opinions, which, growing out of the state of society in
which they arise, are themselves a manifestation of the manrel-
lous and luxuriant fertUity of the human mind, — ^to do this is
not only one of the most pernicious, but one of the most foolish
acts that can possibly be conceived. Nevertheless, it is an un
doubted fact that an overwhelming majority of reUgious perse
cutors have been men of the purest intentions, of the most
admirable and unsuUied morals. It is impossible that this
should he otherwise. For they are not had-intentioned men,
who seek to enforce opinions which they , heUeve to be good.
StUl less are they had men, who are so regardless of temporal
considerations as to employ all the resources of their power, not
for their own heneflt, hut for the purpose of propagating a
religion which they think necessary to the future happiness of
mankind. Such men as these are not had, they are only igno
rant ; ignorant of the nature of truth, ignorant of the conse-
'° One part of the argument ia weU stated by Cuvier, who says, "Le bien que
I'on fait aux hommes, quelque grand qu'U soit, est -toujours passager; les vdntes
qu'on leur laiase sont dternelles." Cuvier, Eloges Historiques, vol. u. p. 304.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 133
quences of their own acts. But in a moral point of view, their
motives are unimpeachable. Indeed, it is the very ardour of
their sincerity which warms them into persecution. It is the
holy zeal by which they are flred, that quickens their fanaticism
into a deadly activity. If you can impress any man yrith an
absorbing con'riction of the supreme importance of some moral
or reUgious doctrine ; if you can make him believe that those
who reject that doctrine are doomed to eternal perdition ; if you
then give that man power, and hy means of his ignorance blind
him to the ulterior consequences of his own act, — he wiU infaUi
bly persecute those who deny his doctrine ; and the extent of
his persecution wUl he regulated by the extent of his sincerity.
Diminish the sincerity, and you will diminish the persecution ;
in other words, hy weakening the virtue you may check the oril.
This is a truth of which history furnishes such innumerable
examples, that to deny it would be not only to reject the plain
est and most conclusive arguments, hut to refuse the concurrent
testimony of every age. I vrill merely select two cases, which,
fi-om the entire difference in. their circumstances, are very appo
site as lUustrations : the first being from the history of Paganism
the other from the history of Christianity ; and both proving
the inahiUty of moral feeUngs to control religious persecu
tion. I. The Roman emperors, as is weU known, subjected the
early Christians to persecutions, which, though they have been
exaggerated, were frequent and very grievous. But, what to
some persons must appear extremely strange, is, that among the
active authors of these cruelties, we find the names of the best
men who ever sat on the throne ; whUe the worst and most
infamous princes were precisely those who spared the Christians,
and took no heed of their increase. The two most thoroughly
depraved of aU the emperors were certainly Commodus and
Elagahulus; neither of whom persecuted the new reUgion, or
indeed adopted any measures against it. They were too reckless
of the fiiture, too selfish, too absorbed in their own infamous
pleasures, to mind whether truth or error prevailed; and being
thus indifferent to the welfare of their subjects, they cared
nothing ahout the progress of a creed, which they, as Pagan
emperors, were hound to regard as a fatal and impious delusion.
They, therefore, allowed Christianity to run its course, unchecked
hy those penal laws which more honest, but more mistaken,
rulers would assuredly have enacted." We find, accordingly,
" " The first year of Commodus must be the epocha of the toleration. From aU
these authorities, it appears beyond exception, that Commodua put a, atop to the
persecution in the first year of hia reign  Not one writer, either heathen or

134 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
that the great enemy of Christianity was Marcus AureUus,
a man of kindly temper, and of fearless, unffinching honesty, but
whose reign was characterized hy a persecution from which he
would have refrained had he heen less in earnest ahout the
religion of his fathers.'^ And to complete the argument, it may
he added, that the last and one of the most strenuous of the
opponents of Christianity, who occupied the throne of the
Caesars, was Julian; a prince of eminent probity, whose opinions
are often attacked, but against whose moral conduct even
calumny itself has hardly breathed a suspicion.?^
II. The second iUustration is suppUed hy Spain ; a country
of which it must he confessed, that in no other have reUgious
feelings exercised such sway over the affairs of men. No other
European nation has produced so many ardent and disinterested
missionaries, zealous self-denying martyrs, who have cheerfuUy
sacrificed their Uves in order to propagate truths which they
thought necessary to be known. Nowhere else have the spirit
ual classes heen so long in the ascendant ; nowhere else are the
people so devout, the churches so crowded, the clergy so numer
ous. But the sincerity and the honesty of purpose by which the
Spanish people, taken as a whole, have always been marked, have
not only heen unable to prevent reUgious persecution, but have
proved the means of encouraging it. If the nation had been
more lukewarm, it would have heen more tolerant. As it was,
Chriatian, makea Commodua a peraecutor." Letters concerning the Thundering
Legion, iu Moyle's Works, vol. u. p. 266, London, 1726. " HeUogabalus also, though
iu other respects the most infamous of all princea, and perhaps the most odious of
all mortals, showed no marka of bitterness or aversion to the diaciplea of Jesus."
Mosheim's Eccl. History, vol. i. p. 66 : see alao Milman's History of Christianity,
London, 1840, vol. ii. p. 225;
'" Dr. Milman (History of Christianity, 1840, vol. ii. p. 169) aaya, "A blameless
disciple iu the severest school of philosophic moraUty, the austerity of Marcus
rivalled that of the Christians in its contempt ofthe follies and diversions of Ufe;
yet his native kindliness of disposition was not hardened or embittered by the
severity or the pride of his philosophy. With AureUua, neverthelesa, Christianity
found not only a fair and high-minded competitor for the command of the human
mind ; not only a rival in the exaltation of the aoul of man to higher viewa and more
dignified motives ; but a violent and intolerant persecutor." M. Guizot compares
him with Louis IX. of France ; and certainly there waa in both an evident connexion
between aincerity and persecution : " Marc Aurele et saint Louis sont pent dtre les
deux seuls princes qui, eu toute occasion, aient fait de leurs croyances morales la
premidre rfegle de leur conduite: Marc Aurfele, stoicien; saint Louia, chrdtien."
Guizot, Civilisation en France, vol. iv. p. 142. Even Dupleasia Mornay (Mlm. vol
iv. p. 374) caUa him "le meilleur des empereurs payens ; " and Rittet (Hist, of
Philos. vol. iv. p. 222), "the virtuous and noble emperor."
'" Neander (History of the Church, vol. i. p. 122) obaervea, that the best emperors
opposed Christianity, and that the worst ones were indifferent to its encroachments.
The same remark, in regard to Marcus and Commodus, is made by Gibbon ; Decline
and Fall, chap. xvi. p. 220, Lond. 1836. Another writer, of a very different char
acter, ascribea thia pecuUarity to the wiles of the devU: "In the 'primitive times,
It IS observed that the beat emperora were aome of them stirred up by Satan to be
the bitterest persecutors of the Church." Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinsieh p. 88.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 135
the preservation of the faith became the first consideration ; and
every thing being sacrificed to this one object, it naturally hap
pened that zeal begat cruelty, and the soU was prepared in which
the Inquisitiontook root and fiourished. The supporters of that
barbarous institution were not hypocrites, hut enthusiasts.
Hypocrites are for the most part too supple to he cruel. For
cruelty is a stern and unbending passion ; while hypocrisy is a
fawning and flexible art, which accommodates itself to human
feelings, and flatters the weakness of men in order that it may
gain its own ends. In Spain, the earnestness of the nation, being
concentrated on a single topic, carried every thing hefore it ; and
hatred of heresy becoming a habit, persecution of heresy was
thought a duty. The conscientious energy with which that duty
was fuMUed is seen in the history of the Spanish Church. In
deed, that the inquisitors were remarkable for an undeviating
and incorruptible integrity, may be proved in a variety of ways,
and from different and independent sources of evidence. This
is a question to which I shaU hereafter return ; hut there are
two testimonies which I cannot omit, because, from the circum
stances attending them, they are pecuUarly unimpeachable.
Llorente, the great historian of the Inquisition, and its bitter
enemy, had access to its private papers ; and yet, with the
fuUest means of information, he does not even insinuate a charge
against the moral character of the inquisitors ; but whUe ex
ecrating the cruelty of their conduct, he cannot deny the purity
of their intentions."" Thirty years earUer, Townsend, a clergy
man of the Church of England, pubUshed his valuable work on
Spain ;"' and though, as a Protestant and an Englishman, he had
every reason to he prejudiced against the infamous system which
he describes, he also can bring no charge against those who up
held it ; hut ha'ying occasion to mention its establishment at
Barcelona, one of its most important branches, he makes the re
markable admission, that aU its members are men of worth, and
that most of them are of distinguished humanity.""
These facts, startUng as they are, form a very smaU part of
'" By which, indeed, he is sorely puzzled. " On reconndtra mon impartiaUtd
dans quelques circonstances ou je fais remarquer chez les inquisiteurs des dispositions
gdndreuses ; ce qui me porte k croire que les atroees sentences renduea par le Saint-
Office, sont plutot une consdquence de ses lois organiques, qu'un effet du caractdre
particuUer de ses membres." Llorente, Histoire Critique de V Inquisition d'Espagne,
vol. i. p. xxni. : compare voh U. pp. 267, 268, vol iv. p. 163.
°' Highly spoken of by the late Blanco White, a most competent jjidge. See
Doblado's Letters from Spain, p. 5.
™ "It ia, however, universally acknowledged, for the credit of the corps at Bar
celona, that aU its members are men of worth, and most of them distinguished
for humanity." Townsend's Journey through Spain in 1786 and 1787, vol. i. p. 122,
Lond. 1792.

136 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
that vast mass of evidence which history .contains, and which de
cisively proves the utter inabiUty of moral feelings to diminish
reUgious persecution. The way in which the diminution hag
been really effected hy the mere progress of inteUectual acquire
ments, wiU be pointed out in another part of this volume ; when
we shall see that the great antagonist of intolerance is not hu
manity, but knowledge. It is to the diffusion of knowledge, and '!
to that alone, that we owe the comparative cessation of what is '
unquestionably the greatest eril men have ever inflicted on their
own species. For that reUgious persecution is a greater evU than
any other, is apparent, not so much from the enormous and almost"
incredible number of its known victims,"' as from the fact that
the "unknown must he far more numerous, and that history gives
no account of those who have been spared in the body, in order
that they might suffer in the mind. We hear much of martyrs
and confessors — of those who were slain hy the sword, or con
sumed in the fire ; hut we know little of that stiU larger number
who, by the mere threat of persecution, have been driven into an
outward abandonment of their real opioions ; and who, thus
forced into an apostasy the heart abhors, have passed the re
mainder of their Uves in the practice of a constant and humil
iating hypocrisy. It is this which is the real curse of reUgious
persecution. For in this way, men being constrained to mask
their thoughts, there arises a habit of securing safety hy false
hood, and of purchasing impunity with deceit. In this way,
fraud becomes a necessary of life ; insincerity is made a daily
custom ; the whole tone of public feeUng is vitiated, and the
gross amount of vice and of error fearfully increased. Surely,
then, we have reason to say, that, compared to this, aU other
crimes are of smaU account ; and we may weU be grateful for
that increase of intellectual pursuits, which has destroyed an evil
that some among us would even now willingly restore.
The priociple I am advocating is of such immense im
portance in practice as weU as in theory, that I wiU give yet
^' In 1546, the Venetian ambassador at the court of the Emperor Charles V.
stated, in an official report to' his own government on his return home, " that in
Holland and in Friesland, more than 30,000 persons have suffered death at the hands
of justice for Anabaptist errors." Correspondence of Charles V. amd his Ambassa
dors, edited by WUUam Bradford, Lond. 8vo, 1850, p. 471. In Spain, the Inquisi
tion during the eighteen years of Torquemada's ministry, punished, according to
the lowest eatimate, upwarda of 105,000 peraona, of whom 8800 were burned.
Prescotts History of Ferdinand and Isabella, vol. i. p. 265. In Andalusia alone,
during a siflgle year, the Inquisition put to death 2000 Jews, " besides 17,000 who
underwent some form of punishment less severe than that of the stake." licknm's
History of Spanish Literature, vol. i. p. 410. For other statistical evidence on this
horrible subject, see Llorente, Histoire de V Inquisition, vol. i. pp. 160, 229, 238, 239,
279, 280, 406, 407, 455, vol. u. pp. 77, 116, 376, voh iv. p. 31; and, above aU, the
summary at pp. 242-273.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. ] 37
another instance of the energy 'with which it works. The second
greatest evil known to mankind — the one hy which, with the ex
ception of reUgious persecution, most suffering has heen caused
— is, unquestionably, the practice of war. That this barbarous
pursuit is;^ in the progress of society, steadUy declining, must be
e'rident, even to the most hasty reader of European history."* If
we compare one century yrith another, we shaU find that for a
very long period, wars have heen becoming less frequent ; and
now so clearly is the movement marked, that until the late com
mencement of hostilities, we had remained at peace for nearly
forty years : a circumstance unparalleled, not only in our own
country, but also in the annals of every other country which has
heen important enough to play a leading part in the affairs of
the world."= The question arises, as to what share our moral
feeUngs have had in bringing about this great improvement.
And if this question is answered, not according to preconceived
opinions, hut according to the evidence we possess, the answer
wUl certainly he, that those feeUngs have had no share at all.
For it surely yyUl not he pretended that the moderns have made
any discoveries respecting the moral evils of war. On this head,
nothing is now known that has not been knoym for many cen
turies. That defensive wars are just, and that offensive wars are
unjust, are the only two principles which, on this subject, mor
aUsts are ahle to teach. These two principles were as clearly laid
doyyn, as well understood, and as universaUy admitted, in the
Middle Ages, when there was never a week without war, as they
are at the present moment, when war is deemed a rare and sin
gular occurrence. ;-Since, 'then, the actions of men respecting
war have heen graduaUy changing, while their moral knowledge
respecting it has not heen changing, it is palpably evident, that
the changeable effect has not been produced by the unchangeable
cause. It is impossible to conceive an argument more decisive
than this. If it can be proved that, during the last thousand
years, moraUsts or theologians have pointed out a single evU
caused by war, the existence of which was unknowm to their pre
decessors, — ^if this can he proved, I will abandon the view for
which I am contending. But if, as I most confidently assert,
this cannot he proved, then it must be conceded, that, no ad-
^ On the diminished love of war, which is even more marked than the actual
diminution of war, see some interesting remarka in Comte, Philosophie Positive, vol.
iv. pp. 488, 713, voh vi. pp. 68, 424-436, where the antagonism between the mUitary
aprrit and the induatrial spirit is, on the whole, well worked out ; though soihe of the
leading phenomena have escaped the attention of this eminent phUosopher, from his
want of acquaintance with the history and present state of poUtical economy.
°° In Pellew's Life of Sidmouth, 1847, vol. iu. p. 137, this prolonged peace is
gravely ascribed to "the wisdom of the adjustment of 1815;" in other words, to
the proceedings of the Congress of Vienna !

138 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
ditions having .been made on this subject to the stock of morals,
no additions can have been made to the result which the morals
produce."' Thus far as to the influence exercised by moral feeUngs in
increasing our distaste for war. But if, on 'the. other hand, we
turn to the human intellect, in the narrowest sense of the term,
we shall find that every great increase in its activity has heen a
heavy blow to the warlike spirit. The fuU evidence for this, I
shaU hereafter detaU at considerable length ; and" iu this Intro"-
duction I can only pretend to bring forward a few of those prom
inent points, which, being on the surface of history, wiU he at once
understood. S..^
Of these points, one of the most obvious is, tha^very im
portant addition made to knowledge increases the^uthority of
the intellectual classes, hy increasing the resources which they
have to wield. Now, the antagonism between these classes and
the mUitary class is -evident; it is the antagonism between
thought and action, between the internal and the external, be
tween argument and violence, between persuasion and force ; or
to .sum up the whole, between men who live hy the pursuits of
peace and those who live by the practice of war. Whateyer,
therefore, is favourable to one class, is manifestly unfavourable to
the other. Supposing the remaining circumstances to be the
same, it must happen, that as the inteUectual acq'uisitions of a
people increase, their love of war yriU diminish ; a,nd if their m-
teUectual acquisitions are very smaU, their love of war wiU he
very great."'' In perfectly barbarous countries, there are no in-
"' Unless more zeal has been diaplayed in the diffuaion of moral and religious
principles ; in which case it would be possible for the principles to be stationary,
and yet their effects be progreaaive. But so far from this, it is certain that in the
Middle Agea there were, relatively to the population, more churchea than there are
now; the spiritual classes were far more numerous, the proselyting spirit far more
eager, and there waa a much stronger determination to prevent purely scientific
inferences from encroaching on ethical ones. Indeed, during the Middle Ages, the
moral and reUgious Uterature outweighed all the profane Uterature put together;
and surpasaed it, not only in bulk, but alao in the ability of ita cultivators. Now,
however, the generalizations of moralists have ceased to control the affairs of men,
and have made way for the larger doctrine of expediency, which includes aU inter-
eats and all claases. Systematic writers Ou morals reached their zenith in, the
thirteenth century ; feU off rapidly after that period ; were, aa Coleridge weU says,
oppoaed by " the geniua of Proteatantiam ; " and, by the end of the seventeenth
century became extinct in the most civiUzed countries ; the Ductor Dubitantivm of
Jeremy Taylor being the last comprehensive attempt of a man of genius to mould
society solely according to the maxima of moraliate. Compare two interesting
¦ passages in Mosheim's Ecclesiast. Hist. vol. i. p. 838, and Coleridge's Friend, vol,
Ui. p. 104.
" Herder boldly asserts that man originally, and by virtue of his organization,
is peaceably diapoaed ; but this opinion is decisively refuted by the immense addi
tions which, since the time of Herder, have been made to our knowledge of the
feeUngs and habits of savages. " Indeaaen iat'a wahr, dasa der Bau dea Menschen
vorzugUch auf die Vertheidigung, nicht auf den Angriff gerichtet ist: in diesem

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 139
tellectual acquisitions ; and the mind being a blank and dreary
waste, the only resource is external activity,"' the only merit per
sonal courage. No account is made of any man, unless he has
kUled an enemy ; and the more he has kUled, 'the greater the
reputation he enjoys."'' This is the purely savage state ; and it
is the state in which miUtaiy glory is most esteemed, and military
men most respected.^" From this frightful debasement, even up
to the summit of civiUzation, there is a long series of consecutive
steps ; gradations, at each of which something is taken from the
dominion of force, and something given to the authority of thought.
Slowly, and one by one, the intellectual and pacific classes begin
to arise ; at first held in great contempt by warriors, hut never
theless graduaUy gaining ground, increasing in number and in
power, and at each increase weakening that old mUitary spiritj
in which aU other tendencies had formerly been absorbed. Trade,
commerce, manufactures, law, diplomacy, Uterature, science, phi-
muss ihm die Kunst zu Hiilfe kommen, in jener aber ist er von Natur das kraftigste
Geschopf der Erde. Seine Gestalt selbst lehret ihn also Friedlichkeit, nicht
rauberische IMordverwiistung, — der Humanitiit erstea Merkmal." Ideen zur Ge
schichte, vol. i. p. 185.
™ Hence, no doubt, that acuteness of the aenaea, natural, and indeed necessary,
to an early atate of aociety, and which, being at the expense of the reflecting fac
ulties, asaimUates man to the lower animals. See Carpenter's Human Physiology,
p. 404 ; and a fine passage in Herder's Ideen zur Geschichte, vol. ii. p. 12 : " Das ab-
stehende thierische Ohr, das gleichsam immer lauscht und horchetj daa kleine acharfc
Auge, das in der weitesten Feme den kleinsten Bauch oder Staub gewahr wird, der
weisse hervorbleckende, knocheubenagende Zahn, der dicke Hals und die zuriick-
gebogene SteUung ihres Kopfes auf demselben." Compare Prichard's Physical
Hist, of Mankind, vol. i. pp. 292, 293 ; Azara, AmSrique Meridionale, vol. ii. p. 18;
WrangeVs Polar Expedition, p. 384; Pallme's Travels in Kordofan, pp. 132, 133.
™ " Among some Macedonian tribes, the man who had never slain an enemy waa
marked by a degrading badge." Grote's History of Greece, vol. xi. p. 397. Among
the Dyaks of Borneo, " a man cannot marry until he has procured a human head ;
and he that has several may be distinguished by his proud and lofty bearing, for it
constitutes his patent of nobiUty." EarVs account of Borneo, in Journal of Asiatic
Society, voh iv. p. 181. See also Cra-ufurd on Borneo, in Journal of Geog. Soc. vol.
xxui. pp. 77, 80. And for similar instances of this absorption of all other ideas into
warUke ones, compare Journal of Geog. Soc. voh x. p. 357 ; Mallets Northern An
tiquities, pp. 158, 169, 196 ; ThirlwalVs Hist, of Greece, vol. i. pp. 226, 284, vol. viii.
p. 209; Henderson's History of Brazil, p. 475; Southey's History of Brazil, vol. i.
pp. 126, 248 ; Asiatic Researches, voh u. p. 188, vol. vu.- p. 193 ; Transactions of
Bombay Society, vol. ii. pp. 51, 52; Hoskins' Travels in Ethiopia, p. 163; Origines
du Droit, in CEuvres de Michelet, voh u. pp. 338, 334 note. So also the Thraciana :
T^s 5e 4pydr'i]v arifiSrarov. rb ^v atrb uoAejUou Kai KTjicrvo?, KdWtffroy. Herodotus,
book V. chap. 6, vol. iu. p. 10, edit. Baehr.
^° Malcolm (History of Persia, vol. i. p. 204) aaya ofthe Tartara, "There ia only
one path to eminence, that of miUtary renown." Thua, too, in the Institutes
nf Timour, p. 269 : "He only ia equal to atations of power and dignity, who ia weU
acquainted with the miUtary art, and with the various modea of breaking and de
feating hostUe armiea." The same turn of mind is shown in the frequency and
evident delight with which Homer relates battles — a peculiarity noticed in Mure's
Greek Literature, vol. ih pp. 63, 64, where an attempt is made to turn it into an
argument to prove that the Homeric poems are aU by the same author ; though the
more legitimate inference would be that the poems were aU composed in a bar-
baroua age.

140 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
losophy, — aU these things, originaUy unknown, become organized
into separate studies, each study having a separate class, and each
class insisting on the importance of its oyvn pursuit. Of these
classes, some are, no doubt, less pacific than others ; hut even
those which are the least pacific, are, of course, more so than men
whose associations are entirely military, and who see in every
fresh war that chance of personal distinction, from which, duriiig
pea6e, they are altogether debarred.^'
- Thus it is that, as civUization advances, an equipoise is es
tablished, and mUitary ardour is balanced hy motives which
none but a cultivated people can feel But among a people
whose intellect is not cultivated, such a balance can never exist;
Of this we see a good Ulustration in the history of the presfent
war.^" For the pecuUarity of the great contest in which we are
engaged is, that it was produced, not hy the conflicting interests
of civiUzed countries, hut hy a rupture between Eussia and Tur
key, the two most barbarous monarchies now remaining in Eu
rope. This is a very significant fact. It is highly characteristic
of the actual condition of society, that a peace of unexampled
length should have heen broken, not, as former peaces were bro
ken, hy a quarrel between two civiUzed nations, but hy the en
croachments of the unciviUzed Eussians on the stiU more unciv
Uized Turks. At an earlier period, the influence of inteUectual,
and therefore pacific, habits was indeed constantly increasing,
hut was stUl too weak, even in the most advanced countries, fo
control the old warUke habits : hence there arose a desire for
conquest which often outweighed aU other feeUngs, and induced
great nations Uke France and England to attack each other on
the slightest pretence, and seek every opportunity of gratifying
the vindictive hatred with which both contemplated the pros
perity of their neighbour. Such, however, is now the progress
of affairs, that these two nations, laying aside the peerish and
^' To the proapeot of peraonal distinction, there waa formerly added that of
wealth ; and in Europe, during tbe Middle Agea, war was a very lucrative profes
sion, owing to the custom of exacting heavy ranaom for the Uberty of prisoners.
See Barrington'a learned work. Observations on the Statutes, pp. 390-393. In the
reign of Eichard II. " a war with France waa esteemed as almost the only method
by which an English gentleman could become rich." Compare Turner's Eist.^ of
England, vol. vi. p. 21. Sainte Palaye {Memoires sur Vancienne Chevalerie, vol i. p.
311) saya, "La guerre enrichissoit alors par lebutin, et par lea ranjona, celui qui la
faisoit avec le plus de valeur, de vigUance et d'activitd. La rangon dtoit, cesemble,
pour I'ordinaire, une annde dea revenus du prisonnier." For an analogy with this,
see Rig Veda Sanhita, vol. i. p. 208, sec. 3, and vol. u. p. 266, sec. 13. In Europe,
the custom of paying a ransom for prisoners-of-war survived the Middle Ages, and
was only put an end to by the peace of Monster, in 1648. Manning's Commentaries
on the Law of Nations, 1839, p. 162; and on the profits formerly made, pp. 157i
158. "^ I wrote this in 1855.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 141
irritable jealousy they once entertained, are united in a common
cause, and have drawn the sword, not for selfish purposes, but
to protect the civUized worid against the incursions of a barba
rous foe.
This is the leading feature which distinguishes the present
war from its predecessors. That a peace should last for nearly
forty years, and should then be interrupted, not, as heretofore,
by hostiUties between civiUzed states, but by the ambition of the
only empue which is at once powerful and uncivUized,— is one
of many proofs that a dislike to war is a cultivated taste pecu-
Ua,r to an intellectual people. For no one wUl pretend that the
miUtary predUections of Eussia are caused by a low state of
morals, or by a disregard of reUgious duties. Q So far from this,
aU the evidence 'we have, shows that vicious habits are not more
. common in Eussia than in France or England f^ and it is cer
tain that the Russians submit to the teachings of the church
•with a docUity greater than that displayed by their ci'rilized op
ponents.^* It is, therefore, clear that Eussia is a warUke coun
try, not hecause the inhabitants are immoral, hut hecause they
are uninteUectual. The fault is in the head, not in the heart.
In Eussia, the national inteUect being Uttle cultivated, the in
tellectual classes lack influence ; the mUitary class, therefore, is
supreme. In this early stage of society, there is as yet no mid
dle rank, '5 and consequently the thoughtful and pacffic habits
which spring from the middle ranks have no existence. The
tmnds of men, deprived of mental pursmts,^* naturally turn to
" Indeed some have supposed that there is less immoraUty in Eussia than in
Western Europe ; but this idea ia probably erroneous. See Stirling's Russia, Lond.
1841, pp. 59, 60. The benevolence and charitable diapoaition of the Eussians are
attested by Pinkerton, who had good means of information, and was by no means
prejudiced in their favour. See Pinkerton' s Russia, Lond. 1833, pp. 335, 336. ' Sir
John Sinclair also says they are " prone to acts of kindness and charity." Sinclair's
Correspondence, vol. u. p. 241.
" The reverence of the Eussian people for their clergy has attracted the atten
tion of many observers, and is, indeed, too notorious to require proof
" A very observing and inteUigent writer says, " Eussia has only two ranks —
the highest and the lowest." Letters from the Baltic, Lond. 1841, vol. ii. p. 186.
"Les marchands, qui formeraient une clasae moyenne, sont en si petit nombre
qu'ils ne peuvent marquer dans I'dtat : d'aiUeurs presque tous sont dtrangers ; . . . .
oCi donc trouver cette classe moyenne qui fait la force des dtata ?" Custine's Russie,
vol. u. pp. 125, 126 : see also vol. iv. p. 74.
'° A recent authoress,- who had admirable opportunities of studying the society
of St. Petersburg, which she estimated with that fine tact peculiar to an accom
plished woman, was amazed at this state of things among classes surrounded with
every form of luxury and wealth : " a total absence of all rational tastes or Uterary
topics. . . . Here it is absolutely mau/vais genre to diacuas a rational subject — mere
pSdanterie to be caught upon any topics beyond dreaaing, dancing, aud a jolie tour-
nure." Letters from the Baltic, 1841, vol. u. p. 233. M. Cuatme (La Russie en 1839,
vol. i. p. 321) says, " Efegle gendrale, personne ne proffere jamais un mot qui
pourrait intdresaer vivement quelqu'un." At vol. ii. p. 195, " De toutea les faoultds
de I'inteUigence, la seule qu'on eatime ici c'est le tact." Another writer of repute.

142

CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.

warlike ones, as the only resource remaining to them. Hence it
is that in Eussia, all ahUity is estimated by a military standard.
The army is considered to be the greatest glory of the country :
to win a battle, or outvrit an enemy, is valued as one of the
noblest achievements of life ; and civiUans, whatever their
merits may be, are despised by this barbarous people, as beings
of an altogether inferior and subordinate character."
In England, on the other hand, opposite causes have pro
duced opposite results. With us inteUectual progress is so rapid,
and the authority of the middle class so great, that not only have
miUtary men no influence in the government of the state, hut
there seemed at one time even a danger lest we should push this
feeling to an extreme ; and lest, from our detestation of war, we
should neglect those defensive precautions which the enmity of
other nations makes it advisable to adopt. But this at least we
may safely say, that, in our country, a love of war is, as a na
tional taste, utterly extinct. And this vast result has been ef
fected, not by moral teachings, nor by the dictates of moral in-
.stinct ; hut by the simple fact, that in the progress of cirilization
there have been formed certain classes of society which have an
interest in the preservation of peace, and whose united authority
is sufficient to control those other classes whose interest Ues in
the prosecution of war.
It would he easy to conduct this argument further, and to
prove how, by an increasing love of inteUectual pursuits, the
miUtary service necessarily declines, not only m reputation, but
Ukewise in ability. In a backward state of society, men of dis
tinguished talents crowd to the army, and are proud to enroll
themselves in its ranks. But as society advances, new sources
of activity are opened, and new professions arise, which, being
M. Kohl, contemptuously observes, that in Eussia " the depths of science are not
even guessed at." Kohl's Russia, 1842, Lond. p. 142.
" According to Schnitzler, Precedence is determined, in Eussia, by military rank ;
and an ensign would take the pas of a nobleman not enrolled in the array, or oc
cupying some situation giving miUtary rank." M'Culloch's Geog. Diet, 1849, vol. u,
p. 614. The same thing is stated in Pinkerton's Russia, 1838, p. 321. M. Erman,
who traveUed through great part of the Eussian empire, says, " In the modem
language of St. Petersburg, one constantly hears a distinction of the greatest impor
tance, conveyed in the inquiry which is habituaUy made respecting individuals of the
educated class : Is he a plain-coat or a uniform ?" Ermaiis Siberia, vol. i. p. 46.
See also on thia preponderance of the military classes, which ia the inevitable fruit
of the national ignorance, Kohl's Russia, pp. 28, 194; Stirling's Russia imder
Nicolas the First, p. 7 ; Custine's Russie, vol. i. pp. 147, 152, 252, 266, vol. ii. pp- 71,
128, 309, vol. iU. p. 328, vol. iv. p. 284. Sir. A. Aliaon (History of Europe, vol. u.
pp. 391, 392) aays, "The whole energies ofthe nation are turned towards the army.
Commerce, the law, and all civil employments are held in no esteem ; the whole
youth of any consideration betake themselves to the profession of arms." The same
writer (vol. x. p. 666) quotes the remark of Bremner, that " nothing astonishes the
Eussian or PoUsh noblemen so much as seeing the estimation in which the civU pro-
fesaiona, and eapecially the bar, are held in Great Britain."

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 143
essentially mental, offer to genius opportunities for success more
rapid than any formerly known. The consequence is, that in
England, where these opportunities are more numerous than
elsewhere, it nearly always happens that if a father has a son
whose faculties are remarkable, he brings him up to one of the
lay professions,, where inteUect, when accompanied by industry,
is sure to he rewarded. If, however, the inferiority of the boy is
obrious, a suitable remedy is at hand : he is made either a sol
dier or a clergyman ; he is sent into the army, or hidden in the
church. And this, as we shall hereafter see, is one of the rea
sons why, as society advances, the ecclesiastical spirit and the
miUtary spirit never fail to decline. As soon as eminent men
grow unwiUing to enter any profession, the lustre of that profes
sion wUl be tarnished : first its reputation wiU be lessened, and
then its power wiU be abridged. This is the process through
which Europe is actually passing, in regard both to the church
and to the army. The e'ridence, so far as the ecclesiastical pro
fession is concerned, will be found in another part of this work.
The evidence respecting the mUitary profession is equaUy deci
sive. For although that profession has in modern Europe pro
duced a few men of undoubted genius, their number is so ex
tremely smaU, as to amaze us at the dearth of original ahiUty.
That the military class, taken as a whole, has a tendency 'to
degenerate, wUl become stUl more obvious if we compare long
periods of time. In the ancient world, the leading warriors were
not only possessed of considerable accompUshments, but were
comprehensive thinkers in poUtics as weU as in 'war, and were in
every respect the first characters of their age. (Thus, — to give
only a few specimens from a single people, — we find that the
three most successful statesmen Greece ever produced were So
lon, Themistocles, and Epaminondas, — all of whom were distin
guished mUitary commanders. Socrates, supposed by some to
be the wisest of the ancients, was a soldier ; and so was Plato ;
and so was Antisthenes, the celebrated founder of the Cynics.
Archytas, who gave a new direction to the Pythagorean philos
ophy ; and MeUssus, who developed the Eleatic phUosophy, —
were both of them weU-knoyvn generals, famous alike in litera
ture and in war. Among the most eminent orators, Pericles,
Alcibiades, Andocides, Demosthenes, and ^schines, were all
members of the miUtary profession ; as also were the two great
est tragic writers, iEschylus and Sophocles. ArchUochus, who
is said to have invented iambic verses, and whom Horace took
as a model, was a soldier ; and the same profession could like
wise boast of Tyrtaeus, one of the founders of elegiac poetry, and
of Alcaeus, one of the best composers of lyric poetry. The most

144 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
philosophic of aU the Greek historians was certainly Thucydides ;
hut he, as weU as Xenophon and Polyhius, held high mUitaiy
appointments, and on more than one occasion succeeded in
changing the fortunes of war. In the midst of the hurry and
turmoU of camps, these eminent men cultivated their mindsto
the highest point that the knowledge of that age would aUowc
and so wide is the range of their thoughts, and such the beauty
and dignity of their style, that their works are read by thousands
who care nothing about the sieges and battles in which they were
engaged. These were among the ornaments of the mUitary profession
in the ancient world ; and all of them yvrote in the same lan
guage, and were read by the same people. But in the modern
world this identical profession, including many mUUonss of
men, and covering the whole of Europe, has never been able,
since the sixteenth century, to produce ten authors who have
reached the first class either as writers or as thinkers. Descartes
is an instance of an European soldier combining the two quali
ties ; he being as remarkable for the exquisite beauty of his
style as for the depth and originaUty of his inquiries. This,
however, is a solitary case ; and there is, I beUeve, no second
one of a modern military writer thus excelUng in both depart
ments. Certainly, the English army, during the last two hun
dred and fifty years, affords no example of it, and has, in fact,
only possessed two authors, Ealeigh and Napier, whose works
are recognized as models, and are studied merely for their intrinsic
merit. StiU, this is simply in reference to styl'e ; and these two
historians, notwithstanding their skiU in composition, have never
heen reputed profound thinkers on difficult subjects, nor have
they added any thing of moment to the stock of our knowledge,
In the same way, among the ancients, the most eminent soldiers
were Ukeyrise the most eminent poUticians, and the best leaders
of the army yvere generaUy the best governors of the state. But
here, again, the progress of society has wrought so great a change,
that for a long period instances of this have been excessively
rare. Even Gustavus Adolphus and Frederick the Great failed
ignominiously in their domestic poUcy, and showed themselves
as short-sighted in the arts of peace as they were sagacious in
the arts of war. Cromwell, Washington, and Napoleon, are,
perhaps, the only first-rate modern warriors of whom it can he
fairly said, that they were equally competent to govern a king
dom and command an army. And if we look at England as
furnishing a famUiar iUustration, we see this remark exemplified
in our two greatest generals, Marlborough and Wellington.
Marlborough was a man not only of the most idle and frivolous

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 145
pursuits, hut was so miserably ignorant, that his deficiencies
made him the ridicule of his contemporaries ; and of politics he
had no other idea but to gain the favour of the sovereign hy
flattering his mistress, to desert the brother of that sovereign at
his utmost need, and afterwards, by a double treachery, turn
against his next benefactor, and engage in a criminal, as well as
a fooUsh, corresp6ndence with the very man whom a few years
hefore he had infamously abandoned. These were the charac
teristics of the greatest conqueror of his age, the hero of a hun
dred fights, the victor of Blenheim and of EamUies. As to our
other great warrior, it is indeed true that the name of WeUing-
ton should never be pronounced hy an EngUshman without
gratitude and respect : these feeUngs are, however, due solely to
his vast miUtary services, the importance of which it would iU
become us to forget. But whoever has studied the ciril history
of England during the present century, knows fuU weU that
this military chief, who in the field shone yrithout a rival, and
who, to his stUl greater glory he it said, possessed an integrity
of purpose, an unflinching honesty, and a high moral feeUng,
which could not be surpassed, was nevertheless utterly unequal
to the compUcated exigencies of political Ufe. It is notorious,
that in his views of the most important legislative measures he
was always in the ynrong. It is notorious, and the evidence of
it stands recorded in our ParUamentary Debates, that every
great measure which was carried, every great improvemen't,
every great step in reform, every concession to the popular
yrishes, was strenuously opposed by the Duke of Wellington,
became law in spite of his opposition, and after his mournful
declarations that hy such means the security of England would
he seriously imperiUed. Yet there is now hardly a forward
schoolboy who does not know that to these very measures the
present stahiUty of our country is mainly owing. Experience,
the great test of wisdom, has amply proved, that those vast
schemes of reform, which the Duke of WeUington spent his
political Ufe in opposing, were, I wUl not say expedient or advis
able, but were indispensably necessary. That policy of resisting
the popular wUl which he constantly adrised, is precisely the
poUcy which has heen pursued, since the Congress of Vienna,
in every monarchy except our own. The result of that poUcy
is written for our instruction : it is written in that great ex
plosion of popular passion, which in the moment of its wrath
upset the proudest thrones, destroyed princely famiUes, ruined
noble houses, desolated beautiful cities. And if the counsel of
our great general had heen followed, if the just demands of the
people had heen refused, — this same lesson would have been
VOL. I. — 10

146 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
written in the annals of our own land; and we should most
assuredly have been unable to escape the consequence of that
terrible catastrophe, in which the ignorance . and selfishness of
rulers did, only a few years ago, involve a large part of the civil
ized world.
Thus striking is the contrast between the miUtary genius of
ancient times, and the miUtary genius of modern Europe. The
causes of this decay are clearly traceable to the circumstance
that, oyring to the immense increase of inteUectual employments,
few men of ahiUty wUl now enter a profession into which, in
antiquity, men of ahUity eagerly crowded, as supplying the best
means of exercising those faculties which, in more civilized
countries, are turned to a better account. This, indeed, is a
veiy important change; and thus to transfer the most powerful
intellects from the arts of war to the arts of peace, has been the
slow work of many centuries, the gradual, but constant, encroach
ments of advancing knowledge. To write the history of those
encroachments, would be to write the history of the human
inteUect; a task impossible for any single man adequately to
perform. But the subject is one of such interest, and has heen
so- Uttle studied, that though I have already carried this analysis
further than I had intended, I cannot refrain from noticing what
appear to me to he the three leading ways in which the warlike
spirit of the ancient world has been weakened hy the progress
of European knowledge.
The first of these arose out of the invention of Gunpowder;
which, though a warUke contrivance, has in its results been
eminently serviceable to the interests of peace, ^* This impor
tant invention is said to have been made in the thirteenth cen
tury;^' but was not in common use untU the fourteenth, or even
the beginning of the fifteenth century. Scarcely had it come
into • operation, when it worked a great change in the whole
scheme and practice of war. Before this time, it was considered
'" The consequences of the invention of gunpowder are considered very supe^
ficially by Frederick Schlegel (Lectures on the History of Literature, vol. u. pp. 87,
38), and by Dugald Stewart (Philosophy of the Mind, vol. i. p. 262). They are ex
amined with much greater abUity, though by no meana exhaustively, in Smith's
Wealth of Nations, book v. chap. i. pp. 292, 296, 297 ; Herder's Ideen zur Geschichte
der Menschheit, vol. iv. p. 301 ; Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. U. p. 470.
" From the foUowing authorities, it appears impossible to trace it further back
than the thirteenth century ; and it is doubtful whether the Arabs were, as is. com-

Siberia, vol. i. p. 870, 371, are more positive than the evidence we are possessed of
wUl justify ; but there can be no doubt that a sort of gunpowder was at an early
period used in China, and in other parta of Aaia.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION, 147
the duty of nearly every citizen to be prepared to enter the
mihtary service, for the purpose either of defending his own
country or of attacking others.*" Standing armies were entirely
unknown; and in their place there existed a rude and barbarous
mihtia, always ready for battle, and always unwUling to engage
m those peaceful pursuits which were then universaUy despised.
Nearly every man being a soldier, the miUtary profession, as
such, had no separate existence; or, to speak more properly,
the whole of Europe composed one great army, in which all
other professions were merged. To this the only exception was the
ecclesiastical profession; hut even that was affected hy the gene
ral tendency, and it was not at all uncommon to see large bodies
of troops led to the field hy bishops and abbots, to most of whom
the arts of war were in those days perfectly famiUar.*' At all
e'vents, between these two professions mfen were necessarUy
divided : the only avocations were war and theology; and if you
refused to enter the church, you were hound to sei-ve in the army.
As a natural consequence, every thing of real importance was
altogether neglected. There were, indeed, many priests and
many warriors, many sermons and many battles.*" But, on the
other hand, there was neither trade, nor commerce, nor manu
factures : there was no science, no Uterature : the useful arts
were entirely unknown; and even the highest ranks of society
were unacquainted, not only with the most ordinary comforts,
but with the commonest decencies of cirilized Ufe.
But so soon as gunpowder came into use, there was laid the •
foundation of a great change. According to the old system, a
man had only to possess, what he generaUy inherited from his
*° Vattel, le Droit des Gens, vol. ii. p. 129 ; Lingard's History of England, vol.
u. pp. 356, 357. Among the Anglo-Saxons, "aU free men and proprietors of land,
except the ministers of reUgion, were trained to the use of arms, and always held
ready to take the field at a moment's warning." Eecleston's English Antiquities,
p. 62. " There was no distinction between the soldier and the citizen." Redgrave's
Anglo-Saxon Commonwealth, vol. i. p. 200.
*' On these warUke ecclesiastics, compare (rrose's Military Antiq. vol. i. pp. 67-
8 ; Lingard's Hist, of England, vol. ii. pp. 26, 183, vol. Ui. p. 14; Turner's Hist, of
England, vol. iv. p. 458, voh v. pp. 92, 402, 406 ; Mosheim's Eccl. History, voh i.,pp.
173, 193, 241 ; Crichton's Scandinavia, Edinb. 1838, voh i. p. 220. Such opponents
were the more formidable, because in those happy days it was sacrilege for a layman
to lay hands on a bishop. In 1095 his HoUness the Pope caused a council to de
clare, " Quod qui apprehenderit cpiscopum omnino exlex fiat." Matthoei Paris'
Historia Major, p. 18. As the context contains no Umitation of this, it would foUow
that a man became spiritually outlawed if he, even in self-defence, took a bishop
prisoner. *" As Sharon Turner observes of England under the Anglo-Saxon governraent,
"' war and reUgion were the absorbing subjects of this period." Turner's History
of England, voh Ui. p. 263. And a recent scientific historian says of Europe gener
aUy : " aUe Kiinste und Kenntnisse, die sich nicht auf das edie Kriegs-, Eauf- und
Eaubhandwerk bezogen, waren iiberfliisaig und achadUch. Nur etwaa Theologie
war vonnothen, um die Erde mit dem Himmel zu verbinden." Winckler, Geschichte
der Botanik, 1854, p. 66.

148 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
father, either a sword or a bow, and he was ready equipped for
the field.* ^ According to the new system, new means were
required, and the equipment became more costly and more
difficult. First, there was the supply of gunpowder;** then there
was the possession of muskets, which were expensive weapons
and considered difficult to manage,*" Then, too, there were
other contrivances to which gunpowder naturally gave rise, such
as pistols, bombs, mortars, shells, mines, and the Uke.*' All
*^ In 1181, Henry II. of England ordered that every man should have either a
sword or bow ; which he was not to aeU, but leave to hia heir ; " cseteri autem om
nes haberent wanbasiam, capeUum ferreum, . lauceam et gladium, vel arcura et
sagittas : et prohibuit ne aUquis arma aua venderet vel invadiaret ; aed chm more-
retur, daret ilia propinquiori hseredi auo." Rog. de Hoc. Annul, n Scriptores post
Bedam, p. 348 rev. In the reign of Edward I., it waa ordered that every man
poaaeasing land to the value of forty shiUings ahould keep " a aword, bow and
arrowa, and a dagger. . . . Thoae who were to keep bowa and arrows might have
them out of the foreat." (prose's Military Antiquities, vol. U. pp. 301, 302. Com
pare Geijer's History of the Swedes, part i. p. 94. Even late in the fifteenth century
there were at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, " in each from four to five
thousand scholars, all grown up, carrying swords aud bows, and in great part
gentry." Sir William Hamilton on ihe History of Universities, in Hamilton's Phil-
osoph. Discussions, p. 414. One of the latest attempts made to revive archery; was
a warrant issued by EUzabeth in 1596, and printed by Mr. CoUier in the Egerton
Papers, pp. 217-220, edit. Camden Soc. 1840. K the south-west of England, bows
and arrows did not finaUy disappear from the muster-roUs till 1599 ; and in the
meantime the musket gained ground. See Yonge's Diary, edit. Camden Soc. 1848,
p. xvii. " It is stated by many writers that no gunpowder was manufactured in England
untU the reign of EUzabeth. Camden's Elizabeth, in Kennetts History, vol. ii. p.
388, London, 1719; Strickland's (Queens of England, vol. vi. p. 228, Lond. 1843;
Grose's Military Antiquities, vol. i. p. 378. But Sharon Turner (History of Eng
land, vol. vi. pp. 490, 491, Lond. 1839) has shown, from an order of Eichard III in
the Harleian manuscripts, that it was made in England in 1483 ; and Mr. Eccleston
(English Antiquities, p. 182, Lond. 1847) states, that the EngUsh both made and
exported it as early as 1411: compare p. 202. At aU events, it long remsuned a
coatly article ; and even in the reign of Charlea I., I flnd a complaint of its deamess,
" whereby the train-bands are much discouraged in their exercising." Parliaimeint.
Hist. vol. ii. p. 655. In 1686, it appears from the Clarendon Correspondence, vol. i.
p. 413, that the wholesale price ranged from about 21. 10s. to SI. a barrel. On the
expense of making it in the present century, aee Liebig and Kopp's Reports on
Chemistry, vol. in. p. 325, Lond. 1852.
*^ The muskets were such miserable machines, that, in the middle of the fifteenth
century, it took a quarter of an hour to charge aud fire one. Hallam's Middle
. Ages, vol. i. p. 342. Grose (Military Antiquities, vol. i. p. 146, vol. u. pp. 292,
337) says, that the first mention of muskets in England is in 1471 ; and that rests for
them did not become obsolete untU the reign of Charles I. In the recent edition of
Beckmann's History of Inventions, Lond. 1846, vol. U. p. 535, it is strangely sup
posed that muaketa were " first uaed at the battle of Pavia." Compare JmW,
Histoire de la Milice, vol. i. p. 464, with Smythe's Military Discourses, in Mlis!
Original Letters, p. 53, edit. Camden Society. ,
*° Piatola are said to have been invented early in the sixteenth century. Groses
Military Antiq. vol i. pp, 102, 146. . Gunpowder was first employed in mming
towns in 1487. - Prescotts History of Ferdinand and Isabella, vol. u. p. 32 ; Koch,
Tableau des Revolutions, vol. i. p. 243 ; Daniel, Histoire de la Milice Franqaise, vol.
i. p. 574. Daniel (Milice Franfaise, voh i. pp. 580, 681) aaya, that bombs were not
invented tiU 1688 ; and the same thing ia aaaerted in Biographie UniverseUe, vol
XV. p 248 : but, according to Grose (Military Antiq. vol. i. p. 387), they are men
tioned by Valturinua, in 1472. On the general condition of the French artiUery a

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 149
these things, by increasing the complication of the military art,
increased the necessity of discipUne and practice; whUe, at the
same time, the change that was being effected in the ordinary
weapons deprived the great majority of men of the possibility of
procuring them. To suit these altered circumstances, a new
system was organized; and it was found advisable to tram up
bodies of men for the sole purpose of war, and to separate them as
much as possible from those other employments in which formerly
all soldiei-s were occasionaUy engaged. Thus it was that there
arose standing armies; the first of which were formed in the
middle of the fifteenth century,*' almost immediately after gun
powder was generally knoyra. Thus, too, there arose the custom
of employing mercenary troops; of which we find a few earUer
instances, though the practice was not fully estabUshed untU the
latter part of the fourteenth century.* »
The importance of this movement was soon seen, hy the
change it eft'ected in the classification of European society. The
regular troops being, from their discipUne, more serviceable
against the enemy, and also more immediately under the control
of the government, it naturaUy foUowed that, as their merits
became understood, the old miUtia should faU, first into disre
pute, then be neglected, and then sensibly diminish. At the
same time, this diminution in the number of undisciplined
soldiers deprived the countiy of a part of its warUke resources,
and therefore made it necessary to pay more attention to the
discipUned ones, and to confine them more exclusively to their
military duties. Thus it was that a division was first broadly
estabUshed between the soldier and the civUian; and there arose
a separate miUtary profession,*' which, consisting of a compara--
tively smaU number of the total amount of citizens, left the
the sixteenth century, see Relations des Ambassadeurs Venetiens, voh i. pp. 94,
476, 478, Paris, 1838, 4to ; a curious and valuable pubUcation. There is aome
doubt as to the exact period in which caunona were first known ; but they
were certainly used in war before the middle of the fourteenth century. See
Bohlen, das alte Indien, vol. ii. p. 68 ; and Daniel, Histoire de la Milice, vol. i. pp.
441, 442.
*' Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. i. p. 413 : Daniel, Hist, de la Milice, vol. i. p.
210, vol. U. pp. 491, 493 ; (Euvres de Turgot, vol. vui. pp. 228.
" The leading facts respecting the employment of mercenary troops are in
dicated with great judgment by Mr. HaUam, in his Middle Ages, vol. i. pp. 828
-337. *' Grose (Military Antiquities, vol. i. pp. 310, 311) says, that untUthe sixteenth
century, EngUsh aoldiera had no profeasional dress ; but " were distinguished by
badges of their leaders' arms, similar to those now worn by watermen." It was
also early in the sixteenth century that there first arose a separate miUtary litera
ture. Daniel, Hist, de la Milice, vol. i. p. 880 : " Les auteurs qui ont dorit en ddtaU
sur la discipline miUtaire : or ce n'est gu6res que sous Frangois I, et sous I'Empereur
Charles V, que les Italiens, les Frangois, les Espagnols et les AUemans ont com-
mencd k dcrire sur ce sujet."

150 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
remainder to settle in some other pursuit." In this way, im
mense bodies of men were graduaUy weaned from their old
warUke habits; and being, as it were, forced into civU life, their
energies became avaUable for the general purposes of society,
and for the cultivation of those arts of peace which had formerly
been neglected. The result was, that the European mind,
instead of being, as heretofore, solely occupied either with war
or with theology, now struck out into a middle path, and created
those great branches of knowledge to which modern cirilization
owes its origin. In each successive generation this tendency
towards a separate organization was more marked; the utiUty of
a division of labour became clearly recognized; and as hy this
means knowledge itself advanced, the authority of this middle
or inteUectual class correspondingly increased. Each addition
to its power lessened the weight of the other two classes, and
checked those superstitious feeUngs and that love of war, on
which, in an early state of society, aU enthusiasm is concentrated.
The evidence of the growth and diffusion of this inteUectual
principle is. so full and decisive, that it would be possible, by
combining all the branches of knowledge, to trace nearly the
whole of its consecutive steps. At present, it is enough to say,
that, taking a general view, this third, or inteUectual, class, first
displayed an independent, though stiU a vague, activity, in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries ; that in the sixteenth century,
ihis activity, assuming a distinct form, showed itself in reUgious
outbreaks ; that in the seventeenth century, its energy, becom
ing more practical, was turned against the abuses of governr
ment, and caused a series of rehelUons, from which hardly any
part of Europe escaped; and finaUy, that in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, it has extended its aim to every depart
ment of pubUc and private life, diffusing education, teaching
legislators, controUing kings, and, above aU, settUng on a sure
foundation that supremacy of Public Opinion, to jyhich not only
constitutional princes, but even the most despotic sovereigns, are
now rendered strictly amenable.
These, indeed, are vast questions; and without some knowl
edge of them, no one can understand the present condition of
'° The change from the time when every layman was a soldier, is very remark
able. Adam Smith ( Wealth of Nations, book v. chap. i. p. 291) says, " Among the
civiUzed nations of modern Europe, it is commonly computed, that not more than
the one-hundredth part of the inhabitants of any country can be employed as
soldiers, without ruin to the country which pays the expense of their service." The
same proportion is given in Sadler's Law of Population, vol. i. p. 292 ; and in
Ch-andeur et Decadence des Roma,ins, chap. in. ; (Euvres de Montesquieu, p. 130:
also in Sharpe's History of Egypt, vol. i. p. 105 ; and in Alison's History of Europe,
vol. xu. p. 818.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 151
European society, or form the least idea of its future prospects.
It is, however, sufficient that the reader can now perceive the
way in which so aUght a^ niatter as the invention of gunpowder
diminished the warUkT spirit, hy diminishing the number' of
persons to whom the practice of war was habitual. There were,
no doubt, other and coUateral circumstances which tended in
the same direction; hut the use of gunpowder was the most
effectual, because, by increasing the difficiUty and expense of
war, it made a separate miUtary profession indispensable ; and
thus, curtailing the action of the miUtary spirit, left an overplus,
an unemployed energy, which soon found its way to the pursuits
of peace, infused into them a new life, and began to control that
lust of conquest, which, though natural to a barbarous people,
is the great enemy of knowledge, and is the most fatal of those
diseased appetites hy which even civUized countries are too often
afflicted. The second inteUectual movement, hy which the love of war
has been lessened, is much more recent, and has not yet produced
the whole of itsKnatural effects. I aUude to the discoveries made
by PoUtical Economy; a branch of knowledge with which even
the yyisest of the ancients had not the least acquaintance, but
which possesses an importance it would be difficult to exaggerate,
and is, moreover, remarkable, as being the oiUy subject immedi
ately connected \rith the art of govermhent that has yet heen raised
to a science. The practical value of this noble study, though
perhaps only fuUy known to the more advanced thinkers, is
gradually becoming recognized by men of ordinary education :
hut even those hy whom it is understood, seem to have paid little
attention to the way in which, hy its infiuence, the interests of
peace, and therefore of civUization, have heen directly promoted."
The manner in which this has heen brought about, I yyUl en-
.deavour to explain, as it yrill furnish another argument in support
of that great principle which I yrish to estahUsh.
It is weU known, that, among the different causes of war,
commercial jealousy was formerly one of the most conspicuous;
and there are numerous instances of quarrels respecting the
promulgation of some particular tariff, or the protection of some
favourite manufacture. Disputes of this kind were founded
upon the very ignorant, but the very natural notion, that the
advantages of commerce depend upon the balance of trade, and
that whatever is gained hy one country must be lost by another.
It was heUeved that wealth is composed entirely of money; and
"¦^ The pacific tendencies of political economy are touched on very briefly in
Blanqui, Histoire de VEconomie Politique, vol. ii. p. 207 ; and in Twiss't Progress of
Political Economy, p. 240.

152 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
that it is, therefore, the essential interest of every people to
import few commodities and much gold. Whenever thiswas
do^e, affairs were said to he in a sound and healthy state; hut
if this was not done, it was declared that we were being drained
of our resources, and that some other country was getting the
better of us, and was enriching itself at our expense.^" For this
the only remedy was, to negotiate a commercial treaty, which
should oblige the offending nation to take more of our commod
ities, and give us more of their gold : if, however, they refused
to sign the treaty, it became necessary to bring them to reason;
and for tins purpose an armament was fitted out to attack a
people who, by lessening our wealth, had deprived us of that
money by which alone trade could be extended in foreign mar-
kets.^^ This misconception of the true nature of barter was formerly
universal;'* and being adopted even hy the ablest politicians,
''' This favourite doctrine is lUustrated in a curious " Discourse," written in
1578, and printed in Stow's London, in which it is laid down, that if our exports ex
ceed our imports, we gain by the trade ; but that if they are lesa, we lose. StmJs
London, edit. Thoma, 1842, p. 205. Whenever this balance was disturbed, politi
cians were thrown into an agony of fear. In 1620, Jamea I. said, in one of hislong
speeches, " It's strange that my Mint hath not gone this eight or nine years : but I
think the fault of the want of money ia the uneven balancing of trade." Parl.History,
vol. i. p. 1179 : see also the debate " On the Scarcity of Money," p. 1194-1196. In
1620, the House of Commons, in a state of great alarm, passed a resolution, "That
tbe importation of tobacco out of Spain is one reason of the scarcity of money in
this kingdom." Pari, Hist. vol. i. p. 1198. In 1627, it was actuaUy argued in the
House of Commons that the Netherlands were being weakened by their trade with
the East Indies, because it carried money out of the country ! Pari. Hist. vol. ii.
p. 220. Half a century later the same principle was advocated by Sir WilUam
Temple in hia Letters, and also in hia Obaervationa upon the United Provinces.
Temple's Works, vol. i. p. 175, vol. ii. pp. 117, 118.
*^ In 1672, the celebrated Earl of Shaftesbury, then Lord Chancellor, announced
that the time had come when the EngUsh must go to war with the Dutch ; for that
it waa " impossible both should stand upon a balance ; and that if we do not master
their trade, they will ours. They or we muat truckle. One must and wiU give the
law to the other. There is no compounding, where the contest is for the trade of
the whole world." Somers Tracts, vol. -viii. p. 39. A few months later, stiU insist
ing on the propriety of the war, he gave as one of hia reasons, that it " was neces
sary to the trade of England that there should be a fair adjustment of commerce in
the East Indies." Pari. Hist. vol. iv. p. 687. In 1701, Stepney, a diplomatist and
one of the lords of trade, pubUshed an essay, strongly insisting on the benefits which
would accrue to English commerce by a war with France. Somers Tracts, voh xi.
pp. 199, 217 ; and he says, p. 205, that one of the consequences of peace with
France would be " the utter ruin and destruction of our trade." See also in vol
xiii. p. 688, the remarks on the poUcy of WiUiam III. In 1743, Lord Hardwicke,
one of the most eminent men of his time, said in the House of Lords, "If our wealth
ia diminiahed, it ia time to ruin the commerce of that nation which haa driven us
from the markets of the Continent — ^by sweeping the seas of their ships, and by
blockading their ports." — CampbeU's Lives of the Chancellors, vol. v. p. 89.
" In regard to the seventeenth century, see MilVs History of India, vol. i. pp.
41, 42. To thia I may add, that even Locke had very confuaed notiona respecting
the use of money in trade. See Essay on Money, in Locke's Works, voh iv. ; and
in particular pp. 9, 10, 12, 20, 21, 49-52. Berkeley, profound thinker as he was, feU

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 153
was not only an immediate cause of war, hut increased those
feelings of national hatred by which war is encouraged; each
country thinking that it had a direct interest in diminishing the
wealth of its neighbours.'^ , In the seventeenth, or even late in
the sixteenth century, there were, indeed, one or two eminent
thinkers who exposed some of the fallacies upon which this
opinion was based.'" But their arguments found no favour with
those poUticians by whom European affairs were then adminis
tered. It is doubtful if they were known; and it is certain
that, if known, they were despised by statesmen and legislators,
who, from the constancy of their practical occupations, cannot
he supposed to have sufficient leisure to master each new discov
ery that is successively made; and who in consequence are, as
a body, always in the rear of their age. The result was, that
they went blundering on in the old track, believing that no com
merce could flourish yrithout their interference, troubling that
commerce hy repeated and harassing regulations, and taking for
granted that it was the duty of every government to benefit the
trade of their owm people by injuring the trade of others."
into the aame errors, and assumes the necessity of maintaining the balance of trade,
and lessening our imports in proportion as we lessen our exports. See the Querist,
Nos. xcix. clxi. in Berkeley's Works, vol. u. pp. 246, 250 : see also his proposal for
a sumptuary law in Essay towards preventing the Ruin of Cfreat Britain, in Works,
vol. ii. p. 190. The economical views of Montesquieu (Esprit des Lois, livre xx.
chap.«di. in CEuvres, p. 353) are as hopelessly wrong ; whUe Vattel (Droit des Gens,
vol. i. pp. Ill, 117, 118, 206) goea out of hia way to praiae the miachievoua inter
ference of the English government, which he recommends as a pattern to other
states. °° The Earl of Bristol, a. man of some abiUty, told the House of Lords in 1642,
that it was a great advantage to England for other countries to go to war with each
other ; because by that means we should get their money, or, as he called it, their
"wealth." See his speech, in Pari. History, vol. U. pp. 1274-1279.
'° Serra, who wrote in 1618, is said to have been the first to prove the absurdity
of discouraging the exportation of the precious metals. See Twiss on the Progress
of Political Economy, pp. 8, 12, 18. But I beUeve that the earUest approach towards
modern economical discoveries is a striking essay published in 1581, and ascribed
to WUUam Stafford. It wiU be found in the Harleian Miscellany, vol. ix. pp. 189-
192, edit. Park, 1812 ; and the title Brief Conceipt of English Pollicy, givea an in
adequate idea of what ia, on the whole, the most important work on the theory of
poUtics which had then appeared : since the author not only displays an insight into
the nature of price and value, such aa no previous thinker possessed, but he points
out clearly the causes of that system of enclosures which is the leading economical
fact in the reign of EUzabeth, and is intimately connected with the rise of the poor-
laws. Some account of this eaaay ia given by Dr. Twiss; but the original is easUy
accessible, aud should be read by every student of English history. Among other
heretical propositions, it recommends free trade in corn.
" In regard to the interference of the EngUsh legislature, it is stated by Mr. M'CuI-
loch (Polit. Econ. p. 269), on the authority of a committee ofthe House of Commons,
that before the year 1820," no fewer than two thousand laws with respect to commerce
had been passed at different periods." It may be confidently asserted, that every
one of those laws was an unmitigated evil, since no trade, and indeed no interest of
any kind, can be protected by government without inflicting immeasurably greater
losa upon the unprotected interests and trades ; while if the protection is universal,
the losa will be univeraal. Some atriking inatances of the absurd laws which have

154 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
But in the eighteenth century, a long course of events,,which
I shaU hereafter trace^ prepared the way for a spirit of improve
ment, and a desire for reform, of whicli the world had then seen
no example. This great movement displayed its energy, iq
every -department of knowledge ; and now it was that a success
ful attempt was first ma.de to raise PoUtical Economy to
a science, by discovering tlie laws which regulate the creation
and diffusion of wealth. In the, year 1776, Adam Smith
published his Wealth of Nations ;( which, looking at its ultimate
results, is probably the most important hook that has ever been
written, and is certainly .tlie most valuable contribution ever
made by a single man towards establishing the principles
on which government should he based. In this great work, the
old theory of protection as appUed to commerce, was destroyed
in nearly aU its parts;'^ the doctrine of the balance of trade was
not only attacked, hut its falsehood was demonstrated; and
innumerable absurdities, which had heen accumulatiag for ages,
were suddenly swept away."
If the Wealth of Nations had appeared in any preceding
century, it wmild have shared the fate of the great works of
Stafford and Serra; fand although the principles which it advo
cated would, n6 douDt, have excited the attention of speculative
thinkers, they would, in aU probabUity, have produced no
effect on practical poUticians, or, at aU events, would only jjiave
exercised an indirect and precarious infiuence. ) But the diffusion
of knowledge had now become so general, that even our ordi
nary legislators were, in some degree, prepared for these great
truths, which, in a former period, they would have despised as
idle novelties. The result was, that the doctrines of Adam
Smith soon found their way into the House of Commons;"
and, being adopted by a few of the leading members, were
Ustened to with astonishment hy that great assembly whose
been passed respecting, trade, are coUected in Barringtorts Observations on the
Statutes, pp. 279-285. Indeed, it was considered necessary that every parhament
should do something in thia way ; and Charlea II., in one of hia apeeches, says, "I
pray, contrive any good abort billa which may improve the industry of the nation
.... and so God bless your councUs." Pari. Hist. vol. iv. p. 291. Compare the
remarks on the fishery-trade, in Somers Ti-acts, vol. xii. p. 88.
'" To this the only exception of any moment is the view taken of the usury-laws,
which Jeremy Bentham haa the honour of demoUshing.
" Before Adam Smith, the principal merit is due to Hume ; but the works of
that profound thinker were too fragmentary to produce much effect. Indeed
Hume, notwithstanding hia vast powers, was inferior to Smith in comprehensiveness
as well as iu industry.
"" The flrst notice I have observed of the Wealth of Nations in ParUament is in
1783 ; and between then and the end of the century it is referred to aeveral times,
and latterly with increasing frequency. See Parliamentary History, vol. xxiii. p.
1182, vol. xxvi. pp. 481, 1035, vol. xxvU. p. 385, voh xxix. pp. 834, 905, 982,1065,
voh XXX. pp. 330, 333, voh xxxu. p. 2, vol. xxxui. pp. 363, 886, 522, 548, 649, 563,

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 155
opinions were mainly regulated by the wisdom of their
ancestors, and who were loth to heUeve that any thing could he
discovered hy the moderns which was not already known to the
ancients. But it is in vain that such men as these always set
theinselves up to resist the pressure of advancing knowledge.
No great truth, which has once heen found, has ever afterwards
been lost; nor has any important discovery yet been made which
has not eventuaUy carried every thing hefore it. Even so, the
piinciples of Free Trade, as demonstrated hy Adam Smith, and
aU the consequences which flow from them, were vainly struggled
agamst by the most overwhelming majorities of both Houses of
ParUament. Year hy year the great truth made its way;
always advancing, never receding." The majority was at first
deserted by a few men of abiUty, then hy ordinary men, then
it became a minority, then even the minority began to
dwindle; and at the present day, eighty years after the
pubUcation of Smith's Wealth of Nations, there is not to he
found any one of tolerable education who is not ashamed of
holding opinions which, hefore the time of Adam Smith, were
universaUy received.
Such is the way in which great thinkers control the affairs
of men, and by their discoveries regulate the march of nations.
And truly the history of this one triumph alone, should he
enough to repress the presumption of statesmen and legislators,
who so exaggerate the importance of their craft, as to ascribe
great results to their own shifting and temporary contrivances.
For, whence did they derive that knowledge, of which they are
always ready to assume the merit ? How did they obtain their
opinions ? How did they get at their principles ? These are
the elements of their success ; and these they can only learn
fi-om their masters, — ^from those great teachers, who, moved hy
the inspiration of genius, fertUize the world with their discoveries.
WeU may it he said of Adam Smith, and said too without fear
774, 777, 778, 822, 823, 824, 825, 827, 1249, vol. xxxiv. pp. 11, 97, 98, 141, l42,
304, 4'73, 850, 901, 902, 903. It is possible that one or two passages may have been
overlooked ; but I believe that these are the only inatances of Adam Smith being re
ferred to during aeventeen yeara. From a paaaage in Pellew's Life of Sidmouth,
voh i. p. 51, it appears that even Addington was studying Adam Smith in 1787.
" In 1797, Pulteney, in one of his financial speeches, appealed to "the authority
of Dr. Smith, who, it was weU said, would persuade the present generation, and
govern the next." Pari. Hist. vol. xxxiu. p. 778. In 1813, Dugald Stewart (Phi
losophy of the Human Mind, vol. u. p. 472) announced that the doctrine of free
trade " has now, I believe, become the prevailing creed of thinking men aU over
Europe." And in 1816, Eicardo said, "The reasoning by which the liberty of trade
is supported ia so powerful, that it is daily obtaining converts. It ia with pleasure
that I see the progress which thia great principle ia making amongat those whom
we should have expected to cUng the longest to old prejudices." Proposals for an
economical Currency, in Ricardo's Works, p. 407.

156 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
of contradiction, that this solitary Scotchman has, hy the pubU
cation of one single work, contributed more towards the happi
ness of man, than has been effected hy the united abiUties of aU
the statesmen and legislators of whom history has preserved an
authentic account.
The result of these great discoveries I am not here concerned
to examine, except so far as they aided in diminishing the
energy of the warlike spirit. And the way in which they
effected this may he easUy stated. As long as it was generaUy
believed that the wealth of a country consists of its gold, it' was
of course also believed that the sole object of trade is to in
crease the influx of the precious metals : it, therefore, became
natural that Government should he expected to take meas
ures by which such influx could he secured. This, however,
could only he done by draining other countries of their
gold; a result which they, for precisely the same reasons,
strenuously resisted. The consequence was, that any idea of
real reciprocity was impossible : every commercial treaty was an
aittempt made hy one nation to outwit another;^" every new
tariff was a declaration of hostUity; and that which ought to be
the most peaceable of aU pursuits, became one of the causes of
those national jealousies and national animosities, by which war
is mainly promoted.*^ But when it was once clearly understood
that gold and silver are not wealth, but are merely the represent
atives of wealth ; when men began to see that wealth itseff
solely consists of the value which skiU and labour can add
to the raw material, and that money is of no possible use to a
nation except to measure and circulate their riches; when these
great truths were recognized,'* aU the old notions respecting
the balance of trade, and the supreme importance of the
"" Sir Theodore Janaon, in his General Maxims of Trade, pubUshed in 1713, lays
it down aa a principle universaUy recognized, that " AU tbe nationa of Europe seem
to strive who shaU outwit one another in point of trade ; and they concur in this
maxim, That the less they consume of foreign commodities, the better it is for them."
Somers Tracts, voh xiii. p 292. Thus, too, in a Dialogue between an Englishman and
a Dutchman, pubUshed iu 1700, the Dutchman is represented as boasting that his
government had " forced treaties of commerce excluaive to aU other nations."—
Sopiers Tracts, vol. xi. p. 876. Thia ia the system of " narrow selflshneaa" denounced
by Dr. Story, in bis noble work. Conflict of Laws, 1841, p. 32.
'" "It cannot, indeed, be denied, that mistaken views of commerce, like those so
frequently entertained of reUgion, have bqen the cause of many wars aud of much
bloodshed." M'Culloch's Principles of Political Economy, p. 140. See also pp. 37,
38 : " It has made each nation regard the welfare of its neighbours as incompatible
with its own ; hence the reciprocal desire of injuring and impoveriahing each other;
and hence that spirit of commercial rivalry, which has been the immediate or remote
cause of the greater number of modern wars."
" On the rapid diffusion during the present century of the principles worked out
by the economists, compare Laing's Sweden, pp. 356-358, with a note to the last
edition of Malthus on Population, 1826, vol. ii. pp. 854, 355.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 157
precious metals, at once feU to the ground. These enormous errors
being dispersed, the true theory of barter was easily worked out.
It was perceived, that if commerce is allowed to be free, its
advantages yriU be shared by every country which engages in
it; that, in the absence of monopoly, the benefits of trade are of
necessity reciprocal ; and that, so far from depending on the
amount of gold received, they simply arise from the facUity with
which a nation gets rid of those commodities which it can produce
most cheaply, and receives in return those commodities which it
could only produce at a great expense, hut which the other na
tion can, from the skiU of its workmen, or from the bounty of
nature, afford to supply at a lower rate. From this it followed,
that, in a mercantUe point of 'riew, it would he as absurd to
attempt to impoverish a people with whom we trade, as it would
he in a tradesman to wish for the insolvency of a rich and
frequent customer. )The result is, that the commercial spirit,
which formerly was often warlike, is now invariably pacific."
And although it is perfectly true that not one merchant
aut of a hundred is famiUar with the arguments on which
these economical discoveries are founded, that does not
prevent the effect which the discoveries themselves produce
on his owm mind. The mercantUe class is, Uke every other,
acted upon hy causes which only a few members of that class are
ahle to perceive. Thus, for instance, of aU the innumerable
opponents of protection, there are very few, indeed, who can give
valid reasons to justify their opposition. But this does not
prevent the opposition fi-om taking place. For an immense
majority of men always foUow yrith implicit submission the
spirit of their own time ; and the spirit of the times is merely
its knowledge, and the direction that knowledge takes. As, in
the ordinary avocations of daUy Ufe, every one is benefited, in
the increase of his comforts, and of his general security, hy the
progress of many arts and sciences, of which perhaps he does
not even know the name, just so is the mercantile class benefited
by those great economical discoveries which, in the course of two
generations, have already effected a complete change in the com
mercial legislation of this country, and which are now operating
slowly, but steadUy, upon those other European states, where,
"' " The feeUngs of rival tradesmen, prevailing among nations, overruled for
centuries aU sense of the general community of advantage which commercial coun
tries derive fi'om the prosperity of one another ; and that commercial spirit, which
is now one of the strongest obstacles to wars, was during a certain period of European
history their principal cause." MilVs Political Economy, 1849, vol. ii. p. 221. This
great change in the feelings of the commercial classes did not be^n before the pres
ent century, and has not been visible to ordinary observers until the last five-and-
twenty or thirty years ; but it was foretold in a remarkable passage written by Her
der in 1787 : see his Ideen zur Geschichte, voh ui. pp. 292, 293.

158 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
puhUc opinion being less powerful, -it is more difficult to estahUsh
great truths and extirpate old abuses. WhUe, therefore, it is
perfectly tru«, that among merchants, a comparatively smaU
number are acquainted with poUtical economy, it is not the less
true that they owe a large part of their wealth to the poUtical
eeononrists ; who, hy removing the obstacles yrith which the
ignorance of successive governments had impeded trade, have
now settled on a soUd foundation that commercial prosperity
which is by no means the least of our national glories. Most
assuredly is it also true, that this same inteUectual movement
has lessened the chance of war, hy ascertaining the principles
which ought to regulate our commercial relations with foreign
countries ; by proving, not only the inutUity, but the positive
mischief, caused hy interfering with them ; and finaUy hy ex
ploding those long-established errors, which, inducing men to
believe that nations are the natural enemies of each other,
encouraged those evU feeUngs, and fostered those national
jealousies, to the strength of which the mUitary spirit owed no
small share of its former influence.
The third great cause by which the love of war has been
weakened, is the way in which discoveries respecting the
appUcation of Steam to the purposes of traveUing have
facUitated the intercourse between different countries, and
thus aided in destroying that ignorant contempt which one
nation is too apt to feel for another. Thus, for instance,
the miserable and impudent falsehoods which a large class of
English writers formerly directed against the morals and private
character of the French, and, to their shame he it said,
even against the chastity of French women, tended not a
Uttle to embitter the angry feelings then existing between the
two first countries of Europe ; irritating the EngUsh against
French vices, irritating the French against EngUsh calumnies.
In the same way, there was a time when every honest EngUshman
firnUy heUeved that he could heat ten Frenchmen : a class
of beings whom he held in sovereign contempt, as a lean and
stunted race, who drank claret instead of brandy, who lived
entirely off frogs ; miserable infidels, who heard mass every
Sunday, who bowed down hefore idols, and who even worshipped
the Pope. On the other hand, the French were taught to de
spise us, as rude unlettered barbarians, without either taste or
humanity ; surly, iU-conditioned men, Uving in an unhappy
climate, where a perpetual fog, only varied by rain, prevented
the sun from ever being seen ; suffering from so deep and
inveterate a melancholy, that physicians had called it the
EngUsh spleen ; and, under the influence of this cruel mala-

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 159
dy, constantly committing suicide, particularly in November,
when we wese weU known to hang and shoot ourselves hy
thousands." J
Whoever has looked much into the older Uterature of France
and England, knows that these were the opinions which the two
first nations of Europe, in the ignorance and simplicity of their
hearts, held respecting each other. But the progress of improve
ment, hy bringing the two countries into close and intimate con
tact, has dissipated these foolish prejudices, and taught each
people to admire, and, what is still more important, to respect
each other. And the greater the contact, the greater the re
spect/' For, whatever theologians may choose to assert, it is cer
tain that mankind at large has far more vir'tue than rice, and
that in every country good actions are more frequent than bad
ones. Indeed, if this were otherwise, the preponderance of evil
would long since have destroyed the human race, and not even
have left a single man to lament the degeneracy of his species.
An additional proof of this is the fact, that the more nations as
sociate yrith each other, and the more they see and know of their
fellow-creatures, the more quickly do ancient enmities disappear.
This is hecause an enlarged experience proves that mankind is
not so radicaUy had as we fi-om our infancy are taught to beUeve.
But if 'rices were reaUy more frequent than virtues, the result
would be, that the increasing amalgamation of society would in
crease our bad opinion of others ; because, though we may love
our own vices, we do not generally love the 'rices of our neigh
bours. So far, however, is this from being the actual conse
quence, that it has always heen found, that those whose exten
sive knowledge makes them best acquainted with the general
course of human actions, are precisely those who take the most
favourable 'riew of them. The greatest observer and the most
profound thinker is invariably the most lenient judge. It is the
soUtary misanthrope, brooding over his fanciied wrongs, who is
most prone to depreciate the good qualities of our nature, and
exaggerate its bad ones. Or else it is some fooUsh and ignorant
monk, who, dreaming away his existence in an idle soUtude,
flatters his own vanity by denouncing the vices of others ; and
thus declaiming against the enjoyments of Ufe, revenges himself
°° That there are more suicides in gloomy weather than in fine weather, used al
ways to be taken for granted, and was a favourite topic with the French wita, who
were never weary of expatiating on our love of aelf-murder, and on the relation be
tween it and our murky cUmate. Unfortunately for such speculations, the fact is
exactly opposite to what is generally supposed, and we have decisive evidence that
there are more auicidea in aummer than in winter. See (Quetelet sur VHomme, vol.
u. pp. 162, 158; Tissot de la Manic du Suicide, Paria, 1840, pp. 60, 149, 160; Jour
nal of Statistical Society, vol i. p. 102 ; Winslow's Anatomy of Suicide, 1840, pp.
181, 182; Hawkins's Medical Statistics, p. 170.

160 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
on that society from which hy his own superstition he is excluded.
These are the sort of men who insist most strongly on the cor
ruption of our nature, and on the degeneracy into which we have
fallen. The enormous e'vU which such opinions have brought
about, is well understood by those who have studied the history
of countries in which they are, and have heen, most prevalent.
Hence it is that, among the innumerable benefits derived from
advancing knowledge, there are few more important than those
improved faciUtiesof commuiucation," which, by increasing the
frequency with which nations and indiriduals are brought into
contact, have, to an extraordinary extent, corrected their preju
dices, raised the opinion which each forms of the other, dimin
ished their mutual hostUity, and thus diffusing a more favoura
ble view of our common nature, have stimulated us to develop
those boundless resources of the human understanding, the very
existence of which it was once considered almost a heresy to as
sert. This is precisely what has occurred in modern Europe. The
French and EngUsh people have, By the mere force of increased
contact, learned to think more favourably of each other, and to
discard that fooUsh contempt in which both nations formerly in
dulged. In this, as in all cases, the better one civiUzed country
is acquainted with another, the more it wUl find to respect and
to imitate. For of ,aU the causes of national hatred, ignorance
is the most powerful. When you increase the contact, you re
move the ignorance, and thus you diminish the hatred.'^ This
is the true bond of charity ; and it is worth all the lessons which
moralists and dirines are ahle to teach. They have pursued
their vocation for centuries, without producing the least effect
in lessening the frequency of war. But it may he said yrithout
the sUghtest exaggeration, that every new raUroad which is laid
down, and evei^wesh steamer which crosses the Channel, are
additional guaJaRees for the preservation of that long and un
broken peace which, during forty years, has knit together the
°' Eeapecting which I wiU only mention one fact, in regard to our own country.
By the returns of the Board of Trade, it appeara that the paasengera annually travel
ling by railway amounted in 1842 to nineteen milUona; but in 1862 they had in
creased to more than eigbty-aix milUona. Journal of SlatisticcU Society, vol. xvi,
p. 292. °° Of this Mr.. Stephens (in his valuable work, Opitral America, vol. i. pp.
247-8) relates an interesting instance in the case of that remarkable man Carrera :
" Indeed, in no particular had he changed more than in his opinion of foreigners ; a
happy iUustration of the effect of personal intercourse in breaking down prejudices
against individuals or classes." Mr. Elphinstone (History of India, p. 196) says:
" Those who have known the Indians longest, have always the best opinion of them;
but this is rather a compliment to human nature than to them, since it is true of every
other people." Compare an instructive passage in Darwin's Journal of Researches,
p. 421, with Burdach, Traiti de Physiologie comme Science d' Observation, voh u. p. 61.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION, 161
^fortunes and the interests of the two most civUized nations of
the earth,
I have thus, so far as my knowledge wUl permit, endeavoured
to radicate the causes which have diminished reUgious persecu
tion and war ; the two greatest evUs with which men have yet
contrived to afifiict their feUow-creatures, The question of the
decline of religious persecution I have only briefly noticed, he-
cause it wUl he more fuUy handled in a subsequent part of this
volume. Enough, however, has been advanced to prove how
essentiaUy it is an inteUectual process, and how Uttle good can
be effected on this subject by the operation of moral feelings.
The causes of the decliie of the warlike spirit I have examined
at considerable, and, perhaps, to some readers, at tedious length ;
and the result of that examination has been, that the decUne is
oyring to the increase of the inteUectual classes, to whom the
mUitary classes are necessarily antagonistic. In pushing the in
quiry a little deeper, we have, by stUl further analysis, ascer
tained the existence of three vast though subsidiary causes, hy
which the general movement has heen accelerated. These are —
the invention of Gunpowder, the discoveries of Political Economy,
and the discovery of improved means of Locomotion. Such are
the three great modes or channels hy which the progress of knowl
edge has weakened the old warlike spirit ; and the way in which
they have effected this has, I trust, been clearly pointed out.
The facts and arguments wliich I have brought .forward, have,
I can conscientiously say, been subjected to careful and repeated
scrutiny ; and I am quite unable to see on what possible ground
their accuracy is to he impugned. That they yvill be disagree
able to certain classes, I am well aware ; but the unpleasant
ness of a statement is hardly to he considered a proof of its false
hood. The sources from which the evidence^^s heen derived
are fuUy indicated ; and the arguments, I l^S; fairly stated.
And from them there results a most important ^mclusion. From
them we are hound to infer, that the two oldest, greatest, most
inveterate, and most widely-spread evils which have ever heen
known, are constantly, though, on the whole, slowly, diminish
ing ; and that their diminution has been effected, not at aU by
moral feeUngs, nor hy moral teachings, hut solely by the activ
ity of the human int Jtect, and hy the inventions and discoveries
which, in a long course of successive ages, man has heen able to
make. Since, then, in the two most important phenomena which the
progress of society presents, the moral laws have been steadily
and invariably subordinate to the inteUectual laws, there arises
a strong presumption that in inferior matters the same process
VOL. I. — 1 1

162 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
has been foUowed. To prove this in its full extent, and thus
raise the presumption to an absolute certainty, would he to
write, not an Introduction to history, hut the History itself The
reader must, therefore, be satisfied for the present yrith what, I
am conscious, is merely an approach towards demonstration;
and the complete demonstration must necessarUy he reserved for
the future volumes of this work : in which I pledge myself to
show that the progress Europe has made from barbarism to civ
Uization is entirely due to its inteUectual activity ; that the
leading countries have now, for some centuries, advanced suffi
ciently far to shake off the influence of those physical agencies
hy which in an earlier state their career might have heen troubled ;
and that although the moral agencies are still powerful, and stUl
cause occasional disturbances, these are but aberrations, which, if
we compare long periods of time, balance each other, and thus in
the total amount entirely disappear. So that, in a great and
comprehensive view, the changes in every civUized people are,
in their aggregate, dependent solely on 'three things : first, on
the amount of knowledge possessed by their ablest men ; sec
ondly, on the direction which that knowledge takes, that is to_^
say, the sort of subjects to which it refers ; thirdly, and above
aU, on the extent to which the knowledge is diffused, and the
freedom with which it pervades aU classes of society.
These are the three great movers of every civiUzed country ;.
and although their operation is frequently disturbed hy the rices
or the virtues of powerful individuals, such moral feeUngs correct
each other, and the average of long periods remain unaffected.
Owing to causes of which we are ignorant, the moral quaUties do,
no doubt, constantly vary ; so that in one man, or perhaps even
in one generation, there wiU be an excess of good intentions, in
another an exce^ of bad ones. But we have no reason to think
that any perm^»it change has heen effected in the proportion
which those whWiaturally possess good intentions bear to those
in whom had ones seem to be inherent. In what may he caUed
the innate and original morals of mankind, there is, so far as we
are aware, no progress. Of the different passions with which we
are bom, some are more prevalent at* one time, some at another ;
but experience teaches us that, as they are always antagonistic,
they are held in balance hy the force o|W;heir own opposition.
The activity of one motive is corrected hyTne acti-rity of another.
For to every vice there is a corresponding virtue. Cruelty is
counteracted hy benevolence ; sympathy is excited by suffering ;
the injustice of some provokes the charity of others ; new evUs
are met by new remedies, and even the most enormous offences
that have ever heen known have left behind them no permanent

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 163
impression. The desolation of countries and the slaughter of
men are losses which never fail to be repaired, and at the distance
of a few centuries every vestige of them is effaced. The gigantic
crimes of Alexander or Napoleon become after a time void of ef
fect, and the affairs of the world return to their former level.
This is the ebb and flow of history, the perpetual flux to which
by the laws of our nature we are subject. Above all this, there
is a far higher movement ; and as the tide roUs on, now advanc
ing, now receding, there is, amid its endless fluctuations, one
thing, and one alone, which endures for ever. The actions of had
men produce only temporary eril, the actions of good men only
temporary good ; and eventuaUy the good and the evil altogether
subside, are neutralized by subsequent generations, absorbed hy
the incessant movement 9f future ages. But the discoveries of
great men never leave us ; they are immortal, they contain those
eternal truths which survive the shock of empUes, outUve the
struggles of rival creeds, and witness the decay of successive re
Ugions. All these have their different measures and their differ
ent standards ; one set of opinions for one age, another set for
another. They pass away Uke a dream ; they are as the fabric
of a -vision, which leaves not a rack behind. The discoveries of
genius alone remain : it is to them we owe aU that we now have,
they are for aU ages and all times ; never young, and never old,
they hear the seeds of their own Ufe ; they flow on in a perennial
and undying stream ; they are essen'tially cumulative, and giving
birth to the additions which they subsequently receive, they thus
influence the most distant posterity, and after the lapse of cen
turies produce more effect than they were able to do even at the
moment of their promulgation.

164

CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.

CHAPTER V.
IN QUIRT INTO THB INFLUENCE EXERCISED BT RELIGION, LITEEATUKE,
AND GOVERNMEUT.
By applying to the history of Man those methods of investiga
tion which have heen found successful in other branches of knowl
edge, and hy. rejecting aU preconceived notions which would not
hear the test of those methods, we have arrived at certain results,
the heads of which it may now he convenient to recapitulate.
We have seen that our actions, being solely the result of internal
and external agencies, must he expUcahle hy the laws of those
agencies ; that is to say, hy mental layvs and hy physical laws.
We have also seen that mental laws are, in Europe, more power
ful than physical laws ; and that, in the progress of ci'vUization,
their superiority is constantly increasing, hecause advancing knowl
edge multiplies the resources of the mind, but leaves the old re
sources of nature stationary. On this account, we have treated
the mental laws as being the great regulators of progress ; and
we have looked at the physical laws as occupying a subordinate
place, and as merely displaying themselves in occasional disturb
ances, the force and frequency of which have been longdecUning,
and are now, on a large average, almost inoperative. Having, by
this means, resolved the study of what may be caUed the dynam
ics of society into the study of the laws of the mind, we have
s'abjected these last to a simUar analysis ; and we have found
that they consist of two parts, namely, moral laws and intellect
ual laws. By comparing these two parts, we have clearly ascer
tained the vast superiority of the inteUectual laws ; and we have
seen, that as the progress of civUization is marked by the triumph
of the mental laws over the physical, just so is it marked hy the
triumph of the intellectual laws over the moral ones. This im
portant inference rests on two distinct arguments. First, that
moral truths being stationary, and intellectual truths being pro
gressive, it is highly improbable that the progress of society

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 165
should he due to moral knowledge, which for many centuries has
remained the same, rather than to intellectual knowledge, which
for many centuries has heen incessantly advancing. The other
argument consists in the fact, that the two greatest erils known
to mankind have not heen diminished by moral improvement ;
hut have been, and stiU are, yielding to the influence of inteUect
ual discoveries. From aU 'this it evidently foUows, that if we
¦wish to ascertain the conditions which regulate the progress of
modern ciriUzation, we must seek them in the history of the
amount and diflusion of intellectual knowledge ; and we must
consider physical phenomena and moral principles as causing, no
doubt, great aberrations in short periods, but in long periods cor
recting and balancing themselves, and thus learing the inteUect
ual laws to act uncontroUed hy these inferior and subordinate
agents. Such is the conclusion to which we have been led hy succes
sive analyses, and on which we now take our stand. The actions
of individuals are greatly affected hy their moral feeUngs and hy
their passions ; hut these being antagonistic to the passions and
feelings of other individuals, are balanced hy them ; so that their
effect is, in the great average of human affairs, nowhere to he
seen ; and the total actions of mankind, considered as a whole,
are left to he regulated hy ihe total knowledge of which mankind
is possessed. And of the way in which individual feeUng and
individual caprice are thus absorbed and neutraUzed, we find a
clear Ulustration in the facts already brought forward respecting
the history of crime. For hy those facts it is decisively proved,
that the amount of crime committed in a country is, year after
year, reproduced with the most startling uniformity, not being
in the least affected hy those capricious and personal feelings to
which human actions are too often referred. But if, instead of
examining the history of crime year by year, we were to examine
it month hy month, we shoiUd find less regularity ; and if we
were to examine it hour by hour, we should find no regularity at
aU ; neither would its regularity be seen, if, instead of the crim
inal records of a whole country, we only knew those of a single
street, or of a single famUy. This is because the great social laws
by which crime, is governed, can only be perceived after observing
great numbers or long periods ; hut in a small number, and a
short period, the individual moral principle triumphs, and dis
turbs the operation of the larger and intellectual law. WhUe,
therefore, the moral feeUngs hy which a man is urged to commit
a crime, or to abstain from it, wUl produce an immense effect on
the amount of his own crimes, they yrill produce no effect on the
amount of crimes committed by the society to which he belongs ;

166 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
because, in the long-run, they are sure to he neutralized hy oppo
site moral feeUngs, which cause in other men an opposite conduct.
Just in the same way, we are all sensible that moral principles
do affect nearly the whole of our actions ; hut we have incontro
vertible proof that they produce not the least effect on mankind
in the aggregate, or even on men in very large masses, provided
that we take the precaution of studying social phenomena for a
period sufficiently long, and on a scale sufficiently great, to enable
the superior laws to come into uncontroUed operation.
The totaUty of human actions being thus, from the highest
point of view, governed by the totality of human knowledge, it
might seem a simple matter to collect the evidence of the knowl
edge, and, hy subjecting it to successive generaUzations, ascertain'
the whole of the laws which regulate the progress of civiUzation.
And that this wiU he eventually done, I do not entertain the
sUghtest doubt. But, unfortunately, history has heen written
hy men so inadequate to the great task they have undertaken,
that few of the necessary materials have yet heen brought
together. Instead of telling us those things which alone have
any value, — instead of giving us information respecting the
progress of knowledge, and the way in which mankind has been
affected by the diffusion of that knowledge, — ^instead of these
things, the vast majority of historians fill their works with the
most trifling and miserable detaUs : personal anecdotes of kings
and courts; interminable relations of what was said by one min
ister, and what was thought hy another ; and, what is worse
than all, long accounts of campaigns, battles, and sieges, very
interesting to those engaged in them, hut to us utterly useless,
because they neither famish new truths, nor do they supply the
means by which new truths may he discovered. This is the
real impediment which now stops our advance. It is this want
of judgment, and this ignorance of what is most worthy of selec
tion, which deprives us of materials that ought long since to
have been accumulated, arranged, and stored-up for future use.
In other great branches of knowledge, observation has preceded
discovery; first the facts have heen registered, and then their
laws have heen found. But in the study of the history of Man,
the important facts have been neglected, and the unimportant
ones preserved. The consequence is, that whoever now attempts
to generalize historical phenomena, must collect the facts, as
weU as conduct the generalization.. He finds nothing ready to
his hand. He must be the mason as well as the architect ; he
must not only scheme the edifice, but Ukewise excavate the
quarry. The necessity of performing this double labour entails-
upon the philosopher such enormous drudgery, that the limits

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 167
of an entire life are unequal to the task; and history, instead of
being ripe, as it ought to be, for complete and exhaustive gen
eraUzations, is stUl in so crude and informal a state, that not
the most determined and protracted industry wiU enable any
one to comprehend the really important actions of mankind,
during even so short a period as two successive centuries.
On account of these things, I have long since abandoned my
original scheme; and I have reluctantly determined to write the
history, not of general civUization, hut of the civUization of a
single people. WhUe, however, hy this means, we curtaU the
field of inquiry, we unfortunately diminish the resources of which
the inquiry is possessed. For although it is perfectly true, that
the totaUty of human actions, if considered in long periods,
depends on the totality of human knowledge, it must be aUowed
that this great principle, when applied only to one country,
loses something of its original value. The more we diminish
our observations, the greater becomes the uncertainty of the
average; in other words, the greater the chance of the operation
of the larger laws being troubled by the operation of the smaller.
The interference of foreign governments; the influence exercised
by the opinions, Uterature, and customs of a foreign people; their
invasions, perhaps even their conquests; the forcible introduc
tion by them of new reUgions, new laws, and new manners, — aU
these things are perturbations, which, in a view of universal
history, equaUze each other, but which, in any one country, are
apt to disturb the natural march, and thus render the movements
of civUization more difficult to calculate. The manner in which
I have endeavoured to meet this difficulty wUl be presently
stated; hut what I first wish to point out, are the reasons which
have induced me to select the history of England as more im
portant than any other, and therefore as the most worthy of
being subjected to a complete and phUosophic investigation.
Now, it is erident that, inasmuch as the great advantage ol
studying past events consists in the possibility of ascertaining
the laws by which they were governed, the history of any people
wUl become more valuable in proportion as their movements
have been least disturbed hy agencies not arising from them
selves. Every foreign or external infiuence which is brought to
hear upon a nation is an interference with its natural develop
ment, and therefore complicates the circumstances we seek to
investigate. To simplify complications is, in all branches, of
knowledge, the first essential of success. This is very fq-tiiiUar
to the cultivators of physical science, who are often aWe, hy a
single experiment, to discover a truth which innumerable obser
vations had vainly searched; the reason being, tha^ hy experi-
\

168 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
menting on phenomena, we can disentangle them from their
compUcations; and thus isolating them from the interference of
unknown agencies, we leave them, as it were, to run their own
course, and disclose the operation of their own law.
This, then, is the true standard by which we must measure
the value of the history of any nation. The importance of the
history of a country depends, not upon the splendour of its
exploits, but upon the degree to which its actions are due to
causes springing out of itself. If, therefore, we could find some
civUized people who had worked out their civilization entirely
by themselves ; who had escaped aU foreign influence, and who
had been neither benefited nor retarded by the personal pecuUari
ties of their rulers, — the history of such a people would he of
paramount importance; hecause it would present a condition of
normal and inherent development; it would show the laws of
progress acting in a state of isolation; it would be, in fact, an
experiment ready-made, and would possess all the value of that
artificial contrivance to which natural science is so much in
debted. To find such a people as this is obviously impossible; but
the duty of the phUosophic historian is, to select for his especial
study the country in which the conditions have been most closely
followed. Now, it wUl he readily admitted, not only by ourselves,
hut by intelUgent foreigners, that in England, during, at all
events, the last three centuries, this has heen dbne more con
stantly and more successfully than in any other country. I say
nothing of the number of our discoveries, the brilliancy of our
Uterature, or the success of our arms. These are invidious
topics ; and other nations may perhaps deny to us those superior
merits which we are apt to exaggerate. But I take up this
single position, that of aU European countries, England is the
one where, during the longest period, the government has been
most quiescent, and the people most active; where popular
freedom has been settled on the yridest basis; where each man
is most able to say what he thinks, and do what he Ukes; where
every one can follow his own bent, and propagate his own opin
ions; where, religious persecution being Uttle known, the play
and fiow of the human mind may he clearly seen, unchecked by
^ those restraints to which it is elsewhere subjected; where the
|profession of heresy is least dangerous, and the practice of dissent
imost common; where hostile creeds flourish side hy side, and
rise and decay without disturbance, according to the wants of
the people, unaffected hy the wishes of the church, and uncon-
jtroUed by the authority ofthe state; where aU interests, and aU
classes, both spiritual and temporal, are most left to take care

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 169
of themselves; where that meddlesome doctrine caUed Protec
tion was first attacked, and where alone it has been destroyed;
and where, in a word, those dangerous extremes to which inter
ference gives rise having heen avoided, despotism and rebellion
are equally rare, and concession being recognized as the ground
work of poUcy, the national progress has been least disturbed
hy the power of privUeged classes, hy the influence of particular
sects, or by the 'riolence of arbitrary rulers.
That these are the characteristics of EngUsh history is
notorious ; to some men a matter of boast, to others of regret.
And when to these circumstances we add, that England, owing
to its insular formation,' was, until the middle of the last cen
tury, rarely visited hy foreigners, it becomes evident that, in our
progress as a people, we have been less affected than any other
by the two main sources of interference, namely, the authority
of government, and the influence of foreigners. In the sixteenth
century, it became a fashion, among the English nobiUty, to
travel abroad;" but it was hy no means the fashion for foreign
nohUity to travel in England. In the seventeenth century, the
custom of traveUing for amusement spread so much, that, among
the rich and idle classes, there were few Englishmen who did not,
at least once in their Ufe, cross the Channel ; while the same
classes in other countries, partly hecause they were less wealthy,
partly from an inveterate dislike to the sea, hardly ever entered
our island, unless compeUed to do so on some particular business.
The result was, that in other countries, and particularly in France
and Italy, the inhabitants of the great cities became gradually
accustomed to foreigners, and, Uke aU men, were imperceptibly
influenced hy what they often saw. On the other hand, there
were many of our cities in which none hut EngUshmen ever set
-their feet;' and inhabitants, even of the metropoUs, might grow
' Coleridge weU says, " It is the chief of many blesaings derived from the insular
character and circumstances of our country, that our social institutions have formed
themselves out of our proper needs and interests." Coleridge on the Constitution of
the Church and State, 8vo. 1830, pp. 20, 21. The poUtical consequences of this were
much noticed at the time of the French Eevolution, See Memoires de La Fayette,
vol i. p! 404, BruxeUes, 1837.
" In another place, I shaU collect the evidence of the rapidly increasing love of
traveUing in the sixteenth century ; but it is interesting to observe, that during the
latter half of the century there was first estabUshed the custom of appointing trav
elling tutors. Compare Barringtorts Observations on tlie Statutes, p. 218, with a
letter from Beza, written in 1598, in Memoires et Correspondance de Du Plessis Mor
nay, vol. ix. p. 81.
' In regard to the society of women, this was still more observable, even at a
much later period ; and when the Countess de BoufBers visited England, at the be
ginning of the reign of Geo. III., " on lui faisoit un mdrite de aa curiositd de voir
I'Angleterre ; car on remarquoit qu'eUe dtoit la aeule dame franjoise de qualitd qui
fdt venue eu voyageuse depuia deux cents ans ; on ne comprenoit boint, dans cette
clasae, les ambassadrices, nl la duchesse de Mazarin, qui y dtoient venues par ndces-

170 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
old without having once seen a single foreigner, except, perhaps,
some dull and pompous ambassador taking his aini^ on the
banks of the Thames. ' And although it is often said that, after
the restoration of Charles II., our national character began to he
greatly influenced by French example,* this, as I shall fuUy prove,
was confined to that smaU and insignificant part of society which
hung about the court; nor did it produce any marked effect upon
the two most important classes, the intellectual class and the indus
trious class. The movement may, indeed, he traced in the most
worthless parts of our Uterature, — in the shameless productions of
Buckingham, Dorset, Etherege, KiU%rew, Mulgrave, Eochester,
and Sedley. But neither then, nor at a much later period/ were
any of our great thinkers infiuenced hy the inteUect of France;'
on the contrary, we find in their ideas, and even in their style, a
certain rough and native 'rigour, which, though offensive to our
more poUshed neighbours, has at least the merit of being the
indigenous product of our owm country.' The origin and
extent of that connexion between the • French and English
intellects which subsequently arose, is a subject of immense
importance ; hut, Uke most others of real value, it has heen
entirely neglected hy historians. In the present work, I shall
attempt to supply this deficiency : in the mean time I may say,
that although we have heen, and stUl are, greatly indebted to the
French for our improvement in taste, in refinement, in manners,
aitd." Dutens, Memoires d'un Voyageur, vol. i. p. 217. Compare Memoires de Mad
ame de Genlis, vol. viih p. 241.
* Orme's lAfe of Owen, p. 288 ; Mahon's History of England, vol. u.p. 211 ; and
many other writers. \
' The only Englishman of genius who, during this period, was influenced by the
French mind, was Dryden ; but thia ia chiefly apparent in his plays, the whole of
which are now deservedly forgotten. His great works, and, above aU, those wonder
ful satires, in which he distances every competitor, except Juvenal, are thoroughly
national, and, as mere specimena of EngUsh, are, if I may express ray own judg
ment, to be ranked immediately after Shakspeare. In Dryden'a writings there are
unqueationably many GaUiciSms of expression, but few GaUicisms of thought; and
it is by these last that we must estimate the real amount of- foreign influence. Sir
Walter Scott goes ao far aa to aay, ," It wiU admit of queation, whether any single
French word haa been naturaUzed upon the aole authority of Dryden." Scotts Ufe
of Dryden, p. 523, 8vo, 1808. Bather a bold assertion. As to the opinion of Fox,
see Lord Holland's preface to Fox's James II. 4to, 1808, p. xxxu.
° Another circumstance which has_ maintained the independence, and therefore
increased the value, of our Uterature, is, that in no great country have Uterary men
been ao Uttle connected with the governmept, or rewarded by it. That this is the
true poUcy, and that to protect Uterature, is to injure it, are propositions for the
proof of which I must refer to chap. xi. of this volume — on the system of Louis XIV.
In the mean time, I wiU quote the foUowing words from a learned and, what is much
better, a thoughtful writer: "Nor must he who wiU understand the EngUsh institu
tions leave out of view the character of the enduring worka which had sprung from
the salient energy of the EngUsh mind. Literature had been left to develop itself.
WiUiam of Orange was foreign to it ; Anne cared not for it ; the first George knew
no English ; the second not much." Bancrofts History of the American Revolution,
voh u. p. 48. Compare Forster's Life of Goldsmith, 1854, vol. i. pp. 93-96 vol. ii.p. 480.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 171
and indeed in all the amenities of life, we have borrowed from
them nothing absolutely essential, nothing by which the desti
nies of nations are permanently altered. On the other hand,
the French have not only borrowed from us some very valuable
poUtical institutions, hut even the most important event in
French history is due, in no smaU degree, to our influence.
Their Eevolution of 1789 was, as is weU knowm, brought about,
or, to speak more properly, was mainly instigated, hy a few
great men, whose works, and aft^erwards whose speeches, roused
the people to resistance; but what is less known, and neverthe
less is certainly true, is, that these eminent leaders learnt in
England that phUosophy and those principles hy which, when
transplanted into their oyvn country, such fearful and yet such
salutary results were effected.'
It wiU not, I hope, he supposed, that hy these remarks
I mean to cast any reflection on the French : a great and
admirable people; a people in many respects superior to
ourselves ; a people from whom we have still much to learn,
and whose deficiencies, such as they are, arise from the perpetual
interference of a long Une of arbitrary rulers. But, looking at
this matter historicaUy, it is unquestionably true that we have
worked out our civilization yrith little aid from them, while
they have worked out theirs yrith great aid from us. At the
same time, it must also be admitted, that our governments have
interfered less with us than their governments have interfered
with them. And without in the least prejudging the question
as to which is the greater country, it is solely on these grounds
that I consider our history more important than theirs ; and I
select for especial study the progress of EngUsh civiUzation,
simply hecause, being less affected hy agencies not arising
from itself, we can the more clearly discern in it the normal
march of society, and the undisturbed operation of those
great laws by which the fortunes of manMnd are ultimately
regulated. After this comparison between the relative value of French
and English history, it seems scarcely necessary to examine the
claims which may be put forward for the history of other coun
tries. Indeed, there are only two in whose favour any thing can
he said : I mean Germany, considered as a whole, and the United
States of North America. As to the Germans, it is undoubtedly
true, that since tbe middle of the eighteenth century they have
produced a greater number of profound thinkers than any other
country, I might perhaps say, than aU other countries put to-
' See for evidence of thia influence of England, chap. xu. of the preaent volume.

172 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
gether. But the objections which apply to the French are stUl
more applicable to the Germans. For the protective principle
has been, and stUl is, stronger in Germany than in France. Even
the best of the German governments are constantly interfering
with the people ; never lea'ring them to themselves, always look
ing after their interests, and meddling in the commonest affairs
of daily Ufe. Besides this, the German literature, though now
the first in Europe, owes its origin, as we shall hereafter see, to
that great sceptical movement, hy which, in France, the Eevolu
tion was preceded. Before the middle of the eighteenth centuiy,
the Germans, notwithstanding a few eminent names, such as Kep
ler and Leibnitz, had no Uterature of real value ; and the first im
petus which they received, was caused by their contact with the
French inteUect, and hy the influence of those eminent Frenchmen
who, in the reign of Frederick the Great, flocked to BerUn,' a city
which has ever since heen the head-quarters of phUosophy and sci
ence. From this there have resulted some very important circum-^
stances, which I can here only briefly indicate. The German
inteUect, stimulated by the French into a sudden growth, has been
irregularly developed ; and thus hurried into an actirity greater
than the average civUization of the country requires. The conse
quence is, that there is no nation in Europe in which we find so
wide an interval between the highest minds and the lowest minds.
The German phUosophers possess a learning, and a reach of
thought, which places them at the head of the civiUzed world.
The German people are more superstitious, more prejudiced, and,
notwithstanding the care which the government takes of their edu
cation, more reaUy ignorant, and more unfit to guide themselves,
than are the inhabitants either of France or of England. ' This sep-
" The hiatory of this remarkable, though short-lived, union between the French
and German intellects, will be traced in the next , volume ; but its first great effect,
in stimulating, or rather in creating, the German Uterature, is noticed by one of the
most learned of their own writera: "Denn einestheUs war zu diesen Gegenstanden
immer die lateinische Sprache gebraucht, und die Muttersprache zu wenig cultivirt
worden, anderntheils wurden diese Schriften auch meistentheils nur von Gelehrten,
und zwar Universitatsgelehrten, fiir welche sie auch bauptsachUch bestimmt waren,
gelesen. Gegen die Mitte des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts, als mehrere engUsche und
franzosische Werke gelesen und iibersetzt wurden, und durch die Vorliebe des
Konigs von Preuasen Friedricha IL, der von Franzosen gebildet worden war, franz
osische Gelehrte besondera geehrt und angeatellt wurden, entatand ein Wetteifer der
Deutschen, auch in dem schriftUchen Vortrage nicht zuriick zu bleibeu, und die
Sprache hob sich bald zu eiiiem hohen Grade von VoUkommenheit." TennmuMm,
Geschichte der Philosophie, voh xi. pp. 286, 287.
° A popular view of the system of national education estabUshed in Germany,
wiU be found in Kay's Social Condition ana Education ofthe People of Europe, vol.
ii. pp. 1-344. But Mr. Kay, like most Uterary men, overrates the advantages of lit
erary acquirements, and underrates that education of the faculties which neither
books nor schools can impart to a people who are debarred from the exercise of
civU and poUtical rights. In the history of the protective spirit (chaps, ix. and x.
of the present volume), I shaU return to this subject, in connexion with France ;

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 173
aration and divergence of the two classes is the natural result of
that artificial stimulus, which a century ago was administered to
one of the classes, and which thus disturbed the normal propor
tions of society. Owing to this, the highest intellects have, in
Germany, so outstripped the general progress of the nation, that
there is no sympathy between the two parties ; nor are there at
present any means hy which they may be brought into contact.
Their great authors address themselves, not to their country, hut
to each other. They are sure of a select and learned audience,
and they use what, in reality, is a learned language ; they turn
their mother-tongue into a dialect, eloquent indeed, and very
powerful, but so difficult, so subtle, and so fuU of compUcated in
versions, that to their own lower classes it is utterly incompre
hensible." From this, there have arisen some of the most marked
pecuUarities of German literature. For, being deprived of ordi
nary readers, it is cut off from the influence of ordinary prejudice ;
and in the next volume I shaU examine it in regard to German civiUzation. In the
mean time, I must be aUowed to protest against the account Mr. Kay has given of
the results of compulsory education ; an agreeable picture, drawn by an amiable and
intelUgent writer, but of the inaccuracy of which I poasess decisive evidence. Two
points only I wiU now refer to. 1st. The notorious fact, that the German people,
notwithstanding their so-caUed education, are unfit to take any share in political
matters, and have no aptitude for the practical and administrative parts of govern
ment. 2d. The fact, equaUy notorious to those who have studied the subject, that
there are more popular superstitions in Prussia, the most educated part of Germany,
than there are in England ; and that the tenacity with which men cling to them is
greater in Prussia than in England. For iUustration of the practical working, in in
dividual cases, of compulsory education, and of the hardship it causes, see a scanda
lous occurrence, related in Laing's Notes of a Traveller, 8vo, 1842, pi 166, first se
ries; and on the physical evijs produced by German education, see Phillips on
Scrofula, London, 1846, pp. 253, 254, where there is some useful evidence of the
consequences of " that great German sin of over-regulation."
"'° This ia weU atated by Mr. Laing, by far the ableat traveUer who has published
observations on European society : " German authors, both the philosophic and the
poetic, address themselves to a pubUc far more intellectual, and more highly cultiva
ted, than our reading pubUc. .... In our Uterature, the moat obacure and abstruae
of metaphysical or phUosophical writers take the public mind in a far lower state,
simply cognisant of the meaning of language, and possessed of the ordinary reason
ing powera. .... The social influence of German Uterature is, consequently, con
fined within a narrower circle. It has no influence on tbe mind of the lower, or
even of the middle classes in active life, who have not the opportunity or leisure to
screw their faculties up to the pitch-note of their great writers. The reading public
muat devote much time to acquire the knowledge, tone of feeling, and of imagina
tion, necessary to foUow the writing pubUc. The social economist finds accordingly
in Germany the most extraordinary duUness, inertness of mind, and ignorance, be
low a certain level, with the most extraordinary inteUectual development, learning,
and genius, at or above it." Laing's Notes of a Traveller, first series, pp. 266, 267.
The same acute observer says in a later work (Notes, third seriea, 8vo, 1852, p. 12) :
" The two classes speak and think in different languages. The cultivated German
language, the language of German Uterature, is not the language of the common
man, nor even the man far up in the middle ranks of society, — the farmer, trades
man, shopkeeper." See also pp. 351, 352, 354. It is singular that so clear and vig
orous a thinker as Mr. Laing evidently is, should have faUed in detecting the cause
of this pecuUar phenomenon.

174 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
and hence it has displayed a boldness of inquiry, a recklessness
in the pursuit of truth, and a disregard of tratoional opinions,
which entitle it to the highest praise. But on the other hand,
this same circumstance has produced that absence of practical
knowledge, and that indifference to material and physical inter
ests, for which the German Uterature is justly censured. As a
matter of course, aU this has widened the original breach, and
increased the distance which separates the great German thinkers
from that dull and plodding class, which, though it lies immedi
ately beneath them, stUl remains uninfluenced by their knowledge,
and uncheered by the glow and fire of their genius.
In America, on the other hand, we see a civilization precisely
the reverse of this. We see a country, of which it has heen truly
said, that in no other are there so few men of great lea^ng, and
so few men of great ignorance." In Germany, the speculative
classes a,nd the practical classes are altogether disunited; in
America, they are altogether fused. In Germany, nearly every
year brings forward new discoveries, new philosophies, new means
by which the boundaries of knowledge are to be enlarged. In
America, such inquiries are almost entirely neglected : since the
time of Jonathan Edwards no great metaphysician has appeared ;
little attention has been paid to physical science ; and with the
single .exception of jurisprudence,'" scarcely any thing has been
done for those vast subjects on which the Germans are incessantly
labouring. The stock of American knowledge is small, but it is
spread through aU classes ; the stock of German knowledge is
immense, but it is confined to one class. Which of these two
forms of civiUzation is the more advantageous, is a question we
are not now caUed upon to decide. It is enough for our present
purpose, that in Germany, there is a serious faUure in the diffu-
" " Je ne pense pas qu'U y ait de pays dans le monde oh, proportion gardde avec
la population, U se trouve aussi peu d'ignorants et moins de savants qu'en Amdrique."
TocqueviUe de la Dknoeratie en Amerique, voh h p. 91.
" The causes of this exception I shaU endeavor to trace in the next volume ; but
it is interesting to notice, that, as early as 1776, Burke was struck by the partiahty
of the Americans for works on law. See Burke's Speech, in Parliamentary History,
vol. xvUi. p. 495; or in' Burke's Works, vol i. p. 188. He says: "In no country
perhaps iu the world is the law so general a study. The profession itself is numer
ous and powerful ; and in miost provinces it takes the lead. The greater number
of the deputies sent to the Congress were lawyers. But aU who read, — and most do
read, — endeavour to obtain some smattering in that science. I have been told by
an eminent bookseUer, that in no branch of his business, after tracts of popular de
votion, were so many books as those on the law exported to the plantations. The
colonists have now faUen into the way of printing them for their own use. I hear
that they have sold nearly aa many of Blackstone's Commentaries in America as in
England." Of this state of society, the great works of Kent and Story were, at a
later period, the natural result. On tbe respect at present felt for the legal profes
sion, see LyelVs Second Visit to the United States, 1849, vol. h p. 46 ; and as to the
judges. Combe's N. America, vol. ii. p. 329.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 175
sion of knowledge ; and, in America, a no less serious one in its
accumulation. And as ciriUzation is regulated by the accumu
lation and diffusion of knowledge, it is evident that no country
can even approach to a complete and perfect pattern, if, cultivat
ing one of these conditions to an excess, it neglects the cultiva
tion of the other. Indeed, from this want of balance and equi
Ubrium between the two elements of civilization, there have
arisen in America and in Germany those great hut opposite evUs,
which, it is to he feared, 'wiU not be easUy remedied ; and which,
until remedied, wiU certainly retard the progress of both coun
tries, notyrithstanding the temporary advantages which such one
sided energy does for the moment always procure.
I have very briefly, hut I hope fau-ly, and certainly with no
conscious partiaUty, endeavoured to estimate the relative value
of the history of the four leading countries of the world. As to
the real greatness of the countries themselves, I offer no opinion ;
because each considers itself to be the first. But, unless the facts
I have stated can be controverted, it certainly follows,, that the
history of England is, to the phUosopher, more valuable than any
other ; because he can more clearly see in it the accumulation
and diffusion of knowledge going hand-in-hand ; because that
knowledge has heen less influenced hy foreign and external agen
cies ; and because it has heen less interfered with, either for good
or for evU, hy those powerful, hut frequently incompetent men,
to whom the adnunistration of pubUc affairs is intrusted.
It is on account of these considerations, and not at aU from
those motives which are dignifiJ|fcrith the name of patriotism,
that I have determined to yrate^le history of my own country,
in preference to that of any other ; and to yvrite it in a manner
as complete, and as exhaustive, as the materials which are now
extant wiU enable me to do. But, inasmuch as the circum
stances already stated, render it impossible to discover the laws
of society solely hy studying the history of a single nation, I have
drawn up the present Introduction, in order to obviate some of
the difficulties yrith which this great subject is surrounded. In
the earUer chapters, I have attempted to mark out the Umits of
the subject considered as a whole, and fix the largest possible
basis upon which it can rest. With this view, I have looked at
civilization as hroken into two vast dirisions : the European
division, in which Man is more powerfiil than Nature ; and the
non-European division, in which Nature is more powerful than
Man. This has led us to the conclusion, that national progress,
in connexion yrith popular liberty, could have origuiated in no
part of the world except in Europe ; where, therefore, the rise
of real civUization, and the encroachments of t^e human mind

176 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
upon the forces of nature, arewlone to he studied. The supe
riority of the mental laws over the physical, being thus recog
nized as the groundwork of European history, the next step has
heen, to resolve the mental laws into moral and inteUectual, and
prove the superior influence of the intellectual ones in accelerat
ing the progress of Man. These generaUzations appear to me
the essential preliminaries of history, considered as a science-;
and, in order to connect them with the special history of Eng
land, we have now merely to ascertain the fundamental condi
tion of intellectual progress, as, untU that is done, the annals of
any people can only present an empirical succession of events,
connected hy such stray and casual links as are devised hy dif
ferent writers, according to their different principles. The re
maining part of this Introduction yriU, therefore, be chiefly occu
pied in completing the scheme I have sketched, hy investigating
the history of various countries in reference to those intellectual
peculiarities on which the history of our own country suppUes no
adequate, information. Thus, for instance, in Germany, the ac
cumulation of knowledge has heen far more rapid than in Eng
land ; the laws of the accumulation of knowledge may, on that
account, he most conveniently studied in German history, and
then applied deductively to the history of England. In the
same way, the Americans have diffused their knowledge much
more completely than we have done ; I, therefore, purpose to
explain some of the phenomena of EngUsh civiUzation by those
laws of diffusion, of which, i^American civUizatton, the work
ings may he most clearly sdK, and hence the discovery most
easUy made. Again, inasmuch as France is the most civUized
country in which the protective spirit is very powerful, we may
trace the occult tendencies of that spirit among ourselves by
studying its obvious tendencies among our neighbours. With
this view, I shaU give an account of French histoiy, in order to
Ulustrate the protective principle, hy showuig the injury it has
infficted on a very ahle and enUghtened people. And, in an
analysis of the French Eevolution, I shall point out how that
great event was a reaction against the protective spirit ; whUe,
as the materials for the reaction were drawn from England, we
shaU also see in it the way in which the inteUect of one country
acts upon the inteUect of another ; and we shaU arrive at some
results respecting that interchange of ideas which is Ukely to
become the most important regulator of European affairs. This
wUl throw much Ught on the laws of international thought ; and,
in connection with it, two separate chapters vriU he devoted
to a History of the Protective Spirit, and an Examination of its
relative intensity in France and England. But the French, as

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 177
a people, have, since the beginning or middle of the seventeenth
century, been remarkably free from superstition ; and, notwith
standing the efforts of their government, they are very averse to
ecclesiastical power : so that, although their history displays
the pretective priaciple in its political form, it suppUes Uttle
eridence respecting its reUgious form ; whUe, in our own coun
try, the evidence is also scanty. Hence, my intention is,, to
give a view of Spanish history ; because in it we may trace the
fuU results of that protection against error which the spiritual
classes are always eager to afford. In Spain, the church has,
from a very early period, possessed more authority, and the
clergy have heen more influential, both yrith the people and the
government, than in any other country ; it 'will, therefore, he
convenient to study in Spain the laws of ecclesiastical develop
ment, and the manner in which that development affects the
national interests. Another circumstance, which operates on
the inteUectual progress of a nation, is the method of investiga
tion that its ablest men habituaUy employ. • This method can
only he one of two kinds ; it must he either inductive, or de
ductive. Each of these belongs to a different form of civiUza
tion, and is always accompanied hy a different style of thought,
particularly in regard to reUgion and science. These differences
are of such immense importance, that, untU their laws are
knoyyn, we cannot he said to understand the real history of past
events. Now, the two extremes of the difference are, undoubt
edly, Germany and the United States ; the Germans being pre
eminently deductive, the Americans inductive. But Germany
and America are, in so many other respects, diametricaUy op
posed to each other, that I have thought it expedient to study
the operations of the deductive and inductive spirit in countries
between which a closer analogy exists ; hecause the greater the
simUarity between two nations, the more easUy can we trace the
consequences of any single divergence, and the more conspicuous
do the laws of that divergence become. Such an opportunity
occurs in the history of Scotland, as coihpared with that of
England. Here we have two nations, bordering on each other,
speaking the same language, reading the same literature, and
knit together hy the same interests. And yet it is a truth,
which seems to have escaped attention, but the proof of which
I shaU fully detaU, that until the last thirty or forty years, the
Scotch inteUect has been even more entirely ded-active than the
English intellect has heen inductive. The inductive tendencies
of the English mind, and the almost superstitious reverence
with which we cling to them, have been noticed with regret hy
VOL. I. — 12

178 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
a few, and a very few, of our ablest men.^' On the other hand,
in Scotland, particularly during the eighteenth century, the
great thkikers, with hardly an exception, adopted the deductive
method. Now, the characteristic of deduction, when appUed to
branches of knowledge not yet ripe for it, is, that it increases
the number of hypotheses from which we reason downwards, and
brings into disrepute the slow and patient ascent peculiar to in
ductive inquiry. This desire to grasp at trath hy speculative,
and, as it were, foregone conclusions, has often led the way to
great discoveries ; and no one, properly instructed, wUl deny
its immense value. But when it is universaUy foUowed, there is
imminent danger lest the observation of mere empirical uniformi
ties should be neglected ; and lest thinking men should grow
impatient at those small and proximate generalizations, which,
according to the inductive scheme, must invariably precede the
larger and higher ones. Whenever this impatience actuaUy
occurs, there is produced serious mischief For these lower
generalizations form a neutral ground, which speculative minds
and practical minds possess in common, and on which they
meet. If this ground is cut away, the meeting is impossible.
In such case, there arises among the scientific classes an undue
contempt for inferences which the experience of the vulgar
has drawn, but of which the laws seem inexpUcable ; whUe,
among the practical classes, there arises a disregard of specula
tions so \ride, so magnificent, and of which the intermediate and
preliminary steps are hidden from their gaze. The results of
this in Scotland are highly curious, and are, in several respects,
similar to those which we find in Germany ; since in both coun
tries the inteUectual classes have long heen remarkable for their
boldness of investigation and their freedom from prejudice,' and
the people ait large equally remarkable for the number of their
superstitions and the strength of their prejudices. In Scotland,
this is even more striking than in Germany ; hecause the Scotch,
owing to causes which have been little studied, are, in practical
matters, not only industrious and provident, hut singularly
shrewd. This, however, in the higher departments of Ufe, has
avaUed them nothing ; and, while there is no country which
possesses a more original, inquisitive, and innovating literature
than Scotland does, so also is there no country, equally civilized,
in which so much of the spirit of the Middle Ages still Ungers,
" Particularly Coleridge and Mr. John MUl. But, with the greatest possible re
spect for Mr. Mill's profound work on Logic, I must venture to think that he has as
cribed too much to the influence of Bacon in encouraging the inductive spirit, and
too httle to those other circumstances which gave rise to the Bacpnian phUosophy,
and to which that phUosophy owes its success.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 179
in which so many absurdities are still heUeved, and in which
it would he so easy to rouse into activity the old feelings of re
ligious intolerance.
The divergence, and indeed the hostiUty, thus established
between the practical and speciUative classes, is the most impor
tant fact in the history of Scotland, and is partly cause and
partly effect of the predominance of the deductive method. For
this descending scheme being opposed to the ascending or induc
tive scheme, neglects those lower generaUzations which are the
only ones that both classes understand, and, therefore, the only
ones where they sympathize with each other. The inductive
method, as popularized by Bacon, gave great prominence to
these lower or proximate truths ; and this, though it has often
made the intellectual classes in England too utiUtarian, has at
all events saved them from that state of isolation in which they
would otherwise have remained. But in Scotland the isolation
has been almost complete, hecause the deductive method has
heen almost universal FuU evidence of this will he collected
in the next volume ; but, that I may not leave the subject en
tirely without Ulustration, I yriU notice very briefly the principal
instances that occurred during those three generations in which
Scotch Uterature reached its highest exceUence.
During this period, which comprises nearly a century, the
tendency was so unmistakeahle, as to form a striking phenom
enon in the annals of the human mind. The first great symp
tom was a movement begun hy Simson, professor at the Univer
sity of Glasgow, and continued hy Stewart, professor at the
University of Edinburgh. These ahle men made strenuous ef
forts to rerive the pure Greek geometry, and depreciate the
algebraic or symboUcal analysis.'* Hence there arose among
them, and among their disciples, a love of the most refined
methods of solution, and a contempt for those easier, but less
elegant ones, which we owe to algebra." Here we clearly see
" Simson was appointed in 1711 ; and even before he began to lecture, he drew
up " a translation of the three first books of L'Hospital's Conic Sections, in which
geometrical demonstrations are substituted for the algebraical of the original, accord
ing to Mr. Simson's early taste on this aubject." TraiVs Life and Writings of Robert
Simson, 1812, 4to, p. 4. This was probably the rudiment of his work on Conic Sec
tions, pubUshed in 1735. Montucla, Histoire des Mathematiques, voh iu. p. 12. _ On
the difference between the ancient and modern schemes, there are some ingenious,
though perhaps scarcely tenable, remarka in Dugald Stewart'a Philosophy of the
Mind, vol. U. p. 364 seq. and p. 380. See also Comte, Philosophie Positive, vol i.
pp. 383-395. Matthew Stewart, the mathematical professor at Edinburgh, was the
father of Dugald. See, respecting him and hia crusade against the modern analysis,
Bower's History of the University of Edinburgh, vol. ii. pp. 857-360, vol. Ui. p. 249;
and a strange passage in First Report of the British Association, p. 59.
" One of Simaon'a great reasons for recommending the old analysis, was that it
was " more elegant" than the comparatively modern practice of introducing alge-

180 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
the isolating and. esoteric character of a scheme which despises
what ordinary understandings can quickly master, and which
had rather proceed from the ideal to the tangible, than mount
from the tangible to the ideal. Just at the same time, the
same spirit was displayed, in another branch of inquiry, hy
Hutcheson, who, though an Irishman hy birth, was educated
in the University of Glasgow, and was professor there. In his
celebrated moral and aesthetic researches, he, in the place of in
ductive reasoning from palpable facts, substituted deductive rea
soning from impalpable principles ; ignoring the immediate and
practical suggestions of the senses, and heUeving that by a hypo
thetical assumption of certain laws, he could descend upon the
facts, instead of rising from the facts in order to learn the laws."
His phUosophy exercised immense infiuence among metaphysi
cians;"' and his method of working downwards, from the abstract
to the concrete, was adopted by another and a stiU greater
Scotchman, the iUustrious Adam Smith. How Smith favoured
the deductive form of investigation, is apparent in his Theory of
Moral Sentiments, likewise in his Essay on Language," and
even in his fragment on the History of Astronomy, in which he,
from general considerations, undertook to prove what the march
of astronomical discovery must have been, instead of first ascer
taining what it had been.'"' The Wealth of Nations, z,gw.,h,\T
braic calculations into geometry. See TraiVs Simson, 1812, 4to, pp. 27, 67 ; a valu
able work, which Lord Brougham, in his hasty Ufe of Simson, calls "a very learned
and exceedingly iU-written, indeed hardly readable " book. Braughanis Men of
Letters and Science, vol. i. p. 482, 8vo, 1846. Dr. Trail's style is clearer, and Jiis
sentences are lesa involved, than Lord Brougham's ; and he had moreover the great
advantage of understanding the subject upon which he wrote.
'° Sir Jamea Mackintosh (Dissertation on Ethical Philosophy, p. 208) says of
Hutcheson, " To him may also be ascribed that proneness to multiply ultimate and
original principles in human nature, which characterized the Scottish school tiU the
second extinction of a passion for metaphysical speculation in Scotland." There is
an able view of Hutcheson's phUosophy in Cousin, Histoire de la Philosophie, I. sdrie,
voh iv. pp. 31 seq. ; written with clearness and eloquence, but perhaps overpraising
Hutcheson. " On its influence, see a letter from Mackintosh to Parr, iu Memoirs of Mackin
tosh, by his Son, vol. i. p. 384. Compare Letters fromWarburton to Hurd, pp. 37, 82.
"' Which is added to hia Theory of Moral Sentiments, edit. 1822, 2 volumes.
Oompare a letter which Smith wrote in 1763 on the origin of language (in Nichols's
Literary Rlustrations of the Eighteenth Century, vol. iii. pp. 515, 616), which exhibits,
on a smaU scale, the same treatment, as distinguished from a generaUzation of the
facts which are supplied by a comprehensive comparison of different languages. Dr.
Arnold speaks slightingly of such investigations. He says, " Attempts to explain
the phenomena of language a priori seem to me unwise." Arnolds Miscellaneous
Works, p. 385. This would lead into a discussion top long for a note : but it appears
to me that these a priori inferences are, to the philologist, what hypotheses are to
the inductive natural philosopher ; and if this be the case, they are extremely un-
portant, becauae no reaUy fruitful experiment ever can be made unleas it is preceded
by a judicioua hypotheais. In the absence of auch an hypothesis, men may grope in
the dark for centuries, accumulating facts without obtaining knowledge.
" See, for instance, his attempt to prove, from general reasonings concermng

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 181
entirely deductive, since in it Smith generaUzes the laws of
wealth, not from the phenomena of wealth, nor from statistical
statements, but from the phenomena of selfishness; thus mak
ing a deductive application of one set of mental principles to the
whole set of economical facts."" The lUustrations with which
his great book abounds are no part of the real argument : they
are subsequent to the conception; and if they were all omitted,
the work, though less interesting, and perhaps less influential,
would, in a scientific point of view, be equaUy valuable. To
give another instance : the works of Hume, his metaphysical
essays alone excepted, are aU deductive; his profound economi
cal inquiries are essentiaUy a ^rton, and might have been written
'without any acquaintance with those detaUs of trade and flnance
from which, according to the inductive scheme, they should have
heen generalized."' Thus, too, in his Natural History of Religion,
he endeavoured simply hy reflection, and independently of evi
dence, to institute a purely speculative investigation into the
origin of reUgious opinions."" In the same way, in his History
the human mind, that there waa a neceaaary relation in regard to the order in which
men promulgated the system of concentric spheres and that of eccentric spheres and
epicycles. History of Astronomy, in Smith's Philosophical Essays, 1'796, 4to, pp. 31,
36, which it may be convenient to compare with WheweU's Philosophy of the Induc
tive Sciences, 1847, vol. ii. pp. 53, 60, 61. This striking fragment of Adam Smith's
is probably little read now ; but it is warmly praised by one of the greatest living
phUosophera, M. A. Comte, in his Philosophie Positive, voh vi. p. 319.
™ The two writers who have inquired most carefully into the method which
poUtical economists ought to foUow, are Mr. John MiU (Essays on Unsettled Ques
tions of Political Economy, 1844, pp. 120-164) and Mr. Eae (New Principles of Polit
ical Economy, 1834, pp. 828-361). Mr. Eae, in his ingenious work, objects to Adam
Smith that he transgressed the rules of the IJaconian phUosophy, and thus prevented
his inferences from being as valuable as they would have been if he had treated his
subject inductively. But Mr. MiU, with great force of reasoning, has proved that the
deductive plan is the only one by which poUtical economy can be raised to a science.
He says, p. 143, poUtical economy is " essentiaUy an abstract science, and ita method
is the method a priori ;" and at p. 146, that the a posteriori method is "altogether
inefficacious." To this I may add, that the modern theory of rent, which is now the
corner-stone of poUtical economy, was got at, not by generaUzing economical facts,
but by reasoning downwards after the manner of geometricians. Indeed, thoae who
oppose the theory of rent, always do so on the ground that it is contradicted by facta ;
and then, with complete ignorance of the philosophy of method, they infer that there
fore the theory is wrong. See, for instance, Jones on the Distribution of Wealth, 8vo,
1831 ; a book containing some interesting facts, but vitiated by this capital defect of
method. See also Journal of Statistical Society, vol. i. p. 317, vol. vL p. 322 ; where
it ia said that econoinical theories should be generaUzed from statistical facts. Com
pare vol. xvii. p. 116, vol. xvUi. p. 101.
"' A striking instance has lately come to Ught of the sagacity with which Hume
employed thia method. See Burton's Life and Correspondence of Hume, vol. U. p.
486 ; where we find, that immediately tfume had read the Wealth of Nations, he
detected Smith'a error concerning rent being an element of price : so that it now
appears that Hume waa the firat to make thia great discovery, as far as the idea is
concerned ; though Eicardo haa the merit of proving it.
™ The historical facts he introduces are merely iUustrations ; aa any one will aee
who wiU read The Natural History of Religion, in Hume's Philos. Works, Edinb.
1826, voh iv. pp. 435-513. I may mention, that there ia a conaiderable aimilarity

182 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
of England, instead of first coUecting the evidence, and then
drayying inferences from it, he began by assuming that the
relations between the people and the government must have
foUowed a certain order, and he either neglected or distorted the
facts hy which this supposition was contradicted."' These dif
ferent writers, though varying in their principles, and in the
subjects they studied, were all agreed as to their method; that
is to say, they were all agreed to investigate truth rather by
descent than by ascent. The immense social importaneef of
this peculiarity, I shaU examine in the next volume, where I
shall endeavour to ascertain how it affected the national ciriUza
tion, and caused some curious contrasts with the opposite, and
more empirical, character of English literature. In the mean
time, and merely to state what wUl he hereafter proved, I may
add, that the deductive method was employed, not only by those
eminent Scotchmen I have mentioned, hut was carried into the
speculative History of Civil Society hy Ferguson ; iato the
study of legislation by MUl; into the study of jurisprudence by
Mackintosh; into geology hy Hutton; into thermotics by Black
and Leslie ; into physiology by Hunter, hy Alexander Walker,
and by Charles BeU; into pathology by CuUen; into therapeutics
hy Brown and Currie.
This is an outline of the plan I purpose to follow in the pres
ent Introduction, and hy means of which I hope to arrive at some
results of permanent value. For by studying different principles
between the viewa advocated in thia remarkable essay and the reUgious stages of
Comte's Philosophie Positive ; for Hume's early form of polytheism is evidently the
same as M. Comte's fetichism, from which both these writera believe that monotheism
aubsequently arose, as a later and more refined abstraction. That this was the course
adopted by the human mind is highly probable, and ia confirmed by the learned
researches of Mr. Grote. See his History of Greece, vol. i. pp. 462, 497, voh v. p.
22. The opposite and more popular opinion, of monotheism preceding idolatry, was
held by most of the great earUer writera, and ia defended by many moderna, and
among othera by Dr. Whewell (Bridgewater Treatise, p. 256), who expresses himself
with considerable confidence : see also Letters from Warburton to Hurd, p. 239.
Compare ThirlwalVs History of Greece, vol. i. p. 183, Lond. 1836, with the "einige
Funken des Monotheismua" of Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, in Kants Werke,
voh ii. p. 466.
"' That ia to say, he treated historical facta as merely illustrative of certain gene
ral principles, which he believed could be proved without the facta ; so that, as M.
Schlosser (History of ihe Eighteenth Centwry, voh ii. p. 76) weU saya, "History with
Hume was only a subordinate pursuit, only a means by which he might introduce his
philosophy," &c. Considering how little is known of the principles which govern
social and poUticnl changes, there can be no doubt that Hume was premature in the
application of this method ; but it is absurd to caU the method dishonest, since the
object of his History waa, not to prove conelusiona, but to illustrate them; and he
therefore thought himself justified in selecting the lUustrations. I am simply stating
his viewa, without at all defending them ; indeed, I beUdve that in this respect, he
was seriously in the wrong.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 183
in those countries where they have heen most developed, the laws
of the principles will he more easUy unfolded than if we had
studied them in countries where they are very obscure. And,
inasmuch as in England, civUization has followed a course more
orderly, and less disturbed, than in any other country, it becomes
the more necessary, in writing its history, to use some resources
Uke those which I have suggested. What makes the history of
England so eminently valuable is, that nowhere else has the na
tional progress been so Uttle interfered with, either for good or
for evU. But the mere fact that our civUization has, by this
means, been preserved in a more natural and healthy state, ren
ders it incumbent on us to study the diseases to which it is liable,
hy observing those other countries where social disease is more
rife. The security and the durabUity of civUization must depend
on the regularity with which its elements are combined, and on
the harmony with which they work. If any one element is too
active, the whole composition vriU he in danger. Hence it is,
that although the laws of the composition of the elements wiU be
best ascertained wherever we can find the composition most com
plete, we must, nevertheless, search for the laws of each separate
element, wherever we can find the element itself most active.
WhUe, therefore, I have selected the history of England, as that
in which the harmony of the different principles has been longest
maintained, I have, precisely on that account, thought it advis
able to study each principle separately in the country where it
has been most powerful, and where, by its inordinate develop
ment, the equUibrium of the entire structure has heen disturbed.
By adopting these precautions, we shaU he able to remove
many of the cUfficulties which still beset the study of history.
Before, however, entering that wide field which now Ues in our
way, it wiU he weU to clear up some preliminary points, which I
have not yet noticed, and the discussion of which may obviate
certain objections that might otherwise be raised. The subjects
to which I aUude, are EeUgion, Literature, and Government :
three topics of vast importance, and which, in the opinion of many
persons, are the prime movers of human affairs. That this opin
ion is altogether erroneous, wUl he amply proved in the present
work ; httt as the opinion is widely spread, and is very plausible,
it is necessary that we should at once come to some understand
ing respecting it, and inquire into the real nature of that influence,
which these three great powers do actuaUy exercise over the pro
gress of civUization.
Now, in the first place, it is evident that if a people were left
entirely to themselves, their reUgion, their Uterature, and their
government would he. not the causes of their civUization, but the

184 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
effects of it. Out of a certain condition of society, certain re
sults naturally follow. Those results may, no doubt, be tam
pered with hy some external agency ; but if that is not done, it
is impossible that a highly ci-riUzed people, accustomed to reason
and to doubt, should ever embrace a religion of which the glaring
absurdities set reason and doubt at defiance. There are many
instances of nations changing their religion, but there is no in
stance of a progressive country voluntarily adopting a retrogressive
religion ; neither is there any example of a declining country
ameUorating its religion. It is of course tnie, that a good re
ligion is favorable to ci'vUization, and a bad one unfavorable to it.
Unless, however, there is some interference from without, no peo
ple wiU ever discover that their religion is bad, untU their reason
teUs them so ; but if their reason is inactive, and their knowl
edge stationary, the discovery yriU never he made. A country
that continues in its old ignorance, will always remain in its old
religiom Surely nothing can he plainer than this. A very ig
norant people will, by 'rirtue of their ignorance, incUne towards
a religion fuU of marvels ; a reUgion which boasts of innumer
able gods, and which ascribes every occurrence to the immediate
authority of those gods. On the other hand, a people whose
knowledge makes them better judges of eridence, and who are
accustomed to that most difficult task, the practice of doubting,
wUl require a religion less marveUous, less obtrusive ; one that
taxes their credulity less heavUy. But wUl you, therefi)re, say,
that the badness of the first reUgion causes the ignorance ; and
that the goodness of the second religion causes the knowledge ?
WiU you say, that when one event precedes another, the one
which comes first is the effect, and the one which follows after
wards is the cause ? This is not the way in which men reason
on the ordinary affairs of life ; and it is difficult to see why they
should reason thus respecting the history of past events.
The truth is, that the religious opinions which prevail in any
period, are among the symptoms by which that period is marked.
When the opinions are deeply rooted, they do, no doubt, influ
ence the conduct of men ; but hefore they can be deeply rooted,
some inteUectual change must first have taken place. We may
as weU expect that the seed should quicken in the barren rock,
as that a mUd and phUosophic reUgion should he estabUshed
among ignorant and ferocious savages. Of this innumerable ex
periments have been made, and always with the same result.
Men of excellent intentions, and full of a fervent, though mis
taken zeal, have been, and stiU are, attempting to propagate their
own religion among the inhabitants of barbarous countries. By
strenuous and unremitting activity, and frequently by promises,

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 185
and even by actual gifts, they have, in many cases, persuaded
savage communities to make a profession of the Christian religion.
But whoever wiU compare the triumphant reports of the mission
aries yrith the long chain of evidence supplied by competent
traveUers, wUl soon find that such profession is only nominal, and
that these ignorant tribes have adopted, indeed, the ceremonies
of the new reUgion, but have by no means adopted the religion
itself. They receive the externals, but there they stop. They
may baptize their chUdren ; they may take the sacrament ; they
may fiock to the church. All this they may do, and yet be as
far removed from the spirit of Christianity as when they bowed
the knee hefore their former idols. The rites and forms of a re
Ugion Ue on the surface ; they are at once seen, they are quickly
learned, easUy copied hy those who are unable to penetrate to
that which Ues beneath. It is this deeper and inward change
which alone is durable ; and this the savage can jiever experience
whUe he is sunk in an ignorance that levels him with the brutes
by which he is surrounded. Eemove the ignorance, and then
the reUgion may enter. This is the only course hy which ulti
mate benefit can be effected. After a careful study of the his
tory and condition of barbarous nations, I do most confidently
assert, that there is no weU-attested case of any people being
permanently converted to Christianity, except in those very few
instances where missionaries, being men of knowledge, as weU as
men of piety, have famUiarized the savage with habits of thought,
and by thus stimulating his inteUect, have prepared him for the
reception of those reUgious principles, which, without such stim
ulus, he could never have understood."*
It is in this way that, looking at things upon a large scale,
the religion of mankind is the effect of their improvement, not
the cause of it. But, looking at thiags upon a smaU scale, or
taking what is called a practical view of some short and special
'* A writer of great authority haa made some remarka on this, which are worth
attending to : " Ce fut alora que les Jdauites pdndtrdrent dans la Chine pour y prd-
cher I'dvangile. lis ne tarddrent pas k a'appercevoir qu'un dea moyena les plus efficaces
pour a'y maintenir, en attendant le moment que le ciel avoit marqud pour dclairer ce
vaste empire, dtoit d'dtaler des connoissances astronomiquea." Montucla, Histoire
des Mathhnatiques, vol. i. p. 468 ; and see vol. ii. pp. 586, 587. Cuvier deUcately
hints at the same conclusion. He says of Emery: "H ae aouvenait que I'dpoque oh
le christianisme a fait le plus de conquetes, et ou ses ministrea ont obtenu le plua de
respect, est ceUe, ou Us portaient chez les peuples convertia les lumieres des lettres,
en meme temps que les vdritds de la reUgion, et oii ils formaient a la fois dans les
nationa I'ordre le plus dminent et le plus dclaird." Cuvier, Eloges Historiques, vol.
m. p. 170. Even Southey (History of Brazil, vol. u. p. 3'78) says : " Missionaries
have alwaya complained of the fickleness of their converts ; and they must alwaya
complain of it, till they diacover that some degree of civilization must precede con
version or at least accompany it." And see, to the same effect, Halkett s Notes on
the North American Indians, pp. 352, 353 ; and Combe's North America, vol. i. p.
250, voh u. p. 863.

186 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
period, circumstances wUl occasionaUy occur which disturb this
general order, and apparently reverse the natural process. And
this, as in aU such cases, can only arise from the pecuUarities iof
indi"ridual men ; who, moved hy the minor laws which regulate
indi"ridual actions, are ahle, by their genius or their energy, to
interfere with the operation of those greater laws which regulate
large societies. Owing to circumstances stiU unknown, there ap
pear, from time to time, great thinkers, who, devoting their lives
to a single purpose, are ahle to anticipate the progress of man
kind, and to produce a religion or a phUosophy, hy which im
portant effects are eventuaUy brought ahout. But if we look
into history, we shaU clearly see that, although the origin of a
new opiiuon may be thus due to a single man, the result which
the new opinion produces wiU depend on the condition of the
people among whom it is propagated. If either a religion or a
phUosophy is too much in advance of a nation, it can do no pres
ent service, but must hide its time, untU the minds of men arc
ripe for its reception. Of this innumerable instances wiU occur
to most readers. Every science and every creed has had its mar
tyrs ; men exposed to obloquy, or even to death, hecause they
knew more than their contemporaries, and because society was
not sufficiently advanced to receive the truths which they com
municated. According to the ordinary course of affairs, a few
generations pass away, and then there comes a period, when
these very truths are looked upon as commonplace facts ; and a
Uttle later, there comes another period, in which they are declared
to be necessary, and even the dullest intellects wonder how they
could ever have been denied. This is what happens when the
human mind is allowed to have fair play, and to exercise itself,
yrith tolerable freedom, in the accumulation and diffusion of knowl
edge. If, however, by violent, and therefore by artificial, raeans,
this same society is prevented from exercising its inteUect, then
the truths, however important they may he, can never be received.
For why should certain traths he rejected in one age, and ac
knowledged in another .? The truths remain the same ; their
ultimate recognition must, therefore, he due to a change in the
society which now accepts what it had hefore despised. Indeed,
history is fuU of evidence of the utter inefficiency even of the
noblest principles, when they are promulgated among a very ig
norant nation. Thus it was that the doctrine of One God, taught
to the Hebrews of old, remained for many centuries altogether
inoperative. The people to whom it was addressed had not yet
emerged from barbarism ; they were, therefore, unable to raise
their minds to so elevated a conception. Like aU other barba
rians, they craved after a religion which would feed their credu-

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 187
Uty yrith incessant wonders ; and which, instead of abstracting
the Deity to a single essence, would multiply their gods until
they covered every field, and swarmed in every forest. This is
the idolatry, which is the natural fruit of ignorance ; and this it
is to which the Hebrews were perpetuaUy recurring. Notwith
standing the most severe and unremitting punishments, they, at
every opportunity, abandoned that pure theism which their
minds were too backward to receive, and relapsed into supersti
tions which they could more easUy understand, — into the worship
of the golden calf, and the adoration of the brazen serpent. Now,
and in this age of the world, they have long ceased to do these
things. And why ? Not because their religious feeUngs are
more easUy aroused, or their reUgious fears more often excited.
So far from this, they are dissevered from their old associations ;
they have lost for ever those scenes by which men might weU have
heen moved. They are no longer influenced hy those causes
which inspired emotions, sometimes of terror, sometimes of grati
tude. They no longer witness the pillar of cloud by day, or the
piUar of flre by night ; they no longer see the Law being given
from Sinai, nor do they hear the thunder roUing from Horeb. ' In
the presence of these great appeals, they remained idolaters in
their hearts, and whenever an opportunity occurred, they became
idolaters in their practice ; and this they did hecause they were
in that state of barbarism, of which idolatry is the natural pro
duct. To what possible circumstance can their subsequent
change he ascribed, except to the simple fact, that the Hebrews,
like aU other people, as they advanced in civUization, began to
abstract and reflne their reUgion, and, despising the old worship
of many gods, thus hy slow degrees elevated their minds to that
steady perception of One Great Cause, which, at an earUer period,
it had been vainly attempted to impress upon them ?
Thus intimate is the connexion between the opinions of
a people and their knowledge; and thus necessary is it that, so
far as nations are concerned, iuteUectual activity should precede
pUgious improvement. If we require further iUustrations of this
important truth, we shall find them in the events which occurred
in Europe soon after the promulgation of Christianity. The
Eomans were, with rare exceptions, an ignorant and barbarous
race ; ferocious, dissolute, and cruel. For such a people. Polythe
ism was the natural creed ; and we read, accordingly, that they
practised an idolatry which a few great thinkers, and only a few,
ventured to despise. The Christian religion, faUing among these
men, found them unable to appreciate its sublime and admirable
doctrines. And when, a little later, Europe was overmn by
fresh inimigrations, the invaders, who were even more barbarous

188 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
than the Eomans, brought with them those superstitions which
were suited to their actual condition. It was upon the materials
arising from these two sources that Christianity was now caUed
to do, her work. The result is most remarkable. For after the
new religion seemed to have carried aU hefore it, and had
received the homage of the best part of Europe, it was soon
found that nothing had been reaUy effected. It was soon found
that society was in that early stage in which superstition ' is
inevitable ; and in which men, if they do not have it in one
form, wUl have it in another. It was in vain that Christianity
taught a simple doctrine, and enjoined a simple worship. The
minds of men were too backward for so great a step, and
required more complicated forms, and a more compUcated beUef
What followed is weU known to the students of ecclesiastical
history. The superstition of Europe, instead of being dimin
ished, was only turned into a fresh channel. The new religion
was corrupted hy the old foUies. The adoration of idols was
succeeded by the adoration of saints; the worship of the Virgin
was substituted for the worship of Cybele;"' Pagan ceremonies
were established in Christian churches; not only the mummeries
of idolatry, but likewise its doctrines, were quickly added, and
were incorporated and worked into the spirit of the new reU
gion, until, after the lapse of a few generations, Christianity
exhibited so grotesque and hideous a form, that its best features
were lost, and the Uneaments of its earUer loveUness altogether
destroyed."' After some centuries were passed, Christianity slowly emerged
from these corruptions ; many of which, however, even the most
civUized countries have not yet heen ahle to throw off."' Indeed,
it was found impossible to effect even the beginning of a reform,
until the European intellect was, in some degree, roused from its
lethargy. The knowledge of' men, gradually advancing, made
them indignant at superstitions which they had formerly ad-
" This is curiously illustrated by the fact, that the 25th of March, which ia now
called Lady-day, iu honour of the 'Virgin Mary, waa, iu Pagan timea, caUed Hilariai
and was dedicated to Cybele, the mother of the gods. Compare Blunts Vestiges of
Ancient Manners, 8vo, 1828, pp. 51-55, with Hamipson's Medii CEvi Kalendarium,
8vo, 1841, voh i. pp. 66, 177.
"' On this interesting subject, the two best English books are, Middleton's Letter
from Rome, and Priestley's History of the Corruptions of Christianity; the former
work being chiefly valuable for ritual corruptions, the latter work for doctrinal ones.
Blunts Vestiges of Ancient Manners is also worth reading ; but is very inferior to
the two treatises just named, and ia conceived in a much narrower spirit.
'^ The large amount of Paganism which stiU exists iu every Christian sect, forms
au argument against au ingenious distinction which M. Bunaen has made between
the change of a religion and that of a language ; alterations in a reUgion being, as he
supposes, always more abrupt than those in a language. Bunsen's Egypt, voh i. pp.
858, 359.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 189
mired. The way in which their indignation increased, until, in
the sixteenth century, it broke out into that great event which
is well called the Eeformation, forms one of the most interesting
subjects in modern history. But for our present purpose, it is
enough to keep in mind the memorable and important fact,
that for centuries after Christianity was the established religion
of Europe, it failed to bear its natural fruit, because its lot was
cast among a people whose ignorance compeUed them to he
superstitious, and who, on account of their superstition, defaced
a system which, in its original purity^ they were unable to
receive."® Indeed, in every page of history, we meet with fresh evidence
of the Uttle effect reUgious doctrines can produce upon a people,
unless preceded hy inteUectual culture. The influence exercised
hy Protestantism, as compared yrith CathoUcism, affords an
interesting example of this. The CathoUc reUgion hears to the
Protestant reUgion exactly the same relation that the Dark
Ages hear to the sixteenth century. In the Dark Ages, men
were credulous and ignorant ; they therefore produced a religion
which required great belief and little knowledge. In the six
teenth century, their creduUty and ignorance, though stiU con
siderahle, were rapidly diminishing, and it was found necessary
to organize a reUgion suited' to their altered circumstances : a
religion more favourable to free inquiry ; a reUgion less full of
miracles, saints, legends, and idols ; a reUgion of which the
ceremonies were less frequent, and less burdensome ; a religion
which should discourage penance, fasting, confession, celibacy,
and those other mortifications which had long heen universal.
AU this was done hy the estahUshment of Protestantism ; a
mode of worship which, being thus suited to the age, made, as
is weU known, speedy progress. If this great movement had
heen allowed to proceed without interruption, it would, in the
course of a few generations, have overthrown the old superstition,
and estabUshed in its place a simpler and less troublesome creed ;
the rapidity with which this was done, being, of course, propor
tioned to the inteUectual acti-rity of the different countries.
But, unfortunately, the European governments, who are always,
meddUng in matters with which they have no concern, thought
"It was neceaaary, says M. Maury, that the church " se rapprochSt davantage dc
1 esprit grossier, inculte, ignorant du barbare." Maury, L'egendes Pieuses du Moyen
-^S'*i P- 101- An exactly similar process has taken place in India, where the Puranaa
are to the Vedas what the works of the Fathers are to the New Testament. Compare
Elphinstone's History of India, pp. 87, 88, 98 ; Wilson's Preface to the Vishnu Pu
rana, p. vU. ; and Transactions cf Bombay Society, voh i. p. 205. So that, as M. Max
MiiUer weU expresses it, the Puranas are " a secondary formation of Indian my
thology." Miller on the Languages of India, in Reports of British Association for
1847, p. 324.

190 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
it their duty to protect the reUgious interests of the people;;
and, making common cause yrith the CathoUc clergy, they,
in many instances, forcibly stopped the heresy, and thus
arrested the natural development of the age. This interference
was, in nearly aU cases, well intended, and is solely to be
ascribed to the ignorance of rulers respecting the proper limits
of their functions : hut the evUs caused hy this ignorance
it would he difficult to exaggerate. During almost a hundred
and fifty years, Europe was affiicted hy reUgious wars, reUgious
massacres, and religious persecutions ; not one of which would
have arisen, if the great truth had been recognized, that the
state has no concern with the opinions of men, and no right to
interfere, even in the sUghtest degree, with the form of worship
which they may choose to adopt. This principle was, however,
formerly unknown, or, at all events, unheeded ; and it was not
untU the middle of the seventeenth century that the great
religious contests were brought to a final close, and the different
countries settled down into their public creeds ; which, in the
essential points, have never since heen permanently altered ; no
nation having, for more than two hundred years, made war upon
another on account of its religion ; and all the great CathoUc
countries having, during the same period, remained CathoUc^ all
the great Protestant ones remained. Protestant.
From this it has arisen, that, in several of the European coun
tries, the reUgious development has not foUowed its natural order,
but has been artificiaUy forced into an unnatural one. According
to the natural order, the most civilized countries should aU be
Protestants, and the most unciviUzed ones CathoUcs. In the
average of instances, this is actually the case ; so that many per
sons have heen led into the singular error, of ascribing aU mod
ern enlightenment to the influence of Protestantism ; overlook
ing the important fact, that until the enUghtenment had begun.
Protestantism was never required. But although, in the ordi
nary course of afiairs, the advance of the Eeformation would have
been the measure, and the symptom, of that advance of knowl
edge by which it was preceded, stUl, in many cases, the authority
of the government and of the church acted as disturbing causes,
and frustrated the natural progress of religious improvement.
And, after the treaty of Westphalia had flxed the political rela
tions of Europe, the love of theological strife so greatly subsided,
that men no longer thought it worth their while to raise a reU
gious revolution, and to risk their Uves in an attempt to overturn
the creed of the state. At the same time, governments, not being
themselves particularly fond of revolutions, have encouraged this
stationary condition ; and very naturaUy, and, as it appears to

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 191
me, very yrisely, have made no great alteration, hut have left
the national establishments as they found them ; that is to say,
the Protestant ones Protestant, the Catholic ones Catholic.
Hence it is, that the national religion professed hy any country
at the present moment, is no decisive criterion of the present
civUization of the country ; hecause the circumstances which
fixed the reUgion occurred long since, and the religion remains
endowed and estabUshed by the mere continuance of an impetus
wlUch was formerly given.
Thus far as to the origin of the ecclesiastical establishments
of Europe. But, in their practical consequences, we see some
results which are highly instructive. For many countries owing
their national creed, not to their own proper antecedents, but to
the authority of powerful indi'riduals, it wiU be invariably found,
that in such countries the creed does not produce the effects
which might have been expected from it, and which, according
to its terms, it ought to produce. Thus, for instance, the Cath
oUc reUgion is more superstitious, and more intolerant, than the
Protestant ; hut it hy no means follows, that those countries
which profess the former creed, must he more superstitious, and
more intolerant, than those which profess the latter. So far from
this, the French are not only quite as free from those odious qual
ities as are the most civiUzed Protestants, hut they are more free
from them than some Protestant nations, as the Scotch and the
Swedes. Of the highly-educated class, I am not here speaking ;
but of the clergy, and of the people generaUy, it must he admit
ted, that in Scotland there is more bigotry, more superstition,
and a more thorough contempt for the religion of others, than
there is in France. And in Sweden, which is one of the oldest
Protestant countries in Europe,"' there is, not occasionaUy, hut
habituaUy, an intolerance and a spirit of persecution, which would
he discreditable to a CathoUc country ; but which is doubly dis
graceful when proceeding from a people who profess to base their
reUgion on the right of private judgment.^"
"' The doctrines of Luther were first preached in Sweden in 1519; and, in 1527,
the principles of the Eeformation were formaUy adopted in an assembly of the States
at Westeraas, which enabled Gustavus Vasa to seize the property of the church.
Geijer's History of the Swedes, parti, pp. 110, 118,, 119; Mosheim's Ecclesiastical
History, vol. U. p. 22 ; Crichton and Wheaton's History of Scandinavia, vol. i. pp.
399, 400. The apoataay proceeded so favourably, that De Tbou (Histoire Univ. vol.
xiu. p. 312) says, in 1598, "11 y avoit ddja si long-tems que ce culte dtoit dtabli en
Sudde, qu'U dtoit comme impossible de trouver, soit parmi le peuple, soit parmi les
seigneurs, quelqu'un qui se souvint d'avoir vu dans ce rolaume llexercice public de
la reUgion cathoUque."
"¦ On the state of things in 1838, see aome curious, and indeed shameful, details
in Laing's Sweden, London, 8vo. 1839. Mr. Laing, though himself a Protestant,
truly aaya, that in Protestant Sweden there " is inquisition law, working in the hands
of a Lutheran state-church, as strongly as in Spain or Portugal in tlie hands of a

192 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
These things show, what it would be easy to prove hy a, wider
induction, that when, from special, or as they are caUed, acci
dental, causes, any people profess a reUgion more advanced than
themselves, it will not produce its legitimate effect.^' The su
periority of Protestantism over CathoUcism consists in its diminu
tion of superstition and intolerance, and in the check, which it
gives to ecclesiastical power. But the experience of Europe
teaches us, that when the superior religion is fixed among an inferi
or people, its superiority is no longer seen. The Scotch and the
Swedes, — and to them might be added some of the Swiss can
tons, — are less civiUzed than the French, and are therefore more
superstitious. This being the case, it avaUs them Uttle, that
they have a reUgion better than the French. It avaUs them
little, that, owing to circumstances which have long since passed
away, they, three centuries ago, adopted a creed to which the
force of habit, and the influence of tradition, now obUge. them
to cling. Whoever has travelled in Scotland with sufficient
attention to observe the ideas and opinions of the people, and
whoever wUl look into Scotch theology, and read the history of
the Scotch Kirk, and the proceedings of the Scotch Assemblies
and Consistories, will see how Uttle the country has benefited
by its reUgion, and how wide an interval there is between its in
tolerant spirit and the natural tendencies of the Protestant
Eeformation. On the other hand, whoever will subject France
to a similar examination, wiU see an iUiheral reUgion accompa
nied by Uberal views, and a creed fuU of superstitions, professed
hy a people among whom superstition is comparatively rare.
Eoman-catholic church.'' Laing's Sweden, p. 324. In the seventeenth century, it
was ordered by the Swedish church, and the order was confirmed by government,
that "if any Swedish subject change his reUgion, he shall be banished the kingdom,
and lose aU right of inheritance, both for himself and his descendants  If
any bring into the country teachers of another reUgion, he shaU be fined and ban
ished." BurtorCs Diary, vol. Ui. p. 387, 8vo, 1828. To this may be added, that it
was not till 1781 that Eoman Catholics were aUowed to exercise their reUgion in
Sweden. See Crichton's History of Scandinavia, Edinb. 1838, voh ii. p. 820. See
alao, on thia intolerant spirit, Whitelocke's Journal of the Swedish Embassy, vol. i.
pp. 164, 412, voh U. p. 212.
*' We see a good instance of this iu the case of the Abyaainians, who haye pro-
feaaed Chriatianity for centuries ; but, as no pains were taken to cultivate their intel
lect, they foun,d the religion too pure for them : they, therefore, corrupted it, and,
down to the present moment, they have not made the sUghtest progress. The ac
counts given by Bruce of them are weU known ; and a traveUer, who visited them
in 1839, says: "Nothing can be more corrupt than the nominal Chriatianity of this
unhappy nation. It is mixed up with Judaism, Mohammedanism, and idolatry, and
is a mass of rites and superstitions, which cannot mend tbe heart." Kraff's Joimwd
at Ankobar, in Journal of Geographical Society, voh x. p. 488 ; see also voh xiv. p.
13;_and for a similar state of things in America, see the account of the Quichd
Indians, in Stephens's Central America, voh U. pp. 191, 192. Compare Squier's Cen
tral America, voh i. pp. 322, 323, Tvith Halkett's North-American Indians, pp. ^9;
212, 268. For further confirmation of this view, in another part of the world, se?
Tuckey's Expedition to the Zaire, pp. 79, 80, 166. [

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 193
The simple fact is, that the French have a reUgion worse
than themselves ; the Scotch have a reUgion better than them
selves. The UberaUty of France is as ill-suited to Catholicism,
as the bigotry of Scotland is Ul-suited to Protestantism. In
these, as in all simUar cases, the characteristics of the creed are
overpowered by the characteristics of the people ; and the na
tional faith is, in the most important points, altogether inopera
tive, because it does not harmonize with the ci-rilization of the
country in which it is estabUshed. How idle, then, it is to ascribe
the ci'vUization to the creed ; and how worse than fooUsh are the
attempts of government to protect a religion, which, if suited
to the people, wUl need no protection, and, if unsuited to them,
yriU work no good !
If the reader has seized the spirit of the preceding argu
ments, he yrill hardly require that I should analyze with equal
minuteness the second disturbing cause, namely. Literature.
It is evident, that what has already heen said respecting the
reUgion of a people, is, in a great measure, appUcable to their
Uterature. Literature,^" when it is in a healthy and unforced
state, is simply the form in which the knowledge of a country is
registered; the mould in which it is cast. In this, as in the
other cases we have considered, indiridual men may of course
take great steps, and rise to a great height above the level of
their age. But if they rise beyond a certain point, their present
usefulness is impaired ; if they rise stUl higher, it is destroyed.^^
When the interval between the inteUectual classes and the
practical classes is too great, the former vriU possess no influence,
the latter yyUl reap no benefit. This is what occurred in the an
cient world, when the distance between the ignorant idolatry of
the people and the refined systems of phUosophers was altogether
impassable ;" and this is the principal reason why the Greeks
"^ I use the word Uterature, not as oppoaed to acience, but in itB larger sense,
including every thing which is written — " taking the term literature in its primary
sense, of, an application of letters to the records of facts or opinions." Mure's
History of the Literature of Greece, vol. iv. p. 60.
" Compare TocqueviUe, DSmocratie en Amerique, voh u. p. 130, with some ad
mirable remarks on the Sophists in Grote's History of Greece, vol. viu. p. 48 L Sir
W. Hamilton, whose learning respecting the history of opinions is weU known, says,
"Precisely in proportion aa an author ia in advance of hia age, is it Ukely that his
worka wUl be neglected." Hamilton's Discussions on Philosophy, p. 186. Thus
too, in regard to the fine arts. Sir Joshua Eeynolda (Fourth Discourse, in Works, vol.
i. p. 863) saya, " Preaent time and future may be conaidered as rivals ; aud he who
Bolicita the one, must expect to be discountenanced by the other."
°* Hence the inteUectually excluaive and, aa M. Neander weU terma it, " arieto-
cratio apirit of antiquity." Neander' s History of the Church, yol. i. pp. 40, 97, vol.
ii. p. 31. Thia is constantly overlooked by writers who use the word ' democracy'
loosely ; forgetting that,- in the same age, democracies of politica may be very com
mon, while democracies of thought are very rare. For proof of the universal prev
alence formfely of thia esoteric and aristocratic apirit, see the foUowing passages:
VOL. I. — 13

194 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
and Eomans were unable to retain the ci'vUization which they
for a short time possessed. Precisely the same process is at the
present moment going on in Germany, where the most valuable
part of Uterature forms an esoteric system, which having noth
ing in common with the nation if self, produces no effect on the
national civiUzation. The trath is, that although Europe has
received great benefit from its Uterature, this is owiag, not to
what the literature has originated, hut to what it has preserved.
Knowledge must he acquired, before it can he written ; and the
only use of books is, to serve as a storehouse in which the treas
ures of the inteUect are safely kept, and where they may be con
veniently found. Literature in itself is but a trifling . matter ;
and is merely valuable as being the armory in which the weapons
of the human mind are laid up, and from which, when required,
they can be quickly drawn. But he would he a sorry reasoner,
who on that account should propose to sacrifice the end, that
he might obtain the means ; who should hope to defend the ar
mory by giving up the weapons, and who should destroy the
treasure, in order to improve the magazine in which the treasure
is kept. Yet this is what many persons are apt to do. From literary
men, in particular, we hear too m'&ch of the necessity of pro
tecting ahd rewarding literature, and we hear too little of the
necessity of that freedom and boldness, in the absence of which
the most splendid Uterature is altogether worthless. Indeed,
there is a general tendency not to exaggerate the advantages of
knowledge, — ^for that is impossible, — but to misunderstand what
that is in which knowledge really consists. Eeal knowledge, the
knowledge on which aU civiUzation is based, solely consists in an
acquaintance with the relations which things and ideas hear to
each- other and to themselves ; in other words, in an acquaint
ance with physical and mental laws. If the time should ever
come, when aU these laws are known, the circle of human
knowledge wiU then he complete ; and, in the interim, the value
of literature depends upon the extent to which it communicates
either a knowledge of the laws, or the materials by which the laws
may he discovered. The business of education is to accelerate this
great movement, and thus increase the fitness and aptitude of
men, by increasing the resources which they possess. Towards
Ritter's History of Ancient Philosophy, vol. i. p. 338, vol. iU. pp. 9, 17 ; Tennemann,
Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. ii. pp. 200, 206,''220 ; Beausobre, Histoire Critique
de Manichie, vol ii. p. 41 ; Matter, Histoire du Gnosticisme, vol. 1 p. 13, vol. u. pp.

-Egypt, vol. U. p. 174 ; Cudworth's Intellect. System, vol. u. pp. 114, 865, 443, 'vol.
ui. p. 20.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 196
this purpose, Uterature, so far as it is auxiUary, is highly useful.
But to look upon an acquaintance with Uterature as one of the
objects of education, is to mistake the order of events, and to
make the end subserrient to the means. It is hecause this is
done, that we often find what are caUed highly educated men,
the progress of whose knowledge has been actuaUy retarded hy
the actirity of their education. We often find them burdened
by prejudices, which their reading, instead of dissipating, has
rendered more inveterate." For Uterature, being the depository
of the thoughts of mankind, is fuU, not only of wisdom, but
also of absurdities. The benefit, therefore, which is derived
from Uterature, 'wUl depend, not so much upon the Uterature
itself, as upon the skUl with which it is studied, and the judg
ment with which it is selected. These are the preUminary con
ditions of success ; and if they are not obeyed, the number and
the value of the hooks in a country become a matter quite
unimportant. Even in an advanced stage of cirilization, there
is always a tendency to prefer those parts of Uterature which fa
vour ancient prejudices, rather than those which oppose them ;
and in cases where this tendency is very strong, the only effect
of great learning yriU be to.supply the materials which may cor
roborate old errors, and confirm old superstitions. In our time
such instances are not uncommon ; and we frequently meet with
men whose erudition ministers to their ignorance, and who, the
more they read, the less they know. There have been states
of society in which this disposition was so general, that Utera
ture has done far more harm than good. Thus, for example, in
the whole period from the sixth to the tenth centuries, there
were not in aU Europe more than three or four men who dared
to think for themselves ; and even they were ohUged to veU their
meaning in obscure and mystical language. The remaining part
of society was, during these four centuries, sunk in the most
degrading ignorance. Under these circumstances, the few
who were ahle to read, confined their studies to works which
encouraged and strengthened their superstition, such as the
legends of the saints, and the homUies of the fathers. From
these sources they drew those lying and impudent fables, of
which the theology of that time is principally composed.^'
" Locke has noticed thia " learned ignorance," for which many men are remarka
ble. See a flne passage in the Essay on Human Understanding, book iu. chap. x. in
Locke's Works, vol. u. p. 27, and aimUar remarks in hia Conduct of the Understand-
ing', vol. n. pp. 850, 364, 365, and in hia Thoughts on Education, vol. vui. pp. 84-87.
If- this profound writer were now aUve, what a war he would wage against our great
universities and public schools, where innumerable things are stiU taught which no
one ia concerned to underatand, and which few will take the trouble to remember.
Compare Condorcet, Vie de Turgot, pp. 255, 266 note, ;
" The statiatica of this sort of literature would prove a curioua subject for in
quiry. No one, I beUeve, has thought it worth while to sum them up ; but M. Gui-

196 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
These miserable stories were -widely circulated, and were valued
as soUd and important truths. The more the Uterature was
read, the more the stories were heUeved ; in other words, the
greater the learning, the greater the ignorance.^' And I enter
tain no douht, that if, in the seventh and eighth centuries, which
were the worst part of that period,'* aU knowledge of the
alphabet had for a whUe heen lost, so that men could no longer
read the hooks in which they deUghted, the subsequent progress
of Europe would have been more rapid than it really was. For
when the progress began, its principal antagonist was that crie-
duUty which the Uterature had fostered. It was not that better
books were wanting, hut it was that the reUsh for such hooks
was extinct. There was the Uterature of Greece and Eome,
which the monks not only preserved, hut even occasionaUy looked
into and copied. But what could that avail such readers as
they ? So far from recognising the merit of the ancient writers,
they, were unable to feel even the beauties of their style, and
trembled at the boldness of their inquiries. At the first gUmpse
of the light, their eyes were bUnded. They never turned the
leaves of a pagan author without standing aghast at the risk
they were running ; and they were in constant fear, lest hy im
bibing any of his opinions, they should involve themselves in a
deadly sin. The result was, that they wUlingly laid aside the
great masterpieces of antiquity ; and in their place they substi
tuted those wretched compilations, which corrupted their taste,
increased their credulity, strengthened their errors, and prolonged
the ignorance of Europe, hy embodying each separate supersti
tion in a written and accessible form, thus perpetuating its influ
ence, and enabling it to enfeeble the understanding even of a
distant posterity.
It is in this way that the nature of the Uterature possessed
hy a people is of very inferior importance, in comparison -with
the disposition of the people hy whom the literature is to he
read. In what are rightly termed the Dark Ages, there was a
zot has made an estimate that the BoUandist coUection contains more than twenty-
fivd thousaiid Uves of saints : "^ en juger par approximation. Us contiennent plus
de 25,000 vies de saints." Guizot, Histoire de la Civilisation en France, voh u. p.
32. It is said (Ledwich' s Antiquities of Ireland, p. 62) that of Saint Patrick alone,
there were aixty-aix biographers before JoceUne.
" For, as Laplace obaervea, in hia remarks on the sources of error in connexion
with the doctrine of probabilities, " C'est k I'influence de I'opinion de ceux que la
multitude juge les plus instruits, et k qui elle a coutume de donner sa confiance sur
lea plus importanta objeta de la vie, qu'eat due la propagation de ces erreura qui, dana
leB tempa d'ignorance, ont convert la face du monde.". Bouillaud, Philosophie M'ei-
icale, p. 218.
™ M. Guizot (Civilisation en Prance, vol. ii. pp. 171, 172) thinka that, on the
whole, the seventh was even worse than the eighth ; but it is difficult to choose be
tween them.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 197
literature in which valuable materials were to he found, hut
there was no one who knew how to use them. During a con
siderahle period, the Latin language was a vernacular dialect ;"
and, if men had chosen, they might have studied the great Latin
authors. But to do this, they must have Jteen in a state of society
very different from that in which they actuaUy lived. They,
Uke every other people, measured merit by the standard commonly
received in their oyyn age ; and, according to their standard, the
dross was better than the gold. They, therefore, rejected the
gold, and hoarded up the dross. What took place then is, on a
smaUer scale, taking place now. Every literature contains some
thing that is true, and much that is false ; and the effect it pro
duces wiU chiefly depend upon the skUl with which the truth is
discriminated from the falsehood. New ideas, and new discove
ries, possess prospectively an importance difficult to exaggerate;
hut until the ideas are received, and the discoveries adopted,
they exercise no influence, and, therefore, work no good. No
Uterature can ever heneflt a people, unless it flnds them in a state
of preUminary preparation. In this respect, the analogy with
reUgious opinions is complete. If the reUgion and the Uterature
of a country are unsmted to its wants, they wiU he useless, he-
cause the literature yyiU he neglected, and the reUgion will he
disobeyed. In such cases, even the ablest books are unread, and
the purest doctrines despised. The works fall into ohUvion; the
faith is corrupted hy heresy.
The other opinion to which I have referred is, that the civUi
zation of Europe is chiefly owing to the ahUity which has been
displayed by the different governments, and to the sagacity yrith
which the evils of society have heen palUated hy legislative reme
dies. To any one who has studied history in its original sources,
this notion must appear so extravagant, as to make it difficult to
refute it with becoming gravity. Indeed, of aU the social theo
ries which have ever heen broached, there is none so utterly un
tenable, and so unsound in aU its parts, as this. In the first
place, we have the obvious consideration, that the rulers of a
country have, under ordinary circumstances, always been the in
habitants of that country; nurtured hy its literature, bred to its
traditions, and imbibing its prejudices. Such men are, at best,
only the creatures of the age, never its creators. Their measures
are the result of social progress, not the cause of it. This may
he proved, not only hy speculative arguments, but also hy a
™ Some of the results of Latin being coUoquially employed by the monks are
judiciously stated in Herder's Ideen zur Geschichte der Menschheit, vol. iv. pp. 202,
203. The remarks on this custom by Dugald Stewart refer to a later period. Stew
arts Philosophy of the Mind, vol ni. pp. 110, 111.

198 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
practical consideration, which any reader of history can verify for
himself. No great political improvement, no great reform, either
legislative or executive, has ever been originated in any country
hy its rulers. The first suggesters of such steps have invariably
heen bold and able thinkers, who discern the abuse, denounce it,
and point out how it is to be remedied. But long after this is
done, even the most enUghtened governments continue to uphold
the abuse, and reject the remedy. At length, if circumstances
are favourable, the pressure from without becomes so strong, that
the government is obliged to give way; and, the reform being ac
complished, the people are expected to admire the wisdom of
their rulers, by whom all this has heen done. That this is the
course of poUtical improvement, must he weU knoym to whoever
has studied the law-books of different countries in connexion with
the previous progress of their knowledge. FuU and decisive evi
dence of this wrUl be brought forward in the present work; hut,
by way of iUustration, I may refer to the ahoUtion of the corn-
laws, undoubtedly one of the most remarkable facts in the his
tory of England during this century. The propriety, and, in
deed, the necessity, of their ahoUtion, is now admitted by every
one of tolerable information; and the question arises, as to how
it was brought about. Those Englishmen who are little versed
in the history of their country yriU say, that the real cause was
the wisdom of ParUament; whUe others, attempting to look a
little further, wiU ascribe it to the activity of the Anti-Oorn-
Law League, and the consequent pressure put upon Govern
ment. But whoever yrill minutely trace the different stages
through which this great question successively passed, wiU find,
that the Government, the Legislature, and the League, were the
unwitting instruments of a power far greater than aU other
powers put together. They were simply the exponents of that
march of public opinion, which on this subject had begun nearly
a century before their time. The steps of this vast movement I
shaU examine on another occasion; at present it is enough to
say, that soon after the middle of the eighteenth century, the
absurdity of protective restrictions on trade was so fuUy demon
strated by the poUtical economists, as to be admitted hy eveiy
man who understood their arguments, and had mastered the eri
dence connected yrith them. From this moment, the repeal of
the corn-laws became a matter, not of party, nor of expediency,
but merely of knowledge. Those who knew the facts, opposed
the laws ; those who were ignorant of the facts, favoured the
laws. It was, therefore, clear, that whenever the diffusion of
knowledge reached a certain point, the laws must faU. The
merit of the League was, to assist this diffusion; the merit of

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 199
the Parliament was, to yield to it. It is, however, certain, that
the members both of League and Legislature could at best only
sUghtly hasten what the progress of knowledge rendered inerita-
hle. If they had lived a century earUer, they would have been
altogether powerless, because the age would not have been ripe
for their labours. They were the creatures of a movement which
began long hefore any of them were born; and the utmost they
could do was, to put into operation what others had taught, and
repeat, in louder tones, the lessons they had learned from their
masters. For, it was not pretended, they did not even pretend
themselves, that there was any thing new in the doctrines which
they preached from the hustings, and disseminated in every part
of the kingdom. The discoveries had long since heen made, and
were graduaUy doing their work; encroaching upon old errors,
and making proselytes in aU directions. The reformers of our
time swam with the stream: they aided what it would have heen
impossible long to resist. Nor is this to be deemed a slight or
grudging praise of the services they undoubtedly rendered. The
opposition they had to encounter was stUl immense ; and it should
always be remembered, as a proof of the backwardness of poUti
cal knowledge, and of the incompetence of poUtical legislators,
that although the principles of free trade had heen estabUshed
for nearly a century hy a chain of arguments as soUd as those on
which the truths of mathematics are based, they were to the last
moment strenuously resisted; and it was only with the greatest
difficulty that ParUament was induced to grant what the people
were determined to have, and the necessity of which had been
proved hy the ablest men during three successive generations.
I have selected this instance as an Ulustration, hecause the
facts connected yrith it are undisputed, and, indeed, are fresh in
the memory of us aU. For it was not concealed at the time, and
posterity ought to know, that this great measure, which, with
the exception of the Eeform BUl, is by far the most important
ever passed hy a British parUament, was, Uke the Eeform BUl,
extorted fr-om the legislature hy a pressure from without; that it
was conceded, not cheerfuUy, but 'with fear; and that it was
carried hy statesmen who had spent their Uves in opposing what
they now suddenly advocated. Such was the history of these
events; and such likewise has been the history of aU those im
provements which are important enough to rank; as epochs in the
history of modern legislation.
Besides this, there is another circumstance worthy the atten
tion of those writers who ascribe a large part of European civiU
zation to measures originated hy European governments. This
is, that every great reform which has heen effected, has consist-

200 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
ed, not in doing something new, hut in imdoing something old.
The most valuable additions made to legislation have heen en
actments destructive of preceding legislation ; and the best laws
which have been passed, have been those hy which some former
laws were repealed. In the case just mentioned, of the com-
laws, aU that was done was to repeal the old laws, and leave
trade to its natural freedom. When this great reform was ac
compUshed, the only result was, to place things on the same
footing as if legislators had never interfered at aU. Precisely
the same remark is appUcable to another leading improvement
in modern legislation, namely, the decrease of reUgious persecu
tion. This is unquestionably an immense boon; though, unfor
tunately, it is stUl imperfect, even in the most civilized coun
tries. But it is e'rident that the concession merely consists ih
this : that legislators have retraced their own steps, and undone
their own work. If we examine the poUcy of the most humane
and enUghtened governments, we shall find this to he the course
they have pursued. The whole scope and tendency of modern
legislation is, to restore things to that natural channel from
which the ignorance of preceding legislation has driven them.
This is one of the great works of the present age ; and if legis
lators do it weU, they wiU deserve the gratitude of mankmd.
But though we may thus Ipe grateful to individual lawgivers, we
owe no thanks to lawgivers, considered as a class. For since the
most valuable improvements in legislation are those which sub
vert preceding legislation, it is clear that the balance of good
cannot he on their side. It is clear, that the progress of ci'yiUza
tion cannot he due to those who, on the most important subjects,
have done so much harm, that their successors are considered
benefactors, simply because they reverse their poUcy, and thus
restore affairs to the state in which they would have remained,
if poUticians had allowed them to run on in the course which
the wants of society required.
Indeed, the extent to which the governing classes have in
terfered, and the mischiefs which that interference has produced,
are so remarkable, as to make thoughtful men wonder how ciril
ization could advance, in the face of such repeated obstacles.
In some of the European countries, the obstacles have, in fact,
proved insuperable, and the national progress is thereby stopped.
Even in England, where, from causes which I shaU presently re
late, the higher ranks have for some centuries heen less power
ful than elsewhere, there has been infficted an amount of evil,
which, though much smaUer than that incurred in other coun
tries, is sufficiently serious to form a melancholy chapter in the
•history of the human mind. To sum up these erils, would be

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 201
to write a history of English legislation ; for it may he broadly
stated, that, 'with the exception of certain necessary enactments
respecting the preservation of order, and the punishment of
crime, nearly every thing which has been done, has been done
amiss. Thus, to take only such conspicuous facts as do not ad
mit of controversy, it is certain that all the most important in
terests have been grievously damaged hy the attempts of legis
lators to aid them. Among the accessories of modern civUization,
there is none of greater moment than trade, the spread of which
has probably done more than any other single agent to increase
the comfort and happiness of man. But every European gov
ernment which has legislated much respecting trade, has acted
as if its main object were to suppress the trade, and ruin the
traders. Instead of leaving the national industry to take its
oyyn course, it has heen troubled by an interminable series of
regulations, aU intended for its good, and aU infiicting serious
harm. To such a height has this heen carried, that the com
mercial reforms which have distinguished England during the
last twenty years, have solely consisted in undoing this mischiev
ous and intrusive legislation. The laws formerly enacted on this
subject, and too many of which are stUl in force, are marvellous
to contemplate. Hit is no exaggeration to say, that the history
of the commercial legislation of Europe presents every possible
contrivance for hampering the energies of commerce. Indeed, a
very high authority, who has maturely studied this subject, has
recently declared, that if it had not heen for smuggling, trade
could not have heen conducted, hut must have perished, in con
sequence of this incessant interference.*" However paradoxical
this assertion may appear, it wiU he denied hy no one who
knows how feeble trade once was, and how strong the obstacles
were which opposed it. In every quarter, and at every moment,
the hand of government was felt. Duties on importation, and
duties on exportation ; bounties to raise up a losing trade, and
taxes to puU down a remunerative one ; this branch of industry
forbidden, and that branch of industry encouraged ; one article
of commerce must not he grown, hecause it was grown in the
colonies, another article might he grown and bought, but not
sold again, whUe a third article might be bought and sold, hut
not leave the country. Then, too, we find laws to regulate
wages ; laws to regulate prices ; laws to regulate profits ; laws
*° " C'est k la contrebande que le commerce doit de n'avoir pas pdri sous I'infiuence
du rdgime prohibitif ; tandis que ce regime condamnait les peuples a s'approvision-
ner aux sources les plus dloigndes, la contrebande rapprdchait les distances, abais-
sait les prix, et neutralisait Taction funeste des monopolesj' Blanqui, Histoire de
VEconomie Politique en Europe, Paris, 1845, vol. ii. pp. 25, 26.

303 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
to regulate the interest of money ; custom-house arrangements of
the most vexatious kind, aided hy a compUcated scheme, which
was well called the sUding scale, — a scheme of such perverse inge
nuity, that the duties constantly varied on the same article, and
no man could calculate beforehand what he would have to pay.
To this uncertainty, itself the bane of aU commerce, there was
added a severity of exaction, felt by every class of consumers and
producers. The toUs were so onerous, as to double and often quad
ruple the cost of production. A system was organized, and strictly
enforced, of interference yrith markets, interference with manufac
tories, interference with machinery, interference even with shops.
The towns were guarded hy excisemen, and the ports swarmed
with tide-waiters, whose sole business was to inspect nearly every
process of domestic industry, peer into every package, and tax
every article ; whUe, that absurdity might he carried to its ex
treme height, a large part of aU this was by way of protection:
that is to say, the money was avowedly raised, and the incon
venience suffered, not for the use of the government, but for the
benefit of the people ; in other words, the industrious classes
were robbed, in order that industry might thrive.
Such are some of the henefitswhich European trade owes to
the paternal care of European legislators. But worse still re
mains behind. For the economical evils, great as they were,
have been far surpassed hy the moral evils which this system
produced. The first inevitable consequence was, that, in every
part of Europe, there arose numerous and powerful gangs of
armed smugglers, who Uved hy disobeying the laws which their
ignorant rulers had imposed. These men, desperate from the
fear of punishment,*' and accustomed to the commission of
every crime, contaminated the surrounding population ; intro
duced into peaceful viUages vices formerly unknown ; caused
the ruin of entire famiUes ; spread, wherever they came, drunk
enness, theft, and dissoluteness ; and famUiarized their associates
with those coarse and swinish debaucheries, which were the
natural habits of so vagrant and lawless a Ufe.*" The innumer-
*' The 19 Geo. II. c. 34, made " aU forcible acts of smuggling, carried on in defi
ance of the laws, or even in disguise to evade them, felony without benefit of clergy."
Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. iv. p. 166. Townsend, who traveUed throughFranoe
in 1786, says, that whenever any ofthe numeroua amugglcrs were taken, "some of
them are hanged, aome are broken upon the wheel, and some are burnt alive,"
Townsend's Spain, vol. i. p. 86, edit. 1792. On the general operation of the French
laws against smugglers in the eighteenth century, compare Tucker's Life of Jefferson,
vol. i. pp. 213, 214, with Parliamentary History, voh ix. p. 1240.
" In a work of considerable abiUty, the foUowing account ia given of the state
of things in England and France ao late aa the year 1824: " While this waa going
forward on the EngUah coast, the smugglers on the opposite shore were engaged,
with much more labor, risk, and expense, in introducing EngUsh wooUens, by a vast
system of fraud and lying, into the towns, past a seriea of ouatom-houaea. In both

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 303
able crimes arising from this,*' are directly chargeable upon the
European governments hy whom they were provoked. The
offences were caused by the laws ; and now that the laws are
repealed, the offences have disappeared. But it wUl hardly he
pretended, that the interests of civUization have been advanced
by such a policy as this. It wiU hardly he pretended, that we
owe much to a system which, having caUed into existence a new
class of criminals, at length retraces its steps ; and, though it
thus puts an end to the. crime, only destroys what its own acts
had created.
It is unnecessary to say, that these remarks do not affect the
real services rendered to society by every tolerably organized gov
ernment. In all countries, a power of punishing crime, and of
framing laws, must reside somewhere ; otherwise the nation is in
a state of anarchy. But the accusation which the historian is
bound to bring against every government which has hitherto ex
isted is, that it has overstepped its proper functions, and, at
each step, has done incalculable harm. The love of exercising
power has been found to he so universal, that no class of men
who have possessed authority have been able to avoid abusing it.
To maintain order, to prevent the strong from oppressing the
weak, and to adopt certain precautions respecting the pubUc
health, are the only serrices which any government can render
to the interests of ci-rilization. That these are services of im
mense value, no one wiU deny ; hut it cannot he said, that by
them ciyilization is advanced, or the progress of Man accelerat
ed. AU that is done is, to afford the opportunity of progress ;
the progress itself must depend upon other matters. And that
this is the sound view of legislation, is, moreover, evident from the
fact, that as knowledge is becoming more diffused, and as an in
creasing experience is enabling each successive generation better
to understand the complicated relations of life ; just in the same
countries, there waa an utter disaoluteneaa of morala connected with these tranaac-
tiona. Cheating and lying were easential to the whole system ; drunkenneaa accom
panied it ; contempt for aU law grew up under it ; honest industry perished beneath
it ; and it was crowned with murder." Martineau! s History of England during
Thirty Years Peace, voh i. p. 341, 8vo. 1849.
*' For evidence of the extraordinary extent to which smuggUng waa formerly
carried, and that not aecretly, but by powerful bodies of armed men, see Parliament
ary History, voh ix. pp. 243, 247, 1290, 1345, vol. x. pp. 894, 405, 530, 632, vol. xi.
p. 935. And on the nuulber of persons engaged in it, compare Tomline's Life of
Pitt, vol. i. p. 369 : aee also Sinclair's History of the Public Revenue, vol. Ui. p. 232 ;
Otter's lAfe of Clarke, vol i. p. 391. In France, the evU waa equaUy great. M.
Lemontey says, that early in the eighteenth century, " la contrebande devenait une
profession ouverte, et dea compagniea de cavalerie ddsertferent tout entieres leur dten-
darda pour suivre centre le fisc cette guerre populaire." Lemontey, Essai sur VEta-
blissement monarchique de Louis XIV, p. 430. According to Townsend, there were,
in 1786, " more than 1500 smugglers in the Pyrenees." Townsends Journey through
Spain, vol. i. p. 84.

204 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
proportion are men insisting upon the repeal of those protective
laws, the enactment of which was deemed hy poUticians to be
the greatest triumph of poUtical foresight.
Seeing, therefore, that the efforts of government in favour of
civUization are, when most successful, altogether negative ; and
seeing, too, that when those efforts are more than negative, they
become injurious, — it clearly foUows, that aU speculations must
be erroneous which ascribe the progress of Europe to the wisdom
of its rulers. This is an inference which rests not only on the
arguments already adduced, but on facts which might he multi-
pUed from every page of history. For no government baring
recognized its proper Umits, the result is, that every govemment
has infficted on its subjects great injuries ; and has done this
nearly always with the best intentions. The effects of its pro
tective policy in injuring trade, and, what is far worse, in in
creasing crime, have just heen noticed; and to these instances,
innumerable other^ might he added. Thus, during many cen
turies, every govemment thought it was its bounden duty to
encourage reUgious truth, and discourage reUgious error. The
mischief this has produced is incalculable. Putting aside aU
other considerations, it is enough to mention its two leading con
sequences ; which are, the increase of hypocrisy, and the in
crease of perjury. Th6 increase of hypocrisy is the ineritable
result of connecting any description of penalty with the profes
sion of particular opinions. Whatever may he the case with in
dividuals, it is certain that the majority of men find an extreme
difficulty in long resisting constant temptation. And when the
temptation comes to them in the shape of honour and emolu
ment, they are too often ready to profess the dominant opinions,
and abandon, not indeed their heUef, hut the external marks by
which that belief is made puhUc. Every man who takes this
step is a hypocrite ; and every government whiph encourages
this step to be taken, is an abettor of hypocrisy and a creator
of hypocrites. WeU, therefore, may we say, that when a govern
ment holds out as a bait, that those who profess certain opinions
shall enjoy certain pririleges, it plays the part of the tempter of
old, and, like the Eril One, basely offers the good things of this
world to him who wiU change his worship and deny his faith.
At the same time, and as a part of this system, the increase of
perjury has accompanied the increase of hypocrisy. For legisla
tors, plainly seeing that proselytes thus obtained could not be
reUed upon, have met the danger hy the most extraordinary pre
cautions ; and compelUng^ento confirm their beUef by repeat
ed oaths, have thus sought to protect the old creed against the
new converts. It is this suspicion as to the motives of others,

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 205
which has given rise to oaths of every kind and in every direc
tion. In England, even the hoy at college is forced to swear
about matters which he cannot understand, and which far riper
minds are unable to master. If he afterwards goes into Parlia
ment, he must again swear ahout his religion; and at nearly .
every stage of poUtical Ufe he must take fresh oaths ; the so
lemnity of which is often strangely contrasted with the tririal
functions to which they are the prelude. A solemn adjuration
of the Deity being thus made at every turn, it has happened, as
might have heen expected, that oaths, enjoined as a matter of
course, have at length degenerated into a matter of form. What
is Ughtly taken, is easily hroken. And the best observers of
English society, — observers too whose characters are very dif
ferent, and who hold the most opposite opinions, — are all agreed
on this, that the perjury habituaUy practised in England, and of
which government is the immediate creator, is so general, that
it has become a source of national corruption, has dimuiished
the value of human testimony, and shaken the confidence which
men naturaUy place in the word of their feUow-creatures.**
The open 'rices, and, what is much more dangerous, the
hidden corraption, thus generated in the midst of society by the
ignorant interference of Christian rulers, is indeed a painful sub
ject; butrit is one which I could not omit in an analysis of the
causes of civilization. It would he easy to push the inquiry stUl
further, and to show how legislators, in every attempt they have
made to protect some particular interests, and uphold some par
ticular principles, have not only faUed, hut have brought about
results diametricaUy opposite to those which they proposed. We
have seen that their laws in favour of industry have injured in
dustry ; that their laws in favour of religion have increased
hypocrisy; and that their laws to secure truth have encouraged
perjury. Exactly in the same way, nearly every country has
taken steps to prevent usury, and keep down the interest of
money ; and the invariable effect has heen to increase usury, and
raise the interest of money. For, since no prohibition, however
" Archbishop Whately says, what hardly any thinking man wUl now deny, "If
Oaths were aboUshed — cleaving the penalties for false witness (no unimportant part
of our security) unaltered — ^I am convinced that, on the whole. Testimony would be
more trustworthy than it is.'' Whately's Elements of Rhetoric, 8vo, 1860, p. 47.
See also on the amount of perjury caused by EngUsh legislation, Jeremy Bentham's
Works, edit. Bowring, voh u. p. 210, vol. v. pp. 191-229, 454-466, vol. vi. pp. 314,
316 ; Orme's Life of Owen, p. 195 ; Locke's Works, vol. iv. p. 6 ; Berkeley's Works,
voh U. p. 196 ; miiston's Memoirs, pp. 33, 411-413 ; Hamilton's Discussions on
Philosophy and Literature, pp. 454, 622, 527, 528. Sir W. HamUton sums up :
"But if the perjury of England stands pre-eminent in the world, the peijury of the
English Universitiea, and of Oxford in particular, stands pre-eminent in England," p.
528. Compare Priestley's Memoirs^ vol. i. p. 3'?4 ; and Baker's Life of Sir Ihomas
Bernard, 1819, pp. 188, 189.

206 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
stringent, can destroy the natural relation between demand and
supply, it has foUowed, that when some men want to borrow,
and other men want to lend, both parties are sure to find means
of evading a law which interferes with their mutual rights.*' If
the two parties were left to adjust their own bargain undisturb
ed, the usury would depend on the circumstances of the loan ;
such as the amount of security, and the chance of repayment.
But this natural arrangement has been compUcated hy the in^
terference of government.** A certain risk being always incur
red by those who disobey, the law, the usurer, very properly, re
fuses to lend his money unless he is also compensated for the
danger he is in, from the penalty hanging over him. This com
pensation can only he made by the borrower, who is thus ohUged
to pay what in reaUty is a double interest : one interest for the
natural risk on the loan, and another interest for the extra risk
from the law. Such, then, is the position in which every Euro
pean legislature has placeditself. By enactments against usury,
it has increased what it wished to destroy ; it has passed laws,
which the imperative necessities of men compel them to violate :
whUe, to wind up the whole, the penalty for such violation faUs
on the borrowers ; that is, on the very class in whose favour the
legislators interfered.*'
In the same meddUng spirit, and with the same mistaken
notions of protection, the great Christian governments have done
other things stiU more injurious. They have made strenuous
and repeated efforts to destroy the Uberty of the press, and pre
vent men from expressing their sentiments on the most important
questions in poUtics and reUgion. In nearly every country, they,
yrith the aid of the church, have organized a vast system of Uter
ary police ; the sole object of which is, to abrogate the undoubted
" " L'observation rigoureuse de ces loix seroit destructive de tout commerce ;
auaai ne sont-eUes pas obaervdea rigoureuaement." M&moire sur les PrHs d Argent,
aee. xiv., in CEimres de Turgot, voh v. pp. 278, 279. Compare Ricardo's Works, pp.
178, 179, with Condorcet, Vie de Turgot, pp. 53, 54, 228.
" Aided by the church. Eccleaiaatical councUa contain numerous regulations
against usury ; and, in 1179, Pope Alexander ordered that usurers were not to be
buried: "Quia in omnibus ferfe locis crimen usurarum invaluit; ut multi negotUa
prsetermissis quasi licitd usuras exerceant ; et quaUter utriusque testament! pagina
condemnetur, non attendant : ide6 constituimua, ut uaurarU manifesti nee ad com-
munionem recipiantur altaris, nee Christianam, si in hoc peccato decesaerint, ac-
cipiant aepulturam, sed nee oblationem eorum quisquam accipiat." Rog. de Hoved.
Annal. in Rerum AngUcarum Scriptores post Bedam, p. 885, Lond. 1596, folio. In
Spain, the Inquisition took cognizance of usury. See Llorente, Histoire de Vln-
quisition, vol. i. p. 389. Compare Ledwich's Antiquities of Ireland, p. 133.
" The whole subject ofthe usury-laws has been treated by Bentham in so com
plete aud exhauative a manner, that I cannot do better than refer the .reader to his
admirable "Letters." A part only of the question ia diacuaaed, and that very im
perfectly, in Rey's Science Sociale, voh in. pp. 64, 65. On the necessity of usury to
mitigate the effects of a commercial panic, see MilVs Principles of Political Econ
omy, voh U. p. 186.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 207
right of every citizen to lay his opinions hefore his feUow-citizens.
In the very few countries where they have stopped short of these
extreme steps, they have had recourse to others less violent, but
equaUy unwarrantable. For even where they have not openly
forbidden the free dissemination of knowledge, they have done
all that they could to check it. On all the implements of knowl
edge, and on aU the means by which it is diffused, such as paper,
hooks, political journals, and the like, they have imposed duties
so heavy, that they could hardly have done worse if they had heen
the sworn advocates of popular ignorance. Indeed, looking at
what they have actuaUy accompUshed, it may he emphaticaUy
said, that they have taxed the human mind. They have made
the veiy thoughts of men pay toU. Whoever wishes to com
municate his ideas to others, and thus do what he can to increase
the stock of our acquirements, must first pour his contributions
into the imperial exchequer. That is the penalty infficted on
him for instructing his feUow-creatures. That is the blackmail
which government extorts from literature; and on receipt of
which it accords its favour, and agrees to abstain from further de
mands. And what causes aU this to be the more insufferable, is
the use which is made of these and similar exactions, wrung from
every kind of industry, both bodUy and mental It is truly a
frightful consideration, that knowledge is to he hindered, and that
the proceeds of honest labour, of patient thought, and sometimes
of profound genius, are to be diminished, in order that a large
part of their scanty earnings may go to swell the pomp of an idle
and ignorant court, miuister to the caprice of a few powerful in
dividuals, and too often supply them with the means of turning
against the people resources which the people caUed into ex
istence. These, and the foregouig statements, respecting the effects
produced on European society by poUtical legislation, are not
douhrful or hypothetical inferences, but are such as every reader
of history may verify for himself Indeed, some of them are stiU
acting in England ; and, in one country or another, the whole of
them may be seen in fuU. force. When put together, they com
pose an aggregate so formidable, that we may weU wonder how,
in the face of them, civiUzation has heen ahle to advance. That,
under such circumstances, it has advanced, is a decisive proof of
the extraordinary energy of Man ; and justifies a confident belief,
that as the pressure of legislation is diminished, and the human
mind less hampered, the progress wiU continue yrith accelerated
speed. But it is absurd, it would he a mockery of aU sound
reasoning, to ascribe to legislation any share in the progress ; or
to expect any benefit from future legislators, except that sort of

208 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
benefit which consists in undoing the work of their predecessors.
This is what the present generation claims at their hands ; and
it should be remembered, that what one generation soUcits as a
boon, the next generation demands as a right. And, when the
right is pertinaciously refused, one of two things has always hap
pened ; either the nation has retrograded ; or else the people have
risen. Should the government remain firm, this is the cruel di
lemma in which men are placed. If they submit, they injure
their country ; if they rebel, they may injure it still more. In
the ancient monarchies of the East, their usual plan was to yield ;
in the monarchies of Europe, it has heen to resist. Hence those
insurrections and rebeUions which occupy so large a space in
modern history, and which are hut repetitions of the old, story,
the undying struggle between oppressors and oppressed, It
would, however, be unjust to deny, that in one country, the fatal
crisis has now for several generations heen successfully averted.
In one European country, and in one alone, the people have been
so strong, and the government so weak, that the history of legis
lation, taken as a whole, is, notwithstanding a few aberrations,
the history of slow, but constant concession ; reforms which would
have heen refused to arguinent, have been yielded from fear;
whUe, from the steady increase of democratic opinions, protec
tion after protection, and pririlege after privUege, have, even in
our own time, been torn away ; untU the old institutions, though
they retain their former name, have lost their former vigour, and
there no longer remains a doubt as to what their fate must ulti
mately he. Nor need we add, that in this same country, where,
more than in any other of Europe, legislators are the exponents
and the servants of the popular wUl, the progress has, on this ac
count, been more undeviating than elsewhere; there has been
neither anarchy nor revolution ; and the world has heen made
famUiar yrith the great truth, that one main condition of the
prosperity of a people is, that its ralers shaU ha,ve very Uttle
power, that they shall exercise that power very sparingly, and
that they shaU hy no means presume to raise themselves into
supreme judges of the national interests, or deem themselves au
thorized to defeat the yrishes of t^ose for whose benefit alone they
occupy the post intrasted to them.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 209

CHAPTER VI.
OElOm OF HISTOET, AND STATE OF HISTORICAL LlTEEATUEB DtJEmO THE
MIDDLE AGES.
I HAVE now laid hefore the reader an examination of those con
spicuous cUcumstances to which the progress of civiUzation is
commonly ascribed; and I have proved that such circumstances,
so far from being the cause of civilization, are at best only its
effects ; and that although reUgion, Uterature, and legislation
do, undoubtedly, modify the condition of mankind, they are
stiU more modified hy it. Indeed, as we have clearly seen,
they, even in their most favourable position, can be hut secondary
agents; hecause, however beneficial their apparent influence may
he, they are themselves the product of preceding changes, and
their results yrill vary according to the variations of the society
on which they work.
It is thus that, hy each successive analysis, the fleld of the
present inquiry has been narrowed, until we have found reason
to heUeve that the growth of European civilization is solely due
to the progress of knowledge, and that the progress of knowledge
depends on the number of truths which the human intellect dis
covers, and on the extent to which they are diffused. In sup
port of this proposition, I have, as yet, only brought forward
such general arguments as estahUsh a very strong probahiUty;
which, to raise to a certainty, wUl require an appeal to history
in the widest sense of the term. Thus to verify speculative con
clusions by an exhaustive enumeration of the most important
particular facts, is the task which I purpose to execute so far as
my powers wUl aUow; and in the preceding chapter I have
briefly stated the method according to which the investigation
\riU he conducted. Besides this, it has appeared to me that the
principles which I have laid down may also he tested hy a mode
of proceeding which I have not yet mentioned, hut which is in
timately connected yrith the subject now hefore us. This is, to
incorporate with an inquiry into the progress of the history of
Man, another inquiry into the progress of History itself. By
this means great light wiU be thrown on the movements of so-
VOL. I. — 14

310 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
ciety; since there must always be a connexion between the way
in which men contemplate the past, and the way in which they
contemplate the present; both riews being in fact different forms
of the same habits of thought, and therefore presenting, in each
age, a certain sympathy and correspondence with each other. It
wiU, moreover, he found, that such an inquiry into what I caU
the history of history, wUl estabUsh two leading facts of consid
erahle value. The first fact is, that during the last three cen
turies, historians, taken as a class, have showm a constantly in
creasing respect for the human inteUect, and an aversion for
those innumerable contrivances hy which it was formerly
shackled. The second fact is, that during the same period, they
have displayed a growing tendency to neglect matters once
deemed of paramount importance, and have been more wiUing to
attend to subjects connected with the condition of the people
and the diffusion of knowledge. These two facts will be deci
sively estabUshed in the present Introduction; and it must be
admitted, that their existence corroborates the principles which
I have propounded. If it can be ascertained, that as society has
improved, historical Uterature has constantly tended in one given
direction, there arises a very strong probabUity in favour of the
truth of -those views towards which it is manifestly approaching.
Indeed, it is a probabUity of this sort which makes it so impor
tant for the student of any particular science to he acquainted
with its history; hecause there is always a fair presumption that
when general knowledge is advancing, any single department of
it, if studied by competent men, is also advancing, even when
the results may have been so smaU as to seem unworthy of at
tention. Hence it becomes highly important to observe the way
in which, during successive ages, historians have shifted their
ground^ since we shall find that such changes have in the long-
run always pointed to the same quarter, and are, in reality, only
part of that vast movement hy which the human inteUect, with
infinite difficulty, has vindicated its own rights, and slowly
emancipated itself from those inveterate prejudices which long
impeded its action.
With a view to these considerations, it seems advisable that,
when examining the different civUizations into which the great
countries of Europe have diverged, I should also give an account
of the way in which history has been commonly written in each
country. In the employment of this resource, I shall be mainly
guided by a desire to Ulustrate the intimate connection between
the actual condition of a people and their opinions respecting the
past ; and, in order to keep this connexion in sight, I shaU treat
the state of historical Uterature. not as a separate subject, but

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 211
as forming part of the intellectual histoiy of each nation. The
present volume wUl contain a view of the principal characteristics
of French civilization untU the great Eevolution ; and with that
there wiU he incorporated an account of the French historians,
and of the remarkable improvements they introduced into their
own departments of knowledge. The relation which these im
provements bore to the state of society from which they pro
ceeded, is very striking, and wiU be examined at some length ;
while, in the next volume, the civiUzation and the historical
Uterature of the other leading countries will be treated in
a simUar manner. Before, however, entering into these dif
ferent subjects, it has occurred to me, that a preliminary in
quiry into the origin of European history would be interesting,
as supplying information respecting matters which are little
knoyyn, and also as enabling the reader to understand the extreme
difficulty with which history has reached its present advanced,
but stiU very imperfect, state. The materials for studying the
earliest condition of Europe have long since perished ; but the
extensive information we now possess concerning barbarous na
tions will supply us with a useful resource, hecause they have all
much in common ; the opinions of extreme ignorance being, in
deed, everywhere the same, except when modified hy the differ
ences which nature presents in various countries. I have,
therefore, no hesitation in employing the evidence which has
been coUected hy competent traveUers, and drawing inferences
from it respecting that period of the European mind, of which
we have no direct knowledge. Such conclusions will, of course,
he speculative ; but, during the last thousand years, we are
quite independent of them, inasmuch as every great country has
had chroniclers of its own , since the ninth century, whUe the
French have an uninterrupted series since the sixth century. In
the present chapter, I intend to give specimens of the way in
which, untU the sixteenth century, history was habituaUy
written hy the highest European authorities. Its subsequent
improvement during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
wiU be related under the separate heads of the countries where
the progress was made ; and as history, previous to the improve
ment, was little else than a tissue of the grossest errors, I will,
in the first place, examine the leading causes of its universal
corruption, and indicate the steps hy which it was so disfigured
that, during several centuries, Europe did not possess a single
man who had critically studied the past, or who was even able
to record with tolerable accuracy the events of his own time.
At a very early period in the progress of a people, and long
hefore they are acquainted with the use of letters, they feel the

212 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
want of some resource, which in peace may amuse their leisure,
and in war may stimulate their courage. This is suppUed to
them by the invention of ballads ; which form the groundwork of
all historical knowledge, and which, in one shape or another, are
found among some of the rudest tribes of the earth. They are, for
the most part, sung hy a class of men, whose particular business
it is thus to preserve the stock of traditions. Indeed, so natural
is this 'Curiosity as to past events, that there are few nations to
whom these hards or minstrels are unknown. Thus, to select a
few instances, it is they who have preserved the popular tradi
tions, not only of Europe,' hut also of China, Tibet, and Tar
tary ;" Ukewise of India,' of Scinde,* of Belochistan,' of Western
Asia,' of the islands of the Black Sea,' of Egypt,' of Western
Africa,' of North America,'" of South America," and of the
islands in the Pacific.'"
' For an account of the ancient barda of Gaul, ace the Benedictine Hist. Lit. de
la France, vol. i. part i. pp. 25-28. Thoae of Scotland are noticed in Barry's Hist.
of the Orkney Islands, p. 89 ; aud for a modern inatauce in the island of Col, near
MuU, see Otter's Life^ Clarke, vol. i. p. 307. As to the Irish bards in the seventh
century, aee Sharon Turner's Hist, of England, vol. iii. p. 571. Spenser's account
of them in the sixteenth century (Somers Tracts, voh i. pp. 590, 691) shows that the
order was then faUing into contempt ; and in the seventeenth century thia ia con
firmed by Sir WiUiam Temple ; Essay on Poetry, in Temple's Works, voh iii. pp.
431, 432. But it was not tiU the eighteenth century that they became extinct ; for
Mr. Prior (Life of Goldsmith, vol. i. pp. 36, 87) says, that Carolan, " the last of the
ancient Irish bards," died in 1738. Without them the memory of many events
would have been entirely lost ; aince, even at the end of the seventeenth century,
there being no regiatera in Ireland, the ordinary meana of recording facta were so
little known, that parents often took the precaution of having the names and agea
of chUdren marked on their arms with gunpowder. See Kirkman's Memoirs of
Charles Macklin, 8vo, 1799, vol. i. pp. 144, 145, a curious book. Compare, respect
ing Carolan, Nichols's Illustrations of the Eighteenth Century, vol. vih pp. 688-
694. " On these Toolholos, as they are caUed, see Hue's Travels in Tartary, Thibet,
and China, vol. i. pp. 65-67. Hue says, p. 67, " These poet-singera, who remind us
of the minatrela and rhapaodists of Greece, are alao very numerous in China ; but
they are, probably, no where ao numerous or so popular as in Thibet."
' On the bards of the Deccan, see Wilks's History of the South of India, 4to,
1810, vol. i. pp. 20, 21, and Transac. of the Bombay Soc. vol. i. p. 162. For those
of other parts of India, see Heber's Journey, vol. u. pp. 452-455 ; Burnes on the
North-west Frontier of India, in Journalof Geog. Soc. vol. iv. pp. 110, 111 ; Prinsep,
in Journal of Asiat. Soc. vol. viU. p. 395 ; Forbes's Oriental Memoirs, vol. i. pp. 376,
377, 543 ; and Asiatic Researches, vol. ix. p. 78. They are mentioned in the oldest
Veda, which is also the oldest of all the Indian books. See Rig Veda Sanhita,
voh i. p. 158.
* See Burton's Sindh, p. 56, 8vo, 1851.
° Burton's Sindh, p. 69.
° Burnes's Travels into Bokhara, 8vo, 1834, vol. U. pp. 107, 116, 116,
' Clarke's Travels, 8vo, 1816, voh ii. p. 101.
Compare Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, vol. u. p. 304, with Bunsen's Egypt,
vol. i. p. 96, vol. U. p. 92.
"I have mislaid my note on the bards of Weatern Africa, and can only refer to
a hasty notice in Mungo Park's Travels, voh i. p. 70, 8vo, 1817.
Buchanarts Sketches of the North-American Indians, p. 337.
B Pf^^<'«tC» History of Peru, vol. i. pp. 31, 32, 117.
Ellis, Polynesian Researches, vol. i. pp. 85, 199, 411 J Ellis, Tour through

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 313
In all these countries, letters were long unknown ; and, as
a people in that state have no means of perpetuating their his
tory except by oral tradition, they select the form best calculated
to assist their memory ; and it ynU, I heUeve, be found that the
first rudiments of knowledge consist always of poetry, and often
of rhyme.'^ The jingle pleases the ear of the barbarian, and
affords a security that he wiU hand it doym to his children in the
unimpaired state in which he received it.'* This guarantee
against error increases stiU further the value of these haUads ;
and instead of being considered as a mere amusement, they rise
to the dignity of judicial authorities.'^ The allusions contained
in them, are satisfactory proofs to decide the merits of rival
famUies, or even to fix the limits of those rude estates which such
a society can possess. We therefore find, that the professed re-
Hawaii, p. 91. Compare Cook's Voyages, vol. v. p. 237, with Beechey's Voyage to
the Pacific, vol. ii. p. 106. Some of these ballads have been coUected, but, I beUeve,
not published. See Cheever's Sandwich Islands, 8vo, 1851, p. 181.
" It ia a aiugular proof of the carelessness with which the history of barbarous
nationa has been atudied, that authora constantly assert rhyme to be a comparatively
recent contrivance; and even Pinkerton, writing to Laing in 1799, aaya, "Ehyme
was not known in Europe tUl about the ninth century." Pinkerton's Literary Cor
respondence, voh u. p. 92. The truth is, that rhyme was not only known to the
ancient Greeks and Eomans, but was used, long before the date Pinkerton mentions,
by the Anglo-Saxons, by the Irish, by the Welsh, and, I beUeve, by the Brdtona.
See Mure's Hist, of the Literature of Cfreece, vol. ii. p. 113; Hallam's Lit. of Europe,
vol. i. p. 31 ; ViUemarque, Chants Populaires de la Bretagne, vol. i. pp. Iviii. Ux.
compared with Souvestre, les Demiers Bretons, p. 143 ; Turner's Hist, of England,
vol. in. pp. 383, 648, vol. vu. pp. 324, 328, 330. Ehyme ia alao uaed by the Fantees
(Bow&h, Mission to Ashantee, p. 358) ; by the Persians (Transac. of Bombay Soc.
vol. ii. p. 82) ; by the Chinese (Transac. of Asiatic Soc. voh ii. pp. 407, 409, and
Davis's Chinese, vol. U. p. 269) ; by the Malays (Asiatic Researches, vol. x. pp. 176,
196); by the Javanese ((Crawford's Hist, of the Indian Archipelago, vol. U. pp. 19,
20) ; and by the Siamese (Transac, of Asiatic Soc. vol. iii. p. 299).
'* The habit thus acquired, long sur'vivea the circumstances which made it neces
sary. During many centuries, the love of veraiflcation waa ao widely diffused, that
works in rhyme were composed on nearly aU subjects, even in Europe ; and this
practice, which marks the aacendency of the imagination, ia, as I have shown, a
characteristic of the great Indian civiUzation, where the understanding was always
in abeyance. On early French historians who wrote in rhyme, see Monteil, Hist, des
divers Etats, vol. vi. p. 147. Montucla (Hist. desMath^mat. vol. i. p. 506) mentions
a mathematical treatise, written in the thirteenth century, " en vers techniques."
Compare the remarks of Matter {Hist, de VEcole d'Alexandrie, vol. ii. pp. 179-183)
on the scientific poetry of Aratus ; aud on that of Hygin, p. 250. Thus, too, we find
an Anglo-Norman writing "the Institutes of Justinian in verse ;'' Turner's Hist, of
E-ngland, vol. 'vU. p. 307 : and a PoUsh historian composing " numerous works on
genealogy and heraldry mostly in rhyme." Talvis Language and Literature of the
Slavic Nations, 8vo, 1850, p. 246. Compare Origines du Droit Franfais, in (Euvres
de MicJielet, vol. U. p. 310.
" Mr. Ellis, a missionary in the South Sea Islands, saya of the inhabitants,
" Their traditionary baUads were a kind of standard, or classical authority, to which
they referred for the purpose of determining any disputed fact in their history."
And when doubts arose, " aa they had no recorda to which they could at such times
refer, they could only oppose one oral tradition to another ; which unavoidably
involved the parties in protracted, and often obstinate debates." Ellis, Polynesian
Researches, voh i. pp. 202, 203. Compare Elphinstone's Hist, of India, p. 66 ; Laing's
Heimskringla, 8vo, 1844, vol. i. pp. 60, 51 ; TweU's Life of Pocock, edit. 1816, p. 143.

314 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
citers and composers of these songs are the recognized judges in
all disputed matters ; and as they are often priests, and heUeved
to be inspired, it is probably in this way that the notion of the
di-rine originof poetry first arose.'' These baUads, wUl, of course;
vary according to the customs and temperaments of the different
nations, and according to the climate to which they are accus
tomed. In the south they assume a passionate and voluptuous
form ; in the north they are rather remarkable for their tragic and
warlike character." But, notwithstanding these diversities, aU
such productions have one feature in common. They are not
only founded on truth, but making allowance for the colorings of
poetry, they are all strictly true. Men who are constantly re
peating songs which they constantly hear, and who appeal to
the authorized singers of them as final umpires in disputed
questions, are not Ukely to be mistaken on matters, in the accu
racy of which they have so lively an interest."*
This is the earliest, and most simple, of the various stages
through which history is ohUged to pass. But, in the course of
time, unless favorable circumstances intervene, society advances,
and among other changes, there is one in particular of the
greatest importance : I mean the introduction of the art of writ
ing, which before many generations are passed, must effect a
complete alteration in the character of the national traditions.
The manner in which this occurs has, so far as I am aware,
" The inspiration of poetry is sometimes explained by its spontaneousness
(Cousin, Hist, de la Philosophie, II. sdrie, vol. l pp. 186, 136) ; aud there can be no
doubt that one cause of the reverence felt for great poets, is the necessity they seem
to experience of pouring out their thoughts without reference to their own wishes.
Still it will, I beUeve, be found, that the notion of poetry being a divine art is most
rife in thoae states of society in which knowledge is monopoUzed by the bards, and
in which the bards are both priests and historians. On this combination of pursuits,
compare a note in Malcolm's Hist, of Persia, vol. i. p. 90, with Mure's Hist, of the
Lit. of Greece, vol. i. p. 148, vol. ii. p. 228, and Petrie's learned work. Ecclesiastical
Architecture of Ireland, DubUn, 1845, p. 354. For evidence of the great respect
paid to bards, aee Mallets Northern Antiquities, pp. 234-236 ; Wheaton's Hist, ofthe
Northmen, pp. 50, 51 ; Wrights Biog. Brit. IM. voh i. p. 8 ; Wartorts Hist, of Eng
lish Poetry, 1840, vol. i. pp. xxvi. xl. ; Grote's Hist, of (Greece, vol. U. p. 182, 1st
edit. ; and on their important dutiea, see the laws of Mcelmund, Villemarqvi, Chants
Popidaires de la Bretagne, 1846, vol. i. pp. v. and vi. ; ThirlwalVs Hist, of Greece,yQl.
i. p. 229; and Origines du Droit, in CEuvres de Michelet vol. u. p. 372.
" Villemarquli, Chants Populaires, vol. i. p. Iv.
'" As to the general accuracy of the early baUads, which haa been raahly attacked
by several writ'Crs, and among othera by Sir Walter Scott, aee Villemarqui, Chmts
Populaires, vol. i. p. xxv. -xxxi., and Talvi's Slavic Nations, p. 150. On the tenacity
of oral tradition, compare Niebuhr's History of Rome, 1847, voh i. p. 230, with
Laing's Denmark, pp. 197, 198, 350; Wheaton's Hist, of the Northmen, pp. 38, 89,
57-59. Another curious illustration of thia is, that several barbarous nations con
tinue to repeat the old traditiona in the old words, for so many generations, that at
length the very language becomes unintelUgible to the majority of those who recite
them. ^ See Mariner's Account of the Tonga Islands, vol. h p. 156, vol U. p. 217, and
Catlin's North-American Indians, vol. i. p. 126.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 215
never been pointed out ; and it wUl, therefore, he interesting to
attempt to trace some of its details.
The first, and perhaps the most obvious consideration, is,
that the introduction of the art of writing gives permanence to
the national knowledge, and thus lessens the utUity of that oral
information, in which all the acquirements of an unlettered
people must he contained. Hence it is, that as a country ad
vances, the influence of tradition diminishes, and traditions
themselves become less trustworthy." Besides this, the pre
servers of these traditions lose, in this stage of society much of
their former reputation. Among a perfectly unlettered people,
the singers of baUads are, as we have already seen, the sole de
positaries of those historical facts on which the fame, and often
the property, of their chieftains principally depend. But, when
this same nation becomes acquainted yrith the art of writing, it
grows unwUUng to intrust these matters to the memory of itiner
ant singers, and avaUs itself of its new art to preserve them in
a fixed and material form. As soon as this is effected, the im
portance of those who repeat the national traditions is sensibly
diminished. They graduaUy sink into an inferior class, which,
having lost its old reputation, no longer consists of those superior
men to whose abUities it owed its former fame."" Thus we see,
that although, without letters, there can be no knowledge of
much importance, it is nevertheless true, that their introduction
is injurious to historical traditions in two distinct ways : first hy
weakening the traditions, and secondly by weakening the class
of men whose occupation it is to preserve them.
But this is not all. Not only does the art of writing lessen
the number of traditionary truths, but it directly encourages the
propagation of falsehoods. This is effected by what may he
termed a principle of accumulation, to which all systems of be
Uef have been deeply indebted. In ancient times, for example,
the name of Hercules was given to several of those great public
robbers who scourged mankind, and who, if their crimes were
successful, as well as enormous, were sure after their death to be
worshipped as heroes."' How this appellation originated is un-
'° That the invention of letters would at flrst weaken the memory, is noticed in
Plato's Phmdrus, chap. 135 (Platonis Opera, vol. i. p. 187, edit. Bekker, Lond. 1826) ;
where, however, the argument is pushed rather too far.
™ Thia inevitable decline in the abiUty of the bards , is noticed, though, aa U
appears to me, from a wrong point of view, in Mure's Literal, of (xreece, vol. U.
p. 230. " Varro mentions forty-four of theae vagabonds, who were aU caUed Hercules.
See a learned article in Smith's Biog. and Mythology, vol. u. <p. 401, 8vo, 1846. See
also Mackay's Religious Development of the Greeks and Hebrews, vol. n. pp. 71-79.
On the relation between Hercules and Melcarth, compare Matter, Hist, du Gnosticisme,
voh i. p. 257, with Heeren's Asiatic Nations, vol. i. p. 295, 8vo, 1846. And aa to the

216 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
certain ; but it was probably bestowed at first on a single man,
and afterwards on those who resembled him in the character of
their achievements."" This mode of extending the use of a sin
gle name is natural to a barbarous people ;"^ and would cause
Uttle or no confusion, as long as the traditions of the country re
mained local and unconnected. But as soon as these traditions
became fixed hy a written language, the collectors of them, de
ceived by the similarity of name, assembled the scattered facts,
and, ascribing to a single man these accumulated exploits, de
graded history to the level of a miraculous mythology."* In the
same way, soon after the use of letters was known in the North
of Europe, there was drawn up hy Saxo Grammaticus the Ufe of
the celebrated Eagnar Lodbrok. Either from accident or de
sign, this great warrior of Scandinavia, who had taught England
to tremble, had received the same name as another Eagnar, who
was prince of Jutland ahout a hundred years earUer. This co
incidence would have caused no confusion, as long as each dis
trict preserved a distinct and independent account of its own
Eagnar. But, by possessing the resource of writing, men be
came able to consolidate the separate trains of events, and, as it
were, fuse two truths into one error. And this was what ac
tually happened. The credulous Saxo put together the different
exploits of both Eagnars, and, ascribing the whole of them to
his favorite hero, has involved in obscurity one of the most in
teresting parts of the early history of Europe."'
The annals of the North afford another curious instance of
this source of error. A tribe of Finns called Quaens, occupied a
considerable part of the eastern coast of the Gulf of Bothnia.
Their country was known as Quaenland ; and this name gave
Hercules of Egypt, Prichard's Analysis of Egyptian Mythology, 1838, pp. 109, 115-
119. Aa to the confuaion of the different Hercules by the Dorians, see ThirlwalVs
Hist, of Greece, voh i. p. 257 ; and compare p. 130.
"^ This appears to be the opinion of Frederick Schlegel ; SchlegeVs Lectures on the
History of Literatu/re, Edinb. 1818, vol. i. p. 260.
°' The habit of generalizing names precedea that moi-e advanced atate of society
in which men generalize phenomena. If this proposition is universaUy true, which
I take it to be, it wiU throw some Ught on the history of disputes between the nomi-
naUsts and the realists.
'^ We may form an idea of the fertUity of this source of error, from the fact,
that in Egypt there were fifty-three cities bearing the same name : " L'auteur du
Kamoua noua apprend qu'U y a en Egypte cinquante troia viUea du nom de Schobra :
en effet, j'ai retrouvd tous ces noma dans les deux denombremena ddjil citda." Qm-
tremere Recherches sur la Langue et la lAtUrature de VEgypte, p. 199.
'" On thia confusion respecting Eagnar Lodbrok, see Geijer's History of Sweden,
part i. pp. 13, 14; Lappenberg's Anglo-Saxon Kings, voh u. p. 31 ; Wheaton's Hist.
ofthe Northmen, p. 15Q; McUlets Northern Antiquities, p. 388; Crichton's Scandi
navia, vol. i. p. 116. A comparison of theae paaaages wiU justify the sarcastic remark
of Koch on the history of Swedish and Danish heroes ; Koch, Tableaux des Rhohir
tions, vol. i. p. 67, note.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 217
rise to a heUef that, to the north of the Baltic, there was a na
tion of Amazons. This would easUy have been corrected by lo
cal knowledge ; hut, by the use of writing, the flying ramour
was at once flxed ; and the existence of such a people is pos
itively affirmed in some of the earUest European histories.""
Thus, too, Aho, the ancient capital of Finland, was caUed
Turku, whach, in the Swedish language, means a market-place.
Adam of Bremen, having occasion to treat of the countries ad
joining the Baltic,"' was so misled by the word Turku, that this
celebrated historian assures his readers that there were Turks in
Finland."" To these iUustrations many others might he added, showing
how mere names deceived the early historians, and gave rise to
relations which were entirely false, and might have been rectified
on the spot ; hut which, oyying to the art of writing, were car
ried into distant countries, and thus placed beyond the reach of
contradiction. Of such cases, one more may he mentioned, as
it concerns the history of England. Eichard I., the most barba
rous of our princes, was known to his contemporaries as the Lion ;
an appeUation conferred upon him on account of his fearlessness,
and the ferocity of his temper."" Hence it was said that he had
the heart of a Uon ; and the title Cceur de Lion not only became
indissolubly connected with his name, but actually gave rise to
a story, repeated hy innumerable writers, according to which he
slew a lion in single combat.'" The name gave rise to the story ;
™ Prichard's Physical History of Mankind, vol. Hi. p. 213. The Norwegians stiU
give to the Finlandera the name of Qusener. See Dillon's Lapland aud Iceland, 8vo,
1840, voi. U. p. 221. Compare Laing's Sweden, pp. 45, 47. The Amazon river in
South America owes its name to a similar fable. Henderson's Hist, of Brazil, p. 453 ;
Southey's Hist, of Brazil, vol. h p. 112 ; M'Culloh's Researches concerning America,
pp. 407, 408 ; and Journal of Geog. Soc. voh xv. p. 65, for an account of the wide
diffusion of. this error.
"^ Sharon Turner (Hist, of England, vol. iv. p. 80) calla him "the Strabo of the
Baltic ;" and it was from him that most of the geographers in the Middle Agea
derived their knowledge ofthe North.
^ "It waa caUed in Finniah Turku, from the Swediah word torg, which signifies
a market-place. The aound of this name misled Adam of Bremen into the belief
that there were Turks in Finland." Cooley's Hist, of Maritime and Inland Discovery,
London, 1830, vol. i. p. 211.
'^ The chronicler of hia crusade saya, that he was called Lion on account of hia
never pardoning an offence: "Nihil injuriarum reUquit inultum : undo et unua (i. e.
the King of France) dictua est Agnua a Griffonibua, alter Leonia nomen accepit."
Chronicon Ricardi Divisiensis de Rebus gestis Ricardi Primi, edit. Stevenaon, Lond.
1888, p. 18. Some of the Egyptian kings received the name of Lion " from their
heroic exploits." Vyse on the Pyramids, vol. iu. p. 116.
'" See Price's learned Preface to Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. i. p.
21 ; and on the simihir story of Henry the Lion, aee Maury, Legendes du Moyen Age,
p. 160. Compare the account of Duke Godfrey's conflict with a bear, in Matthoei
Paris Historia Major, p. 29, Lond. 1684, foUo. I should not be surprised if the story
of Alexander and the Uon (ThirlwalVs History of Greece, vol. vi. p. 806) were equaUy
fabulous.

218 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
the story confirmed the name ; and another fiction was added to
that long series of falsehoods of which history mainly consisted
during the Middle Ages.
The corruptions of history, thus naturally brought about by
the mere introduction of letters, were, in Europe, aided hy:an
additional cause. With the a.rt of writing, there was, in most
cases, also communicated a knowledge of Christianity ; and the
new religion not only destroyed many of the Pagan traditions,
but falsified the remainder, by amalgamating them with monas
tic legends. The extent to which this was carried would form
a curious subject for inquiry ; hut one or two instances of it wiU
perhaps he sufficient to satisfy the generality of readers.
Of the earUeat state of the great Northern nations we have
Uttle positive evidence ; hut several of the lays in which the
Scandinavian poets related the feats of their ancestors, or of
their contemporaries, are stUl preserved ; and notwithstanding
their subsequent corruption, it is admitted hy the most compe
tent judges that they embody real and historical events. But in
the ninth and tenth centuries, Christian missionaries found their
way across the Baltic, and introduced a knowledge of their reUr
gion among the inhabitants of Northern Europe." Scarcely was
this effected, when the sources of history began to he poisoned.
At the end of the eleventh century, Saemund Sigfussen, a Chris
tian priest, gathered the popular, and hitherto unymtten, his
tories of the North into what is caUed the Elder Edda ; and he
was satisfied with adding to his compUation the corrective of
a Christian hymn.'" A hundred years later, there was made an
other collection of the native histories ; hut the principle which
I have mentioned, having had a longer time to operate, now dis
played its effects still more clearly. In this second coUection,
which is known hy the name of the Younger Edda, there is an
agreeable mixture of Greek, Jewish, and Christian fables ; and,
for the first time in the Scandinarian annals, we meet with the
widely diffused fiction of a Trojan descent."
" The firat miasionary waa Ebbo, about the year. 822. He was followed by An-
Bchar, who afterwarda puahed hia entcrpriae as far as Sweden. The progress was,
however, slow ; and it Was not tiU the latter half of the eleventh century mat Chris
tianity was eatabliahed firmly in the North. See Neander's Hist, of the Chvireh, voh
V. pp. 873, 374, 37«, 880, 400-402 ; Mosheim's Eccles. Hist. vol. i. pp. 188, 216, 216 ;
Barry's Hist, of the Orkney Islands, p. 126. It is often supposed that some of the
Danes in Ireland were Christians aa early aa the reign of Ivar I. ; but thia ia a mistake,
into which Ledwich feU by relying on a coin, which iu reality refera to Ivar H.
Petrie's Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland, p. 226 ; and Ledwich! s Antiquities of
Ireland, p. 159.
''' Mr. Wheaton (History of Northmen, p. 60) aaya, that Ssemund " merely added
one Bong of his own composition, of a moral and Christian reUgious tendency ; so as
33*'^ to consecrate and leaven, as it were, the whole mass of Paganism."
Wheaton's Hist, of the Northmen, pp. 89, 90 ; Mallets Northern Antiquities,

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 219
If, hy way of further iUustration, we turn to other parts of
the world, we shaU find a series of facts confirming this view.
We shall find that, in those countries where there has heen no
change of reUgion, history is more trustworthy and connected
than in those countries where such a change has taken place.
In India, Brahmanism, which is stUl supreme, was established
at so early a period, that its origin is lost in the remotest an
tiquity.'* The consequence is, that the native annals have
never heen corrupted by any new superstition ; and the Hindus
are possessed of historic traditions more ancient than can be
found among any other Asiatic people." In the same way, the
Chinese have for upwards of 2,000 years preserved the reUgion
of Fo, which is a form of Buddhism.'" In China, therefore,
though the civilization has never been equal to that of India,
there is a history, not, indeed, as old as the natives would wish
us to beUeve, hut stUl stretching back to several centuries be
fore the Christian era, from whence it has heen brought down
to our own times in an uninterrupted succession." On the
other hand, the Persians, whose intellectual development was
certainly superior to that of the Chinese, are nevertheless with
out any authentic information respecting the early transactions
pp. 377, 378, 485 ; SchlegeVs Lectures on the History of Literature, vol. i. p. 265.
Indeed, these interpolations are so numerous, that the earUer German antiquaries
beUeved the Edda to be a forgery by the northern monks,-^a paradox which MiiUer
refuted more than forty years ago. Note in Wheaton, p. 61. Compare Palgrave's
English Commonwealth, Anglo-Saxon Period, voh i. p. 135.
"* As is evident from the conflicting statements made by the best orientiaUsts,
each of whom has some favourite hypothesis of his own respecting its origin. It ia
enough to say, that we have no account of India existing without Brahmanism ;
and as to its real hiatory, nothing can be understood, until more steps have been
taken towards generab'zing the laws which regulate the growth of reUgious opinions.
"> Dr. Prichard (Physical Hist, of ManMnd, vol. iv. pp. 101-106) thinks that the
Hindus have a history beginning b. c. 1391. Compare Works of Sir W. Jones, voh
i. pp. 311, 312. Mr. Wilaon aays, that even the genealogiea in the Puranaa are, "in
aU probabiUty, much more authentic than has been sometimes supposed." WUaon's
note in MilVs Hist, of India, voh i. pp. 161, 162. See also his Preface to the Vishnu
Purana, p. Ixv. ; and Asiatic Researches, vol. v. p. '244.
°° Journal of Asiatic Soc. voh vi. p. 251 ; Herder, Ideen zur Geschichte, vol. iv.
p. 70 ; Works of Sir W. Jones, vol. i. p. 104. I learn from a note in Erman's Sibe
ria, vol ii. p. 806, that one of the misaionariea gravely auggeats "that Buddhism
originated in the errors of the Manichseans, and is therefore but au imitation of
Chriatianity." {]h gf
M. Bunsen says, that the Chinese have " a regular chronology, extending back
3000 yeara B. c." Bunsen's Egypt, vol. i. p. 240. See alao Humboldt's Cosmos, vol.
U. p. 475, vol. iv. p. 455 ; Renouard, Hist, de la Medecine, vol. i. pp. 47, 48 ; and the
statements of Klaproth and Edmuaat, in Prichard's Physical Hist. vol. iv. pp. 476, 477.
The superior exactness of the Chinese annals is sometimes ascribed to their early
knowledge of printing, with which they claim to have been acquainted.in n. o. 1100.
Meidinger's Essay, ia. Journal of Statistical Society, vol. Ui. p. 163. But the fact is,
that printing was unknown in China till the ninth or tenth century after Christ, and
movable types were not invented before 1041. Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. ii. p. 623 ;
'Tra-nsac. of Asiatic Society, voh i. p. '7 ; Journal Asiatique, vol. i. p. 137, Paris, 1822 ;
Davis's Chinese, voh i. pp. 174, 178, vol. iu. p. 1. There are some interesting papers

220 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
of their ancient monarchy.'" For this I can see no possihle.rea-
son, except the fact, that Persia, soon after the promulgation of
the Koran, was conquered by the Mohammedans, who com
pletely subverted the Parsee reUgion, and thus interrupted the
stream of the national traditions." Hence it is that, putting aside
the myths of the Zendavesta, we have no native authorities for
Persian history of any value, until the appearance, in the eleventh
century, of the Shah Nameh ; in which, however, Ferdousi has
mingled the miraculous relations of those two reUgions hy which
his country had heen successively subjected.*" The result is,
that if it were not for the various discoveries which have heen
made, of monuments, inscriptions, and coins, we should he com
pelled to rely on the scanty and inaccurate details in the Greek
writers for our knowledge of the history of one of the most im
portant of the Asiatic monarchies.*'
on the early history of China in Journal of Asiat. Soc. voh i. pp. 57-86, 213-222, vol
ih pp. 166-171, 276-287.
" "From the death of Alexander (323 b. c.) to the reign of Ardeshir Babegan
(Artaxerxes), the founder of the Sassanian dynasty (200 a. d.), a period of more than
five centuries, is almost a blank in the Persian history." Troye?s Preliminary Dis
course to the Dabistan, 8vo, 1843, vol. i. pp. Iv. Ivi. See to the same effect Erskine
on the Zend-Avesta, in Ti-ansac. of Soc. of Bombay, vol. u. pp. 303-805 ; and Malcolm's
Hist, of Persia, vol. i. p. 68. The ancient Persian traditions are said to have been
Pehivi ; Malcolm, vol. i. pp. 501-506 ; but if so, they have aU perished, p. 656 : com
pare Eawlinson's note in Journal of Geog. Soc. vol. x. p. 82.
'" On the antagonism between Mohammedanism and the old Persian history, see
a note in Grote's Hist, of Greece, vol. i. p. 623. Even at present, or, at all events,
during this century, the best education in Persia consisted in learning the elements
of Arabic grammar, " logic, jurisprudence, the traditions of their prophet, and the
commentaries on the Koran." Vans Kennedy on Persian lAteratwe, in Tramac.
of Bombay Society, vol. ii. p. 62. In the same way, the Mohammedans neglected
the old history of India, and would, no doubt, have destroyed or corrupted it; but
they never had any thing like the hold of India that they had of Persia, and, above
all, they were unable to displace the native reUgion. However, their influence, so
far as it went, was unfavourable ; and Mr. Elphinstone (Hist, of India, p. 468) saya,
that till the sixteenth century there was no instance of a Mussulman carefuUy study
ing Hindu Uterature.
*" On the Shah Nameh, see Works of Sir W. Jones, voh iv. pp. 544, 545, voh v.
p. 594 ; MilVs Hist, of India, vol. ii. pp. 64, 66 ; Journal of Asiatic Society, voh iv.
p. 225. It is supposed by a very high authority that the Persian cuneiform inscrip
tions " will enable us, in the end, to introduce aomething Uke chronological accuracy
and order into the mytha and traditions embodied in the Shah Nameh." Raw-
linson on the Inscriptions of Assyria and Babylonia, in Journal of Asiat. Soc. vol.
xii. p. 446.
*' On the ignorance of the Greeks respecting Persian history, see Vans Kennedy,
in Transac. of Soc. of Bombay, vol. U. pp. 119, 127-129, 136. Indeed, thia learned
writer says (p. 138) he is " inclined to suapeet that no Greek author ever derived his
information from any native of Persia Proper, that is, of the country to the east of
the Euphrates." See also on the perplexities in Persian chronology, Grote's Hist, of
Greece, vol. vi. p. 496, vol. ix. p. 8, vol. x. p. 405 ; and Donaldson's New Cratylus,
1839, p. 87 note. As to the fooUsh stories which the Greeks relate respecting Achs-
menes, compaxe Malcolrrts Hist, of Persia, vol. i. p. 18, with Heeren's A sialic Nations,
vol. i. p. 243. Even Herodotus, who is invaluable in regard to Egypt, is not to be
rehed upon for Persia ; as was noticed long ago by Sir W. Jones, in the Preface to
his Nader Shah (Jones's Works, vol. v. p. 540), and is partly admitted by Mr. Mure
(History ofthe Literature of Ancient (Greece, vol. iv. p. 838, 8vo, 1853).

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 221
Even among more barbarous nations we see the same princi
ple at work. The Malayo-Polynesian race is well known to
ethnologists, as covering an immense series of islands, extending
from Madagascar to yrithin 2,000 mUes of the western coast
of America.*" The religion of these widely scattered people
was originaUy Polytheism, of which the purest forms were long
preserved in the PhUippine Islands.*' But in the fifteenth cen
tury, many of the Polynesian nations were converted to Mo
hammedanism ;** and this was foUowed by a process precisely
the same as that which I have pointed out in other countries.
The new reUgion, hy changing the current of the national
thoughts, corrupted the purity of the national history. Of all
the islands in the Indian Archipelago, Java was the one which
reached the highest civUization.*^ Now, however, the Javanese
have not only lost their historical traditions, but even those lists
of their kings which are extant, are interpolated with the names
of Mohammedan saints.*" On the other hand, we find that in
the adjacent island of BaU, where the old religion is stUl pre-
*' That is, to Easter Island, which appears to be its furthest boundary (Prichard's
Phys. Hist. vol. V. p. 6) ; and of which there is a good account in Beechey's Voyage
to the Pacific, vol. i. pp. 43-58, and a notice in Journal of Geog. Society, vol. i. p. 195.
The language of Easter Island has been long known to be Malayo-Polynesian ; for
it was understood by a native of the Society Islands, who accompanied Coolc (Cook's
Voyages, vol. ui. pp. 294, 308 ; and Prichard, vol. v. p. 147 , compare Marsden's
History of Sumatra, p. 164). Ethnologists have not usuaUy paid sufiicient honour
to this great navigator, who waa the firat to remark the simUarity between the differ
ent languages in Polynesia Proper. Cook's Voyages, vol. U. pp. 60, 61, vol. in. pp.
230, 280, 290, vol. iv. p. 805, vol. vi. p. 230, vol. vu. p. 115. As to Madagascar being
the weatern Umit of thia vaat race of people, see Asiatic Researches, vol. iv. p. 222 ;
Reports on Ethnology by Brit. Assoc, for 1847, pp. 154, 216, 250 ; and Ellis's Hist.
of Madagascar, vol. i. p. 133.
" Also the seat of the Tagala language ; which, according to WUUam Humboldt,
is the most perfect of aU the forms of the Malayo-Polynesian. Prichard's Physical
Hist. vol. V. pp. 36, 51, 52.
4 ** Marsden's History of Sumatra, p. 281. De Thou (Hist. Univ. vol. xiU. p. 69)
supposes that the Javanese did not become Mohammedans till late in the sixteenth
century ; but it is now known that their conversion took place at least a hundred
years earUer, the old reUgion being finaUy aboUshed in 1478. See Craufurd's Hist.
ofthe Indian Archipelago, vol. U. p. 312; Lov!s Sarawak, p. 96 ; and Raffles' Hist, of
Java, vol. i. pp. 309, 849, vol. n. pp. 1, 66, 264. The doctrines of Mohammed spread
quickly ; and the Malay pilgrims enjoy the reputation, in modern times, of being among
the most scrupulously reUgious of thoae who go to the Hadj. Burckhardts Arabia,
voh U. pp. 96, 97.
*' The Javanese civUization ia examined at great length by WilUam Humboldt,
in hia celebrated work, Ueber die Kavii Sprache, BerUn, 1836. From the evidence
supplied by some early Chinese writings, which have only recently been pubUshed,
there are good grounds for beUeving that the Indian coloniea were estabUshed in Java
in the first century after Christ. See Wilson on the Foe Kue Ki, in Journal of Asiat.
Soc, vol. V. p. 137 ; compare vol. vi. p. 320.
" Crawfurd's Hist, ofthe Indian Archipelago, vol. ii. p. 297. Compare with this
the exactneaa with which, even in the island of Celebes, the datea were preserved
" before the introduction of Mahomedanism." Crawfwd, vol. i. p. 306. For simUar
instances of royal genealogies being obscured by the introduction into them of the
names of gods, see Kemble's Saxons in England, vol. i. pp. 27, 335.

222 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
served,*' the legends of Java are remembered and cherished by
the people.*'
It would be useless to adduce further evidence respecting the
manner in which, among an imperfectly civilized people, the es
tabhshment of a new religion will always affect the accuracy of
their early history. I need only observe, that in this way the
Christian priests have obscured the annals of every European
people they converted, and have destroyed or corrupted the tra
ditions ofthe Gauls,*" ofthe Welsh, of the Irish,^" of the Anglo-
Saxons,'' ofthe Sclavonic nations," of the Finns,^' and even of
the Icelanders.'*Besides all this, there occurred other circumstances tending
in the same direction. Owing to events which I shaU hereafter
explain, the Uterature of Europe, shortly hefore the final dissolu
tion of the Eoman Empire, fell entirely itito the hands of the cler-:
gy, who were long venerated as the sole instructors of mankind.
For several centuries, it was extreihely rare to meet yrith a lay
man who could read or write ; and of course it was stiU rarer to
meet with one able to compose a work. Literature, being thus
monopoUzed hy a single class, assumed the pecuUarities natural
to its new masters.^' And as the clergy, taken as a body, have
always looked on it as their business to enforce heUef, rather than
*' Asiatic Researches, vol. x. p. 191, voh xm. p. 128. In the Appendix to Raffles'
Hist, of Java, vol. ii. p. cxlii., it is said, that "in Bali not more than one in two
hundred, if so many, are Mahomedans." See alao p. 65, and vol. i. p. 680.
" Indeed, the Javanese appear to have no other means of acquiring the old Kawi
traditions than by learning tliem from natives of BaU. See note to an Esaay on the
Island of Bali, iu Asiatic Researches, vol. xiu. p. 162, Calcutta, 1820, 4to. Sir'Stam-
ford EafSes (Hist, of Java, vol. i. p. 400) says, " It Is chiefly to BaU that we must
look for illuatrations of the ancient state of the Javans." See alao p. 414.
*° Reapecting the corruption of Druidical traditions iu Gaul by Christian priestp-,
aee Villernarqui, Chants Populaires de la Bretagne, Paria, 1846, voh i. pp. xvui. xi:^; ,
"", The injury done to the traditiona handed down by Welsh and Irish bards, is
noticed in Dr. Prichard's valuable Tiovk, Physical Hist, of Mankind, vol. ui.p. 18|f
8vo, 1841. See also Warton's Hist, of English Poetry, vol. i. p. xxxvu. note.
" See the remarka on Beowulf, in Wrights Biog. Brit. Lit. voh i. p. 7, 8vo, 1842.
See also pp. 13, 14 : ahd compare Kemble's Saxons in England, vol. i. p. 331.
''^ Talvi's Language and Literature of the Slavic Nations, 8vo, 1860, p. 231. The
Pagan songs of the Slovaks, in the nortb-west of Hungary, were for a time preserved;
but even they are now lost. Tdlvi, p. 216.
'° The monkish chroniclers neglected the old Finnish traditions ; and allowing
them to perish, preferred the inventions of Saxo and Johannes Magnus. Prichards
Physical Hist. vol. Ui. pp. 284, 285.
" For ah instance in which the monks have falaified the old Icelandic traditions,
see Mr. Keightley's learned book on Fairy Mythology, 8vo, 1850, p. 159.
"^ The Eev. Mr. Dowling, who looks back with great regret to this happy period,
saya, " Writera were almost univeraaUy eccleaiastics. Literature was scarcely any
thing but a reUgioua exercise ; for every thing that waa atudied, waa studied with a
reference to reUgion. The men, therefore, who wrote hiatory, wrote ecclesiastical
iRo"'^^'" ^?'''ti;^fsLntroduction to the Critical Study of Ecclesiastical History, 8vo, '
1838, p. 66 ; awdrk of some talent, but chiefly interesting as a manifesto by an active

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 233
encourage inquiry, it is no wonder if they displayed in their
writings the spirit incidental to the habits of their profession.
Hence, as I have already observed, Uterature, during many ages,
instead of benefiting society, injured it, hy increasing credulity,
and thus stopping the progress of knowledge. Indeed, the apti
tude for falsehood became so great, that there was nothing men
were unwUling to heUeve. Nothing came amiss to their greedy
and credulous ears. Histories of omens, prodigies, apparitions,
strange portents, monstrous appearances in the heavens, the
'wildest and most incoherent absurdities, were repeated from
mouth to mouth, and copied from book to book, with as much
care as if they were the choicest treasures of human wisdom."
That Europe should have ever emerged from such a state, is the
most decisive proof of the extraordinary energy of Man, since we
cannot even conceive a condition of society more unfavourable
to his progress. But it is evident, that tmtU the emancipation
was effected, the creduUty and looseness of thought which were
universal, unfitted men for habits of investiga.tion, and made it
impossible for them to engage in a successful study of past af
fairs, or even record with accuracy what was taking place around
them."' If, therefore, we recur to the facts just cited, we may say
that, omitting several circumstances altogether subordinate,
there were three leading causes of the corraption of the history
of Europe in the Middle Ages. The first cause was, the sudden
introduction of the art of writing, and the consequent fusion of
different local traditions, which, when separate, were accurate,
hut when united were false. The second cause was, the change
of reUgion ; which acted in two ways, producing not merely an
interraption of the old traditions, hut also an interpolation of
tjhem,^ And the third cause, probably the most powerful of all,
was, that history became monopoUzed hy a class of men whose
professional habits made them quick to heUeve, and who, more-
" Thus, for instance, a celebrated historian, who 'wrote at the end ofthe twelfth
century, saya of the reign of WilUam Rufua : " Ejuadem regia tempore, ut ex parte
aupradictum eat, in sole, luna, et steUis, multa aigua viaa sunt, mare quoque littus
perssepe egre'diebatur, et homines et animalia submersit, villas, et domos quamplures
Bibvertit. In page qui Barukeshire nominatur, ante occisionem regia sanguis de
fonte tribus septimanis emanavit. Multis etiam Normannis diabolus in horribili
specie se frequenter in silvis osteudens, plura cum eis de rege et Eanulfo, et quibus-
dam aUis locutua eat. Nee mirum, nam iUo^um tempore ferfe omnia legum siluit
juatitia, causisque justitiae aubpoaitis, sola in principibus imperabat pecunia." Rog.
de Hoeeden Annal. in Scriptores post Bedam, p. 268. See also the same work, pp.
366-358 ; and compare Mcttthtei Westmonast. Flores Historiarum, part i. pp. 266,
289, part U. p. 298.
"' Even the descriptions of natural objects which historians attempted in the
Middle Ages, were marked by the aame careleasness. See some good observations
by Dr. Arnold, on Bede's account of the Solent Sea. ArnoWs Lectures on Modern
History, pp. 102, 103.

234 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
over, had a direct interest in increasing the general credulity,
since it was the hasis upon which their own authority was built.
By the operation of these causes, the history of Europe be
came corrupted to an extent for which we can find no parallel in
any other period. That there was, properly speaking, no history,
was the smaUest part of the inconvenience ; hut, unhappily,
men, not satisfied with the absence of truth, supplied its place
hy the invention of falsehood. Among innumerable instances
of this, there is one species of inventions worth noticing, because
they evince that love of antiquity, which is a marked character
istic of those classes by whom history was then written. I
allude to fictions regarding the origin of different nations, in aU
of which the spirit of the Middle Ages is very discernible. Dur
ing many centuries, it was heUeved by every people that they
were directly descended from ancestors who had been present at
the siege of Troy. That was a proposition which no one thought
of doubting.^" The only question was, as to the details of so
iUustrious a Uneage. On this, however, there was a certaui
unanimity of opinion ; since, not to mention inferior countries,
it was admitted that the French were descended from Francus,
whom every body knew to he the son of Hector ; and it was also
known that the Britons came from Brutus, whose father was no
other than .^neas himself"
Touching the origin of particular places, the great historians
of the Middle Ages are equaUy communicative. In the accounts
they give of them, as well as in the lives they write of eminent
men, the history usuaUy begins at a very remote period ; and
the events relating to their subject are often traced hack, in an
unbroken series, from the moment when Noah left the ark, or
"" In Le Long's Bibliotheque Historique de la France, voh u. p. 3, it is said, that
the descent of the kings of Prance from the Trojans was universaUy believed before
the sixteenth century : " Cette descendance a dtd crue vdritable prds de huit cent ans,
et Boutenue par toua lea dcrivains de notre histoire ; la fausettd n'en a dtd reconnue
qu'au commencement du seizidme eidcle." Polydore VergU, who died in the middle
of the aixteenth century, attacked thia opinion iu regard to England, and thereby
made hia hiatory unpopular. See Ellis's Preface to Polydore VergU, p. xx. 4to, 1844,
pubUahed by the Camden Society. "He diacarded Brute, as an unreal personage."
In 1128, Henry I., king of England, inquired from a learned man respecting the
early history of France. The answer is preserved by an historian of the thirteenth
century: " Eegum potentiaaime, inquiena, aicut plerseque gentea Europse, itaFranci
a Trojanis originem duxerunt." Matthoei Paris Hist. Major, p. 59. See also Rog. de
Hov. in Scriptores post Bedam, p. 274. On the descent of the Britons from Priam
and jEueas, see Matthm Westmonast. Flores Historiarum, part i. p. 66. Indeed, at
the beginning of the fourteenth century, their Trojan origin was stated as a notorious
fact, in a letter written to Pope Boniface by Edward I., and signed by the EngUsh
nobiUty. See Warton's Sist. of English Poetry, vol. i. pp. 131, 132 ; and CampbeWs
Lives of the Chancellors, vol. i. p. 185.
The general opinion was, that Brutus, or Brute, was the son of jEneas ; but
some historians affirmed that he was the great-grandson. See Ihirner's Hist, of
England, vol. i. p. 63, voh vu. p. 220. '

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 225
even when Adam passed the gates of Paradise."" On other
occasions, the antiquity they assign is somewhat less ; but the
range of their information is always extraordinary. They say,
that the capital of France is called after Paris, the son of Priam,
hecause he fled there when Troy was overthrown."' They also
mention that Tours owed its name to being the burial-place of
Turonus, one ofthe Trojans;"" while the city of Troyes was actual
ly built by the Trojans, as its etymology clearly proves."' It was
weU ascertained that Nuremberg was caUed after the Emperor
Nero ;"* and Jerusalem after King Jehus,"' a man of vast celeb
rity in the Middle Ages, but whose existence later historians
have not been able to verify. The river Humher received its
name because, in ancient times, a king of the Huns had heen
™ In the Notes to a Chronicle of London from 1089 to 1483, pp. 183-187, edit,
4to, 1827, there is a pedigree, in which the history of the bishops of London is traced
back, not only to the migration of Brutus from Troy, but also to Noah and Adam .
Thus, too, Goropius, in his history of Antwerp, written in the sixteenth century :
"Vond zoowel de Nederlandsche taal ala de Wysbegeerte van Orpheus in de ark
van Noach." Van Kampen, Geschiedenis der Letteren, 8vo, 1821, vol. i. p. 91 ; see
also p. 86. In the thirteenth century, Mathew Paris (Historia Major, p. 352) says
of Alfred, " Hujua genealogia in Anglorum historua perducitur usque ad Adam pri-
mum parentem." See, to the same effect, Matthcei Westmonast. Flores Historiarum,
part i. pp. 323, 324, 415. In WUUam of Malmesbury's Chronicle (Scriptores post
Bedam, p. 22 rev.) the genealogy of the Saxon kings is traced back to Adam. For
other, and simUar, instances, see a note in Lingard's History of England, vol. i. p.
403. And Mr. Ticknor (History of Spanish Literature, vol. i. p. 509) mentions, that
the Spanish chroniclers present " an uninterrupted succession of Spanish kings from
Tubal, a grandson of Noah."
"' Monteil, in his curious book, Histoire des divers Etats, vol. v. p. 70, mentions
the old beUef " que les Parisiens sont du sang des roia dea anciena Troyens, par
Paris, fils de Priam." Even in the seventeenth century this idea was not extinct;
and Coryat, who travelled in France in 1608, gives another version of it. He says,
" As for her name of Paris, she hath it (aa some write) from Paris, the eighteenth
king of GaUia Celtica, whom some write to have been lineaUy descended from Japhet,
one ofthe three sons of Noah, and to have founded thia citv." Coryat s Crudities,
1611, reprinted 1776, voh i. pp. 27, 28.
"^ " Erat ibi quidam Troa nomine Turonus Bruti nepoa  De nomine
ipaiua preedicta civitas Turouis vocabulum nacta est ; quia ibidem sepultus fuit."
Galfredi Monumet. Hist. Briton. Ub. i. cap. xv. p. 19. And Mathew of Westminster.
who wrote in the fourteenth century, says (Flores Historiarum, part i. p. 17) : " Tro.^
nomine 'Turnus  De nomine ver6 ipsius Turonorum civitas vocabilum
traxit, quia ibidem, ut testatur Homerua, aepultua fuit."
" " Ou convient bien que lea Troyens de notre Troyes sont du sang des anciens
Troyens." Monteil, Divers Etats, voh v. p. 69.
"' Monconys, who was iu Nuremberg in 1663, found this opinion still held there ;
and he •seems himaelf half incUned to beUeve it ; for, in visiting a castle, he
observes, "Mais je ne sjai si c'est un ouvrage de Ndron, comme Ton le dit, et que
mdme le nom de Nuremberg en vient." Voyages de Monconys, vol. iv. p. 141, edit.
Paris, 1695.
°^ " Deinceps regnante in ea Jebuaaso, dicta Jebus, et sic ex Jebus et Salem dicta
est Jebussalem. Unde post dempta b littera et addita r, dicta est Hierusalem."
Matthcei Paris Historia Major, p. 43. This reminds me of another great writer, who
was one of the fathers, and was moreover a aaint, and who, aaya M. Matter, "ddrive
les Samaritains du roi Samarius, fils de Canaan." Matter, Hist, du Gnosticisme, vol.
i. p. 41. VOL. L' — 15

336 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
drowned in it."" The Gauls derived their origin, according, to
some, from Galathia, a female descendant of Japhet; according
to others, from Gomer, the son of Japhet."' Prussia was called
after Prussus, a brother of Augustus."' This was remarkably
modern; but Silesia had its name from the prophet Elisha, —
from whom, indeed, the Silesians descended;"' while as to the
city of Zurich, its exact date was a matter of dispute^ but it
was unquestionably built in the time of Abraham.'" It was
likewise from Abraham and Sarah that the gipsies immediately
sprung." The blood of the Saracens was less pure, since they
were only descended from Sarah, — ^in what way is not mentioned;
hut she probably had them by another marriage, or, may be, as
the fruit of an Egyptian intrigue.'" At aU events, the Scotch
certainly came from Egypt; for they were originally the issue of
Scota, who was a daughter of Pharaoh, and who bequeathed to
them her name." On sundry similar matters, the Middle Ages
possessed information equally valuable. It was well known that
the city of Naples was founded on eggs;'* and it was also known,
'" " Humber rex Hunnorum . . ad fiumen diffugiens, submersus est intra
ipaum, et nomen suum flumini reliquit." Matthcei Westmonast. Flores Historiarum,
part i. p. 19.
"' These two opinions, which long divided the learned world, are stated in Le
Long, Bibliotheque Historique de la France, vol. ii. pp. 5, 49.
'" See a curious allusion to thia in De Thou, Hist. Univ. voh viU. p. 160 ; where,
however, it is erroneously auppoaed to be a Eussian invention.
" " The Silesians are not without voluminous writera upon their antiquities ; and
one of them gravely derives the name and descent of his country from the prophet
EUsha." Adams's Letters on Silesia, p. 267, Lond. 8vO, 1804.
'" In 1608, Coryat, when in Zurich, was "told by the learned Hospinian that
their city was founded in the time of Abraham." Coryats Crudities, vol. i. Epistle
to the Eeader, sig. d. I alwaya give the moat recent inatance I have met with,
because, in the history of the European inteUect, it is important to know how long
the spirit of the Middle Ages survived in different countries.
'' They were " seuls enfants Idgitimes" of Abraham and Sarah. 'Monteil, Divers
Etats, vol. V. p. 19.
'" Mathew Paris, who is apprehensive lest the reputation of Sarah should suffer,
saya : " Saraceni perversd se putant ex Sara dici ; sed veri6s Agareni dicuntur ab
Agar ; et Ismaelitae, ab lamaele Alio Abrabse." Hist. Major, p. 357. Compare a
aimilar paasage in Mezeray, Histoire de France, vol. 1 p. 127 : " Sarraains, ou de la
viUe de Sarai, ou de Sara femme d' Abraham, duquel ils se disent faussement legitimes
beritiers." After this, the idea, or the fear ofthe idea, soon died away ; and Beau
sobre (Histoire Critique de Maniehee, vol. i. p. 24) says : " On ddrive vulgairement
le nom de Sarasins du mot Arabe Sarah, ou Sarak, qui signifie effectivement voleur.
A good example of a secular turn given to a theological etymology. For a similar
case in northern history, aee Whitelocke's Journal of the Swedish Embassy, vol. i. pp.
190, 191.
" Early in the fourteenth century, this was stated, in a letter to the Pope, as a
well-known historical fact. See Lingard s History of England, vol. ii. p. 187 : "They
are sprung from Scota, the daughter of Pharaoh, who landed in Ireland, and whose
descendants wrested, by force of arms, the northern half of Britain from the progeny
of Brute."
'* Mr. Wright (Narratives of Sorcery, 8vo, 1861, vol. i. p. 115) says, "The foun
dation of the city of Naples upon eggs, and the egg on which its fate depended,
seem to have been legends generally current in the Middle Agea ;" and he refers lo

GENERAL INTEODUCTION. 337
that the order of St. Michael was instituted in person by the
archangel, who was himself the first knight, and to whom, in
fact, chivalry owes it origin." In regard to the Tartars, that
people, of course, proceeded from Tartarus ; which some theolo
gians said was an inferior kind of hell, but others declared to be
heU itself'" However this might be, the fact of their birth
place being from below was indisputable, and was proved hy
many circumstances which showed the fatal and mysterious in
fluence they were able to exercise. For the Turks were identi
cal with the Tartars; and it was notorious, that since the Cross
had fallen into Turkish hands, all Christian children had ten
teeth less than formerly; an universal calamity, which there
seemed to be no means of repairing."
Other points relating to the history of past events were clear
ed up with equal facUity. In Europe, during many centuries,
the only animal food in general use was pork ; beef, veal, and
mutton, being comparatively unknown." It was, therefore, with
Montfaucon, Monumens de la Mon. Fr. vol. ii. p. 329, for proof, that by the statutes
of the order of the Saint Esprit, " a chapter of the knights was appointed to be held
annuaUy in castello ovi incantati in mirabUi periculo."
" " The order of St. Michael, iu France, pretends to the possession of a regular
descent from Michael the Archangel, who, according to the enlightened judgment of
French antiquarians, was the premier chevalier in the world ; and it was he, they say,
who estabUshed the earliest ciuvalric order in Paradise itself." Mills's History of
Chivalry, vol. i. pp. 863, 364.
'" The etymology of Tartars from Tartarus is ascribed to the piety of Saint Louis
in Prichard's Physical History, vol. iv. p. 278 ; but I think that I have met with it
before his time, though I cannot now recover the passage. The earUest instance I
remember is in 1241, when the saint was twenty-six years old. See a letter from tbe
emperor Frederick, in Mattluei Paris Historia Major, p. 497 : " Pervenissent dicti
Tartar! (imo Tartarei)," &o. ; and on the expression of Louis, see p. 496 : " Quos
vocamus Tartaros ad suas Tartareas sedes." Since the thirteenth century, the subject
has attracted the attention of English divines ; and the celebrated theologian Whis
ton mentions "my last famous discovery, or rather my revival of Dr. Giles Fletcher's
famous discovery, that the Tartars are no other than the ten tribes of Israel, which
have been so long sought for in vain." Memoirs of the Life and Writings of William
Whiston, p. 675. Compare, on the opinions held respectmg the Tartars, Journal
Asiatique, I. sdrie, vol. vi. p. 374, Paris, 1826.
" Peignot (Diet, des Livres, vol. U. p. 69, Paris, 1806) says, that Rigord, in his
history of PhiUp Augustus, assures his readers " que depuis que la vraie croix a dtd
prise par les Turcs, les enfans n'ont plus que 20 ou 23 dents, au lieu qu'ils en avaient
30 ou 32 auparavaut." Even in the fifteenth century, it was believed that the num
ber of teeth had diminished from 32 to 22, or at most 24. See Sprengel, Hist, de la
Medecine, vol. U. pp. 481, 482, Paris, 1815. Compare Hecker on the Black Death, pp.
31, 32, in hia learned work. Epidemics of the Middle Ages, pubUshed by the Sydenham
Society. ¦" In the sacred books of the Scandinavians, pork is represented as the principal
food, even in heaven. See Mallets Northern Antiquities, p. 105. It was the chief
food of the Irish in the twelfth century : Ledwich, Antiquities of Ireland, DubUn,
1804, p. 370 ; and also of the Anglo-Saxons at an earlier period. Turner's Hist, of
England, vol. iU. p. 22. In France it was equally common, and Charlemagne kept
in bis forests immense droves of pigs. Note in Esprit des Lois, in CEuvres de Montes
quieu, p. 513. In Spain, those who did not Uke pork were tried by the Inquisi
tion as suspected Jews. Llorente, Hist, de V Inquisition, vol. i. pp. 269, 442, 445.

338 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
no smaU astonishment that the crusaders, on returning from the
East, told their countrymen that they had been among a people
who, Uke the Jews, thought pork unclean, and refused to eat it.
But the feelings of lively wonder which this inteUigence excited,
were destroyed as soon as the cause of the fact was explained.
The subject was taken up hy Mathew Paris, the most eminent
historian during the thirteenth century, and one of the most
eminent during the Middle Ages.'" This celebrated writer in
forms us, that the Mohammedans refuse to eat pork on account
of a singular circumstance which happened to their prophet. It
appears, that Mohammed, having, on one occasion, gorged him
self with food and drink tUl he was in a state of insensibility,
fell asleep on a dunghUl, and, in this disgraceful condition, was
seen by a litter of pigs. The pigs attacked the fallen prophet,
apd suffocated him to death ; for which reason his followers
abominate pigs, and refuse to partake of their flesh.'" This
striking fact explains one great peculiarity of the Mohamme
dans;" and another fact, equaUy striking, explains how it was
Late in the sixteenth century, there was a particular disease, said to be caused by
the quantity of it eaten in Hungary. Sprengel, Hist, de la Medecine, vol. Ui. p. 93';
and even at present, the barbaroua Lettes are passionately fond of it. Kohl's Rus
sia, pp. 386, 387. In the middle of the sixteenth century, I find that PhiUp II., when
in England, generaUy dined on bacon ; of which he ate so much, as frequently to
make himself very ill. See Ambassades de Messieurs de Noailles en Angleterre, vol.
V. pp. 240, 241, edit. 1763. The ambassador writes, that Philip was " grand man-
geur oultre mesure," and used to consume large quantities " de lard, dont U faict le
plus souveut son principal repas." In the Middle Ages, " les Thuriilg'iens payaient
leur tribut en pores, la denrde la plus prdcieuse de leur pays." (Euvres de Michelet,
vol. ii. p. 389.
'" Siamoudi (Hist, des Franfais, vol. vU. pp. 825, 326) passes a high eulogy upon
him ; and Mosheim (Ecclesiast. History, vol. i. p. 313) says : "Among the historians
(of the thirteenth century), the first place ia due to Mathew Paris ; a writer of the
higheat merit, both in point Of knowledge and prudence."
"" Matthcei Paris Historia Major, p. 362. He concludes hia account by saying,
" Unde adhuc Saraceni sues prse cseteria animaUbua exosas habent et abominablles."
Mathew Paris obtained his information from a clergyman, " quondam magni nommis
celebrem prsedicatorem." p. 360. According to Mathew of Westminster, the pigs
not only suffocated Mohammed, but actuaUy ate tbe greater part of him : " In max
ima parte a porcis corrosum invenerunt." Matthcei Westmonast. Flores Historiarum,
part i. p. 215.
"' By a singular contradiction, the African Mohammedans now " beUeve that a
great enmity subsista between hoga and Chriatiana." Mungo Park's Travels, vol. i. p.
186. Many medical authora have aupposed that pork is pecuUarly unwholesome in
hot countries ; but thia requires confirmation : and it ia certain, that it ia recommend
ed by Arabian physicians, and is more generally eaten both in Asia and in Africa
than is usuaUy believed. Comp. Sprengel, Hist, de la Medecine, voh U. p. 323 ; Yol-
ney, Voyage en Syrie, vol. i. p. 449 ; Buchanan's Journey through the Mysore, vol. ii. •
p. 88, vol. Ui. p. 67 ; Raffles' Hist, of Java, vol. U. p. 5 ; Ellis's Hist, of Madagascar,
vol. i. pp. 201, 408, 416 ; Cook's Voyages, vol. U. p. 266 ; Burnes's Travels into Bok
hara, vol. iii. p. 141. As facts of this sort are important physiologically and socially,
it is advisable that they should be coUected; and I therefore add, that the North-
American Indians are aaid to have ' ' a diagua tfo rpork." Journal of the Geog. Society,
vol. xv. p. 30; and that DobeU (Travels, vol. U. p. 260, 8vo, 1830) says, "I believe
there is more pork eaten in China than in aU the rest ofthe world put together."

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 339
that their sect came into existence. For it was well known, that
Mohammed was originally a cardinal, and only became a heretic
because he faUed in his design of being elected pope.""
In regard to the early history of Christianity, the great
writers of the Middle Ages were particularly inquisitive; and
they preserved the memory of events, of which otherwise we
should have been entirely ignorant. After Froissart, the most
celebrated historian of the fourteenth century was certainly
Mathew of Westminster, yrith whose name, at least, most read
ers are famUiar. This eminent man directed his attention,
among other matters, to the history of Judas, in order to dis
cover the circumstances under which the character of that arch-
apostate was formed. His researches seem to have been very
extensive; but their principal results were, that Judas, when an
infant, was deserted hy his parents, and exposed on an island
called Scarioth, from whence he received the name of Judas
Iscariot. To this the historian adds, that after Judas grew up,
he, among other enormities, slew his own father, and then mar
ried his own mother." The same writer, in another part of his
history, mentions a fact interesting to those who study the an
tiquities of the Holy See. Some questions had been raised as
to the propriety of kissing the pope's toe, and even theologians
had their doubts touching so singular a ceremony. But this
difficulty also was set at rest by Mathew of Westminster, who
explains the true origin of the custom. He says, that formerly
it was usual to Mss the hand of his hoUness ; but that towards
the end of the eighth century, a certain lewd woman, in making
an offering to the pope, not only kissed his hand, but also pressed
it. The pope, — ^his name was Leo,-^seeing the danger, cut off
his hand, and thus escaped the contamination to which he had
been exposed. Since that time, the precaution has been taken
of kissing the pope's toe instead of his hand ; and, lest any one
should doubt the accuracy of this account, the historian assures
us that the hand, which had heen cut off five or six hundred
years before, stUl existed in Eome, and was uideed a standing
miracle, since it was preserved in the Lateran in its original
state, free from corraption.'* And as some readers might wish
"^ This idea, which waa a favourite one in the Middle Agea, ia said to have been a
Rabbinical invention. See Lettres de Gui Patin, voh in. p. 127; "que Mahomet, le
faux prophdte, avait dtd cardinal ; et que, par depit de n'avoir dtd pape, U s'dtoit fait
hdrdsiarque." "" See the ample details in Matthcei Westmonast. Flores Historiarum, part i. pp.
86, 87 ; and at p. 88, " Judas matrem suam uxorem duxerat, et qu6d patrem suum
occiderat." "* This took place in the year 798. Matthoei Westmonast. Flores Historiarum,
part i. p. 298. The historian thus concludes his relation : " Et statutum est nunc
quod numquam extunc manua Papae ab offereutibus deoscularetur, sed pes. Cum

230 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
to he informed respecting the Lateran itself, where the hand was
kept, this also is considered hy the historian, in another part of
his great work, where he traces it back to the emperor Nero.
For it is said that this wicked persecutor of the faith, on one
occasion, vomited a frog covered with blood, which he beUeved
to be his own progeny, and therefore caused to be shut up in a
vault, where it remained hidden for some time. Now, in the
Latin language, latente means hidden, and rana means a frog;
so that, hy putting these two words together, we have the origin
of the Lateran, which, in fact, was built where the frog was
found." It would be easy to fiU volumes with similar notions ; aU of
which were devoutly believed in those ages of darkness, or, as they
have been weU called. Ages of Faith. Those, indeed, were golden
days for the ecclesiastical profession, since the creduUty of men
had reached a height which seemed to ensure to the clergy a long
and universal dominion. How the prospects of the church were
subsequently darkened, and how the human reason began to re
bel, wiU be related in another part of this Introduction, where I
shall endeavour to trace the rise of that secular and sceptical
spirit to which European civUization owes its origin. But before
closing the present chapter, it may he well to give a few more
Ulustrations of the opinions held in the Middle Ages ; and for
this purpose, I wUl select the two historical accounts, which, of
aU others, were the most popular, exercised most influence, and
were most universally believed.
The histories to which I refer are those of Arthur and Charle
magne ; both of which hear the names of dignitaries of the church,
and were received with the respect due to their Ulustrious au
thors. That concerning Charlemagne is called the chronicle of
Turpin, and purports to be written by Turpin, archbishop of
Eheims, a friend of the emperor, and his companion in war.'"
From some passages it contains, there is reason to think that it
ante fuerat conauetudo quod manua, non pea, deoacularetur. In hujua. miraculi
memoriam reaervatur adhuc mauus abscissa in thesauro lateranensi, quam dommus
custodit incorruptam ad laudem matris suae."
"" ". . . . Ita ut Nero se puero gravidum existimaret  Tandem dolore nimio
vexatus, medioia ait : Accelerate tempua partua, quia languore vix anheUtum habeo
respirandi. Tunc ipaum ad vomitum impotionaverunt, et ranam viau terribilem,
humoribua infectam, et sanguine cdidit cruentatam  Unde et pars ilia civitatis,
ut ali qui dicunt, ubi rana latucrat, Lateranum k latente rana, nomen accepit." Mattheei
Westmonast. part i. p. 98. Compare the account given by Eoger of Hoveden, of a
woman who vomited two toads. Script, post Bedam, p. 457 rev. In the Middle Ages
there were many superstitions respecting these animals, and they appear to have
been used by heralds aa marks of degradation. See Lankester' s Memorials of Bay,
p. 197. """..... Ego Turpinus in vaUe CaroU loco prsefato, astante reare," &c. De Vita
Caroh Magni, p. 74, edit. Ciampi.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 231
was reaUy composed at the beginning of the tweU'th century ;"
but, in the Middle Ages, men were not nice in these matters, and
no one was Ukely to dispute its authenticity. Indeed, the name
of an archbishop of Eheims was sufficient recommendation ; and
we find accordingly, that iu the year 1122 it received the formal
approbation of the pope ;"" and that Vincent de Beauvais, one
of the most celebrated writers in the thirteenth century, and
tutor to the sons of Louis IX., mentions it as a work of value,
and as being the principal authority for the reign of Charle
magne."" A book thus generaUy read, and sanctioned by such compe
tent judges, must be a tolerable standard for testing the knowl
edge and opinions of those times. On this account, a short no
tice of it yriU be useful for our present purpose, as it wiU enable
us to understand the extreme slowness with which history has
improved, and the almost imperceptible steps by which it ad
vanced, untU fresh Ufe was breathed into it by the great thinkers
ofthe eighteenth century.
In the Chronicle of Turpin, we are informed that the invasion
of Spain hy Charlem9,gne took place in consequence of the direct
instigation of St. James, the brother of St. John."" The apostle,
being the cause of the attack, adopted measures to secure its
success. When Charlemagne besieged Pamplona, that city made
an obstinate resistance ; but as soon as prayers were offered up
by the invaders, the waUs suddenly feU to the ground."' After
this, the emperor rapidly overran the whole country, almost anni-
hUated the Mohammedans, and huUt innumerable churches.""
"' Turner (History of England, vol. vu. pp. 256-268) has attempted to prove that
it was written by CaUxtus II. ; but his arguments, though ingenious and learned,
are not decisive. Warton (Hist. Eng. Poetry, vol. i. p. 128) says it was composed
about 1110.
"" The pope " statuit historiam Sancti CaroU descriptam a beato Turpino Eemensi
Archiepiscopo esse authenticam." Note in Turner, vol. vu. p. 260.
"° In his famous Speculum, " il recommande spdcialement les dtudes historiques,
dont il parait que la plupart de ses contemporains mdconnaissaient Tutilitd ; mais
lorsqu'U indtque les sources ou U puisera ce genre d'instruction, c'est Turpin qu'U
ddaigne comme le principal liistorien de Charlemagne." Histoire Litteraire de la
France, voh xviu. p. 474, Paris, 1885, 4to ; see alao p. 517 ; and on its influence in
Spain, see Tickner's History of Spanish Literature, vol. i. pp. 222, 223.
°° Caroli Magni Historia, edit. Ciampi, pp. 3-5.
°' " . . . . Muri coUapsi funditua corruerunt." De Vita CaroH, p. 5. On this,
Ciampi, in hia notea on Turpin, gravely says (pp. 94, 95) : " Questo fatto della presa
di Pamplona d reso maraviglioso per la aubitanea caduta deUe mura, a somigUanza
deUe mura di Gerico.". This reminds me of a circumstance mentioned by Monconys,
who, on visiting Oxford in 1663, was shown a horn which was preserved in that
ancient city, because it was said to be made in the same way as that by which the
walls of Jericho were blown down : " Les Juifs tiennent que leurs ancdtres se ser-
virent de pareiUea pour abbatre les muraiUes de Jerico." Voyages de Monconys, vol.
iu. p. 95, edit. Paris, 1695.
°' De Vita Caroli, cap. v. pp. 11, 12 ; is headed " De ecclesiis quas Carolus
fecit."

233 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
But the resources of Satan are inexhaustible. On the side of
the enemy, a giant now appeared, whose name was Fenacute,
and who was descended from GoUath of old."' This Fenacute
was the most formidable opponent the Christians had yet 'en
countered. His strength was equal to that of forty men ;"* his
face measured one cubit ; his arms and legs four cubits ; his
total height was twenty cubits. Against him Charlemagne sent
the most eminent warriors ; hut they were easily discomfited hy
the giant ; of whose prodigious force some idea may be formed
from the fact, that the length even of his fingers was three palms."'
The Christians were fiUed with consternation. In vain did more
than twenty chosen men advance against the giant ; not one re
turned from the field ; Fenacute took them all under his arms,
and carried them off into captivity. '" At length the celebrated Or
lando came forward, and chaUenged him to mortal comhat. An
obstinate fight ensued ; and the Christian, not meeting with the
success he expected, engaged his adversary in a theological dis
cussion."' Here the Pagan was easily defeated; and Orlando,
warmed by the controversy, pressed on his enemy, smote the
giant with his sword, and dealt him a fatal wound. After this,
the last hope of the Mohammedans was extinct ; the Christian
arms had finally triumphed, and Charlemagne divided Spain
among those gallant foUowers who had aided him in effecting its
conquest."' On the history of Arthur, the Middle Ages possessed informa
tion equaUy authentic. Different accounts had been circulated
respecting this celebrated king;"" hut their comparative value
was stiU unsettled, when, early in the twelfth century, the sub
ject attracted the attention of Geoffrey, the weU-known- Arch
deacon of Monmouth. This eminent man, in A. D. 1147, published
the result of his inquiries, in a work which he caUed History of
the Britons.^"" In this book, he takes a comprehensive view of
"^ " Gigas nomine Ferracutus, qui fuit de genere GoUat." De Vita Caroli, p. 39,
°* " Vim xl. fortium poasidebat." p. 39.
°" "Erat enim atatura ejua quasi cubitis xx., faciea erat longa quaai uniua cubiti,
et uasus iUius uniua palmi mensurati, et brachia et crura ejua quatuor cubitorum
erant, et digit! ejus tribus palmis." p. 40.
" De Vita Caroli, p. 40. "' Ibid. pp. 43-47.
°° Ibid. p. 52. On tbe twelve peers of Charlemagne, in connexion with Turpin,
see Sismondi, Hist, des Franpais, vol. v. pp. 246, 537, 638, vol. vi. p. 534.
°° The Welsh, however, accused GUdas of having thrown his history "into the
sea.'' Palgrave's Anglo-Saxon Commonwealth, vol. i. p. 453. The industrious Sharon
Turner (Hist, of England, vol. i. pp. 282-295) haa coUected a great deal of evidence
respecting Arthur ; of whoae exiatence he, of courae, entertains no doubt. Indeed,
at p. 292, he givea ua an account ofthe discovery, in the twelfth century, of Arthurs
body! "° In Turner's Hist, of England, vol. viL pp. 269, 270, it is said to have appeared
m 1128 ; but Mr. Wright (Biog. Brit, Lit. vol ii. p. 144) seems to have proved that
the real date is 1147.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 233
the whole question ; and not only relates the life of Arthur, but
also traces the circumstances which prepared the way for tho
appearance of that great conqueror. In regard to the actions of
Arthur, the historian was singularly fortunate, inasmuch as the
materials necessary for that part of his subject were collected by
Walter Archdeacon of Oxford, who waa a friend of Geoffrey, and
who, like him, took great interest in the study of history.'"' The
work is, therefore, the joint composition of the two archdeacons ;
and is entitled to respect, not only on this account, hut also be
cause it was one of the most popular of all the productions of the
Middle Ages.
The earUer part of this great history is occupied with the re
sult of those researches which the Archdeacon of Monmouth had
made into the state of Britain before the accession of Arthur.
With this we are not so much concerned ; though it may be
mentioned, that the archdeacon ascertained that, after the cap
ture of Troy, Ascanius fied from the city, and begat a son, who
became father to Brutus.'"" In those days, England was peopled
by giants, aU of whom were slain by Brutus ; who, having ex
tirpated the entire race, built London, settled the affairs of the
country, and called it, after himself, hy the name of Britain.'"'
The archdeacon proceeds to relate the actions of a long Une of
kings who succeeded Brutus, most of whom were remarkable for
their abUities, and some were famous for the prodigies which oc
curred in their time. Thus, during the govemment of Eivallo,
it rained blood for three consecutive days ;'"* and when Morvidus
was on the throne, the coasts were infested hy a horrid sea-mon
ster, which, haviog devoured innumerable persons, at length
swallowed the king himself.'"'
These and simUar matters are related hy the Archdeacon of
Monmouth as the fruit of his own inquiries ; hut in the subse-
'"' Geoffrey says, " A Gualtero Oxinefordensi in multis historiis peritiasimo viro
audivit " (i, e. ilie Geoffrey) " viU Ucet stylo, breviter tamen propalabit, quae proeUa
inclytus iUe rex post victoriam istam, in Britanniam reveraus, cum nepote auo com-
miaerit." Galfredi Monumetensis Historia Britonum, Ub. xi. aee. i. p. 200. And in
the dedication to the Earl of Gloucester, p. 1, he aaya, " Walterus Oxinefordensis
archidiaconus, vir in oratoria arte atque in exoticis historiis eruditus." Compare
Matthcei Westmonast. Flores Historiarum, part i. p. 248.
'" Galfredi Historia Britonum, pp. 3, 4.
'" "Erat tunc nomen insulae Albion, quae a nemine, exceptis paucia gigantibua,
inhabitabatur  Denique Brutua de nomine suo insulam Britanniam, sociosque
sues Britonea appeUat." Galf. Hist. Britonum, p. 20.
"'' " In tempore ejua tribua diebua cecidit pluvia sanguinea, et muscarum affiuen-
tia; quibus homines moriebantur." Hist. Brit. p. 36.
"" " Advenerat namque ex partibus Hibernici maris inauditse feritatis bellua, quae
incolas maritimos sine intermiasione devoraba!t. Cumque fama aures ejus attigisaet,
accesait ipae ad iUam, et solus cum sola congressus est. At cum omnia tela sua in
iUam in vanum conaumpsisaet, acceleravit monstrum iUud, et apertia faucibua ipaum
velut pisciculum devoravit." Hist. Brit. p. 51.

234 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
quent account of Arthur, he was aided hy his friend the Arch
deacon of Oxford. The two archdeacons inform their readers,
that King Arthur owed his existence to a magical contrivance
of Merlin, the celebrated wizard ; the particulars of which they
relate with a minuteness which, considering the sacred character
of the historians, is rather remarkable.'"" The subsequent ac
tions of Arthur did not heUe his supernatural origin. His might
nothing was able to withstand. He slew an immense number of
Saxons ; he overran Norway, invaded Gaul, fixed his court at
Paris, and made preparations to effect the conquest of all Eu
rope.'"' He engaged two giants in single combat, and killed
them both. One of these giants, who inhabited the Mount of St,
Michael, was the terror of the whole country, and destroyed all
the soldiers sent against him, except those he took prisoners, in
order to eat them while they were yet alive.'"" But he fell a
'rictim to the prowess of Arthur ; as also did another giant, named
Eitho, who was, if possible, stiU more formidable. For Eitho,
not content yrith warring on men of the meaner sort, actuaUy
clothed himself in furs which were entirely made of the beards
ofthe kings he had kUled.'""
Such were the statements which, under the name of history,
were laid before the world in the twelfth century; and that, too,
not by obscure writers, hut by high dignitaries of the church.
Nor was any thing wanting by which the success of the work
might be ensured. Its vouchers were the Archdeacon of Mon
mouth, and the Archdeacon of Oxford; it was dedicated to
Eohert Earl of Gloucester, the son of Henry I.; and it was con
sidered so important a contribution to the national Uterature,
that its principal author was raised to the bishopric of Asaph, —
a preferment which he is said to owe to his success in investi
gating the annals of English history."" A book thus stamped
yrith every possible mark of approbation, is surely no bad meas
ure of the age in which it was admired. Indeed, the feeUng
was so universal, that, during several centuries, there are not
'°° The particulara of the intrigue are in Galf. Hist. Brit. pp. 161, 162. For
information reapecting Merlin, aee also Matthcei Westmonast. Flores Historiarum,
part i. pp. 161, 162 ; and Naude, Apologie pour les Grand Hommes, pp. 308, 309, 318,
319, edit. Amsterdam, 1712.
'" Hist. Britonum, pp. 167-170 ; a brilUant chapter.
'"" " Sed ct plures capiebat quos semivivos devorabat." Hist. Brit. p. 181.
'°° " Hie namque ex barbis regum quos peremerat, fecerat aibi pelles, et manda-
verat Arturo ut barbam suam diligenter excoriaret, atque excoriatam aibi dirigeret:
ut quemadmodum ipse ceteris praeerat regibus, ita quoque in honorem ejus ceteris
barbis ipsam superponeret." Galf. Hist. Brit. p. 184.
"° " It was partly, perhapa, the reputation of this book, which procured its author
the bishopric of Asaph." Life of Geoffrey of Monmouth, in Wrights Biog. Brit.
Lit. vol. U. p. 144, 8vo, 1846. According to the Welsh writers, he waa Bishop of
Llandaff. See Stephens's Literature ofthe Kymry, 8vo, 1849, p. 823.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 235
more than two or three instances of any critic suspecting its ac
curacy.'" A Latin abridgment of it was published by the well-
known historian, Alfred of Beverley ;"" and, in order that it
might be more generally known, it was translated into EngUsh
by Layamon,'" and into Anglo-Norman, first by Gaimar, and
afterwards by Wace;"* zealous men, who were anxious that the
important truths it contained should be diffused as widely as cir
cumstances would allow.
It wUl hardly he necessary that I should adduce further evi
dence of the way in which history was written during the Middle
Ages ; for the preceding specimens have not heen taken at ran
dom, hut have heen selected from the ablest and most celebrated
authors; and as such, present a very favourable type of the
knowledge and judgment of Europe in those days. In the four
teenth and fifteenth centuries, there appeared, for the first time,
faint signs of an approaching change;'" but this improvement
was not very marked untU late in the sixteenth century, or even
early in the seventeenth. The principal steps of this interesting
movement yyUl he traced in another part of the Introduction,
when I shaU show, that although in the seventeenth century the
progress was immistakable, there was no attempt to take a com-
'" Mr. Wright (Biog. Brit. Lit. vol. U. p. 146) saya: "Within a century after
its firat pubUcation, it waa generally adopted by writera on EngUsh history ; and dur
ing several centuries, only one or two rare instances occur of persons who ventured
to speak againat its veracity." And Sir Henry EUis says of Polydore Vergil, who
wrote early in the sixteenth century, "For the repudiation of Geoffrey of Monmouth's
history, Polydore Vergil was considered almost as a man deprived of reason. Such
were the prejudices of the time." Polydore VergiVs English Hist. vol. i. p. a. edit.
EUis, 1 846, 4to. See also, on its popularity, Lappenberg's Hist, of the Anglo-Saxon
Kings, vol. i. p. 102. In the seventeenth century, which was the first sceptical centu
ry in Europe, men began to open their eyes on these matters ; and Boyle, for exam
ple, classes together i'the fabulous labours of Hercules, aud exploits of Arthur of
Britain." Boyle's Works, vol. iv. p. 426.
"^ Wrights Biog. Brit. Lit. vol. ii. p. 156 ; Turner's Hist, of England, vol. vu.
p. 282. "'' According to Mr. Wright (Biog. Brit, voh u. p. 439), it was translated through
the medium of Wace. But it would be more correct to say, that Layamon made
the absurdities of Geoffrey the basis of his work, rather than translated them ; for
he amplifies 15,000 Unea of Wace's Brut into 32,000 of his own jargon. See Sir F.
Madden's Preface to Layamon's Brut, 8vo, 1847, vol. i. p. xiii. I cannot refrain from
bearing testimony to the great philological value of this work of Layamon's, by the
pubUcation of which its accompUshed editor has made an important contribution
towards the study of the history of the EngUsh language. So far, however, aa
Layamon is concerned, we can only contemplate ¦with wonder an age of which he
waa considered au ornament, ,
"* Wrights Biog. Brit. Lit, vol. ii. p. 151, 207 ; Hallam's Literature of Europe,
vol. i. p. 35.
"° Of which Froissart ia the earliest instance ; since he is the first who took a
secular view of affairs, aU the preceding historians being essentiaUy theological. In
Spain, too, we find, late in the fourteenth century, a political spirit beginning to ap
pear among historians. See the remarks on Ayala, in Ticknar's Hist, of Spanish
Lit. voh i. pp. 165, 166 ; where, however, Mr. Ticknor represents Froissart as more
unworldly than he reaUy was.

236 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
prehensive view of history untU nearly the middle of the
eighteenth century; when the subject was studied, first hy the
great French thinkers, then by one or two of the Scotch, and,
some years later, by the Germans. This reformation of histoiy
was connected, as I shaU point out, yrith other inteUectual
changes, which corresponded to it, and which affected the social
relations of aU the principal countries of Europe. But, without
anticipating what wiU be found in another part of this volume,
it is sufficient to say, that not only was no history written before
the end of the sixteenth century, but that the state of society
was such as to make it impossible for one to he written. The
knowledge of Europe was not yet ripe enough to enable it to be
successfuUy applied to the study of past events. For we are not
to suppose that the deficiencies of the early historians were caused
by a lack of natural abUities. The average inteUect of men is
probably always the same ; but the pressure exercised on them
by society is constantly varying. It was, therefore, the general
condition of society, which, in former days, compelled even the
ablest writers to heUeve the most chUdish absurdities. Until
that condition was altered, the existence of history was impossi
ble, because it was impossible to find any one who knew what
was most important to relate, what to reject, and what to
beUeve. The consequence was, that even when history was studied by
men of such eminent ahUities as MacchiaveUi and Bodin, they
could turn it to no better account than to use it as a vehicle for
poUtical speculations ; and in none of their works do we find the
least attempt to rise to generalizations large enough to include
all the social phenomena. The same remark appUes to Comines,
who, though inferior to MacchiaveUi and Bodin, was an observer
of no ordinary acuteness, and certainly displays a rare sagacity in
his estimation of particular characters. But this was due to his
oyvn inteUect ; while the age in which he Uved made him super
stitious, and, for the larger purposes of history, miserably short
sighted. His shortsightedness is strikingly shown in his utter
ignorance of that great intellectual movement, which, in his own
time, was rapidly overthrowing the feudal institutions of the
Middle Ages ; but to which he never once alludes, reserring his
attention for those trivial poUtical intrigues in the relation of
which he believed history to consist."" As to his superstition, it
"° On this, Arnold says, truly enough, " Comines's Memoirs are striking from
their perfect unconsciousness : the knell of the Middle Ages had been already sound
ed, yet Comines has no other notions than such as they had tended to foster; he
describes their events, their charactera, their relations, as if they were to contmue
for centuries." Arnold's Lectures on Modern History, p. 118. To this I may add,
that whenever Comines has occasion to mention the lower clasaeB, which is very

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 337
would be idle to give many instances of that ; since no man
could live in the fifteenth century without having his mind en
feebled by the universal credulity. It may, however, be observed,
that though he was personaUy acquainted with statesmen and
diplomatists, and had, therefore, the fuUest opportunity of seeing
how enterprises of the fairest promise are constantly ruined,
merely by the incapacity of those who undertake them, he, on
aU important occasions, ascribes such failure, not to the real
cause, but to the immediate interference of the Deity. So
marked, and so irresistible, was the tendency of the fifteenth
century, that this eminent poUtician, a man of the world, and
well skUled in the arts of life, deUberately asserts that battles
are lost, not because the army is iU supplied, nor because the
campaign is Ul conceived, nor because the general is incompe
tent ; hut hecause the people or their prince are wicked, and
Proridence seeks to punish them. For, says Comines, war is a
great mystery ; and being used by God as the means of accom-
pUshing his yrishes. He gives victory, sometimes to one side,
sometimes to the other.'" Hence, too, disturbances occur in the
state, solely by divine disposition ; and they never would hap
pen, except that princes or kingdoms, having become prosper
ous, forget the source from which their prosperity proceeded."'
Such attempts as these, to make poUtics a mere branch of
theology,"" are characteristic of the time ; and they are the more
rarely the case, he speaks of them with great contempt. See two striking inatancea
in Memoires de Philippe de Comines, voh ii. pp. 277, 287, edit. Paris, 1826.
'" He says, that a field of battle is " un dea accompUaaemena dea ceuvres que
Dieu a commencdea aucunes fois par petites mouvetez et occasions, et en donnant la
victoire aucunes fois k Tun, et aucunes fois a Tautre ; et est cecy mystfere si grand,
que les royaumes et graudes seigneuries en prennent aucunes fois fins et ddsolationa,
et lea autrea accroissement, et commencement de rdgner." Mem. de Comines, vol. i.
pp. 361, 362. Respecting the wanton invasion of Italy, he saya, that the expedi
tion might have been eaaily ruined if the' enemy had thought of poiaoning the weUa
or the food : " mais Us n'y eussent point failly, s'ila y euasent voulu eaaayer ; mais U
est de croire que nostre sauveur et rddempteur Jdsus-Christ leur ostoitleur vouloir."
vol. iU. p. 154. So, he adds, p. 155, " pour conclure Tarticle, aemble que nostre
aeigneur Jeaus-Chriat ait voulu que toute la gloire du voyage ait estd attribude k
luy." Compare the Institutes of Timour, p. 7 ; an instructive combination of super
stition and ferocity.
"" "Maia mon advis est que cela nese fait que par disposition divine; car quand
les princes ou royaumes ont estd en grande prospdritd ou richesses, et ils ont mescon-
noiasance dont procdde teUe grace, Dieu leur dresse un ennemi ou ennemie, dont nul
ne se douteroit, comme voua pouvez voir par les rois nommez en la Bible, et par co
que puis peu d'anndea en avez veu en cette Angleterre, et en cette maison de Bour-
gogne et autres lieux que avez veu et voyez toua lea joura." Mhn de Comines, vol.
i. pp. 388, 389. See a&o his remarks on the Duke of Burgundy, vol. ii. p. 179 ; and
in particular, hia extraordinary digreasion, livre v. chap, xviii. voh u. pp. 290-298.
"' Dr. Lingard (Hist, of England, vol. i, p. 357) aaya, "From the doctrine of a
superintending, providence, the piety of our ancestors had drawn a rash but very
convenient inference, that success is au indication of the Divine wiU, and that, of
course, to resist a victorious competitor, is to resist the judgment of heaven :" see

338 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
interesting, as the work of a man of great ahiUty, and of one,
too, who had grown old in the experience of public life. When
views of this sort were advocated, not hy a monk in his cloister,
but by a distinguished statesman, well versed in public affairs,
we may easUy imagine what was the average intellectual condi
tion of those who were every way his inferiors. It is hut too
evident, that from them nothing could he expected ; and that
many steps had yet to be taken, hefore Europe could emerge
from the superstition in which it was sunk, and break through
those grievous impediments which hindered its future progress.
But though much remained to he done, there can he no douht
that the movement onward was uninterrupted, and that, even
while Comines was writing, there were unequivocal symptoms of
a great and decisive change. Still, they were only indications
of what was approaching ; and ahout a hundred years elapsed,
after his death, before the progress was apparent in the whole of
its results. For, though the Protestant Eeformation was a con
sequence of this progress, it was for some time unfavourable to
it, by encouraging the ablest men in the discussion of questions
inaccessible to human reason, and thus diverting them from sub
jects in which their efforts would have been avaUable for the
general purposes of civilization. Hence we find that little was
really accompUshed untU the end of the sixteenth century, when,
as we shall see in the next two chapters, the theological fervour
began to subside in England and France, and the way was pre
pared for that purely secular philosophy, of which Bacon and
Descartes were the exponents, but by no means the creators.'"
This epoch belongs to the seventeenth century, and from it we
may date the inteUectual regeneration of Europe ; just as from
the eighteenth century we may date its social regeneration. But
during the greater part of the sixteenth century, the creduUty
was still universal, since it affected not merely the lowest and
also p. 114. The last vestige of this once universal opinion ia the expression, which
ia gradually falling into disuse, of "appealing to the God of Battles."
'™ See Cfuizot, Civilisation en Europe, p. 166 ; the best psssage in that able, but
rather unequal work : "Parcourez I'histoire du v* au xvi" siecle ; c'est la theologie
qui poasdde et dirige Tesprit humain ; toutea lea opinions sont empreintes de thdolo-
gie ; les queationa phUoaophiques, poUtiquea, historiques, sont toujours considerdes
sous un point de vue thdologique. L'dglise est tellement aouveraine dans Tordre
intellectuel, que mdme les sciences mathdmatiques et physiques sont tenuea de se
soumettre k aes doctrinea. L'esprit thdologique est en quelque sort le sang qui a
could dans les veines du monde europden jusqu'S Bacon et Descartes. Pour la pre
midre fois, Bacon en Angleterre, et Descartes en France, ont jetd TinteUigence hors
des voies de la thdologie." A noble passage, and perfectly true : but what would
have been the effect produced by Bacon and Descartes, if, instead of Uving in the
seventeenth century, they had Uved in the seventh ? .VVould their philosophy have
been equaUy secular ; or, being equaUy secular, would it have been equally suc
cessful ?

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 239
most ignorant classes, but even those who were best educated.
Of this innumerable proofs might be given ; though, for the sake
of brerity, I will confine myself to two instances, which are par
ticularly striking, from the circumstances attending them, and
from the infiuence they exercised over men who might be sup
posed little Uable to similar delusions.
At the end of the fifteenth, and early in the sixteenth cen
tury, Stoeffler, the celebrated astronomer, was professor of math
ematics at Tubingen. This eminent man rendered great services
to astronomy, and was one of the first who pointed out the way
of remedying the errors in the Julian calendar, according to
which time was then computed.'"' But neither his abilities nor
his knowledge could protect him against the spirit of his age.
In 1524, he published the result of some abstruse calculations, in
which he had been long engaged, and by which he had ascer
tained the remarkable fact, that in that same year the world
would again be destroyed by a deluge. This announcement,
made by a man of such eminence, and made, too, with the ut
most confidence, caused a Uvely and universal alarm.'"" News
of the approaching event was rapidly circulated, and Europe was
fiUed with consternation. To avoid the first shock, those who
had houses by the sea, or on rivers, abandoned them ;'"' while
others, perceiving that such measures could only he temporary,
adopted more active precautions. It was suggested that, as a
preUminary step, the Emperor Charles V. should appoint inspec
tors to survey the country, and mark those places which, being
least exposed to the coming fiood, would he most likely to afford
a shelter. That this should he done, was the wish of the impe
rial general, who was then stationed at Florence, and by whose
desire a work was written recommending it.'?* But the minds
of men were too distracted for so deliberate a plan ; and besides,
as the height of the flood was uncertain, it was impossible to say
whether it would not reach the top of the most elevated moun
tains. In the midst of these and simUar schemes, the fatal day
drew near, and nothing had yet been contrived on a scale large
"" Compare Biog. Univ, voh xliU. p. 577, with Montucla, Hist, des Matliema-
tiques, vol. i. p. 678.
Naudd mentiona, that in France it drove many peraons almost mad: "In
GalUa parum afuit quin ad insaniam homines non paucos periculi metu (diluvium)
adegerit." Bayle, in voce Stofflerus, Note B.
'_' Nam Petrua CirveUua Hispanorum omnium sui temporis doctiasimua, cum
theologie, in almo Complutenai gymnaaio, lectoris munere fungeretur, et vero multoa,
ut ipaemet inquit, fluviis vel mari finitimoa populoa, jam stupido metu perculsos,
domieUia ac aedea mutare vidiaaet, ac praedia, supeUectUem, bonaque omnia, contra
juatum valorem sub actione distrahere, ac alia loca vel altitudine, vel siccitate magia
secura requirere, sui offioU esse putavit, in publica iUa consternatione, quam de ni-
hUo excitare persuasum non habebat," &c. Bayle, Note B. '=< Ibid.

340 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
enough to meet the evil. To enumerate the different proposals
which were made and rejected, would fill a long chapter. One pro
posal is, however, worth noticing, because it was carried into effect
with great zeal, and is, moreover, very characteristic of the age.
An ecclesiastic of the name of Auriol, who was then professor of
canon law at the University of Toulouse, revolved in his own mind
various expedients by which this universal disaster might be ihiti-
gated. At length it occurred to him that it was practicable to
imitate the course which, on a simUar emergency, Noah had
adopted with eminent success. Scarcely was the idea conceived,
when it was put into execution. The inhabitants of Toulouse
lent their aid ; and an ark was built, in the hope that some
part, at least, of the human species might be preserved, to con
tinue their race, and repeople the earth, after the waters should
have subsided, and the land again become dry.'"'
About seventy years after this alarm had passed away, there
happened another circumstance, which for a time afforded occu
pation to the most celebrated men in one of the principal coun
tries of Europe. At the end of the sixteenth century, terrible
excitement was caused by a report that a golden tooth had
appeared in the jaw of a chUd bom in SUesia. The rumour, on
being investigated, turned out to he too true. It became im
possible to conceal it from the pubUc ; and the miracle was soon
known all over Germany, where, being looked on as a mysterious
omen, universal anxiety was felt as to what this new thing might
mean. Its real import was first unfolded by Dr. Horst. In
1595, this eminent physician published the result of his re
searches, hy which it appears that at the birth of the chUd, the
sun was in conjunction -with Saturn, at the sign Aries. The
event, therefore, though supernatural, was by no means alarming.
The golden tooth was the precursor of a golden age, in which the
emperor would drive the Turks from Christendom, and lay the
foundations of an empire that would last for thousands of years.
And this, says Horst, is clearly aUuded to by Daniel, in his weU-
known second chapter, where the prophet speaks of a statue
with a golden head.'""
'"' In addition to the account in Bayle, the reader may refer to Biog. Univ. vol.
iii. p. 88. vol. xxxi. p. 283, vol. xUii. pp. 577, 678 ; Sprengel, Hist, de la Medicine,
vol. iu. p. 251 ; Delambre, Hipt. de V Astronomic du Moyen Age, Paris, 1819, 4to, p.
376 ; Montucla, Hist, des Mathimatiques, vol. i. p. 622 ; Diet. Philosoph., article
Astrologie, in CEuvres de Voltaire, vol. xxxvii. pp. 148, 149.
'™ This history of the golden tooth is partly related by De Thou: see his Eist.
Univ. vol. xi. pp. 634, 636. And on the controversy to which it gave rise, compare
Hist, des Oracles, chap. iv. in (Euvres de FonteneUe, voh ii. pp. 219, 220; ed. Paris,
1766 ; Sprengel, Hist, de la Medicine, vol. iU. pp. 247-249 ; Biog, Univ, voh xx. p.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 241

CHAPTER vn.
OUTLINE OF THE HISTOET OF THE ENGLISH INTELLECT FEOM THE MIDDLE OF
THE SIXTEENTH TO THE END OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY.
It is difficult for an ordinary reader, living in the middle of the
nineteenth century, to understand, that only three hundred years
before he was born, the public mind was in the benighted state
disclosed in the preceding chapter. It is still more difficult for
him to understand that the darkness was shared not merely hy
men of an average education, hut hy men of considerahle abUity,
men in every respect among the foremost of their age. A reader
of this sort may satisfy himself that the evidence is indisputable ;
he may verify the statements I have brought forward, and admit
that there is no possible doubt about them ; but even then he
wUl find it hard to conceive that there ever was a state of so
ciety in which such miserable absurdities were welcomed as sober
and important traths, and were supposed to form an essential
part of the general stock of European knowledge.
But a more careful examination will do much to dissipate
this natural astonishment. In point of fact, so far from wonder
ing that such things were believed, the wonder would have been
if they were rejected. For in those times, as in all others, every
thing was of a piece. Not only in historical Uterature, hut in
aU kmds of literature, on every subject, — in science, in religion,
in legislation, — the presiding principle was a bUnd and unhesi
tating credulity. The more the history of Europe anterior to
the seventeenth century is studied, the more completely wUl this
fact be verified. Now and then a great man arose, who had his
doubts respecting the universal belief ; who whispered a suspi
cion as to the existence of giants thirty feet high, of dragons with
wings, and of armies fiying through the air ; who thought that
astrology might be a cheat, and necromancy a bubble ; and who
even went so far as to raise a question respecting the propriety
of drowning every yritch and burning every heretic. A few such
men there undoubtedly were ; but they were despised as mere
theorists, idle visionaries, who, unacquainted with the practice
VOL. I. — 16

242 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
of life, arrogantly opposed their own reason to the wisdom of their
ancestors. In the state of society in which they were born, it
was impossible that they should make any permanent impres
sion. Indeed, they had enough to do to look to themselves, and
provide for their own security ; for, untU the latter part of the
sixteenth century, there was no country in which a man was
not in great personal peril if he expressed open doubts respect
ing the belief of his contemporaries.
Yet it is evident, that until doubt began, progress was im
possible. For, as we have clearly seen, the advance of civiliza
tion solely depends on the acquisitions made hy the human
intellect, and on the extent to which those acquisitions are dif
fused. But men who are perfectly satisfied with their own
knowledge will never attempt to increase it. Men who are per
fectly convinced of the accuracy of their opinions, yrill never take
the pains of examining the hasis on which they are built. They
look always with wonder, and often with horror, on views con
trary to those which they inherited from their fathers ; and while
they are in this state of mind, it is impossible that they should
receive any new truth yvhich interferes with their foregone con
clusions. On this account it is, that althbugh the acquisition of fresh
knowledge is the necessary precursor of every step in social pro
gress, such acquisition must itself be preceded by a love of in
quiry, and therefore by a spirit of doubt ; because without doubt
there will be no inquiry, and without inquiry there will be no
knowledge. For knowledge is not, an inert and passive princi
ple, which comes to us whether we wUl or no ; hut it must he
sought before it can be won ; it is the product of great labour,
and therefore of great sacrifice. And it is absurd to suppose
that men will incur the labour, and make the sacrifice, for sub
jects respecting which they are already perfectly content. They
who do not feel the darEness, will never look for the light. If on
any point we have attained to certainty, we make no further in
quiry on that point ; hecause inquiry would be useless, or per
haps dangerous. The doubt must intervene, before the investi
gation can begin. Here, then, we have the act of doubting. as
the originator, or, at aU events, the necessary antecedent, of all
progress. Here we have that scepticism, the very name of which
is an abomination to the ignorant ; because it disturbs their lazy
and complacent minds ; hecause it troubles their cherished su
perstitions ; because it imposes on them the fatigue of inquiry ;
and because it rouses even sluggish understandings to ask if
things are as they are commonly supposed, and if all is reaUy

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 243
true which they from their childhood have been taught to be
Ueve. The more we examine this great principle of scepticism, the
more distinctly shall we see the immense part it has played in
the progress of European civilization. To state in general terms,
what in this Introduction wUl be fully proved, it may be said, that
to scepticism we owe that spirit of inquiry, which during the last
two centuries, has graduaUy encroached on every possible sub
ject ; has reformed every department of practical and speculative
knowledge ; has weakened the authority of the privileged classes,
and thus placed Uberty on a surer foundation ; has chastized the
despotism of princes ; has restrained the arrogance ofthe nobles;
and has even diminished the prejudices of the clergy. In a word,
it is this which has remedied the three fundamental errors of the
olden time; errors which made the people, in politics too confid
ing; in science too credulous ; in religion too intolerant.
This rapid summary of what has actually been effected, may
perhaps startle those readers to whom such large investigations
are not famiUar. The importance, however, of the principle at
issue is so great, that I purpose in this Introduction to verify it
by an examination of all the prominent forms of European
civilization. Such an inquiry will lead to the remarkable con
clusion, that no single fact has so extensively affected the different
nations as the duration, the amount, and above aU the diffusion,
of their scepticism. In Spain, the church, aided by the Inquisi
tion, has always been strong enough to punish sceptical writers,
and prevent, not indeed the existence, hut the promulgation of
sceptical opinions.' By this means the spirit of doubt being
quenched, knowledge has for several centuries remained almost
stationary; and civilization, which is the frait of knowledge, has
also been stationary. But in England and France, which, as we
shall presently see, are the countries where scepticism first openly
appeared, and where it has been most diffused, the results are
altogether different ; and the love of inquiry being encouraged,
there has arisen that constantly-progressive knowledge to which
these two great nations owe their prosperity. In the remaining
part of this volume, I shall trace the history of this principle in
France and England, and examine the different forms under
' On the influence of the French literature, which, late in the eighteenth century,
crept into Spain iu spite of the Church, and diffused a considerable amount of scep
ticism among the moat educated classes, compare Llorente, Hist, de Vlnquidtion,
vol. i. p. 322, vol. u. p. 643, vol. iv. pp. 98, 99, 102, 148 ; Loblado's Letters from
Spain, pp. 115, 119, 120, 133, 281, 232 ; Lord Hollands Foreign Reminisc nces,
edit. 1850, p, 76 ; Southey's Hist, of Brazil, vol. Ui. p. 607 ; and an imperfect state
ment of the same fact in Alison's Hist, of Europe, vol. x. p. 8. In regard to the
Spanish coloniea, compare Humboldt, Nouv. Espagne. vol. ii. p. 818, with WarcVs
Mexico, vol. i. p. 83.

344 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
which it' has appeared, and the wray in which those fornis have
affected the national interests. In the order of the investigation,
I shall give the precedence to England ; because, for the reasons
already stated, its civiUzation must be deemed more normal than
that of France ; and therefore, notwithstanding its numerous
deficiencies, it approaches the natural tjrpe more closely than its
great neighbour has been ahle to do. But as the fuUest details
respecting English civiUzation will he found in the body of the
present work, I intend in the Introduction to devote merely a
single chapter to it, and to consider our national history simply
in reference to the immediate consequences of the sceptical
movement; reserving for a future occasion those subsidiary
matters which, though less comprehensive, are still of great value.
And as the growth of religious toleration is undoubtedly the most
important of aU, I will, in the first place, state the circumstances
under which it appeared in England in the sixteenth century ;
and I wiU then point out how other events, which immediately
foUowed, were part of the same progress, and were indeed merely
the same principles acting in different directions.
A careful study of the history of religious toleration will
prove, that in every Christian country where it has been adopt
ed, it has heen forced upon the clergy hy the authority of the
secular classes." At the present day, it is still unknown to those
nations among whom the ecclesiastical power is stronger than
the temporal power ; and as this, during many centuries, was
the general condition, it is not wonderful that, in the early his
tory of Europe, we should find scarcely a trace of so wise and
benevolent an opinion. But at the moment when Elizabeth
mounted the throne of England, our country was about equaUy
divided between two hostile creeds ; and Ihe queen, with re^
markahle abiUty, contrived during some time so to balance the
rival powers, as to aUow to neither a decisive preponderance.
This was the flrst instance which had heen seen in Europe of a
government successfully carried on without the active participa
tion of the spiritual authority ; and the consequence was, that for
several years the principle of toleration, though stiU most im-
' Nearly two hundred years ago. Sir William Temple observed, that in Holland
the clergy possessed less power than in other countries ; and that, therefore, there
existed an unusual amount of toleration. Observations upon the United Provinces,
in Temple's Works, voh i. pp. 157-162. About seventy years later, the same infer
ence was drawn by another acute observer, Le Blanc, who, after mentioning the
UberaUty which the different sects displayed towards each other in Holland, adds,
" La grande raison d'une harmonie si parfaito est que tout s'y rdgle par les sdculiers
de chacune de ces reUgions, et qu'on n'y souffriroit pas des ministrea, dgnt le ^fele
imprudent pourroit ddtruire cette heureuse correspondance." Le Blanc, Lettres
dun Franfais, vol. i. p. p. 73. I merely give these as Ulustrations of an important
principle, which 1 shaU hereafter prove.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 345
perfectly understood, was pushed to an extent which is truly
surprising for so barbarous an age.' Unhappily, after a time,
various circumstances, which I shall relate in their proper place,
induced Elizabeth to change a policy which she, even with all
her yrisdom, perhaps considered to be a dangerous experiment,
and for which the knowledge of the country was as yet hardly
ripe. But although she now allowed the Protestants to gratify
their hatred against the Catholics, there was, in the midst of
the sanguinary scenes which followed, one circumstance very
worthy of remark. Although many persons were most un
questionably executed merely for their religion, no one ventured
to state their religion as the cause of their execution.* The
most barbarous punishments were infficted upon them ; hut they
were told that- they might escape the punishment by renouncing
certain principles which were said to be injurious to the safety
of the state.' It is true that many of these principles were
such as no CathoUc could abandon without at the same time
abandoning his reUgion, of which they formed an essential part.
But the mere fact that the spirit of persecution was driven to
such a subterfuge, showed that a great progress had heen made
by the age. A most important point, indeed, was gained when
the bigot became a hypocrite; and when the clergy, though
wUling to burn men for the good of their souls, were obUged to
justify their cruelty hy alleging considerations of a more tem
poral, and, as they considered, a less important character."
' "In the first eleven years of her reign, not one Eoman Catholic was prosecu
ted capitally for religion." NeaVs Hist, of the Puritans, vol. i. p. 444 ; and the same
remark in Collier's Eccles. Hist. vol. vii. p. 252, edit. 1840.
' Without quoting the impudent defence which Chief-Justice Popham made, in
1606, for the barbarous treatment of the Catholics (CampbeU's Chief-Justices, vol.
i. p. 225), I wiU give the'words ofthe two immediate successors of EUzabeth.' JaiUes
I. says : " The trewth is, according to my owne knowledge, the late queene of fa
mous memory never punished any Papist for reUgion." Works of King James, Lon
don, 1616, folio, p. 252. And Charles I. says : " I am informed, neither Queen EUza
beth nor my father did ever avow that any priest in their times waa executed merely
for reUgion." Pari, Hist. vol. U. p. 713.
' Thia waa the defence set up in 1683, in a work called ITie Execution of Justice
in England, and ascribed to Burleigh. See Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. i. pp. 146,
147 ; and Somers Tracts, voh i. pp. 189-208 : " a number of persons whom they term
as martyrs," p. 195 ; and at page 202, the writer attacks those who have " entitled
certain that have suffered for treaaon to be martyrs for reUgion." In the same way,
the opponents of CathoUc Emancipation in our time, found themselves compeUed to
abandon the old theological ground, and to defend the persecution of the CathoUcs
rather by political arguments than by reUgious ones. Lord Eldan, who was by far
the most influential leader of the intolerant party, said, in a speech in the House of
Lords, in 1810, that " the enactments against the Catholics were meant to guard,
not against the abstract opinions of their religion, but against the political dangers
of a faith which acknowledged a foreign supremacy." Twiss's Life of Eldon, vol.
i. p. 435; see alao pp. 483, 601, 577-680. Compare Alison's Hist. vol. vi. p. 379
aeq.-, a summary ofthe debate in 1806.
' Mr. SeweU aeema to have this change in view in hia Christian Politics, 8vo,
1844, p. 277. Compare Coleridge's note in Southey's Life of Wesley, vol. i. p. 270.

246 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
A remarkable evidence of the change that was then taking
place, is found in the two most important theological works
which appeared in England during the reign of Elizabeth.
Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity was published at the end of the
sixteenth century,' and is stUl considered one of the greatest
bulwarks of our national church. If we compare this work with
Jewel's Apology for the Church of England, which was written
thirty years before it," we shaU at once be struck hy the differ-"
ent methods these eminent writers employed. Both Hooker
and Jewel were men of learning and genius. Both of them were
familiar yrith the Bible, the Fathers, and the Councils. Both of
them wrote with the avowed object of defending the Church of
England; and both of them were weU acquainted with the or
dinary weapons of theological controversy. But here the re
semblance stops. The men were very similar; their works are
entirely different. During the thirty years which had elapsed,
the English inteUect had made immense progress; and the argu
ments which in the time of Jewel were found perfectly satisfac
tory, would not have heen listened to in the time of Hooker.
The work of Jewel is fuU of quotations from the Fathers and
the Councils, whose mere assertions, when they are uncontra
dicted hy Scripture, he seems to regard as positive proofs.
Hooker, though he shows much respect to' the Councils, lays
little stress upon the Fathers, and evidently considered that his
readers would not pay much attention to their unsupported
opinions. Jewel inculcates the importance of faith; Hooker in
sists upon the exercise of reason." The flrst employs all his tal-
An able writer says of the persecutions which, in the seventeenth century, the
Church of England directed against her opponents : " This is the stale pretence of the
Clergy in aU countries, after they have soUcited the government to make penal laws
against those they call heretics or schiamaticks, and prompted the magistrates to a
vigorous execution, then they lay all the odium on the civil power ; for whom they
have no excuse to allege, but that such men suffered, not for reUgion, butfor diso
bedience to the laws." Somers Tracts, vol. xii. p. 534. See also Butler's Mem. of
the Catholics, voh i. p. 389, and vol. ii. p. 44-46.
' The first four books, which are in every point of view the most important, were
pubUshed in 1594. Walton's Life of Hooker, in Wordsworth's Ecclesiast. Biog. vol
iii. p. 609. The sixth book is said not to be authentic ; and doubts have been thrown
upon the seventh and eighth books ; but Mr. Hallam thinks that they are certainly
genuine. Literature of Europe, voh ii. pp. 24, 25.
' JeweVs Apology was written in 1661 or 1562. See WordswortKs Eccles. Biog.
vol. iu. p. 313. This work, the Bible, and Fox's Martyrs, were ordered, in the reign
of Elizabeth, "to be fixed in all pariah churchea, to be read by the people." Au
brey's Letters, vol, ii. p. 42. The order, in regard to Jewel's Defence, was repeated
by James I. and Charles I. Butler's Mem, of the Catholics, vol. iv. p 413.
° " Wherefore the natural measure whereby to judge our doings is, the sentence
of Reason determining and setting down what is good to be done." Eccl. Polity,
book i. sec. viu. in Hooker's Works, vol. i. p. 99. He requires of his opponents,
"not to exact at our hands for every action the knowledge of some place of Scrip
ture out of which we stand bound to deduce it, as by divers testimonies they seek to

GENEEAL INTRODUCTION. <^" 347
ents in collecting the decisions of antiquity, and in deciding
upon the meaning which they may be supposed- to bear. The
other quotes the ancients, not so much from respect for their au
thority, as with the view of Ulustrating his own arguments.
Thus, for instance, both Hooker and Jewel assert the undoubt
ed right of the sovereign to interfere in ecclesiastical affairs.
Jewel, however, fancied that he had proved the right, when he
had pointed out that it was exercised by Moses, by Joshua, hy
David, and hy Solomon.'" On the other hand. Hooker lays
down that this right exists, not because it is ancient, but be
cause it is advisable; and because it is unjust to suppose that
men who are not ecclesiastics wUl consent to be hound hy laws
which ecclesiastics alone have framed." In the same oppo
site spU-it do these great writers conduct their defence of their
own church. Jewel, Uke aU the authors of his time, had exer
cised his memory more than his reason; and he thinks to settle
the whole dispute by crowding together texts from the Bible,
enforce ; but, rather, aa the truth ia, ao to acknowledge, that it sufflceth if such ac
tions be framed according to the law of reason." Book ii. sec. i. Works, vol. i. p.
151. " For men to be tied and led by authority, as it were with a kind of captivity
of judgment, aud, though there be reason to the contrary, not to Usten unto it, but
to._ foUow, Uke beasta, the first in the herd, they know not nor care not whither :
this_ were brutish. Again, that authority of men should prevaU with men, either
against or above Reason, is no part of our belief. Companies of learned men, be
they never so great and reverend, are to yield unto Reason." Book ii. sec. vu. vol.
i. pp. 182, 183. In book v. sec. vui. vol. U. p. 28, he says, that even "the voice of
the church" is to be held inferior to reason. See alao a long passage in book vih
sec. xi. vol. iu. p. 152; and on the appUcation of reason to the general theory of re
Ugion, see voh i. pp. 220-223, book iU. sec. viu. Agam, at p. 226 : " Theology,
what ia it, but the acience of things divine ? What science can be attained unto,
without the help of natural discourse and Eeason?" And he indignantly asks those
who insist on the supremacy of faith, " May we cause our faith without Eeason to ap
pear reasonable in the eyes of men ?" vol. i. p. 230.
_'° After referring to Isaiah, he adds : Preeter, inquam, hsec omnia, ex historUs et
optimorum temporum exempUs videmus pios principea procurationem ecdesiarum
ab officio suo nunquam putasse aUenam.
"Moses oi-vUis magistratus, ac ductor popuU, omnem religionis, et aacrorum ratio-
nem, et accepit a Deo, et populo tradidit, et Aaronem epiacopum de aureo vitulo, et de
violata religione, vehementer et graviter castigavit. Joaue, etsi non aliud erat, quAm
magistratus eiviUs, tamen cum primiim inauguraretur et prseficeretur populo, accepit
mandata nominatim de religione, deque colendo Deo.
"David rex, cim omnis jam religio, ab impio rege Saule prorsus esset dissipata,
reduxit arcam Dei, hoc est, reUgionem restituit ; nee tantiim adfuit ut admonitor
aut horta,tor operia, aed etiam psalmoa et hymnoa dedit, et classes disposuit, et pom-
pam iustituit, et quodammodo praefuit sacerdotibus.
" Salomon rex sedificavit templum Domino, quod ejus pater David animo tantum
destinaverat ; et prostremd orationem egregiam habuit ad populum de religione, et
cultu Dei ; et Abiatharum cpiscopum postea summovit, et iu ejua locum Sadocum
Burrogavit." Apolog, Eccles. Anglic, pp. 161, 162.
He says that, although the clergy may be supposed more competent than lay
men to regulate ecclesiastical matters, this wiU practically avaU them nothing : " It
were unnatural not to think the pastors and bishops of our souls a great deal more
fit than men of secular trades and caUings ; howbeit when aU which the wisdom of
aU sorts can do is done, for the devising of laws in the church, it is the general con
sent of aU that giveth them the form and vigour of laws ; without which, they could

348 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
with the opinions of the commentators upon them. '" But Hook
er, who lived in the age of Shakespeare and Bacon, found himself
constrained to take views of a far more comprehensive charac
ter. His defence rests neither upon tradition, nor upon commenta
tors, nor even upon revelation; hut he is content that the preten
tions of the hostile parties shall be decided by their applicabUity
to the great exigencies of society, and by the ease with which
they adapt themselves to the general purposes of ordinary Ufe."
It requires hut Uttle penetration to see the immense impor
tance of the change which these two great works represent. As
long as an opinion in theology was defended by the old dogmatic
method, it was impossible to assail it without incurring the im
putation of heresy. But when it was chiefly defended by hu-
be no more unto us than the counsels of physicians to the sick." Ecclesiastical Pol
ity, book viii. sec. vi. voh iii. p. 303. He adds, p. 326 : " Till it be proved that
some special law of Christ hath for ever annexed unto the clergy alone the power
to make ecclesiastical laws, we are to hold it a thing most consonant with equity and
reason, that no ecclesiastical laws be made in a Christian commonwealth, without
consent as well of the laity as of the clergy, but least of all without consent of the
highest power."
'" " Qu6d si docemus sacrosanctum Dei evangelium, et veteres episcopos, atque
ecclesiam primitivam nobiscum facere." If this be so, then, indeed, " speramus,
neminem iUorum" (his opponents) " ita negUgentem fore salutis suae, quin ut vcUt
aUquando cogitationem suscipere, ad utros potius se adjungat." Apolog. Eccles,
Anglic, p. 17. At p. 53, he indignantly ask if any one will dare to impeach the
Fathers: "Ergo Origenes, Ambrosiua, Auguatinua, Chryaostomua, Gelasius, Theodo-
retus erant desertorea fidei cathoUcae ? Ergo tot veterum episcoporum et doctorum
virorum tanta consensio nihil aliud erat quam conspiratio haereticorum ? Aut quod
tum laudabatur in iUis, id nunc damnatur in nobis ? Quodque in ilUs erat catholi-
cum, id nunc mutatis tantum hominum voluntatibus, repentd factum est schismati-
cum ? Aut quod olim erat verum, nunc statim, quia istis non placet, erit falsura ?"
His work is full of this sort of eloquent, but, aa it appears to our age, pointless dec
lamation. '" This large view underiiea the whole of the Ecclesiastical Polity. I can only
afford room for a few extracts, which wiU be illustrations rather than proofs; the
proof will be obvious to every competent reader of the work itself " True it is,
the ancienter the better ceremonies of religion are ; howbeit not absolutely true
and without exception ; but true only so far forth as those different ages do agree in
the state of those things for which, at the firat, those rites, orders, and ceremonies
were instituted." vol. i. p. 36. " We count those thinga perfect, which want nothing
requisite for the end whereunto they were inatituted." voh i. p. 191. "Because
when a thing doth cease to be available unto the end which gave it being, the con
tinuance of it muat then of necesaity appear auperfluous." And even of the laws of
God, he boldly adds : " Notwithstanding the authority of their Maker, the mutabili
ty of that end for which they are made doth also make them changeable." vol. i. p.
236. " And therefore laws, though both ordained of God himself, and the end for
which they were ordained continuing, may notwithstanding cease, if by alteration
of persons or times they be found unsufficient to attain unto that end." voh i. p. 238.
At p. 240 : " I therefore conclude, that neither God's being Author of laws for gov
ernment of his church, nor his committing them unto Scripture, is any reason suffi
cient wherefore aU churches should forever be bound to keep them without change."
See, too, vol ui. p. 169, on "the exigence of necessity." Compare pp. 182, 183,
and vol. i. p. 323, voh u. pp. 273, 424. Not a vestige of such arguments can be
found in Jewel; who, on the contrary, says (Apologia, p. 114)," Certd in reUgio
nem Dei nihU graviua dici potest, quam ai ea accusetur novitatia. Ut enim in Deo
ipso, ita in ejus cultu nihU oportet ease novum."

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. ' 349
man reasoning, its support was seriously weakened. For by this
means the element of uncertainty was let in. It might be al
leged, that the arguments of one sect are as good as those of an
other ; and that we cannot be sure of the truth of our principlew,
until we have heard what is to be said on the opposite side. Ac
cording to the old theological theory, it was easy to justify the
most barbarous persecution. If a man knew that the only true
religion was the one which he professed, and if he also knew that
those who died in a contrary opinion were doomed to everlasting
perdition, — if he knew these things beyond the remotest possi
biUty of a douht, he might fairly argue, that it is merciful to
punish the body in order to save the soul, and secure to immor
tal beings their future salvation, even though he employed so
sharp a remedy as the halter or the stake.'* But if this same
man is taught to think that questions of reUgion are to be set
tled by reason as weU as by iajith, he can scarcely avoid the re
flection, that the reason even of the strongest minds is not in-
faUible, since it has led the ablest men to the most opposite
conclusions. When this idea is once diffused among a people,
it cannot faU to influence their conduct. No one of common
sense and common honesty wUl dare to levy upon another, on
account of his religion, the extreme penalty of the law, when he
knows it possible that his own opinions may be wrong, and that
those of the man he has punished may be right. From the mo
ment when questions of religion begin to evade the jurisdiction
of faith, and submit to the jurisdiction of reason, persecution be
comes a crime of the deepest dye. Thus it was in England in
the seventeenth century. As theology became more reasonable,
it became less confident, and therefore more merciful. Seven
teen years after the publication of the great work of Hooker, two
men were pubUcly burned hy the EngUsh bishops, for holding
heretical opinions." But this was the last gasp of expiring big
otry ; and since that memorable day, the soU of England has
never heen stained hy the blood of a man who has suffered for his
reUgious creed."
'* Archbishop Whately has made aome very good remarka on this. See his Er
rors of Romanism traced to iheir Origin in Human Nature, pp. 237, 238.
" Their names were Legat and -Wightman, and tbey suffered in 1611 ; see the
contemporary account in Somers Tracts, vol. ii. pp. 400-408. Compare Blackstone's
Comment, vol. iv. p. 49 ; Harris's Lives of the Stuarts, vol. i. pp. 143, 144 ; and note
in Burton's Diary, vol. i. p. 118. Of these martyrs to their opinions, Mr. Hallam
says: "The first was burned by King, bishop of London; tbe second by Neyle, of
Litchfield." Const. Hist. vol. i. pp. 611, 612.
'" It should be mentioned, to the honour of the Court of Chancery, that late in
the sixteenth, and early in the seventeenth century, its powers were exerted against
the execution of those cruel laws, by which tbe Church of England was allowed to
persecute men who differed from its own views. See Campbelts Chancellors, vol. U.
pp. 135, 176, 231.

350 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
We have thus seen the rise of that scepticism which in phys
ics must always be the beginning of science, and in religion
must always be the beginning of toleration. There is, indeed,
no douht that in both cases individual thinkers may, by a great
effort of original genius, emancipate themselves from the opera
tion of this law. But in the progress of nations no such eman
cipation is possible. As long as men refer the movements of the
comets to the immediate finger of God, and as long as they be
lieve that an eclipse is one of the modes by which the Deity ex
presses his anger, they will never he guilty of the blasphemous
presumption of attempting to predict such supernatural appear
ances. Before they could dare to investigate the causes of these
mysterious phenomena, it is necessary that they should believe,
or at aU events that they should suspect, that the phenomena
themselves were capable of being explained by the human mind.
In the same way, untU men are content in some degree to bring
their religion before the bar of their own reason, they never can
understand how it is that there should be a diversity of creeds,
or how any one can differ from themselves without being guilty
ofthe most enormous and unpardonable crime."
If we now continue to trace the progress of opinions in Eng
land, we shall see the full force of these remarks. A general spirit
of inquiry, of doubt, and even of insubordination, began to occu
py the minds of men. In physics, it enabled them, almost at a
blow, to throw off the shackles of antiquity, and give birth to
sciences founded not on notions of old, but on indiridual obser
vations and individual experiments." In poUtics, it stimulated
" " To tax any one, therefore, with want of reverence, because he pays no re
spect to what we venerate, ia either irrelevant, or ia a mere confuaion. The fact, so
far aa it ia true, is no reproach, but an honour ; because to reverence aU persons
aud all things is abaolutely wrong ; reverence shown to that which doea not deserve
it, is no virtue ; no, nor even an amiable weakness, but a plain foUy and sin. But
if it be meant that he is wanting in proper reverence, not respecting what is really
to be respected, that is assuming the whole question at issue, because what we call
divine, he calls an idol ; and as, supposing that we are in the right, we are bound to
fall down and worship, so supposing him to be in the right, he is no less bound to
puU it to the ground and destroy it." Arnold's Lectures on Modem History, pp. 210,
211. Considering the ability of Dr. Arnold, considering his great influence, and
considering hia profeaaion, hia antecedents, and the character of the university in
which he was speaking, it muat be aUowed that thia is a remarkable passage, and
one well worthy the notice of those who wish to study the tendencies of the EngUsh
mind during the present generation.
" On the connexion between the rise ofthe Baconian phUosophy and the change
iu the spirit of theologians, compare Comte, Philosophie Positive, vol. v. p. 701,
with Whately on Dangers to Christian Faith, pp. 148, 149. It favoured, as Tenne
mann (Gesch. der Philos, vol. x. p. 14) says, the " Belebung der selbstthatigen Kraft
des menschlichen Geistes ;" and hence the attack on the inductive philosophy m
Newman's Development of Christian Doctrine, pp. 179-188. But Mr. Newman does
not aeem to be aware how irrevocably we are now pledged to the movement which
he aeeks to reverse.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 251
them to rise against the government, and eventually bring their
king to the scaffold. In religion, it vented itself in a thou
sand sects, each of which proclaimed, and often exaggerated the
efficiency of private judgment.'" The details of this vast move
ment form one of the most interesting parts of the history of
England : but without anticipating what I must hereafter relate,
I will at present mention only one instance, which from the cir
cumstances attending it, is very characteristic of the age. The
celebrated work by ChiUingworth on the Religion of Protestants,
is generaUy admitted to he the best defence which the Eeformers
have heen a^le to make against the church of Eome."" It was
published in 1637,"' and the position of the author would induce
us to look for the fuUest display of bigotry that was consistent
with the spirit of his time. ChiUingworth had recently aban
doned the creed which he now came forward to attack ; and he,
therefore, might be expected to have that natural inclination to
dogmatize with which apostasy is usuaUy accompanied. Besides
this, he was the god,son and the intimate friend of Laud,""
whose memory is stUl loathed, as the meanest, the most cruel,
and the most narrow-minded man who ever sat on the episcopal
bench."' He was, moreover, afeUow of Oxford, and was a con
stant resident at that ancient university, which has always heen
esteemed as the refuge of superstition, and which has preserved
'" The rapid increase of heresy in the middle of the seventeenth century is very
remarkable, and it greatly aided civilization in England by encouraging habits of in
dependent thought. In Feb. 1646-7, Boyle writes from London, " There are few
days pass here that may not justly be accused of the brewing or broaching of
some new opinion. Nay, some are so studiously changUng in that particular, they
esteem an opinion as a diurnal, after a day or two scarce worth the keeping. If any
man have lost his religion, let him repair to London, and I'U warrant him he shaU t
find it : 1 had almost said too, and if any man has a reUgion, let him but come
hither now, and he shall go near to lose it." Birch's Life of Boyle, in Boyle's
Works, vol. i. pp. 20, 21, See alao Bates's Account ofthe late Troubles, edit. 1685,
part. ii. p. 219, on " that unbridled Ucentiousness of hereticks which grew greater
and greater daily." Compare to the same effect, Carlyle's Cromwell, vol. i. p. 289 ;
Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. i. p. 608 ; and Carwithen's Hist, of tlie Cliurchof England,
vol. U. p. 203 ; " sectaries began to swarm." ,
Not to quote the opinions of inferior men respecting Chillingworth, it is enough
to mention, that Lord Mansfield said he was " a perfect model of argumentation."
Butler's Reminiscences, vol. i. p. 126. Compare a letter from Warburton, in Nichols's
Illustrations of tlie Eighteenth Century, vol. iv. p. 849.
*' Des Maizeaux, Life of ChiUingworth, p. 241.
^ Aubrey's Letters and Lives, vol. ii. p. 285 ; Des Maizeaux, Life of Chilling
worth, pp. 2, 9. The correspondence between Laud and ChiUingworth ia aupposed
to be lost. Des Maizeaux, p. 12. Carwithen (Hist, ofthe Church of England, vol.
ii. p. 214) saya, "Laud was the godfather of ChiUingworth."
The character of Laud is now weU understood , and generally known. His
odious cruelties made him so hated by hia contemporaries, that after his condemna
tion, many persons shut up their shops, and refused to open them untU he was exe
cuted. This is mentioned by Walton, an eye-witness. See Walton's Life of San
derson, in Wordsworth's Eccles, Biog, vol. iv. p. 429.

252 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
to our own day its unenviable fame."* If we turn now to the
work that was written under these auspices, we can scarcely be
lieve that it was produced in the same generation, and in the
same country, where, only twenty-six years hefore, two men had
heen publicly burned because they advocated opinions different
to those of the established church. It is, indeed, a most remark
able proof of the prodigious energy of that great movement
which was now going on, that its pressure should be felt under
circumstances the most hostile to it, which can possibly he con
ceived ; and that a friend of Laud, and a feUow of Oxford, should,
in a grave theological treatise, lay down principles utterly sub- .
versive of that theological spirit which for many centuries had
enslaved the whole of Europe.
In this great work, all authority in matters of religion is
openly set at defiance. Hooker, indeed, had appealed from the
jurisdiction of the Fathers to the jurisdiction of reason ; he had,
however, heen careful to add, that the reason of individuals
ought to bow before that of the church, as we find it expressed
in great CouncUs, and in the general voice of ecclesiastical tra
dition."' But ChUlingworth would hear of none of these things.
He would admit of no reservations which tended to Umit the
sacred right of private judgment. He not only went far beyond
Hooker in neglecting the Fathers,"" but he even ventured to de
spise the Councils. Although the sole object of his work was
to decide on the conflicting claims of the two greatest sects into
which the Christian church has hroken, he never quotes as au
thorities the CouncUs of that very church respecting which the
disputes were agitated."' His strong and subtle intellect, pene
trating the depths of the subject, despised that sort of contro
versy which had long busied the minds of men. In discussing
" A modern writer suggests, with exquisite simpUcity, that Chillingworth derived
his liberal principles from Oxford : " the very same college which nursed the high
inteUect and tolerant principles of ChiUingworth." Bowles's Life of Bishop Ken,
vol i. p. xxi.
. '"' Hooker's undue respect for the Councils of the (Jhurch is noticed by Mr. Hal
lam, Const. Hist. vol. i. p. 218. Compare the hesitating remarka in Coleridge's Lit
erary Remains, vol. iii. pp. 35, 86.
'"' Reading the Fathers be contemptuously calls traveUing on a " north-west dis
covery." Chillingworth' s Religion of Protestants, p. 366. Even to Augustine, who
was probably the ablest of them, ChUlingworth pays no deference. See wh^pbe
says at pp. 196, 833, 376 ; and aa to the authority of the Pathera in general, see pp.
252, 346. Chillingworth observed, happily enough, that churchmen " account them
fathers when they are for them, and chUdren when tbey are against them." Calamy's
Life, vol. i. p. 263.
'" As to the supposed authority of CouncUs, see Religion of Protestants, pp. 132,
463. It affords curious evidence of the slow progress of theologians, to observe
the different spirit in which eome of our clergy consider these matters. See, for
instance. Palmer on the Church, 1839, vol. ii. pp. 150-171. In no other branch of
inquiry do we find this obstinate determination to adhere to theories which aU think
ing men have rejected for the last two centuries.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 253
the points upon which the Catholics and Protestants were at is
sue, he does not inquire whether the doctrines in question met
the approval of the early church, but he asks if they are in ac
cordance with human reason ; and he does not hesitate to say
that, however true they may he, no man is hound to believe
them if he finds that they are repugnant to the dictates of his
own understanding. Nor wUl he consent that faith should sup
ply the absence of authority. Even this favorite principle of
theologians is by Chillingworth made to yield to the supremacy
of the human reason."" Eeason, he says, gives us knowledge ;
whUe faith only gives us heUef, which is a part of knowledge, and
is, therefore,, inferior to it. It is by reason, and not by faith, that
we must dis'criminate in reUgious matters ; and it is by reason
alone that we can distinguish truth from falsehood. Finally, he
solemnly reminds his readers, that in reUgious matters no one
ought to he expected to draw strong conclusions from imperfect
premises, or to credit improbable statements upon scanty evi
dence ;• stUl less, he says, was it ever intended that men should
so prostitute their reason, as to beUeve with infalUble faith that
which they are unable to prove with infalUble arguments.""
No one of ordinary reflection can fail to perceive the manifest
tendency of these opinions. But what is more important to ob
serve is, the process through which, in the march of civUization,
the human mind had heen obliged to pass, before it could reach
such elevated 'riews. The Eeformation, by destroying the dogma
of an infalUble church, had of course weakened the reverence
which was paid to ecclesiastical antiquity. Still, such was the
force of old associations, that our countrymen long continued to
respect what they had ceased to venerate. Thus it was, that
"" Indeed, he attempts to fasten the same doctrine upon the CathoUcs ; which, if
he could have done, would of course have ended the controversy. He says, rather
unfairly, " Your church you admit, because you think you have reason to do so ; so
that by you, as weU as Protestants, all is finaUy resolved into your own reason."
Relig. of Protest, p. 134
" " God desires only that we believe the conclusion, as much as the premises*
deserve ; that the strength of our faith be equal or proportionable to the credibiUty
of the motives to it." Relig. of Protest, p. 66. " For my part, I am certain that
God hath given us our reason to discern between truth and falsehood ; and he that
m^j^ not this use of it, but believes things he knows not why, I say it ia by chance
th^Pe believes the truth, and not by choice ; and I cannot but fear that God wiU
not accept of this sacrifice of fools." p. 133. "God'a apirit, if hepleaae, may work
more, — a certainty of adherence beyond a certainty of evidence ; but neither God
doth, nor man may, require of us, aa our duty, to give a greater aasent to the con
clusion than the pt'emisea deserve ; to buUd an infalUble faith upon motives that are
only highly credible and not infallible ; as it were a great and heavy buUding upon a
foundation that hath not strength proportionate." p. 149. " For faith ia not knowledge,
no more than three ia four, but eminently contained in it ; so that he that knows,
beUeyes, and something more ; but he that believes many times doea not know —
nay, if he doth barely and merely believe, he doth never know." p. 412. See also
p, 417.

254 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
Jewel, though recognizing the supreme authority of the Bible,
had in cases where it was silent or ambiguous, anxiously appealed
to the early church, by whose decision he supposed all difficulties
could be easUy cleared. He, therefore, only used his reason to
ascertain the discrepancies which existed between Scripture and
tradition ; but when they did not clash, he paid what is now con
sidered a superstitious deference to antiquity. Thirty years after
him came Hooker ;'" who made a step in advance, and laying
down principles from which Jewel would have shrunk with fear,
did much to weaken that which it was reserved for Chillingworth
utterly to destroy. Thus it is, that these three great men repre
sent the three distinct epochs of the three successive generations
in which they respectively lived. In Jewel, reason is, if 1 may
say so, the superstructure of the system ; but authority is the
basis upon which the superstructure is built. In Hooker, author
ity is only the superstructure, and reason is the hasis." But in
ChUlingworth, whose writings were harbingers of the coming
storm, authority entirely disappears, and the whole fabric of re
Ugion is made to rest upon the way in which the unaided reason
of man shall interpret 'the decrees of an omnipotent God.
The immense success of this great work of Chillingworth,
must have aided that movement of which it is itself an eri
dence.'" It formed a decided indication of reUgious dissent;"
and thus justified the , hreaking-up of the AngUcan church,
which the same generation lived to witness. Its fundamental
principle was adopted by the most influential writers of the
" On the connexion between the Eeformation and the views advocated in the
Ecclesiastical Polity, compare Neumian's Development of Christian Doctrine, p. 47,
with aome able remarks by Locke, in King's Life of Locke, vol. U. pp. 99-101.
Locke, who was any thing but a friend to the church, was a great admirer of Hooker,
and in one place calls him " the arch-philosopher." Essay on Government, in Locke's
Works, vol. iv. p. 380.
^' The opposition between Jewel and Hooker was ao marked, that aome of the
opponents of Hooker quoted against him Jewel's Apology. See Wordsworth's Sed,
Biog. vol. iii. p. 613. Dr. Wordsworth caUs this "curious;'' but it would be much
•more curious if it had not happened. Compare the remarka made by the Bishop of
Limerick (Parr's Works, vol. ii. p. 470, Notes on the Spital Sermon), who says, that
Hooker " opened that fountain of reason," &c. ; language which will hardly be con
sidered too strong by those who have compared the Ecclesiastical Polity with the
theological works previously produced by the EngUsh church. ^k
^ Des Maizeaux (Life of Chillingworth, pp. 220, 221) says: "His booBBpis
received with a general applause ; and, what perhaps never happened to any other
controversial work of that bulk, two editions of it were pubUshed within less than
five months. . . . The quick sale of a book, and especiaUy of a book of controversy,
in folio, is a good proof that the author hit the taste of his time." See also Biogra
phia Britannica, edit. Kippis, vol. iii. pp. 511, 512.
'" Or, as Calamy cautiously puts it, ChilUngworth's work " appeared to me to go
a great way towards the justifying of moderate conformity." Calamy's Life, vol. i.
284. Compare Palmer on the Church, vol. i. pp. 267, 268 ; and what is probably
an allusion to ChiUingworth in Doddridge's Correspond, and Diary, vol. n. p.. 81.
See also the opinion of Hobbes, in Aubrey's Letters and Lives, vol. U. pp. 288, 629.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 255
seventeenth century, — such as Hales, Owen, Taylor, Burnet,
TiUotson, Locke, and even the cautious and time-sorving Tem
ple; all of whom insisted upon the authority of private judg
ment, as forming a tribunal from which no one had the power
of appeal. The inference to he drawn from this seems obvious.'*
If the ultimate test of truth is individual judgment, and if no
one can affirm that the judgments of men, which are often con
tradictory, can ever be infaUible, it follows of necessity that
there is no decisive criterion of religious truth. This is a melan
choly, and, as I firmly beUeve, a most inaccurate conclusion; but
it is one which every nation must entertain, before it can
achieve that great work of toleration which, even in our own
country, and in our own time, is not yet consummated. It is
necessary that men should learn to doubt, before they begin to
tolerate ; and that they should recognize the fallibility of their
own opinions, hefore thejwespect the opinions of their opponents."
This great process is far from being yet completed in any
country; and the European mind, barely emerged from its early
credulity, and from an overweening confidence in its own heUef,
is stUl in a middle, and, so to say, a probationary stage. When
that stage shaU be finally passed, when we shall have learned to
estimate men solely by their character and their acts, and not at
aU by their theological dogmas, we shall then be ahle to form
our religious opinions by that purely transcendental process, of
which in every age glimpses have been granted to a few gifted
minds. That this is the direction in which things are now
hastening, must be clear to every one who has studied the pro
gress of modem civilization. Within the short space of three
centuries, the old theological spirit has been compelled, not only
to descend from its long-established supremacy, but to abandon
those strongholds to which, in the face of advancing knowledge,
it has vainly attempted to secure a retreat. All its most
cherished pretensions it has heen forced gradually to relinquish.'"
" A short but able view of the aspect which the English mind now began to as
sume, wiU be found in Staudlin, Geschichte der theologischen Wissenschaften, vol. U.
p- ^s ^1- ' ;^ .-v^ ,9 1'-^ ¦>,. <., ,-^5 >-' I '¦ L, ". 'j, .
^ In Whately's Dangers to Christian Faith^ pp. 188-198, there is a perspicuous
stat^pnt of the arguments now commonly received against coercing men for their
rel^Wus opinions. But the most powerful of these arguments are based entirely
upon expediency, which would have insured their rejection in an age of strong reli
gious convictiouB. Some, and only some, of the theological difficulties respecting
toleration, are noticed in Coleridge's Lit. Remains, vol. i. pp. 312-316 ; and in an
other work (The Friend, vol. i. p. 73), he mentions, what is the real fact, " that same
indifference which makes toleration so easy a virtue with us." See also Archdeacon
Hare's Guesses at Truth, 2d series, 1848, p. 278 ; and Nichols's Illustrations of Lit.
Hist. Yol. V. p. 817 : "a spirit of mutual toleration and forbearance has appeared
(at least one good consequence of reUgious indifference)."
™ It would be idle to offer proofs of so notorious a fact ; but the reader wiU bo

356 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
And although in England a temporary prominence has recently
been given to certain reUgious controversies, still the circum
stances attending them show the alteration in the character of
the age. Disputes which, a century ago, would have set the
whole kingdom in a frame, are now regarded with indifference
by the vast majority of educated men. The compUcations of
modern society, and the immense variety of interests into which
it is divided, have done much to distract the inteUect, and to
prevent it from dwelling upon subjects which a less-occupied
people would deem of paramount importance. Besides this, the
accumulations of science are far superior to those of any former
age, and offer suggestions of such surpassing interest, that
nearly all our greatest thinkers devote to them the whole of
their time, and refuse to busy themselves with matters of mere
speculative belief The consequence is, that what used to he
considered the most important of all questions, is now aban
doned to inferior men, who mimic the zeal, without possessing
the influence, of those really great divines whose works are
among the glories of our early literature. These turbulent po
lemics have, indeed, distracted the church hy their clamour, but
they have not made the slightest impression upon the great
body of English inteUect; and an overwhelming majority ofthe
nation is notoriously opposed to that monastic and ascetic relig
ion which it is now vainly attempted to reconstruct. The
truth is, that the time for these things has gone by. Theologi
cal interests have long ceased to be supreme ; and the affairs of
nations are no longer regulated according to ecclesiastical riews."
In England, where the march has heen more rapid than else
where, this change is very observable. In every other depart
ment we have had a series of great and powerful thinkers, who
have done honour to their country, and have won the admiration
of mankind. But for more than a century, we have not pro
duced a single original work in the whole field of controversial
interested by aome striking remarks in Capeflgue, Hist, de la Reforme, vol. i. pp. 228,
229. ^' A writer intimately acquainted with the social condition of the great European
countries, says: "Ecclesiastical power is almost extinct as au active element in the
political or social affairs of nations or of individuals, in the cabinet or in the A^ily
circle ; and a new element, Uterary power, is taking its place in the governmim of
the world." Laing's Denmark, 1852, p. 82. On this natural tendency iii regard to
legislation, see Meyer, Esprit des Institut. Judiciaires, vol. i. p. 267 note; and a good
summary in Staudlin, Gesch. der theolog. Wissenschaften, vol. ii. pp. 304, 305. It is
not surprising to find that many of the clergy complain of a movement so subver
sive of their own power. Compare Ward's Ideal of a Christian Church, pp. 40,
108-111, 388; SewelVs Christian Politics, pp. 276, 277, 279; Palmers Treatise on
the Church, vol. ii. p. 361. It is thus that every thing is tending to confirm the. re
markable prediction of Sir James Mackintosh, that "church power (unless some rev
olution, auspicious' to priestcraft, should replunge Europe iu ignorance) wiU certainly
not survive the nineteenth century." Mem. of Mackintosh, vol. i. p. 67.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 357
theology. For more than a century, the apathy on this subject
has been so marked, that there has been made no addition of
value to that immense mass of divinity which, among thinking
men, is in every successive generation losing something of its
former interest."
These are only some of the innumerable signs, which must be
discerned hy every man who is not bUnded hy the prejudices of
an imperfect education. An immense majority of the clergy, —
some from ambitious feelings, but the greater part, I heUeve, from
conscientious motives, — are striving to check the progress of that
scepticism which is now gathering in upon us from every quar
ter.'" It is time that these well-intentioned, though mistaken,
^ "The 'divines' in Englana at the present day, her bishops, professors, and
prebendaries, are not theologians. They are logicians, chemists, skilled in the math
ematics, historians, poor commentators upon Greek poets." Tlieodore Parker's Crit
ical and Miscellaneous Writings, 1848, p. 302. At p. 33, the same high authority
says : " But, within the preaent century, what has been written in the English tongue,
in any department of theological scholarship, which is of value and makea a mark
on the age ? The Bridgewater Treatises, and the new edition of Paley, — we blush
to confess it, — are the best thinga." Sir WiUiam HamUton (.Discussions on Philoso
phy, 1862, p. 699) noticea the decUne of " British theology," though he appeara ig
norant of the _cauae of it. The Rev. Mr. Ward (Idecd of a Christian Church, p.
405) remarka, that " we cannot wonder, however keenly we may mourn, at the de
cUne and faU of dogmatic theology." See also Lord Jeffrey's Essays, vol. iv. p. 337 :
" Warburton, we think, was the last of our great divines. . . . The days of the
Cudworths and Barrows, the Hookers and Taylors, are long gone by." Dr. Parr
was the only EngUsh theologian aince Warburton who possessed aufficient learning
to retrieve thia position ; but he always refused to do so, being, unconsciously to him
aelf, held back by the spirit of his age. Thus, we find him writing to Archbishop
Magee, in 1823 : " Aa to myself, I long ago determined not to take any active part
in polemical theology." Parr's Works, vol. vU. p. 11.
In the same way, aince the early part of the eighteenth century, hardly any one
haa carefully read the Fathers, except for mere hiatorical and aecular purposea. The
first step was taken about the middle of the seventeenth century, when the custom
of quoting them in sermona began to be abandoned. Bumets Own Time, vol. i. pp.
329, 330 ; Orme's Life of Owen, p. 184. After thia they rapidly fell into contempt ;
and the Rev. Mr. Dowliag (Study of Ecclesiast. History, p. 195)a8serts, that "Water-
land, who died iu 1740, was the last of our great patristical scholars." To thia I
may add, that, nine yeara aubsequent to the death of Waterland, the obvious decay
of professional learning struck Warburton, afterwards Bishop of Gloucester, so
much, that he wrote to Jortin, somewhat roughly, "any thing makea a divine among
our paraons." See his Letter, written in 1749, in Nichols's Illustrations of Lit. Hist.
vol. U. p. 173 ; and for other evidence of the neglect by the clergy of their ancient
atudiea, see Jones's Memoirs of Horne, Bishop of Norwich, pp. 68, 184 ; and the
complaint of Dr. Knowler, in 1766, in Nichols's Lit. Anec. vol. U. p. 130. Since then,
attea|pts have been made at Oxford to remedy this tendency ; but such attempts,
being opposed by the general march of affaire, have been, and muat be, futile. In
deed, so manifest is the inferiority of these recent efforts, that one of the most ac
tive cultivators in that field frankly admits, that, in point of knowledge, his own
party has effected nothing ; and he even asserts, with great bitterness, that " it is
melancholy to say it, but the chief, perhaps the only, EngUsh writer who has any
claim to be considered an ecclesiastical historian, is the infidel Gibbon." Newman
on the Development of Christian Doctrine, p. 5.
°' As some writers, moved by their wishes rather than by their knowledge, seek
to deny thia, it may be well to observe, that the increase of acepticism aince the lat
ter part of the eighteenth century ia atteated by an immense mass of evidence, as
VOL. L— 17

358 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
men should see the delusion under which they labour. That hy
which they are so much alarmed, is the intermediate step which
leads from superstition to toleration. The higher order of minds
have passed through this stage, and are approaching what is
probably the ultimate form of the religious history of the human
race. But the people at large, and even some of those who are
commonly called educated men, are only now entering that
earlier epoch in which scepticism*" is the leading feature of the
mind. So far, therefore, from our apprehensions being excited
by this rapidly-increasing spirit, we ought rather to do every
thing in our power to encourage that which, though painful to
some, is salutary to aU ; because by it alone can religious bigotry
be effectually destroyed. Nor ought we to be surprised that, he
fore this can he done, a certain degree of suffering must first in
tervene.*' If one age believes too much, it is hut a natural re-
will appear to whoever will compare the following authorities : Whately's Dangersto
Christian Faith, p. 87 ; Kay's Social Condition of the People, vol. ii. p. 606; Tocque
viUe, de la Democratic, vol. iii. p. 72; /. H. Newman on Development, pp. 28, 29;
F. W. Newman's Natural History of tlie Soul, p. 197 ; Parr's Works, vol ii. p. 6,
vol. iii. pp. 688, 689 ; Felkin's Moral Statistics, in Journal of Statist. Soc. vol i. p.
541 ; Watson's Observations on the Life of Wesley, pp. 155, 194; Matter, Hist, du
Gnosticisme, vol. U. p. 485 ; Ward's Ideal of a Christian Church, pp. 266, 267, 404;
Turner's Hist, of England, vol, ih pp. 129, 142, vol. iU. p. 509 ; Priestley's Memoirs,
voh i. pp. 127, 128, 446, voh ii. p. 751; Oappe's Memoirs, p. 361 ; Nichols's Lit. Anec.
of Eighteenth Century, voh iv. p. 671, vol. viu. p. 473 ; Nichols's Illust. of lAt. Hist.
vol. V. p. 640; Combe's Notes on the United States, vol. ii. pp. 171, 172, 183.
*° It has been suggested to me by an able friend, that there is a class of persona
who wiU miaunderatand this expression ; aud that there is another claaa, who, with
out misunderatanding it, will intentionally miarepresent ita meaning. Hence, it may
be well to atate diatinctly what I wish to convey by the word " scepticism." By
scepticism I merely raean hardness of belief ; so that an increased acepticism is an
increased perception of the difficulty of proving assertions ; or, in other words, it is
an increased appUcation, and an increased diffusion, of the rules of reasoning, and
of the laws of evidence. This feeling of hesitation and of suspended judgment
haa, in every department of thought, been the invariable preUminary to all the intel
lectual revolutions through which the human mind has passed ; and without it, there
could be no progress, no change, no civiUzation. In physics, it is the necessary
precursor of science ; in politics, of Uberty ; iu theology, of toleration. These are
the three leading forms of scepticism ; it is, therefore, clear, that in reUgion the
sceptic steers a middle course between atheism and orthodoxy, rejecting both ex
tremes, because he sees that both are incapable of proof
*' What a learned historian has said of the effect which the method of Socrates
produced on a very few Greek minds, is appUcable to that state through which a
great part of Europe is now passing : " The Socratic dialectics, clearing away from
the mind its fancied knowledge, aud laying bare the real ignorance, produced; an im
mediate effect, Uke the touch of the torpedo. The newly-created consciousness of
ignorance was aUke unexpected, painful, and humiUating, — a season of doubt and
discomfort, yet combined with an internal working and yearning after truth, never,
before experienced. Such inteUectual quickening, which could never commence un
tU the mind had been disabused of its original iUusion of false knowledge, was con
sidered by Socrates not merely as the index and precursor, but as the indispensable
condition, of future progresa." Grote's Hist, of Greece, vol. viu. pp. 614, 615, Svo,
1851. Compare Kritik der reinen Vernunft, in Kants Werke, vol. ii. pp. 572, 677 :
" So ist der Skeptizismus ein Ruheplatz fiir die menscbUche Vernunft, da sie sich
iiber ihre dogmatische Wanderuug besinnen und den Entwurf von der Gegend

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 359
action that another age should beUeve too little. Such are the
imperfections of our nature, that we are compeUed, by the very
laws of its progress, to pass through those crises of scepticism
and of mental distress, which to a vulgar eye are states of national
decUne and national shame ; but which are only as the fire by
which the gold must be purged before it can leave its dross in the
pot of the refiner. To apply the imagery of the great allegorist,
it is necessary that the poor pilgrim, laden with the weight of ac
cumulated superstitions, should struggle through the Slough of
Despond and the Valley of Death, before he can reach that glo
rious city, gUttering with gold and with jewels, of which the first
sight is sufficient recompense for his toils and his fears.
During the whole of the seventeenth century, this double
movement of scepticism and of toleration continued to advance ;
though its progress was constantly checked by the two successors
of Elizabeth, who in every thing reversed the enUghtened policy
of the great queen. These princes exhausted their strength in
struggling against the tendencies of an age they were unable to
understand ; but, happily, the spirit which they wished to quench
had reached a height that mocked their control. At the same
time, the march of the English mind was still further aided hy
the nature of those disputes which, during half a century, divided
the country. In the reign of EUzabeth, the great contest had
been between the church and its opponents ; between those who
were orthodox' and those who were heretical. But, in the reigns
of James and Charles, theology was for the first time merged in
poUtics. It was no longer a straggle of creeds and dogmas ; but
it was a struggle between those who favored the crown, and those
who supported the pariiament. The minds of men, thus fixed
upon matters of real importance, neglected those inferior pur
suits which had engrossed the attention of their fathers.*" When,
machen kann, wo aie sich befindet, um ihren Weg fernerhin mit mehrerer Sicher-
heit wahlen zu konnen, aber nicht ein Wohnplatz zum beatandigen Aufenthalte. . .
. . So ist dus skeptische Verfahren zwar an sich selbst fiir die Vernunftfragen nicht
ibefriedigend, aber doch voriibend, um ihre Vorsichtigkeit zu erwecken und auf
griindliche Mittel zu weisen, die sie in ihren rechtmassigen Besitzen sicheru konnen."
*" Dr. Arnold, whose keen eye noted this change, says (Lectures on Modern His
tory, p. 232), " What strikes us predominantly, is, that what, in Elizabeth's time, was
a controversy between divines, was now a great poUtical contest between the crown
and the parUament." The ordinary compUers, such as Sir A. Alison (Hist, of Europe,
vol. i. p. 51), and others, have entirely misrepresented thia movement; an error the
raore singular, because the eminently-political character of the struggle was recog
nised by several contemporaries. Even CromweU, notwithstanding the difficult game
he had to play, distinctly stated, in 1665, that the origin of the war was not reli
gious. See Carlyle's Cromwell, vol. iii. p. 103 ; and corroborative evidence in Walker's
History of Independency, part i. p. 132. James I. also saw that the Puritans were
more dangeroua to the atate than to the church : " do not so far differ from us iu
points of religion, as in their confused form of policy and parity ; being ever discon
tented with the present govemment, and impatient to suffer any superiority ; which

360 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
at length, public affairs had reached their crisis, the hard fate of
the king, which eventually advanced the interests of the throne,
was most injurious to those of the church. There can, indeed,
be no doubt that the circumstances connected with the execution
of Charles, inflicted a blow upon the whole system of ecclesiastical
authority, from which, in this country, it has never been able to
recover. The violent death of the king excited the sympathies
of the people ; and by thus strengthening the hands of the roy
alists, hastened the restoration of the monarchy.*^ But the mere
name of that great party which had risen to power, was sugges
tive of the change that, in a religious point of view, was taMng
place in the national mind. It was, indeed, no Ught thing, that
England should he ruled hy men who caUed themselves Independ
ents ; and who, under that title, not only beat hack the preten
sions of the clergy, but professed an unbounded contempt for all
those rites and dogmas which the clergy had, during many cen
turies, continued to amass.** True it is, that the Independents
did not always push to their fuU extent the consequences of their
own doctrines.*' StiU, it was a great matter to have those doc-
maketh their sects insufferable in any well-governed commonwealth." Speech of
James I., in Pari. Hist. vol. h p. 982. See ako the observations ascribed to De Foe,
in Somers Tracts, vol. ix. p. 572 : " The king and parUament feU out about matters
of civil right ; . . . the first difference between the King and the EngUsh parUament
did not reapect reUgion, but civil property."
*" See Clarendon's Ilist. of the Rebellion, p. 716. Sir W. Temple, in hia JfemoiVs,
observes, that the throne of Charles II. was strengthened by- " what had passed m
the last reign." Temple's Works, vol. ih p. 344. This may be iUuatrated by the re
marks of M. Lamartine on the execution of Louis XVI., Hist, des Girondins,\ol. v.
pp. 86-7 : " Sa mort, au contraire, aUdnait de la cause frangaise cette partie immense
dea populations qui ne juge les dvdnements humains que par le coeur. La nature
humaine eat pathdtique ; la rdpublique ToubUa, eUe donna k la royautd quelque chose
du martyre, a la Uberte quelque chose de la vengeance. Elle prdpara ainsi unerdac-
tion centre la cause rdpubUcaine, et mit du cotd de la royautd la aensibilitd, I'intdrdt,
les larmes d'une partie des peuples."
" The energy with which the House of Commons, in 1646, repelled the preten
sions of "the Assembly of Divines," is one of the many proofs of the determina
tion of the predominant party not to allow ecclesiastical encroachments. See the
remarkable detaUa in Pari. Hist. vol. Ui. pp. 459-468 ; see also p. 1305. Aa a natu
ral conaequence, the Independenta were the first sect which, when possessed of
power, advocated toleration. Compare Orme's Life of Owen, pp. 63-76, 102-111 ;
Somers Tracts, vol. xii. p. 542 ; Walker's Hist, of Independency, part ii. pp. 50, 157,
part iii. p. 22 ; Clarendon's Hist, of the Rebellion, pp. 610, 640. Some writers as
cribe great merit to Jeremy Taylor for hia advocacy of toleration (Heber's Life of
Taylor, p. xxvii. ; and Parr's Works, voh iv. p. 417) ; but the truth ia, that when he
wrote the famoua Liberty of Prophesying, hia enemiea were in power ; so that he
was pleading for bis own intdreata. When, however, the Church of England again
obtained the upper hand, Taylor withdrew the concessions which he had made in
the season of adversity. See the indignant remarks of Coleridge (Lit. Remains,
voh iu. p. 260), who, though a great admirer of Taylor, expresses himself strongly
on this dereliction : see alao a recently pubUahed Letter to Percy Bishop of Dromore,
in Nichols's Illustrations of Lit. History, voh vU. p. 464.
*° However, Bishop Short (History of the Church of England, Svo, 1847, pp-
452, 458) says, what is undoubtedly true, that the hostility of CromweU to the
church was not theological, but politicah The same remark is made by Bishop Ken-

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 361
trines recognized hy the constituted authorities of the state. Be
sides this, it is important to remark, that the Puritans were more
fanatical than superstitious.*" They were so ignorant of the
real principles of government, as to direct penal laws against
private vices ; and to suppose that immoraUty could he stemmed
by legislation.*' But, notwithstanding this serious error, they
always resisted the aggressions even of their own clergy ; and
the destruction of the old episcopal hierarchy, though perhaps
too hastily effected, must have produced many beneficial results.
When the great party hy whom these things were accompUshed,
was at length overthroyvn, the progress of events stUl continued
to tend in the same direction. After the Eestoration, the church,
though reinstated in her ancient pomp, had evidently lost her
ancient power.*' At the same time, the new king, from levity,
rather than from reason, despised the disputes of theologians, and
treated questions of reUgion yrith what he considered a phUosoph
ical indifference.*" The courtiers foUowed his example, and
net. Note in Burton's Diary, vol. u. p. 479. See also Vaughan's Cromwell, vol, i. p.
xcvU. ; and on the generaUy tolerant spirit of this great man, see Hallam's Const.
Hist. vol. u. p. 14 ; and the evidence in Harris's Lives of the Stuarts, vol. iii. pp.
37-47. But the most distinct recognition of the principle, is in a Letter from Crom
well to Major-General Crawford, recently printed in Carlyle's Grom-well, vol. i. pp.
201, 202, Svo, 1846. In it CromweU writes, "Sir, the state, in choosing men to
serve it, takes no notice of their opinions ; if tbey be wUling faithfully to serve it,
— that satisfies." See additional proof in Carwithen's Hist, of the Church of Eng
land, voh u. pp. 245, 249.
*° No one can understand the real history Of the Puritans, who does not take
this into consideration. In the present Introduction, it is impossible to discuss so
large a subject ; and I must reserve it for the future part of this work, in which the
history of England wiU be speciaUy treated. In the mean time, I may mention,
that the distinction between fanaticism and superstition is clearly indicated, but not
analyzed, by Archbishop Whately, in his Errors of Romanism traced to their Origin
in Human Nature, p. 49. Thia ahould be compared with Hume's Philosophical
Works, vol. iU. pp. 81-89, Edinb. 1826, on the difference between enthusiasm and
superstition ; a (Ufference which is noticed, but, as it appears to me, misunderstood,
by Maclaine, in his Additions to Mosheim's Ecclesiast. Hist, voh ii. p. 38.
*' Compare Barrington's Observations on the Statutes, p. 143, with Burton's
Diary of the Parliaments of Cromaell, vol. i. pp. xcvin. 145, 392, vol. ih pp. 36,
229. In 1650, a second conviction of fornication was made felony, without benefit
of clergy ; but, after the Eestoration, Charles II. and his friends found this law
rather inconvenient ; so it was repealed. See Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. iv.
p. 66. *" See Life of Ken, by a Layman, edit. 1854, vol. i. p. 51. At p. 129, the same
writer says, with sorrow, " the church recovered much of her temporal possessions,
but not her spiritual rule." The power of the bishops was abridged "by the de
struction of the court of high-commission." Shorts Hist, of the Church of England,
p. 595. See also, on the diminished influence of the Church of England clergy after
the Eestoration, Southey's LAfe of Wesley, vol. i. pp. 278, 279 ; and Watsorts Obser
vations on the lAfe of Wesley, pp. 129-131.
*° Buckingham and HaUfax, the two men who were perhaps best acquainted
with Charles II., both declared that he was a deist. Compare lAngards Hist, of
Engl. vol. vui. p. 127, with Harris's Lives of the Stuarts, vol. v. p. 55. His subse
quent conversion to CathoUcism is exactly analogous to the increased devotion of
Louis XIV. during the latter days of his Ufe. In both oaaea, superstition was the

363 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
thought they could not err in imitating him, whom they regardfed
as the Lord's anointed. The results were such as must he fa
miliar even to the most superficial readers of English literature.
•That grave and measured scepticism, hy which the Independents
had been characterized, lost aU its decorum when it was trans
planted into the ungenial atmosphere of a court. The men by
whom the king was surrounded, were unequal to the difficulties
of suspense ; and they attempted to fortify their doubts hy the
blasphemous expression of a wUd and desperate infidelity. With
scarcely an exception, all those writers who were most favoured
by Charles, exhausted the devices of their ribald spirit, in mock
ing a religion, of the nature of which they were profoundly igno
rant. These impious buffooneries would, by themselves, have
left no permanent impression on the age ; but they deserve at
tention, hecause they were the corrupt and exaggerated represent
atives of a more general tendency. They were the unwholesome
offspring of that spirit of disbeUef, and of that daring revolt
against authority, which characterized the most eminent EngUsh
men during the seventeenth century. It was this which caused
Locke to he an innovator in his philosophy, and an Unitarian
in his creed. It was this which made Newton a Socinian ; which
forced Milton to he the great enemy of the church, and which
not only turned the poet into a rebel, hut tainted with Arianism
the Paradise Lost. In a word, it was the same contempt for
tradition, and the same resolution to spurn the yoke, which,
being first carried into phUosophy by Bacon, was afterwards car
ried into politics by CromweU ; and which, during that very gen
eration, was enforced in theology by ChiUingworth, Owen, and
Hales ; in metaphysics hy Hobbes and Glanvil ; and in the
theory of government by Harrington, Sydney, and Locke.
The progress which the English intellect was now making
towards shaking off ancient superstitions,'" was still further aided
natural refuge of a worn-out and discontented libertine, who had exhausted aU the
reaources of the loweat and most grovelling pleasures.
'" One of the most curious instances of this may be seen in the destruction of
the old notiona reapecting witchcraft. This important revolution in our opinions
was effected, so far aa the educated claases are concerned, between the Restoration
and the Revolution : that ia to aay, in 1660, the majority of educated men stiU be
Ueved in witchcraft ; while in 1688, the majority disbelieved it. In 1665, the old
orthodox view was stated by Chief-Baron Hale, who, on u. trial of two women for
witchcraft, said to the jury : "That there are such creatures as witches, I make no
doubt at all ; for, first, the Scriptures have affirmed so much ; secondly, the wisdom
of aU nations hath provided laws against such persons, which ia an argument of their
confidence of such a crime." CampbeU's Lives of the Chief-Justices, vol. i. pp. 665,
566. This reasoning was irresistible, and the witches were hung ; but the change
in public opinion began to affect even the judges, and after this melancholy exhibi
tion oi the Chief-Baron, such scenes became gradually rarer ; though Lord Camp
beU is mistaken in supposing (p. 563) that this was " the last capital conviction in
England for the crime of bewitching." So far from this, three persons were execu-

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 363
by the extraordinary zeal displayed in the cultivation of the phys
ical sciences. This, like all great social movements, is clearly
traceable to the events by which it was preceded. It was partly
cause, and partly effect, of the increasing incredulity of the age.
The scepticism of the educated classes made them dissatisfied
with those long-estabUshed opinions, which only rested on un
supported authority ; and this gave rise to a desire to ascertain
how far such notions might be verified or refuted by the real con^
dition of things. A curious instance of the rapid progress of this
spirit may he found in the works of an author who was one of
the most eminent among the mere literary men of his time.
WhUe the CivU War was barely decided, and three years hefore
the execution of the Mug, Sir Thomas Browne published his
celebrated work, called Inquiries into Vulgar and Common Er-
rors,^^ This able and learned production has the merit of an
ticipating some of those results which more modern inquirers
have obtained ;'" but it is chiefly remarkable, as being the flrst
systematic and deUherate onslaught ever made in England upon
those superstitious fancies which were then prevalent respecting
the external world. And what is stUl more interesting is, that
the circumstances under which it appeared make it evident, that
whUe the learning and genius of the author belong to himself, the
ted at Exeter for witchcraft in 1682. See Hutchinson's Historical Essay concerning
Witchcraft, 1720, pp. 56, 57. Hutchinson says: "I suppose these are the last
three that have been hanged in England." If, however, one may rely upon a state
ment made by Dr. Parr, two witches were hung at Northampton in 1705 ; and in " 17 1 2,
five other witches suffered the same fate at the same place." Parr's Works, vol iv.
p. 182, Svo, 1828. This is the more shameful, because, as I shall hereafter prove, from
the Uterature of that time, a disbeUef iu the existence of witches had become almost
universal among educated men ; though the old superstition was stiU defended on
the judgment-seat and in the pulpit. As to the opinions of the clergy, compare
CudwortKs Intellect. Syst. vol. ui. pp. 345, 848 ; Vernon Correspond, vol. ii. pp. 802,
303 ; BuH's Letters from the North of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 220, 221 ; Wesley's Jour
nals, pp. 602, 713. Wesley, who had more influence than aU the bishops put together,
saya : " It is true, likewise, that the EngUsh in general, and, indeed, most of the
men of learning in Europe, have given up aU accounts of witches and apparitions as
mere old wives' fables. I am sorry for it  The giving up witchcraft is, in
effect, giving up the Bible  But I cannot give up, to all the Deists iu Great
Britain, the exiatence of witchcraft, tiU I give up the credit of aU hiatory, sacred
and profane."
However, aU was in vain. Every year diminished the old beUef ; and in 1786, a
generation before Wesley had recorded these opinions, the lawa against witchcraft
were repealed, and another vestige of superstition effaced from the English statute-
book. See Barrington on the Statutes, p. 407 ; Note in Burton's Diary, vol. i. p.
26 ; Harris's Life of Hardwicke, vol. i. p. 307. -
To this it may be interesting to add, that in Spain a witch waa burned ao late aa
1781. Ticknor's Hist, of Spanish Literature, vol. ui. p. 238.
"' The firat edition waa pubUahed in 1646. Works of Sir Thomas Browne, vol.
ii. p. 163.
^ See the notea in Mr. Wilkin's edition of Browne's Works, Lond. 1836, vol. ii.
pp. 284, 360, 361.

364 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
scepticism which he displayed respecting popular heUef was forced
on him by the pressure of the age.
In or about 1633, when the throne was stUl occupied hy a
superstitious prince ; when the Church of England was at the
height of her apparent power ; and when men were incessantly
persecuted for their reUgious opinions, — this same Sir Thomas
Browne wrote his Beligio Medici,^^ in which we find all the
qualities of his later work, except the scepticism. Indeed, in
the Religio Medici, there is shown a credulity that must have
secured the sympathy of those classes which were then dominant.
Of all the prejudices which at that time were deemed an essen
tial part of the popular creed, there was not one which Browne
ventured to deny. He announces his beUef in the phUosopher's
stone ;'* in spirits, and tutelary angels ;" and in palmistry."
He not only peremptorUy affirms the reaUty of witches, but he
says that those who deny their existence are not merely infidels,
but atheists." He carefully tells us that he reckons his nativity,
not from his birth, but from his baptism ; for hefore he was bap
tized, he could not be said to exist." To these touches of wis
dom, he moreover adds, that the more improbable any proposi
tion is, the greater his wiUingness to assent to it ; but tiiat when
a thing is actually impossible, he is on that very account prer
pared to beUeve it.'"
Such were the opinions put forth hy Sir Thomas Browne in
the first of the two great works he presented to the world. But
in his Inquiries into Vulgar Errors, there is displayed a spirit
so entirely different, that if it were not for the most decisive evi
dence, we could hardly heUeve it to be written hy the same man.
The truth, however, is, that during the twelve years which
elapsed between the two works, there was completed that vast
social and intellectual revolution, of which the overthrow of the
"" The precise date is unknown ; but Mr. Wilkin supposea that it waa written
"between the years 1633 and 1635." Preface to Religio Medici, in Browne's Works,
vol. ii. p. iv.
" Ibid. vol. U. p. 58.
"> Ibid. vol. ii. p. 47.
°° Or, aa he calls it, " chiromancy.'' Ibid. vol. ii. p. 89.
"' " For my part, I have ever believed, and do now know, that there are witches.
They that doubt of theae, do not only deny them, but apirits ; and are obliquely,
and upon conaequence, a sort, not of infidela, but atheiata." Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 43, 44.
^ " From thia I do compute or calculate my nativity." Ibid. vol. U. p. 64.
"" Religio Medici, sec. ix. in Browne's Works, -vol. U. pp. 13, 14; unfortunately
too long to extract. Thia ia the " credo quia impoaaibile eat," originaUy one of Ter-
tulUan's absurdities, and once quoted' in the House of Lords by tbe Duke of Argyle
aa '' the ancient religious maxim." Pari. Hist. vol. xi. p. 802. Compare the sar
castic remark on this maxim in the Essay concerning Human Understanding, book
iv. ch. x-vUi. Locke's Works, vol. ii. p. 271. It was the spirit embodied in this sen
tence which suppUed Celsus with some formidable arguments against the Fathers.
Neander's Hist, of the Church, vol. i. pp. 227, 228.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 265
church and the execution of the Iring were but minor incidents.
We know from the literature, from the private correspondence,
and from the public acts of that time, how impossible it was,
even for the strongest minds, to escape the effects of the general
intoxication. No wonder, then, that Browne, who certainly was
inferior to several of his contemporaries, should have been af
fected by a movement which they were unable to resist. It
would have been strange, indeed, if he alone had remained un
influenced by that sceptical spirit, which, because it had been
arbitrarily repressed, had now hroken all bounds, and in the re
action soon swept away those institutions which vainly at
tempted to stop its course.
It is in this point of view that a comparison of the two works
becomes highly interesting, and, indeed, very important. In this,
his later production, we hear no more ahout heUeving things be
cause they are impossible ; hut we are told of " the two great
pUlars of truth, experience and soUd reason,""" We are also re
minded that one main cause of error is " adherence unto author
ity ;""' that another is, " neglect of inquiry ;""" and, strange to
say, that a third is " creduUty.""' AU this was not very consist
ent 'with the old theological spirit ; and we need not, therefore,
be surprised that Browne not only exposes some of the innumera
ble blunders ofthe Fathers,"* hut after speaking of errors in gen
eral, curtly adds : " Many others there are, which we resign unto
divinity, and perhaps deserve not controversy.""'
The difference between these two works is no bad measure of
the rapidity of that vast movement which, in the middle of the
seventeenth century, was seen in every branch of practical and
speculative life. After the death of Bacon, one of the most dis
tinguished EngUshmen was certainly Boyle, who, if compared
¦with his contemporaries, may he said to rank immediately below
Newton, though, of course, very inferior to him as an original
thinker."" With the additions he made to our knowledge, we
are not immediately concerned; hut it may be mentioned, that
he was the first who instituted exact experiments into the rela-
'" Inquiries into Vulgar and Common^Errors, book iii. chap, xxvui. in Brownes
Works, voh U. p. 684.
" Ibid, book i. chap. vii. vol. ii. p. 225.
"" "A Bupinity, or neglect of inquiry." Ibid, booki. chap. v. vol. U. p 211.
°" "A third cause of common errors is the creduUty of men." Book h chap. v.
vol. u. p. 208.
" See two amusing instances in vol. U. pp. 267, 488.
"' Vulgar and Common Errors, book vii. chap. xi. in Browne's Works, vol. iu. p.
826. -
°° Monk (lAfe of Bentley, vol. i. p. 37) aaya, that Boyle's discoveries " have placed
his name in a rank second only to that of Newton ;" and this, I believe, is true, not
withstanding the immense superiority of Newton.

266 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
tion between colour and heat;"' and hy this means, not only as
certained some very important facts, but laid a foundation for
that union between optics and thermotics, which, though not
yet completed, now merely waits for some great phUosopher to
strike out a generaUzation large enough to cover both, and thus
fuse the two sciences into a single study. It is also to Boyle,
more than to any other Englishman, that we owe the science of
hydrostatics, in the state in which we now possess it."' He is
the original discoverer of that beautiful law, so fertUe in valu
able results, according to which the elasticity of air varies as its
density."" And, in the opinion of one ofthe most eminent mod
em naturalists, it was Boyle who opened up those chemical in
quiries, which went on accumulating until, a century later, they
suppUed the means hy which Lavoisier and his contemporaries
fixed the real basis of chemistry, and enabled it for the first time
to take its proper stand among those sciences that deal with the
external world.'"
The application of these discoveries to the happiness of Man,
and particularly to what may he called the material interests of
"' Compare Powell on Radiant Heat, (Brit. Assoc, vol. i.), p. 287, with LloycPs
Report on Physical Optics, 1834, p. 338. For the remarks on colours, see Boyle's
Works, vol. ii. pp. 1-40; and for the account of his experiments, pp. 41-80; and a
slight notice in Brewster's Life of Newton, vol. i. pp. 156, 156, 236. It is, 1 think,
not generaUy known, that Power ia aaid to be indebted to Boyle for originating
aome of hia experiments on colours. See a letter from Hooke in Boyle's Works, vol
V. p. 533.
"" Dr. WheweU (Bridgewater Treatise, p. 266) weU obaervea, that Boyle and Pas
cal are to hydrostatics what GaUleo is to mechanics, and Copernicus, Kepler, and
Newton to astronomy. See also on Boyle as the founder of Hydrostatica, Thomsods
Hist, of the Royal Society, pp. 397, 398 ; and his Hist, of Chemistry, vol. i. p. 204.
°° This waa discovered by Boyle about 1650, and confirmed by Mariotte in 1676.
See WhewelVs Hist, of the Inductive Sciences, vol. ii. pp. 557, 688 ; ThomsorCs Hist.
of Chemistry, vol. i. p. 216 ; Turner's Chemistry, voh i. pp.' 4i, 200 ; Brande's Chem
istry, vol. i. p. 863. This law has been empirically verified by the French Institute,
and found to hold good for a pressure even of twenty-seven atmospheres.. See
CJiallis on the Mathematical Theory of Fluids, in Sixth Report of Brit. Assoc, p.. 226 ;
and HerscheVs Nat. Philos, p. 231. Although Boyle preceded Mariotte by a quarter
of a century, the discovery is rather unfairly called the law of Boyle and Mariotte ;
while foreign writers, refining on thia, frequently omit the name of Boyle altogether,
and term it the law of Mariotte ! See, for instance, Liebig's Letters on Chemistry,
p. 126 ; Monteil, Divers Etats, vol. vui. p. 122 ; Kaemtz's Meteorology, p. 236 ; Comte,
Philos. Pos. vol. i. pp. 583, 646, vol. U. pp. 484, 615 ; Pouillet, Elemens de Physique,
voh i. p. 339, vol. ii. pp. 58, 183.
'° "L'un des crdateura de la physique expdrimentale, TiUustre Eobert Boyle,
avait aussi reconnu, des le milieu du dix-septifeme sidcle, une grande partie des faits
qui servent aujourd'hui de base k cette chimie nouvelle." Cuvier, Progres des Sciences,
vol. i. p. 30. The "auaai" refera to Eey. See also Cuvier, Hist, des Sciences Natu
reUes, part ii. pp. 322, 346-349. A atiU more recent writer says, that Boyle " stood,
in fact, on the very brink of the pneumatic chemistry of Priestley ; he had in his
hand the key to the great discovery of Lavoisier." Johnston on Dimorphous Bodies,
in Reports of Brit. Assoc, vol. vi. p. 163. See further respecting Boyle, Robin et
Verdeil, Chimie Anatomique, Paris, 1853, vol. i. pp. 576, 577, 579, vol. ih p. 24; and
Sprengel, Hist, de la MMecine, vol. iv. p. 177.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 267
civUization, will he traced in another part of this work; but
what I now wish to observe, is the way in which such investiga
tions harmonized with the movement I am attempting to de
scribe. In the whole of his physical inquiries, Boyle constantly
insists upon two fundamental principles : namely, the impor
tance of individual experiments, and the comparative unimpor
tance of the facts which, on these subjects, antiquity has handed
down." These are the two great keys to his method; they are
the views which he inherited from Bacon, and they are also
the views which have been held by every man who, during the
last two centuries, has added any thing of moment to the
stock of human knowledge. First to doubt,'" then to inquire,
and then to discover, has been the process universally followed
by our great teachers. So strongly did Boyle feel this, that
though he was an eminently religious man," he gave to the most
popiUar of his scientific works the title of The Sceptical Chemist;
" meaning to intimate, that until men were sceptical concerning
the chemistry of their own time, it would he impossible that
they should advance far in the career which lay before them.
Nor can we fail to observe, that this remarkable work, in which
such havoc was made with old notions, was pubUshed in 1661,'*
'" Thia diaregard of ancient authority appears so conatantly in hia works, that it
ia difficult to choose among innumerable passages which might be quoted. I will
select one, which strikes me as weU expressed, and is certainly very characteristic. In
hia Free Inquiry into the vulgarly received Notion, of Nature, he says (Boyle's Works,
voh iv. p. 359), " For I am wont to judge of opinions as of coins : I consider much
leaa, in any one that I am to receive, whose inscription it bears, than what metal it
is made of. It is indifferent enough to me whether it was stamped many years or
ages since, or came but yesterday from the mint." In other places he speaks of the
" schoolmen " and " gownmen " with a contempt not much inferior to that expressed
by Locke himseW.
'^ In his Considerations touching Experimental Essays, he says (Boyle's Works,
vol. i. p. 197), "Perhaps you will wonder, PyrophUus, that in almoat every one of
the foUowing essays I should speak so doubtingly, and use so often perhaps, it seems,
it is not improbable, and such other expressions as argue a diffidence of the truth of
the opinions I incUne to," &c. Indeed, this spirit is seen at every turn. Thus his
(-(^ Essay on Crystals, which, considering the then state of knowledge, is a remarkable
production, is entitled " Doubts and Experiments touching the curious Figures of
Salts." Works, vol. ii. p. 488. It ia, therefore, with good reaaon that M. Humboldt
terma him " the cautioua and doubting Eobert Boyle." Humboldt s Cosmos, vol. U.
p. 7.S0. " On the sincere Christianity of Boyle, compare Bumets Lives and. Characters,
edit. Jebb, 1833, pp. 861-860 ; Life of Ken, by a Layman, vol. i. pp. 32, 33 ; WhewelVs
Bridgewater Treatise, p. 273. He made several attempts to reconcile the scientific
method with the defence of estabUshed reUgious opinions. See one of the best
instances of this, iu Boyle's Works, vol. v. pp. 38, 39.
'* The Sceptical Chemist is in Boyle'sWorks, vol. i. pp. 290-371. It went through
two editions in the author's Ufetime, an unusual success for a book of that kind.
Boyle's Works, vol. i. p. 376, vol. iv. p. 89, vol. v. p. 845. I find, from a letter
written in 1696 (Fairfax Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 344), that Boyle's worka were
then becoming scarce, and that there waa an intention of reprinting the whole of
them. In regard to the Sceptical Chemist, it was ao popular, that it attracted the
attention of Monconys, a, French traveUer, who visited London in 1663, and from
whom we learn that it was to be bought for four shiUinga, " pour quatre cheUna."

268 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLA-ND.
the year after the accession of Charles IL, in whose reign the
spread of incredulity was indeed rapid, since it was seen not only
among the inteUectual classes, hut even among the nobles and
personal friends of the king. It is true, that in that rank of
society, it assumed an offensive and degenerate form. But the
movement must have been one of no common energy, which, in
so early a stage, could thus penetrate the recesses of the palaeej
and excite the minds of the courtiers; a lazy and feeble race,
who from the frivolity of their habits are, under ordinary circum
stances, predisposed to superstition, and prepared to heUeve
whatever the wisdom of their fathers has bequeathed to them.
In every thing this tendency was now seen. Every thing
marked a growing determination to subordinate old notions to
new inquiries. At the very moment when Boyle was prosecuting
his labours, Charles II. incorporated the Eoyal Society, which
was formed with the avowed object of increasing knowledge by
direct experiment." And it is well worthy of remark, that the
charter now first granted to this celebrated institution declares
that its object is the extension of natural knowledge, as opposed
to that which is supernatural.'"
It is easy to imagine with what terror and disgust these
things were viewed by those inordinate admirers of antiqiuty,
who, solely occupied in venerating past ages, are unable either
to respect the present or hope for the future. These great ob
structors of mankind played, in the seventeenth century, the
Voyages de Monconys, vol. iU. p. 67, edit. 1695 ; a book containing some very curious
facts respecting London in the reign of Charlea II. ; but, so far as I am aware, not
quoted by any EngUsh historian. In SprengeVs Hist, de la Medecine, voh v. pp. 78-9,
there is a summary ofthe views advocated in the Sceptical Chemist, respecting which
Sprengel says, " Ce fut cependant aussi en Angleterre que s'dleverent les premiers
doutes sur Texactitude des expUcations chimiquea."
'" " From the nature and constitution of the Eoyal Society, the objects of theh
attention were necessarUy unlimited. The physical sciences, however, or those which
are promoted by experiment, were their declared objects ; and experiment was the
method which they professed to follow in accomplishing their purpose." Thomson's
Hist, of tlie Royal Society, p. 6. When the society was first instituted, experiments
were so unusual, that there was a difficulty of finding the necessary workmen in
London. See a curious paaaage in Weld's Hist, of the Royal Society, 1848J voh ii.
p. 88. " Dr. Paria (Life of Sir H. Davy, 1831, vol. n. p. 178) aaya, " The charter of the
Royal Society states, that it was estabUshed for the improvement of natural science.
This epithet natural was originaUy intended to imply a meaning, of whioh'very few
persons, I beUeve, are aware. At the period of the establishment of the society, the
arts of witchcraft and divination were very extensively encouraged ; and the word
natural was therefore introduced in contradistinction to eupematural." The charters
granted by Charles II. are printed iu Welds Hist, of the Royal Society, vol. u. pp.
481-621. Evelyn (Diary, 13 Aug. 1662, voh u. p. 195) mentions, that the object of
the Royal Society was "natural knowledge." See also Aubrey's Letters and Lives,
voh U. p. 858 ; Pulteney's Hist, of Botany, vol. ii. pp. 97, 98 ; aud on the diatinction
thua eatabUshed in the popular mind between natural and supernatural, compare
""'(Ze's Works, vol. U. p. 455, voh iv. pp. 288, 359.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 269
same part as they play in our own day, rejecting every novelty,
and therefore opposing every improvement. The angry contest
which arose between the two parties, and the hostiUty directed
agaiost the Eoyal Society, as the fir-st institution in which the
idea of progress was distinctly embodied, are among the most
instructive parts of our history, and on another occasion I shaU
relate them at considerable length. At present it is enough to
say, that the reactionary party, though led by an overwhelming
majority of the clergy, was entirely defeated; as, indeed, was to
be expected, seeing that their opponents had on 'their side nearly
all the intellect of the -country, and were moreover reinforced hy
such aid as the court could bestow. The progress was, in truth,
so rapid, as to carry away with it some of the ablest members
even of the ecclesiastical profession; their love of knowledge
proring too strong for the old traditions in which they had been
bred. But these were exceptional cases, and, speaking general
ly, there is no doubt that in the reign of Charles II. the antago
nism between physical science and the theological spirit was
such as to induce nearly the whole of the clergy to array them
selves against the science, and seek to bring it into discredit.
Nor ought we to be surprised that they should have adopted
this course. That inquisitive and experimental spirit which
they yrished to check, was not only offensive to their prejudices, *
hut it was also detrimental to their power. For in the first '
place, the mere habit of cultivating physical science taught men
to require a severity of proof which it was soon found that the
clergy were, in their oyyn department, unable to supply. And,
in the second place, the additions made to physical knowledge
opened new fields of thought, and thus tended stUl further to
divert attention from ecclesiastical topics. Both these effects
would of course be Umited to the comparatively few persons who
were interested in scientific inquiries: it is, however, to be ob
served, that the ultimate results of such inquiries must have
heen extended over a far yrider surface. This may he called their
secondary infiuence; and the way in which it operated is well
worth our attention, because an acquaintance yrith it wUl go far
to explain the reason of that marked opposition which has al
ways existed between superstition and knowledge.
It is evident, that a nation perfectly ignorant of physical
laws, wUl refer to supernatural causes all the phenomena by
which it is surrounded." But so soon as natural science begins
" The speculative view of this tendency has been recently iUustrated in the most
comprehenaive manner by M. Auguste Comte, in his Philosophie Positive ; and his
conclusions in regard to the earliest stage of the human mind are confirmed by every
thing we know of barbarous nationa ; and they are alao confirmed, aa he has deci-

370 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
to do its work, there are introduced the elements of a great
change. Each successive discovery, by ascertaining the law that
governs certain events, deprives them of that apparent mystery
in which they were formerly involved." The love of the mar
vellous becomes proportionahly diminished ; and when any
science has made such progress as to enable those who are ac
quainted with it to foretell the events with which it deals, it is
clear that the whole of those events are at once withdrawn from
the jurisdiction of supernatural, and brought under the authority
of natural powers.'" The business of physical philosophy is, to
explain external phenomena with a view to their prediction ; and
every successful prediction which is recognized hy the people,
causes a disruption of one of those links which, as it were, bind
the imagination to the occult and invisible world. Hence it is
aively proved, by the history of physical acience. In addition to the facta he has
adduced, I may mention, that the history of geology suppUes evidence analogous to
that which he has collected fi'om other departments.
A popular notion of the working of this beUef in supernatural causation may be
seen in a circumstance related by Combe. He says, that in the middle of the eigh
teenth century the country west of Edinburgh was so unhealthy, " that every spring
the farmers and their servants were seized with fever and ague." As long as the
cause of this was unknown, " these visitations were believed to be sent by Provi
dence ;" but after a time the land waa drained, the ague disappeared, and the inhab
itants perceived that what they had believed to be supernatural was perfectly natural,
and that the cauae was the state of the land, not the intervention of the Deity.
Combe's Constitution of Man, Edinb. 1847, p. 166.
'" I say apparent mystery, because it doea not at all le'aaen the real mystery. But
thia doea not affect the accuracy of my remark, inaamuch as the people at large
never enter into such subtleties as the difference between Law and Cause ; a differ
ence, indeed, which is so neglected, that it is often lost sight of even in scientific
booka. AU that the people know is, that events which they once believed to be
directly controlled by the Deity, and modified by Him, are not only foretold by the
human mind, but are altered by human interference. The attempts which Paley and
othera have made to aolve thia mystery by rising from the laws to the cause, are
evidently futile, becauae to the eye of reason the solution is as incomprehensible as
the problem ; and the arguments of the natural theologians, in so far as they are
arguments, must depend on reason. As Mr. Newman truly says, " A God uncaused
and existing from eternity, is to the full as incomprehensible aa a world uncaused
and existing from eternity. We muat not reject the latter theory as incomprehensi
ble ; for so is every other possible theory." Neveman's Natural History of the Sod,
1849, p. 36. The truth of this conclusion is unintentionaUy confirmed by the defence
of the old method, which is set up by Dr. Whewell in his Bridgewater Treatise, pp.
262-5 ; because the remarks made by that able writer refer to men who, frpm their
vast powers, were most likely to rise to that transcendental view of religion which is
slowly but steadily gaining ground among us. Kant, probably the deepest thinker
of the eighteenth century, clearly saw that no arguments drawn from, the external
world could prove the existence of a First Cause. See, among other passages, two
particularly remarkable in Kritik der reinen Vernunft, ICants Werke, vol. ii. pp. 478,
481, on " der physikotheologische Beweis."
'" This is tersely expressed by M. Lamennais : " Pourquoi les corps gravitent-ils
les uns vers lea autrea ? Parceque Dieu Ta voulu, diaaient lea anciens. Parceque
les corps a'attirent, dit la acience." Maury, Legendes du Moyen Age, p. 33. See to '
the aame effect Mackay's Religious Development, 1850, vol. i. pp. 5, 30, 8], and else
where. See also a partial statement of the antithesia in Copleston's Inquiry into
Necessity and Predestination, p. 49 ; an ingeuioua but overrated book.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 37]
that, supposing other things equal, the superstition of a nation
must always hear an exact proportion to the extent of its physi
cal knowledge. This may be in some degree verified by the or
dinary experience of mankind. For if we compare the different
classes of society, we shall find that they are superstitious in
proportion as the phenomena with which they are brought in
contact, have or have not heen explained by natural laws. The
credulity of sailors is notorious, and every literature contains evi
dence of the multiplicity of their superstitions, and of the tena
city with which they cling to them."" This is perfectly explica
ble by the principle I have laid down. Meteorology has not yet
heen raised to a science ; and the laws which regulate winds and
storms being in consequence stiU unknown, it naturally follows,
that the class of men most exposed to their dangers should be
precisely the class which is most superstitious." On the other
hand, soldiers live upon an element much more obedient to man,
and they are less liable than saUors to those risks which defy thej
calculations of science. Soldiers, therefore, have fewer induce
ments to appeal to supernatural interference ; and it is univer- \
sally observed, that as a body they are less superstitious than
saUors. If, again, we compare agriculturists with manufacturers, I
we shaU see the operation of the same principle. To the culti
vators of land, one of the most important circumstances is the
weather, which, if it turn out unfavourable, may at once defeat aU
their calculations. But science not having yet succeeded in dis
covering the laws of rain, men are at present unable to foreteU it
for any considerable period; the inhabitant of the country is,
therefore, driven to heUeve that it is the result of supernatu
ral agency, and we stUl see the extraordinary spectacle of pray
ers offered up in our churches for dry weather or for wet weather ;
a superstition which to future ages will appear as childish as the
™ I much regret that I did not coUect proof of this at an earUer period of my
reading. But having omitted taking the requisite notea, I can only refer, on the
auperstition of sailors, to Heber's Journey through India, vol. i. p. 423 ; Richardson's
Travels in the Sahara, vol. i. p. 11 ; Burckhardts Travels in Arabia, vol. ii. p. 347 ;
Davis's Chinese, vol. ui. pp. 16, 17 ; Travels of Ibn Batuta in the Fourteenth Century,
p. 43 ; Journal of Asiat. Soc. vol. i. p. 9 ; Works of Sir Tliomas Browne, vol. i. p.
180 ; Alison's Hist, of Europe, vol. iv. p. 566 ; Burnes's Travels into Bokhara, vol.
iU. p. 53 ; Leigh Hunts Autobiography, 1850, vol. ii. p. 255 ; Cumberland's Memoirs,
1807, vol. i. pp. 422-425 ; Walsh's Brazil, vol. i. pp. 96, 97 ; Richardson's Arctic Ex
pedition, vol. i. p. 98 ; Holcrofts Memoirs, vol. i. p. 207, vol. in. p. 197.
" Andokides, when accused before the dikastery at Athens, said, "No, dikasts ;
the dangers of accuaation and trial are human, but the dangers encountered at sea
are divine." Grote's Hisf. of Greece, vol. xh p. 252. Thus, too, it has been observed,
that the dangers of the whale-fishery stimulated the superstition of the Anglo-Saxons.
See Kemble's Saxons in England, vol. i. pp. 390, 391. Erman, who mentions the
dangerous navigation of the Lake of Baikal, aaya, " There ia a aaying at Irkutak, that
it ia only upon the Baikal, in the autumn, that a man learna to pray from his heart."
Erman's Travels in Siberia, vol. u. p. 186.

373 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
feeUngs of pious awe with which our fathers regarded the presence
of a comet, or the approach of an ecUpse. We are now acqua,inted
with the laws which determine the movements of comets and
ecUpses ; and as we are ahle to predict their appearance, we have
ceased to pray that we may be preserved from them.'" But be
cause our researches into the phenomena of rain happen to have
heen less successful, " we resort to the impious contrivance of caUing
in the aid ofthe Deity to supply those deficiencies in science which
" In Europe, in the tenth century, an entire army fled before one of those
appearances, which would now scarcely terrify a child : " Toute I'armde d'Othon
se diapersa aubitement k Tapparition d'une dcUpse de soleU, qui la remplit de terreur,
et qui fut regardde comme Tannonce du malheur qu'on attendait depuis long-temps."
Sprengel, Hist, de la Medecine, voh ii. p. 368. The terror inspired by eclipses was
not flnally deatroyed before the eighteenth century ; and in the latter half of the
seventeenth century tbey atill caused great fear both in France and in England. See
Evelyn's Diary, vol. ii. p. 62, vol. iU. p. 372; Carlyle's Cromwell, vol. H. p. 366;
Lettres de Patin, vol. iii. p. 36. Compare Voyages de Monconys, voh v. p. 104, with
Hare's Chiesses at TVuth, 2d aeriea, pp. 194, 195. There probably never has been an
ignorant nation whose superstition has not been excited by ecUpses. For evidence
of the universality of this feeUng, see Symes' s Embassy to Ava, voh ii. p. 296 ; Raffle's
Hist, of Java, vol. i. p. 530 ; Southey's Hist, of Brazil, vol. i. p. 364, vol. u. p. 371 ;
Marsden's Hist, of Sumatra, p. 169 ; Niebuhr, Deseription de V Arabic, p. 105 ; Moffats
Southern Africa, p. 337 ; Mungo Park's Travels, vol. i. p. 414; Moorcrofts Travels
in the Himalayan Provinces, vol. ii. p. 4 ; Crawfurd!s Hist, of the Indian Archipelag%
vol. i. p. 305 ; Ellis's Polynesian Researches, voh i. p. 331 ; Mackay's Religious De
velopment, vol i. p. 425 ; Works of Sir W. Jones, vol. Ui. p. 176, vol. vi. p. 16 ; Wil
son's Note in the Vishnu Purana, p. 140 ; Wilson's Theatre of the Hindus, voh i. part
ii. p. 90 ; Montucla, Hist, des Mathematiques, vol. i. p. 444 ; Asiatic Researches, vol.
xii. p. 484; Ward's View ofthe Hindoos, vol.i. p. 101; Prescotts Hist, of Peru, vol.
i. p. 128 ; Kohl's Russia, p. 874; ThirlwalVs Hist, of Greece, vol. ui. p. 440, vol vi.
p. 216; Murray's Life df Bruce, p. 103 ; Turner's Embassy to Tibet, p. 289; Grote's
Hist, of Greece, voh vu. p. 432, vol. xU. pp. 205, 667 ; Journal Asiatique, I. sdrie,
vol. ui. p. 202, Paris, 1823 ; Clot-Bey, de la Peste, Paris, 1840, p. 224.
In regard to the feelings inspired by comets, and the influence of Bayle in remov
ing those superstitions late in the seventeenth century, compare Tennemann, Geseh,
der Philosoph. vol. xi. p. 262 ; Le Vassor, Hist, de Louis XIII. vol. iii. p. 416 ; Let
tres de Sevigne, vol. iv. p. 336 ; Autobiography of Sir S. D'Ewes, edit. HaUiweU, vol ,
i. pp. 122, 128, 136.
"" On the pecuUar compUcations which have retarded meteorology, and thus
prevented us from accurately predicting the weather, compare Forbes on Meteorology,
iu Second Report of British Association, pp. 249-251 ; Cuvier, Progres des Sciences,
vol. i. pp. 69, 248 ; Kaemtz's Meteorology, pp. 2-4 ; Prout's Bridgewater Treatise, pp.
290-295 ; Somerville's Physical Geog. vol. ii. pp. 18, 19. But all the best authori
ties are agreed that this ignorance cannot last long ; and that the constant advance
which we are now making in physical science wiU eventuaUy enable us to explain
even these phenoraena. Thus, for instance. Sir John Leslie says, " It cannot be
disputed, however, that aU the changes which happen in the raaaa of our atmoaphere,
involved, capricious, and irregular aa they may appear, are yet the necessary results of
principlea aa fixed, aud perhapa aa simple, as those which direct tbe revolutions^ of
the solar syatem. Could we unravel the intricate maze, we might trace the action
of each distinct cauae, and hence deduce the ultimate effecta arising from their com
bined operation. With the possession of auch data, we might aafely predict the
state of the weather at any future period, as we now calculate an eclipse of the sun
or moon, or foreteU a conjunction of the planets." Leslie's Natural Philosophy, p.
406 ; see also p. 185, and the remarks of Mr. Snow Harris (Brit. Assoc, for 1844, p.
241), and of Mr. Hamilton (Journal of Geog, Soc. vol. xix. p. xci.). Thua, too. Dr.
WheweU (Bridgewater Treatise, p. 3) aaya, that " the changes of fvinds and skies" are
produced by cauaes, of whoae rulea " no phUoaophical mind" wiU doubt the fixity.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION.

373

are the result of our own sloth ; and we are not ashamed, in our
public churches, to prostitute the rites of reUgion hy using them
as a cloak to conceal an ignorance we ought frankly to confess."*
The agriculturist i§ thus taught to ascribe to supernatural agency
the most important phenomena with which he is concerned ;"
and there can he no douht that this is one of the causes of t]iose
suj)erstitious feelings hy which the inhabitants of the country are
unfavourably contrasted with those of the town.'" But the man
ufacturer, and, indeed, nearly every one engaged in the business
of cities, has employments, the success of which being regulated
hy his own ahiUties, has no connexion yrith those unexplained
events that perplex the imagination of the cultivators of the
earth. He who, hy his ingenuity, works up the raw material, is
evidently less affected hy uncontroUahle occurrences, than he by
whom the raw material is originally grown. Whether it is fair,
or whether it is wet, he pursues his labours with equal success,
and learns to rely solely upon his own energy, and the cunning
"^ This connexion between ignorance and devotion is so clearly marked, that
many nations have a separate god for the weather, to whora they say their prayers.
In countries where men stop short of this, they ascribe the changes to witchcraft, or
to some other supernatural power. See Mariner's Tonga Islands, vol. ii. pp. 7, 108 ;
Tuckey's Expedit, to the Zaire, pp. 214, 216 ; Ellis's Hist, of Madagascar, vol. U. p.
354; Asiatic Researches, vol. vi. pp. 193, 194, 297, vol. xvi. pp. 228, 342; Southey's
Hist, of Brazil, vol. in. p. 187 ; Davis's Chinese, vol. ii. p. 154 ; Beausobre, Hist, de
Maniehee, vol. ii. p. 894 ; Cudworth's Intellect. Syst. vol. ii. p. 639. The Hindus re
fer rain to aupernatural cauaea in the Rig Veda, which is the oldest of their reUgioua
books ; and they have held similar notiona ever since. Rig Veda Sanhita, voh i,
pp. XXX. 10, 19, 26, 145, 175, 205, 224, 226, 265, 266, voh ih pp. 28, 41, 62, 110,
153, 168, 164, 166, 192, 199, 231, 268, 268, 293, 829 ; Journal of Asiat, Soc. voh iii.
p. 91 ; Coleman's Mythol. of tlie Hindus, p. Ill ; Ward's View ofthe Hindoos, vol. i.
p. 88. See further two curious paaaages in the Dabistan, vol. i. p. 115, vol. ii. p.
337 ; and on the "Rain-makers," compare Catlin's North- American Indians, voh i.
pp. 134-140, with Buchanan's North-American Indians, pp. 268, 260: also a pre
cisely similar class in Africa (Moffats Southern Africa, pp. 306-325), and in Arabia
(Niebuhr, Desc. de V Arabic, pp. 237, 238).
Coming to a state of society nearer our own, we find that in the ninth century it
waa taken for granted in (^hriatiau countriea that wind and hail were the worlj of
wizarda (Nearder's Hist, of the Church, vol. vi. pp. 118, 139); that similar views
passed on to the sixteenth century, and were sanctioned by Luther (Maury, Legendes
Pieuses, pp. 18, 19) ; aud finaUy, that when Swinburne was in Spain, only eighty
years ago, he found the clergy ou the point of putting an end to the opera, because
they " attributed the want of rain to the influence of that ungodly entertainraent."
Swinburne's Travels thtugh Spain in 1775 and 1776, vol. i. p. 177, 2d edit. London
1787. '* See some remarks by the Rev. Mr. Ward, which strikes me aa rather incau-
tioua, and which certainly are, dangerous to hia own profeaaion, aa increasing the
hostUity between it and science, in Ward!s Ideal of a Christian Church, p. 278.
What Coleridge has said, is worth attending to : see T%e Friend, vol. iu. pp. 222 223.
™ M. Kohl, whose acutenesa aa a traveUer ia well known, has found that the agri
cultural classes are the " moat bUndly ignorant and prejudiced" of aU. KohVs Rus
sia, p. 365. And Sir R. Murchiaon, who haa enjoyed extenaive meana of observation
famUiarly mentiona the "credulous farmers." Murchison's Siluria, p. 61. In Asia
exactly the same tendency haa been noticed: see Marsden's History of Sumatra p
63. Some curious evidence of agricultural superstitions respectingthe weather may
be seen in Monteil, Hist, des divers Etats, vol. iih pp. 31, 89. , '
vor,. T- — IS

374 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
of his own arm. As the sailor is naturally more superstitious
than the soldier, because he has to deal with a more unstable
element ; just in the same way is the agriculturist more super
stitious than the mechanic, hecause he is more frequently and
more seriously affected by events which' the ignorance of some
men makes them caU capricious, and the ignorance of other men
makes them caU supernatural.
It would he easy, hy an extension of these remarks, to show
how the progress of manufactures, besides increasing the national
wealth, has done immense service to civiUzation, hy inspiring
Man with a confidence in his own resources ;" and how, hy giv
ing rise to a new class of employments, it has, if I may so say,
shifted the scene in which superstition is most likely to dwell.
But to trace this would carry me beyond my present limits ; and
the iUustrations already given are sufficient to explain how the
theological spirit must have heen diminished hy that love of ex
perimental science, which forms one of the principal features in
the reign of Charles II,"
I have now laid hefore the reader what I conceive to be the
point of view from which we ought to estimate a period whose
true nature seems to me to have been grievously misunderstood.
Those political writers who judge events without regard to that
intellectual development of which they are but a part, wiU find
much to condemn, and scarcely any thing to approve, in the
reign of Charles lI. By such authors, I shaU he censured for
having traveUed out of that narrow path in which history has
heen too often confined. And yet I am at a loss to perceive how
it is possible, except by the adoption of such a course, to under
stand a period which, on a superficial view, is fuU of the grosseit
inconsistencies. This difficulty will be rendered very obvious, if
we compare for a moment the nature of the government of
Charles with the great things which, under that government,
were peaceably effected. Never hefore was \here such a want of
apparent connexion between the means and the end. If we look
"' In this point of view, the opposite tendencies of agriculture and manufactures
are judiciously contrasted by Mr. Porter, at the end of his essay on the Statistics of
Agriculture, Journal of the Statist. Soc. vol. ii. pp. 295, 296.
"' Indeed, there never has been a period in England in which physical experi
ments were so faahionable. This is merely worth observing as a symptom of the
age, since Charles II. and the nobles were not Ukely to add, and did not add, any
thing to our knowledge ; and their patronage of science, such as it was, degraded it
rather than advanced it. Still, the prevalence of the taste is curious ; and in addi
tion to the picture drawn by Mr. Macaulay (History of England, 1st edit. vol. i. pp.
408-412), I may refer the reader to Monconys' Voyages, voh Ui. p. 31 ; Sorbieres'
Voyage to England, pp. 32, 33 ; Evelyn's Diary, -vol. ii. pp. 199, 286 ; Pepys' Diary,
vol. i. p. 875, voh n. p. 34, vol. iii. p. 85, vol. iv. p. 229 ; Bumets Own Time, voh i,
pp. 171, 322, vol. ii. p. 275 ; Bumets Lives, p. 144; CampbelVs Chief-Justices, vol

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 375
only at the characters of the rulers, and at their foreign policy,
we must pronounce the reign of Charles II. to he the worst that
has ever been seen in England. If, on the other hand, we con
fine our observations to the laws which were passed, and to the
principles which were estabUshed, we shall be obUged to confess
that this same reign forms one of the brightest epochs in our na
tional annals. PoUtically and morally, there were to he found
in the government all the elements of confusion, of weakness,
and of crime. The king himself was a mean and spiritless volup
tuary, without the morals of a Christian, and almost without the
feelings of a man."" His ministers, yrith the exception of Claren
don, whom he hated for his virtues, had not one of the attributes
of statesmen, and nearly all of them were pensioned by the crown
of France."" The weight of taxation was increased,"' while the
security of the kingdom was diminished."" By the forced sur
render of the charters of the towns, our municipal rights were
endangered." By shutting the exchequer, our national credit
was destroyed."* Though immense sums were spent in main
taining our naval and nulitary power, we were left so defenceless,
that when a war broke out, which had long been preparing, we
seemed suddenly to he taken by surprise. Such was the miser
able incapacity of the government, that the fleets of HoUand
"° His treatment of his young wife immediately after marriage is perhaps the
worst thing recorded of this base and contemptible prince. Lister's lAfe of Clar
endon, vol. U. pp. 145-153. This is matter of proof; but Burnet (Own Time, vol. i.
p. 522, and vol. u. p. 467) whispers a horrible suspicion, which I cannot believe to bo
true, even of Charles II., and which Harris, who has coUected some evidence of his
astounding profligacy, does not mention, though he quotes one of the passages in
Burnet. Harris's Lives of the Stuarts, voh v. pp. 36-43. However, as Dr. Parr
says, in reference to another accusation againat him, " There ia little occasion to
blacken the memory of that wicked monarch, Charlea II., by the aid of invidioua
conjecturea." Notes on James II., in Parr's Works, vol. iv. p. 477. Compare Fox's
History of James II., p. 71.
"• Even Clarendon haa been charged with receiving bribea from Louia XIV. ; but
for this there appears to be no good authority. Compare Hallam's Const. Hist. vol.
ii. pp. 66, 67 note, with CampbeU's Chancellors, vol. ui. p. 213.
°' Lister's Ufe of Clarendon, vol. u. p. 377 : Harris's Lives of the Stuarts, vol.
iv. pp. 840-344.
'^ Immediately after the Restoration, the custom began of appointing to naval
commands incompetent yonths of birth, to the discouragement of those able offi
cers who had been employed under Cromwell. Compare Burnets Own Time, vol. i.
p. 290, with Pepys' Diary, vol. U. p. 413, vol. iU. pp. 68, 72.
"" Harris's Lives ofthe Stuarts, vol. v. pp. 323-828. The court waa so bent on
abrogating the charter of the city of London, that Saunders was raade chief-justice for
the express purpose. See CampbelVs Chief-Justices, vol. n. p. 59. Roger North says
(Lives ofthe Norths, vol. ii. p. 67), "Nothing was accounted at court so raeritorious
as the procuring of charters, as the language then was." Compare Bulstrode's
Memoirs, pp. 379, 388.
'* The panic caused by this scandalous robbery, is described by De Foe ; Wilson's
I^f' of I>« Foe, vol. i. p. 52. See also, Calamy's Life of Himself , voh i. p. 78 ; Par
ker's Hist, of his Own 'lime, pp. 141-143. The amount stolen by the king is estimated
at l,328,526i. Sinclair's Hist, of the Reven-ue, voh i. p. 315. According to Lord
CampbeU, " nearly a miUion and a half" lAves of the Chancellors, voh iv. p. 113.

276 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
were ahle, not only to ride triumphant round our coasts, hut to
sail up the Thames, attack our arsenals, bum our ships, and in
sult the metropoUs of England."' Yet, notwithstanding all these
things, it is an undoubted fact, that in this same reign of Charles
II. more steps were taken in the right direction than had been
taken in any period of equal length, during the twelve centu
ries we had occupied the soU of Britain. By the mere force of
that inteUectual movement, which was unwittingly supported hy
the crown, there were effected, in the course of a few years, re
forms which changed the face of society." The two great ob
stacles hy which the nation had long heen embarrassed, consisted
of a spiritual tyranny, and a territorial tyranny : the tyranny of
the church, and the tyranny of the nobles. An attempt was
now made to remedy these evUs ; not by palUatives, but hy
striking at the power of the classes who did the mischief For
now it was that a law was placed on the statute-book, taking
away that celebrated writ, which enabled the bishops or their
delegates to cause those men to he burned whose reUgion was
different to their own."' Now it was that the clergy were de
prived of the privilege of taxing themselves, and were forced to
submit to an assessment made hy the ordinary legislature."
"" There is a very curious account iu Pepys' Diary, voh Ui. pp. 242-264, of the
terror felt by the Londoners on this occasion. Pepys himaelf buried hia gold (p. 261
and pp. 376-379). Evelyn (Diary, vol. ii. p. 287) says : " The alarme was so greate,
that it put both country and citty into a paniq, feare, aud consternation, such as I
hope I shall never see more ; every body was flying, none knew why or whither." ,
°" The moat important of theae reforms were carried, as ia nearly always the case,
in opposition to the real wishes ofthe ruling claases. Charles II. and Jamea II. often
said of the Habeas Corpus Act, " that a government could not subsist with such a
law." Dalrymple's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 104. Lord-Keeper Guilford was even opposed
to the abolition of miUtary tenures. "He thought," says his brother, "the taking
away of the tenurea a deaperate wound to the liberties of the people of England."
Imes ofthe Norths, vol. ii. p. 82. These are the sort of men by whora great nations are
governed. A passage ia Life of James, by Himself, edit. Clarke, vol. U. p. 621, confirms
the stateraent in Dalrymple, so far aa Jamea ia concerned. Thia ahould be compared
with a letter from Louis XIV., iu the BariUon correspondence. Appendix to Fox's
James II. , p. cxxiv. i
"' Blackstone's Commentaries, voh iv. p. 48 ; CampbelVs Chancellors, vol. iii. p.
431. Thia destruction of the writ De Hmretico camburendo was in 1677. It is no
ticed in Palmer's Treatise on tlie Church, vol. i. p. 600 ; and in Collier's Ecclesiast.
Hist. vol. viu. p. 478.
"' This waa in 1664^ See the account of it in Collier's Ecclesiast. Hist. vol. viii.
pp. 468-466. ColUer,/Who ia evidently diapleased by the change, says: "The con
senting, therefore, to Tie taxed by the temporal Comraons, makes the clergy more
dependent on a foreign body, takes away the right of disposing of their own money,
and lays their estates in sorae raeasure at discretion." See also, on the injury this
has inflicted on the church, Lathbwry's Hist, of Convocation, pp. 269, 260. And Cole
ridge (Literary Remains, voh iv. pp. 162, 158) points this out as characterizing one of
the three "grand evil epochs of our present church." So marked, however, was the
tendency of that time, that this most iraportant measure was peaceably effected by
an arrangement between Sheldon and Clarendon. See the notes by Onslow in Bur-
nets Own Time, vol. i. p. 340, vol. iv. pp. 508, 609. Compare Lord Camden's state.
inent (Pari. Hist. vol. xvi. p. 169) with the apeech of Lord Bathurst (vol. xxu. p

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 277
Now, too, there was enacted a law forbidding any bishop, or any
ecclesiastical court to tender the ex-officio oath, hy which the
church had hitherto enjoyed the power of compelling a suspected
person to criminate himself"" In regard to the nobles, it was
also during the reign of Charles II. that the House of Lords, af
ter a sharp struggle, was obliged to abandon its pretensions to an
original jurisdiction in civil suits ; and thus lost for ever an im
portant resource for extending its own influence.'"" It was in
the same reign that there was settled the right of the people to
be taxed entirely by their representatives ; the House of Com-I
mons haring ever since retained the sole power of proposing!
money hiUs, and regulating the amount of imposts, merely leav-'
ing to the Peers the form of consenting to what has heen already
determined.'"' These were the attempts which were made to
bridle the clergy and the nobles. But there were also effected
other things of equal importance. By the destruction of the
scandalous prerogatives of Purveyance and Pre-emption, a limit
was set to the power of the sovereign to vex his refractory sub
jects.'"" By the Habeas Corpus Act, the Uberty of every Eng
Ushman was made as certain as law could make it ; it being
guaranteed to him, that if accused of crime, he, instead of lan
guishing in prison, as had often heen the case, should be brought
to a fair and speedy trial.'"' By the Statute of Frauds and
77) ; and of Lord Temple on Tooke'a caae (vol. xxxv. p. 1357). Mr. Carwithen (Hist,
of the Church of England, vol ii. p. 354, Oxford, 1849) grieves over " this depriva
tion of the Uberties of the EngUsh clergy."
" 13 Car. II. c. 12. Compare Stephens's Life of Tooke, vol. i. pp. 169, 170, with
Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. Uh p. 101. Mr. Hallara ( Cons'. Hist. vol. i. pp. 197,
198) haa adduced evidence of the way in which the clergy were accuatoraed to injure
their opponeuta by the ex-offlcio oath.
"" This was the issue of the faraous controversy reapecting Skinner, in 1669;
and "from thia time," says Mr. HaUam, " the Lords have tacitly abandoned all pre
tensions to an original jurisdiction in civil suits." Const. Hist. vol. u. p. 184. There
is an account of this case of Skinner, which was connected with the Eaat India Com
pany, in MilVs Hist, of India, voh i. pp. 102, 103.
"' Hallam's Const. Hist. ViOl. u. pp. 189-192 ; and Eecleston's English Antiqui
ties, p. 326. The diaputea between the two houaes respecting taxation, are noticed
very briefly in Parker's Hist, of his own Time, pp. 185, 186.
™ The "famoua righta of purveyance and pre-emption" were abolished by 12
Car. II. c. 24. Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. u. p. 11. Burke, in hia magnificent speech
on Economical Eeform, describes the abuses of the old system of purveyance.
Burke's Works, vol. i. p. 289. See also Kemble's Saxons in England, vol. ii. p. 88
note ; Barrington on the Statutes, pp. 183-185, 287 ; Lingard's Hist, of England,
yol. U. pp. 338, 339 ; Sinclair's Hist, of the Revenue, vol. i. p. 282 ; Pari. Hist. vol.
Ui. p. 1299. These passagea will give an idea of the iniquities practised under this
"right," which, Uke most gross injustices, was one of the good old customs of the
British constitution, being at least as ancient aa Canute. See Allen on ihe Royal
Prerogative, p. 152. Iijdeed, a recent writer of conaiderable learning (Spence, Ori
gin of the Lcms of Europe, p. 819) derivea it from the Eoman law. A bill had been
brought in to take it away in 1656. See Burton's Cromwellian Diary, vol. i. p. 81.
¦Wben Adam Smith wrote, it atUl exiated in France and Germany. Wealth of Na
tions, book iii. chap. ii. p. 161.
"" On the Habeaa Corpua Act, which becarae law in 1679, see CampbelVs Chan-

378 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
Perjuries, a security hitherto unknown was conferred upon pri
vate property.'"* By the ahoUtion of general impeachments, an
end was put to a great engine of tyranny, yrith which powerful
and unscrupulous men had frequently ruined their political ad
versaries.'"' By the cessation of those laws which restricted the
liberty of printing, there was laid the foundation of that great
Public Press, which, more than any other single cause, has dif-
ftised among the people a knowledge of their own power, and has
thus, to an almost incredible extent, aided the progress of Eng
lish civilization.'"" And, to complete this noble picture, there
were finally destroyed those feudal incidents which our Norman
conquerors had imposed, — the miUtary tenures ; the court of
wards ; the fines for aUenation ; the right of forfeiture for mar
riage by reason of tenure ; the aids, the homages, the escuages,
the primer seisins ; and all those mischievous subtleties, of which
the mere names sound in modern ears as a wUd and barbarous
jargon, but which pressed upon our ancestors as real and serious
evUs.'"' These were the things which were done in the reign of
Charles II.; and if we consider the miserable incompetence of
the king, the idle proffigacy of his court, the unblushing venal-
eellors, vol. iU. pp. 345-347 ; Mackintosh, Revolution of 1688, p. 49 ; and lanyard's
Hist, of England, vol. vni. p. 17. The peculiaritiea of thia law, aa compared with
the imitations of it in other countries, are clearly stated in Meyer, Esprit des Insti
tutions Judiciaires, voh ii. p. 283. Mr. Lister (Life of Clarendon, vol. u. p. 4.')4)
aaya : "Imprisonraent in gaols beyond the aeaa was not prevented by law tiU the
paaaing of the Habeaa Corpua Act, in 1679."
'"* Blackstone (Commentaries, vol. iv. p. 439) calls thia "a great and necessary
security to private property ;" and Lord CampbeU (Chancellors, vol. in. p. 423) terms
it "the most impof tant and raost beneficial piece of juridical legislation of which we
can boast." On ita effecta, compare Jonea's valuable Commentary on Isoeus { Works
of Sir W. Jones, voh iv. p. 289), with Story's Conflict of Laws, pp. 521, 5^2, 627,
884 ; and Tayler on Statute Law, in Journal of Statist. Soc. vol. xvii. p. 160.
'"" Lord CampbeU (Lives of the Chancellors, vol. in. p. 247) aaya, that the atrug-
gle in 1667 "put au end to general impeachmenta."
'°° Printing at first was regulated by royal proclamations ; .then by the Star-
chamber ; and afterwards by the Long ParUament. The decrees of the Star-chamber
were taken aa the basis of 13 and 14 Car. II. c. 33 ; but this act expired in 1679, and
was not renewed during the reign of Charles II. Compare Blackstone's Comment.
vol. iv. p. 152, with Hunts Hist, of Newspapers, voh i. p. 164, and Fox's Hist, of
James II. p. 146.
'"' The fuUest account I have seen in any hiatory, of thia great Revolution which
swept away the traditions and the language of feudaUsm, is that given in Harris's
Lives ofthe Stuarts, vol. iv. pp. 369-878. But Harris, though an industrious collector,
was a man of slender abUity, and not at aU aware of the real nature of a change, of
which the obvious and iramediately practical results forraed the smaUest part. The
true point of view is, that it was a formal recognition by the legislature that the Middle
Ages were extinct, and that it was necessary to inaugurate a more modern and inno
vating policy. Hereafter I shall have occasion to examine this in detail, and show
how it was merely a syraptora of a revolutionary movement. In the mean time the
reader may refer to the very short notices in Dalrymple's Hist, of Feuded Property,
p. 89 ; Blackstone's Comment, vol. ii. pp. 76, 77 ; HaUam's Const, Hist. vol. u. p. U ;
Pari. Hist. vol. iv. pp. 53, 167, 168 ; Meyer, Institutions Judiciaires, vol. U. p. 58.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 279
ity of his ministers, the constant conspiracies to which the coun
try was exposed from within, and the unprecedented insults to
which it was subjected from without; if we, moreover, consider
that, to all this there were added two natural calamities of the
most grievous description, — a Great Plague, which thinned so
ciety in all its ranks, and scattered confusion through the king
dom; and a Great Fire, which, besides increasing the mortality
from the pestUence, destroyed in a moment those accumulations
of industry by which industry itself is nourished; — if we put aU
these things together, how can we reconcUe inconsistencies ap
parently so gross ? How could so wonderful a progress he made
in the face of these unparaUeled disasters ? How could such men,
under such circumstances, effect such improvements ? These
are questions which our political compUers are unable to answer;
because they look too much at the pecuUarities of individuals,
and too Uttle at the temper of the age in which those indiriduals
live. Such writers do not perceive that the history of every civ
ilized country is the history of its inteUectual development,
which kings, statesmen, and legislators are more likely to retard
than to hasten; because, however great their power may he, they
are at best the accidental and insufficient representatives of the
spirit of their time; and hecause, so far from being ahle to regu
late the movements of the national mind, they themselves form
the smaUest part of it, and, in a general view of the progress of
Man, are only to be regarded as the puppets who strut and fret
their hour upon a Uttle stage; whUe, beyond them, and on every
side of them, are forming opinions and principles which they can
scarcely perceive, hut hy which alone the whole course of human
affairs is ultimately governed.
The trath is, .that the vast legislative reforms, for which the
reign of Charles II, is so remarkable, merely form a part of that
movement, which, though traceable to a much earUer period, had
only for three generations heen in undisguised operation. These
important improvements were the result of that bold, sceptical,
inquiring, and reforming spirit, which had now seized the three
great departments of Theology, of Science, and of PoUtics.
The old principles of traditiori, of authority, and of dogma, were
gradually becoming weaker; and of course, in the same propor
tion, there was diminished the influence of the classes hy whom
those principles were chiefly upheld. As the power of particular
sections of society thus declined, the power of the people at large
increased. The real interests of the nation began to he per
ceived, so soon as the superstitions were dispersed by which those
interests had long heen obscured. This, I beUeve, is the real
solution of what at flrst seems a curious problem, — ^namely, how

280 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
it was that such comprehensive reforms should have heen accom-^
pUshed in so bad, and in many respects so infamous, a reigui It
is, no doubt, true, that those reforms were essentially the re
sult of the intellectual march of the age; but, so far from being
made in spite of the vices of the sovereign, they were actuaUy
aided by them. With the exception of the needy profligates
who thronged his court, aU classes of men soon learned to de
spise a king who was a drunkard, a libertine, and a hypocrite;
who had neither shame nor sensihiUty; and who, in point of
honour, was unworthy to enter the presence of the meanest of
his subjects. To have the throne fiUed for a quarter of a cen
tury by such a man as this, was the surest way of weakening
that ignorant and indiscriminate loyalty, to which the people
have often sacrificed their dearest rights. Thus, the character
of the king, merely considered from this point of riew, was
eminently favourable to the growth of national Uberty.'"" But
the advantage did not stop there. The reckless debaucheries of
Charles made him abhor every thing approaching to restraint;
and this gave him a disUke to a class, whose profession, at least,
presupposes a conduct of more than ordinary purity. The con^
sequence was, that he, not from views of enlightened poUcy, but
merely from a love of vicious indulgence, always had a distaste
for the clergy; and, so far from advancing their power, fre
quently expressed for them an open contempt.'"" His most in
timate friends directed against them those coarse and profligate
jokes, which are preserved in the Uterature of the time; and
which, in the opinion of the courtiers, were to he ranked among
the noblest specimens of human wit. From men of this sort
'"" Mr. HaUam has a noble passage on the services rendered to English civiliza
tion by the vices of the EngUah court : " We are, however, much indebted to the
memory of Barbara ducheas of Cleveland, Louisa duchess of Portsmouth, and Mrs.
Eleanor Gwyn. We owe a tribute of gratitude to the Maya, the KUligrews, the
Chiffinchea, and the Grammonta. They played a serviceable part in ridding the king
dom of its besotted loyalty. They saved our forefathers from the Star-chamber and
the High-commission court ; they laboured in their vocation against standing armies
aud corruption ; they pressed forward the great ultimate security of EngUsh free
dom — the expulsion of the house of Stuart." HallanCs Const, Hist. vol. ih p. 60.
'" Burnet (Own Time, vol. i. p. 448) tells us that, in 1667, the king, even at the
council-board, expressed himself against the bishops, and aaid, that the clergy
" thought of nothing but to get good benefices, and to keep a good table." See also,
on his dislike to the bishops, vol. ii. p. 22 ; and Pepys' Diary, vol. iv. p. 2. In another
place, vol. iv. p. 42, Pepys writes : " And I beUeve the hierarchy wiU in a Uttle time
be shaken, whether they will or no ; the king being offended with thera, and set upon
it, as 1 hear." Evelyn, in a conversation with Pepys, noticed with regret such
conduct of Charlea, " that a biahop ahaU never be seen about him, aa the king of
France hath alwaya." Pepys, . vol. iii. p. 201 . Evelyn, in hia benevolent way,
ascribes this to " the negUgence of the clergy :" but histof y teaches us, that the
clergy have never neglected kings, except when the king has flrst neglected them.
Sir John Eeresby givea a curious account of a conversation Charles II. held with him
respecting "mitred heads," in which the feeling of the king ia very apparent.
Reresby's Travels and Memoiri, p. 238.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 281
the church had, indeed, little to apprehend; hut their language,
and the favour with which it was received, are part of the symp
toms hy which we may study the temper of that age. Many
other iUustrations will occur to most readers; I may, however,
mention one, which is interesting on account of the eminence of
the philosopher concerned in it. The most dangerous opponent
of the clergy in the seventeenth century, was certainly Hobbes,
the subtlest dialectician of his time; a writer, too, of singular
clearness, and, among British metaphysicians, inferior only to
Berkeley. This profound thinker pubUshed several speculations
very unfavourable to the church, and directly opposed to prin
ciples which are essential to ecclesiastical authority. As a nat
ural consequence, he was hated hy the clergy; his doctrines were
declared to he highly pemicious; and he was accused of wish
ing to subvert the national reUgion, and corrupt the national
morals."" So far did this proceed, that, during his life, and for
several years after his death, every man who ventured to think
for himself was stigmatized as a Hobbist, or, as it was sometimes
caUed, a Hohbian.'" This marked hostility on the part of the
clergy, was a sufficient recommendation to the favour of Charles.
The king, even hefore his accession, had imbibed many of his
principles;"" and, after the Eestoration, he treated the author
with what was deemed a scandalous respect. He protected him
from his enemies; he somewhat ostentatiously hung up his por
trait in his own private room at Whitehall;'" and he even con
ferred a pension on this, the most formidable opponent who had
yet appeared against the spiritual hierarchy."*
"' On the animosity of the clergy against Hobbes, and on the extent to which he
reciprocated it, compare Aubrey's Letters and Lives, vol. ii. pp. 532, 631; Tenne
mann, Gesch. der Philos. vol. x. p. Ill ; with the angry language of Burnet (Own
Time, vol. i. p. 322), and of Whiston (Memoirs, p. 251). See also Wood's Athence
Oxonienses, e^t. Bliss, voh in. p. 1211. Monconys, who was in London in 1668,
says of Hobbes, " II me dit Taversion que tous les gens d'dgUse tant cathoUques que
protestans avoient pour lui." Monconys' Voyages, voh iii. p. 43 ; and p. 116, "M.
Hobbes, que je trouvai toujours fort ennemi des prdtres cathoUques et des protestans."
About the same time, Sorbiere waa in London ; and he writea reapecting Hobbes :
"I know not hovrf it comes to pass, the clergy are afraid of him, and so are tbe
Oxford mathematicians and their adherents ; wherefore bis, majesty (Charles II.) was
pleased to make a very good comparison when he told me, he was like a bear, whom
they baited with dogs to try him." Sorbiere's Voyage to England, p. 40.
'" This was a common expression for whoever attacked established opinions late
in the seventeenth, and even early in the eighteenth century. For instances of it,
see Baxter's Life of Himself, foUo, 1696, part UL p. 48 ; Boyle's Works, vol. v. pp.
606, 610 ; Monk's Life of Bentley, vol. i. p. 41 ; Vernon Correspond, vol. iii. p. 13 ;
King's Life of Locke, vol. i. p. 191 ; Brewster's Life of Newton, vol. ii. p. 149.
"^ Burnet says, they " made deep and lasting impressions on the king's mind."
Own T^me, voh i. p. 172.
"" A likeness, by Cooper. See Wood's Athenrn Oxonienses, edit. BUss, vol. iu.
p. 1208. "* Sorbiere's Voyage to England, p. 89 ; Wood's Athence Oxonienses, voh iU. p.

283 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
If we look for a moment at the ecclesiastical appointments of
Charles, we shaU find evidence of the same tendency. In his
reign, the highest dignities in the church were invariably con
ferred upon men who were deficient either in ahUity or in honesty.
It would perhaps he an over-refinement to ascribe to the king a
deUberate plan for lowering the reputation of the episcopal
bench ; but it is certain, that if he had such a plan, he followed
the course most Ukely to effect his purpose. For it is no exagger
ation to say, that during his Ufe, the leading English prelates
were, without exception, either incapable or insincere ; they were
unable to defend what they reaUy believed, or else they did not
believe what they openly professed. Never hefore were the in
terests of the Anglican church so feebly guarded. The first
Archbishop of Canterbury appointed by Charles was Juxon,
whose deficiencies were notorious ; and of whom, his friends could
only say, that his want of ahiUty was only compensated by the
goodness of his intentions.'" When he died, the Mug raised up
as his successor Sheldon, whom he had previously made Bishop
of London ; and who not only brought discredit on his order hy
acts of gross intolerance,"" but who was so regardless of the com
mon decencies of his station, that he used to amuse his associates
hy having exhibitions in his own house, imitating the way in
which the Presbyterians deUvered their sermons."' After the
death of Sheldon, Charles appointed to the archbishopric San
croft ; whose superstitious fancies exposed him to the contempt
even of his own profession, and who was as much despised as
Sheldon had been hated.'" In the rank immediately below
this, we find the same principle at work. The three archbishops
of York, during the reign of Charles II., were Frewen, Steam,
and Dolben ; who were so utterly devoid of ahUity, that, not-
1208. On the popularity of the worka of Hobbea in the reign of Charlea II. com
pare Pepys' Diary, vol. iv. p. 164, with Lives of the Norths, vol. iu. p. 339.
"' Bishop Burnet aays of him at hia appointment: "As he was never a great
divine, so he was now superannuated." Own Time, vol. i. p. 303.
"° Of which hia own friend, Biahop Parker, gives a specimen. See Parker's His
tory of his own Time, pp. 31-33. Compare Neal's Hist, of the Puritans, voh iv. p.
429 ; Wilson's Mem. of DeFoe, vol. i. p. 46.
"' In 1669, Pepys was at one of these entertainments, which took place not only
at the house, but in the presence, of the archbishop. See the scandalous detaUs in
Pepys' Diary, vol. iv. pp. 821-822 ; or in Wilson's De Foe, voh i. pp. 44, 46.
"" Burnet, who knew Sancroft, caUs him " a poor-spirited and fearful man" (Own
T^mc, -vol. iii. p. 854); and mentions (vol. iu. p. 138) an instance of his superstition,
which wiU be easily beUeved by whoever has read his ridiculous sermona, which
D'Oyly haa wickedly pubUahed. See Appendix to D'Oyly's Sancroft, pp. SS9-i'iO.
Dr. Lake saya, that every body was amazed when it was known that Sancroft was to
be archbishop. Lake'^ Diary, 30th Dec. 1677, p. 18, in vol. i. ofthe Camden Mis
cellany, 1847, 4to. His character, so far as he had one, is fairly drawn by Dr. Birch :
" slow, timorous, and narrow-spirited, but at the same time a good, honest, andweU-
meaning raan." Birch's Life of Tillotson, p. 151. See also respecting him. Macaw-
lay's Hist, of England, vol. U. p. 616, vol. iu. p. 77, vol. iv. pp. 40-42.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 283
withstanding their elevated position, they are altogether forgot
ten, not one reader out of a thousand having ever heard their
names."" Such appointments as these are indeed striking ; and what
makes them more so, is, that they were hy no means necessary ;
they were not forced on the king by court intrigue, nor was there
a lack of more competent men. The truth seems to be, that
Charles was unwiUing to confer ecclesiastical promotion upon any
one who had abiUty enough to increase the authority of the
church, and restore it to its former pre-eminence. At his acces
sion, the two ablest of the clergy were undoubtedly Jeremy Tay
lor and Isaac Barrow. Both of them were notorious for their
loyalty ; both of them were men of unspotted virtue ; and both
of them have left a reputation which wUl hardly perish whUe
the English language is remembered. But Taylor, though he
had married the king's sister,'"" was treated with marked neg
lect ; and being exUed to an Irish bishopric, had to pass the
remainder of his Ufe in what at that time was truly caUed a
barbarous country.'"' As to Barrow, who, in point of genius,
was probably superior to Taylor,'"" he had the mortification of
seeing the most incapable men raised to the highest posts in the
church, whUe he himself was unnoticed ; and, notwithstanding
that his family had greatly suffered in the royal cause,'"' he re
ceived no sort of preferment until five years hefore his death,
when the king conferred on him the mastership of Trinity Col
lege, Cambridge.'"*
"° Frewen was so obscure a man, that there is no Ufe of hira either in Chalmers'
Biographical Dictionary, or in Eose's more recent, but inferior work. The Uttle
that is known of Steam, or Sterne, is unfavourable. Compare Bwrnet, voh u. p. 427,
with Baxter's Life of Himself, foUo, 1696, part U. p. 338. And of Dolben I have
been unable to coUect any thing of interest, except that he had a good Ubrary, See
the traditionary account in Jones's Memoirs of Bishop Horne, p. 66.
'"" His wife was Joanna Bridges, a bastard of Charles I. Compare Notes and
Queries, voh vii. p. 305, with Heber's Life of Jeremy Taylor, in Taylor's Works, voh
i. p. xxxiv. Bishop Heber, p. xxxv., adds, " But, notwithstanding the splendour
of such an aUiance, there is no reason to beUeve that it added materiaUy to Taylor's
income." '^' Coleridge (Lit. Remains, vol. iu. p. 208) says, that this neglect of Jeremy
Taylor by Charlea " is a problem of which perhaps his virtues present the most prob
able solution."
'^^ Superior, certainly, in comprehenaiveneaa, and in the range of hia atudies ; so
that it is aptly said by a respectable authority, that he waa at once " tbe great pre
cursor of Sir laaac Newton, and the pride of the EngUah pulpit." Wordiworth's
Ecclesiast. Biog. vol. iv. p. 344. See alao, respecting Barrow, Montucla, Hist, des
Mathemat. vol. U. pp. 88, 89, 359, 360, 504, 505, vol. in. pp. 436-488.
"° " His father having suffered greatly in hia estate by his attachment to the royal
cause." Chalmers' Biog. Diet, vol iv. p. 39.
™ Barrow, displeased at not receiving preferment after the Eestoration, wrote
the lines : ' ' Te magiB optavit reditnmm Carole nemo ;
Et aensit nemo te icdiisse minus."
Hamilton's Life of Barrow, in Barrcno's Works, Edinb. 1845, vol i. p. xxui.

284 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
It is hardly necessary to point out how aU this must have
tended to weaken the church, and accelerate that great move-'
ment for which the reign of Charles II. is remarkable.'"' At thfe
same time, there were many other circumstances which in this
preliminary sketch, it is impossible to notice, hut which were
stamped with the general character of revolt against ancient au
thority. In a subsequent volume, this wUl be placed in a stiU
clearer Ught, hecause I shaU have an opportunity of bringing
forward evidence which, from the abundance of its detaUs, would
be unsuited to the present Introduction. Enough, however, has
been stated, to indicate the general march of the English mind,
and supply the reader with a clue by which he may understand
those still more complicated events, which, as the seventeenth
century advanced, began to thicken upon us.
A few years hefore the death of Charles II., the clergy made
a great effort to recover their former power, by reviring those
doctrines of Passive Obedience and Divine Eight, which are ob
viously favourable to the progress of superstition.'"" But as the
EngUsh inteUect was now sufficiently advanced to reject such dog-i
mas, this futUe attempt only increased the opposition between the
interests of the people as a body, and the interests of the clergy
as a class. Scarcely had this scheme been defeated, when the
sudden death of Charles placed on the throne a prince whose
most earnest desire was to restore the Catholic church, and rein-
'"" Every thing Mr. Macaulay has aaid on the contempt into which the clergy feU
in the reign of Charlea II. ia perfectly accurate ; and frora evidence which I have
collected, I know that this very able writer, of whose immense research few people
are competent judges, has rather under-stated the case than over-stated it. On
several subjects I should venture to differ from Mr. Macaulay ; but I cannot refrain
from expressing my admiration of his unwearied diUgence, of the consummate skiU
with which he has arranged his materials, and of the noble love of liberty which
animates his entire work. These are qualities which will long survive the aspersions
of his puny detractors, — ^men who, in point of knowledge and abiUty, are unworthy
to loosen the shoe-lachet of him tbey fooUshly attack.
'^'' Hallam's Const. Hist, voh ii. pp. 142, 143, 163-166 ; from which it appears
that this movement began about 1681. The clergy, as a body, are naturaUy favour
able to this doctrine ; and the foUowing passage, pubUshed only twelve years ago,
wiU give tbe reader an idea of the views that some of them entertain. The Rev. Mr.
SeweU (Christian Politics, Lond. 1844, p. 176) aays, that the reigning prince ia "a
being armed with supreme physical power by the hand and permission of Provi:
dence ; as such, the lord of our property, the master of our Uves, the fountain of
honour, the dispenser of law, before whom each subject must surrender his wUl and
conform his actions  Who, when he errs, errs as a man, and not as a
king, and ia responsible, not to man, but to God." And at p. Ill, the same writer
informs us that the church, "with one uniform, unhesitating voice, has proclaimed
the duty of ' passive obedience.' " See also on this slavish tenet, as upheld by the
church, Wordsworth's Ecclesiast. Biog. vol. iv. p. 668 ; Life of KeA, by a Layman,
vol. ii. p. 523; Lathbury' s Hist, of Convocation, p. 228; Lathbury' s Nonjuron,.pp.
50, 135, 197 ; and a letter from Nelson, author of the Fasts and Festivals, in Nichols's
Lit, Anec. vol. iv. p. 216. With good reason, therefore, did Fox teU the House of
Commons, that " by being a good' churchman, a peraon might become a bad citizen."
Pari. Hist. vol. xxix. p. 1377.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION.. 385
state among us that mischievous system which openly boasts of
subjugating the reason of Man. This change in affairs was, if
we consider it in its ultimate results, the most fortunate circum
stance which could have happened to our country. In spite of
the difference of their i-eUgion, the EngUsh clergy had always dis
played an aftection towards James, whose reverence for the priest
hood they greatly admUed ; though they were anxious that the
warmth of his affection should he lavished on the Church of
England, and not on the Church of Eome. They were sensible
of the advantages which would accrue to their own order, if his
piety could he turned into a new channel.'"' They saw that it
was for his interest to abandon his reUgion ; and they thought
that to a man so cruel and so vicious, his own interest would he
the sole consideration.'"' The consequence was, that in one of
the most critical moments of his life, they made in his favour a
great and successful effort ; and they not only used aU their
strength to defeat the hUl by which it was proposed to exclude
him from the succession, but when the measure was rejected,
they presented an address to Charles, congratulating him on the
result.'"" When James actuaUy mounted the throne, they con
tinued to display the same spirit. Whether they still hoped for
his conversion, or whether, in their eagerness to persecute the
dissenters, they overlooked the danger to their own church, is
uncertain; hut it is one of the most singular and unquestionable
facts in our history, that for some time there existed a strict alli
ance between a Protestant hierarchy and a Popish king."" The
terrible crimes which were the result of this compact are but
too notorious. But what is more worthy of attention is, the cir
cumstance that caused the dissolution of this conspiracy between
the crown and the church. The ground of the quarrel was, an
attempt made hy the king to effect, in some degree, a religious
'" The Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1678, was engaged in an attempt to convert
Jamea ; and in a letter to the Biahop of Winchester, he notices the " happy conse
quences" which would result from his success. See this characteristic letter in
Clarendon Corresp. vol. ii. pp. 465, 466. See also the motives of the bishops, can
didly but broadly stated, in Mr. WUson's valuable work. Life of De Foe, vol. i. p. 74.
™ In a high-church pamphlet, published in 1682, against the BiU of Exclusion,
the cause of James is advocated ; but the inconvenience he would suffer by remain
ing a Catholic is strongly insisted upon. See the wily remarks in Somers Tracts,
vol. viu. pp. 258, 259.
'"" Wordsworth's Ecclesiast. Biog. vol. iv. p. 665. On their eagerness againat the
biU, see Harris's Lives ofthe Stuarts, vol. v. p. 181 ; Burnets Own Time, vol. ii. p.
246; Somers Thracts, voh x.pp. 216, 253 ; CampbeU's Chancellors, vol. iu. p. 353 ;
Carwithen's History of the Church of England, voh U. p. 481.
"" At the accession of James II. "the pulpits throughout England resounded
with thankagivings ; and a numeroua aet of addreaaes flattered hia majesty, in the
Btrongeat expresaiona, with assurances of unshaken loyalty and obedience, without
limitation or reserve." NeaVs Hist of the Puritans, vol. v. p. 2. See also Calamy's
Life, vol. i. p. 118.

386 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
toleration. By the celebrated Test and Corporation Acts, it had
heen ordered that all persons who were employed hy government
should he compeUed, under a heavy penalty, to receive the sacra
ment according to the rites of the EngUsh (]!hurch. The offence
of James was, that he now issued what was called a Declaration
of Indulgence, in which he announced his intention of suspend
ing the execution of these laws.'" From this moment, the posi
tion of the two great parties was entirely changed. The bishops
clearly perceived that the statutes which it was thus attempted to
abrogate, were highly favourable to their oyyn power ; and hence,
in their opinion, formed an essential part in the constitution of a
Christian country. They had wiUingly comhined with James,
whUe he assisted them in persecuting men who worshipped God in
a manner different from themselves."" So long as this compact
held good, they were indifferent as to matters wJaich they considered
to he of minor importance. They looked on in sUence, while the
king was amassing the materials with which he hoped to turn a ,
free government into an absolute monarchy.'" They saw/eff-^
reys and Kirke torturing their feUow-subjects ; they saw the gaols
crowded with prisoners, and the scaffolds streaming yrith Wood."*
They were weU pleased that some of the best and ablest men in the
kingdom should be barbarously persecuted ; that Baxter should
he thrown into prison, and that Howe should be forced into exile.
They witnessed with composure the most revolting- craelties,
hecause the victims of them were the opponents of the English
"' On the 18th March, 1687, the king announced to the Privy CouncU that he
had determined " to grant, by his own authority, entire liberty of conscience to aU
his subjects. On tbe 4th April appeared the raeraorable Declaration of Indulgence."
Macaulay' s Hist, of England, vol. ii. p. 211 ; and see Life of James II., edited by
Clarke, vol. ii. p. 112. There is a suramary of the Declaration in NeaVs Hist, ofthe
Puritans, vol. v. pp. 30, 81. As to the second Declaration, see Macaulay, vol. u. pp.
844, 345 ; Clarendon Correspond, vol. ii. p. 170.
'"^ It was iu the auturan of 1686, that the clergy and the government persecuted
the dissenters with the greatest virulence. See Macaulafs Hist. vol. i. p. 667, 668.
Compare NeaVs Hist, of the Puritans, vol. v. pp. 4-12, with a letter from Lord Clar
endon, dated 21st December, 1686, iu Clarendon Correspond, vol. i. p. 192. It is
said ( Burnets Own Time, vol. iU. pp. 175, 176), that on many occaaiona the church
party made use of the ecclesiastical courts to extort money from the Nonconformists ;
and for confirmation of this, see Mackintosh's Revolution of 1688, pp. 173, 640.
"° It appears from the accounts iu the War-Office, that James, even in the first
year of his reign, had a standing army of nearly 20,000 men. Mackintosh! s Revolvr
tion, pp. 3, 77, 688 : " A discipUned army of about 20,000 men was, for the first
time, estabUshed during peace in this island." As this naturaUy inspired great alarm,
the king gave out that the number did not exceed 16,000. Life of James II., edited
by Clarke, vol. U. pp. 52, 57.
"* Compare Burnet, voh in. pp. 55-62, with Dalrymple's Memoirs, voh i. part. i.
book ii. pp. 198-203. Ken, so far as I remember, was the only one who set his face
against these atrocities. He was a very humane man, and did what he could to
mitigate the sufferings of the prisoners in Monmouth's rebeUion ; but it is not men
tioned that he attempted to stop the persecutiona directed againat the innocent Non
conformists, who were barbarously punished, not because they rebeUed, but becauae
they dissented. Life of Ken, by a Layman, vol. i. p. 298.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 387
church. Although the minds of men were filled with terror and
¦with loathing, the bishops made no complaint. They preserved
their loyalty unimpaired, and insisted on the necessity of humble
submission to the Lord's anointed.'" But the moment James
proposed to protect against persecution those who were hostUe
to the church ; the moment he announced his intention of break
ing down that monopoly of offices and of honours which the
bishops had long secured for their own party ; — the moment this
took place, the hierarchy became aUve to the dangers with which
the country was threatened from the violence of so arbitrary a
prince."" . The king had laid his hand on the ark, and the guar
dians of the temple flew to arms. How could they tolerate a
prince who would not aUow them to persecute their enemies ?
How could they support a sovereign who sought to favour those
who differed from the national church ? They soon determined
on the Une of conduct it behoved them to take. With an al
most unanimous voice, they refused to obey the order by which
the king commanded them to read in their churches the edict
for religious toleration."' Nor did they stop there. So great
was their enmity against him they had recently cherished, that
they actuaUy appUed for aid to those very dissenters whom, only
a few weeks hefore, they had hotly persecuted ; seeking by mag-
™ " From the conduct of the clergy in thia and the forraer reign, it is quite
clear, that if the king had been a Protestant, of the profession of the Church of
England, or even a quiet, submissive CathoUc, without any zeal for his reUgion, —
confining himself solely to raatters of state, and having a proper respect for church-
property, — he might have plundered other Protestants at his pleasure, and have
trampled upon the Uberties of his country, without the danger of resistance." Wil
son's Life of De Foe, vol. i. p. 186. Or, as Fox says, "Thus, as long as James con
tented himself with absolute power in civil matters, and did not make use of his
authority against the church, every thing went smooth and easy." Fox's Hist, of
James H. p. 165.
'" Compare NeaVs Hist, of the Puritans, vol. v. p. 58, with Life of James IL,
edit. Clarke, vol. ii. p. 70 ; where it is well said, that the clergy of the Church of
England " had preached prerogative and the sovereign power to the highest pitch,
whUe it was favourable to them ; but when they apprehended the least danger frora
it, they cried out as soon as the shoe pinched, though it was of their own putting
on." See also pp. 113, 164. What their serviUty was to the crown, whUe they
thought that the crown was with thera, may be estimated from the statement of De
Foe : "I have heard it pubUoly preached, that if the king commanded my head, and
sent his messengers to fetch it, I was bound to submit, and stand while it waa cut
off." Wilson's Life of De Foe, vol. i. p. 118.
''' D'Oyly (lAfe of Sancroft, p. 164) says, "On the whole, it is supposed that not
more than 200 out ofthe whole body of clergy, estimated at 10,000, complied with
the king's requisition." " Only seven obeyed iu the city of London, and not above
200 aU England over." Burnets Own, Time, vol. ui. p. 218. On Sunday, 20th May,
1688, Lord Clarendon writes: "I waa at St. Jamea'a church; in the evening I had
an account that the Declaration waa read only in four churchea iu the city and Uber-
tiea." Clarendon Corresp. vol. U. pp. 172, 173. When this conduct became known,
it waa observed that the church " aupported the crown only so long as she dictated
to it ; and became rebelUoua at the moment when she was forbidden to be intolerant."
Mackintosh's Revolution of 1688, p. 255.

288 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
nificent promises to win over to their side men they had hitherto
hunted even to the death.'" The most eminent of the Noncon
formists were far from being duped by this sudden affection.'"
But their hatred of Popery, and their fear of the ulterior de
signs of the king, prevaUed over every other consideration; and
there arose that singular combination between churchmen and
dissenters, which has never since heen repeated. This coalition,
hacked by the general voice of the people, soon overturned the
throne, and gave rise to what is justly deemed one of the most
important events in the history of England.
Thus it was, that the proximate cause of that great revolu
tion which cost James his crown, was the pubUcation by the
king of an edict of religious toleration, and the consequent indig
nation of the clergy at seeing so audacious an act performed hy
a Christian prince. It is true, that if other things had not con
spired, this alone could never have effected so great a change.
But it was the immediate cause of it, hecause it was the cause
of the schism between the church and the throne, and of the ai
Uanee between the church and the dissenters. This is a fact
never to be forgotten. We ought never to forget, that the first
and only time the Church of England has made war upon the
crown, was when the crown had declared its intention of tolerat
ing, and in some degree protecting, the rival reUgions of the
country.'*" There is no douht that the Declaration which was
''" The first advances were made when the Declaration of the king in favour of
" Uberty of conscience" was on the point of being issued, and immediately after the
proceedings at Oxford had shown his determination to break down the monopoly of
offices possessed by the church. " The clergy at the same time prayed and entreated
the dissenters to appear on their side, and stand by the EstabUshment, making large
promises of favour and brotherly affection if ever they carae into power." NeaVs
Hist, of the Puritans, vol. v. p. 29. See alao, at pp. 58, 69, the conciUating letter
from the Archbishop of Canterbury after the Declaration. " Such," says Neal, " such
was the language of the church in distress!" Compare BircKs lAfe of Tillotson, p.
163 ; Ellis's Correspond, vol. U. p. 63 ; Ellis's Orig. Letters, 2d series, voh iv. p. 117 ;
MackintosKs Revolution, p. 286 ; Somers Tracts, vol. ix. p. 132 ; Macaulafs Hist, of
England, vol. U. pp. 218, 219.
'" See the indignant language of De Foe ( Wilsorts life of De Foe, vol. i. pp. 130j
131, 188, 134); and a Letter from a Dissenter to the Petitioning Bishops, in Somers
Tracts, vol. ix. pp. 117, 118. The writer saya : " Pray, my lords, let me ask you
a question. Suppose the king, instead of his Declaration, had issued out a proclar
mation, comraanding justices of the peace, constables, informers, and all other per
sons, to be more rigorous, if poasible, againat diaaentera, and do their utmost to the
perfect queUing and destroying them ; and had ordered this to be read in your
churches in the time of divine service, — would you have made any scruple of that?"
"° That this was the immediate cause, so far as the head of tbe church-party was
concerned, is unblushingly avowed by the biographer and defender of the then Arch
bishop of Canterbury. " The order pubUshed from the king in councU, May 4th,
1688, directing the archbishops and bishops to send to tbe clergy in their respective
dioceses the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience, to be pubUcly read in aU the
churches of the kingdom, made it impossible for the Archbishop of Canterbury to
abstain any longer frora engaging in an open and declared opposition to the counsels
under which the king was now unhappily acting." D'Oyly's Life of Sancroft, p. 161.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 389
then issued was iUegal, and that it was conceived in an insidious
spirit. But declarations equally illegal, equaUy insidious, and
much more tyrannical, had on other occasions been made by the
sovereign, without exciting the anger ofthe clergy.'*' These are
things which it is good for us to ponder. These are lessons of
inestimable value for those to whom it is given, not, indeed, to
direct, but in some degree to modify, the march of public opin
ion. As to the people in general, it is impossible for them to
exaggerate the obligations which they and all of us owe to the
Eevolution of 1688. But let them take heed that superstition
does not mingle yrith their gratitude. Let them admire that
majestic edifice of national Uberty, which stands alone in Europe
like a beacon in the midst of the waters ; but let them not think
that they owe any thing to men who, in contributing to its erec
tion, sought the gratification of their own selfishness, and the
consolidation of that spiritual power which hy it they fondly
hoped to secure.
It is, indeed, difficult to conceive the fuU amount of the im
petus given to EngUsh civilization hy the expulsion of the House
of Stuart. Among the most immediate results, may be men
tioned the limits that were set to the royal prerogative ;'*" the
important steps that were taken towards reUgious toleration ;'*'
the remarkable and permanent improvement in the administra-
"" Some writers have attempted to defend the clergy, on the ground that they
thought it iUegal to publish a declaration of this kind. But such a defence is incom
patible with their doctrine of passive obedience ; and besides this, it was contradicted
by precedents and decisions of their own. Jeremy Taylor, in his Ductor Dubitan-
tium, their great work of authority, asserta that "the unlawful proclaraationa and
edicts of a true prince may be pubUshed by the clergy in their several charges."
Heber's Life of Taylor, p. cclxxxvi. Heber adds : "I wish I had not found this in
Taylor ; and I thank heaven that the principle was not adopted by the English clergy
in 1687." But why waa it not adopted iu 1687 ? Simply because in 1687 the king
attacked the monopoly enjoyed by the clergy ; and therefore the clergy forgot their
principle, that they might smite their enemy. And what raakes the motives of this
change stiU more palpable is, that aa late as 1681, the Archbishop of Canterbury
caused the clergy to read a Declaration issued by Charles II. ; and that iu a revised
copy of the Liturgy he had also added to the rubric to the same effect. See NeaVs
Hist, of the Puritans, vol. v. p. 66. Compare Ccdamy's Own Life, vol. i. pp. 199, 200 ;
Mackintosh's Revolution, pp. 242, 243; D'Oyly's Life of Sancroft, p. 152; King's
Life of Locke, vol. i. p. 269; Life of James II., edit. Clarke, vol. ii. p. 166.
'" They are summed up in a popular pamphlet ascribed to Lord Somera, and
printed in Somers Tracts, voh x. pp. 263, 264. The diminished reapect felt for the
Crown after 1688 is judiciously noticed in MahorCs Hist, of England,vo\. i. p. 9.
"'^ The Toleration Act was passed in 1689. A copy of it is given by the historians
of the dissenters, who call it their Magna Charta. See Bogue and Bennetts History
of the Dissenters, vol. i. pp. 187-198. The historian of the Catholics equaUy allows
that the reign of WUUam III. is " the era from which their enjoyment of religious
toleration may be dated." Butler's Memoirs ofthe Catholics, voh iih pp. 122, 139.
This is said by Mr. Butler in regard, not to the Protestant dissenters, but to the
CathoUcs ; so that we have the admission of both parties as to the importance of this
epoch. Even the shameful act forced upon WUUam in 1700 was, as Mr. HaUam truly
Bays, evaded in its worst provisions. Const. Hist. vol. u. pp. 332, 833.
VOL. I. — 19

390 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
tion of justice;'** the final abolition of a censorship over the
press ;'*' and, what has not excited sufficient attention, the rapid
growth of those great monetary interests by which, as we shaU
hereafter see, the prejudices of the superstitious classes have in
no smaU degree heen counterbalanced.'*" These are the main
characteristics ofthe reign of WiUiam III. ; a reign often aspersed,
and Uttle understood,'*' but of which it may be truly said, that,
taking its difficulties into due consideration, it is the most suc
cessful and the most splendid recorded in the history of any
country. But these topics rather belong to the subsequent vol
umes of this work ; and at present we are only concerned in
tracing the effects of the Eevolution upon that ecclesiastical
power by which it was immediately brought about.
Scarcely had the clergy succeeded in expeUing James, when
the greater number of them repented of their own act.'*' Indeed,
even before he was driven from the country, several things had
occurred to make them douht the policy of the course they were
pursuing. During the last few weeks that he was aUowed
to reign, he had shown symptoms of increasing respect for the
EngUsh hierarchy. The archbishopric of York had so long heen
"' CampbelVs Chancellors, voh iv. pp. 102, 355, and his Chief-Justices, voh u. pp.
95, 116, 118, 136, 142, 143. See also Barrington's Observations on the Statutes, pp.
23, 102, 558 ; and even AlisorVs Hist, of. Europe, vol. i. p. 236, vol. ix. p. 243; an
unwary concession from such an enemy to popular liberty.
^^ This was effected before the end of the seventeenth century. See CampbeWs
Chancellors, vol. iv. pp. 121, 122. Compare Lord Camden on Literary Property, in
Pari. Hist. vol. xvii. p. 994; Hunts Hist, of Newspapers, vol. i. pp. 161, 162; Som
ers Tracts, vol. xiu. p. 556 ; and a more detaUed account in Macaulay's Hist, of
England, vol. iv. pp. 848 seq. 640 seq. : though Mr. Macaulay, in ascribing, p. 353,
so rauch to the influence of Blount, haa not, I think, aufficiently dwelt on the opera
tion of larger and more general causes.
™ Mr. Cooke (IKsi. of Party, vol. U. pp. 5, 148) notices this remarkable rise of
tbe raonied classes early in the eighteenth century ; but he merely observes, that the
consequence waa to strengthen the Whig party. 'Though this is undoubtedly true,
the ultiraate results, as I shall hereafter point out, were far more important than any
political or even economical consequences. It was not tiU 1694 that the Bank of
England was estabUshed ; and this great institution at first met with the warmest
opposition from the adrairers of old times, who thought it must be useless because
their ancestors did without it. See the curious details in Sinclair's Hist, of theRes-
enue, vol. iu. pp. 6-9; and on the connexion between it and the Whigs, see Macavhy's
Hist, of England, vol. iv. p. 502. There is a short account of its origin and progress
in Smith's Wealth of Nations, book ii. ch. ii. p. 180.
"' Frequently misunderstood, even by those who praise it. Thus, for instance, a
living writer informs us that, "great as have been the obligations which England
owes, in many different views, to the Eevolution, it is beyond aU question the greatest,
that it brought in a sovereign instructed in the art of overcoming the ignorant im
patience of taxation, which is the invariable characteristic of free communities ; and
thus gave it agoverument capable of turning to the best account the activity and
energy of its inhabitants, at the same time that it had the means given it of main
taining their independence." Alison's Hist, of Europe, vol. vU. p. 6. This, I should
suppose, ia the most eccentric eulogy ever passed on ¦WilUam III.
"' On their sudden repentance, and on the causes of it, see Neal's Hist, of the
Puritans, voh v, p. 71. ¦

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 391
vacant, as to cause a belief that it was the intention of the crown
either to appoint to it a CathoUc, or else to seize its revenues.'*"
But James, to the deUght of the church, now fiUed up this im
portant office hy nominating Lamplugh; who was well known to
he a staunch churchman and a zealous defender of episcopal
privileges."" Just hefore this, the king also rescinded the order
hy which the Bishop of London had been suspended from the
exercise of his functions."' To the bishops in general he made
great promises of ftiture favour ;"" some of them, it was said, were
to be caUed to his privy councU ; and, in the mean time, he can-
ceUed that ecclesiastical commission which, by limiting their
power, had excited their anger.'" Besides this, there occurred
some other circumstances which the clergy now had to consider.
It was rumoured, and it was generally heUeved, that William
was no great admirer of ecclesiastical estahUshments ; and that,
being a friend to toleration, he was more likely to diminish the
power than increase the pririleges of the English hierarchy."*
"" Mackintosh's Revolution of 1688, pp. 81, 191. After the death of Archbishop
Dolben, " the see was kept vacant for raore than two years," and Cartwright hoped
to obtain it. See Cartwrights Diary, by Hunter, 4to, 1843, p. 45. In the same
way, we find from a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury (Clarendon Corresp.
voh i. p. 409) that in May, 1686, uneasiness waa felt becauae the Iriah bishoprica
were not fiUed up. Compare Burnet, voh iii. p. 108. Carwithen (Hist, of the Ch. of
England, vol. ii. p. 492) says, that James had intended to raise the Jesuit Petre to
the archbishopric.
'°° Lamplugh was translated from the bishopric of Exeter to the archbishopric
of York in November, 1688. See the contemporary account in the Ellis Correspond
ence, voh ii. p. 808, and Ellis's Original Letters, second series, vol. iv. p. 151. He
was a raost orthodox raan ; aud not only hated the dissenters, but showed hia zeal
by persecuting them. Wilson's Life of De Foe, vol. i. pp. 94, 96. Compare an an
ecdote of him in Baxter's Life of Himself , foUo, 1696, part iu. pp. 178, 179.
"' In a letter, dated London, 29th September, 1688 (Ellis Correspondence, vol.
u. p. 224, and Ellis's Orig. Letters, second series, vol. iv. p. 128), it is stated, that
the Bishop of London's " suspension is taken off." See also Somers Tracts, vol. ix.
p. 216. Thia ia the more obaervable, becauae, according to Johnstone, there waa
an intention, in December, 1687, of depriving him. Mackintosh Revolution, pp.
211, 212.
^^ Thia disposition on the part of the king again to favour the bishops and the
church became a matter of common remark in September, 1688. See Ellis Cor
respond, voh ii. pp. 201, 202, 209, 219, 224, 225, 226, 227 ; Clarendon Correspond,
vol. n. pp. 188, 192. Sir John Eeresby, who was then in London, writes, in Octo
ber, 1688, that James " begins again to court the Church of England." Reresby's
Memoirs, p. 867. Indeed, tbe difficulties of James were now becoming so great,
that he had hardly any choice.
"^ Ellis Correspond, vol. ii. p. 211 ; Life of James IL, edit. Clarke, vol. U. p. 189.
'" In November, 1687, it was said that he wished the dissenters to have " entire
Uberty for the fuU exercise of their religion," and to be freed "from the severity of
the penal laws." Somers Tracts, vol. ix. p. 184. This ia the earUest distinct notice
I have seen of WUliam's desire to deprive the church of the power of punishing non
conformists ; but after he arrived in England his intentions becarae obvious. In
January, 1688-9, the friends of the church complained " that the countenance he
gave the diaaentera gave too much cause of jealousy to the Church of England."
Clarendon Correspond, voh ii. p. 238. Compare Neal's Hist, of the Fwritans, vol.
V. p. 81 ; Bogue and Bennetts Hist, of the Dissenters, voh U. p. 318 ; BircKs Life

393 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
It was also known that he favoured the Presbyterians, whom
the church not unreasonably regarded as her bitterest enemies.'"
And when, in addition to all this, William, on mere grounds of
expediency, actuaUy aboUshed episcopacy in Scotland, it became
evident that, hy thus repudiating the doctrine of divine right, he
had directed a great blow against those opinions on which, in
England, ecclesiastical authority was based.""
While these things were agitating the puhUc mind, the eyes
of men were naturaUy turned upon the bishops, who, though they
had lost much of their former power, were stiU respected by a
large majority of the people as the guardians of the national re
Ugion. But at this critical moment, they were so hUnded, either
by their ambition or by their prejudices, that they adopted a
course which of all others was the most injurious to their repu
tation. They made a sudden attempt to reverse that poUtical
movement of which they were themselves the principal origina
tors. Their conduct on this occasion amply confirms that ac
count of their motives which I have already given. If, in aiding
those preUminary measures hy which the Eevolution was effected,
they had been moved by a desire of relie-ring the nation from
despotism, they. would have eagerly welcomed that great man at
whose approach the despot took to flight. This is what the
clergy would have done, if they had loved their country better
than they loved their order. But they pursued a precisely oppo
site course ; hecause they preferred the petty interests of their
of Tillotson, pp. 166, 157 ; Somers Tracts, vol. x. p. 341, voh xi. p. 108. Burnet,
in hia sumraary of the character of WiUiam, observes, that " his indifference as to
the forms of church-government, and his being zealous for toleration, together with
hia cold behaviour towards the clergy, gave thera generaUy very iU impressions of
him." Ovm Time, vol iv. p. 550. At p. 192 the bishop says, " He took no notice
of the clergy, and seemed to have Uttle concern in the matters of the church or of
reUgion." ''" Sir John Eeresby, who was au attentive observer of what was going on, says,
" The prince upon his arrival, seemed more incUned to the Presbyterians than to
the members of the church ; which startled the clergy." Reresby's Memoirs, p.
375 ; see alao pp. 399, 405 : " the church-people hated the Dutch, and had rather
turn Papists than receive the Presbyterians among them." Compare Evelyn's
Diary, vol. iu. p. 281 : "the Presbyterians, our new governors."
"' Burnet (Own Time, voh iv. p. 50) says of the clergy in 1689 : " The king was
suspected by them, by reaaon of the favour showed to the dissenters ; but chiefly
for his abolishing episcopacy in Scotland, and his consenting to the setting up pres
bytery there." On this great change, compare Bogue and Bennetts History of Dis
senters, vol. U. pp. 379-384 ; Barry's Hist, of the Orkney Islands, p. 257 ; NeaPs
History of the Puritans, vol. v. pp. 85, 86 : and on the indignation felt by the An
glican clergy at the aboUtion of episcopacy in Scotland, see a contemporary pam
phlet in Somers Tracts, vol. ix. pp. 510, 516, where fears are expressed lest WUUam
should effect a similar measure in England. The writer very fairly observes, p. 522,
" For if we give up the jus divinum of episcopacy in Scotland, we must yield it also
as to England. And then we are wholly precarious." See also voh x. pp. 341,
503 ; Lathbury's Hist, of Convocation, pp. 277, 278 ; and Macphersoits Original
Papers, vol, i. p. 509.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 293
oyyn class to the welfare of the great body of the people, and be
cause they would rather that the country should be oppressed
than that the church should he humbled. Nearly the whole of
the bishops and clergy had, only a few weeks before, braved the
anger of their sovereign sooner than read in their churches an
edict for religious toleration, and seven of the most influential of
the episcopal order had, in the same cause, wiUingly submitted
to the risk of a public trial before the ordinary tribunals of the
land. This hold course they professed to have adopted, not he-
cause they disUked toleration, hut because they hated tyranny.
And yet when WUUam arrived in England, and when James
stole away from the kingdom like a thief in the night, this same
ecclesiastical profession pressed forward to reject that great man,
who, yrithout striking a blow, had hy his mere presence saved the
country from the slavery yrith which it was threatened. We
shall not easUy find in modem history another instance of such
gross inconsistency, or rather, let us say, of such selfish and reck
less ambition. For this change of plan, far from being concealed,
was, so openly displayed, and the causes of it were so obvious,
that the scandal was laid bare hefore the whole country. Within
the space of a few weeks the apostasy was consummated. The
first in the field was the Archbishop of Canterbury, who, anxious
to retain his office, had promised to wait upon WiUiam. But
when he saw the direction things were Ukely to take, he yrith-
drew his promise, and would not recognize a prince who showed
such indifference to the sacred order."' Indeed, so great was his
anger, that he sharply rebuked his chaplain for presuming to
pray for WUUam and Mary, although they had heen proclaimed
yrith the full consent of the nation, and although the crown had
been deUvered to them hy the solemn and deUberate act of a
puhUc convention of the estates of the realm.'" WhUe such
was the conduct of the primate of England, his brethren were
"" Burnets Own lime, voh iu. p. 340. Burnet, who had the best means of in
formation, says, " Though he had once agreed to it, yet would not come." Lord
Clarendon, in his Diary, 3d January, 1688-9, writes, that the archbishop expressed
to him on that day his determination neither to call on WUUam nor even to send
to him (Clarendon Correspond, vol. U. p. 240) ; and this resolution appears to have
been taken deUberately : " he was careful not to do it, for the reaaons he formerly
gave me."
'"' See the account given by his chaplain Wharton, in D'Oyly's Life ofSanerofI,
p. 259, where it is stated that the archbishop was very irate ("vehementer excan-
descens "), and told him, " that he must thenceforward desist from offering prayers
for the new king and queen, or else from performing the duties of his chapeh" See
also Birch's Life of TUlotson, p. 144. Thus too the Bishop of Norwich declared
" that he wovUd not pray for King WilUam and Queen Mary." Clarendon Corre
spond, vol. ii. p. 263. The same spirit was universal among the high-church clergy ;
and when pubUo prayers were offered up for the king and queen, they were called
by the nonjurors " the immoral prayers," and this became a technical and recognized
expression, Life of Ken, by a Layman, vol. ii. pp. 648, 650.

294 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
not wanting to him in this great emergency of their common fate.
The oath of allegiance was refused not only hy the Archbishop of
Canterbury, but also by the Bishop of Bath and WeUs, hy the
Bishop of Chesterj by the Bishop of Chichester, hy the Bishop
of Ely, by the Bishop of Gloucester, hy the Bishop of Noryrich,
hy the Bishop of Peterborough, and by the Bishop of Worcester.'"
As to the inferior clergy, our information is less precise ; but it
is said that ahout six hundred of them imitated their superiors
in declining to recognize for their king him whom the country
had elected."" The other members of this turbulent faction
were unwiUing, by so bold a measure, to incur that deprivation
of their livings with which WiUiam would probably have risited
them. They, therefore, preferred a safer and more inglorious op
position, hy which they could embarrass the government yrithout
injuring themselves, and could gain the reputation of orthodoxy
without incurring the pains of martyrdom.
The effect which all this produced on the temper of the
nation, may he easUy imagined. The question was now narrowed
to an issue which every plain man could at once understand.
On the one side, there was an overwhelming majority of the
clergy.'"' On the other side, there was aU the inteUect of Eng
land, and all her dearest interests. The mere fact that such an
opposition could exist without kindUng a civU war, showed how
the growing inteUigence of the people had weakened the author
ity of the ecclesiastical profession. Besides this, the opposition
was not only futile, but it was also injurious to the class that
made it.'"" For it was now seen that the clergy only cared
'" Lathbury's Hist, ofthe Nonjurors, p. 45 ; D'Oyly's Sancroft, p. 260.
'"" Nairne's Papers mention, in 1698, "six hundred ministers who have not
taken the oaths." Macpherson's Orig. Papers, vol. i. p. 459.
'" The only friends William possessed among the clergy, were the low-church
men, as tbey were afterwards called ; and it is supposed that they formed barely a
tenth of the entire body in 1689 : " We should probably overrate their numerical
strength, if we were to estimate them at a tenth part of the priesthood." Mac
aulay's ilist. of England, vol. iu. p. 74.
'™ Tbe earliest aUusion I have seen to the injury the clergy were inflicting on
the church, by their conduct after the arrival of WiUiam, is iu Evelyn's Diary, vol
iii. p. 278, — a curioua passage, gently hinting at the " wonder of many," at the be
haviour of " the Archbishop of Canterbury, and some of the rest." -With Evelyn,
who loved the church, thia waa an unpleaaant aubject ; but others wdre less scrupu
lous ; and in pariiament, in particular, men did not refrain from expresaing wha,t
must have been the sentiments of every impartial observer. In the celebrated de
bate, in January, 1688-9, when the throne waa declared vacant, PoUexfen aaid :
" Some of the clergy are for one thing, some for another ; I think they scarce
know what they would have." Pari. Hist. vol. v. p. 65. In February, Maynard,
one of the most influential members, indignantly said : " I think the clergy are out
of their wits ; and I beUeve, if the clergy should have their wiUs, few or none of us
should be here again." Ibid, voh v. p. 129. The clergy were themselves bitterly
sensible of the general hostiUty ; and one of them writes, in 1694: " The people of
England, who were so excessively enamoured of us when the bishops wete in the
Tower, that they hardly forbore to worship ua, are now, I wiah I could say but cool

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 395
for the people, as long as the people cared for them. The vio
lence with which these angry men'"' set themselves against the
interests of the nation, clearly proved the selfishness of that zeal
against James, of which they had formerly made so great a merit.
They continued to hope for his retum, to intrigue for him, and
in some instances to correspond with him ; although they weU
knew that his presence would cause a civil war, and that he was
so generaUy hated, that he dared not show his face in England
unless protected hy the troops of a foreign and hostile power."*
But this was not the whole of the damage which, in those
anxious times, the church inflicted upon herself When the
bishops refused to take the oaths to the new government, meas
ures were adopted to remove them from their sees ; and William
did not hesitate to eject by force of law the Archbishop of Can
terbury and flve of his brethren."' The prelates, smarting under
the insult, were goaded into measures of unusual activity. They
loudly proclaimed that the powers of the church, which had long
heen waning, were now extinct.'"" They denied the right ofthe
legislature to pass a law against them. They denied the right
of the sovereign to put that law into execution."' They not only
continued to give themselves the title of bishops, but they made'
arrangements to perpetuate the schism which their own violence
had created. The Archbishop of Canterbury, as he insisted upon
being caUed, made a formal renunciation of his imaginary right
into the hands of Lloyd,"' who stUl supposed himself to he
and very indifferent towards us." Somers Tracts, vol. ix. p. 525. The growing in
dignation against the clergy, caused by their obvious desire to sacrifice the country
to the interests of the church, is strikingly displayed in a letter from Sir Eoland
Gwyne, written in 1710, and printed iu Macpherson's Orig. Papers, vol. ii. p. 207.
'"" They are so caUed by Burnet : " these angry men, that had raised this flame
in the church." Own Time, vol. v. p. 17.
'" Indeed, the high-church party, in their pubUcations, distinctly intimated, that
if James were not recaUed, he should be reinstated by a foreign army. Somers
Tracts, vol. x. pp. 377, 405, 467, 462. Compare Mahon's Hist, of England, vol. u.
p. 138. Burnet (Ovm Time, vol. iv. -pp. 361, 362) says, they were "confounded"
when they heard ofthe peace of 1697 ; and Calamy (lAfe of Himself, vol. U. p. 322)
makes the same remark on the death of Louis XIV. -, " It very rauch puzzled the
counsels of the Jacobites, and spoUed their projects."
'=" D'Oyly's Ufe of Sancroft, p. 266 ; Wordsworth's Eccl. Biog. iv. p. 683.
_'" Sancroft, on his deathbed, in 1693, prayed for the " poor suffering church,
which, by this revolution, is almoat destroyed." D'Oyly's Sancroft, p. 311 f and
Macpherson's Original Papers, vol. i. p. 280. See also Remarks, pubUshed in 1693
(Somers Tracts, vol. i. p. 604), where it is said, that WiUiam had, " as far as possi
ble he could, dissolved the true old Church of England ;" and that, "in a moment
of time, her face was ao altered, as scarce to be known again."
"Ken, though deprived, never admitted in the secular power the right of
deprivation ; and it is weU known that he studiously retained his title." Bowles's
Life of Ken, vol. U. p. 226. Thus too, Lloyd, so late as 1703, signs himself, "Wm.
Nor." (lAfe of Ken, by a Layman, vol. ii. p. 720) ; though, having been legaUy de
prived, he was no more bishop of Norwich than he was emperor of China. And
Sancroft, m the last of his letters, published by D'Oyly (Ufe, p. 808), signs " W. C."
'"" The strange document, by which he appointed Dr. Lloyd his vicar-general,

296 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
Bishop of Norwich, although WiUiam had recently expeUed
him from his see. The scheme of these turbulent priests was
then communicated to James, who wUlingly supported their plan
for establishing a permanent feud in the EngUsh church."" The
result of this conspiracy between the rebellious prelates and the
pretended king, was the appointment of a series of men who gave
themselves out as forming the real episcopacy, and who received
the homage of every one who preferred the claims of the church
to the authority ofthe state."" This mock succession of imagi
nary bishops continued for more than a century ;'" and, by di
viding the aUegiance of churchmen, lessened the power of the
church."" In several instances, the unseemly spectacle was ex
hibited, of two bishops for the same place ; one nominated by
the spiritual power, the other nominated by the temporal power.
Those who considered the church as superior to the state, of
course attached themselves to the spurious bishops ; whUe the
is printed in Latin, in D' Oyly's Sancroft, p. 295, and in EngUsh, iu Ufe of Ken, by
a Layman, voh ii. p. 640.
"* Lathbury's Hist, of the Nonjurors, p. 96 ; Ufe of Ken, by a Layman, vol. u.
pp. 641, 642.
"° The struggle between Jaraes and WiUiam was essentially a struggle between
ecclesiastical interests and secular interests ; and this was seen as early aa 1689,
when, aa we learn from Burnet, who waa much more a poUtician than a priest,
" tbe church waa aa the word given out by the Jacobite party, under which they
might more safely shelter theraselves." Own Time, vol. iv. p. 57. See also, on this
identification of the Jacobites with the church. Birch's Ufe of Tillotson, p. 222 ;
and the argument of DodweU, pp. 246, 247, in 1691. DodweU justly observed, that
the successors of the deprived bishops were schismatical, in a spiritual point of
view; and that, "if they should pretend to lay authority as sufficient, they would
overthrow the being of a church as a society." The bishops appointed by WiUiam
were evidently intruders, according to church principles ; and as their intrusion
could only be justified according to lay principlea, it foUowed that the success of
the intrusion was the triumph of lay principles over church ones. Hence it is, that
the fundamental idea of the rebeUion of 1688, is the elevation of the state above
the church ; just as the fundamental idea of the rebelUon of 1642, is the elevation
of the commons above the crown.
'" According to Dr. D'Oyly {Ufe_ of Sancroft, p. 297), Dr. Gordon " died in
London, November, 1779, and is supposed to have been the last nonjuring bishop."
In Shorts History ofthe Church of England, p. 688, Lond. 1847, it is also stated,
that "this schism continued tiU 1779." But Mr. Hallam (Const. Hist, vol, U.p.
404) has pointed out a passage, in the State Trials, which proves that another of
the bishojis, named Cartwright, was still Uving at Shrewsbury in 1793 ; and Mr.-
Lathbury (Hist, ofthe Nonjurors, Lond. 1845, p. 412) says, that he died in 1799.
™ Calamy (Own Ufe, vol. i. pp. 328-330, vol. U. pp. 338, 367, 368) givea an
interesting account of these feuds within the church, consequent upon the revolur
tion. Indeed, their bitterness was such, that it was necessary to coin names for Ihe
two parties ; and between 1700 and 1702, we, for the first time, hear the expres
sions, high-church and low-church. See Burnets Own Time, vol. iv. p. 447, voh v.
p. 70. Compare Wilson's Ufe ofDe Foe, vol. U. p. 26 ; Pari. Hist, vol. vi. pp. 162,
498. On the difference between thera, as it was understood in the reign of Anne,
see Somers Tracts, vol. xU. p. 632, and Macpherson's Orig. Papers, vol. ii. p. 166-
On the dawning schism in the church, see the speech of Sir T. Littleton, in 1690,
Pari. Hist. vol. v. p. 593. Hence many complained that they could not teU which
waa the real church. See curioua evidence of this perplexity in Somers Tracts, 'vol,
ix. pp. 477-481.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 297
appointments of WiUiam were acknowledged hy that rapidly-in
creasing party, who preferred secular advantages to ecclesiastical
theories.'" Such were some of the events which, at the end of thfe sev
enteenth century, widened the breach that had long existed
between the interests of the nation and the interests of the
clergy."* There was also another circumstance which con
siderably increased this aUenation. Many of the English clergy,
though they retained their affection for James, did not choose to
brave the anger of the govemment, or risk the loss of their Uv-
ings. To avoid this, and to reconcile their conscience with their
interest, they avaUed themselves of a supposed distinction be
tween a king hy right and a king in possession."' The conse
quence was, that whUe yrith their Ups they took an oath of aUe
giance to WiUiam, they in their hearts paid homage to James ;
and, whUe they prayed for one king in their churches, they were
hound to pray for another in their closets."" By this wretched
subterfuge, a large body of the clergy were at once turned into
concealed rebels ; and we have it on the authority of a contempo-
"" The alternative ia fairly Btated in a letter written in 1691 ( Ufe of Ken, by a
Layman, voh U. p. 699) : " If the deprived bishop be the only lawful bishop, then
the people and clergy of his diocese are bound to own hira, and no other ; then aU
the bishops who own the authority of a new archbishop, and Uve in communion
with him, are schism».tics ; and the clergy who live in communion with schismatical
bishops are schismatics themselves ; and the whole Church of England now estab
Ushed by law is schismatical."
"* Lord Mahon (Hist, of England, vol. ii. p. 245) notices what he terms the
" unnatural aUenation between the church and state," consequent upon the Eevo
lution of 1688; aud on the diminished power of the church caused by the same
eveiit, see Phillimore' s Mem. of Lyttleton, vol. i. p. 352.
"' The old absurdity of de facto and dejure; as if any man could retain a right
to a throne which the people would not allow him to occupy !
"' In 1715, LesUe, by far the ablest of them, thus states their position : "You
are now driven to this dilemma, — swear, or swear not : if you swear, you kUl the
soul; and if you swear not, you kiU the body, in the loss of your bread." Somers
Tracts, vol. xiU. p. 686. The result of the dilemma was what might have been ex
pected; and a high-church writer, in the reign of WilUam III., hoasts (Somers
Tracts, vol. x. p. 344) that the oaths taken by the clergy were no protection to the
• government : " not that the governmeut receives any security frora oaths." Whis
ton, too, says, in his Memoirs, p. 30: "Yet do I too well reraeraber that the far
greatest part of those of the university and clergy that then took the oalhs to the
government, seemed to me to take them with a doubtful conscience, if not against
its dictates." This was in 1693; and, in 1710, we find: "There are now circum
stances to make us beUeve that the Jacobite clergy have the like instructions to
take any oaths, to get possession of a pulpit for the service of the cause, to beUow
out the hereditary right, the pretended title of the Pretender." Somers Tracts, vol.
xii. p. 641. A knowledge of this fact, or at aU events, a beUef of it, was soon dif
fused ; and, eight years later, the celebrated Lord Cowper, then lord chancellor,
said, in the House of Lords, " that his majesty had also the best part of tbe landed,
and aU the trading interest ; that, as to the clergy, he would say nothing, — but that
it lias notorious that the majority ofthe populace had been poisoned, and that the poison
was not yet quite expelled." Pari. Hist. vol. vii. p. 541 ; also given, but not quite
verbatim, in CampbeU's Chancellors, vol. iv. p. 365.

298 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
rary bishop, that the prevarication of which these men were no
toriously guilty, was a stUl further aid to that scepticism, the
progress of which he bitterly deplores."'
As the eighteenth century advanced, the great movement of
Uheration rapidly proceeded. One of the most important of the
ecclesiastical resources had formerly heen Convocation ; in which
the clergy, by meeting in a body, were able to discountenance in
an imposing manner whatever might he hostUe to the church;
and had, moreover, an opportunity, which they sedulously em
ployed, of devising schemes favourable to the spiritual author
ity.'" But, in the progress of the age, this weapon also was
taken from them. Within a very few years after the Eevolu
tion, Convocation feU into general contempt ;"" and, in 1717,
this celebrated assembly was finaUy prorogued by an act of the
crown, it being justly considered that the country had no further
occasion for its services."" Since that period, this great council
of the English church has never heen aUowed to meet for the
purpose of deUberating on its own affairs, until a few years ago^
when, by the connivance of a feeble government, it was permit
ted to reassemble. So marked, however, has heen the change in
the temper of the nation, that this once formidable body does
not now retain even a semblance of its ancient influence ; its
resolutions are no longer feared, its discussions are no longer
studied ; and the business of the country contitues to be con
ducted without regard to those interests, which, only a few gen-
"' " The prevarication of too many in so sacred a matter contributed not a Uttle
to fortify the growing atheism of the present age." Burnets Own Time, vol. ui. p.
381. See also, to the sarae effect, vol. iv. pp. 176, 177 ; and a reraarkable passage
in Somers Tracts, vol. xU. p. 573. I need hardly add, that it was then usual to con
fuse scepticism with atheisra ; though the two things are not only different, but in
compatible. In regard to the quibble respecting de facto and de jure, and the use
made of it by the clergy, the reader should compare Wilson's Mem. of De Foe, voh
j. pp. 171, 172; Somers Tracts, vol. ix. p. 531; CampbelVs Chancellors, vol. iv. p.
409; and a letter from the Eev. Francis Jessop, written in 1717, in Nicholas Lit.
Rlustrations, voh iv. pp. 120-123.
"" Among which must be particularly mentioned the practice of censuring aU
books that encouraged free inquiry. In this respect, the clergy were extremely
mischievous. See Lathbury's Hist, of Convocation, pp. 124, 286, 388, 851 ; and WU
son's Ufe of De Foe, vol. u. p. 170.
"° In 1704, Burnet (Own Time, vol v. p. 138) aays of Convocation, "but little
opposition was made to them, as very Uttle regard was had to them." In 1700,
there was a squabble between the upper aud lower house of Convocation for Can
terbury ; which, no doubt, aided these feelings. See Ufe of Archbishop Sharp, edited
by Newcome, vol. i. p. 848, where this wretched feud is related with great gravity.
"° Charles Butler (Reminiscences, vol. U. p. 95) says that the final prorogation
was in 1720 ; but, according to aU the other authorities I have met with, it was in
1717 ; See Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. U. p. 895; Lathbury's Hist, of Convocation,
p. 385 ; Mahon's Hist, of England, vol. i. p. 302 ; Monk's Life of Bentley, vol. U. p.
850.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 299
erations ago, were considered hy every statesman to he of su
preme importance."'
Indeed, immediately after the Eevolution, the tendency of
things became too obrious to be mistaken, even by the most su
perficial observers. The ablest men in the country no longer
flocked into the church, but preferred those secular professions
in which abiUty was more likely to he rewarded."" At the
same time, and as a natural part of the great movement, the
clergy saw aU the offices of power and emolument, which they
had been used to hold, graduaUy faUing out of their hands. Not
only in the dark ages, but even so late as the flfteenth century,
they were stUl strong enough to monopoUze the most honourable
and lucrative posts in the empire.'" In the sixteenth century,
the tide began to tum against them, and advanced with such
steadiness, that, since the seventeenth century, there has been
no instance of any ecclesiastic being made lord chancellor;"*
"' A letter, written by the Eev. Thos. Clayton in 1727, is worth reading, as illus
trating the feeUngs of the clergy on this subject. He asserts that one of the cauaea
of the obvioua degeneracy of the age is, that, owing to Convocation not being aUowed
to meet, " bold and impious books appear barefaced to the world without any pubUc
censure." See this letter, in Nichols's Rlustrations of the Eighteenth Century, vol. iv.
pp. 414-416 ; and compare with it. Letters between Warburton and Hurd, pp. 310-812.
™ On the, decUne of ability in ecclesiastical Uterature, see note 38 in this chap
ter. In 1686, a complaint was made that secular professions were becoming more
sought after than ecclesiastical ones. See England's Wants, sec. Ivi. in Somers
Tracts, vol. ix. p. 231, where the writer mournfuUy statea, that in his time " physic
and law, professions ever acknowledged in aU nations to be inferior to divinity, are
generaUy embraced by gentlemen, and sometimes by persons nobly descended, and
preferred much above the divines' profession." This preference waa, of course, most
displayed by young raen of inteUect ; and a large amount of energy being thus
drawn off from the church, gave rise to that decay of spirit and of general power
which has been already noticed ; and which is also indicated by Coleridge in his re
marks on the " apologizing theology" which succeeded the Eevolution. Coleridge's
Ut. Remains, vol. in. pp. 61, 52, 116, 117, 119. Compare Stephen's Essays on
Ecclesiast. Biog. 2d edit. 1860, vol ii. p. 66, on "thia depression of theology ;" and
Hare's Mission of the Comforter, 1860, p. 264, on the " inteUectuaUy feebler age."
Evelyn, in 1691, lamenta tbe dirainished energy then beginning to be observed among
" young preachers." Evelyn's Diary, vol. iii. p. 309 ; and, for another notice, in 1696,
of this "dead and lifeless way of preaching," see Ufe of Cudworth, p. 35, in vol. i.
of CudwortKs Intellect. Syst.
"" Sharon Turner, describing the state of things in England in the fifteenth cen
tury, says, " Clergymen were secretaries of government, the privy seals, cabinet
counsellors, treaaurera of the crown, ambassadors, commissionera to open parUa
ment, and to Scotland ; presidents of the king's councU, supervisors of the royal
works, chanceUors, keepers of the records, the masters of the rolls, and even the
phyaiciana, both to the king and to the duke of Gloucester, during the reign of Hen
ry VI. and afterwards." Turner's Hist, of England, vol. vi. p. 132. On their enor
mous wealth, aee Eecleston's English Antiquities, p. 146 : " In the early part of the
fourteenth century, it is calculated that very nearly one-half of the soil of the king
dom was in the hands of the clergy."
'** In 1625, WiUiams bishop of Lincoln was diamiased frora hia office of lord-
keeper ; and Lord CampbeU obaervea (Lives of the Chancellors, vol. ii. p. 492) :
" This is the last time that au ecclesiastic has held the great seal of England ; and,
notwithstanding the admiration in aome quarters of mediaeval usages, I presume tbe
experiment is not Ukely to be aoon repeated."

300 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
and, since the beginning of the eighteenth century, there has heen
no instance of one receiring any diplomatic appointment, or;
indeed, holding any important office in the state.'" Nor has
this increasing ascendency of laymen heen confined to the exec-i-
utive govemment. On the contrary, we find in both Houses
of Parliament the same principle at work. In the early and
barbarous periods of our history, one-half of the House of Lords
consisted of temporal peers ; the other half of spiritual ones.""
By the beginning of the eighteenth century, the spiritual peers,
instead of forming one-half of the upper house, had dwindled
away to one-eighth ;'" and, in the middle of the luneteenth cen
tury, they have stUl further shrank to one-fourteenth :"' thus
supplying a striking numerical instance of that diminution of
ecclesiastical power, which is an essential requisite of modem
civilization. Precisely in the same way, more than fifty years
have elapsed since any clergyman has heen ahle to take his
seat as a representative of the people ; the House of Commons
haring, in 1801, formally closed their doors against a profession,
which, in the olden time, would have heen gladly admitted, even
hy the proudest and most exclusive assembly."" In the House
of Lords, the bishops stUl retain their seats; hut their precarious
tenure is every where remarked, and the progress of public opin
ion is constantly pointing to a period, which cannot now he far
distant, when the Peers yriU imitate the example set by the
Commons, and wUl induce the legislature to relieve the upper
house of its spiritual members; since they, hy their habits, their
'" Monk (Ufe of Bentley, vol. i. p. 222) saya, that Dr. John Robinaon, bishop of
Bristol, was "lord privy seal, and plenipotentiary at the treaty of Utrecht ; and is
the last eccleaiaatic in England who has held any of the high officea of State." A
high-church writer, in 1712, complaina of the efforts that were being made to " thrust
the churchmen out of their places of power in the government." Somers Tracts,
vol. xiii. p. 211.
™ In and after the reign of Henry III., " the number of archbishops, bishops,
abbots, priors, and ecclesiastical persons was for the most part equal to, aud very
often far exceeded the number of the temporal lords and barons." Parry's Parlia
ments and Councils of England, London, 1839, p. xvii. Of this Mr. Parry gives
several instances ; the most remarkable of which is, that "in 49 Henry III. 120 prel
ates, and only 23 temporal lords, were sumraoned." This, of course, was an ex
treme case.
'" See an analysis of the House of Lords, in 1718, in Mahon's Hist, of England,
vol. i. pp. 43-45 ; from which it appears that the total was 207, of whom 26 were
spiritual. This includes the CathoUcs.
"" By the returns in Dod for 1854, 1 find that the House of Lords contains 436
members, of whom 30 belong to the Episcopal bench.
'"' For different accounts, and of courae different views, of thia final expulsion
of tbe clergy from the Houae of Commona, eee Pellew's Ufe of Sidmouth, vol. i. pp.
419, 420 ; Stephens's Mem. of Tooke, vol. U. pp. 247-260 ; Holland's Mem. of the
Whig Party, vol. i. pp. 178-180; CampbelVs Chancellors, vol. vu. p. 148; TiiMs
Ufe of Eldon, vol. i. p. 263 ; Adolphus' s Hist, of George III. vol vii. p. 487.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION, 301
tastes, and their traditions, are evidently unfitted for the pro
fane exigencies of poUtical Ufe,'""
While the fabric of superstition was thus tottering from in
ternal decay, and whUe that ecclesiastical authority which had
formerly played so great a part was gradually yielding to the
advance of knowledge, there suddenly occurred an event which,
though it might naturaUy have been expected, evidently took
hy surprise even those whom it most interested, I allude, of
course, to that great religious revolution, which was a fitting
supplement to the poUtical revolution which preceded it. The
dissenters, who were strengthened hy the expulsion of James,
had by no means forgotten those cruel punishments which the
Church of England, in the days of her power, had constantly in
fficted upon them; and they felt that the moment had now
come when they could assume towards her a holder front than
that on which they had hitherto ventured.'"' Besides this, they
had in the mean time received fresh causes of provocation.
After the death of our great king WiUiam III., the throne was
occupied hy a fooUsh and ignorant woman, whose love for the
clergy would, in a more superstitious age, have led to dangerous
results.'"" Even as it was, a temporary reaction took place, and
during her reign the church was treated with a deference which
'"° That the banishment of the clergy from the lower house was tbe natural pre
lude to the banishment of the bishops from the upper, was hinted at the time and
with regret, by a very keen observer. In the discussion " on the BiU to prevent
Persons iu Holy Orders frora sitting in the House of Commons," Lord Thurlow
" mentioned the tenure of the bishops at this time, and said, if the bill went to dis
franchise the lower orders of the clergy, it might go the length of striking at the
right of the reverend bench opposite to seats in that house ; though he knew it had been
held that the reverend prelates sat, in the right of their baronies, as temporal peers."
Pari. Hist. vol. xxxv. p. 1642.
"" It is impossible now to ascertain the fuU extent to which the Church of Eng
land in the aeventeenth century, peraecuted the diaaentera ; but Jeremy White is
aaid to have had a liat of aixty thouaand of theae sufferers between 1660 and 1688,
of whom no less than five thousand died in prison. Bogue and Bennetts Hist, of
the Dissenters, vol. i. p. 108. Ou the cruel apirit which the clergy diaplayed in the
reign of Charles 11. compare Harris's Uves of the Stuarts, voh v. p. 106 ; Orme's
ufe of Owen, p. 344; Somers Tracts, vol. xii. p. 534. Indeed Harwood frankly aaid
in the House of Commons, in 1672, " Our aim is to bring all dissenting men into
the Protestant church, and he that is not wilUng to come into the church should not
have ease." Pari. Hist. vol. iv. p. 530. On the zeal with which this principle waa
carried out, aee an account, written in 1671, in Somers Tracts, vol. vii. pp. 586-615 ;
and the statement of De Foe, in Wilson's Life of De Foe, vol. U. pp. 443, 444.
"' Besides the correspondence which the Duchess of Marlborough preserved for
the instruction of posterity, we have some raaterials for estiraating the abiUties of
Anne in the letters pubUshed in Dalrymple's Memoirs, In one of them Anne writes,
soon after the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience was issued, " It is a melancholy
prospect that aU we of the Church of England have. AU the sectaries may now do
what they please. Every one has the free exercise of their reUgion, on purpose, no
doubt, to ruin us, which I think to aU impartial judges ia very plain." Dalrymple's
Memoirs, appendix to book v. vol. u. p. 173.

302 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
WUUam had disdained to show.'"' The natural consequence
immediately followed. New measures of persecution were devised,
and fresh laws were passed against those Protestants who did not
conform to the doctrines and discipUne of the English church."*
But after the death of Anne the dissenters quickly rallied; their
hopes rerived,'"' their numbers continued to increase, and -in
spite of the opposition of the clergy, the laws against them were
repealed'"" As by these means they were placed more on a
level with their opponents, and as their temper was soured by
the injuries they had recently received, it was clear that a great
struggle between the two parties was ine'ritahle.'"' For by this
time the protracted tyranny of the EngUsh clergy had totally
destroyed those feeUngs of respect which, even in the midst of
hostiUty, often linger in the mind; and hy the influence of which,
if they had still existed, the contest might perhaps have been
averted. But such motives of restraint were now despised; and
the dissenters, exasperated by incessant persecution,'" deter-
"" See a notable passage in Somers Tracts, vol. xii. p. 658, which should be com
pared with Wilson's Ufe of De Foe, vol. ui. p. 872.
"'' Bogue and Bennetts History ofthe Dissenters, vol. i. pp. 228-230, 237, 260-277 ;
and Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. u. pp. 396, 397. Mr. Hallam saya, "Itia impossible
to doubt for an inatant, that if the queen's life had preserved the Tory governmeut
for a few years, every vestige of the toleration would have been effaced." It ap
pears from the Vernon Correspond, vol. iU. p. 228, Lond. 1841, that soon' after the
accession of Anne there was a proposal to " debar dissenters of their votes in elec
tions ;" and we know from Burnet (Own, Time, voh v. pp. 108, 136, 137, 218) that
the clergy would have been glad if Anne had displayed even more zeal against them
than she reaUy did.
™ Bogue and Bennetts Hist, of the Dissenters, voh ui. p. 118. In Ivimey's His
tory of the Baptists, it is said that the death of Anne waa an " anawer to the dissent
ers' prayers." Southey's Commonplace Book, third series, p. 136 ; see also p. 147,
on the joy of the diaaentera at the death of this troublesome woman.
"° Two of the worst of them, " the act against occasional conformity, and that
reatraining education, were repealed in the seaaion of 1719." HallarKs Const. Hist.
vol. ii. p. 398. The repeal of the act againat occaaional conformity waa atren-
uoualy oppoaed by the archbishops of York and of Canterbury (Bogus and Ben
netts Hist, of the Dissenters, vol. iu. p. 132); but their opposition was futUe; and
when the Bishop of London, in 1726, wished to strain the Act of Toleration, he
was prevented by Yorke, the attorney-general. See the pithy reply of Yorke, in
Harris's Life of Hardwicke, vol. i. pp. 193, 194.
"" At the end of the aeventeenth century, great attention was excited by the
way in which the dissenters were beginning to organize themselves into societies and
synods. See, in the Vernon Correspond, vol. ii. pp. 128-130, 133, 166, some curioua
evidence of this, in letters written by Vernon, who waa then secretary of state ; and
on the apprehenaiona cauaed by the increase of their schools, and by their system
atic interference in elections, see Ufe of Archbishop Sharp, edited by Newcome, vol.
i. pp. 125, 858. The church waa eager to put down all disBenters' schools; and in
1705, the Archbishop of York told the House of Lords that he "apprehended dan
ger from the increase of dissenters, aud particularly from the many academies set
up by thera." Pari. Hist, voh vi. pp. 492, 493. See also, on the increase of their
schools, pp. 1361, 1852.
'"" In Somers Tracts, vol. xii. p. 684, it is stated, that in the reign of Charles H.
"this hard usage had begotten in the dissenters the utmost animosity againat the
persecuting churchmen." Their increaaing discontent, in the reign of Anne, was
observed by Calamy. See Calamy's Own Life, voh ii. pp. 244, 255, 274, 284, 286.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 303
mined to avaU themselves of the decUning power of tho church.
They had resisted her when she was strong; it was hardly to be
expected that they would spare her when she was feeble. Un
der two of the most remarkable men of the eighteenth century,
Whitefield, the first of theological orators,'"" and Wesley, the
first of theological statesmen,""" there was organized a great
system of religion, which bore the same relation to the Church
of England that the Church of England bore to the Church of
Eome. Thus, after an interval of two hundred years, a second
spiritual Eeformation was effected in our country. In the
eighteenth century the Wesleyans were to the Bishops what, in
the sixteenth century, the Eeformers were to the Popes.""' It
is indeed true, that the dissenters from the Church of England,
unlike the dissenters from the Church of Eome, soon lost that in
tellectual vigour for which at first they were remarkable. Since
the death of their great leaders, they have not produced one
man of original genius; and since the time of Adam Clarke, they
they have not had among them even a single scholar who has
enjoyed an European reputation. This mental penury is perhaps
oyring, not to any circumstances pecuUar to their sect, hut
merely to that general decline of the theological spirit, by which
their adversaries have been weakened as weU as themselves."""
Be this as it may, it is at all events certain, that the injury they
'" If the power of moving the paasiona be the proper teat by which to judge an
orator, we raay certainly pronounce Whitefield to be the greatest since the apostles.
Hia first sermon was deUvered in 1736 (Nichols's Ut. Anec. vol. U. pp. 102, 122) ;
his field-preaching began in 1739 (Southey's Ufe of Wesley, vol. i. pp. 196, 197); and
the eighteen thousand sermons which he is said to have poured forth during his
career of thirty-four years (Southey's Wesley, vol. U. p. 581) produced the most as
tonishing effects on all classes, educated and uneducated. For evidence of the
excitement caused by this marvellous man, and of the eagerness with which his dis
courses were read aa weU as heard, see Nichols's Ut. Anec. vol. ii. pp. 646, 547, and
his Rlustrations, vol. iv. pp. 302-304 ; Mem. of Franklin, by Himself, vol. i. pp.
161-167 ; Doddridge's Correspond, vol. iv. p. 55 ; Stewarts Philos. of the Mind, vol.
iih pp. 291, 292; Lady Mary Montagu's Letters, in her Works, 1803, vol. iv. p. 162 ;
Correspond, between Ladies Pomfret and Hartford, 2d edit. 1806, vol. i. pp. 138, 160-
162 ; Marchmont Papers, vol. u. p. 377.
"^ Of whom Mr. Macaulay has adid (Essays, vol. i. p. 221, 3d edit.), that his
" genius for government was not inferior to that of RicheUeu ;" and strongly as this
is expressed, it wiU hardly appear an exaggeration to thoae who have compared the
auccesa of -VVesIey with his difficulties.
'"' It was in 1739 that Wesley flrst openly rebeUed against the church, and re
fused to obey the Bishop of Bristol, who ordered him to quit hia diocese. Southey's
Ufe of Wesley, vol. i. pp. 226, 243. In the same year he began to preach in the
flelda. See the remarkable entry in hia Journals, p. 78, 29th March, 1739.
"" They frankly confeas that " indifference haa been another enemy to the in-
creaae of the diasenting cauae." Bogue and Bennetts Hist, of the Dissenters, vol.
iv. p. 320. In Newmaris Development of Christian Doctrine, pp. 39-43, there are
some remarks on the diminished energy of Wesleyanism, which Mr. Newman seems
to ascribe to the fact that the Wealeyana have reached that point in which " order
takes the place of enthusiasm," p. 43. This is probably true ; but I stUl think that
the larger cause has been the more active one.

304 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
have infficted on the EngUsh church is far greater than is gener
ally supposed, and, I am inclined to think, is hardly inferior to
that which in the sixteenth century Protestantism infiicted upon
Popery. Setting aside the actual loss in the number of its mem
bers,""' there can be no douht that the mere formation of a Prot
estant faction, unopposed by the government, was a dangerous
precedent; and we know from contemporary history that it was
so considered by those who were most interested in the result.""*
Besides this, the Wesleyans deplayed an organization so supe
rior to that of their predecessors the Puritans, that they soon
became a centre round which the enemies of the church could
conveniently raUy. And, what is perhaps still more important,
the order, regularity, and pubUcity, hy which their proceedings
have usuaUy been marked, distinguished them from other sects;
and by raising them as it were to the dignity of a rival estabhsh
ment, have encouraged the diminution of that exclusive and su-
'"' Walpole in his sneering way, mentions the spread of Methodism in the middle
of the eighteenth century ( Walpole's Letters, vol. u. pp. 266, 272) ; and Lord CarUale,
in 1775, told the House of Lords (Pari. Hist. vol. xviU. p. 634) "that Methodism
was daily gaining ground, particularly in the manufacturing towns ; " whUe, to come
down still later, it appears from a letter by the Duke of WeUington to Lord Eldon
(Twiss's Ufe of Eldon, vol. ii. p. 35) that about 1808 it was making proselytes in
the army.
These statements, though accurate, are somewhat vague ; but we have other and
more precise evidence respecting the rapid growth of reUgious dissent. According
to a paper found in one of the chests of WiUiam III., and printed by Dalrymple
(Memoirs, vol. U. part ii., appendix to chapter i. p. 40), the proportion in England of
conformists to nonconformists was as 22 22.8 to 1. Eighty-four years after the death
of WUUam, the dissenters, instead of comprising onTy a twenty-third, were estimat
ed at " a fourth part of tbe whole community." Letter from Watson to the Duke
of Rutland, written in 1786, in Life of Watson, Bishop of Llandaff, vol. i. p. 246.
Since then, the movement has been uninterrupted ; and the returns recently pubi
Ushed by government disclose the startUng fact, that on Sunday, 31st March, 1861,.
the merabers of the Church of England who attended morning service, only exceeded
by one-half the Independenta, Baptists, and Methodista who attended at their own
placea of worahip. See the Cenaus Table, in Journal of Statist. Soc. vol. xviu. p. 151.
If this rate of decUne continues, it wiU be impossible for the Church of England to
survive another century the attacks of her enemies.
20i rjijjg treatment which the Wesleyans received from the clergy, msiny of whom
were magistrates, shows what would have taken place if such violence had not been
discouraged by the government. See Southey's Ufe of Wesley, voh i. pp. 395-406.
Wesley has himself given many detaUs, which Southey did not think proper to re
late, of the calumnies and insults to which he and his followers were subjected by
the clergy. See Wesley's Journals, pp. 114, 145, 178, 181, 198, 236, 256, 275, 375,
562, 619, 687, 646. Compare Watson's Observations on Southey's Wesley, pp. 173,
174 ; and for other evidence of the treatment of those who differed from the church,
see Correspondence and Diary of Doddridge, vol. ii. p. 17, voh iii. pp. 108, 131, 132,
144, 145, 156. Orosley, who vjsited England in 1765, says of Whitefleld, "Themin-
iaters of the estabUshed reUgion did their utmost to baffle the new preacher; they.
preached against hira, representing him to the people as a fanatic, a visionary, &q.,
&c. ; in fine, they opposed him with so much success, that they caused him to be
pelted with stones in every place where he opened his mouth to the pubUc." Gros-
ley's Tour to London, Lond. 1772, vol. i. p. 366.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 305
perstitious respect which was once paid to the AngUcan hie
rarchy.""' But these things, interesting as they are, only formed a sin
gle step of that vast process hy which the ecclesiastical power
was weakened, and our countrymen thus enabled to secure a re
Ugious Uberty, imperfect indeed, but far superior to that possess
ed by any other people. Among the innumerable symptoms of
this great movement, there were two of pecuUar importance.
These were, the separation of theology, first from morals, and
then from poUtics. The separation from morals was effected
late in the seventeenth century; the separation from poUtics be
fore the middle of the eighteenth century. And it is a striking in
stance of the decUne of the old ecclesiastical spirit, that both these
great changes were begun by the clergy themselves. Cumber
land, bishop of Peterborough, was the first who endeavoured to
construct a system of morals without the aid of theology."""
Warburton, bishop of Gloucester, was the first who laid down
that the state must consider reUgion in reference, not to revela
tion, but to expediency; and that it should favour any particu
lar creed, not in proportion to its truth, hut solely with a view
to its general utffity.""' Nor were these mere barren principles,
™ That Wesleyanism encouraged dissent by imparting to it an orderly character,
which in some degree approximated to church-discipUne, is judiciously observed in
Bogue and Bennetts History of the Dissenters, vol. iu. pp. 165, 166. But these
writers deal rather too harshly with Wesley ; though there is no doubt that he was
a very ambitious man, and over-fond of power. At an early period of his career he
began to aim at objects higher than those attempted by the Puritans, whose efforts,
particularly in the sixteenth century, he looked at soraewhat contemptuously. Thus,
for instance, in 1747, only eight years after he had revolted against the church, he
expresses in his Journal his wonder " at the weakness of those holy confessors " (the
EUzabethan Puritans), " many of whom spent so much of their time and strength
in disputing about surpUce and hoods, or kneeling at the Lord'a Supper ! " Journals,
p. 249, March 13th, 1747. Such warfare aa thia would have HI satisfied the soaring
mind of Wesley; and from the spirit which pervades his voluminous Journals, as
well as from the careful and far-seeing provisions which he made for managing his
sect, it is evident that this great schismatic had larger views than any of his prede
cessors, and that he wished to organize a system capable of rivalUng the estabUshed
church. """ Mr. Hallam (Ut. of Europe, vol. Ui. p. 390) says, that Cumberland " seems to
have been the first Christian writer who sought to estabUsh systematically the prin
ciples of moral right independently of revelation." See also, on this important
change, WhewelVs Hist, of Moral Philosophy in England, pp. 12, 54. The dangers
always incurred by making theology the basis of morals are now pretty well under
stood ; but by no writer have they been pointed out more clearly than by M. Charles
Comte: see the able exposition in his Traiti de Legislation, vol. i. pp. 223-247.
There is a short and unsatisfactory account of Curaberland's book in Mackintosh's
Ethical Philosophy, pp. 134-137. He was a man of considerable learning, and is
noticed by M. Quatremdre as one of the earUest students of Coptic. Quatremere
sur la Langue et la Litterature de VEgypte, p. 89. He was made a biahop in 1691,
having pubUahed the DeiejreJMS in 1672. Chalmers's Biog. Dict.vol.xi. pp. 133, 185.
""' This was in hia work entitled The Alliance between Church and State, which
first appeared, according to Hurd (Ufe of Warburton, 1794, 4to, p. 18) in 1736, and,
as may be supposed, caused great scandal. The history of its infiuence I ahall trace
VOL. I. — 20

306 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
which subsequent inquirers were unable to apply. The opinions
of Cumberland, pushed to their furthest extent hy Hume,""' were
shortly afterwards applied to practical conduct hy Paley,""" and
to speculative jurisprudence hy Bentham and Mill;"'" whUe the
opinions of Warburton, spreading yrith stUl greater rapidity,,
have influenced our legislative poUcy, and are now professed, not
only by advanced thinkers, hut even hy those ordinary men, who,
if they had lived fifty; years earUer, would have shrunk from
them with undissemhled fear.""
Thus it was that, in England, theology was finaUy severed
from the two great departments of ethics and of govemment.
As, however, this important change was at first not of a practi
cal, hut solely of an intellectual character, its operation was, for
many years, confined to a small class, and has not yet produced
on another occasion; in the mean time, the reader ahould compare, respecting, its
tendency. Palmer on the Church,yo\.ii.pp. 313, 322, 328; Parr's Works, voh i. pp.
657, 666, voh vU. p. 128 ; Whately's Dangers to Christian Faith, p. 190 ; and Nich
ols's Ut. Anec. vol. in. p. 18. In January, 1739-40, Warburton writes to Stukeley
(Nichols's Illustrations, vol. ii. p. 53) : "But you know how dangerous new roads in
theology are, by the clamour of the bigots against me." See also aome lettera which
paased between him and the elder Pitt, in 1762, on the subject of expediency, print
ed in Chatham Correspond, vol. ii. pp. 184 seq. Warburton writes, p. 190, " My
opinion is, and ever was, that the state has nothing at all to do with errors in reUg
ion, nor the least right ao much as to attempt to repreaa them." To make auch a
man a biahop was a great feat for the eighteenth century, and would haye been an
impossible one for the seventeenth.
™' The relation between Cumberland and Hume consists in the entirely secular
plan according to which both investigated ethics ; in other respecta, there ia great
difference between their conelusiona : but if the anti-theological raethod is admitted
to be aound, it ia certain that the treatraent of the subject by Hume ia more conse
quential from the premiaes, than is that by hia predeeeaaor. It ia this which makes
Hurae a continuator of Cumberland ; though with the advantage, not only of com
ing half a century after him, but of posseaaing a more comprehenaive mind. The
ethical speculations of Hume are in the third book of his Treatise of Human Nature
(Hume's Philosophical Works, Edinb. 1826, voh u. pp. 219 aeq.), and in hia Inquiry
concerning the Principles of Morals, ibid, voh iv. pp. 237-865.
™" The moral system of Paley, being essentiaUy utiUtarian, completed the revo
lution iu that field of inquiry ; and as his work was drawn up with great abUity, it
exerciaed imraense influence in an age already prepared for its reception. His Moral
and Political Philosophy was pubUshed in 1785 ; in 17 86 it became a standard book at
Cambridge; and by 1805 it had "passed through fifteen editions." Meadley's Me
moirs of Paley, pp. 127, 145. Compare W/iewelVs Hist, of Moral Philosophy, p. 176..
'"" That the writings of these two eminent men form part of the same scheme, is
well known to those who have studied the hiatory of the school to which they be
long ; and on the inteUectual relation they bore to each other, I cannot do better
than refer to a very striking letter by Jamea Mill himaelf, in Bentham's Works, edit.
Bowring, vol. x. pp. 481, 482. \
"" The repeal of the Teat Act, the admission of CathoUcs into parliament, and
the steadily increasing feeUng in favour of the admission of the Jews, are the leading
symptoms of this great moveraent. On the gradual diffusion araong us of the doc
trine of expediency, which, on all subjecta not yet raiaed to aciencea, ought to be
the sole regulator of human actions, see a remarkable, but a mournful letter, written
in 1812, in the Ufe of Wilberforce, voh iv. p. 28. See alao the apeech of Lord
Eldon, in 1828, in Twiss's Ufe of Eldon, vol. U. p. 203.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 307
the whole of those results which we have every reason to antici
pate. But there were other circumstances which tended in the
same direction, and which, being known to aU men of tolerable
education, produced effects more immediate, though perhaps less
permanent. To trace their details, and point out the connection
between them, will be the business of part of the future volumes
of this work: at present, I can only glance at the leading fea
tures. Of these, the most prominent were : The great Arian
controversy, which, rashly instigated hy Whiston, Clarke, and
Waterland, disseminated doubts among nearly all classes;"'" the
Bangorian controversy, which, involving matters of ecclesiastical
discipline hitherto untouched, led to discussions dangerous to the
power of the church;"" the great work of Blackhurne on the
Confessional, which at one moment almost caused a schism in
the estahUshment itself;"'* the celebrated dispute respecting
nuracles between Middleton, Church, and DodweU, continued,
"'^ From a curious passage in Hutton's Life of Himself, p. 27, we learn that, in
1739, the scepticism of the anti-Trinitarians had penetrated among the tradesmen
at Nottingham. Compare, reapecting the apread of thia hereay, Nichols's Ut. Anec.
voh viU. p. 375 ; Priestley's Memoirs, vol. i. pp. 25, 26, 63 ; Doddridge's Correspond.
and Diary, vol. U. p. 477 note ; and on Peirce, who took an active part, and whom
Whiston boasts of having corrupted, see Whiston's Memoirs, pp. 143, 144. Sharp,
who was Archbishop of York when the controversy began, foresaw its dangerous
consequences. Ufe of Sharp, edited by Newcome, voh ii. pp. 7-8, 135, 136. See
further Maclaine's note iu Mosheim's Ecclesiast. Hist. vol. ii. pp. 293, 294 ; Lath
bury's Hist, of Convocation, pp. 338, 342, 351 ; and a note in Butler's Reminisc, vol.
i. pp. 206, 207.
"" Mr. Butler (Mem. ofthe Catholics, vol. iU. pp. 182-184, 347-350) notices with
evident pleasure the effect of this famous controversy in weakening the Anglican
church. Compare .Bo^t« and Bennett's History ofthe Dissenters, vol. Ui. pp. 136-141.
Whiston (Memoirs, p. 244) aays : " And, indeed, thia Bangorian controveray aeemed
for a great whUe to engross the attention of the pubUo." See more about it in
Lathbury's Hist, of Convocation, pp. 372-383 ; Nichols's Ut. Anec. voh i. p. 162, vol.
ix. pp. 433, 434, 516 ; Nichols's Illustrations, voh i. p. 840 ; Bishop Newton's Life of
Himself, pp. 177, 178. r , /-
"* The Confessional, a most able attack on the subscription of creeds and articles,
was pubUshed m 1766 ; and, according to a contemporary observer, " it excited a
general spirit of inquiry." Cappe's Memoirs, pp. 14:1, US, The consequence was,
that in 1772 a society was instituted by Blackburne and other clergy of the Church
of England, with the avowed object of doing away with aU subscriptions in reUgion.
Nichols's Lit. Anec. vol. i. p. 570; IUustrations, vol. vi. p. 864. A petition against
the Articles was at once drawn up, signed by 200 clergy (Adolphus's George III,
vol. i. p. 606), and brought before the House of Commons. In the animated debate
which foUowed, Sir WUUam Meredith said that "the Thirty-nine Articles of the
Church of England were framed when the spirit of free inquiry, when Uberal and
enlarged notions, were yet in their infancy." Pari. Hist, vol. xvU. p. 246. He
added, p. 247 : " Several of the Articles were absolutely uninteUigible, and, indeed,
contradictory and absurd." Lord George Germain said : " In my apprehension, some
of the articles are incomprehensible, and some self-contradictory," p. 265. Mr. Saw-
bridge declared that the Articles are " strikingly absurd ;" Mr. Salter that they are
" too absurd to be defended ;" aud Mr. Dunning that they are " palpably ridiculous."
p. 294. For further information on this attempt at reform, see Disney's Ufe of
Jebb, pp. 31-36; Meadley's Mem. of Paley, pp. 88-94; Hodgson's Ufe of Porteus, pp.
88-40 ; Memoirs of Priestley, vol. n. p. 582 ; and a characteristic notice in Palmer's
Treatise on the Church, vol. i. pp. 270, 271.

308 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
with stUl larger views, hy Hume, Campbell, and Douglas;"" the
exposure of the gross absurdities of the Fathers, which, already
begun by DaiUe and Barbeyrac, was foUowed up hy Cave, Mid
dleton, and Jortin; the important and unrefuted statements of
Gibbon, in his fifteenth and sixteenth chapters; the additional
strength conferred on those chapters by the lame attacks of
Davis, Chelsum, Whitaker, and Watson;"" whUe, not to men
tion inferior matters, the century was closed amid the confusion
caused hy that decisive controversy between Porson and Travis,
respecting the text of the Heavenly Witnesses, which excited
immense attention,"" and was immediately accompanied by the
discoveries of geologists, in which, not only was the fidelity of
the Mosaic cosmogony impugned, hut its accuracy was shown to
be impossible."" These things, foUowing each other in rapid
and startling succession, perplexed the faith of men, disturbed
"'' Hume says, that on hia return from Italy in 1749, he found " all England in
a ferraent on account of Dr. Middleton's Free Inquiry." Hume's Ufe of Himself,
in his Works, vol. i. p. vii. See alao, ou the excitement cauaed by thia masterly
attack, Nichols's Illustrations of the Eighteenth Century, vol. ii. p. 176; which ahould
be compared with Doddridge's Correspond, vol. iv. pp. 536, 637 : aud on the " mirac-
iilous controversy" in general, see Porteiis's Life of Seeker, 1797, p. 88; Phillimare's
Mem. of Lyttleton, voh i. p. 161 ; Nichols's Ut. Anec. vol. ii. pp. 440, 527, vol. iu.
pp. 635, 760, vol. V. pp. 417, 418, 600; Hull's Letters, 1778, vol. i. p. 109; Weerlmr-
ton's Letters to Hurd, pp. 49, 50.
"° Gibbon's Decline and Fall haa now been jealoualy scrutinized by two gen-
erationa of eager and unacrupuloua opponeuta ; and I am only expreasing the gen
eral opinion of competent judges when I say that by each successive scrutmy it
has gained fresh reputation. Against hia celebrated fifteenth and aixteenth chapters,
all the devices of controversy have been exhausted ; but the only reault haa been,
that whUe the fame of the historian is untarnished, the attacks of his enemies are
faUing into complete oblivion. The work of Gibbon remains ; but who is there who
feels any interest in what was written against him ?
"" On the effect produced by these matchless letters of Porson, aee Harford's
Ufe of Bishop Burgess, p. 374 ; and aa to the previoua agitation of the question m
England, aee Calamy's Own Ufe, vol. U. pp. 442, 448 ; Monk's Ufe of Bentley, vol.
ii. pp. 16-19, 146, 286-289 ; 'Butler's Reminiscences, vol. i. p. 211. Compare Somers
Tracts, voh xu. p. 137, vol. xiu. p. 458.
"" The aceptical character of geology was first clearly exhibited during the last
thirty years of the eighteenth century. Previously, the geologists had for the
moat part allied themselvea with the theologiana ; but the increaaing boldness of
pubUc opinion now enabled them to institute independent investigations, without
regard to doctrines hitherto received. In this point of view, miich was effected hy
the researches of Hutton, whose work, says Sir Charles Lyell, contains the first at
terapt "to explain tbe former changes of the earth's crust by reference exclusively
to natural agents." LyelVs Principles of Geology, p. 50. To establish this inethod
was, of courae, to diasolve the alliance with the theologians ; but an earlier symptom
of the change was seen in 1773; that is, fifteen years before Hutton wrote; see a
letter in Watson's Ufe of Himself , vol. i. p. 402, where it is stated that the "free
thinkers" attacked the " Mosaic account of the world's age, especially since the
pubUdation of Mr. Brydone's Travels through Sicily and Malta." According to
Loundes (Bibliographer's Manual, vol. i. p. 279), Brydone's book was published in
1773 ; and in 1784 Sir WilUam Jones notices the tendency of theae inquiriea : see his
Discourse on the Gods of Greece, Italy, and India, in wMch he obaervea ( Works, vol.
i. p. 238) with regret, that he Uved iii" " an age when some inteUigent and virtuous
persons are inclined to doubt the authenticity of the accounts delivered by Moses
concerning the primitive world." Since then, the progress of geology has been so

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 309
their easy creduUty, and produced effects on the public mind,
which can only he estimated by those who have studied the his
tory of that time in its original sources. Indeed, they cannot
he understood, even in their general bearings, except by taking
into consideration some other circumstances with which the
great progress was intimately connected.
For, in the mean time, an immense change had begun, not
only among speculative minds, hut also among the people them
selves. The increase of scepticism stimulated their curiosity;
and the diffusion of education supplied the means of gratifying
it. Hence, we find that one of the leading characteristics of
the eighteenth century, and one which pre-eminently distinguish
ed it from aU that preceded, was a craving after knowledge on
the part of those classes from whom knowledge had hitherto
been shut out. It was in that great age, that there were first
estabUshed schools for the lower orders on the only day they had
time to attend them,"'" and newspapers on the only day they
had time to read them.""" It was then that there were first seen,
in our country, circulating Ubraries;""' and it was then, too, that
rapid, that the historical value of the writings of Moses is abandoned by all enUght
ened men, even among the clergy themselvea. I need only refer to what haa been
said by two of the most eminent of that profession. Dr. Arnold and Mr. Baden
Powell See the observations of Arnold in Newman's Phases of Faith, p. Ill (com
pare pp. 122, 123); and the still more decisive remarks in PowelVs Sermons on
Christianity without Judaism, 1856, pp. 88, .39. For other instances see LyelVs
Second Visit to the United States, 1849, vol. i. pp. 219, 220.
'" It is usuaUy supposed that Sunday-schools were begun by Eaikes, in 1781 ;
but, though he appears to have been the first to organize them on a suitable scale,
there is no doubt that they were estabUshed by Lindsey, in or immediately after 1765.
See Cappe's Memoirs, pp. 118, 122; Harford's Ufe of Burgess, p. 92 ; Nicliols's Ut.
Anec. vol. iU. pp. 430, 431, vol ix. p. 540 ; Chalmers' Biog. Diet. vol. xxv. p. 486 ;
Journ. of Stat. Soc. voh x. p. 196, voh xiU. p. 265; Hodgson's Ufe of . Porteus, p.
92. It is said, in Spencer's Social Statics, p. 848, that the clergy of the Church of
England were, as a body, opposed to the estahUshment of Sunday-schools. (Com
pare Watson's Observations on Southey's Wesley, p. 149.) At aU' events, they in
creased rapidly, and by the end of the cent-ary had become comraon. See Nichols's
Ut. Anec. vol. v. pp. 678, 679 ; Nichols's Rlustrations, vol. i. p. 460 ; Ufe of Wilber
force, vol. i. p. 180, voh u. p. 296 ; Wesley's Journals, pp. 806, 897.
"" Mr. Hunt (Hist, of Newspapers, vol. i. p. 273) makes no mention of Sunday
newspapers earUer than a notice by Crabbe in 1785; but, in 1799, Lord Belgrave
said, in the House of Commona, that they firat appeared " about the year 1780."
Pari. Hist, vol. xxxiv. p. 1006. In 1799, Wilberforce tried to have a law enacted
to auppress thera. Ufe of Wilberforce, vol. U. pp. 338, 424.
Ml ^i,gn Franklin came to London, in 1725, there was not a single circulating
Ubrary in the metropoUs. See Franklin's Life of Himself, vol. i. p. 64 ; and, in
1697, " the only Ubrary in London which approached the nature of a public library,
was that of Sion coUege, belonging to the London clergy." Ellis's Letters of Lit
erary Men, p. 245. The exact date of the earUest circulating Ubrary, I have not
yet ascertained ; but, according to Southey (JTie Doctor, edit. Warter, 1848, p. 271),
the first aet up iu London waa about the middle of the eighteenth century, by
Samuel Fanoourt. Hutton (Ufe of Himself, p. 279) says, " I was the first who
opened a circulating Ubrary, in Birmingham, in 1751." Other notices of them, dur
ing the latter half ofthe century, will be found in Coleridge's Biographia Literaria,

310 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
the art of printing, instead of being almost confined to London,
began to he generally practised in country-towns.""" It was
also in the eighteenth century, that the earliest systematic
efforts were made to popularize the sciences, and faciUtate the
acquisition of their general principles, hy writing treatises on
them in an easy and untechnical style;""' while, at the same
time, the invention of Encyclopaedias enabled their results to be
brought together, and digested in a form more accessible than
any hitherto employed.""* Then, too, we first meet with literary
periodical reviews; by means of which large bodies of practical
vol. ih p. 329, edit. 1847 ; Leigh Hunts Autobiography, vol. i. p. 260 ; Nichols's Lit.
Anec. vol. iii. pp. 648, 682 ; Nichols's Rlustrations, vol. i. p. 424 ; WhewelVs Hist, of
Moral Philosophy, p. \9Q; Sinclair's Correspond, voh i. p. 143. Indeed, they m-
creased ao rapidly, that aome wise men proposed to tax thera, "by a Ucense, at the
rate of 2s. 6d. per 100 volumes per annum." Sinclair's Hist, of the Revenue, vol.
iih p. 268.
™ In 1746, Gent, the well-known printer, wrote his own Ufe. In this curious
work, he states, that in 1714 there were "few printers in England, except London,
at that time ; none then, I am sure, at Chester, Liverpool, Whitehaven, Preston,
Manchester, Kendal, and Leeds, as for the'most part now abound." Ufe of Thomas
Gent, pp. 20, 21. (Compare alist of country printing-housea, in 1724, in Nichols's
Ut. Anec. vol. i. p. 289.) How thia state of things was remedied, is a most impor
tant inquiry for the historian ; but in this note I can only give a few iUustrations of
the condition of different districts. The first printing-office in Eochester waa estab
lished by Fiaher, who died in 1786 (Nichols's Lit. Anec. vol. iU. p. 675) ; the first in
Whitby was in 1770 (Illustrations, vol. in. p. 787) ; and Richard Greene, who diedin
1793, " waa the first who brought a printing-press to Lichfield" (Ibid. vol. vh p.,320).
In the reign of Anne, there was not a single bookseUer in Birmingham (Southey's
Commonplace Book, 1st series, 1849, p. 668) ; but, in 1749, we find a printer estab
Ushed there (HuU's Letters, Lond. 1778, vol i. p. 92); and, in 1774, there was a print
er even in Falkirk (Pari. Hist. vol. xvU. p. 1099). In other parts the movement
was slower; and we are told, that, about 1780, "there was scarcely a bookseUer in
CornwaU." Ufe of Samuel Drew, by his Son, 1834, pp. 40, 41.
^' DesaguUers and HiU were the two first writers who gave themselves up to
popularizing physical truths. At the beginning of the reign of George I., Desagu
Uers was " the first who read lectures in London on experimental philosophy." South
ey's Commonplace Book, 3d series, 1850, p. 77. See also Penny Cyclopaedia, vol
vUi. p. 430 ; and, on his elementary works, compare Nichols's Lit. Anec. vol. vi. p.
81. As to HiU, he is aaid to have set the example of pubUshing popular scientific
works in numbers ; a plan so well suited to that inquisitive age, that, if we beheve
Horace Walpole, he "earned flfteen guineas a week." Letter to Henry Zoueh, Janu
ary 3d, 1761, in Walpole's Letters, vol. iv. p. 117, edit. 1840.
In the latter half of the eighteenth century, the demand for books on the natural
sciences rapidly increased (see, among many other instances which might be quoted,
a note in Pulteney's Hist, of Botany, vol. ii. p. 180) ; and, early in the reign of
George III., Priestley began to write popularly on physical aubjecta. (Memoirs of
Priestley, vol. i. pp. 288, 289.) Goldamith did something in the same direction (Prior s
Life of (Goldsmith, vol. i. pp. 414, 469, vol. ih p. 198) ; and Pennant whose earUest
work appeared in 1766, was " the first who treated the natural history of Britain in
a popular and interesting style." Swainson on the Study of Natural History, p. 60.
In the reign of George II., pubUshera began to encourage elementary works on
chemiatry. Nichols's Lit. Anec. vol. ix. p. 763.
"''* In 1704, 1708, and 1710, Harris pubUahed bis Dictionary of Arts and Sci
ences; and from thia, according to Nichols's Ut. Anec, voh ix. pp. 770, 771, has
" originated all tbe other dictionaries and cyclopaedias that have since ap
peared." Compare vol. v. p. 659 ; and Bogue and Bennetts History of the Dissent
ers, vol. iv. p. 500.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION, 311
men acquired information, scanty indeed, but every way superior
to their former ignorance,""' The formation of societies for pur
chasing hooks now became general;""" and, before the close of
the century, we hear of clubs instituted by reading men among
the industrious classes.""' In every department, the same eager
curiosity was shown. In the middle of the eighteenth century,
debating societies sprung up among tradesmen;""' and this was
foUowed hy a stUl bolder innovation, for, in 1769, there was held
the first pubUc meeting ever assembled in England, the first in
which it was attempted to enlighten Englishmen respecting
their poUtical rights.""" Ahout the same time, the proceedings in
our courts of law began to he studied by the people, and com
municated to them through the medium of the daily press."'"
Shortly hefore this, poUtical newspapers arose,"" and a sharp
*" Late in the seventeenth century, an attempt waa firat made in England to
establish Uterary journals. HcUlam's Lit, of Europe, voh in. p. 539; and Dibdin's
Bibliomania, 1842, p. 16. But reviews, aa we now underatand tho word, meaning
a critical pubUcation, were unknown before the accession of George H. ; but, about
the middle of hia reign, they began to increase. Compare Wrights England under
the House of Hanover, 1848, vol. i. p. 304, with Nichols's Ut, Anec, vol. iii. pp.
507, 508. At an earUer period, the functions of reviews were performed, as Monk
says, by pamphlets. Monk's Ufe of Bentley, vol. i. p. 112.
™ Aa we find from many casual notices of book-clubs and book-societies. See,
for example, Doddridge's Correspond, vol. ih pp. 57, 119 ; Jesse's Ufe of Selwyn,
vol. U. p. 23 ; Nichols's Illustrations ofthe Eighteenth Centwry, vol. v. pp. 184, 824,
825 ; Wakefield's Life of Himself, voh i. p. 528 ; Memoirs of Sir J, E, Smith, voh i.
p. 8 ; Ufe of Roscoe, by his Son, vol. i. p. 228 (though thia laat waa perhapa a cir
culating Ubrary).
'"" "Numerous associations or clubs, compoaed principaUy of reading men ofthe
lower ranka." Ufe of Dr. Currie, by his Son, vol. i. p. 175.
""" Of which the moat remarkable waa that called the Eobin-Hood Society ;
respecting which, the reader should compare CampbelVs Uves of the Chancellors,
voh 'vi. p. 373; Grosley's London, voh i. p. 150; Pari, Hist, vol. xvu. p. 301;
Southey's Commonplace Book, 4th seriea, p. 339 ; Forster's Ufe of Goldsmith, vol. i.
p. 310; Prior's Life of Goldsmith, vol. i. pp. 419, 420; Prior's Life of Burke, p.
75 ; Nichols's Lit. Anec. vol. iU. p. 154.
'"° "From the aummer of 1769 ia to be dated the flrst estabUshraent of pubUc
meetings in England." Albemarle's Mem. of Rockingham, vol. u. p. 93. " PubUc
meetings, .... through which the people might declare their newly-acquired con
sciousness of power, .... cannot be distinctly traced higher than the year 1769 ;
but they were now (i, e, in 1770) of daUy occurrence." Cooke's Hist, of Party, vol.
iU. p. 187. See also Hallam's Const, Hist, voh U. p. 420.
™ The most interesting trials were first noticed in newspapers towards the end
ofthe reign of George II. CampbelVs Chancellors, voh v. p. 62, voh vi. p. 54.
_""* In 1696, the only newspapers were weekly ; and the first daily paper appear
ed in the reign of Anne. Compare Sinvmonds's Essay on Newspapers, in Jou/rnal of
Statist. Society, vol. iv. p. 113, -with Hunts Hist, of Newspapers, voh i. pp. 167, 176,
voh ih p. 90 ; and Nichols's Ut. Anec. voh iv. p. 80. In 1710, they, instead of
merely communicating news, as heretofore, began to take part in " the discussion of
poUtical topics" (Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. U. p. 443) ; and, as thia change had been
preceded a very few years by the introduction of cheap poUtical pamphlets (see a cu
rious passage iaWilson's Ufe ofDe Foe, vol. U. p. 29), it became evident that a great
movement was at hand in regard to the diffusion of such inquiries. Within twenty
years after the death of Anne, the revolution was completed ; and the press, for the
firat time in the history of the world, was made an exponent of pubUc opinion. The

312 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
struggle broke out between them and the two Houses of ParUa
ment touching the right of publishing the debates; the end of
which was, that both houses, though aided by the crown, were
totally defeated; and, for the first time, the people were able to
study the proceedings of the national legislature, and thus gain
some acquaintance with the national affairs."'" Scarcely was
this triumph completed, when fresh stimulus was given by the
promulgation of that great political doctrine of personal repre
sentation,"" which must eventually carry aU before it; and the
germ of which may he traced late in the seventeenth century,
when the true idea of personal independence began to take root
and flourish."'* Finally, it was reserved for the eighteenth cen-
earliest notice of this new power, which I have met with, in parUament, is in a
speech delivered by Danvers, iu; 1738 ; which is worth quoting ; both because it
marks an epoch, and because it is characteristic of that troublesome class to which
the man belonged. " But 1 believe," says this diatinguiahed legislator, — " but I be
Ueve, the people of Great Britain are governed by a power that never was heard of,
as a supreme authority, in any age or country before. Thia power, sir, does not
consist in the absolute wiU of the prince, in the direction of parUament, in the strength
of an army, in the influence of the clergy ; neither, sir, is it a petticoat government ;
but, sir, it ia the government of the preaa. The stuff ^hioh our weekly newspapers
are filled with, is received with greater reverence than acts of parliaraent ; and the
sentiments of one of these scribblers have more weight with the multitude than the
opinion of the best poUtician in the kingdom." Part. Hist. vol. x. p. 448.
'^ This great contest was brought to a close in 1771 and 1772 ; when, as Lord
Campbell says, " the right of pubUshing parUamentaiy debates was substantiaUy
estabUshed." CampbeU's Chancellors, vol. v. p. 511, vol. vi. p. 90. For further
information respecting this important victory, see Cooke's Hist, of Party, vol. iu.
pp. 179-184; Almon's Correspond, of Wilkes, 1805, vol. v. p. 63; Stephens's Mem.
of Tooke, vol. i. pp. 329-361 ; Mahon's Hist, of England, vol. v. p. 290 ; and, on
its connexion with Junius's Letters, see Forster's Ufe of Goldsmith, vol. u. pp. 183,
184. George III., always consistent and always Wrong, strenuously oppoaed this ex-
tenaion of the popular righta. In 1771, he wrote to Lord North : " It is highly
necessary that this strange and lawless method of publishing debates in the papers
should be put a stop to. But is not the House of Lords the best court to bring such
miscreants before ; as it can fine, as well aa imprison, and haa broader shoulders to
support the odium of ao salutary a measure ?" App. to Mahon, voh v. p. xlvUi. ;
and note in Walpole's George III. vol. iv. p. 280, where the words, " in the papers,"
are oraitted ; but I copy the letter, aa printed by Lord Mahon. In other respects,
both versions are the same ; so that we now know the idea George III. had of what
conatituted a raiscreant.
"^° Lord John EuaseU, in his' work on the History of the English Constitution, .
says, "Dr. Jebb, and after hira Mr. Cartwright, broached the theory of personal rep
resentation ;" but this appears to be a mistake, since the theory is said to have^
been first put forward by Cartwright, in 1776. Compare Russell on the Constitution,,
1821, pp. 240, 241, with Life and Corresp. of Cartwright, 1826, vol. i. pp. 91, 92.
A letter in the Ufe of Dr. Currie, vol. U. pp. 307-314, shows the interest which even
sober and practical men were beginning to feel in the doctrine before the end of
the century.
_ '"'* On this I have a phUological remark of some interest, — namely, that there
IS reason to beUeve that " the word ' independence,' in its modern acceptation," does
not occur in our language before the early part of the eighteenth century. See
Hare's Guesses at Truth, 2d series, 1848, p. 262. A similar change, though at a
later period, took place in France. See the observations on the word ' individual-

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 813
tury, to set the first example of calling on the people to adjudi
cate upon those solemn questions of religion in which hitherto
they had never heen consulted, although it is now universaUy
admitted that to their growing intelligence these, and all other
matters, must lUtimately be referred.""
In connexion yrith all this, there was a corresponding change
in the very form and make of our literature. The harsh and pe
dantic method, which our great writers had long been accus
tomed to employ, was ill suited to an impetuous and inquisitive
generation, thirsting after knowledge, and therefore intolerant of
obscurities formerly unheeded. Hence it was that, early in the
eighteenth century, the powerful, but cumbrous, language and
the long, involved sentences, so natural to our ancient authors,
were, notyrithstanding their beauty, suddenly discarded, and
were succeeded hy a lighter and simpler style, which, being more
rapidly understood, was better suited to the exigencies of the
age.""
isme,' in TocqueviUe, Democratic en Amerique, vol. iv. p. 166 ; and in the later work,
by the stime author, L'Ancien Regime, Paris, 1856, pp. 148, 149.
"^ Archbishop -Whately (Dangers to Christian Faith, pp. 76, 77) says; "Neither
the attacks on our reUgion, nor the evidences in its support, were, to any great ex
tent, brought forward in a popular form, tiU near the close of the last century. Ou
both sides, the learned (or those who professed to be such) seera to have agreed in
this, — that the mass of the people were to acquiesce in the decision of their supe
riors, and neither should, nor could, exercise their own mhids on the question." Thia
is weU put, and quite true ; aud should be compared with the complaint in Wake-
fields Ufe of Himself , vol. u. p. 21 ; Nichols's Lit, Anec. ofthe Eighteenth Century,
vol. vui. p. 144; Hodgson's iXfe of Bishop Porteus,pp. 73, 74, 122, 125, 126. See
also a speech by Mansfield, in 1781 (Pari. Hist. vol. xxii. p. 265), when an attempt
was made to put down the " Theological Society." Tbe whole debate is worth
reading; not on account of its merits, but because it supplies evidence of the pre
vaiUng spirit.
™ Coleridge (Ut. Remains, vol. i. pp. 230 seq.) has made some interesting re
marks ou the vicissitudes of English stylo ; and he justly observes, p. 238, that,
" after the Revolution, the spirit of the nation becarae much more commercial than
it had been before ; a learned body, or clerisy, as such, graduaUy disappeared ; and
Uterature in general began to be addressed to the common, misceUaneous pubUc."
He goes on to lament this change ; though, in that, 1 disagree with him. See also
The Friend, vol. i. p. 19, where he contrasts the modern style with "the stately
march and difficult evolutions " of the great writers of the seventeenth century.
Compare, ou this alteration, the preface to Nader Shah, in Works of Sir W. Jones,
voh V. p. 644. See also, in Harford's Ufe of Burgess, pp. 40, 41, a curious letter
from Monboddo, the last of our reaUy great pedants, mourning over this character
istic of modern composition. He terma it contemptuoualy a " short cut of a style ;"
and wishes to return to " the true ancient taste," with plenty of " parentheses " 1
The truth is, that this movement was merely part of that tendency to approximate
the different classes of society, which was first clearly seen iu the eighteenth cen
tury, and which influenced not only the style of authors, but also their social habits.
Hume observes that, in the " last age," learned raen had separated themselves too
much from the world ; but that, in his tirae, they were becoming more "conversi-
ble." Essay V., in Hume's Philosophical Works, vol. iv. pp. 539, 540. That " phi
losophers " were growing men of the world, is also noticed in a curious passage in
Alciphron, dial, i., in Berkeley's Works, vol. i. p. 312 ; and, respecting the general
social amalgamation, see a letter to the Countess of Bute, in 1758, in Works ^ Lady
Mary Montagu, edit. 1803, voh iv. pp. 194, 195. As to the influence of Addison,

314 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
The extension of knowledge being thus accompanied hy an
increased simpUcity in the maimer of its communication, natu
rally gave rise to a greater independence in literary men, and a
greater boldness in literary inquiries. As long as books, either
from the difficulty of their style, or from the general incuriosity
of the people, found hut few readers, it was evident that authors
must rely upon the patronage of pubUc bodies, or of rich and
titled individuals. And, as men are always incUned to flatter
those upon whom they are dependent, it too often happened that
even our greatest writers prostituted their abUities, hy fawning
upon the prejudices of their patrons. The consequence was,
that literature, so far from disturbing ancient superstitions, and
stirring up the mind to new inquiries, frequently assumed a timid
and subserrient air, natural to its subordinate position. But
now aU this was changed. Those servile and shameful dedica
tions ;"" that mean and crouching spirit ; that incessant homage
to mere rank and birth ; that constant confusion between power
and right ; that ignorant admiration for every thing which is
old, and that stUl more ignorant contempt for every thing which is
new ; — all these features became graduaUy fainter ; and authors,
relying upon the patronage of the people, began to advocate the
claims of their new alUes with a boldness upon which they could
not have ventured in any previous age.""
who led the way in establishing the easy, and therefore democratic, style, and who,
more than any single writer, made Uterature popular, compare Aikin's Ufe of Addi
son, vol. u. p. 65, with Turner's Hist, of England, vol. U. p. 7. Subsequently a reac
tion was attempted by Johnson, Gibbon, and Parr ; but this, being contrary to the
spirit of the age, was short-Uved.
''"' And tbe servUity was, for the most part, weU paid ; indeed, rewarded for more
than it was worth. During the sixteenth, seventeenth, and early part of the
eighteenth century, a sum of money was invariably presented to the author in return
for his dedication. Of course, the grosser the flattery, the larger the sum. On the
relation thus estabUshed between authors and men of rank, and ou the eagerness
with which even eminent writers looked to their patrons for gratuities, varying from
40s. to 100^., see Drake's Shakespeare and his Times, 1817, 4to, voh u. p. 225 ; Monk's
Ufe of Bentley, voh i. pp. 194, 309 ; Whiston's Memoirs, p. 203 ; Nichols's lUustrar
tions, vol. ii. p. 709 ; Harris's Ufe of Hardwicke, vol. iii. p. 36 ; Bunbury's Life of
Hanmer, p. 81. Compare a note in Burton's Diary, vol. iU. p. 52 ; and as to the
importance of fixing on a proper peraon to whom to dedicate, aee Ellis's Letters of
Ut. Men, pp. 231-234 ; and the matter-of-fact remark in Bishop NewtorHs Life, p.
14; also Hughes's Letters, edit. 1773, vol. iU. p. xxxi. appendix.
About the middle of the eighteenth century was the turning-point of this deplora
ble condition; and Watson, for instance, in 1769, laid it down as a rule, "never to
dedicate to those from whom I expected favours." Watson's Ufe of Himself, vol. i.
p. 54. So, too, Warburton, in 1758, boasts that his dedication was not, aa uaual,
" occupied by triflea or falaehooda." See his letter, in Chatham Correspond, vol. i.
p. 816. Nearly at the same period, the same change was effected in France, where
D'Alembert set tbe example of ridicuUng the old custora. See BroughawCs Men of
Letters, vol. ii. pp. 439, 440; Correspond, de Madame Dudeffand, voh ii. p. 148;
and CEwores de Voltaire, vol. xl. p. 41, voh Ixi. p. 286.
"'" When Le Blanc visited England, in the middle of the reign of George II., the
custom of authors relying upon the patronage of individuals was beginning to die
away, and the plan of pubUshing by subscription had become general. See the

GENERAL INTEODUCTION. 315
Prom aU these things there resulted consequences of vast im
portance. From this simpUfication, independence, and diffu
sion"" of knowledge, it necessarUy happened, that the issue of
those great disputes to which I have aUuded, became, in the
eighteenth century, more generaUy known than would have been
possible in any preceding century. It was now known that theo
logical and poUtical questions were being constantly agitated, in
which genius and learning were on one side, and orthodoxy and
tradition on the other. It became known that the points which
were mooted, were not only as to the credibUity of particular facts,
but also as to the truth of general principles, with which the
interests and happiness of Man were intimately concerned.
Disputes which had hitherto heen confined to a very smaU part
of society, began to spread far and wide, and suggest doubts
that served as materials for national thought. The consequence
was, that the spirit of inquiry became every year more active,
and more general ; the desire for reform constantly increased ;
and if affairs had heen allowed to ran on in their natural course,
the eighteenth century could not have passed away without de
cisive and salutary changes both in the church and the state.
But soon after the middle of this period, there unfortunately
arose a series of political combinations which disturbed the
march of events, and eventuaUy produced a crisis so fuU of dan
ger, that, among any other people, it would certainly have ended
either in a loss of Uberty or in a dissolution of government.
This disastrous reaction, from the effects of which England has,
perhaps, barely recovered, has never heen studied with any thing
like the care its importance demands ; indeed, it is so Uttle un
derstood, that no historian has traced the opposition between it
and that great inteUectual movement of which I have just
sketched an outline. On this account, as also with the view
of giving more completeness to the present chapter, I intend to
examine its most important epochs, and point out, so far as I
am ahle, the way in which they are connected yrith each other.
intereating detaila in Le Blanc, Lettres d!un Frangais, vol. i. pp. 305-308 ; and, for
the former state oftbings, see vol. u. pp. 148-163. Burke, who carae to London in
1750, observes, with surprise, that " writers of the flrst talents are left to the capri
cious patronage of the pubUc. Notwithstanding discouragement, literature ia culti
vated to a high degree." Prior's Ufe of Burke, p. 21. This increasing mdepend-
ence also appears from the fact that, in 1762, we flnd thd flrat inatance of a popular
writer attacking public men by name ; authora having previoualy confined themaelves
" to the initiala only of the great men whom they aaaailed." Mahon's Hist, of Eng
land, vol. V. p. 19. The feud between Uterature and rank may be further iUustrated
by an entry in Holcroft's diary for 1798, Mem. of Holeroft, vol. iu. p. 28.
In England, the marked increase in the number of booka took place during
the latter half of the eighteenth century, and particularly after 1756. See some
valuable evidence iu Jowrnal ofthe Statistical Society, vol. ui. pp. 888, 384. To this
I may add, that between 1753 and 1792, the circulation of newspapers waa more
than doubled. Hunts Hist, of Newspapers, vol. 1. p. 252.

316 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
According to the scheme of this Introduction, such an inquiry
must, of course, be very cursory, as its sole object is to lay a
foundation for those general principles, without which history is
a mere assemblage of empirical observations, unconnected, and
therefore unimportant. It must Ukewise he remembered, that
as the circumstances about to be considered were not social, but
poUtical, we are the more Uahle to err in our conclusions respect
ing them ; and this partly because the materials for the histoiy
of a people are more extensive, more indirect, and therefore less
liable to he garbled, than are those for the history of a govern-^
ment ; and partly because the conduct of small bodies of men,
such as ministers and kings, is always more capricious, that is to
say, less regulated hy known laws, than is the conduct of those
large bodies collectively caUed society, or a nation."*" With this
precautionary remark, I yriU now endeavour to trace what; in a
mere poUtical point of -riew, is the reactionary and retrogressive
period of EngUsh history.
It must he considered as a most fortunate circumstance, that
after the death of Anne,"*' the throne should he occupied for
nearly fifty years by two princes, aUens in manners and in coun
try, of whom one spoke our language hut indifferently, and the
other knew it not at all."*" The immediate predecessors of
George III. were, indeed, of so sluggish a disposition, and were so
profoundly ignorant of the people they undertook to govern,"*'
that, notwithstanding their arbitrary temper, there was no danger
of their organizing a party to extend the boundaries of the royal
"*" The apparent caprice and irregularity in small numbers arise from the pertur
bations produced by the operation of minor aud usually unknown laws. In large
numbers, these perturbations have a tendency to balance each other ; and thia I take
to be the aole foundation of the accuracy obtained by Btriking an average. If we
could refer aU phenomena to their laws, we should never use averages. Qt course,
the expression capricious ia, atrictly apeaking, inaccurate, and is raerely a measure of
our ignorance.
"" The temporary poUtical reaction under Anne is weU related by Lord Cowper,
in his Hist, of Parties, printed in appendix to CampbelVs Uves of the Chancellors,
vol. iv. pp. 411, 412. Thia able work of Lord Campbell's, though rather inaccurate
for the earUer period, is particularly valuable for the history of the eighteenth
century. "" See Reminiscences of the Courts of George I. and George II., by Horace Wal
pole, pp. Iv. xciv. ; and Mahon's Hist, of England, vol. i. pp. 100, 286. The fault
of George II. was in his bad pronunciation of English ; but George I. was not even
able to pronounce it badly, and could only converse with hia miniater. Sir Robert
Walpole, in Latin. The French court aaw this state of things with great pleasure ;
and in December, 1714, Madame de Maintenon wrote to the Princess dos Ursins
(Lettres inedites de Maintenon, voh iU. p. 157) : "On dit que le nouveau roi d' Angle
terre se ddgoftte de ses aujeta, et que bob aujeta aout ddgoAtds de lui. Dieu veuiUe
remettre le tout en meiUeur ordre !" On the effect this produced on the language
spoken at the EngUsh court, compare Le Blanc, Lettres d'un Franpois, vol. i. p. 1B9.
'*" In 1715, LesUc writes respecting George 1., that he is "a stranger to you, and
altogether ignorant of your language, your laws, customs, and constitution." Som
ers Tracts, vol. xiU. p. 703.

GENEEAL INTRODUCTION. 317
prerogative."** And as they were foreigners, they never had suf
ficient sympathy with the English church to induce them to aid
the clergy in their natural desire to recover their former power.'-'*'
Besides this, the fractious and disloyal conduct of many of the
hierarchy, must have tended to alienate the regard of the sov
ereign, as it had already cost them the affection ofthe people."*"
These circumstances, though in themselves they may he con
sidered trifling, were in reaUty of great importance, hecause they
secured to the nation the progress of that spirit of inquiry, which,
if there had been a coalition between the crown and the church,
it would have heen attempted to stifle. Even as it was, some
attempts were occasionaUy made ; hut they were comparatively
speaking rare, and they lacked the vigour which they would have
possessed, if there had heen an intimate alUance between the
temporal and spiritual authorities. Indeed, the state of affairs
was so favourable, that the old Tory faction, pressed by the peo
ple, and abandoned by the crown, was unable for more than forty
"* Great Ught haa been thrown upon the character of George II. by the recent
pubUcation of Lord Hervey' s Memoirs ; a curious work, which fuUy confirms what
we know from other sources respecting the king's ignorance of EngUsh politics.
Indeed, that prince cared for nothing but soldiers and women ; and his highest am
bition waa, to combine the reputation of a great general with that of a aucoeasful
Ubertine. Beaidea the teatimony of Lord Hervey, it ia certain, from other authori
tiea, that George II. was despised aa well as disUked, and was spoken of contemptu
oualy by observers of his character, and even by his own ministers. See the March
mont Papers, vol. i. pp. 29, 181, 187.
In reference to the decUne of the royal authority, it is important to observe, that
since the accession of George I. none of our sovereigns have been allowed to be
present at state deUberations. See Bancrofts American Revolution, vol. U. p. 47,
and CampbelVs Chancellors, vol. iU. p. 191.
"*° See the remarks said to be written by Bishop Atterbury, in Somers Tracts,
vol. xiu. p. 534, contrasting the affection Anne felt for the church with the coldness
of George I. The whole of the pamphlet (pp. 521-541) ought to be read. It affords
a curious picture of a baffled churchman.
^ The iU-feeUng which the Church of England generaUy bore against the gov
ernment of the two first Georges was openly displayed, and was so pertinacious as
to form a leading fact in the history of England. In 1722, Bishop Atterbury was
arrested, becauae he was known to be engaged in a treasonable conspiracy with the
Pretender. As soon as he was seized, the church offered up prayers for him.
" Under the pretence," says Lord Mahon, — " under the pretence of his being afflicted
with the gout, he was pubUcly prayed for in most of the churches of Loudon and
Westminster." Mahon's Hist, of England, vol. U. p. 38. See also Pari, Hist, voh
-vu. p. 988, and voh vui. p. 347.
At Oxford, where the clergy have long been in the ascendant, they made such
efforts to instil their principles, as to caU down the indignation of the elder Pitt,
who, in a speech in parUament in 1754, denounced that university, which he said
had for many years " been raising a succession of treason — there never was auch a
seminary I" Walpole's Mem, of George II, vol. i. p. 413. Compare the Bedford
Correspondence, vol. i. pp. 594, 596, with Harris's Ufe of Hardwicke, vol. ii. p. 383 ;
and on the temper of the clergy generaUy after the death of Anne, Pari. Hist. vol.
vU. pp. 541, 542 ; Bowles's Ufe o/ Ken, vol. U. pp. 188, 189 ; Monk's Ufe of Bent
ley, vol. i. pp. 370, 426.
The immediate consequence of this was very remarkable. For the governnient
and the dissenters, being both opposed by the church, naturaUy combined together :
the dissenters using all their influence against the Pretender, and the govemment
protecting them againat eccleaiaatical prosecutions. See evidence of this in Dod-

318 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
years to take any share in the government."*' At the same
time, considerahle progress, as we shaU hereafter see, was made
in legislation ; and our statute-book, during that period, contains
ample evidence of the decUne of- the powerful party hy which
England had once heen entirely ruled.
But hy the death of George II. the poUtical aspect was sud
denly changed, and the yrishes of the sovereign became once more
antagonistic to the interests of the people. What made this the
more dangerous was, that, to a superficial observer, the accession
of George III. was one of the most fortunate events that could
have occurred. The new king was bom in England, spoke Eng
Ush as his mother tongue,"*' and was said to look upon Hanover
as a foreign country, whose interests were to he considered of sub
ordinate importance."*" At the same time, the last hopes of the
House of Stuart were now destroyed,"'" the Pretender himseff
was languishing in Italy, where he shortly after died ; and his
son, a slave to vices which seemed hereditary in that famUy, was
consuming his life in an unpitied and ignomiiUous obscurity.""
dridge's Correspond, and Diary, voh i. p. 80, vol. ii. p. 321, vol. iU.-pp. 110, 125, vol
iv. pp.428, 436, 437; Hutton's Ufe of Himself , pp. 169, 160; Pari, jffisi. vol. xxviii.
pp. 11, 393, vol. xxix. pp. 1434, 1463 ; Memoirs of Priestley, voh U. p. 506 ; Ufe of
Wakefield, vol. i. p. 220.
it-r 11 rpjjg ygg^j. j)jg2 forms an era in the history of the two factions, since it wit
nessed the destruction of that monopoly of honours and emoluraenta which the
Whiga had held for forty-five years." Cooke's Hist, of Party, vol. U. p. 406. Com
pare Albemarle's Memoirs of Rockingham, vol. ii. p. 92. Lord Bolingbroke clearly
foresaw what would happen in consequence of the accession of George I. . Immedi
ately after the death of Anne, he wrote to the Biahop of Rocheater : " But the grief
of my Boul ia thia, I aee plainly that the Tory party is gone." Macpherson's Original
Papers, voh U. p. 661.
"*' Grosley, who visited England only five years after the accession of George
m., mentiona the great effect produced upon the English when they heard the king
pronounce their language without " a foreign accent." Grosley's Tour to London,
voh u. p. 106. It is weU known, that the king, in his first speech, boasted of being
a Briton ; but what is, perhaps, less generally known, is, that the honour waa on the
side of the country : " What a lustre," aaid the Houae of Lorda in their address to
him, — " what a luatre doea it cast upon the name of Briton, when you, sir, are
pleased to esteem it among your glories!" Pari, Hist, vol. xv. p. 986.
"*" Pari, Hist. vol. xxix. p. 955 ; Walpole's Mem. of George III., vol. i. pp. 4,
110. "" The accession of George III. is generaUy fixed on as the period when English
Jacobinism became extinct. See Butler's Reminiscences, vol. U. p. 92. At the first
court held by the new king, it was observed, says Horace Walpole, that " the Earl
of Litchfield, Sir Walter Bagot, and the principal Jacobites, weut to court." Wal
pole's Mem. of George III. vol. i. p. 14. Only three years earUer, the Jacobites had
been active ; and in 1757, Rigby writes to the Duke of Bedford : "Fox's election at
Windsor is very doubtful. There is a Jacobite subscription of 5000?. raised against
him, with Sir James Dashwood's name at the head of it." Bedford Correspond, vol.
ih p. 261.
""' Charles Stuart was so stupidly ignorant, that at the age of twenty-five he
could hardly write, and was altogether unable to apeU. Mahon's Hist, of England,
vol. ui. pp. 165, 166, and appendix, p. ix. After the death of his father, in 1766,
thia abject creature, who caUed himaelf king of England, went to Rome, and took
to drinking. Ibid, voh Ui. pp. 351-863. In 1779, Swinburne aaw him at Florence,

GENERAL INTEODUCTION. 319
And yet these circumstances, which appeared so favourable,
did of necessity involve the most disastrous consequences. The
fear of a disputed succession being removed, the sovereign was
emboldened to a course on which he otherwise would not have
ventured."'" All those monstrous doctrines respecting the rights
of kings, which the Eevolution was supposed to have destroyed,
were suddenly revived."" The clergy, abandoning the now hope
less cause of the Pretender, displayed the same zeal for the House
of Hanover which they had formerly displayed for the House of
Stuart. The pulpits resounded with praises of the new king, of
his domestic rirtues, of his piety, but above aU of his dutiful at
tachment to the EngUsh church. The result was, the estahUsh
ment of an alUance between the two parties more intimate than
any that had heen seen in England since the time of Charles I."'*
Under their auspices, the old Tory faction rapidly raUied, and
were soon able to dispossess their rivals in the management of
the government. Tins reactionary movement was greatly aided
hy the personal character of George III. ; for he, being despotic
as weU as superstitious, was equaUy anxious to extend the pre
rogative, and strengthen the church. Every liberal sentiment,
every thing approaching to reform, nay, even the mere mention
of inquiry, was an abomination in the eyes of that narrow and
ignorant prince. Without knowledge, without taste, without
even a gUmpse of one of the sciences, or a feeUng for one of the
Sue arts, education had done nothing to enlarge a mind which
nature had more than usually contracted."" TotaUy ignorant
where he used to appear every night at the opera, perfectly drunk. Swinburne's
Courts of Europe, vol. i. pp. 253-255 ; and in 1787, only the year before he died, he
continued the same degrading practice. See a letter from Sir J. E. Smith, written
from Naples in March, 1787, in Smith's Correspond, voh i. p. 208. Another letter,
written as early as 1761 ((frenville Papers, vol. i. p. 366), describes " the young
Pretender always drunk."
^^ Oh the connexion between the decUne of the Stuart interest and the increased
power of the crown under George DI., corapare Thoughts on the Present Discontents,
m Burke's Works, vol. i. pp. 127, 128, with Watson's Ufe of Himself, vol. i. p. 186 ;
and for an intimation that this result was expected, see Grosley's London, vol. ii.
p. 252. ^^ CampbelVs Chancellors, vol. v. p. 245 : " The divine indefeasible right of kings
became the favourite theme — in total forgetfulueas of its incorapatibiUty with the
parUamentary title of the reigning monarch." Horace Walpole (Mem. of George III,
voh i. p. 16) aaya, that in 1760 " prerogative became a fashionable word."
"'* The respect George III. always displayed for church-ceremonies, formed of
itself a marked contrast with the indifference of his immediate predecessors ; and the
change was gratefuUy noticed. Compare Mahon's Hist, of England, vol. v. pp. 64,
66, with the extract frora Archbishop Seeker, in Bancrofts American Revolution,
vol. i. p. 440. For other evidence of the admiration both parties felt and openly
expreaaed for each other, see an address from the bishop and blergy of St. Asaph
(Parr's Works, vol. vu. p. 852), and a letter from the king to Pitt (RusseU's Memo^
rials of Fox, vol, iu. p. 251), which should be compared with Priestley's Memoirs, vol.
i. pp. 137, 138.
¦''*" The education of George III. had been shamefully neglected ; aud when he

330 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
of the history and resources of foreign countries, and barely know
ing their geographical position, his information was scarcely more
extensive respecting the people over whom he was called to rule.
In that immense mass of evidence now extant, and which con
sists of every description of private correspondence, records of
private conversation and of public acts, there is not to be found
the slightest proof that he knew any one of those numerous
things which the governor of a country ought to know; or, indeed,
that he was acquainted with a single duty of his position, except
that mere mechanical routine of ordinary business, which might
have heen effected hy the lowest clerk in the meanest office in
his kingdom. The course of proceeding which such a king as this was Ukely
to follow could be easily foreseen. He gathered round his throne
that great party, who, cUnging to the traditions of the past,
have always made it their boast to check the progress of the
agie. During the sixty years of his reign, he, with the sole ex
ception of Pitt, never wiUingly admitted to his councUs a single
man of great abiUty ;"" not one whose name is associated with
any measure of value either in domestic or in foreign poUcy.
Even Pitt only maintained his position in the state by forgetting
the lessons of his iUustrious father, and abandoning those liberal
principles in which he had been educated, and with which he en
tered public life. Because George III. hated the idea of reform,
Pitt not only relinquished what he had before declared to he ab
solutely necessary,"" hut did not hesitate to persecute to the
death the party with whom he had once associated in order
to obtain it."" Because George III. looked upon slavery as one
arrived at manhood, he never attempted to repair its deficiencies, but remained duriBg
his long life in a state of pitiable ignorance. Compare BrougharrCs Statesmen, vol
i. pp. 13-15 ; Walpole's Mem. of George III, vol. i. p. 55 ; MahorCs Hist, ofEnghvd,
vol. iv. pp. 64, 207.
"° See some good remarks by Lord John RusseU in his Introduction to the Bed
ford Correspondence, vol. iU. p. Ixii.
"" In a motion for reform in ParUament in 1782, he declared that it was "essen
tiaUy necessary." See his speech, in Pari. Hist, voh xxu. p. 1418. In 1784 he
mentioned " the necessity of a parUamentary reform." Vol. xxiv. p. 349 ; see also
pp. 998, 999. GompATc Disney's Ufe of Jebb, p. 1(^9. Nor is it true, as some have
said, that he afterwards abandoned the cause of reform because the times were un
favourable to it.- On the contrary, he, in a speech delivered in 1800, said (Pari.
Hist. vol. xxxv. p. 47) : " Upon this subject, sir, I think it right to state the inmost
thoughts of my mind ; I think it right to declare my most decided opinion, that,
even if tlie times were proper for experiments, any, even the slightest, change in such a
constitution must be considered as an evil." It is reraarkable that, even aa early aa
1783, Paley appeara to have suspected the sincerity of Pitt's profesaions in favour of
reform. See Meadley's Memoirs of Paley, p. 121.
» "•' In 1794 Grey taunted bim with thia in the House of Commons: "William
Pitt, the reformer of that day, was WiUiam Pitt, the prosecutor, ay, and persecutor
too, of reformers now." Pari. Hist. vol. xxxh p. 632 ; compare vol. xxxiU. p. 669.
So too Lord CampbeU (Chief-Justices, vol. U. p. 644) : "He afterwards tried to hang

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION, 331
of those good old customs which the wisdom of his ancestors had
consecrated, Pitt did not dare to use his power for procuring its
aboUtion, hut left to his successors the glory of destroying that
infamous trade, on the preservation of which his royal master
had set his heart."'" Because George III. detested the French,
of whom he knew as much as he knew of the inhabitants of
Kamtchatka or of Tibet, Pitt, contrary to his own judgment,
engaged in a war with France hy which England was seriously
imperiUed and the EngUsh people burdened with a debt that
their remotest posterity wiU be unable to pay.""" But, notwith
standing all this, when Pitt, only a few years hefore his death,
showed a determination to concede to the Irish some small share
of their undoubted rights, the king dismissed him from office ;
and the king's friends, as they were called,""' expressed their in
dignation at the presumption of "a minister who could oppose
the vrishes of so benign and gracious a master.""" And when,
unhappily for his oyyn fame, this great man determined to return
to power, he could only recover office by conceding that v^erj'
point for which he had reUnquished it : thus setting the mis-
a few of his brother reformers who continued steady in the cause." See further, on
this damning fact in- the career of Pitt, Campbell's Chancellors, vol. vii. p. 105 ;
Brougham's Statesmen, vol. U. p. 21 ; Belsham's History, vol. ix. pp. 79, 242 ; Ufe of
Cartwright, vol. i. p. 198 ; and even a letter from the mUd and benevolent Eoscoe, in
Ufe of Roscoe, by his Son, vol. i. p. 113.
'^' Such waa the king'a zeal in favor of the alave-trade, that in 1770 " he issued
an instruction under his own hand commanding the governor (of Virginia), upon
pain of the highest displeasure, to assent, to no law by which the importation of
slaves should be in any respect prohibited or obstructed." Bancrofts American
Revolution, voh in. p. 456 : so that, as Mr. Bancroft indignantly observes, p. 469,
whUe the courts of law had decided "that as soon as any slave set hia foot on Eng
Uah ground he becomea free, the king of England stood in the path of humanity,
and made himaelf the piUar of the colonial alave-trade." The shuffling conduct of
Pitt in this matter makes it hard for any honest man to forgive him. Compare
Brougham's Statesmen, vol. il pp. 14, 103-105 ; RusseU's Mem. of Fox, vol. iii. pp.
181, 278, 279; Belsham's Hist, of Great Britain, vol. x. pp. 84, 35; Life of Wake
field, vol. i. p. 197 ; Porter's Progress of the Nation, voh iu. p. 426 ; Holland's Mem.
of the Whig Party, vol. U. p. 157 ; and the striking remarks of Francis, in Pari.
Hist, voh xxxU. p. 949.
'°° That Pitt wished to remain at peace, and was hurried into tbe war with France
by the infiuence of the court, ia admitted by the beat-informed writers, men in other
respects of different opinions. See, for inatance. Brougham's Statesmen, vol. ii. p.
9 ; Rogers's Introduction to Burke's Works, p. Ixxxiv. ; Nichols's Recollections, vol.
U. pp. 155, 200.
The mere existence of such a party, with such a name, shows bow, in a poUt
ical point of ¦riew, England was receding during this period from the maxims estab
Ushed at the Revolution. Respecting this active faction, compare the indignant re
marka of Burke (Works, vol. i. p. 188) with Albemarle's Rockingham, vol. i. pp. 5,
307 ; Buckingham's Mem, of George IIL, vol. i. p. 284, voh U. p. 154; Russell's Mem,
of Fox, vol. i. pp. 61, 120, vol. ii. pp. 50, 77 ; Bedford. Correspond, vol. iii. p. xiv. ;
Parrs Works, vol. viU. p. 513; Butler's Reminiscences, vol. i. p. 74; Burke's Cor
respond, vol. i. p. 862 ; Walpole's George III., vol. iv. p. 315 ; ITie Grenville Papers,*
vol. ii. pp. 33, 34, vol. m. p. 57, voh iv. pp. 79, 152, 219, 303 ; Pari. Hist vol. xvi.
pp. 841, 973, vol. xvUi. pp. 1005, 1246, vol. xix. pp. 435, 856, vol. xxu. pp. 650, 1178.
"»" See an extraordinary paaaage in Pellew's Ufe of Sidmouth, vol. i. p. 334.
VOL. I. — 21

333 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
chievous example of the minister of a free country sacrificing
his own judgment to the personal prejudices of the reigning sov
ereign. As it was hardly possible to find other ministers, who to equal
ahUities would add equal subservience, it is not surprising that
the highest offices were constantly filled hy men of notorious in
capacity."" Indeed, the king seemed to have an instinctive an
tipathy to every thing greait.and noble. During the reign of
George II., the elder Pitt had won for himself a reputation which
covered the world, and had carried to an unprecedented height
the glories of the EngUsh name.""* He, however, as the avowed
friend of popular rights, strenuously opposed the despotic prin
ciples of the court ; and for this reason he was hated by George
III. with a hatred that seemed barely compatible with a sane
mind.""' Fox was one of the greatest statesmen of the eigh
teenth century, and was better acquainted than any other yrith
the character and resources of those foreign nations with which
our own interests were intimately connected.""" To this rare
and important knowledge he added a sweetness and an amenity
of temper which extorted the praises even of his poUtical oppo-
™' Thia decUne in the abiUtiea of official raen waa noticed by Burke, in 1770, as
a necesaary conaequence of the new ayatem. Corapare Thoughts on the Present Dis
contents (Burke's Works, voh i. p. 149) with hia Btriking aummary (Pari. Hist. vol.
xvh p. 8'79) of the degeneracy during the firat nine years of George III. "Thus sit
uated, the question at last was not, who could do the pubUc business best, but who
would undertake to do it at all. Men of talents and integrity would not accept of
employments where they were neither aUowed to exercise their judgment nor dis
play the rectitude of their hearts." In 1780, when the evU had become stUl more
obvious, the same great observer denounced it in his celebrated address to his Bris
tol constituents. "At present," he says, "it is the plan of the court to make its
servants insignificant." Burke's Works, voh i. p. 257. See further Parr's Works,
vol. iu. pp. 256, 260, 261.
'"* The military success of his administration is related in very strong language,
but not unfairly, in Mahon's Hist, of England, vol. iv. pp. 108, 185, 186, and aee the
admirable summary in Brougham's Statesmen, vol. i. pp. 33, 34 ; and for evidence of
tbe fear with which he inspired the enemies of England, compare Mahon, vol. v. p.
165 note ; Bedford Correspond, vol. Ui. pp. 87, 246, 247 ; Walpole's Letters toMann,
vol. i. p. 304, edit. 1843 ; Walpole's Mem. of George III., vol. ii. p. 232 ; and the
reluctant adraiasion in Georgel, Memoires, vol i. pp. 79, 80.
""^ Lord Broughara (Sketches of Statesmen, vol. i. pp. 22, 33) has pubUahed atrik
ing evidence of what he calla " the truly savage feelings" with which George III. re
garded Lord Chatham (corapare RusselVs Mem. of Fox, vol. i. p. 129). Indeed, the
aentiments of the king were even diaplayed in the arrangeraenta at the funeral of
the great rainiater. Note in Adolphus's Hist, of George III., vol. ii. p. 668 ; and for
other evidence of ill-wiU, see two notea from the king to Lord North, in MahorCs
Hist, of England, vol. vh appendix, pp. Ui. liv. ; The Grenville Papers, vol. u. p.
386 ; Bancroft's American Revolution, vol. i. p. 438.
'°° Lord Brougham (Sketches of Statesmen, vol. i. p. 219) says : " It raay be ques
tioned if any poUtician, in any age, ever knew so thoroughly the various interests
and the exact position of all the countries with which his own had deaUngs to con
duct or relations to maintain." See also Parr's Works, vol. iv. pp. 14, 15 ; RusselVs
Mem. of Fox, vol. i. pp. 820, 821, vol. ih pp. 91, 243 ; Bisset s Ufe of Burke, vohi.
ooo.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 333
nents."" But he, too, was the steady supporter of civil and re
ligious liberty ; and he, too, was so detested by George III., that
the king, with his oyvn hand, struck his name out of the Ust of
privy counciUors,""" and declared that he would rather abdicate
the throne than admit him to a share in the government."""
WhUe this unfavourable change was taking place in the sov
ereign and ministers of the country, a change equally unfavour
able was being effected in the second branch of the imperial
legislature. Until the reign of George III., the House of Lords
was decidedly superior to the House of Commons in the liberal
ity and general accompUshments of its members. It is trae,
that in both houses there prevailed a spirit which must he called
narrow and superstitious, if tried hy the larger standard of the
present age. But among the peers such feeUngs were tempered
by an education that raised them far above those country gen
tlemen and ignorant fox-hunting squires of whom the lower
house was then chiefly composed. From this superiority in
their knowledge, there naturaUy foUowed a larger and more Ub
eral tum of thought than was possessed hy those who were called
the representatives of the people. The result was, that the old
Tory spirit, becoming graduaUy weaker in the upper house, took
refuge in the lower ; where, for ahout sixty years after the Eev
olution, the high-church party and the friends of the Stuarts
formed a dangerous faction."'" Thus, for instance, the two men
who rendered the most eminent services to the Hanoverian dy
nasty, and therefore to the Uberties of England, were undoubtedly
Somers and Walpole. Both of them were remarkable for their
principles of toleration, and both of them owed their safety to
^"' Burke, even after the French revolution, said, that Fox " waa of the most
artless, candid, open and benevolent disposition, disinterested in the extreme ; of a
temper mUd and placable even to a fault, without one drop of gall in his whole con
atitution." Speech on the Army Eatimates in 1790, in Pari. Hist. vol. xxviU. p. 356.
For further evidence, compare Alison's Hist, of Europe, vol. vii. p. 171 ; Holland's
Mem. of ihe Whig Party, voh I pp. 8, 273 ; Trotter^s Mem. of Fox, p. xi. xU., 24,
178, 415.
"" Adolphus's Hist, of George III, vol. vi. p. 692. A aingular circumatance
connected with thia wanton outrage is related in the Mem. of Holcroft, vol iu. p. 60.
"''' Compare Adolphus's Hist, of George IIL, vol. iv. pp. 107, 108, with RusselVs
Mem. of Fox, vol. i. pp. 191, 287, 288, vol. ii. p. 44. Dutens, who had much inter
course with EngUsh poUticians, heard of the threat of abdication in 1784. Dutens'
Memoires, vol. iu. p. 104. Lord HoUand says, that during the fatal iUness of Fox,
"the king had watched the progresa of Mr. Fox'a disorder. He could hardly sup
press his indecent exultation at his death." Hollands Mem. of the Whig Party, vol.
U. p. 49.
™ In 1725, the Duke of Wharton, in a letter to the Pretender, after mentioning
some proceedings in the Commons, adds, " In the Houae of Lords our number is so
smaU, that any behaviour there wiU be imraaterial." Mahon's Hist, of England, voh
u. appendix, p. xxiii See also, respecting the greater strength of the Tories in the
House of Commons^ Somers Tracts, vol. xi. p. 242, vol. xiu. pp. 524, 631 ; Camp
belVs Chancellors, vol. iv. p. 158 ; CampbelVs Chief -Justices, vol. U. p. 156.

334 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
the interference of the House of Lords. Somers, early in the
eighteenth century, was protected by the peers from the scan
dalous prosecution instituted against him by the other house of
parUament."" Forty years after this, the Commons, who wished
to hunt Walpole to the death, carried up a hiU encouraging wit
nesses to appear against him by remitting to them the penalties
to which they might be liable."'" This barbarous measure had
been passed through the lower house without the least difficulty;
but in the Lords it was rejected hy a preponderance of nearly
two to one."" In the same way, the Schism Act, hy which the
friends of the church subjected the dissenters to a cruel persecu
tion,"'* was hurried through the Commons hy a large and eager
majority."" In the Lords, however, the votes were nearly bal
anced ; and although the hUl was passed, amendments were added
hy which the violence of its pro-risions was in some degree soft- ,
ened."'" This superiority of the upper house over the lower was, on
the whole, steadily maintained during the reign of George II.;""
the ministers not being anxious to strengthen the high-church
party in the Lords, and the king himself so rarely suggesting
fresh creations as to cause a belief that he particularly disUked
increasing their numbers.""
It was reserved for George III., hy an unsparing use of his
prerogative, entirely to change the character of the upper house,
"" Compare Vernon Correspond, vol. Ui. p. 149, with Burnets Own Time, vol.iv.
p. 504. Burnet says, "All the Jacobites joined to support the pretensions ofthe
Commons." The Commons complained that the Lords had shown " such an mdul-
gence to the person accused as is not to be paralleled in any parliaraentary proceed
ings." Pari. Hist. vol. v. p. 1294. See also their angry remonstrance, pp. 1314,
1315. "'" Mahon's Hist, of England, vol. iu. p. 122.
='" "Content, 47; non-content, 92." Pari. Hist. vol. xii. p. 711. Mr. PhiUi-
more (Mem. of Lyttleton, vol. i. p. 213) ascribes thia to the exertions of Lord
Hardwicke ; but the state of parties in the upper house is sufficient explanation,
and even in 1736 it waa aaid that "the Lords were betwixt the devil and the deep
sea," the devil being Walpole. Marchmont Papers, vol. ii. p. 59. Compare Bishop
Newton's Ufe of Himself, p. 60. -
"'* See an account of some of ita provisions in MahorCs Hist, of England, vol. I
pp. 80, 81. The object of the biU is frankly stated in Pari. Hist. vol. vi. p. 1349,
where we are informed that, " aa the farther discouragement and even ruin of the
dissenters was thought necessary for accomplishing this' scheme, it waa begun with
the famoua Schiara BiU."
"'" By 237 to 126. Pari. Hist vol. vi. p. 1351.
"" Mahon's Hist, of England, vol. i. p. 83 ; Bunbury's Correspond, of Hanmer,
p. 48. The biU waa carried in the Lords by 77 against 72.
m ll jf .^g scrutinize the votes of the peers from the period of the revolution to
the death of George IL, we shaU find a very great majority of the old EngUsh nobil
ity to have been the advocates of Whig principles." Cooke's Hist, of Party, vol iii.
p. 363. "'" Compare Harris's Ufe of Hardwicke, voh in. p. 519, with the conversation
between Sir Robert Walpole and Lord Hervey, in Hervey's Mem. of George II. vol
u. p. 261, edit. 1848.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 335
and thus lay the foundation for that disrepute into which since
then the peers have been constantly faUing. The creations he
made were numerous beyond aU precedent; their object evidently
being to neutralize the liberal spirit hitherto prevailing, and thus
turn the House of Lords into an engine for resisting the popular
yrishes, and stopping the progress of reform."'" How completely
this plan succeeded, is weU known to the readers of our history;
indeed, it was sure to he successful, considering the character of
the men who were promoted. They consisted almost entirely of
two classes : of country gentlemen, remarkable for nothing hut
their wealth, and the number of votes their wealth enabled them
to control;"'" and of mere lay^ers, who had risen to judicial ap
pointments partly from their professional learning, hut chiefly
from the zeal with which they repressed the popular Uberties,
and favoured the royal prerogative.""
That this is no exaggerated description, may he ascertained
hy any one who wiU consult the Usts of the new peers made by
George III. Here and there we flnd an eminent man, whose
public serrices were so notorious that it was impossible to avoid
rewarding them; hut, putting aside those who were in a manner
forced upon the sovereign, it would be idle to deny that the re
mainder, and of course the overwhelming majority, were marked
by a narrowness and ilUberaUty of sentiment, which, more than
any thing else, brought the whole order into contempt."'" No
great thinkers; no great writers; no great orators; no great
"" Cooke's Hist, of Party, vol. ui. pp. 368, 364, 365, 463 ; Pari. Hist. vol. xviii.
p. 1418, vol. xxiv. p. 493, vol. xxvii. p. 1069, vol. xxix. pp. 1334, 1494, vol. xxxiu.
pp. 90, 602, 1815.
"" This was too notorious to be denied ; and in the Houae of Comraons, in 1800,
NiohoUa taunted the government with "holding out a peerage, or elevation to a
higher rank in the peerage, to every raan who could procure a noraination to a cer
tain number of aeats in ParUament." Pari. Hist, vol xxxv. p. 762. So too Sheri
dan, in 1792, said (vol. xxix. p. 1333), "In thia country peeragea had been bartered
for election intereat."
""' On this great influx of lawyers uito the House of Lords, most of whom zeal
ously advocated arbitrary principles, see Belsham's Hist, of Great Britain, vol vii.
pp. 266, 267 ; Adolphus's Hist, of George III vol. iu. p. 368 ; Pari. Hist vol. xxxv.
p. 1523. ^ It was foretold at the time, that the effect of the numeroua creationa made
during Pitt'a power would be to lower the House of Lords. Compare Butler's Rem
iniscences, vol. i. p. 76, with Erskine's apeech, in Pari. Hist vol xxix. p. 1880; and
aee Sheridan'a speech, vol. xxxUi. p. 1197. But their language, indignant aa it ia,
waa reatrained by a desire of not whoUy breaking with the court. Other men, who
were more independent iu their position, and cared nothing for the chance of future
office, expressed themselves in terms such as had never before been heard within
the walls of ParUament. RoUe, for instance, declared that "there had been persons
created peers duringthe present minister's power, who were not fit to be his grooms."
Pari. Hist vol xxvil p. 1198. Out of doors, the feeUng of contempt was equally
strong : aee Ufe of Cartwright, vol. i. p. 278 ; and see the remark even of the courtly
Sir W. Jones on the increasing disregard for learning shown by " the nobles of our
days." Preface to Persian Grammar, in Jones's Works, voh U. p. 125.

336 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
statesmen; none of the true nobiUty of the land, — were to be
found among these spurious nobles created hy George III. Nor
were the material interests of the country better represented in
this strange composition. Among the most important men in
England, those engaged in hanking and commerce held a high
place : since the end of the seventeenth century their influence
had rapidly increased; wMle their intelUgence, their clear, me
thodical habits, and their general knowledge of affairs, made
them every way superior to those classes from whom the upper
house was now recruited. But in the reign of George III. claims
of this sort were little heeded; and we are assured hy Burke,
whose authority on such a subject no one wUl dispute, that there
never had heen a time in which so few persons connected with
commerce were raised to the peerage.""
It would be endless to coUect all the symptoms which mark
the political degeneracy of England during this period; a degen
eracy the more striking, because it was opposed to the spirit of
the time, and hecause it took place in spite of a great progress,
both social and intellectual. How that progress eventuaUy
stopped the poUtical reaction, and even forced it to retrace its
own steps, will appear in another part of this work; hut there is
one circumstance which I cannot refrain from noticing at some
length, since it affords a most interesting illustration of the ten
dency of public affairs, whUe at the same time it exhibits the
character of one ofthe greatest men, and. Bacon alone excepted,
the greatest thinker, who has ever devoted himself to the prac
tice of EngUsh politics.
The slightest sketch of the reign of George III. would indeed
he miserably imperfect, if it were to omit the name of Edmund
Burke. The studies of this extraordinary man not only covered
the whole field of poUtical inquiry,"'* hut extended to an immense
variety of subjects, which, though apparently unconnected with
politics, do in reaUty bear upon them as important adjuncts;
since, to a phUosophic mind, every branch of knowledge lights
up even those that seem most remote from it. The eulogy
passed upon him by one who was no mean judge of men,"" might
'"" In his Thoughts on Frerich Affairs, written in 1791, he saya, "At no period
in the history of England have so few peers been taken out of trade, or from fami
Ues newly created by commerce." Burke's Works, vol i. p. 566. Indeed, accord
ing to Sir Nathaniel WraxaU (Posthumous Memoirs, vol. i. pp. 66, 67, Lond. 1836),
the only instance when George III. broke this rule was when Smith the banker was
made Lord Carrington. WraxaU is an indifferent authority, and there may be other
cases ; but they were certainly very few, and I cannot caU any to mind.
'" Nicholls, who knew hira, says, " The poUtical knowledge of Mr. Burke might
be considered almost as an encyclopedia ; every man who approached him received
instruction from his atorea." Nicholls's Recollections, vol. i. p. 20.
292 II rpijg excuraiona of his genius are immense. Hia imperial fancy has laid all

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION, 337
he justified, and more than justified, by passages from his works,
as weU as by the opinions of the most eminent of his contem
poraries."'" Thus it is, that whUe his insight into the philosophy
of jurisprudence has gained the applause of lawyers,"" his ac
quaintance yrith the whole range and theory of the fine arts has
won the admiration of artists;"" a striking combination of two
pursuits, often, though erroneously, held to be incompatible vrith
each other. At the same time, and notwithstanding the occu
pations of poUtical life, we know, on good authority, that he had
paid great attention to the history and ffliation of languages;"'"
a vast subject, which within the last thirty years has become an
important resource for the study of the human mind, hut the
very idea of which had, in its large sense, only begun to dawn
upon a few soUtary thinkers. And, what is even more remark
able, when Adam Smith came to London ffiU of those discoveries
which have immortaUzed his name, he found to his amazement
that Burke had anticipated conclusions the maturing of which
cost Smith himself many years of anxious and unremitting la
bour.""" nature under tribute, and has coUected riches frora every acene of the creation, and
every walk of art." Works of Robert Hall, London, 1846, p. 196. So too Wilber
force Bays of bun, " He had come late into ParUament, and had had time to lay in
vast stores of knowledge. The field from which he drew his Ulustrations was mag
nificent. Like the fabled object of the fairy's favours, whenever he opened bis mouth
pearls and diamonds dropped from him." Ufe of Wilberforce, vol. i. p. 159.
™ Lord Thurlow is said to have declared, what I suppose ia now the general
opinion of competent judgea, that the fame of Burke would aurvive that of Pitt and
Fox. Butler's Reminiscences, vol i. p. 169. But the noblest eulogy on Burke was
pronounced by a man far greater than Thurlow. In 1790, Fox: stated in the House
of Commons, "that if he were to put aU the poUtical information which he had
learnt from books, all which he had gained from acience, and aU which any knowl
edge of the world and ita affairs had taught him, into one scale, and the improve
ment which he had derived frora his right hon. friend's instruction and conversation
were placed in the other, he should be at a loss to decide to which to give the pref-
drence." Pari. Hist, vol xxviu. p. 863.
'" Lord CarapbeU (Uves of the Chief-Justices, voh U. p. 448) says, "Burke, a
phUosophic statesraan, deeply imbued with the scientific principles of jurisprudence."
See also, on hia knowledge of law, Butler's Reminiscences, vol. i. p. 131 ; and Bis
ects Ufe of Burke, vol. i. p. 230.
^ Barry, in hia celebrated Letter to the Dilettanti Society, regreta that Burke
ahould have been diverted from the atudy of the fine arts into the pursuit of poUtics,
because he had one of those "minds of an admirable expansion and cathoUcity, so
as to embrace the whole concerns of art, ancient as well as modern, domestic as weU
as foreign." Barry's Works, vol u. p. 538, 4to, 1809. In the Annual Register for
1798, p. 829, 2d edit, it is stated, that Sir Joshua Eeynolds " deemed Burke the
best judge of pictures that he ever knew." See further Works of Sir J. Reynolds,
Lond. 1846, vol. i. p. 185; and Bisset s Ufe of Burke, vol U. p. 257. A somewhat
curious conversation between Burke and Eeynolds, on a point of art, ia preserved in
Holcrofts Memoirs, vol. ii. pp. 276, 277.
'"' See a letter from Winstanley, the Camden Professor of Ancient History, in
Bissets Ufe of Burke, vol. ih pp. 890, 391, and m Prior's Life of Burke, p. 427.
Winstanley writes, "It would have been exceedingly difficult to have met with a per
son who knew more of the phUosophy, the history, and fiUation of languages, or oi
the principles of etymological deduction, than Mr. Burke."
'"" Adam Smith told Burke, " after they had conversed on subjects of poUtical

338 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
To these great inquiries, which touch the hasis of social phi
losophy, Burke added a considerable acquaintance with physical
science and even with the practice and routine of mechanical
trades. ' All this was so digested and worked into his mind, that it
was ready on every occasion; not, Uke the knowledge of ordinary
politicians, broken and wasted in fragments, but blended into a
complete whole, fused by a genius that gave Ufe even to the
dullest pursuits. This, indeed, was the characteristic of Burke,
that in his hands nothing was barren. Such was the strength
and exuberance of his inteUect, that it bore fruit in all direc
tions, and could confer dignity upon the meanest subjects, by
showing their connexion yrith general principles, and the part
they have to play in the great scheme of human affairs.
But what has always appeared to me stiU more remarkable
in the character of Burke, is the singular sobriety with which he
employed his extraordinary acquirements. During the best part
of his life, his political principles, so far from being speculative,
were altogether practical. This is particularly striking, because
he had every temptation to adopt an opposite course. He pos
sessed materials for generaUzation far more ample than any poUti
cian of his time, and he had a mind eminently prone to take large
views. On many occasions, and indeed whenever an opportunity
occurred, he showed his capacity as an original and speculative
thinker. But the moment he set forth on poUtical ground, he
changed his method. In questions connected with the accumu
lation and distribution of wealth, he saw that it was possible,
by proceeding from a few simple principles, to construct a de
ductive science avaUahle for the commercial and financial inter
ests of the country. Further than this he refused to advance,
because he knew that, with this single exception, every depart
ment of politics was purely empirical, and was Ukely long to re
main so. Hence it was, that he recognized in all its bearings
that great doctrine, which even in our own days is too often for
gotten, that the aim of the legislator should he, not truth, hut
expediency. Looking at the actual state of knowledge, he was
forced to admit, that aU political principles have heen raised by
hasty induction from limited facts; and that, therefore, it is the
part of a yvise man, when he adds to the facts, to revise the in
duction, and, instead of sacrificing practice to principles, modify
the principles that he may change the practice. Or, to put this
in another way, he lays it .down that political principles are at
economy, that he was the only man who, without communication, thought on these
topics exactly as he did." Bissets Ufe of Burke, voh ii. p. 429 ; and see Prior's life
of Burke, p. 58 ; aud on his knowledge of political economy. Brougham's Sketches of
Statesmen, vol. i. p. 205.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 339
best hut the product of human reason ; whUe poUtical practice
has to do yrith human nature and human passions, of which
reason forms hut a part;""' and that, on this account, the proper
business of a statesman is, to contrive the means hy which cer
tain ends may be effected, leaving it to the general voice of the
country to determine what those ends shaU be, and shaping his
own conduct, not accordiag to his own principles, hut according
to the yrishes of the people for whom he legislates, and whom he
is bound to obey,"""
It is these views, and the extraordinary ahUity with which
they were advocated, which make the appearance of Burke a
memorable epoch in our political history.""' We had, no doubt,
sBi ll poiitiics ought to be adjusted, not to human reasonings, but to liuman nature ;
of which the reason is but a part, and by no means the greatest part." Observations
on a late State of the Nation, in Burke's Works, vol i. p. 113. Hence the distinction
he had conatantly in 'view between the generalizations of philosophy, which ought
to be impregnable, and those of politics, which must be fluctuating ; and hence in
his noble work, Thoughts on the Cause of the present Discontents, be saya (vol. i. p.
136), "No Unes can be laid down for civil or political wisdom. They are a matter
incapable of exact definition." See also p. 151, on which he grounds his defence of
the apirit of party ; it being evident, that if truth were the prime object of the polit
ical art, the idea of party, as such, would be indefensible. Compare with this the
difference between "la vdritd en soi" and "la vdritd sociale," as expounded by M.
Eey in his Science Sociale, vol. ii. p. 322, Paris, 1842.
™" In 1780 he plainly told the House of Commons that " the people are the maa
tera. They have only to express their wants at large and in gross. We are the ex
pert artists ; we are the skilful workmen, to shape their desires into perfect form,
and to fit the utensil to the use. They are the aufferera, they tell the aymptoma of
the complaint ; but we know the exact seat of the disease, and how to apply the
remedy according to the rulea of art. How shocking would it be to see us pervert
our skUl into a sinister and servile dexterity, for the purpose of evading our duty, and
defrauding our employers, who are our natural lords, of tbe object of their just ex
pectations ! " Burke's Works, vol. i. p. 264. In 1777, in his Letter to the Sheriffs
of Bristol, (Works, vol. i. p. 216), "In effect, to/oUow, not to force, the pubUc iu-
cUnation ; to give a direction, a form, a technical dress, and a specific sanction, to
the general sense of the community, — is the true end of legislature." In his Let
ter on the Duration of Parliament (vol U. p. 430), " It would be dreadful, indeed,
if there was any power in the nation capable of resisting its unanimous desire, or
even the desire of any very great and decided majority of the people. The people
may be deceived in their choice of an object. But lean scarcely conceive any choice
they can make to be so very mischievous, as the existence of any human force capable
of resisting it." So, too, he saya (vol i. pp. 125, 214), that when government and
the people differ, government ia generaUy in the wrong: compare pp. 217, 218, 276,
vol. ii. p. 440. And to give only one more instance, but a very decisive one, be, in
1772, when apeaking on a BiU respecting the Importation and Exportation of Corn,
said, " On this occasion I give way to the present Bill, not because I approve of the
measure in itself, but because I think it prudent to yield to the spirit of the times.
The people will have it so ; and it is not for their representatives to say nay. I can
not, however, help entering my protest against the general principles of policy on
which it is aupported, because I think them extremely dangeroua." Pari. Hist, vol
xvii. p. 480.
'"" The effect which Burke's profound views produced in the House of Commons,
where, however, few men were able to understand them in their fuU extent, is de
scribed by Dr. Hay, who was present at one of his great speeches ; which, he says,
" seemed a kmd of new poUtical philosophy." Burke's Correspond, vol i. p. 103.
Compare a letter from Lee, written in the same year, 1766, in Forster's Life of
Goldsmith, vol. U. pp. 38, 39 ; and in Bunbury's Correspond, of Hanmer, p. 468.

330 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
other statesmen before him, who denied the vaUdity of general
principles in poUtics; but their denial was only the happy guess
of ignorance, and they rejected theories which they had nev§r
taken the pains to study. Burke rejected them hecause he kpev
them. It was his rare merit that, notwithstanding every induce
ment to rely upon his own generaUzations, he resisted the temp
tation; that, though rich in, aU the varieties of political knowledge,
he made his opinions subservient to the march of events; that
he recognized as the object of govemment, not the .preservation
of particular institutions, nor the propagation of particular te
nets, hut the happiness of the people at large; and, fihoye aU,
that he insisted upon an obedience to the popular yrishes, which
no statesman hefore him had paid, and which too many states
men since him have forgotten. Our country, indeed, is stUl fuU
of those vulgar politicians, against whom Burke raised his voice ;
feeble and shallow men, who, having spent their little force in
resisting the progress of reform, find themselves at length com
peUed to yield; and then, so soon as they have exhausted the
artifices of their petty schemes, and, by their tardy and ungrace
ful concessions, have sown the seed of future disaffection, they
turn upon the age by which they have heen baffled; they mourn
over the degeneracy of mankind; they lament the decay of pub
Uc spirit; and they weep for the fate of a people, who have been
so regardless ofthe wisdom of their ancestors, as to tamper with
a constitution already hoary with the prescription of centuries.
Those who have studied the reign of George III. wiU easily
understand the immense advantage of having a man like Burke
to oppose these miserable delusions; delusions which have been
fatal to many countries, and have more than once almost ruined
our own.""* They wUl also understand that, in the opinion of
the king, this great statesman was, at best, but an eloquent de-
claimer, to be classed in the same category yrith Fox and Chat
ham; all three ingenious men, but unsafe, unsteady, quite un
fit for weighty concerns, and hy no means calculated for so
exalted an honour as admission into the royal councUs. In
point of fact, during the thirty years Burke was engaged in pub-
°" Burke was never weary of attacking the coramon argument, that, because a
country has long flourished under some particular custom, therefore the custom must
be good. See an admirable instance of this in his speech, on the power of the at
torney-general to file informations ex officio ; where he Ukena auch reaaonera to the
father of Scriblerua, who " venerated the riiat and canker which exalted a brazen pot-
lid into the shield of a hero." He adds : " But, air, we are told, that the time dur
ing which thia power exiated, ia the time during which monarchy moat flouriahed ;
and what, then, can no two things subsist together but as cause and effect? May not
a pan have enjoyed better health during the time that he walked with an oaken
stick, than afterwards, when he changed it for a cane, without supposing, Uke the
Druids, that there are occult virtues in oak, and that the stick and the health were
cause and effect ? " Pari. Hist vol. xvi. pp. 1190, 1191.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 331
lie life, he never once held an office in the cabinet;""' and the
only occasions on which he occupied even a subordinate post,
were in those very short intervals when the fluctuations of poli
tics compelled the appointment of a Uberal ministry.
Indeed, the part taken hy Burke in public affairs must have
heen very galling to a king who thought every thing good that
was old, and every thing right that was estabUshed.""' For, so
far was this remarkable man in advance of his contemporaries,
that there are few of the great measures of the present genera
tion which he did not anticipate and zealously defend. Not only
did he attack the absurd laws against forestalling and regrat-
ing,""' hut, by advocating the freedom of trade, he struck at the
root of all simUar prohibitions.""' He supported those just
claims of the CathoUcs,""" which, during his Ufetime, were obsti
nately refused; but which were conceded, many years after his
death, as the only means of preserving the integrity of the em
pire. He supported the petition of the Dissenters, that they
might he reUeved from the restrictions to which, for the heneflt
of the Church of England, they were subjected.'"" Into other
departments of poUtics he carried the same spirit. He opposed
the cruel laws against insolvents,'"' by which, in the time of
George III., our statute-hook was stUl defaced; and he vainly
""^ This, as Mr. Cooke truly says, is an instance of aristocratic prejudice ; but it is
certain that a hint from George ID. would have remedied the shameful neglect.
Cooke's Hist, of Party, vol. Ui. pp. 277, 278.
"" It is easy to imagine how George III. must have been offended by such senti
ments as theae : "I am not of the opinion of those gentlemen who are againat diaturb-
ing the puhUc repose ; I Uke a clamour whenever there is an abuse. The fire-beU at
midnight diaturbs your aleep, but it keeps you from being burnt in your bed. The
hue and cry alarms the county, but preserves aU the property of the province."
Burke's speech on Prosecutions for Libels, in 1771, in Pari. Hist. vol. xvu. p. 64.
'"" He moved their repeah Pari. Hist. vol. xxvi. p. 1169. Even Lord Chatham
issued, in 1766, a proclamation against forestaUers and regraters, very much to the
admiration of Lord Mahon, who says, " Lord Chatham acted with characteristic en
ergy." Mahon's Hist, of England, vol. v. p. 166. More than thirty years later,
and after Burke's death. Lord Kenyoh, then chief-justice, eulogized these prepoB-
terous laws. Hollands Mem, of the Whig Party, vol i. p. 167. Corapare Adolphus's
Hist, of George III. vol vU. p. 406 ; and CockburrCs Mmruorials of his Time, Edinb.
1856, p. 73.
-m ll rpjjg^^ Uberality in the commercial system, which, I trust, will one day be
adopted." Burke's Works, vol. i. p. 223. And, in his letter to Burgh (Ibid, vol ii. p.
409), " But that to which I attached myself the most particularly, was to fix the prin
ciple of a free trade in aU the porta of theae ialands, as founded iu justice, and ben
eficial to the whole ; but principaUy to this, the seat of the supreme power."
="_» PHor's Ufe of Burke, p. 467 ; Burke's Works, vol i. pp. 263-271, 637-661,
vol. u. pp. 431-447. He refutes (vol. i. p. 648) the notion that the coronation-oath
was intended to bind the crown in its legislative capacity. Compare Mem. of Mack
intosh, vol.i. pp. 170, 171, with Butler's Reminiscences, vol. i. p. J84.
"™ Pari. Hist vol xvu. pp. 435, 436, vol xx. p. 306. See also Burke's Corres
pondence, vol. U. pp. 17, 18 ; and Prior's Ufe of Burke, p. 143.
""' Burke's Works, vol i. pp. 261. 262, part of hia speech at Bristol.

333 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
attempted to soften the penal code,'"" the increasing severityof
which was one of the . worst features of that bad reign.'"' He
wished to ahoUsh the old plan of enlisting soldiers for Ufe;'"* a
barbarous and impolitic practice, as the EngUsh legislature began
to perceive several years later.'"' He attacked the slave-trade;'""
which, being an ancient usage, the king • wished to preserve, as
part of the British constitution.'"' He refuted,'"" hut, owing to
the prejudices of the age, was unable to subvert, the dangerous
power exercised by the judges, who, in criminal prosecutions for
Ubel, confined the jury to the mere question of publication; thus
taking the real issue into their own hands, and making them
selves the arbiters of the fate of those who were so unfortunate
as to he placed at their bar.'"" And, what many wiU think not
the least of his merits, he was the first in that long Une of finan
cial reformers, to whom we are deeply indebted."" Notwith
standing the difficulties thrown in his way, he carried through
parUament a series of bUls, by which several useless places were
"^ Prior's Ufe of Burke, p. 317. See also his admirable reraarks, in Wbris, vol
ii. p. 417 ; and hia speech, in Pari. Hist, vol xxviU. p. 146.
^°" On this increasing cruelty of the EngUsh laws, corapare Parr's Works, vol
iv. pp. 150, 259, with Pari. Hist, voh xxu. p. 271, vol. xxiv. p. 1222, voh xxvi. p.
1057, vol xxviii. p. 143 ; and, in regard to the execution of them, see Life of Rom-
illy, by Himself, vol. i. p. 65 ; and Alison's Hist, of Europe, vol ix. p. 620.
^' In one short speech (Pari. Hist, vol xx. pp. 150, 161), he has ahnost ex
hausted the arguments against enUstment for Ufe.
^^ In 1806, that is, nine years after the death of Burke, parliament first author
ized enUstment for a term of years. See an account of the debates in A lison's Hist
of Europe, vol. vii. p. 880-391. Compare- iVicAo/s's Rlustrations of the Eighteenth
Century, vol. v. p. 475 ; and Holland's Mem. ofthe Whig Party, voh il p. 116.
™° Prior's Ufe of Burke, p. 816; Pari. Hist. vol. xxvU. p. 602, vol. xxviU. pp.
69, 96 ; and Ufe of Wilberforce, voh i. pp. 152, 171, contain evidence of his animos
ity against the slave-trade, and a more than sufficient answer to the Ul-natured, and,
what is worse, the ignorant, remark about Burke, in the Duke of Buckingham's
Mem. of George III. vol I p. 850.
™' On the respect which George III. felt for the slave-trade, see note 259 to
thia chapter. I might alao have quoted the teatimony of Lord Brougham : " The
court was decidedly againat abolition. George III. alwaya regarded the question
with abhorrence, as savouring of innovation." Brougham's Statesmen, voh ii. p. 104.
Compare Combe's North America, vol. i. p. 332.
"°" Burke's Works, vol. U. pp. 490-496 ; Pari. Hist vol xvu. pp. 44-55, a very
able speech, deUvered in 1771. Compare a letter to DowdesweU, in Burke's Corre
spond, vol. i. pp. 251, 252.
" The arguments of Burke anticipated, by more than twenty years. Fox's cele
brated Libel BiU, which was not passed tUl 1792 ; although, in 1752, juries had be
gun, in apite of the judges, to return general verdicts on the merits. See Campbelts
Chancellors, vol. v. pp. 288, 243, 841-345, vol. vi. p. 210 ; and Meyer, Institutions
Judiciaires, vol. U. pp. 204, 206, Paris, 1823.
"'" Mr. Farr, in his valuable esaay on the statiatica of the civU aervice (in Jour
nal of Statist Soc. vol. xii. pp. 103-125), calla Burke "one of tbe firat and ablest
financial reformers _in parUament." p. 104. The truth, however, is, that he was not
only one of the first, but the first. He was the first man who laid liefore parUament
ageneral and systematic scheme for diminishing tbe expenses of government ; and
his preUminary speech on that occasion is one of the finest of all his compositions.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 333
entirely aboUshed, and, in the single office of paymaster-general,
a saving effected to the country of 25,000?. a year.'"_
These things alone are sufficient to explain the animosity of a
prince, whose boast it was, that he would bequeath the govern
ment to his successor in the same state as that in which he had
received it. There was, however, another circumstance hy which
the royal feelings were stiU further wounded. The determina
tion of the king to oppress the Americans was so notorious,
that, when the war actuaUy broke out, it was called " the king's
war;" and those who opposed it were regarded as the personal
enemies of their sovereign."" In this, however, as in aU other
questions, the conduct of Burke was governed, not hy traditions
and principles, such as George III. cherished, hut by large views
of general expediency. Burke, in forming his opinions respect
ing this disgraceful contest, refused to be guided by arguments
respecting the right of either party."' He would not enter into
any discussion, as to whether a mother-country has the right to
tax her colonies, or whether the colonies have a right to tax
themselves. Such points he left to he mooted hy those politi
cians who, pretending to he guided by principles, are, in reaUty,
subjugated by prejudice."* For his own part, he was content to
compare the cost with the gain. It was enough for Burke, that,
considering the power of our American colonies, considering their
distance from us, and considering the probabUity of their being
"" Prior's Ufe of Burke, pp. 206, 234. See also, on the retrenchraents he
effected, Sinclair s Hist, of ihe Revenue, vol. U. pp. 84, 86 ; Burke's Correspond, vol
iU. p. 14; and Bissets Ufe of Burke, vol U. pp. 67-60.
'"" In 1778, Lord Rockingham said, in the House of Lords, " Instead of calUng
the war, the war of parliament, or of the people, it was caUed the king's war, his
majesty's favourite war." Pari. Hist, voh xix. p. 857. Compare Cooke's Hist, of
Party, vol. ul p. 235, with the pungent remarks in Walpole's George HI. vol iv. p.
114. NichoUs ( Recollections, voh i.\p. 86) says : " The war waa considered as the
war of the king peraonaUy. Thoae who supported it were caUed the king's friends ;
whUe thoae who wished the country to pause, and reconsider the propriety of per
severing in the conteat, were branded aa disloyal"
"" "I am not here going into the distinction of rights, nor atterapting to mark
their boundaries. I do not enter into these metaphysical diatinctiona ; I hate the
very sound of them." Speech on Americfau taxation in 1774, in Burke's Works,
vol. i. p. 173. In 1775 (vol. i. p. 192) : " But my consideration is narrow, confined,
and whoUy limited to the poUcy of the question." At p. 183 : we should act in re
gard to America, not " according to abstract ideas of right, by no means according
to mere general theories of governraent ; the resort to which appears to me, in our
present situation, no better than arrant trifling." In one of his earUest poUtical
pamphlets, written in 1769, he says, that the arguments of the opponents of Amer
ica " are conclusive ; conclusive as to right ; but the very reverse as to policy and
practice." voh i. p. 112. Compare a letter, written in 1775, in Burke's Correspond.
vol u. p. 12.
'" In 1766, George III. writes to Lord Eockingham (Albemarle's Rockingham,
voh I pp. 271; 272) :¦ " Talbot is as right as I can desire, in the stamp act ; strong
for our declaring our right, but wiUing to repeal !" In other words, wilUng to offend
the Americans," by a speculative assertion of an abstract right, but careful to forego
the advantage which that right might produce.

334 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
aided hy France, it was not advisable to exercise the power; and
it was, therefore, idle to talk of the right. Hence he opposed
the taxation of America, not because it was unprecedented, but
because it was inexpedient. As a natural consequence, he like
wise opposed the Boston-Port BiU, and that shameful biU, to
forbid all intercourse with America, which was not inaptly called
the starvation plan; violent measures, hy which the king hoped
to curb the colonies, and break the spirit of those noble men,
whom he hated even more than he feared.'"
It is certainly no faint characteristic of those times, that a
man like Burke, who dedicated to poUtics ahUities equal to far
nobler things, should, during thirty years, have received from his
prince neither favour nor reward. But George III. was a Mng,
whose deUght it was to raise the humble and exalt the meek.
His reign, indeed, was the golden age of successful mediocrity;
an age in which little men were favoured, and great men de
pressed; when Addington was cherished as a statesman, and
Beattie pensioned as a phUosopher; and when, in aU the walks
of public life, the first conditions of promotion were, to fawn
upon ancient prejudices, and support established abuses.
This neglect of the most eminent of English poUticians is
highly instructive; hut the circumstances which foUowed, though
extremely painful, have a stUl deeper interest, and are well worth
the attention of those whose habits of mind lead them to study
the intellectual peculiarities of great men.
For, at this distance of time, when his nearest relations are
no more, it would he affectation to deny that Burke, during the
last few years of his life, feU into a state of complete haUucina-
tion. When the French Eevolution broke out, his mind, aheady
fainting under the weight of incessant labour, could not support
the contemplation of an event so ilnprecedented, so appalling,
and threatening results of such frightul magnitude. And, when
the crimes of that great revolution, instead of diminishing, con
tinued to increase, then it was that the feeUngs of Burke finaUy
mastered his reason; the balance tottered; the proportions of
that gigantic inteUect were disturbed. From this moment, his
sympathy with present suffering was so intense, that he lost aU
"" The intense hatred with which George III. regarded the Araericana, was so
natural to such a mind as his, that one can hardly blame hia conatant exhibition of
it during the time that the atruggle was actuaUy irapending. But what ia truly dis
graceful is, that, after the war was over, he cUsplayed this rancour on an occasion
when, of aU others, he waa bound to auppreaa it. In 1786, Jefferaon and Adams
were iu England ofiSciaUy, and, aa a raatter of courtesy to the king, made their ap
pearance at court. So regardless, however, was George III. of the common de
cencies of his station, that he treated these eminent men with marked incivility,
dthough they were then paying their respects to him in his own palace. See Tucker's
Ufe of Jefferson, vol i. p. 220 ; and Mem, and Correspond, of Jefferson, vol h p. 64<

GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 335
memory of the tyranny by which the sufferings were provoked.
His mind, once so steady, so little swayed hy prejudice and pas
sion, reeled under the pressure of events which turned the brains
of thousands."" And whoever wUl compare the spirit of his
latest works with the dates of their pubUcation, wUl see how this
melancholy change was aggravated by that hitter bereavement,
from which he never rallied, and which alone was sufficient to
prostrate the understanding of one in whom the severity of the
reason was so tempered, so nicely poised, by the warmth of the
affections. Never, indeed, can there he forgotten those touching,
those exquisite aUusions to the death of that only son, who was
the joy of his soul, and the pride of his heart, and to whom he
fondly hoped to bequeath the inheritance of his imperishable
name. Never can we forget that image of desolation, under
which the noble old man figured his immeasurable grief. " I
Uve in an inverted order. They who ought to have succeeded
me, have gone hefore me. They who should have heen to me as
posterity, are in the place of ancestors  The storm has
gone over me, and I lie Uke one of those old oaks which the late
hurricane has scattered ahout me. I am stripped of aU my
honours ; I am torn up by the roots, and lie prostrate on the
earth."'" It would, perhaps, be displaying a morbid curiosity, to
attempt to raise the veU, and trace the decay of so mighty a
mind.'" Indeed, in aU such cases, most of the evidence per
ishes; for those who have the best opportunities of witnessing
the infirmities of a great man, are not those who most love to
relate them. But it is certain, that the change was first clearly
seen immediately after the breaking out of the French Eevolu-
™ AU great revolutiona have a direct tendency to increase insanity, as long as
they laat, and probably for aome time afterwarda ; but iu thia, ae in other respects,
the French revolution stands alone in the number of ita victims. On the horrible,
but curious subject of madness, caused by the excitement of the events which oc
curred in France late in the eighteenth century, compare Prichard on Insanity in re
lation to Jurisprudence, 1842, p. 90 ; bis Treatise on Insanity, 1835, pp. 161, 188, 280,
339 ; Esquirol, Maladies Mentales, vol i. pp. 43, 53, 54, 66, 211, 447, vol ii. pp.
193, 726 ; Feuchtersleben's Medical Psychology, p. 264 ; Georget, de la Folic, p. 166 ;
Pinel, Traits sur VAlienation Mentale, pp. 30, 108, 109, 177, 178, 185, 207 , 215,
257, 349, 392, 467, 481 ; Alison's Hist of Europe, vol Ui. p. 112.
'" Burke's Works, vol u. p. 268. "J^^.^ -,^^ X, ,
"" The earUest unraistakeable instances of tEoSe violent outbreaks which showed
the presence of disease, were in the debates on the regency biU, in February, 1789,
when Sir Richard HUl, with brutal candour, hinted at Burke's madness, even in his
preaence. Pari. Hist vol. xxvU. p. 1249. Compare a letter from Sir William Young,
in Buckingham's Mem. of George III. 1853, vol U. p. 73: "Burke finiahed hia
wild speech in a manner next to madness." This waa in December, 1788 ; and, from
that time until his death, it became every year more evident that his intellect was
disordered. See a melancholy description of hira in a letter, written by Dr. Currie
in 1792 (Ufe of Currie, voh U. p. 150) ; and, above aU, aee his own incoherent letter,
in 1796, in hia Correspond, with Lawrence, p. 67.

336 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
tion; that it was aggravated hy the death of his son; and that
it became progressively worse tiU death closed the scene.'" In
his Reflections on the French Revolution; in his Remarks on the
Policy ofthe Allies; in his Letter to Elliot; in his Letter to a
Noble Lord; and in his Letters on a Regicide Peace, we may
note the consecutive steps of an increasing, and at length
an uncontrollable, violence. To the single principle of hatred
of the French Eevolution, he sacrificed his oldest associa
tions and his dearest friends. Fox, as is well known, always
looked up to Burke as to a master, from whose Ups he had
gathered the lessons of poUtical wisdom.'"" Burke, on his side,
fiiUy recognized the vast abilities of his friend, and loved him
for that affectionate disposition, and for those winning manners,
which, it has often heen said, none who saw them could ever re
sist. . But now, without the slightest pretence of a personal
quarrel, this long intimacy'"' was rudely severed. Because Fox
would not abandon that love of popular liberty which they had
long cherished in common, Burke, pubUcly and in his place in
parliament, declared that their friendship was at an end; for
that he would never more hold communion yrith a man who lent
his support to the French people.'"" At the same time, and in
deed the very evening on which this occurred, Biirke, who had
hitherto been remarkable for the courtesy of his manners,'"'
deliberately insulted another of his friends, who was taking him
home in his carriage; and, in a state of frantic excitement, in
sisted on being immediately set down, in the middle of the night,
in a pouring rain, because he could not, he said, remain seated
by a " friend to the revolutionary doctrines of the French."'"* -
Nor is it true, as some have supposed, that this mania of
hostility was solely directed against the criminal part of the
"'" His sou died in Auguat, 1794 (Burke's Correspond, vol. iv^ p. 224); and his
moat violent worka were written between that period and his own death, in July,
1797. 320 11 r[,j^jg ^jggipig^ as he was proud to acknowledge himself" Brougham's States
men, voh i. p. 218. In 1791, Fox said, that Burke " had taught him every thing he
knew in politics." Pari, Hist, vol. xxix. p. 379. See also Adolphus's Hist, of
George III. vol iv. pp. 472, 610; and a letter from Fox to Parr, in Parr's Works,
vol vii. p. 287.
°" It had begun in 1766, when Fox was only seventeen. RusselVs Mem. of Fox,
vol i. p. 26.
"*" On this painful rupture, compare with the Parliamentary History, Hollands
Mem. of the Whig Party, vol i. pp. 10, 11 ; Prior's Ufe of Burke, pp. '375-379 ;
Tomline's Ufe of Pitt, vol. u. pp. 386-395. The coraplete change in Burke's feeUngs
towards his old friend also appears in a very interaperate letter, written to Dr. Lau
rence in 1797. Burke's Correspond, with Laurence, p. 162. Corapare Parr's Works,
vol. iv. pp. 67-80, 84-90, 109.
™ Which used to be contrasted with the bluntness of Johnson ; these eminent
men being the two best talkers of their time. See Bissets Ufe of Burke, vol i.
p. 127. • ¦'
'''* Rogers's Introduc. to Burke's Works, p. xUv. ; Prior's Ufe of Burke, p. 384,

GENERAL INTEODUCTION. 337
French people. It would be difficult, in that or in any other
age; to find two men of more active, or indeed enthusiastic be
nevolence, than Condorcet and La Fayette. Besides this, Con
dorcet was one of the most profound thinkers of his time, and
will he remembered as long as genius is honoured among us.'^'
La Fayette was no doubt inferior to Condorcet in point of abUi
ty; hut he was the intimate friend of Washington, on whose
conduct he modeUed his own,'"" and hy whose side he had fought
for the Uberties of America: his integrity was, and still is, un
sullied; and his character had a chivalrous and noble turn,
which Burke, in his better days, would have been the first to
admire.'"' Both, however, were natives of that hated country
whose Uberties they vainly attempted to achieve. On this ac
count, Burke declared Condorcet to be guUty of "impious
sophistry;"'"' to he a " fanatic atheist, and furious democratic
repuhUcan;"'"" and to be capable of " the lowest, as well as the
highest and most determined villanies.""" As to La Payette,
when an attempt was made to mitigate the cruel treatment he
was receiving from the Prussian govemment, Burke not only
opposed the motion made for that purpose in the House of Com
mons, but took the opportunity of grossly insulting the unfortu
nate captive, who was then languishing in a dungeon.'" So
^'^ There is an interesting account of the melancholy death of this remarkable
man, in Lamartine, Hist, des Girondins, vol. viu. pp. 76-80 ; and a contemporary rela
tion in Musset-Pathay, Vie de Rousseau, vol. ii. pp. 42-47.
™" Thia ia the honourable testimony of a political opponent ; who says, that after
the dissolution of the Assembly " La Fayette se conforraa a la conduite de Wash
ington, qu'U avait pris pouf moddle." Cassagnac, Revolution Frangaise, vol. iii. pp.
370, 3'71. Compare the grudging admission of his enemy BouiUd, Mem. de BouilU,
vol i. p. 125 ; and for proofs of the affectionate intimacy between Washington and
La Fayette, see Mem. de Lafayette, vol. i. pp. 16, 21, 29, 44, 55, 83, 92, 111, 165, 197,
204, 895, vol u. p. 123.
™ The Duke of Bedford, no bad judge of character, said in 1794, that La Fay
ette's " whole Ufe was an iUustration of truth, disinterestedness, and honour." Pari.
Hist, vol xxxi. p. 664. So, too, the continuator of Sismondi (Hist, des Franfais, vol.
XXX. p. 355), " La Fayette, le chevaUer de la libertd d' Amdrique ;" and Lamartine
(-Hissi. des Girondins, vol. iU. p. 200), "Martyr de la Ubertd aprfes en avoir dtd le
hdros." Sdgur, who was intimately acquainted with hira, gives some account of his
noble character, as it appeared when he was a boy of nineteen. Mem. de Segur, vol.
i. pp. 106, 107. Forty years later. Lady Morgan met him in France ; and what she
relates shows how Uttle he had changed, and how simple his tastes and the habits of
his mind atiU were. Morgan's France, vol. il pp. 286-312. Other noticea, frora per
aonal knowledge, wUl be found in lAfe of Roscoe, vol. u. p. 178; and in Trotter's
Mem. of Fox, pp. 319 aeq.
^' " The impioua aophistry of Condorcet." Letter to u. Noble Lord, in Burke's
Works, vol. U. p. 273.
™ Thoughts on French Affairs, in Burke's Works, vol. i. p. 674.
"'" " Condorcet (though no marquia, as he atyled himaelf before the Eevolution)
ia a man of another sort of birth, faahion, and occupation from Briaaot ; but in every
principle and every disposition, to the lowest as weU as the highest aud most deter
mined vUlaniea, fuUy hia equal." Thoughts on French Affairs, in Burke's Works', vol.
i. p. 579.
""' " Groaning under the most oppressive cruelty in the dungeons of Magdeburg."

338 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
dead had he become on this subject, even to the common in
stincts of our nature, that, in his place in parUament, he could
find no better way of speaking of this injured and high-souled
man, than by caUing him a ruffian: " I would not," says Burke
" I would not debase my humanity hy supporting an appUcation
in behalf of such a horrid ruffian."""
As to France itself, it is "Cannibal Castle;"'" it is "the
republic of assassins;""* it is "a hell;"'" its government is
composed of " the dirtiest, lowest, most fraudulent, most knav
ish, of chicaners;""" its National Assembly are "miscreants;"'"
its people are " an alUed army of Amazonian and male canni
bal Parisians;""" they are "a nation of murderers;""" they are
"the basest of mankind;"'*" they are murderous' atheists;"'*'
"they are a gang of robbers;"'*" they are " the prostitute out
casts of mankind;"'*' they are "a desperate gang of plun
derers, murderers, tyrants, and atheists."'** To make the
sUghtest concessions to such a country in order to preserve peace,
is offering victims "on the altars of blasphemed regicide;"'*'
even to enter into negotiations is " exposing our lazar sores at
the door of every proud servitor of the French repubUc, where
the court-dogs wUl not deign to Uck them."'*" When our am
bassador was actuaUy in Paris, he "had the honour of passing
his mornings in respectful attendance at the office of a regicide
pettifogger;"'*' and we were taunted with having sent a "peer
of the realm to the scum of the earth."'*' France has no longer
a place in Europe; it is expunged from the map; its very name
should be forgotten.'*" Why, then, need men travel in it?
Belsham's Hist of Great Brit, vol. ix. p. 161. See the afflicting detaUs of hia suffer
ings, in Mem, de Lafayette, vol i. p. 479, vol. U. pp. 76, 77, 78, 80, 91, 92; and on
the noble equanimity with which he bore them, aee De Stael, Rh. Franfoise, Paris,
1820, voh il p. 103.
*'^ It is hardly credible that auch language should have been appUed to a man
Uke La Fayette ; but I have copied it frora the Parliamentary History, vol xxxi. p.
51, and from Adolphus, vol v. p. 693. The only difference is, that in Adolphus the
expression is "I would not debase my humanity;" but iu the Pari. Hist "I would
not debauch my humanity." But both authorities are agreed aa to the term " hor
rid ruffian" being uaed by Burke. Compare Burke's Correspondence with Laurewx,
pp. 91, 99.
"''" Burke's Works, voh u. p. 319. In every instance I quote the precise words
employed by Burke.
'=' Ibid vol. u. p. 279.
"*" Burke's speech, in Pari. Hist, vol xxxi. p. 379.
''" Burke's Works, vol. U. p. 885.
™ Burke's Corresp. vol. iu. p. 140. =" Burke's Works, vol U. p. 322.
" Pari. Hist vol xxx. p. 115. "*° Ibid p. 112.
;"' Ibid. p. 188. "*= Ibid. p. 435.
"" Ibid. p. 646 ; the concluding sentence of one of Burke's speeches in 1798.
'** Ibid. vol. xxxi. p. 426. "<" Burke's Works, vol. u. p. 320.
""" Ibid. p. 286. '" Ibid, p. 322. ?" Ibid. p. 818.
^''° Pari. Hist, vol xxviu. p. 353, vol xxx. p. 390 ; Adolphus, vol. iv. p. 467.

GENEEAL INTRODUCTION, 339
Why need our children learn its language? and why are we to
endanger the morals of our ambassadors ? who can hardly faU to
return from such a land with their principles corrapted, and with
a 'wish to conspire against their own country,""
This is sad, indeed, from such a man as Burke once was;
but what remains, shows stiU more clearly how the associa-tions
and composition of his mind had heen altered. He who, with
humanity not less than with wisdom, had strenuously laboured
to prevent the Apoierican war, devoted the last few years of his
Iffe to kindle a new war, compared to which that with America
was a Ught and trivial episode. In his calmer moments, no one
would have more yyUUngly recognized that the opinions preva
lent in any pountry are the inevitable results of the circumstances
in which that country had heen placed. But now he sought to
alter those opinions hy force. From the beginning of the French
Eevolution, he insisted upon the right, and indeed upon the ne
cessity, of compelling France to change her principles;'" and,
at a later period, he blamed the aUied sovereigns for not dictating
to a great people the government they ought to adopt."" Such
was the havoc circumstances had made in his weU-ordered intel
lect, that to this one principle he sacrfficed every consideration
of justice, of mercy, and of expediency. As if war, even in its
mUdest form, were not sufficiently hateful, he sought to give to
"" In the Letters on a Regicide Peace, published the year before he died, he says,
" These ambaaaadora may easily return aa good courtiera aa they went : but can they
ever return from that degrading reaidence loyal and faithful subjects ; or with any
true affection to their master, or true attachment to the constitution, reUgion, or laws
of their country ? There is great danger that they who enter smiUng into this Tri-
phonian cave, wiU come out of it sad and serious conspirators ; and such wiU con
tinue as long as they Uve." Burke's Works, vol U. p. 282. He adds in the same
work, p. 381, " Is it for this benefit we open ' the usual relations of peace and amity ?'
Ia it for this our_ youth of both aexea are to form themselves by travel ? Is it for
this that with expense and pains we form their Usping infant accents to the language
of France ?  Let it be remembered, that no young man can go to any part
of Europe without taking this place of pestilential contagion in his way ; and, whUst
the less active part of the community wiU be debauched by this travel, whilst chil
dren are poiaoned at these schoola, our trade wiU put the finishing hand to our ruin.
No factory wiU be settled in France, that wiU not become a club of complete French
Jacobins. The minds of young men of that description wiU receive a taint in their
reUgion, their morals, aud their poUtics, which they wiU in a short time coraraunicate
to the whole kingdom."
"" In Observations on the Conduct of the Minority, 1793, he says, that during four
years he had wished for "a general war against jacobins and jacobinism." Burke's
Works, vol. i. p. 611.
" For, in the flrst place, the united sovereigna very much injured their cauae
by admitting that they had nothing to do with the interior arrangementa of France."
Heads for Consideration on the Present State of Affairs, written in November, 1792,
in Burke's Works, vol i. p. 588. And that he knew that thia waa not merely a ques
tion of destroying a faction, appears from the observable circumstance, that even in
January, 1791, he wrote to Trevor respecting war, "France is weak indeed, divided
and deranged ; but God knows, when the things came to be tried, whether the inva
ders would not find that their enterprize was not to support a party, but to conquer a
kingdom," Burke's Correspond, vol. iU. p. 184.

340 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
it that character of a crusade"' which increasing knowledge; had
long since banished; and loudly proclaiming that the contest
was religious, rather than temporal, he revived old prejudices in
order to cause fresh crimes."* He also declared that the war
should he carried on for revenge as well as for defence, and that
we must never lay down our arms until we had utterly destroyed
the men by whom the Eevolution was brought about.'" And,
as if these things were not enough, he insisted that this, the
most ayyful of all wars, being begun, was not to he hurried over;
although it was to he carried on for revenge as weU as for reU
gion, and the resources of civiUzed men were to be quickened by
the ferocious passions of crusaders, stiU it was not to be soon
ended; it was to be durable; it must have permanence; it must,
says Burke, in the spirit of a burning hatred, be protracted in a
long war: " I speak it emphaticaUy, and with a desire that it
should be marked, in a long war."""
It was to be a war to force a great people to change their
government. It was to he a war carried on for the purpose of
punishment. It was also to he a reUgious war. FinaUy, it was
to be a long war. Was there ever any other man who wished
to afflict the human race with such extensive, searching, and
protracted calamities ? Such cruel, such reckless, and yet such
deliberate opinions, if they issued from a sane mind, would immor
talize even the most obscure statesman, hecause they would load
his name yrith imperishable infamy. For where can we find,
even among the most ignorant or most sanguinary poUticians,
sentiments Uke these ? Yet they proceed from one who, a very
few years before, was the most eminent political phUosopher
England has ever possessed. To us it is only given to mourn
over so noble a wreck. More than this no one should do. We
may contemplate 'with reverence the mighty ruin; hut the mys
teries of its decay let no man presume to invade, unless, to use
the language of the greatest of our masters, he can teU how to
"" As Lord J. RusseU truly calls it, Mem. of Fox, vol in. p. 34. See also ScUos-
ser's Eighteenth Century, vol. U. p. 93, vol v. p. 109, vol. vi. p. 291 ; Nicholls's Rec
ollections, vol i. p. 300 ; Parr's Works, vol. iu. p. 242.
SH ii-yvg cannot, if we would, delude ourselves about the true state of thia
dreadful contest. It is a religious war." Remarks on the Policy of the Allies, in
Burke's Works, vol. i. p. 600.
"°° See the long Ust of proscriptions in Burke's Works, vol. i. p. 604. And the
principle of revenge is again advocated in a letter written iu 1793, in Burke's Car-
respond, vol. iv. p. 183. Aud in 1794, he told the House of Commons that " the war
must no longer be confined to the vain attempt of raising a barrier to the lawless and
savage power of France ; but must be directed to the only rational end it can pursue ;
namely, the entire destruction of the desperate horde which gave it birth." Pari.
Hist, vol.xxxi. p. 427.
Letters on a Regicide Peace, in Burke's Works, vol il p. 291. In this horrible
sentence, perhaps the most horrible ever penned by an English poUtician, the itaUcs
are not my own ; they are in the text.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 341
minister to a deceased mind, pluck the sorrows which are rooted
in the memory, and raze out the troubles that are rooted in the
brain. It is a relief to turn from so painful a subject, even though
we descend to the petty, huckstering politics of the EngUsh
court. And truly, the history of the treatment experienced by
the most iUustrious of our politicians, is highly characteristic of
the prince under whom he Uved. WhUe Burke was consuming
his life in great pubUc services, labouring to reform our finances,
improve our laws, and enUghten our commercial poUcy, — while
he was occupied 'with these things, the king regarded him with
coldness and aversion."' But when the great statesman degener
ated into an angry brawler ; when, irritated by disease, he made it
the sole aim of his decUning years to kindle a deadly war between
the two first countries of Europe, and declared that to this bar
barous object he would sacrifice all other questions of poUcy,
however important they might he ;"' — then it was that a per
ception of his vast ahiUties began to dawm upon the mind of the
Mng. Before this, no one had been hold enough to circulate in
the palace even a whisper of his merits. Now, however, in the
successive, and eventuaUy, the rapid decUne of his powers, he had
faUen almost to the level of the royal inteUect ; and now he was
first warmed hy the beams of the royal favour. Now he was a
man after the king's own heart."" Less than two years before
his death, there was settled upon him, at the express desire of
George III., two considerahle pensions ;'"" and the king even
wished to raise him to the peerage, in order that the House of
Lords might benefit hy the serrices of so great a counseUor.'"'
"" "I know," said Burke, in one of those magnificent speeches which mark the
zenith of his inteUect, — " 1 know the map of England as weU as the noble lord, or
as any other person ; and I know that the way I take is not the road to preferment."
Pari. Hist, vol. xvu. p. 1269.
'"" See, among many other instances, an extraordinary passage on " Jacobinism,"
in his Works, vol. ii. p. 449, which should be compared with a letter he wrote in
1792, respecting a proposed coalition ministry. Correspond, vol. in. pp. 519, 520 :
" But my advice was, that as a foundation of the whole, the poUtical principle must
be settled as the preUminary, namely, ' a total hostiUty to the French system, at
home and abroad.' "
'^° The earUest evidence I have met with of the heart of George III. beginning
to open towards Burke is in August, 1791 : aee, in Burke's Correspondence, vol. Ui. p.
278, an exquisitely absurd account of his reception at the levee. Burke raust have
been faUen, mdeed, before he could write such a letter.
" Said to have originated in the express wiah of the king.'' Prior's Life of
Burke, p. 489. Mr. Prior eatimatea these peiisioha at 3700i. a-year ; but if we may
rely on Mr. NichoUa, the aura waa even greater : " Mr. Burke waa rewarded with two
pensions, estiraated to be worth 40,000/." Nicholls's Recollections, vol l p. 136.
Burke was sixty-five ; and a pension of 3700/. a-year would not be worth 40,000/.;
aa the tablea were then calculated. The atatement of Mr. Prior is, however, confirm
ed by Wansey, in 1794. See Nichols's Ut Anec. of the Eighteenth Century, vol. Ul
°" Priors Life of Burke, p. 460; Nichols's iii. Anec. vol. Ui. p. 81; Bissets

343 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
This digression respecting the character of Burke has been
longer than I had anticipated ; hut it wUl not, I hope, be con
sidered unimportant : for, in addition to the intrinsic interest of
the subject, it Ulustrates the feeUngs of George III. towards
great men, and it shows what the opinions were which in his
reign it was thought necessary to hold. In the sequel of this
work, I shaU trace the effect of such opinions upon the interests
of the country, considered as a whole ; hut for the object of the
present introduction, it wUl be sufficient to point out the con
nexion in one or two more of those prominent instances, the
character of which is too notorious to admit of discussion.
Of these leading and conspicuous events, the American war
was the earUest, and for several years it almost entirely absorbed
the attention of English poUticians. In the reign of George II.
a proposal had been made to increase the revenue by taxing the
colonies, which, as the Americans were totally unrepresented in
parUament, was simply a proposition to tax an entire people with
out even the form of asking their consent. This scheme of public
robbery was rejected hy that ahle and moderate man who was
then at the head of affairs ; and the suggestion, being generaUy
deemed impracticable, feU to the ground, and seems, indeed,
hardly to have excited attention."" But what was deemed by
the government of George II. to he a dangerous stretch of ar
bitrary power, was eagerly welcomed hy the government of George
III. For the new king, having the most exalted notion of his
own authority, and being, from his miserable education, entirely
ignorant of puhUc affairs, thought that to tax .the Americans
for the benefit of the EngUsh, would he a masterpiece of poUcy.
When, therefore, the old idea was revived, it met with his cor
dial acquiescence ; and when the Americans showed their inten
tion of resisting this monstrous injustice, he was only the more
confirmed in his opinion that it was necessary to curb their un
ruly will. Nor need we be surprised at the rapidity with which
such angry feelings broke out. Indeed, looking, on the one hand,
at the despotic principles, which, for the first time since the
Eevolution, were now revived at the English court ; and looking,
on the other hand, at the independent spirit of the colonists, —
it was impossible to avoid a straggle between the two parties ;
and the only questions were, as to what form the contest would
take, and towards which side victory was most likely to incline.'"
36! ll jj. jjj^ij jjggjj proposed to Sir Robert Walpole to raise the revenue by impos
ing taxes on America; but that minister, who could foresee beyond the benefit .of
the actual moraent, declared it must be a bolder man than himself who should ven
ture on such an expedient." Walpole's George III. vol. U. p. 70. Compare Philti-
more's Mem. of Lyttleton, vol. u. p. 662 ; Bancrofts American Revolution, vol. I p.
96 ; Belsham's Hist of Greai Britain, voh v. p. 102.
That some sort of rupture was unavoidable, must, I think, be admitted ; but we

GENEEAL INTRODUCTION. 343
On the part of the EngUsh govemment, no time was lost.
Five years after the accession of George III., a hUl was brought
into parUament to tax the Americans ;'"* and so complete had
heen the change in political affairs, that not the least difficulty
was found in passing a measure which, in the reign of George
IL, no minister had dared to propose. Formerly such a propo
sal, if made, would certainly have been rejected ; now the most
powerful parties in the state were united in its favor. The king,
on every occasion, paid a court to the clergy, to which, since
the death of Anne, they had heen unaccustomed ; he was, there
fore, sure of their support, and they zealously aided him in
every attempt to oppress the colonies.'"' The aristocracy, a few
leading Whigs alone excepted, were on the same side, and looked
to the taxation of America as a means of lessening their own
contributions.'"" As to George III., his feelings on the subject
were notorious,"' and the more Uberal party not having yet re-
are not bound to beUeve the assertion of Horace Walpole, who says (Mem. of George
II. vol. i. p. 397) that in 1754 he predicted the American rebeUion. -Walpole, though
a keen observer of the aurface of aociety, waa not the man to take a view of thia
kind ; unleaa, as is hardly probable, he heard an opinion to that effect expressed by
hia father. Sir Robert Walpole may have said soraething respecting the increasing
love of Uberty in the colonies ; but it was impossible for him to foresee how that
love would be fostered by the arbitrary proceedings of the government of George III.
^ The general proposition was introduced in 1764 ; the biU itself early in 1765.
See Mahon's Hist of England, vol. v. pp. 82, 85 ; and Grenville Papers, vol. il pp.
373, 874. _ On the complete change of poUcy which this indicated, see Brougham's
Polit Philos. part in. p. 328.
""" The correspondence of that time contaraa ample proof of the bitterneas of the
clergy against the Americans. Even in 1777, Burke wrote to Fox : " The Tories do
universaUy think their power and conaequence involved in the succeaa of thia Amer
ican busineaa. The clergy are astonishingly warra in it ; and what the Tories are
when embodied and united with their natural head, the crown, and animated by
their clergy, no man knows better than yourself." Burke's Works, vol. U. p. 390.
Compare Bisliop Newton's Ufe of Himself , pp. 134, 157.
*"" " The overbearmg aristocracy desired some reduction of the land-tax, at the
expense of America." Bancrofts Hist of the American Revolution, vol. ii. p. 414.
The merchants, on the other hand, were oppoaed to theae violent proceedings. See,
on thia contrast between the landed and commercial interests, a letter from Lord
Shelburne,in 1774, and another from Lord Camden, in 1776, in Chatham Correspond.
vol. iv. pp. 341, 401. See also the speeches of Trecothick and Vyner, in Pari. Hist
vol. xvi. p. 607, vol xvUl p. 1361.
*" It was beUeved at the time, and it is not improbable, that the king himaelf
suggested the taxation of America, to which Grenville at first objected. Compare
WmxaU's Mem. of his own Time, vol. U. pp. Ill, 112, with Nicholls's Recollections,
vol. I. pp. 206, 386. This may have been merely a rumour ; but it ia quite consistent
with everything we know of the character of George IIL, and there can, at aU events,
be no douht aa to his feeUnga reapecting the general queation. It ia certain that he
over-persuaded Lord North to engage m the contest with America, and induced that
mimster to go to war, and to contmue it even after succeaa had become hopelesa.
bee Bancrofts American Revolution, vol. iu. pp. 307, 308; RusseU's Mem. of Fox,
vol 1. pp. 247, 254; and the Bedford Correspond, vol. iU. p. U. See also, in regard
to the repeal of the Stamp Act, The Grenville Papers, vol iu. p. 373 ; a curioua pas
sage, with which Lord Mahon, the laat edition of whoae history was published in the
same year (1853), appeara to have been unacquainted. JUahdn'sHist of England,
voh V. p. 139. In America, the sentiments of the king were weU known. In 1775,
Jefferaon writes from Philadelphia : "We are told, and every thing proves it true.

344 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
covered from the loss of power consequent on the death of George
II., there was Uttle fear of difficulties from the cabinet ; it being
well known that the throne was occupied hy a prince, whose first
object was to keep ministers in strict dependence on himself,
and who, whenever it was practicable, caUed into office such
weak and flexible men as would yield unhesitating submission
to his wishes.'""
Every thing being thus prepared, there foUowed those events
which were to be expected from such a combination. Without
stopping to relate detaUs which are known to every reader, it
may he briefly mentioned that, in this new state of things, the
wise and forbearing poUcy of the preceding reign was set at
naught, and the national councUs guided hy rash and ignorant
men, who soon brought the greatest disasters upon the country,
and within a few years actuaUy dismembered the empire. In
order to enforce the monstrous claim of taxbig a whole people
without their consent, there was waged against America a war
ill-conducted, unsuccessful, and what is far worse, accompanied
by cruelties disgraceful to a ci-vUized nation."" To this may he
added, that an immense trade was nearly annihUated ; every
branch of commerce was thrown into confusion ;"" we were dis
graced in the eyes of Europe :'" we incurred an expense of
that he is the bitterest enemy we have." JeffersorCs Correspond, vol. l p. 153. And
in 1782 Franklin writes to Livingston, "The king hates us most cordiaJly," Life of
Franklin, vol. ii. p. 126.
°"' " A court," as Lord Albemarle observes, — " a court that required mmisters
to be, not the public servants of the state, but the private domestics ofthe sovereign.'
Albemarle's Mem. of Rockingham, vol i. p. 248. Compare Bancrofts American Rev
olution, vol. ii. p. 109. In the same way, Burke, in 1767, writes: "His majesty
never was in better spirits. He has got a ministry weak and dependent ; and, what
is better, wilUng to continue so." Burke's Correspond, vol. i. p. 183. Ten years later,
Lord Chatham openly taunted the king with this disgraceful peculiarity : " Thus to
pliable men, not capable men, was the government of this once glorious empire in
trusted." Chatham's Speech in 1777, in Adolphus, vol. ii. pp. 499, 500.
"™ For some evidence of the ferocity with which this war was conducted by the
English, see Tuckefs Life of Jefferson, vol i. pp. 138, 139, 160 ; Jefferson's Mem. and
Correspond, vol. i. pp. 862, 429, vol. ii. pp. 336, 337 ; Almon's Correspond, of Wilkes,
vol V. pp. 229-283, edit. 1805 ; Adolphus's Hist of George III. vol ii. pp. 362, 391.
These horrible cruelties were frequently mentioned in parUament, but without pro
ducing tbe least effect on the king or his ministers. See Pari. Hist vol xix. pp. 371,
403, 423, 424, 432, 438, 440, 477, 487, 488, 489, 667, 678, 679, 695, 972, 1893, 1394,
vol. XX. p. 43. Among tbe expenses of the war which government laid before par
liament, one of the iteras was for "five gross of scalping knives." Pari. Hist, vol
xix. pp. 971, 972. See further Mhn. de Lafayette, vol i. pp. 28, 25, 99.
_"'"' In Manchester, " in consequence of the American troubles, nine in ten of the
artizans in that town had been discharged frora employraent." This waa stated, m
1766, by no less an authority than Conway. Mahon's Hist, of England, vol v. p.
1 35. As the struggle became more obstinate the evil was more marked, and ample
evidence of the enormous injury infiicted on England wiU be found by comparing
Franklin's Correspondence, vol i. p. 852 ; Adolphus's Hist, of George III. vol. U. p.
261 ; Burke's Works, vol i. p. Ill ; Pari. Hist vol xviii pp. 734, 951, 963, 964,
vol^xix. pp. 259, 341, 710, 711, 1072; Walpole's Mem. of George IILvol. il p. 218.
"" Even Mr. Adolphus, in his Tory history, says, that in 1782 " the cause of Great

GENERAL INTEODUCTION. 345
140,000,000^, ;"" and we lost hy far the most valuable colonies
any nation has ever possessed.
Such were the first fruits of the policy of George III. But
the mischief did not stop there. The opinions which it was
necessary to advocate in order to justify this barbarous war, re-
coUed upon ourselves. In order to defend the attempt to destroy
the Uberties of America, principles were laid down which, if car
ried into effect, would have subverted the Uberties of England.
Not only in the court, but in both houses of parliament, from
the episcopal bench, and from the pulpits of the church-party,
there were promulgated doctrines of the most dangerous kind, —
doctrines unsuited to a limited monarchy, and, indeed, incom
patible with it. The extent to which this reaction proceeded is
known to very few readers, because the eridence of it is chiefly to
he found in the parliamentary debates, and in the theological
Uterature, particularly the sermons, of that time, none of which
are now much studied. But, not to anticipate matters belong
ing to another part of this work, it is enough to say, that the
danger was so imminent as to make the ablest defenders of popu
lar liberty heUeve that every thing was at stake ; and that if the
Americans were vanquished, the next step would he to attack
the liberties of England, and endeavour to extend to the mother-
country the same arbitrary government which hy that time would
have heen estabUshed in the colonies.'"
Whether or not these fears were exaggerated, is a question
of considerable difficulty ; but after a careful study of that time,
and a study too from sources not much used by historians, 1
feel satisfied that they who are best acquainted with the period
yriU he the most yvUUng to admit that, though the danger may
have heen overrated, it was far more serious than men are now
Britain seemed degraded to the lowest state ; iU success and the prevalent opinion
of mismanagement rendered the espousal of it among the selfish powers of the con
tinent almost disreputable." Hist, of George III. vol. Ui. pp. 391, 392. For proof
of the opiniona held in foreign countriea respecting this, I cannot do better than re
fer to Mem. de Segur, vol. iU. pp. 184, 185 ; CEuvres de Turgot, vol. ix. p. 377 ; Sou
lavie, Mem. de Louis XVI, vol iv. pp. 363, 364 ; Koch, Tableau des Revolutions, vol
U. pp. 190-194; Mem. of Mallet du Pan, vol. i. p. 37.
"" Sir John Sinclair, in hia Hist, of the Revenue, vol. u. p. 114, says 139, 171, 876/.
"^ Dr. Jebb, an able observer, thought that the American war " must be decisive
of the Uberties of both countriea." Disney's Ufe of Jebb, p. 92. So, too. Lord
Chatham wrote in 1777, " poor England wUl have faUen upon her own sword." The
Grenville Papers, voh iv. p. 573. In the same year, Burke said of the atterapt made
to rule the colonies by mUitary force, " that the establishment of such a power in
America wiU utterly ruin our finances (though its certain effect), is the smaUest part
of our concern. It wiU become an apt, powerful, and certain engine for the destruc
tion of our freedom here." Burke's Works, vol U. p. 399. Compare vol. i. pp. 189,
210; Pari. Hist vol. xvi. pp. 104, 107, 661, 652, vol xix. pp. 11, 1056, vol xx. p.
119, vol. xxi. p. 907. Hence it was that Fox wished the Araericana to be victorious
(RusselVs Mem,, of Fox, vol. l p. 143) ; for which sorae writers have actuaUy accus
ed hira of want of patriotism !

346 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
incUned to believe. At aU events, it is certain that the general
aspect of political affairs was calculated to excite great alarm.
It is certain that, during many years, the authority of the crown
continued to increase, untU it reached a height. of which no ex
ample had been seen in England for several generations. It is
certain that the Church of England exerted all her influence in
favour of those despotic principles which the king yrished to en
force. It is also certain that, hy the constant creation of new
peers, all holding the same views, the character of the House of
Lords was undergoing a slow but decisive change ; and that
whenever a favourable opportunity arose, high judicial appoint
ments and high ecclesiastical appointments were conferred upon
men notorious for their leaning towards the royal prerogative.
These are facts which cannot he denied ; and putting them to
gether, there remains, I think, no doubt, that the American war
was a great crisis in the history of England, and that if the colo
nists had heen defeated, our Uberties would have heen for a time
in considerable jeopardy. From that risk we were saved hy the
Americans, who with heroic spirit resisted the royal annies, de
feated them at every point, and at length, separating themselves
from the mother-country, began that wonderful career, which in
less than eighty years has raised them to an unexampled pros'
perity, and which to us ought to be deeply interesting, as show
ing what may be effected by the unaided resources of a free
people. Seven years after this great contest had been brought to a
successful close, and the Americans, happUy for the interests of
mankind, had finaUy secured their independence, another nation
rose up and turned against its rulers. The history of the causes
of the French Eevolution wiU he found in another part of this
volume ; at present we have only to glance at the effects it pro
duced upon the policy of the English government. In France,
as is well known, the movement was extremely rapid ; the old
institutions, which were so corrupted as to be utterly unfit for
use, were qmcMy destroyed ; and the people, frenzied by centu
ries of oppression, practised the most revolting cruelties, sadden
ing the hour of their triumph by crimes that disgraced the
noble cause for which they struggled.
All this, frightful as it was, did nevertheless form a part of
the natural course of affairs ; it was the old story of tyranny ex
citing revenge, and revenge hUnding men to every consequence
except the pleasure of glutting their own passions. If, under
these circumstances, France had been left to herself, the Eevo
lution, like all other revolutions, would soon have subsided, and
a form of government have arisen suited to the actual condition

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 347
of things. What the form would have heen, it is impossible now
to say ; that, however, was a question with which no foreign
country had the sUghtest concern. Whether it should be an
oUgarchy, or a despotic monarchy, or a republic, it was for France
to decide ; but it was evidently not the business of any other
nation to decide for her. Still less was it Ukely that, on so deU-
cate a point, France would submit to dictation from a country
which had always been her rival, and which not unfrequently had
heen her bitter and successful enemy.
But these considerations, obvious as they are, were lost upon
George III., and upon those classes which were then in the as
cendant. The fact that a great people had risen against their
oppressors, disquieted the consciences of men in high places.
The same eril passions, and indeed the same evU language, which
a few years before were directed against the Americans, were now
turned against the French ; and it was but too clear that the
same results would foUow."* In defiance of every maxim of
sound poUcy, the EngUsh ambassador was recaUed from France
simply hecause that country chose to do away yrith the monarchy,
and substitute a repubUc in its place. This was the first deci
sive step towards an open rapture, and it was taken, not because
France had injured England, hut because France had changed
her government."' A few months later, the French, copying
the example of the EngUsh in the preceding century,"" brought
their king to a pubUc trial, sentenced him to die, and struck off
his head in the midst of his own capital. It must be aUowed
that this act was needless, that it was cruel, and that it was
grossly impoUtic. But it was palpably evident that they who
consented to the execution were responsible only to God and
their country ; and that any notice of it from abroad, which bore
the appearande of a threat, would rouse the spirit of France,
would unite aU parties into one, and would induce the nation to
adopt as its own a crime of which it might otherwise have re-
"* In 1792, and therefore before the war broke out. Lord Lanadowne, one of
the extremely few peers who escaped from the prevaiUng corruption, aaid, " Tbe
preaent inatance recaUed to hia memory the proceedinga of thia country previous to
the American war. The same abusive and degrading terms were appUed to the
Americans that were now used to the National Convention, — the same consequences
might follow." Pari. Hist vol xxx. p. 166.
"* Compare Belsham's Hist, of (h'eat Briiain, vol vUl p. 490, with Tomline's
Ufe of Pitt, vol n. p. 548. The letter to Lord Gower, the EngUsh minister in
Paris, is printed iu Pari. Hist vol. xxx. pp. 143, 144. Ita date is l7th August,
1792. "" Just before the Eevolution, Eobert de Saint-Vincent pertinently remarked,
by way of caution, that the English " have dethroned seven of their kings, and be
headed the eighth." Mem. of Mallet du Pan, vol i. p. 146 ; and we are told in
Aliion's Europe (vol ii. pp. 199, 296, 315), that in 1792 Louis "anticipated the fate
of Charles L" Compare Williams's Letters from France, 2d edit. 1796, vol iv. p. 2.

348 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
pented, but which it could not now abjure without incurring the
shame of having yielded to the dictation of a foreign power.
In England, however, as soon as the fate of the Mng was
known, the govemment, without waiting for explanation, and
without asking for any guarantee as to the future, treated the
death of Louis as an offence against itself, and imperiously or
dered the French resident to quit the country ;'" thus wantonly
originating a war which lasted twenty years, cost the Uves of
milUons, plunged all Europe into confusion, and, -more than any
other circumstance, stopped the march of civUization, by post
poning for a whole generation those reforms which, late in the
eighteenth century, the progress of affairs rendered indispensable.
The European results of this, the most hateful, the most un
just, and the most atrocious war, England has ever waged against
any country, vrill he hereafter considered :'" at present I confine
myself to a short summary of its leading effects on English so-
cietj* What distinguishes this sanguinary contest from aU preced
ing ones, and what gives to it its worst feature, is, that it was
eminently a war of opinions, — a war which we carried on, not
yrith a view to territorial acquisitions, but with the object of re
pressing that desire for reforms of every kind, which had now
become the marked characteristic of the leading countries of Eu
rope."" As soon, therefore, as hostUities began, the EngUsh
govemment had a twofold duty to perform : it had to destroy a
repubUc abroad, and it had to prevent improvement at home.
The first of these duties it fulfiUed hy squandering the blood and
the treasure of England, tUl it had thrown nearly every fanuly
"" Belsham (Hist of Great Britain, vol. vUi. p. 525) supposes, and probably
with reaaon, that the EngUsh government was bent upon war even before the death
of Louis ; but it appears (Tomline's Pitt, vol. ii. p. 599) that it was not untU the
24th of January, 1793, that Chauvelin was actually ordered to leave England, and
that this was in consequence of " the British nunisters having received information
ofthe execution of the king of France." Gompaxe Belsham, vol. viii. p. 530. The
common opinion, therefore, seems correct, that the proximate cause of hostUities
was the execution of Louis. See Alison's Hist. vol. ii. p. 622, vol. v. p. 249, vol
-vi. p. 666 ; and Newmarch, in Journal of Statistical Society, vol. xviii. p. 108.
"'" Lord Broughara (Sketches of Statesmen, vol. i. p. 79) rightly says of this war,
that " the youngest raan Uving will not survive the fatal effects of this flagrant polit
ical crime." So eager, however, was George III. in its favour, that when Wilber
force separated hiraself from Pitt on account of the war, and moved an amendment
on the aubject in the House of Comraons, the king showed his spite by refusing to
take any notice of WUberforce the next time he appeared at court. Life of Wilber
force, vol. U. pp, 10, 72.
"'" In 1793 and subsequently, it was stated both by the opposition, and also by
the supporters of government, that the war with France was directed against doc
trines and opinions, and that one of its main objects was to discourage the progress
of democratic institutions. See, among many other instances. Pari. Hist. vol. xxx.
PP- 413, 417, 1077, 1199, 1200, 1283, voh xxxi pp. 466, 592, 649, 680, 1036, 1047,
vol. xxxiu. pp. 603, 604 ; Nicholas Recollections, vol ii. pp. 156, 167.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 349
into mourning, and reduced the country to the verge of national
bankruptcy. The other duty it attempted to execute by enact
ing a series of laws intended to put an end to the free discussion
of political questions, and stifie that spirit of inquiry which was
every year becoming more active. These laws were so compre
hensive, and so weU calculated to effect their purpose, that if the
energy of the nation had not prevented their being properly en
forced, they would either have destroyed eveiy vestige of popular
Uberty, or else have provoked a general rebeUion. Indeed, during
several years the danger was so imminent, that, in the opinion
of some high authorities, nothing could have averted it, but the
hold spirit yrith which our EngUsh juries, by their hostile ver
dicts, resisted the proceedings of government, and refused to
sanction laws which the crown had proposed, and to which a
timid and servUe legislature had wiUingly consented.""
We may form some idea of the magnitude of the crisis by
considering the steps which were actually taken against the two
most important of aU our institutions, namely, the freedom of
the puhUc press, and the right of assembling in meetings for the
purpose of pubUc discussion. These are, in a poUtical point of
view, the two most striking pecuUarities which distinguish us
from every other European people. As long as they are pre
served intact, and as long as they are fearlessly and frequently
employed, there wiU always he ample protection against those
encroachments on the part of government which cannot he too
jealously watched, and to which even the freest country is liable.
To this may be added, that these institutions possess other ad
vantages of the highest order. By encouraging poUtical discus
sion, they increase the amount of inteUect brought to bear upon
the political business of the country. They also increase the
total strength of the nation, by causing large classes of men to
exercise faculties which would otherwise Ue dormant, but which
by these means are quickened into activity, and become avaUable
for other purposes of social interest.
But in the period we are now considering, it was deemed ad-
'"" Lord CampbeU (Uves of the Chancellors, vol. vi. p. 449) aays, that if the laws
passed in 1794 had been enforced, "the only chance of escaping servitude would
have been civU war." Corapare Brougham's Statesmen, vol. i. p. 237, vol n. pp. 68,
64, on our " escape frora proscription and frora arbitrary power. . . . during the
almost hopeless struggle from 1793 to 1801." Both these writers pay great and de
served honour to the successful efforts of Erskine with juries. Indeed the spirit of
our jurora was so determined, that in 1794, at Tooke's trial, they only consulted
eight minutes before bringing in a verdict of acquittal Stephens's Mem, of Horne
Tooke, vol U. p. 147 ; see also, on this crisis, Ufe of Cartwright, vol. i. p. 210. The
people sympathized throughout with the victims ;. and whUe the trial of Hardy waa
pending, the attorney-general, Scott, was always mobbed when he left the court,
and on one occasion his Ufe was in danger. Twiss's Ufe of Eldon, vol. i. pp. 185,
186. Compare Holcrofts Memoirs, voh u. pp. l80, 181.

350 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
visahle that the influence of the people should be lessened ; it
was, therefore, thought improper that they should strengthen
their abUities by exercising them. To relate the detaUs of that
bitter war, which, late in the eighteenth century, the EngUsh
government carried on against every kind of free discussion,
would lead me far beyond the Umits of this Introduction; and I
can only hastUy refer to the vindictive prosecutions, and, when
ever a verdict was obtained, the viadictive punishments, of men
like Adams, Bonney, Crossfield, Frost, Gerald, Hardy, Holt, Hod-
son, Holcroft, Joyce, Kidd, Lambert, Margaret, Martin, Muir,
Palmer, Perry, Skirving, Stannard, Thelwall, Tooke, Wakefield,
Wardell, Winterhotham : aU of whom were indicted, and many
of whom were fined, imprisoned, or transported, because they ex
pressed their sentiments with freedom, and hecause they used
language such as in our time is employed with perfect impunity,
hy speakers at puhUc meetings, and hy writers in the public
press. As, however, juries in several cases refused to convict men
who were prosecuted for these offences, it was determined to
recur to measures stUl more decisive. In 1795, a law was
passed, by which it was manifestly intended to put an end for
ever to all popular discussions either on poUtical or reUgious mat
ters. For by it every pubUc meeting was forbidden, unless no
tice of it were inserted in a newspaper five days beforehand ;"'
such notice to contain a statement of the objects of the meeting,
and of the time and place where it was to assemble. And, to
bring the whole arrangement completely under the supervision
of govemment, it was ordered, that not only should the notice,
thus pubUshed, he signed by householders, hut that the original
manuscript should he preserved, for the information of the jus
tices of the peace, who might require a copy of it : a significant
threat, which, in those days, was easily understood."" It was
also enacted that, even after these precautions had heen taken,
any single justice might compel the meeting to disperse, if, in
his opinion, the language held hy the speakers was calculated to
bring the sovereign or the government into contempt ; whUe, at
sei iipjyg flays at least." Stat. 36 George III. c. 8. § 1. This applied to meet
ings "holden for the purpose or on the pretext of considering of or preparing any
petition, complaint, remonstrance, or declaration, or other address to the king, or
to both houses, or either house of parUament, for alteration of raatters estabUshed
in church or state, or for the purpose or on the pretext of deUberating upon any
grievance in church or state." The only exceptions allowed were in the case of
meetings called by magistrates, officials, and the majority of the grand jury.
™,The inserter of the notice in the newspaper "shaU cause such notice and au
thority to be carefuUy preserved, ...*'. and cause a true copy thereof (if required)
to be delivered to any justice ofthe peace for the county, city, town or place where
such person shall reside, or where such newspaper shall be printed, and who shaU
require the same." 36 Geo. IIL c. 8, § 1.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 351
the same time, he was authorized to arrest those whom he con
sidered to he the offenders.'"' The power of dissolving a public
meeting, and of seizing its leaders, was thus conferred upon a
common magistrate, and conferred too without the sUghtest pro
vision against its abuse. In other words, the right of putting an
end to aU puhUc discussions on the most unportant subjects, was
lodged in the hands of a man appointed hy the crown, and re
movable hy the crown at its own pleasure. To this it was
added, that if the meeting should consist of twelve, or upwards
of twelve persons, and should remain together for one hour after
being ordered to separate, — in such case, the penalty of death
was to be infficted, even if only twelve disobeyed this the arbi
trary command of a single and irresponsible magistrate."*
In 1799, another law was passed, forbidding any open field,
or place of any kind, to he used for lecturing, or for debating, un
less a specific license for such place had heen obtained from the
magistrates. It was Ukewise enacted, that aU circulating-Uhra-
ries, and all reading-rooms, should he subject to the same provi
sion ; no person, yrithout leave from the constituted authorities,
being permitted to lend on hire in his own house, newspapers,
pamphlets, or even books of any kind.'" Before shops of this
sort could be opened, a Ucense must first he obtained from two
justices of the peace ; which, however, was to be renewed at
least once a year, and might he revoked at any intermediate pe
riod."" If a man lent books yrithout the permission ofthe mag
istrates, or if he allowed lectures or debates, " on any subject
whatever," to he held under his roof, then, for such grievous
crime, he was to be fined 100?. a-day ; and every person who
aided him, either hy presiding over the discussion, or by supply
ing a book, was for each offence to be fined 201. The proprietor
of so pemicious an estahUshment was not only to suffer from these
rainous fines, but was declared Uahle to stiU further punishment
as the keeper of a disorderly house."'
""' C. 8, §§ 6 and 7, referring to "meetings on notice ;" and to persons holding
language which shall even " tend to incite." These two sections are very remark
able. ^" " It ahaU be adjudged," aaya the act, " felony without benefit of clergy ; and
the offenders therein shaU be adjudged felons, and shaU suffer death as in case of
felony without benefit of clergy." 36 George III c. 8, 8 6.
"^ Stat 39 George III c. 79, § 15.
'"" The license " shaU be iu force for the space of one year and no longer, or foi
any less space of time therein to be specified ; and which Ucense it shall be lawful for
the justices of the peace" &c. " to revoke and declare void, and no longer in force,
by any order of such justices ;  and thereupon such license shall cease and
determine, and be thenceforth utterly void and of no effect." 39 George III. c. 79,
§ 18. _
"" Such things are so incredible, that I raust again quote the words of the Act :
" Every house, room, or place, which ahaU be opened or used as a place of raeeting
for the purpose of reading books, pamphlets, newspapers, or other pubUcations, and

353 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
To modem ears it sounds somewhat strange, that the oyraer
of a public reading-room should not only incur extravagant fines,
hut should also he punished g,s the keeper of a disorderly house ;
and that all this should happen to him, simply because he opened
his shop without asking permission from the local magistrates.
Strange, however, as this appears, it was, at aU events, Consist
ent, since it formed part of a regular plan for bringing, not only
the actions of men, but even their opinions, under the direct con
trol of the executive government. Thus it was that the laws,
now for the first time passed, against newspapers, were so strin
gent, and the prosecution of authors so unrelenting, that there
was an evident intention to ruin every public writer who ex
pressed independent sentiments.'" These measures, and others
of a simUar character, which will hereafter he noticed, excited
such alarm, that, in the opinion of some of the ablest observers,
the state of pubUc affairs was becoming desperate, perhaps irre
trievable. The extreme despondency with which, late in the
eighteenth century, the best friends of Uberty looked to the
future, is very observable, and forms a striking feature in their
private correspondence.'"" And although comparatively few men
to which any person ahall be admitted by payment of money " (if not regularly
Ucenaed by the authorities), ..." shall be deemed a disorderly house ;" and the
person opening it shall " be otherwise punished as the law directs in case of disor
derly houses." 39 George III. c. 79, § 15. The germ of this law may be found in
86 George III. c. 8, §§ 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. No where are the weakest parts of the
human raind more clearly seen than in the history of legislation.
'"''' See the particulara in Hunts Hist, of Newspapers, vol. i. pp. 281-4. Mr. Hunt
aaya, p. 284 : " In addition to aU theae laws, directed solely towards the presa, other
statutes were made to bear upon it, for the purpose of repressing the free expression
of popular opinion." In 1793, Dr. Currie writes : " The prosecutions that are com
menced by governraent all over England against printers, pubUshers, &c. would aaton-
iab you ; and moat of theae are for offencea committed many montha ago. The
printer of the Manchester Herald haa had seven different indictments preferred against
hira for paragraphs in his paper ; and six different indictments for seUing or disposing
of six different copies of Paine, — all previous to the trial of Paine. The man was
opulent, supposed worth 20,000/. ; but these different actions wiU ruin him, aa they
were intended to do." Currie's Ufe, vol i. pp. 185, 186. See also a letter from
Eoscoe to Lord Lansdowne, in Ufe of Roscoe, vol. i. p. 124; and Mem. of Holcroft,
vol il pp. 151, 162: "Printers and booksellers all over the kingdora were hunted
out for prosecution.'' See further, Ufe of Cartwright, vol. i. pp. 199, 200 ; Adoh
phus's Hist, of George III. vol. v. pp. 525, 526 ; Mem. of Wakefield, vol u.p. 69.
""" In 1793, Dr. Currie, after mentioning the attempts made by government to
destroy the liberty of the preaa, adda : " For my part, I foresee troubles, and conceive
the nation was never in such a dangerous crisis." Currie's Mem. vol. i. p. 186. In
1795, Fox writea (RusselVs Mem. o/ Fox, vol. ui. pp. 124, 126): "There appears to
me to be no choice at preaent, but between an abaolute surrender of the Uberties of
the people and a vigorous exertion, attended, I admit, with considerable hazard, at a
time like the present. My view of things is, I own, very gloomy ; and I am convinc
ed that, in a very few years, thia governraent wiU become completely absolute, or that
confusion wiU arise of a nature almoat aa rauch to be deprecated aa deapotism itself."
In the same year. Dr. Eaine writes (Parr's Works, vol. vii. p. 533) : " The mischiev
ous conduct of men in power has long made thia country an uneasy dweUing for
the moderate and peaceful man ; their present proceedings render our situation alarm-

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 353
ventured to express such sentiments in pubUc, Fox, whose fear
less temper made him heedless of risk, openly stated what would
have checked the government, if any thing could have done so.
For this eminent statesman, who had been minister more than
once, and was afterwards minister again, did not hesitate to say,
from his place in parliament, in 1795, that if these, and other
shamefiU laws which were proposed, should he actually passed,
forcible resistance to the govemment would he merely a question
of prudence ; and that the people, if they felt themselves equal
to the confiict, would be justified in yrithstanding the arbitrary
measures by which their rulers sought to extinguish their liber
ties.'"" Nothing, however, could stop the government in its headlong
career. The ministers, secure of a majority in both houses of
parliament, were able to carry their measures in defiance of the
people, who opposed them by every mode short of actual vio
lence.'"' And as the object of these new laws was, to check the
spirit of inquiry, and prevent reforms, which the progress of so
ciety rendered indispensable, there were also brought into play
other means subserrient to the same end. It is no exaggeration
to say, that for some years England was ruled hy a system of
ing, and our prospects dreadful." See alao p. 630. In 1796, the Bishop of Llandaff
writes (Ufe of Watson, vol. ii. pp. 36, 87) : " The malady which attacks the consti
tution (influence of the crown) is ¦without reraedy ; violent appUcations might be
used ; their success would be doubtful, and I, for one, never wish to see them tried."
Compare vol. i. p. 222. And, in 1799, Priestley dreaded a revolution ; but, at the
same time, thought there waa " no longer any hope of a peaceable and gradual re
form." Mem. of Priestley, vol. i. pp. 198, 199.
™ In thia raeraorable declaration. Fox said, that " he had a right to hope and ex
pect that these bills, which positively repealed the BUl of Rights, and cut up the
whole of the constitution by the roots, by changing our Umited monarchy into an ab
solute despotism, would not be enacted by parliaraent against the declared sense of
a great raajority of the people. If, however, ministers were determined, by means
of the corrupt influence they possessed in the two houses of parliaraent, to pass the
billa in direct opposition to the declared sense of a great majority of the nation, and
they should be put in force with aU their rigorous provisions, if hia opinion were
asked by the people as to their obedience, he should teU them, that it was no longer
a queation of moral obUgation and duty, but of prudence. It would, indeed, be a
case of extreraity alone which could justify reaiatance ; and the only queation would
be, whether that reaiatance waa prudent." Pari. Hist. vol. xxxU. p. 383. On thia,
Windham reraarked„and Fox did not deny, that "tbe meaning obvioualy was, that
the right hon. gentleman would advise the people, whenever they were strong
enough, to resist the execution ofthe law;" and to this both Sheridan and Grey ira
mediately assented, pp. 386-387.
3»i "u^ever had there appeared, in the memory of the oldest man, so firm and de
cided a pluraUty of adversaries to the ministerial meaaures, as on this occasion (i. e.
in 1795) ; the interest of the pubUc seemed ao deeply at atake, that individuals, not
only ofthe decent, but ofthe most vulgar professions, gave up a considerable portion
of their time and occupation in attending the numerous meetings that were caUed in
every part of the kingdom, to the profeaaed intent of counteracting this attempt of
the ministry." Note in Pari. History, voh xxxu. p. 381. It was at this period that
Fox made the declaration which I have quoted in the previous note.
VOL. I.— 23

354 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
absolute terror.'"" The ministers of the day, turning a straggle
of party into a war of proscription, fiUed the prisons yrith their
poUtical opponents, and aUowed them, when in confineinent, to
he treated yrith shameful severity.'"' If a man was known to he
a reformer, he was constantly in danger of heiug arrested ; and
if he escaped that, he was watched at every turn, and his private
letters were opened as they passed through the post-office.'"* In
such cases, no scruples were aUowed. Even the confidence of
domestic life was violated. No opponent of government was safe
under his owm roof, against the tales of eaves-droppers and the
gossip of servants. Discord was introduced into the bosom of
famUies, and schisms caused between parents and their chU
dren. '"= Not only were the most strenuous attempts made to
sUence the press, hut the hookseUers were so constantly prose
cuted, that they did not dare to piihUsh a work if its author were
obnoxious to the court.'"" Indeed, whoever opposed the govern
ment was proclaimed an enemy to his country."' Political asso
ciations and pubUc meetings were strictly forbidden. Every
popular leader was in personal danger ; and every popular as-
"" It was caUed at the time the " Reign of Terror ;" and so indeed it waa for
every opponent of government. See CampbelVs Chancellors, vol. vi. p. 441 ; Mem. of
Wakefield, vol U. p. 67 ; and Trotter's Mem. of Fox, p. 10.
383 ll rpjjg iniquitous system of secret imprisonment, under which Pitt and Dun-
daa had now fiUed aU the gaola with parliamentary reformers ; men -who were cast
into dungeons without any pubUc accusation, and from whom the habeas-corpus sus
pension act had taken every hope of redress." Cooke's Hist, of Party, vol. iii p.
447. On the cruelty with which these poUtical opponents of government were treat
ed when in prison, see Stephens's Mem. of Tooke, vol. ii. pp. 121, 125, 423 ; Pari.
Hist vol. xxxiv. pp. 112, 113, 126, 129, 170, 615, vol. xxxv. pp. 742, 743 ; Glonr
curry's Recollections, pp. 46, 86, 87, 140, 225.
"»* Ufe of Currie, vol. ii. p. 160 ; Stephens's Mem. of Tooke, vol. u. pp. 118, 119.
"°" In 1793, Roscoe writes : " Every man is caUed on to be a spy upon his brother."
Ufe of Roscoe, vol. i. p. 127. Compare Fox'a stateraent (Pari. Hist, vol xxx. p.
21), that what government had done was, "to erect every raan, not raerely into an
inquisitor, but into a judge, a spy, an inforraer, — to aet father againat father, brother
againat brother ; and in thia way you expect to maintain the tranquiUity of the
country !" See also vol. xxx. p. 1529 ; and a remarkable passage, in Coleridge's Biog,
Ut. (vol i. p. 192), on the extent of " secret defamation," in and after 1793. For
further evidence of thia horrible state of society, see Mem. of Holcroft, vol u. pp.
150, 151 ; Stephens's Mem. of Horne Tooke, voh ii. pp. 115, 116.
^'^ There was even considerable difficulty in finding a printer for Tooke's great
philological work. The Diversions of Purley, See Stephens's Mem. of Tooke, vohu.
pp. 346-348. In 1798, Fox wrote to Cartwright (Ufe of Cartwright, vol. i. p. 248);
" The decision against Wakefield's pubUsher appears to me decisive against the lib
erty of the preaa ; and indeed, after it, one can hardly conceive how any prudent
tradearaan can venture to pubUah any thing that can, in any way, be diaagreeable
to the miniatera."
™' Those who opposed the slave-trade wore called jacobins, and " enemies to the
ministers ;" and the celebrated Dr. Currie was pronounced to be a jacobin, and an
" enemy to his country," because he remonstrated against the shameful manner in
which the EngUsh government, in 1800, aUowed the French prisoners to be treated.
Life of Currie, vol i. pp. 330, 332 ; Ufe of Wilberforce, vol. i. pp. 342-344, vol il
pp. 18, 188; Pari, Hist, vol xxx. p. 664, vol. xxxi. p. 467, voh xxxiU. p. 1387, vol.
xxxiv. pp. 1119, 1485.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 355
semhlage was dispersed, either hy threats or hy mUitary execu
tion. That hateful machinery, famUiar to the worst days of the
seventeenth century, was put into motion. Spies were paid ;
yritnesses were suborned ; juries were packed.'"' The coffee
houses, the inns, and the clubs, were fiUed with emissaries of the
government, who reported the most hasty expressions of common
conversation.'"" If, by these means, no sort of evidence could be
coUected, there was another resource, which was unsparingly
used. For, the habeas-corpus act being constantly suspended,
the crown had the power of imprisoning without inquiry, and
yrithout limitation, any person offensive to the ministry, but of
whose crime no proof was attempted to be brought.*""
Such was the way in which, at the end of the eighteenth
century, the rulers of England, under pretence of protecting the
institutions of the country, oppressed the people, for whose bene
fit alone those institutions ought to exist. Nor was even this
the whole of the injury they actuaUy infiicted. Their attempts
to stop the progress of opinions were intimately connected with
that monstrous system of foreign poUcy, by which there has been
entaUed upon us a debt of unexampled magnitude. To pay the
interest of this, and to meet the current expenses of a profuse
and reckless administration, taxes were laid upon nearly every
product *of industry and of nature. In the vast majority of
cases, these taxes feU upon the great body of the people,*"' who
""" Ufe of Cartwright, vol i. p. 209 ; Hunts Hist, of Newspapers, vol. U. p. 104 ;
Belsham's mst. vol. ix. p. 227 ; Adolphus's Hist, vol. vi. p. 264; Annual Register for
1795, pp. 156, 160 ; Stephens's Mem. of Tooke, vol. U. p. 118 ; Ufe of Currie, vol.
i. p. 172 ; CampbelVs Chancellors, voh vi. p. 816, vol. vU. p. 316 ; Ufe of Wilber
force, vol iv. pp. 369, 377 ; Pari. Hist, vol xxxi. pp. 543, 667, 668, 1067, vol. xxxil
pp. 296, 302, 366, 367, 374, 664, voh xxxv. pp. 1538, 1540 ; Holcrofts Memoirs, vol.
u. p. 190.
*" In addition to the passagea referred to in the preceding note, compare Hut-
ton's Ufe of Himself, p. 209, with CampbelVs Chancellors, vol. vi. p. 441, vol. vii. p.
104, and Adolph-us's Hist, of George III. vol. vi. p. 45. In 1798, CaldweU wrote to
Sir James Smith (Correspondence of Sir J. E. Smith, voh U. p. 143) ; " The power
of the crown ia become irreaiatible. The new acheme of inquisition into every man's
private circumstances is beyond any attempt I have ever heard of under Louis XIV."
*°° In 1794, Fox said, in his speech on the habeas-corpus suspension bill : " Every
man who talked freely, every man who detested, as he did frora his heart, this war,
might be, and would be, in the hands and at the mercy of ministers. Living under
such a government, and being subject to insurrection, comparing the two evUs, he
confessed, he thought the evU they were pretending to remedy, was leaa than the
one they were going to infiict by the remedy itaelf." Pari. Hist vol xxxi. p. 609.
In 1800, Lord HoUand stated, in the House of Lords, that, " of the seven yeara of
the war, the habeaa-corpua act had been auspended five ; and, of the multitudes who
had been imprisoned in virtue of that suspension, few had been brought to trial, and
only one convicted." vol. xxxiv. p. 1486. See alao vol. xxxv. pp. 609, 610. On
the effect of the suspension of the habeaa-corpua act upon Uterature, see Life of
Currie, vol. i. p. 606.
*"' See decisive evidence of this, in Porter's Progress of the Nation, vol. ii. pp.
283-285 ; and, on the enormous increase of expense and taxation, see Pellew's Life
of Sidmouth, vol i. p. 858, vol. U. p. 47.

356 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
were thus placed in a position of singular hardship. For the
upper classes not only refused to the rest of the nation the re
forms yyhich were urgently required, but compeUed the country
to pay for the precautions which, in consequence of the refusal,
it was thought necessary to take. Thus it was, that the gov
ernment diminished the Uberties of the people, and wasted the
frait of their industry, in order to protect that very people
against opinions which the growth of their knowledge had irre
sistibly forced upon them.
It is not surprising that, in the face of these circumstances,
some of the ablest observers should have despaired of the Uber
ties of England, and should have heUeved that, in the course of
a few years, a despotic government would be firmly estabUshed.
Even we, who, looking at these things half a centuiy after they
occurred, are able to take a calmer view, and who moreover pos
sess the advantages of a larger knowledge, and a riper experience,
must nevertheless aUow that, so far as poUtical events were con
cerned, the danger was more imminent than at any moment
since the reign of Charles I. But what was forgotten then, and
what is too often forgotten now, is, that poUtical events form
only one of the many parts which compose -the histoiy of a great
country. In the period we have heen considering, the political
movement was, no douht, more threatening than it had' been for
several generations. On the other hand, the intellectual move
ment was, as we have seen, highly favourable, and its influence^
was rapidly spreading. Hence it was that, whUe the govern- 1
ment of the country tended in one direction, the knowledge of
the country tended in another ; and while poUtical events kept
us back, inteUectual events urged us forward. In this way, the
despotic principles that were enforced were,' in some degree, neu-''
tralized ; and although it was impossible to prevent them from
causing great suffering, stUl the effect of that suffering was to m-
crease the determination of the people to reform a system under
which such evUs could be infficted. For whUe they felt the erils,
the knowledge which they had obtained made them see the
remedy. They saw that the men who were at the head of af
fairs were despotic ; but they saw, too, that the system must he
wrong, which could secure* to such men such authority. This
confirmed their dissatisfaction, and justified their resolution to
effect some fresh arrangement, which should aUow their voices
to be heard in the councUs ofthe state.*"" And that resolution,
*"" A careful observer of what was going on late in the eighteenth century, ex-
preaaes what, early in the nineteenth century, was becoming the conviction of most
men of plain, sound understanding, who had no interest in the existing corruption :
"Immoderate taxation, the result of the unnecesaarywara ofthe reign of George IH.,
ia the cauae of our embarraasments ; and that immoderate taxation has been occa-

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 357
I need hardly add, grew stronger and stronger, until it eventually
produced those great legislative reforms which have already sig
nalized the present century, have given a new tone to the char
acter of pubUc men, and changed the structure of the EngUsh
parUament. It is thus that, in the latter part of the eighteenth century,
the increase and diffiision of knowledge were, in England, di
rectly antagonistic to the political events yvhich occurred during
the same period. The extent and the nature of that antagonism
I have endeavoured to explain, as clearly as the complexity of
the subject, and the limits of tlds Introduction, enable me to do.
We have seen that, looking at our country as a whole, the oh"
vious tendency of affairs was to abridge the authority of the
church, the nobles, and the croyvn, and thus give greater play to
the power of the people. Looking, however, at the country, not
as a whole, hut loolnng merely at its poUtical history, we flnd
that the personal pecuharities of George III., and the circum
stances under which he came to the throne, enabled him to stop
the great progress, and eventually cause a dangerous reaction.
HappUy for the fortunes of England, those principles of Uberty
which he and his supporters wished to destroy, had hefore his
reign hecdme so powerful, and so yridely diffused, that they not
only resisted this poUtical reaction, but seemed to» gain fresh
strength from the contest. That the straggle was arduous, and
at one time extremely critical, it is impossible to deny. Such,
however, is the force of Uberal opinions, w-hen they have once
taken root in the popiUar mind, thafnotyrithstanding the ordeal
to which they were exposed, and notwithstanding the punish
ments inflicted on their advocates, it was found impossible to
stifle them ; it was found impossible even to prevent their in
crease. Doctrines subversive of every principle of freedom were
personaUy favoured hy the sovereign, openly avowed hy the gov
ernment, and zealously defended by the most powerful classes ;
and laws in accordance yrith these doctrines were placed on our
statute-hook, and enforced in our courts. All, however, was in
vain. In a few years, that generation began to pass away; a
better one succeeded in its place ; and the system of tyranny fell
to the ground. And thus it is, that in all countries which are
even tolerably free, every system must faU, if it opposes the march
of opinions, and gives shelter to maxims and institutions repug
nant to the spirit of the age. In this sort of contest, the ulti
mate result is never doubtful. For the vigour of an arbitrary
government depends merely on a few individuals, who, whatever
sioned by the House of Commona being composed of men not interested to protect
the property of the people." Nicholls's Recollections, vol. l p. 213.

358 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
their abiUties may be, are Uable, after their death, to he replaced
by timid and incompetent successors. But the vigour of puhUc
opinion is not exposed to these casualties ; it is unaffected by the
laws of mortality ; it does not flourish to-day, and decUne to
morrow ; and so far from depending on the Uves of indiridual
men, it is governed hy large general causes, which, from their
very comprehensiveness, are in short periods scarcely seen, hut
on a comparison of long periods, are found to outweigh all other
considerations, and reduce to insignificance those Uttle stratagems
by which princes and statesmen think to disturb the order of
events, and mould to their wUl the destinies of a great and civU
ized people.
These are broad and general truths, which yyiU hardly be
questioned hy any man who, with a competent knowledge of
history, has refiected much on the nature and conditions of
modern society. But during the period we have been consider
ing, they were utterly neglected by our poUtical rulers, who not
only thought themselves able to check the growth of opinions,
hut entirely mistook the very end and object of government. In
those days, it was believed that government is made for the mi
nority, to whose wishes the majority are bound humbly to sub
mit. It was believed that the power of making laws must al
ways he lodged in the hands of a few privUeged classes ; that
the nation at large has no concern yrith those laws, except to
obey them ;*"' and that it is the duty of a yrise government to
secure the obedience of the people hy preventing them from being
enlightened hy the spread of knowledge.*"* We may surely
deem it a remarkable circumstance, that these notions, and the
schemes of legislation founded upon them, should, within half a
century, have died away so completely, that they are no longer
advocated, even by men of the most ordinary abUities. What is
still more remarkable is, that this great change should have been
effected, not by any external event, nor by a sudden insurrection
of the people, hut by the unaided action of moral force, — the si
lent, though overwhelming, pressure of puhUc opinion. This
has always seemed to me a decisive proof of the natural, and, if
I may so say, the healthy march of English cirilization. It is a
¦"" Biahop Horsley, the great champion of the existing state of things, said in
the House of Lords, in 1795, that he " did not know what the mass ofthe people m
any country had to do with the laws,, but to obey them." Cooke's Hist, of Party,
vol iU. p. 435. Compare Godwin on Population, p. 569.
*°* Lord Cockburn (Ufe of Jeffrey, 1852, vol. i. pp. 67, 68) says : "If there was
any principle that was reverenced as indisputable by almost the whole adherents of
the party in power sixty, or even fifty, or perhaps even forty years ago, it was that
the ignorance of the people waa neceaaary for their obedience to tbe law." One ar
gument waa, " that to extend inatructiou, would be to multiply the crime of forgery !"
Porter's Progress of the Nation, vol. Ui. p. 205.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION, 359
proof of an elasticity, and yet a sobriety of spirit, such as no other
nation has ever displayed. No other nation could have escaped
from such a crisis, except by passing through a revolution, of
which the cost might well have exceeded the gain. The trath,
however, is that in England the course of affairs, which I have
endeavoured to trace since the sixteenth century, had diffused
among the people a knowledge of their own resources, and a skUl
and independence in the use of them, imperfect, indeed, hut stUl
far superior to that possessed by any other of the great European
countries. Besides this, other circumstances, which wiU he here
after related,*"' had, so early as the eleventh century, begun to
affect our national character, and had assisted in imparting to
it that sturdy boldness, and, at the same time, those habits of
foresight, and of cautious reserve, to which the English mind
owes its leading pecuUarities. With us, therefore, the love of
liberty has been tempered hy a spirit of pradence, which has
softened its violence, without impairing its strength. It is this
which, more than once, has taught our countrymen to bear even
considerahle oppression, rather than run the risk of rising against
their oppressors. It has taught them to stay their hands ; it
has taught them to husband their force untU they can use it with
irresistible effect. To this great and valuable habit we owe the
safety of England late in the eighteenth century. If the people
had risen, they would have staked their all ; and what the re
sult of that desperate game would have been, no man can say.
HappUy for them and for their posterity, they were content to
wait yet a Uttle ; they were willing to hide their time, and watch
the issue of things. Of this noble conduct their descendants
reap the reward. After the lapse of a few years, the poUtical
crisis began to subside, and the people re-entered on their former
rights. For although their rights had heen in abeyance, they
were not destroyed, simply because the spirit still existed by
which they were originally won. Nor can any one douht that,
if those evU days had heen prolonged, that same spirit which had
animated their fathers in the reign of Charles I. would have again
hroken forth, and society have heen convulsed by a revolution,
the bare idea of which is frightful to contemplate. In the mean
time, aU this was avoided ; and although popular tumults did
arise in different parts of the country, and although the measures
of government caused a disaffection of the most serious kind,*""
stiU the people, taken as a whole, remained firm, and patiently
!m i?* chaptera ix. and x., on the history of the protective apirit.
°"' ¦*¦• -ilison noticea in hia History (voh iv. p. 213) " how widely the spirit
of discontent was diffused" in 1796 ; and the only wonder is, that the people were
able to keep it in bounds. That, however, ia a question which writera of hia stamp
never consider.

360 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
reserved their force till a better time, when, for their benefit, a
new party was organized in the state, by whom their interests
were successfuUy advocated even yrithin the waUs of parUament.
This great and salutary reaction began early in the present
century ; but the circumstances which accompanied it are so ex
tremely complicated, and have been so little studied, that I can
not pretend in this Introduction to offer even a sketch of them.
It is sufficient to say, what must he generaUy known, that for
nearly fifty years the movement has continued yrith unabated
speed. Every thing which has heen done, has increased the in
fiuence of the people. Blow after blow has been directed against
those classes which were once the sole depositaries of power. The
Eeform Bill, the Emancipation of the CathoUcs, and the Eepeal
of the Corn-Laws, are admitted to be the three greatest poUtical
achievements of the present generation. Each of these vast
measures has depressed a powerful party. The extension of the
suffrage has lessened the influence of hereditary rank, and has
hroken up that great oUgarchy of landowners, hy which the House
of Commons had long been ruled. The ahoUtion of Protection
has still further enfeebled the territorial aristocracy ; while those
superstitious feeUngs hy which the ecclesiastical order is mainly
upheld, received a severe shock, first by the repeal of the Test
and Corporation Act, and afterwards hy the admission of Catho
lics into the legislature ; steps which are yrith reason regarded as
supplying precedents of mischievous import for the interests of
the EstabUshed Church.*"' These measures, and others which
are now obviously inevitable, have taken, and wUl continue to
take, power from particular sections of society, in order to confer
it upon the people at large. Indeed, the rapid progress of demo
cratic opinions is a fact which no one in the present day ventures
to deny. Timid and ignorant men are alarmed at the move
ment ; but that there is such a movement is notorious to aU the
world. No one now dares to talk of bridUng the people, or of
resisting their united wishes. The utmost that is said is, that
efforts should be made to inform them as to their real interests,
and enlighten pubUc opinion ; hut every one allows that, so soon
as public opinion is formed, it can no longer he withstood. On
''°' Bishop Burgess, in a letter to Lord Melbourne, bitterly complained that Catho
Uc emancipation was "the extinction of the purely Protestant character ofthe
British legislature." Harfords Ufe of Burgess, p. 506 : see also pp. 238, 239, 369,
370. There can be no doubt that the bishop rightly eatimated the danger, to his
own party ; and aa to the Corporation and Teat Acta, which, says another bishop
(Tomline's Ufe of Pitt, vol. U. p. 604), "were justly regarded aa the firmest bul
warks of the British constitution," the feeUng was so strong, that at an episcopal
meeting in 1787, there were only two membera who were wUUng to repeal these
persecuting laws. See Bishop Watson's Ufe of Himself, vol. i. p. 262. Lord
Eldon, who to the last stood up for the church, pronounced the biU for repeaUng
these acts to be " a revolutionary biU." Twiss's Life of Eldon, vol. U. p. 202.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION 361
this point aU are agreed ; and this new power, which is gradually
superseding every other, is now obeyed by those very statesmen
who, had they lived sixty years ago, would have heen the first to
deny its«authority, ridicule its pretensions, and, if possible, ex
tinguish its Uberty.
Such is the great gap which separates the public men of our
time from those who flourished under that bad system which
George III. sought to perpetuate. And it is evident, that this
vast progress was brought about rather by destroying the system,
than by improving the men. It is also evident, that the system
perished hecause it was unsuited to the age ; in other words, he-
cause a progressive people wUl never tolerate an unprogressive
government. But it is a mere matter of history, that our legis
lators, even to the last moment, were so terrified hy the idea of
innovation, that they refused every reform, untU the voice of the
people rose high enough to awe them into submission, and forced
them to grant what, without such pressure, they would by no
means have conceded.
These things ought to serve as a lesson to our poUtical rulers.
They ought also to moderate the presumption of legislators, and
teach them that their best measures are but temporary expedi
ents, which it wiU be the business of a later and riper age to
efface. It would he weU if such considerations were to check
the confidence, and sUence the loquacity, of those superficial men,
who, raised to temporary power, thmk themselves hound to
guarantee certain institutions, and uphold certain opinions.
They ought clearly to understand, that it does not Ue yrithin
their function thus to anticipate the march of affairs, and pro
vide for distant contingencies. In trifling matters, indeed, this
may be done without danger ; though, as the constant changes
in the laws of every country abundantly prove, it is also done
yrithout benefit. But in reference to those large and fundament
al measures which bear upon the destiny of a people, such anti
cipation is worse than useless, — it is highly injurious. In the
present state of knowledge, poUtics, so far from being a science,
is one of the most backward of aU the arts ; and the only safe
course for the legislator is, to look upon his craft as consisting in
the adaptation of temporary contrivances to temporary emergen
cies.*"" His business is to foUow the age, and not at aU to at-
*°" Sir C. Lewis, though in his learned work he over-estimates tbe resources pos
sessed by poUticians, does nevertheless aUow that they are rarely able to anticipate
the manner in which their measures wUl work. Lewis on ihe Methods of Observation
and Reasoning in Politics, 1852, vol U. pp. 360-362. A writer of repute, M. Has
san, says (Hist, de la Diplomatic, vol. I p. 19) : " On doit dtre trds indulgent sur les
erreurs de la poUtique, ^ cause de la faciUtd qu'U y a 3, en coraraettre ; erreurs aux-
quelles la sagesse mdme quelquefois entraine." The first part of this sentence is true
enough; but it conveys a truth which ought to repress that love of interfering with

363 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
tempt to lead it. He should be satisfied yrith studying what is
passing around him ; and should modify his schemes, not accord
ing to the notions he has inherited from his fathers, but accord
ing to the actual exigencies of his own time. For he may rely
upon it, that the movements of society have now become so
rapid, that the wants of one generation are no measure of the
wants of another ; and that men, urged hy a . sense of their
oyyn progress, are growing weary of idle talk ahout the yrisdom of
their ancestors, and are fast discarding those trite and sleepy
maxims which have hitherto imposed upon them, hut hy which
they wUl not consent to he much longer troubled.
the natural march of affairs which- still characterizes poUticians, even in the freest
countries.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 363

CHAPTER VIII.
OUTLINE OF THE HISTOET OF THE FEENCH INTELLECT FEOM THE MIDDLE
OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTUET TO THE ACCESSION TO POWEE OF LOmS
XIV.
The consideration of these great changes in the EngUsh mind,
has led me into a digression, which, so far from being foreign to
the design of this Introduction, is absolutely necessary for a right
understanding of it. In this, as in many other respects, there
is a marked analogy between investigations concerning the
structure of society, and investigations concerning the human
body. Thus, it has heen found, that the best way of arriv
ing at a theory of disease is hy beginning yrith the theory of
health ; and that the foundation of aU sound pathology must
he first sought in an observation, not of the abnormal, hut of
the normal functions of Ufe. Just in the same way, it wUl, I
heUeve, be found, that the best method of arriving at great social
traths, is by first investigating those cases in which society has
developed itself according to its owm laws, and in which the
governing powers have least opposed themselves to the spirit of
their times.' It is on this account that, in order to understand
' The question as to whether the atudy of normal phenomena ahould or ahould
not precede the atudy of abnormal ones, is of the greatest iraportance ; and a neg
lect of it haa introduced confuaion into every work I have seen on general or com
parative history. For this preUminary being unsettled, there has been no recognized
principle of arrangement ; and historians, instead of foUowing a scientific method
suited to the actual exigencies of our knowledge, have adopted an empirical method
suited to their own exigencies ; and have given priority to different countries, sorae
tiraes according to their size, sometimes according to their antiquity, sometimes ac-
cordmg to their geographical position, soraetiraes according to their wealth, some
times accordmg to their reUgion, sometunes according to the brUUanoy of their Ut
erature, and sometimes according to the faciUties which the historian himself possess
ed for coUecting materials. AU theae are factitious considerations ; and, in a phil
osophic •view,_ it is evident that precedence should be given to countriea by the his
torian solely in reference to the ease with which their history can be geueraUzed;
toUowing in this respect the scientific plan of proceeding frora the simple to the com
plex. This leads us to the conclusion, that in the study of Man, as in the study of
Jjature, the question of priority resolves itself into a question of aberration; and
that the more aberrant any people have been, that is to say, the raore they have been
interfered with, the lower they raust be placed in an arrangement of the history of
various countries. Coleridge (Xii. Remains, vol. i. p. 326, and elsewhere in his

364 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
the position of France, I have begun by examining the position
of England. In order to understand the way in which the dis
eases of the first country were aggravated by the quackery of
ignorant rulers, it was necessary to understand the way in which
the health of the second country was preserved, hy being sub
jected to smaller interference, and aUowed with greater liberty to
continue its natural march. With the light, therefore, which we
have acquired hy a study of the normal condition of the English
mind, we can, with the greater ease, now apply our principles to
that abnormal condition of French society, by the operations of
which, at the close of the eighteenth century, some of the dear
est interests of civilization were imperilled.
In France, a long train of events, which I shaU hereafter re
late, had, from an early period given to the clergy a share of
power larger than that which they possessed in England. The
results of this were for a time decidedly beneficial, inasmuch as
works) seems to suppose that the order should be the reverse of what I have stated,
and that the laws both of mind and body can be generalized from pathological data.
Without wishing to express myself too positively in opposition to so profound a
thinker aa Coleridge, I cannot help aaying that thia ia contradicted by an immense
araount of evidence, and, so far aa I ara aware, is supported by none. It is contra
dicted by the fact, that thoae branches of inquiry which deal with phenoraena Uttle
affected by foreign causes, have been raised to sciences sooner than thoae which deal
with phenomena greatly affected by foreign cauaea. The organic world, for example
is raore perturbed by the inorganic world, than the inorganic world ia perturbed by
it. Hence we find that the inorganic sciences have always been cultivated before thd
organic ones, antj at the present moment are far more advanced than they. In the
same way, human physiology is older than human pathology ; and while the physi
ology of the vegetable kingdom has been successfuUy prosecuted since the latter
half of the seventeenth century, the pathology of the vegetable kingdom can scarcely
be said to exist, since none of its laws have been generalized, and no ayatematic re
searches, on a large scale, have yet been made into the morbid anatomy of plants.
It appeara, therefore, that different agea and different aciencea bear unconaoious tes
timony to tbe uaeleasness of paying much attention to the abnormal, untU consider
able progress has been made in the study of the normal ; and this conclusion might be
confirpjed by innumerable authorities, who, differing from Coleridge, hold that phys
iology ia the baaia of pathology, and that the lawa of disease are to be raised, not
from the phenomena presented in diaeaae, but from thoae presented in health ; in
other words, that pathology should be investigated deductively rather than induc
tively, and that morbid anatomy and cUnical observations may verify tbe conclusions
of science, but can never supply the means of creating the science itself. On this
extremely interesting question, compare Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, Hist, des Anoma
lies de V Organisation, vol U. pp. 9, 10, 127 ; Bowman's Surgery, in Encyclop. ofthe
Medical Sciences, p. 824 ; Bichat, Anatomie G&nh-ale, vol. i. p. 20 ; (Mien's Works,
vol. i. p. 424 ; Comte, Philos. Positive, vol. ui. pp. 334, 335 ; Robin et Verdeil,
Chimie Anatomique, vol. i. p. 68 ; Esquirol, Maladies Mentales, vol i. p. HI ;
Georget, de la Folic, pp. 2, 391, 392 ; Brodie's Pathology and Surgery, p. 3 ; Blain-
mile, Physiologie comparee, vol i. p. 20 ; Feuchtersleben's Medical Psychology, p. 200 ;
Laurence's Lectures on Man, 1844, p. 46 ; Simon's Pathology, p. 6.
Another confirmation of the accuracy of this view is, that pathological investi
gations of the nervous systera, numerous as they have been, have effected scarcely
any thing ; the reason evidently being, that the preUminary knowledge of the nor-
"•"] stiite is not sufficiently advanced. See Noble on the Brain, pp. 76-92, 337,
J i ^^"'^H <"» ^'»« Nervous System, in Third Report of Brit Assoc, p. IS; HoU
¦ land s Medical Notes, p. 608 ; Jones and Sieveking's Patholog. Anat p. 211.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION, 365
the church restrained the lawlessness of a barbarous age, and
secured a refuge for the weak and oppressed. But as the French
advanced in knowledge, the spiritual authority which had done
so much to curb their passions, began to press heavily upon their
genius, and impede its movements. That same ecclesiastical
power, which to an ignorant age is an unmixed benefit, is to a
more enUghtened age a serious eril. The proof of this was soon
apparent. For when the Eeformation broke out, the church had
in England been so weakened that it feU almost at the first as
sault ; its revenues were seized by the crown," and its offices,
after being greatly diminished both in authority and in wealth,
were bestowed upon new men, who from the uncertainty of their
tenure, and the novelty of their doctrines, lacked that long-es-
tabUshed prescription hy which the claims of the profession are
mainly supported. This, as we have already seen, was the be
ginning of an uninterrupted progress, in which, at every succes
sive step, the ecclesiastical spirit lost some of its influence. In
France, on the other hand, the clergy were so powerful, that they
were able to withstand the Eeformation, and thus preserve for
themselves those exclusive privUeges which their EngUsh breth
ren vainly attempted to retain.
This was the beginning of that second marked divergence
between French and EngUsh civiUzation,' which had its origin,
indeed, at a much earUer period, hut wluch now first produced
conspicuous results. Both countries had, in their infancy, been
greatly benefited by the church, which always showed itself ready
to protect the people against the oppressions of the crown and
the nobles.* But, in both countries, as society advanced, there
arose a capacity for self-protection ; and early in the sixteenth,
or probably even in the fifteenth century, it became urgently
necessary to diminish that spiritual authority, which, hy prejudg
ing the opinions of men, has impeded the march of their knowl
edge.' It is on this account that Protestantism, so far from
" A circumstance which Harris relates with evident deUght, and goes out of his
way to mention it. Uves of the Stuarts, vol. iu. p. 300. On the amount of loss the
church thus sustained, see Sinclair's Hist, of the Revenue, vol. i. pp. 181-184, and
Eecleston's English Antiquities, p. 228.
' The first divergence arose from the influence of the protective spirit, as I shaU
endeavour to explain in the next chapter.
* On the obUgations Europe is under to the CathoUo clergy, see sorae Uberal
and very just remarks in Kemble's Saxons in England, vol. u. pp. 374, 375 ; and in
Guizots Civilisation en France. See also Neander's Hist, of the Church, vol iu.
pp. 199-206, 256-257, vol V. p. 138, vol. vi. pp. 406, 407 ; Palgrave's Anglo-Saxon
Commonwealth, vol. i. p. 655 ; Ungard's Hist, of England, vol U. p. 44; Klimrath,
Travaux sur I'Hist du Droit, vol. i. p. 394; Carwithen's Hist of ihe Church oj
England, vol. i. p. 157.
' The way in which this acted is concisely stated by Tennemann : " Wenn sich
nun auch ein fteierer Geiat der Foraohung regte, ao faud er sich gleich durch zwei

366 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
being, as its enemies have caUed it, an aberration arising from
accidental causes, was essentiaUy a normal movement, and was
the legitimate expression of the wants of the European inteUect,
Indeed, the Eeformation owed its success, not to a desUe of puri
fying the church, but to a desire of Ughtening its pressure ; and
it may be broadly stated, that it was adopted in every civiUzed
country, except in those where preceding events had increased
the influence of the ecclesiastical order, either among the people
or among their rulers. This was, unhappUy, the case -with
France, where the clergy not only triumphed over the Protes
tants, hut appeared, for a time, to have gained fresh authority by
the defeat of such dangerous enemies."
The consequence of aU this was, that, in France, every thing
assumed a more theological aspect than in England. In our
country, the ecclesiastical spirit had, by the middle of the six
teenth century, become so feeble, that even intelUgent foreigners
were struck by the pecuUarity.' The same nation, which, dur
ing the Crasades, had sacriflced innumerable Uves in the hope
of planting the Christian standard in the heart of Asia,' was
Grundaatze, welche aua jenem Supremat der Theologie floaaen, beengt und gehemmt.
Der erste war : die menschliche Vernunft kann nicht iiber die Offenbarung lunaus-
gehen  Der zweite : die Vernunft kann nicbta als wahr erkennen, was dem
Inhalte der Offenbarung widerspricht, und nichts fur falsch erkennen, was derselben
angemeaaen ist, — ^folgte aus dem eraten." Gesch, der Philos, vol. viU. part l p. 8.
° Aa to the influence of the Eeformation generaUy, in increasing the power of
the Catholic clergy, see M. Eanke's important work on the History of the Popes ;
and as to the result in France, see Monteil, Hist, des divers Etats, vol. v. pp. 233-236.
Corero, who waa ambaasador Jn France in 1569, writea, "H papa pud dire a mio
giudizio, d' aver iu queati romori piuttoato guadagnato che perduto, perciochd tanta
era la Ucenza del vivere, aecondo che ho inteao, prima che quel regno si dividesse in
due parti, era tanta poca la devozione che avevano in Roma e in quel che vi abita.
vano, che il papa era piil conaiderato come principe grande in Italia, che come capo
deUa chiesa e pastore universale. Ma scoperti che si furono gli ugonotti, commci-
arono i cattoUci a riverire il auo nome, e riconoacerlo per vero vicario di Cristo,
confirraandosi tanto pii in opinione di doverlo tener per tale, quanto pii lo sen?
tivano sprezzare e negare da essi ugonotti." Relations des Ambassadeurs Veni
tiens, vol ii. p. 162. This interesting passage ia one of many proofs that the imme
diate advantages derived from the Eeformation have been overrated ; though the
reraote advantages were undoubtedly immense.
' The indifference of the EngUsh to theological disputes, and the facility with
which they changed their religion, caused many foreigners to censure their fickle
ness. See, for instance, Essais de Montaigne, livre u. chap. xU. p. 865. PerUn, who
travelled in England in the middle of the sixteenth century, says, "The people are
reprobates, and thorough enemies to good manners and letters ; for they don't
know whether they belong to God or the devil, which St. Paul has reprehended ia
many people, saying. Be not transported with divers sorts of winds, but be constant
and steady to your beUef." Antiquarian Repertory, vol iv. p. 511, 4to, 1809. See
also the remarks of Michele in 1667, and of Crespet iu 1590; Ellis's Original
Letters, 2d series, vol ii. p. 239; Hallam's Constitutional History, vol. i. p. 102;
Soutliey's Commonplace Book, 3d series, p. 408.
An historian of the thirteenth century strikingly expresses the theological
feeUnga of the English Cruaaders, and the coraplete aubordination of the poUtical
ones : " Indignum quippe judicabant animarum auarum salutem omittere, et obse-
quium coelestia Regia, clientelae regis alicujus terreni postponere ; conatituerunt

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 367
now almost indifferent to the religion even of its own sovereign.
Henry VIII., hy his sole wUl, regulated the national creed, and
fixed the formularies of the church, which, if the people had
heen in earnest, he could not possibly have done ; for he had
no means of compeUing submission ; he had no standing
army ; and even his personal guards were so scanty, that, at
any moment, they could have heen destroyed hy a rising
of the warUke apprentices of London." After his death, there
came Edward, who, as a Protestant king, undid the work of his
father ; and a few years later, there came Mary, who, as a Pop
ish queen, undid the work of her brother ; whUe she, in her turn,
was succeeded by EUzabeth, under whom another great altera
tion was effected in the estabUshed faith.'" Such was the indif
ference of the people, that these vast changes were accompUshed
yrithout any serious risk." In France, on the other hand, at the
mere name of reUgion, thousands of men were ready for the field.
In England, our civU wars have aU heen secular ; they have been
waged, either for a change of dynasty, or for an increase of liberty.
But those far more horrible wars, hy which, in the sixteenth cen
tury, France was desolated, were conducted in the name of Chris
tianity, and even the poUtical struggles of the great famUies were
merged in a deadly contest between Catholics and Protestants.'"
The effect this difference produced on the inteUect of the two
countries is very obrious. The English, concentrating their
ahiUties upon great secular matters, had, by the close of the six-
igitur terminum, videlicet festum nativitatis beati Jbhannis Baptistse." Matthoei
Paris Historia Major, p. 671. It is said, that the first tax ever irapoaed in England
on peraonal property was in 1166, and was for the purpose of crusading. Sinclair's
Hist of the Revenue, vol. i. p. 88 : " It would not probably have been easUy aub-
mitted to, had it not been appropriated for so popular a purpose."
" Henry VIH. had, at one time, fifty horse-guards, but they being expensive,
were aoon given up, and hia only protection conaiated of " the yeomen of the guard,
fifty in number, and the comraon servants of the king's household." Hallam's Const,
Hist. vol. i. p. 46. These "yeomen of the guard were raised by Henry VII. in
1486." Grose's Miliiary Antiquities, vol i. p. 167. Compare Turner's Hist, of Eng
land, vol vU. p. 54 ; and Ungard's Hist of England, vol. iU. p. 298.
'" Locke, in his First Letter on Toleration, has made some pungent, and, I
ahould auppose, very offensive, observations on these rapid changes. Locke's Works,
vol V. p. 27.
_ " But, although Mary easUy effected a change of religion, the anti-ecclesiastical
spirit was far too strong to allow her to restore to the church ita property. " In
Mary's reign, accordingly, her parUament, so obsequious in all matters of reUgion,
adhered with a firm grasp to the possession of church-lands." HallanCs Const.
Hist. vol. i. p. 77. See also Shorts Hist of ihe Church of England, p. 213 ; Lin
gard's Hist, of England, vol. iv. pp. 339, 340 ; Butler's Mem, of the Catholics, vol. i.
p. 253; and Carwithen's Hist, ofthe Church of England, vol. I p. 346.
'" " Quand dclata la guerre des opinions reUgieuses, les antiques rivalitds des
barons se transformdrent en haine du preche ou de la messe." Capefigue, Hist, de la
Reforme et de la Ligue, vol iv. p. 82. Compare Duplessis Mornay, Mem. et Corre
spond, vol. U. pp. 422, 563 ; and BouUier, Maison Militaire des Rois de France,
p. 25, " des querelles d'autant plus vivos, qu'eUes avoient la reUgion pour base."

368 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
teenth century, produced a literature which never can perish.
But the French, down to that period, had not put forth a single
work, the destruction of which would now be a loss to Europe.
What makes this contrast the more remarkable is, that in France
the civUization, such as it was, had a longer standing ; the ma
terial resources of the country had heen earUer developed ; its
geographical position made it the centre of European thought ;"
and it had possessed a literature at a time when our ancestors
were a mere tribe of yrild and ignorant barbarians.
The simple fact is, that this is one of those innumerable in
stances which teach us that no country can rise to eminence so
long as the ecclesiastical power possesses much authority. For,
the predominance of the spiritual classes is necessarily accom
panied by a corresponding predominance of the topics in which
those classes deUght. Whenever the ecclesiastical profession is
very influential, ecclesiastical Uterature wiU be very abundant,
and what is called profane Uterature -wUl be very scanty. Hence
it occurred that the minds of the French being almost entirely
occupied with reUgious disputes, had no leisure for those great
inquiries into which we in England were beginning to enter ;'*
and there was, as we shall presently see, an interval of a whole
generation between the progress of the French and EngUsh
inteUects, simply hecause there was about the same interval be
tween the progress of their scepticism. The theological litera
ture, indeed, rapidly increased ;" but it was not until the
seventeenth century that France produced that great secular
Uterature, the counterJ)art of which was to be found in England
hefore the sixteenth century had come to a close.
Such was, in France, the natural consequence of the power
of the church being prolonged beyond the period which the exi
gencies of society required. But whUe this was the inteUectual
result, the moral and physical results were stiU more serious.
WhUe the minds of men were thus heated by religious strife, it
would have heen idle to expect any of those maxims of charity
to which theological faction is always a stranger. While the
Protestants were murdering the CathoUcs," and the CathoUcs
'° The intellectual advantages of France, arising from its position between Italy,
Germany, and England, are very fairly stated by M. Lerminier (Philosophie du Droit,
vol i. p. 9).
" Just in the same way, the reUgioua disputes in Alexandria injured the interests
of knowledge. See the instructive remarks of M. Matter (Hist, de VEcole dAlex-
andrie), vol. ii. p. 181.
_ "* Monteil, Hist des divers Etats, vol vi. p. 136. Indeed, the theological spirit
seized the theatre, and the different sectarians ridiculed each other's principles on the
stage. See a curious passage at p. 182 ofthe same learned work.
'" The criraes of the French Protestants, though hardly noticed in Felice's His
tory of the Protestants of France, pp. 138-143, were aa revolting aa those of the

GENEEAL INTRODUCTION. 369
murdering the Protestants, it was hardly likely that either sect
should feel tolerance for the opinions of its enemy.." During the
sixteenth century, treaties were occasionaUy made between the
two parties; but they were only made to be immediately bro
ken;" and, with the single exception of I'Hopital, the bare idea
of toleration does not seem to have entered the head of any
statesman of the age. It was recommended hy him;'" but
neither his splendid abffities, nor his unblemished integrity, could
make head against the prevaUing prejudices, and he eventually
retired into private Ufe without effecting any of his noble
schemes."" Indeed, in the leading events of this period of French history,
the predominance of the theological spirit, was painfully shown.
It was shoyyn in the universal determination to subordinate
poUtical acts to reUgious opinions."' It was shown in the con
spiracy of Amhoise, and in the conference of Poissy; and stUl
more was it shown in those revolting crimes so natural to super
stition, the massacres of Vassy and of St. Bartholomew, the
murder of Guise by Poltrot, and of Henry III. by Clement.
CathoUcs, and quite as numerous relatively to the numbers and power of the two par
ties. Compare Sismondi, Hist, des Frangais, vol xviii. pp. 616, 517, with Capefigue,
Hist, de la Reforme, vol ii. p. 173, vol. vi. p. 64 ; and Smedley, Hist, of the Reformed
Religion in France, vol. i. pp. 199, 200, 237.
" In 1569 Corero writea : " Eitrovai quel regno, certo, poato iu grandiaaima con-
fusione ; perche, stante queUa divisione di reUgione (convertita quasi in due fazioni e
inimicizie particolari), era causa ch' ogonun, senza che amicizia 0 parentela potesse
aver luoco, stava con 1' orecchie attente ; e pieno di aospetto aacoltava da che parte
muaceva qualche roraore," Relat des Ambassad. Venitiens, vol. u. p. 106. He era-
phaticaUy adds, " Temevano gl' ugonotti, temevano U cattoUci, temeva U prencipe,
temevano U sudditl" See also, on this horrible state of opinion, Sismondi, Hist, des
Franfais, vol xviu. pp. 21, 22, 118-120, 296, 430. On both sides, the grossest calum
nies were propagated and beUeved ; and one of the charges brought against Cathe
rine de Medici waa, that ahe caused the Cesarean operation to be performed on tbe
wives of Proteatanta, in order that no new heretics might be born. Sprengel, Hist,
de la Medecine, vol. vu. p. 294.
'" Mably, Observations sur VHist. de France, vol iu. p. 149. In the reign of
Charlea IX. alone, there were no leas than five of these religious wars, each of which
was concluded by a treaty. See Flassan, Hist, de la Diplomatic Franfaise, voh u.
p. 69. " For which THopitalwaa accused of atheism : " Homo doctus, sed verus atheua."
Diet Philos. article Atheisms, in (Euvres de Voltaire, voh xxxvU. pp. 181, 182.
™ I have not been able to meet with any good life of thia great man : that by
Charles Butler is very superficial, and so ia that by Bernardi, in Biog. Univ. vol. xxiv.
pp. 412-424. My own information reapecting I'Hdpital ia from Sismondi, Hist, des
Franfais, vol. xvUi. pp. 431-486 ; Capefigue, Hist de la Riforme, vol U. pp. 135-137,
168-170; De Thou, Hist Univ. vol. ui. pp. 519-523, vol. iv. pp. 2-8, 152-159, vol. v.
pp. 180-182, 520, 521, 535, vol vi. pp. 708, 704; Sully, (Economies Royales, vol i.
p. 284. Duvernet (Hist, de la Sorbonne, vol i. pp. 215-218)13 unsatiafaotory, though
fully recognizing his merit.
" Ce fut alora que la nation ne prit conaeU que de son fanatisme. Les esprita,
de jour en jour plus dchauffds, ne virent plus d'autre objet que celui de la religion, et
par pidtd se firent les injures lea plua atrocea." Mably, Observations sur VHist. de
France, vol. Ul p. 145.
VOL. I. — 24

370 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
These were the legitimate results of the spirit of religious bigot
ry. They were the results of that accursed spirit, which, when
ever it has had the power, has punished even to the death those
who dared to differ from it; and which, now that the power has
passed away, stUl continues to dogmatize on the most mysterious
subjects, tamper with the most sacred principles of the human
heart, and darken with its miserable superstitions those suhUme
questions that no one should rudely touch, hecause they are for
each according to the measure of his own soul, hecause they Ue
in that unknown tract which separates the Finite from the Infi
nite, and because they are as a secret and indiridual covenant
between Man and his God.
How long these sad days"" would, in the ordinary course of
affairs, have been prolonged in France, is a question which we
now perhaps have no means of answering; though there is no
douht that the progress even of empirical knowledge must, ac
cording to the process already pointed out, have eventuaUy
sufficed to rescue so great a country from her degraded position.
Fortunately, however, there now 'took place what we must he
content to call an accident, hut which was the beginning of a
most important change. In the year 1589, Henry IV. ascended
the throne of France. This great prince, who was far superior
to any of the French sovereigns of the sixteenth century,"' made
^ The 19th and 20th voluraes of Sismondi s Histoire (/es i'-j-anfats contain painful
evidence of the internal condition of France before the accession of Henry IV. In
deed, as Sisraondi aays (vol xx. pp. 11-16), it seemed at one tirae as if the only pros
pect was a relapse into feudalisra. See alao Monteil, Hist, des divers Etats, vol v.
pp. 242-249 : " plua de trois cent mUle maisons ddtruites." De Thou, in the memoirs
of his own life, says, " Les loix furent mdprisdes, et I'honneur de la France fut pres
que andanti .... et sous le voile de la religion, on ne respiroit que la haine, la
vengeance, le massacre et I'incendie." Mem. de la Vie, in Histoire Univ. vol i. p.
120 ; and the aame writer, in hia great hiatory, givea almost innumerable instances
of the crimes and persecutiona constantly occurring. See, for sorae of the most
striking oaaea, vol. ii. p. 383, vol. iv. pp. 378, 880, 387, 495, 496, 539, vol. v. pp.189,
618, 661, 647, vol. vi. pp. 421, 422, 424, 426, 427, 430, 469. Compare Duplessis,
Mem., et Coirespond. vol U. pp. 41, 42, 822, 835, 611, 612, vol iii. pp. 344, 445, vol
iv. pp. 112-114; Benoist, Hist de VEdit de Nantes, vol. i. pp. 307, 808 ; Duvernet,
Hist, de la Sorbonne, vol I p. 217.
'^ Thia, indeed, ia not saying much ; and far higher praise raight be juatly bestowed.
Aa to his domestic poUcy, there can be only one opinion ; and M. Flassan speaks in
the most favourable terms of hia manageraent of foreign affaira. Flassan, Hist de la
Diplomatie Franf. vol u. pp. 191, 192, 294-297, vol. Ui. p. 248. And aee, to the
aarae effect, the teatimony of M. Capefigue, an unfriendly judge. Hist, de laReforme,
vol. vii. p. xiv., vol. viu. p. 156. Fontenay MareuU, who waa a contemporary of
Henry f-?-., though he wrote many yeara after the king was murdered, says, "Ce
grand roy, qui estoit en plus de considdration dans le monde que pas un de aes pr4-
decesseurs n'avoit estd depuis Charlesmagne." Mem. de Fontenay, vol. l p. 46. Du
plessis Mornay calls hira " le plus grand roy que la chreatientd ait portd depuis cmq
ceua ans ;" and Sully pronounces him to be "le plus grand de noa roia." Duplessis
Mornay, Meiii. et Correspond, vol. xi. pp. 30, 77, 131. Sully, (Economies Royales,
vol. vii. p. 15. Compare vol. vi. pp. 397, 398, vol ix. pp. 36, 242, with some sensi
ble remarks in Mem. de Genlis, Paria, 1825, voh ix. p. 299.

GENERAL INTEODUCTION. 371
smaU account of those theological disputes which his predeces
sors had thought to be of paramount importance. Before him,
the kings of France, animated by the piety natural to the guard
ians of the church, had exerted aU their authority to uphold
the interests of the sacred profession. Francis I. said, that if
his right hand were a heretic, he would cut it off."* Henry II.,
whose zeal was stiU greater,"' ordered the judges to proceed
against the Protestants, and publicly declared that he would
" make the extirpation of the heretics his principal business."""
Charles IX., on the celebrated day of St. Bartholomew, attempt
ed to reUeve the church by destroying them at a single blow.
Henry III. promised to "oppose heresy even at the risk of his
Iffe;" for he said "he could not find a prouder grave than amidst
the ruins of heresy.""'
These were the opinions expressed, in the sixteenth century,
by the heads of the oldest monarchy in Europe."" But with
such feeUngs, the powerful intellect of Henry IV. had not the
sUghtest sympathy. To suit the shifting politics of his age, he
had already changed his religion twice; and he did not hesitate
to change it a third time,"" yvhen he found that by doing so he
could ensure tranquUlity to his country. As he had displayed
^* So it is generaUy related ; but there is a sUghtly different version of tliia ortho
dox declaration in Smedley's Hist, of the Reformation in France, vol. i. p. 30. Com
pare Maclaine's note in Mosheim's Eccles. Hist, vol U. p. 24, with Sismondi, Hist, des
Franfais, vol xvi pp. 453, 454, and Relat. des Ambassad. Venitiens, vol i. p. 50, vol.
U. p. 48. It waa also Francis I. who advised Charlea V. to expel all the Mohamme
dans frora Spain. Llorente, Hist, de VInquisition, vol. i. p. 429.
" The historian of the French Protestants saya, in 1548, "le nouveau roi Henri
II fut encore plus rigoureux que son pdre." Benoist, Hist, de VEdit de Nantes, vol
i. p. 12.
"' M. Eanke (Civil Wars in France, vol i. pp. 240, 241) says, that he issued a cir
cular " addressed to the parliaments and to the judicial tribunals, in which they were
urged to proceed against the Lutherans with the greatest severity, and the judgea
informed that they would be held responsible, should they neglect these orders ; and
in which he declared plainly, that as soon as the peace with Spain was concluded, he
was determined to make the extirpation of the heretics his principal business." See
also, on Henry II., in connection with the Protestants, Mably, Observ. sur VHist. de
France, vol. iu. pp. 133, 134; De Thou, Hist. Univ. vol i. pp. 834, 335, 387, vol u.
p. 640, vol iu. pp. 365, 366 ; Felice's Hist! of the French Protestants, p. 58.
°' He said this to the Estates of Blois in 1588. Ranke's Civil Wars in France,
vol. u. p. 202. Compare his edict, in 1685, in Capefigue, Hist, de la Reforme, voh iv.
pp. 244, 245, and his speech in vol. v. p. 122 ; and see Benoist, Hist, de VEdit de
Nantes, vol. i. p. 328 ; Duplessis Mornay, M'em. et Corresp. vol i. p. 110 ; De Thou,
Hist. Univ. vol. i. p. 250, vol vUi. p. 651, vol. x. pp. 294, 589, 674, 675.
''" With what zeal these opinions were enforced, appears, beaidea many other au
thoritiea, from Marino CavalU, who writea in 1646, "Li maestri di Sorbona hanno
autoritk estrema di castigare li eretici, il che fanno con il fuoco, brustolandoU vivi a
poco apoco." Relat. des Ambassad. Vinitiens, vol. i. p. 262 ; and see vol. ii. p. 24.
'' Indeed, Clement VIII. was afterwards apprehensive of a fourth apostasy : "Er
meinte noch immer, Heinrich IV. werde zuletzt vieUeicht wieder zum Protestantismua
zuriickkehren, wie er es schon einmal gethan." Ranke, die Papste, vol. ii. p. 246.
M. Eanke, frora his great knowledge of Italian manuscripts, has thrown more Ught
on these transactions than the French historians have been able to do.

373 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
such indifference ahout his own creed, he could not with decency
show much bigotry about the creed of his subjects.'" We find,
accordingly, that he was the author of the first pubUc act of
toleration which any government promulgated in Prance since
Christianity had heen the reUgion of the country. Only five
years after he had solemnly abjured Protestantism, he published
the celebrated edict of Nantes," hy which, for the first time, a
CathoUc government granted to heretics a fair share of ciril and
reUgious rights. This was, unquestionably, the most important
event that had yet occurred in the history of French civUiza
tion.'" If it is considered hy itself, it is merely an e-ridence of
the enUghtened principles of the king ; but when we look at its
general success, and at the cessation of reUgious war which fol
lowed it, we cannot faU to perceive that it was part of a vast
movement, in which the people themselves participated. Those
who recognize the truth of the principles I have laboured to es
tahUsh, will expect that this great step towards reUgious Uberty
was accompanied by that spirit of scepticism, in the absence of
which toleration has always been unknown. And that this was
actuaUy the case, may be easUy proved by an examination of the
transitionary state which France began to enter towards the end
of the sixteenth century.
The writings of Eabelais are often considered to afford the
first instance of reUgious scepticism in the French language."
But, after a tolerably intimate acquaintance with the works of
this remarkable man, I have found nothing to justify such an
opinion. He certainly treats the clergy with great disrespect,
and takes every opportunity of covering them yrith ridicule."
"° On hia converaion, the character of which was as ob-vious then as it is now>
corapare Duplessis Mornay, Mem. et Correspond, vol i. p. • 257, with Sully, (Econo
mies Royales, vol. U. p. 126. See alao HowelVs Letters, book i. p. 42; and a letter
from Sir H. Wotton in 1693, printed in Reliquice Wottoniance, p. 711. See also -Bareie,
Civil Wars in France, vol. il pp. 267, 366 ; Capefigue, Hist, de la Riforme, vol vl
pp. 806, 368.
"' The edict of Nantes was in 1598 ; the abjuration in 1593. Sismondi, Eist. des
Frangais, vol xxi. pp. 202, 486. But in 1690 it was intimated to the pope as proba
ble, if not certain, that Henry would " in den Schooss der katholisdhen Kirche zuriick
kehren." Ranke, die Papste, vol. il p. 210.
'^ Of this edict, Sismondi says, " Aucune dpoque dans I'histoire de France ne
marque mieux peut-dtre la fin d'un monde ancien, le commencement d'un monde nou
veau." Hist des Franfais, voh xxi, p. 489.
"' On Rabelais, as the supposed founder of French scepticism, compare LavaU'ee,
Hist, des Franfais, vol. ii. p. 806 ; Stephen's Lectures on the History of France, vol.
U. p. 242 ; Sismondi, Hist, des Franfais, vol. xvi. p. 376.
'* Particularly the monks. See, araong numerous other instances, vol. i. pp. 278,
282, yol. U. pp. 284, 285, of CEuvres de Rabelais, edit. Amsterdara, 1725. However,
the high dignitaries of the church are not apared ; for he says that Gargantua "se
morvoit en archidiacre," vol. i. p. 132 ; and on two occasions (vol. in. p. 66, vol iv.
pp- 199, 200) he makes a very indecent allusion to the pope. In vol. i. pp. 260,
261, he aatiricaUy noticea the way in which the aervices of the church were per-

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 373
His attacks, however, are always made upon their personal vices,
and not upon that narrow and intolerant spirit to which those
rices were chiefly to be ascribed. In not a single instance does
he show any thing like consistent scepticism;" nor does he ap
pear to be aware that the disgraceful lives of the French clergy
were but the ineritable consequence of a system, which, corrupt
as it was, stiU possessed every appearance of strength and vitali
ty. Indeed, the immense popularity which he enjoyed is, almost
of itself, a decisive consideration; since no one, who is well in
formed as to the condition of the French early in the sixteenth
century, wUl heUeve it possible that a people, so sunk in super
stition, should deUght in a writer by whom superstition is con
stantly attacked.
But the extension of experience, and the consequent increase
of knowledge, were preparing the way for a great change in the
French inteUect. The process, which had just taken place in
England, was now beginning to take place in France ; and in
both countries the order of events was precisely the same. The
spirit of douht, hitherto conflned to an occasional solitary thinker,
graduaUy assumed a holder form : first it found a vent in the
national Uterature, and then it infiuenced the conduct of practical
statesmen. That there was, in France, an intimate connexion
between scepticism and toleration, is proved, not only by those
general arguments which make us infer that such connexion
must always exist, but also hy the circumstance, that only a few
years before the promulgation of the Edict of Nantes, there ap
peared the first systematic sceptic who wrote in the French lan
guage. The Essays of Montaigne were published in 1588," and
form an epoch, not only in the Uterature, but also in the civUiza
tion, of France. Putting aside personal peculiarities, which have
less weight than is commonly supposed, it wUl he found, that the
difference between Eabelais and Montaigne is a measure of the
difference between 1545" and 1588, and that it, in some degree,
formed: "Dont luy diet le moyne : Je ne dora jamaia a mon aise, sinon quand je
Buis au sermon, ou quand je prieDieu."
'° .His johe on the strength of Samson (CEuvres de Rabelais, vol. U. pp. 29, 30),
and his ridicule of one of the Mosaic laws (vol. Ui. p. 34), are so unconnected with
other parta of his work, aa to have no appearance of belonging to a general acheme.
The commentatora, who find a hidden meaning in every author they annotate, have
represented Rabelais as airaing at the highest objects, and seeking to effect the most
extensive social and reUgious reforms. This I greatly doubt, at aU events 1 have
seen no- proof of it ; and I cannot help thinking that Rabelais owes a large share of
hia reputation to the obscurity of his language. On the other side of tbe question,
and in favour of his coraprehensiveneaa, see a bold passage iu Coleridge's Lit Re
mains, vol. i. pp. 138, 139.
=» The two first books in 1580 ; the third in 1588, with additions to the firat two.
See Niceron, Mem. pour servir d, VHist des Hmnmes illustres, vol. xvi. p. 210, Paris,
1731. ' 1- ' '
"' The first impression of the Pautagruel of Eabelais haa no date on the title-

374 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
corresponds with the relation I have indicated between Jewel
and Hooker, and between Hooker and ChUlingworth. For, the
law which govems all these relations, is the law of a progressive
scepticism. What Eabelais was to the supporters of theology,
that was Montaigne to the theology itself The writings of Eab
elais were only directed against the clergy.; hut the writings of
Montaigne were directed against the system of which the clergy
were the offspring." Under the guise of a mere man of the
world, expressing natural thoughts in common language, Mon
taigne concealed a spirit of lofty and audacious inquiry.'" Al
though he lacked that comprehensiveness which is the highest
form of genius, he possessed other qualities essential to a great
mind. He was very cautious, and yet he was very hold. He was
cautious, since he would not believe strange things hecause they
had been handed down by his forefathers ; and he was bold, since
he was undaunted hy the reproaches yrith which the ignorant;
who love to dogmatize, always cover those whose knowledge
makes them ready to doubt.*" These peculiarities would, in any
age, have made Montaigne a useful man : in the sixteenth cen
tury, they made him an important one. At the same time, his
easy and amusing style,*' increased the circulation of his works,
page ; but it is known that tbe third book was first printed in 1545, and the fourth
book in 1546. See Brunei, Manuel du Ubraire, vol iv. pp. 4-6, Paris, 1843. The
statement in Biog. Univ. vol xxxvi. pp. 482, 483, is rather confuaed.
'" Mr. HaUam (Ut. of Europe, vol U. p. 29) saya, that hia acepticism "is not
diaplayed in religion." But if we uae the word ' reUgion' in ita ordinary sense, as
connected with dogma, it ia evident, frora Montaigne'a language, that he was a
aceptic, and an unfiinching one too. Indeed, he goes so far aa to aay that aU relig
ious opinions are the result of custom : " Comrae de vray nous n'avons aultre mire
de la vdritd et de la raison, que I'exemple et idde des opinions et usances du pals oi
nous sommes : lA est tousiours la parfaicte religion, la parfaicte poUce, parfaict et
accomply usage de toutes choses." Essais de Montaigne, p. 121, livre i. chap. xxx.
As a natural conaequence, he laya down that religioua error ia not criminal, p. 53 ;
compare p. 28. See also how he notices the usurpations of the theological spirit,
pp. 116, 508, 528. The fact seematobe, that Montaigne, whUe recognizing abstract
edly the existence of religious truths, doubted our capacity for knowing them ; that
is to say, he doubted if, out of the imraense number of religious opinions, there were
any means of aecertaining which were accurate. Hia observations on miracles (pp.
641, 653, 664, 675) iUustrate the character of his raind; and what he says on pro
phetic visions ia quoted and confirmed by Pinel, in bis profound work .^K««(zfe»
Mentale, p. 256. Compare Maury, Legendes Pieuses, p. 268 note.
^' Hia friend, the celebrated De Thou, oaUa bim " homme franc, ennemi de toute
contrainte." Memoires, in De Thou, Hist. Univ. vol. i. p. 69 ; see also vol. xi. p. 690.
And M. Lamartine clasaes hira with Montesquieu, as " ces deux grands rdpubUcains
de la pensde franjaise." Hist, des (girondins, vol. i. p. 174.
*° He says (Essais, p. 97), " Ce n'est paa a I'adventure sana raiaon que nous at-
tribuona k simplesse et ignorance la facilitd de croire et de se laisser persuader."
Compare two atriking paaeagea, pp. 199 and 686. Nothing of this sort had ever ap
peared before in the French language.
" Dugald Stewart, whose turn of mind waa very different from that of Montsugne,
calla him " this most amusing author." Stewarts Philos. of the Mind, vol l p. 468.
But Rouaseau, in every respect a more competent judge, enthusiastically praises "la
nalvetd, la grace et I'dnergie de son style inimitable." Musset Pathay, Vie deBous-

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 375
and thus contributed to popularize those opinions which he ven
tured to recommend for general adoption.
This, then, is the first open declaration of that scepticism,
which, towards the end of the sixteenth century, puhlicjy ap
peared in France.*" During nearly three generations, it contin
ued its course with a constantly increasing activity, and developed
itself in a manner simUar to that which took place in England.
It yrill not be necessary to foUow all the steps of this great pro
cess ; but I yyUl endeavour to trace those which, hy their prom
inence, seem to be the most important.
A few years after the appearance of the Essays of Montaigne,
there was pubUshed in France a work, which, though now little
read, possessed in the seventeenth century a reputation of the
highest order. This was the celebrated Treatise on Wisdom,
hy Charron, in which we fi&id, for the first time, an attempt made
in a modem language to construct a system of morals without
the aid of theology.*' What rendered this hook, in some respects,
even more formidable than Montaigne's, was the air of gravity
yrith which it was written. Charron was evidently deeply im
pressed with the importance of the task he had undertaken, and
he is honourably distinguished from his contemporaries, by a re
markable purity both of language and of sentiment. His work
is almost the only one of that age in which nothing can be found
to offend the chastest ears. Although he borrowed from Mon
taigne innumerable Ulustrations,** he has carefully omitted those
seau, vol i. p. 185. Compare Lettres de Sevign^, vol. ui. p. 491, edit. Paris, 1843,
and Lettres de Dudeffand d, Walpole, vol i. p. 94.
^ " "Maia celui qui a rdpandu et popularise en France le scepticisrae, c'est Mon
taigne." Cousin, Hist, de la Philos. ii. sdrie, vol. U. pp. 288, 289. " Die erste
Regung des skeptiachen Geistes findeu wir in den Verauchen dea Michael von
Montaigne." Tennemann, Geseh. der Philos. vol. ix. p. 443. On the iraraense in
fiuence of Montaigne, corapare Tennemann, vol. ix. p. 458 ; Monteil, Divers Etats,
vol. V. pp. 263-265 ; Sorel, Bibliotheque Frangoise, pp. 80-91 ; Le Long, Bibliotheque
Historique, vol. iv. p. 627.
*^ Corapare the remarks on Charron in Tennemann, GescMchte der Philosophie,
vol ix. p. 627, with two insidious paaeagea in Charron, De la Sagesse, vol. l pp. 4,
866. ,
** The obUgationa of Charron to Montaigne were very considerable, but are
stated too' strongly by many writers. Sorel, Bibliotheque Franfoise, p. 98 ; and
Hallam's Uterature of Europe, vol. ii. pp. 362, 509. On the moat important aubjecta,
Charron was a bolder and deeper thinker than Montaigne ; though he ia now so lit
tle read, that the only tolerably complete account I have aeen of his system is in
Tennemann, Gesch. der Philosophie, vol. ix. pp. 458-487. Buhle (Geschichte der
neuern Philosophie, vol. il pp. 918-925) and Couain (Hist de la Philos. ii. adrie, vol.
11. p. 289) are short and unsatisfactory. Even Dr. Parr, who was extensively read
in this sort of literature, appeara only to have known Charron through Bayle (see
notes on the Spital Sermon, in Parr's Works, vol U. pp. 520, 521) ; while Dugald
Stewart, with suspicious tautology, quotes, in three different places, the same paa
aage from Charron. . Stewarts Philosophy of the Mind, vol. ii. p. 233, vol. iu. pp.
365, 393. Singularly enough, TaUeyrand was a great admirer of De la Sagesse, and
presented his favourite copy of it to Madame de GenUs ! See her own account, in
Mem. de Genlis, voh iv. pp. 352, 858.

376 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
indecencies into which that otherwise charming writer was
often betrayed. Besides this, there is ahout the work of Charron
a systematic completeness which never fails to attract attention.
In originality, he was, in some respects, inferior to Montaigne ;
but he had the advantage of coming after him, and there can he
no doubt that he rose to an elevation which, to Montaigne, would
have been inaccessible. Taking his stand, as it were, on the
summit of knowledge, he boldly attempts to enumerate the el
ements of wisdom, and the conditions under which those elements
'wUl work. In the scheme which he thus constructs, he entirely
omits theological dogmas ;*' and he treats vrith undissemhled
scorn many of those conclusions which the people had hitherto
universaUy received. He reminds his countrymen that their re
Ugion is the accidental result of their birth and education, and
that if they had heen born in a Mohammedan country, they would
have been as firm believers in Mohammedanism as they then
were in Christianity.*" From this consideration, he insists on the
absurdity of their troubling themselves about the variety of creeds,
seeing that such variety is the result of circumstances over which
they have no control. Also it is to be observed that each of
these different reUgions declares itself to he the true one;" and
all of them are equaUy based upon supernatural pretensions,
such as mysteries, miracles, prophets, and the like.*' It is he-
cause men forget these things, that they are the slaves of that
confidence which is the great obstacle to aU real knowledge, and
which can only he removed by taking such a large and compre
hensive view, as will show us how aU nations cUng with equal
zeal to the 'tenets in which they have heen educated.*" And,
says Charron, if we look a Uttle deeper, we shaU see that each of
the great religions is built upon that which preceded it. Thus,
the religion of the Jews is founded upon that of the Egyptians ;
*° See his definition, or rather description, of wisdom, in Charron, Dc la Sagesse,
vol. i. p. 295, voh il pp. 113, 115.
*" De la Sagesse, vol. I pp. 63, 351.
*' " Chacune ae prdfdre aux autrea, et se confie d'dtre la meiUeure et plus vraie
que les autrea, ct s'entre-reprochent aussi les unes aux autres quelque chose, et par-
Ik s'entre-condamnent et rejettent." De la Sagesse, vol. i. p. 348 ; see alao vol I pp.
144, 304, 306, 306, vol. ii. p. 116. Expressions alraost identical are used by M.
Charles Comte, Traiti de Uqislation, vol. i. p. 233.
*" " Toutes trouvent et fournissent miracles, prodiges, oracles, mystdres sacrds,
saints prophdtes, fdtes, certains articles de foy et crdance ndcessaires au salut." Be
la Sagesse, vol. i. p. 346.
" Hence he opposes proselytiam, and takes up the philosophic ground, that re
ligious opiniona, being governed by undeviating lawa, owe their variationa to varia-
tiona in their antecedenta, and are always, if left to themselvea, auited to the exist
ing state of things: " Et de cea concluaiona, noua apprendona k n'epouaer rien, ne
jurer i rien, n'adniirer rien, ne se troubler de rien, mais quoi qu'U advienne, qu I'on
crie, tcmpete, se resoudre ^ ce point, que c'eat le coura du monde, c'est nature qui
fait des siennes." De la Sagesse, vol. i. p. 311.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 377
Christianity is the result of Judaism ; and, from these two last
there has naturally sprung Mohammedanism.'" We, therefore,
adds this great writer, should rise above the pretensions of hostile
sects, and, without being terrified hy the fear of future punish
ment, or allured by the hope of future happiness, we should be
content with such practical reUgion as consists in performing the
duties of Ufe ; and, uncontrolled by the dogmas of any particular
creed, we should strive to make the soul retire inward upon itself,
and by the efforts of its own contemplation, admire the ineffable
grandeur of the Being of beings, the supreme cause of all created
tilings." Such were the sentiments which, in the year 1601, were for the
first time laid before the French people in their owm mother-
tongue.'" The sceptical and secular spirit, of which they were
the representatives, continued to increase; and, as the seven
teenth century advanced, the decUne of fanaticism, so far from
being confined to a few isolated thinkers, gradually became com
mon, even among ordinary poUticians." The clergy, sensible of
™ " Mais comrae eUes naissent I'une aprds I'autre, la plus jeune batit toujours
sur sou ainde et prochaine prdcddente, laqueUe elle n'improuve, ni ne condamne de
fonds en comble, autrement eUe ne seroit pas ouYe, et ne pourroit prendre pied ;
mais seulement Taccuse ou d'imperfection, ou de son terme fini, et qu'd cette occa
sion eUe vient pour lui succdder et la parfaire, et ainsi la ruine peu-d-peu, et s'enricbit
de ses ddpouiUes, comme la Judalque a fait -k la GentiUe et Egyptienne, la Chrdtienne
a la Judaique, la Mahomdtane a la Judalque et Chrdtienne ensemble : maia lea
vieiUea condamnent bien tout-4-fait et entidreraent lea jeunes, et les tiennent pour
enneraiea capablea." De la Sagesse, vol. l p. 349. Thia, I beUeve, ia the firat in
stance in any modern language of the doctrine of reUgious development ; a doctrine
which, since Charron, has been steadUy advancing, particularly araong men whose
knowledge is extensive enough to enable them to compare the different reUgions
which have prevaUed at different timea. In this, as in other subjects, they who are
unable to compare, suppose that every thing is isolated, aimply because to them the
continuity ia inviaible. Aa to the Alexandrian doctrine of development, found par
ticularly in Clement and Origen, aee Neander's Hist, of ihe Church, vol U. pp. 234-
257 ; and in particular pp. 241, 246.
" De la Sagesse, vol. i. pp. 356, 365 ; two magnificdnt pasaagea. But the whole
chapter ought to be read, Uvre u. chap. v. In it there ia an occaaional ambiguity.
Tennemann, however, in the moat important point, underatands Charron as I do in
regard to the doctrine of futur.e punishments. Geschichte der Philosophie, vol ix.
p. 473. "' The first edition of La Sagesse was published at Bourdeaux in 1601. Niceron,
Hommes illustres, voh xvi. p. 224 ; HallanCs Ui. of Europe, vol. U. p. 509 ; Biog.
Univ. vol. viu. p. 250. Two editions were subsequently pubUshed in Paris, in 1604
and 1607. Brunei, Manuel du Ubraire, vol. i. p. 639.
^'Sismondi (Hist, des Franfais, vol. xxU. p. 86) and LavaUde (Hist, des Franfais,
vol. iU. p. 84) have noticed the diminution of reUgious zeal early in the seventeenth
century ; and aome curious evidence wiU also be found in the correspondence ol
Duplessis Mornay. See, for instance, a letter he wrote to Diodaty,, m 1609 : " A
beaucoup aujourd'hui U fault commencer par IA, qu'U y a une relUgion, premier que
de leur dire queUe." Duplessis, Mim. et Corresp. vol x. p. 415. This middle, or
secular party, received the name of " Politiques," and began to be powerful in 1592
or 1598. Benoist (Hist de VEdit de Nantes, voh i. p. 113), under the year 1693,
contemptuously says : " II a'dleva une foule de conciUateurs de reUgion ;" see also
pp. 201 , 273. In 1690, and in 1594, the " Politiques" are noticed by De Thou (Hist.

378 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
the danger, wished the govemment to check the progress of in
quiry;'* and the pope himself, in a formal remonstrance with
Henry, urged him to remedy the evU, by prosecuting the heretics,
from whom he thought all the mischief had originally proceeded."
But this the king steadily refused. He saw the immense ad
vantages that would arise, if he could weaken the ecclesiastical
power by balancing the two sects against each other ;'" and,
therefore, though he was a Catholic, his poUcy rather leaned in
favour of the Protestants, as being the weaker party." He
granted sums of money towards the support of their ministers
and the repair of their churches ;" he banished the Jesuits, who
were their most dangerous enemies ;'" and he always had with
him two representatives of the reformed church, whose business
it was to inform him of any infraction of those edicts which he
had issued in favour of their religion.""
Univ. vol xi. p. 171, vol. xii. p. 134) ; and on the increase, in 1593, of "le tiers
parti politique et ndgociateur," see Capefigue, Hist, de la Reforme, vol. vi. p. 235.
See also, respecting " les poUtiqnes," a letter frora the Spaniah ambassador to his
own court, in 1615, in Capefigue's Richelieu, vol i. p. 93 ; and for the rise in Paris,
in 1692, of a "poUtiachund MrchUch gemaasigte Gesinnung," see iJarafe, die Papste,
vol ii. p. 243.
"' The Sorbonne went so far aa to condemn Charron's great work, but could not
succeed in having it prohibited. Corapare Duvernet, Hist, de la Sorbonne, vol ii.
p. 139, with Bayle, article Charron, note F.
"^ in tbe appendix to Eanke (Die Rdmischen Papste, vol ui. pp. 141, 142), there
wiU be found the instructions which were given to the nuncio, in 1603, when he was
sent to tbe French court ; and which should be compared with a letter, written m
1604, in Sully, CEconomies Royales, vol. v. p. 122, edit. 1820.
°" " Sein Sinu war im AUgemeinen, ohne Zweifel, das Gleichgewicht zwischen Ui-
nen zu erhalten." Ranke, die Papste, vol u. pp. 430, 431. " Henri IV, I'expres^
de I'indifferentisme reUgieux, se posa comme une transaction entre ces deux syf-
tdmea." Capefigue, Hist, de la Reforme, vol. vi. p. 368. " Henry IV. endeavoured
to adjust the balance evenly." Smedley's Hist, of the Reformed Religionin France,
vol ui. p. 19. See also Benoist, Hist, de V Edit de Nantes, vol i. p. 136. Hence, of
course, neither party was quite satisfied. Mably' s Observations, vol. iu. p. 220 ;
Mezeray, Histoire de France, vol. viii. p. 959.
^ Compare Capefigue, Hist, de la Riforme, vol. viU. p. 61, with Bazin, Eist. de
Louis Xin., vol i. pp. 32, 33. See also, ou jiia incUnationtowarda the Protestants,
Mem. de Fontenay Mareuil, vol i. p. 91. Fontenay, p. 94, mentiona, aa a singular
inatance, that " il ae vist de son temps des huguenot? avoir dea abbayea."
'" Sully (Economies Royales, vol. iv. p. 134, vol. vi. p. 233 ; Duplessis Mornay,
Mem. et Corresp. vol. xi. p. 242 ; Benoist, Hist, de V Edit de Nantes, vol. U. pp. 68,
205. These granta were annual, and were apportioned by the Proteatanta themselves.
See their own account, in Quick's Synodioon in Gallia, vol i. pp. 198, 222, 246, 247, ,
249, 275-277.
™ Henry IV. banished the Jeauita in 1594 ; but they were aUowed, later in his
reign, to make freah settlements iu France. Flassan, Hist, de la Diplomatie, vol. vl
p. 485 ; Bazin, Hist, de Louis XIII, vol l p. 106 ; Monteil, Divers Etats, vol. v. p.
192 note ; De Thou, Hist. Univ. vol xiv. p. 298. Compare the notices of them in
Sully, CEconomies, vol U. p. 234, vol. iv. pp. 200, 235, 246. But there can be little
doubt that they owed their recaU to the dread entertained of thrar intrigues (Grigdre,
Hist, des Confesseurs, p. 816); and Henry evidently disliked, as weU as feared them.
See two letters from him in Duplessis, Mem. et Corresp. vol. vi. pp. 129, 151. It
would appear, from the Mhn. de Richelieu, vol. v. p. 850, Paris, 1823, that the king
never restored to them their former authority in regard to education.
''" Bazin. Hist, de Louis XIII, vol. l pp". 142, 148 ; Le Vassor, vol i. p. 156 ;

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 379
Thus it was, that in France, as well as in England, tolera
tion was preceded by scepticism ; and thus it was, that out of
this scepticism there arose the humane and enlightened measures
of Henry IV. The great prince, by whom these things were ef
fected, unhappUy fell a victim to that fanatical spirit which he
had done much to curb ;"' hut the circumstances which occurred
after his death, showed how great an impetus had been given to
the age.
On the murder of Henry IV., in 1610, the government fell
into the hands of the queen, who administered it during the mi
nority of her son, Louis XIII. And it is a remarkable evidence
of the direction which the mind was now taking, that she, though
a weak and bigoted woman,"" refrained from those persecutions
which, only one generation before, had been considered a neces
sary proof of reUgious sincerity. That, indeed, must have been
a movement of no common energy, which could force toleration,
early in the seventeenth century, upon a princess of the house of
Medici, an ignorant and superstitious CathoUc, who had been
educated in the midst of her priests, and had been accustomed to
look for their applause as the highest object of earthly ambition.
Yet this was what actuaUy occurred. The queen continued
the ininisters of Henry IV., and announced that in every thing
she would foUow his example."' Her first pubUc act was, a dec
laration, that the Edict of Nantes should be inviolably preserved;
for, she says, "experience has taught our predecessors, that vio
lence, so far from inducing men to return to the Catholic church,
prevents them from doing so.""* Indeed, so anxious was she
Sismondi, vol. xxu. p. 116 ; Duplessis Mornay, vol. i. p. 389 ; Sully, (Economies, vol.
vU. pp. 105, 432, 442.
" When RavaiUac was examined, he said, "qu'U v avait dtd excitd par Tintdrdt
de la religion, et par une impulsion irrdsistible." Bazin, Hist de Louis XIII, vol. i.
p. 38.' This work contains the fuUest account I have met with of RavaiUac ; of
whom there is, moreover, a description in Les Historiettes de Tallemant des Reaux,
vol. i. p. 85, Paris, 1840, a very curious book.
"'I Le Vassor (Hist, de Louis XIII, vol. l p. 279) caUs her " superstitieuse au
dernier point ; " and, in vol. v. p. 481, " femme crddule et superstitieuse." See also Le
, . y yoh
xxu. pp. 206, 210 ; and see two letters from her, in Duplessis Mornay, Mem. et Cor
resp. vol. xi. p. 282, vol. xu. p. 428. Sully had feared that the death of Henry IV.
would cause a change of poUcy : "que I'on s'aUoit jetter dans des desseins touscon-
trairea aux rdgles, ordrea et maximes du feu roy." (Economies Royales, vol. viii.
p. 401. ' '
_ "' See the declaration in Bazin, Hist, de Louis XIII, vol. i pp. 74, 75 ; and no
ticea of It in Mem. de Richelieu, vol i. p. 68 ; Capefigue's Richelieu, vol. i. p. 27 ;
Benoist, Hut de V Edit de Nantes, vol U. p. 7; ie Vassor, Hist de Louis XIII, vol.
1. p. 68. But none of theae writers, nor Sismondi (vol. xxU. p. 221), appear to be
fiT^i^ *ir^V-r/ '^^"'"g of this declaration was determined on, in councU, as early as
the 17th of May ; that is, only three days after the death of Henry IV. Thia is men
tioned by Pontchartrain, who waa then one of the ministers. See Mem. de Pont-

380 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
upon this point, that when Louis, in 1614, attained his nominal
majority, the first act of his government was another confirma
tion of the Edict of Nantes."' And, in 1615, she caused the
king, who stiU remained under her tutelage,"" to issue a declara
tion, by which all preceding measures in favour of the Protes
tants were publicly confirmed." In the same spirit, she, in 1611,
wished to raise to the presidency of parUament the celebrated
De Thou; and it was only hy making a formal announcement
of his heresy, that the pope succeeded in frustratirfg what he con
sidered an impious design."
The turn which things were now taking, caused no Uttle
alarm to the friends of the hierarchy. The most zealous church
men loudly censured the policy ofthe queen; and a great histo
rian has observed, that when, during the reign of Louis XIII.,
such alarm was caused in Europe by the active encroachments
of the ecclesiastical power, France was the first country that
ventured to oppose them."" The nuncio openly complained to
the queen of her conduct in favouring heretics; and he anxiously
desired that those Protestant works should he suppressed, by
which the consciences of true believers were greatly scandal
ized.'" But these, and simUar representations, were no longer
Ustened to with the respect they would formerly have received ;
and the affairs of the country continued to he administered yrith
those purely temporal views, on which the measures of Henry IV.
had been avowedly based."
Such was now the poUcy of the government of France ; a gov
ernment which not many years hefore, had considered it the grelt
chartrain, edit. Petitot, 1822, vol. i. p. 409 ; a book Uttle known, but weU worthy of
being read.
"^ Bazin, Hist de Louis XIII, voh i. p. 262; Benoist, Hist de V Edit de Nantes,
vol ii. p. 140 ; Mlm. de Fontenay Mareuil, vol i. p. 267 ; Le Vassor, vol. i. p. 604.
"" "Laissant ndanmoins I'adrainiatration duroyaume dlareine sa mdre." Mem.
de Bassompierre, vol ii. p. 62. Compare Sully, (Economies, vol ix. p. 177. She
possessed complete authority over tbe king tiU 1617. See Mimoires de Montglat,
vol. i. p. 24 : " avoit dtd tenu fort bas par la reine sa mdre." See alao Le Vassor,
Hist de Louis XIII, vol U. pp. 640, 677, 716, 764.
"' Bazin, Hist de Louis XIII, vol. i. pp. 381, 382.
"° In 1611, "le pape le rejeta formeUement comme hdrdtique.'' Bazin,vol,i.,p.
174. Thia ia gloased over by Pontchartrain (Memoires, vol. i. p. 450) ; but the state
ment of M. Bazin is confirmed in the preface to De Thou, Histoire UniverseUe, vol.
l p. xvi.
"° "Der erste Einhalt den diekirchUche Restauration erfuhr, geachah iuFrank-
riech." Ranke, die Rdmischen Pdpsie, vol Ul p. 160.
'° Thia deaire waa expressed several tiraes, but in vain : " Gem hatten die Nuntien
Werke wie von Thou und Richer verboten, aber ea wahr ihnen nicht moglich.'
Ranke, die Papste, vol iu. p. 181, Anhang. Compare Mem. de Richelieu, voh u. p.
68 ; Mem. de Pontchartrain, vol i. p. 428.
" Thia decUue of the eccleaiaatical power ia noticed by many writera of the time ;
but it ia aufficient to refer to the very curioua remonstrance of the French clergy, m
1605, in De Tliou, Hist Univ. vol xiv. pp. 446, 447.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 381
duty of a sovereign to punish heretics and extirpate heresy. That
this continued improvement was merely the result of the general
intellectual development, is evident, not only from its success,
but also from the character of the queen-regent and the king.
No one who has read the contemporary memoirs, can deny that
Mary de Medici and Louis XIII. were as superstitious as any of
their predecessors, and it is, therefore, erident, that this disre
gard of theological prejudices was due, not to their own personal
merits, but to the advancing knowledge of the country, and to
the pressure of an age which, in the rapidity of its progress, hur
ried along those who beUeved themselves to be its rulers.
But these considerations, weighty as they are, will only
sUghtly diminish the merit of that remarkable man, who now
appeared oh the stage of public affairs. During the last eigh
teen years of the reign of Louis XIIL, France was entirely gov
erned by EicheUeu,'" one of that extremely small class of states
men to whom it is given to impress their own character on the
destiny of their country. This great ruler has, in his knowledge
of the poUtical art, probably never been surpassed, except by that
prodigy of genius who, in our time, troubled the fortunes of Eu
rope. But, in one important point of view, EicheUeu was supe
rior to Napoleon. The life of Napoleon was a constant effort to
oppress the Uberties of mankind ; and his unrivalled capacity
exhausted its resources in struggUng against the tendencies of a
great age. EicheUeu, too, was a despot ; but his despotism took
a nobler tum. He displayed, what Napoleon never possessed, a
just appreciation of the spirit of his own time. In one great
point, indeed, he failed. His attempts to destroy the power of
the French nobiUty were altogether futUe ;" for, owing to a long
course of events, the authority of that insolent class was so deeply
rooted in the popular mind, that the labours of another century
were required to efface its ancient influence. But, though Eiche
Ueu could not diminish the social and moral weight of the French
nobles, he curtaUed their poUtical privUeges ; and he chastised
''' As M. MonteU says (Hist des Frangais des divers Etats, vol vii. p. 114),
" EicheUeu tint le sceptre ; Louis XIII porta la couronne." And Campion (Me
moires, p. 37)_caUs him "plutdt le maitre que le ministre ;" and adds, pp. 218, 219,
that he " avoit gouvernd dix-huit ans la France avec un pouvoir absolu et une gloire
sans pareUle." Compare M^m du Cardinal de Retz, vol. i. p. 63.
'" The common opinion, put forth in Alison's Hist of Europe, vol i. pp. 101-
104, and in many other books, is, that EicheUeu did destroy their influence; but
this error arises from confusing poUtical influence with social influence. What is
terraed the poUtical power of a class, is raerely the syraptora and manifestation of
its real power ; and it is no use to attack the first, unless you can also weaken the
second. The real power of the nobles was social, and that neither EicheUeu nor
Louis XIV. could impair ; and it remamed intact untU the middle of the eighteenth
century, when the inteUect of France rebeUed against it, overthrew it, and finaUy
effected the French Eevolution.

382

CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.

their crimes with a severity which, for a time at least, repressed
their former Ucense.'* So Uttle, however, can even the ablest
statesman effect, unless he is seconded hy the general temper of
the age in which he Uves, that these checks, rude as they were,
produced no permanent result. After his death, the French
nobles, as we shall presently see, quickly raUied ; and, in the
wars of the Fronde, debased that great struggle into a mere con
test of rival famiUes. Nor was it untU the close of the eighteenth
century, that France was finaUy relieved from the overweening
infiuence of that powerfiil class, whose selfishness had long re
tarded the progress of civiUzation, hy retaining the people in a
thraldom, from the remote effects of which they have not yet
fuUy recovered.
Although in this respect EicheUeu faUed in achieving his de
signs, he in other matters met with signal success. This was
owing to the fact, that his large and comprehensive riews har
monized with that sceptical tendency, of which I have just given
some account. For thiis remarkable man, though he was a bishop
and a cardinal, never for a moment aUowed the claims of his pro
fession to make him forego the superior claims of his country.
He knew, what is too often forgotten, that the governor of a peo
ple should measure affairs solely hy a poUtical standard, and
should pay no regard to the pretensions of any sect, or the prop
agation of any opinions, except in reference to the present and
practical welfare of men. The consequence was, that, during
his administration, there was seen the marveUous spectacle of
supreme authority wielded hy a priest, who took no pains to in
crease the power of the spiritual classes. Indeed, so far from
this, he often treated them with what was then considered un
exampled rigour. The royal confessors, on account of the im
portance of their functions, had always heen regarded with a cer
tain veneration ; they were supposed to be men of unspotted
piety ; they had hitherto possessed immense influence, and even
the most powerful statesmen had thought it advisable to show
them the deference due to their exalted position." EicheUeu,
''* EicheUeu appears to have formed the design of humbUng the nobles, at least
aa early aa 1624. See a characteristic paasage in his Memoires, vol. ii. p. 340. In
Swinburne's Courts of Europe, vol. U. pp. 63-66, there ia a curious traditional anec
dote, which, though probably false, shows, at aU events, the fear and hatred with
which the French nobles regarded the memory of EicheUeu more than a century
after his death.
" On their influence, see CfrSgoire, Histoire des Confesseurs ; and corapare the re
raarks of Mr. Grote, a great writer, whose raind is always ready with historical analo
gies. Grote's Hist.of Greece,vo\.vi. p. 393, 2dedit. 1851. Many of the French kings
had a strong natural affection for monks ; but the raost smgular instance I have
found of this sort of love ia mentioned by no leaa a man than De Thou, respecting
Henry III. De Thou (Hist. Univ. vol. x. pp. 666, 667) says of that prince : " Soit
tempdraraent, soit dducation, la prdsence d'un raoine faisait toujours plaisir a Henri;

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION, 383
however, was too famUiar with the arts of his profession, to feel
much respect for these keepers of the consciences of kings.
Caussin, the confessor of Louis XIIL, had, it seems, foUoyved the
example of his predecessors, and endeavoured to instil his own
views of poUcy into the mind of the royal penitent.'" But Eiche
Ueu, so soon as he heard of this, dismissed him from office, and
sent him into exile ; for, he contemptuously says, " the Uttle
father Caussin" should not interfere in matters of government,
since he is one of those " who have always heen brought up in
the innocence of a religious Ufe."" Caussin was succeeded by
the celebrated Sirmond ; but EicheUeu would not aUow the new
confessor to begin his duties, until he had solemnly promised
never to interfere in state affairs."
On another occasion of much more importance, EicheUeu dis
played a simUar spirit. The French clergy were then possessed
of enormous wealth ; and as they enjoyed the privilege of taxing
themselves, they were careful not to make what they considered
unnecessary contributions towards defraying the expenses of the
state. They had cheerfully advanced money to carry on war
against the Protestants, because they believed it to be their duty
to assist in the extirpation of heresy.'" But they saw no reason
why their revenues should be wasted in effecting mere temporal
benefits ; they considered themselves as the guardians of funds
set apart for spiritual purposes, and they thought it impious
et je lui ai moi-radme souvent entendu dire, que leur vue produisoit le mdme effet
sur son flme, que le chatouiUement le plus ddUcat sur le corps." •
'° One of his suggestions was, " sur les dangera que couroit le catholicisme en
AUemagne, par ses Uaisons avec les puissances protestantes." Gregoire, Hist, des
Confesseurs, p. 342. The fuUest account of Causain ia in Le Vassor, Hist, de Louis
XIII, vol ix. pp. 287-299 ; to which, however, Grdgoire never refera. As I shall
have frequent occasion to quote Le Vassor, I may observe, that he is far more accu
rate than is generaUy aupposed, and that he has been very unfairly treated by the
majority of French writers, among whom he ia unpopular, on account of his con
atant attacka on Louia XLY. Sismondi (Hist, des Franfais, vol. xxii. pp. 188, 189)
speaks highly of his Hist, of Louis XIII. ; and so far as my own reading extends,
I can confirm his favourable opinion.
^' " Le petit pdre Cauasin." Mem. de Richelieu, vol. i. p. 206 ; and at p. 217,
he ia classed among the "personnes qui avoient toujours dtd nourries dans I'in-
nocence d'une vie religieuse :" aee also p. 216, on his " simpUcitd et ignorance."
Eespecting Richelieu's treatment of Caussin, see Mem. de Montglat, vol. i. pp. 173-
176 ; Lettres de Patin, vol i. p. 49 ; Des Reaux, Historiettes, vol. u. p. 182.
-" Sismondi, Hist des Frangais, vol. xxUl p. 332 ; Tallemant des Reaux, Histo
riettes, vol ill p. 78 note. Le Vassor (Hist de Louis XIII, vol x. part U. p. 761)
says, that Sirmond " se aoutint k la cour aous le miniatere de EicheUeu, parce qu'il
ne se mdloit point dea affaires d'dtat." According to the same writer (vol. viii. p.
156), RicheUeu thought at one time of depriving the Jesuits of their post of con
fessor to the king.
''" Lavaliee, Hist des Frangais, vol. iU. p. 87 ; Le Vassor, Hist de Louis XIII,
vol. IV. p. 208 ; Bazin, Hist de Louis XIII, vol. U. p. 144 ; Benoist, Hist de VEdit
de Nantes, vol. ii. pp. 837, 338. Benoist says ; " Le clergd de France, ignorant et
corrorapu, croyoit tout son devoir corapris dans I'extirpation dea hdrdtiquea ; et
mdme il offroit de grandea sommes, &, condition qu'on lea employSt d. cette guerre."

384 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
that wealth consecrated by the piety of their ancestors should
fall into the profane hands of secular statesmen. EicheUeu, who
looked on these scruples as the artifices of interested men, had
taken a very different view of the relation which the clergy bore
to the country.'" So far from thinking that the interests of the
church were superior to those of the state, he laid it down as a
maxim of poUcy, that " the reputation of the state was the first
consideration."" With such fearlessness did he carry out this
principle, that ha-ring convoked at Mantes a great assembly of
the clergy, he compelled them to aid the govemment by an ex
traordinary supply of 6,000,000 francs ; and finding that some
of the highest dignitaries had expressed their discontent at so
unusual a step, he laid hands on them also, and, to the amaze
ment of the church, sent into exile not only four of the bishops,
hut likewise the two archbishops of Toulouse and of Sens.""
If these things had heen done fifty years earlier, they would
most assuredly have proved fatal to the minister who dared to
attempt them. But EicheUeu, in these and simUar measures,
was aided by the spirit of an age which was beginning to despise
its ancient masters. For this general tendency was now be
coming apparent, not only in literature and in poUtics, but even
in the proceedings of the ordinary tribunals. The nuncio in
dignantly complained of the hostility displayed against ecclesias
tics by the French judges ; and he said that, among other
shameful things, some clergymen. had heen hung, without being
first depri,ved of their spiritual character." On other occasions,
"" In which he is fully borne out by the high authority of Vattel, whese words I
shaU quote for the sake of those poUticians who stiU cleave to the superannuated
theory of the sacredness of church-property : " Loin que I'exemption appartienne aux
biens d dgliae parce qu'Ua aout conaacrda d Dieu, c'est au contraire par cette raison
meme, qu'ils doivent dtrea pris les preraiers pour le salut de I'dtat ; car U n'y a rien
de plus agrdable au Pdre comraun dea hommea, que de garantir une nation de sa
ruine. Dieu n'ayant beaoin de rien, lui conaacrer des biens, c'est Ies destiner a des
usages qui lui soient agrdablea. De plus, les biens de I'dgUse, de I'aveu du clergd
lui-mdme, sont en grande partie destinds aux pauvres. Quand I'dtat est dans le be-
soin, il est sans doute le preraier pauvre, et le plus digne de secours." Vattel, le
Droit des Gens, vol. i. pp. 176, 177.
"' " Que la rdputation de I'dtat est prdfdrable d toutes choses." Mim„ de Rich
elieu, vol. ii. p. 482. This was in 1625, and by way of refuting the legate.
'¦' Sismondi, Hist, des Franfais, vol. xxiu. pp. 477, 478 ; Bazin, Hist de Louis
XIII, vol. iv. pp. 325, 326. The Cardinal de Retz, who knew EicheUeu personally,
saya : " M. le cardinal de EicheUeu avoit donnd une atteinte cruelle a la dignitd et
£1 la Uberte du clergd dana I'aaserablde de Mante, et il avoit exild, avec des circon
stances atrocea, aix de'ses prdlata les plua considdrables." Mem. de Retz, vol. l p. 60.
"^ " Die Nuntien finden kein Ende der Beschwerden die sie machen zu miissen
glauben, vorziiglich iiber die B schrankungen welche die geistUche Jurisdiction er-
fahre. . . . Zuweilen werde ein Geistlioher hingerichtet ohne erst degradirt zu seyn.'
Ranke, die Papste, vol. iu. p. 167: a summary, ih 1641, of the complaints of the
then nuncio, and of those of bis predeoesaora. Le Vassor (Hist, de Louis XEI,
vol V. pp. 51 seq.) has given some curious details respecting the animosity between
the clergy and the secular tribunala of France in 1624.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 385
the increasing contempt showed itself in a way well suited to the
coarseness of the prevailing manners. Sourdis, the Archbishop
of Bourdeaux, was twice ignominiously beaten ; once by the
Duke d'Epernon, and afterwards by the Marechal de Vitry."*
Nor did EicheUeu, who usually treated the nobles with such
severity, seem anxious to punish this gross outrage. Indeed, the
archbishop not only received no sympathy, but, a few years later,
was peremptorUy ordered by EicheUeu to retire to his own dio
cese ; such, however, was his alarm at the state of affairs, that
he fled to Carpentras, and put himself under the protection of
the pope." This happened in 1641; and nine years earUer, the
church had incurred a stUl greater scandal. For in 1632, serious
disturbances having arisen in Languedoc, EicheUeu did not fear
to meet the difficulty by depriring some of the bishops, and seiz
ing the temporalities of the others.'"
The indignation of the clergy may he easily imagined. Such
repeated injuries, even if they had proceeded from a layman,
would have been hard to endure ; but they were rendered doubly
hitter by being the work of one of themselves — one who had been
nurtured in the profession against which he tumed. This it
was which aggravated the offence, because it seemed to he add
ing treachery to insult. It was not a war from yrithout, but it
was a treason from within. It was a bishop who humbled the
episcopacy, and a cardinal who affronted the Church." Such,
however, was the general temper of men, that the clergy did not
venture to strike an open blow ; hut, hy means of their partisans,
°* Sismondi, Hist des Frangais, vol. xxiU. p. 301 ; Mem, de Bassompierre, vol
Ui. pp. 302,^ 353. "  " ' " ...-..-  .
Louis .
avoit (
gard to Epernon, the beat account is in Mem. de Richelieu, where it ia atated (vol.
viu. p. 194) that the duke, just before flogging the archbishop, " diaoit au peuple,
' Eangez-vous, vous verrez comme j'dtrUlerai votre archevdque.' " This was stated
by a witness, who heard the duke utter the words. Compare, for further informa
tion, Le Vassor, Hist, de Louis XIII, vol. x. part U. p. 97, with Tallemant des Reaux,
Historiettes, vol iii. p. 116. Des Rdaux, who, iu his own way, was somewhat of a
philosopher, contentedly says: " Cet archevdque se pouvoit vanter d'dtre le prdlat
dn monde qui avoit dtd le plus battu." His brother was Cardinal Sourdis ; a man of
some Uttle reputation in Jus own time, and concerning whom a curious anecdote is
related in Mlm. de Conrart, pp. 281-234.
"^ Sismondi, Hist, des Franfais, vol xxiU. p. 470. Le Vassor (Hist, de Louis
XIII, vol X. part il p. 149) saya : " II s'enfuit donc honteusement i Carpentras
soua la protection du pape."
" Les dvdquea furent punia par la aaiaie de leur temporel ; Alby, Nimea, Uzda,
furent privdea de leurs prdlats." Capefigue's Richelieu, Paris, 1844, vol. ii. p. 24.
The Protestants were greatly delighted at the punishment of the biahopa of Alby and
Nimea, which " lea mmistres regardoient comme une vengeance divine." Benoist,
Hist de I Edit de Nantes, vol. u. pp. 528, 629.
"' In a abort account of RicheUeu, which waa pubUahed immediately after his
death, the writer indignantly aaya, that "being a cardinal, he afflicted the church."
Somers Tracts, vol. v. p. 540. Compare Bazin, Hist de Louis XIII, vol. iv. p. 322.
VOL. I, — 25

886 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
they scattered the most odious Uhels against the great minister.
They said that he was unchaste, that he was guUty of open de
bauchery, and that he held incestuous commerce with his ovra
niece." They declared that he had no reUgion ; that he was
only a CathoUc in name ; that he was the pontiff of the Hugue
nots ; that he was the patriarch of atheists ;'" and, what was
worse than aU, they even accused him of wishing to estahUsh a
schism in the French church."" HappUy, the time was now
passing away in which the national mind could he moved by
such artifices as these. StUl, the charges are worth recording,
because they Ulustrate the tendency of pubUc affairs, and the
bitterness with which the spiritual classes saw the reins of power
falUng from their hands. Indeed, aU this was so manifest, that
in the last civil war raised against EicheUeu, only two years be
fore his death, the insurgents stated in their proclamation, that
one of their objects was to revive the respect with which the
clergy and nobles had formerly been treated."'
The more we study the career of EicheUeu, the more prom
inent does this antagonism become. Every thing proves that
he was conscious of a great struggle going on between the old
ecclesiastical scheme of government, and the new secular scheme ;
and that he was determined to put down the old plan, and up
hold the new one. For, not only in his domestic administration,
hut also in his foreign policy, do we find the same unprecedent
ed disregard of theological interests. The House of Austria,
particularly its Spanish branch, had long heen respected by all
pious men as the faithful aUy of the church : it was looked upon
as the scourge of heresy ; and its proceedings against the heretics
had won for it a great name in ecclesiastical history."" When,
therefore, the French govemment, in the reign of Charles IX.,
made a deUherate attempt to destroy the Protestants, France
naturally established an intimate connexion yrith Spain as weU
as with Eome ;"' and these three great powers were firmly unit-
"' Thia Bcandalous charge in regard to his niece, was a favourite one with the
clergy ; and among many other instances, the accusation was brought by the Cardi
nal de Valenjay in the grossest manner. See Tallemant des Riaux, Historiettes, vol
in. p. 201.
™ "De Ik ces petits dcrits qui le ddnonjaient comme le ' pontife des huguenots'
ou 'le patriarche dea athdea.'" Capefigue's Richelieu, vol. i. p. 812.
"° Compare Des Reaux, Historiettes, vol. U. p. 283, with Le Vassor, Eist. de
Louis XIII, vol. viu. part U. pp. 177, 178, vol ix. p. 277.
"' See the manifeato in Sismondi, Hist, des Frangais, voh xxiu. pp. 452, 453.
"" Late in the sixteenth century, "fils aind de l'dglise" was the recognized and
weU-merited title of the kings of Spain. De Thou, Hist. Univ, vol. xi. p. 280. Com
pare Duplessis Mornay, Mim. et Correspond, vol xi. p. 21. And on the opin'<""
which the Catholics, early in the seventeenth century, generaUy held respecting
Spain, aee Mhn. de Fontenay Mareuil, vol. i. p. 189 ; Mlm, de Bassompierre, vol. '•
p. 424. Aa to the connexion between this foreign poUcy and the maaaacre of Saint
Bartholomew, see Capefigue, Hist de la Riforme, vol. ui. pp. 258, 268, 269.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 387
ed, not hy a community of temporal interests, but by the force
of a reUgious compact. This theological confederacy was after
wards broken up by the personal character of Henry IV.,"* and
by the growing indifference of the age ; hut during the minority
of Louis XIIL, the queen-regent had in some degree renewed it,
and had attempted to revive the superstitious prejudices upon
which it was based."' In all her feelings, she was a zealous Cath
olic ; she was warmly attached to Spain ; and she succeeded
in marrying her son, the young king, to a Spanish princess, and
her daughter to a Spanish prince.""
It might have been expected that when EicheUeu, a great
dignitary of the Eomish church, was placed at the head of
affairs, he would have re-estabUshed a connexion so eagerly de
sired by the profession to which he belonged." But his conduct
was not regulated by such views as these. His object was, not
to favour the opimons of a sect, hut to promote the interests of
a nation. His treaties, his diplomacy, and the schemes of his
foreign alliances, were aU directed, not against the enemies of
the church, but against the enemies of France. By erecting this
new standard of action, EicheUeu took a great step towards secu
larizing the whole system of European poUtics. For, he thus
made the theoretical interests of men subordinate to their prac
tical interests. Before his time, the rulers of France, in order to
punish their Protestant subjects, had not hesitated to demand
the aid of the Catholic troops of Spain ; and in so doing, they
merely acted upon the old opimon, that it was the chief duty of
a govemment to suppress heresy. This pemicious doctrine was
first openly repudiated hy EicheUeu. As early as 1617, and he
fore he had established his power, he, in an instruction to one of
the foreign ministers which is stUl extant, laid it doyvn as a prin-
" On the poUcy, and stUl more on the feeUngs, of Henry IV. towards the House
of Austria, see Sully, CEconomies Royales, vol. u. p. 291, vol. ui. pp. 162, 166, voh
iv. pp. 289, 290, 321, 343, 344, 364, vol v. p. 123, vol vi. p. 293, vol. vU. p. 803,
vol vUi. pp. 195, 202, 848.
°° Capefigue's Richelieu, vol i. pp. 26, 369 ; Mlm. de Montglat, vol i. pp. 16,
17 ; Le Vassor, Hist, de Louis XIII, vol i. p. 268, vol. vi. p. 349 ; Sismondi, Hist,
des Franfais, vol xxii. p. 227. Her husband, Henry IV., said that she had " the
soul of a Spaniard." Capefigue, Hist, de la Riforme, vol. viu. p. 150.
'" This was, iu her opinion, a master-stroke of poUcy : "Entdtde du double
mariage avec I'Espagne qu'eUe avoit mduagd avec tant d'appUcation, et qu'elle re-
gardoit comme le plus ferme appui de sou autoritd." Le Vassor, Hist, de Louis
XIII, voh i. pp. 463, 464.
' So late as 1656, the French clergy wished "to hasten a peace with Spain, and
to curb the heretica in France." Letter from. Pell to Thurloe, written iu 1666, and
printed in Vaughan's Protectorate of Cromwell, vol i. p. 436, Svo. 1839. During
the minority of Louia XIH., we hear of "les zdldz cathoUques, et ceux qui ddsi-
roient, k quelque pris que ce fust, runiou des deux roya, et des deux couronnea de
France et d Espagne, comme le seul moyen propre, selon leur advia, pour I'extirpa-
don des hdrdsies dans la chreatientd." Sully, (Econ, Royales, vol ix. p. 181 ; com
pare vol vu. p. 248, on " les zdldz cathoUques espagnoUsez de France."

388 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
ciple,-that, in matters of state, no CathoUc ought to prefer a
Spaniard to a French Protestant."' To us, mdeed, in the pro
gress of society, such preference of the claims of our country to
those of our creed, has become a matter of course ; hut in those
days it was a startling novelty."" EicheUeu, however, did not
fear to push the paradox even to its remotest consequences.
The Catholic church justly considered that its interests were
bound up 'with those of the House of Austria ;'"" hut EicheUeu,
directly he was caUed to the councU, determined to humble that
house in both its branches.' "' To effect this, he openly support
ed the bitterest enemies of his own reUgion. He aided the Lu
therans against the Emperor of Germany ; he aided the Cal-
'rinists against the King of Spain. Duringthe eighteen years he
was supreme, he steadUy pursued the same undeviating pol
icy.'"" When PhUip attempted to oppress the Dutch Protes
tants, EicheUeu made common cause with them ; at first, advanc
ing them large sums of money, and afterwards inducing the
French king to sign a treaty of intimate aUiance with those
who, in the opinion of the church, he ought rather to have
chastised as reheUious heretics.'"' In the same way, when that
"" See Sismondi, Hist, des Franfais, vol xxU. pp. 387-389, where the importance
of this document is noticed, and it is said that EicheUeu had drawn it up " avec
beaucoup de aoin." The language of it is very peremptory : " Que nul cathoUque
n'est si aveugle d'estimer en matiere d'dtat un Eapagnol meUleur qu'un frangais hu
guenot." " Even in the reign of Henry IV. the French Proteatanta were not considered
to be Frenchmen : " The intolerant dogmas of Eoman Catholicism did not recognize
thera as Frenchmen. They were looked upon as foreigners, or rather aa enemies ;
and were treated aa auch." Felice, Hist, ofthe Protestants of France, p. 216.
"'° Siamoudi says, under the year 1610, " Toute l'dglise cath'oUque croyoit son
sort Ud i celui dd la maison d'Autriche." Hist, des Frangais, vol. xxU. p. 180.
'" " Sa vue dominante fut I'abaissement de la maison d'Autriche." Flassan, Eist,
de la Diplornqtic Frangaise, vol. iii. p. 81. And, on the early formation of this
scheme, see Mlm. de la Rochefoucauld, vol. i, p. 850. De Eetz says, that before
EicheUeu, no one had even thought of such a step : " Celui d'attaquer la formidable
maison d'Autriche n'avoit dtd imagind de personne." Mem, de Retz, vol I p. 45.
This is rather too strongly expressed ; but the whole paragraph is curioua, as writ
ten by a raan who possessed great abiUty, which De Eetz undoubtedly did, and
who, though hating EicheUeu, could not refrain from bearing testimony to his im
mense services.
"" " Obwohl Cardinal der romischen Kirche trug EicheUeu kein Bedenken, mit
den Protestanten selbst unverhohlen in Bund zu treten." Ranke, die Papste, vol
U. p. 610. Compare, in Mem. de Fontenay Mareuil, vol u. pp. 28, 29, the reproach
which the nuncio Spada addreaaed to EicheUeu for treating with the Protestants,
" de la paix qui ae traittoit avec lea huguenots." See also Le Vassor, Hist de Louis
XIII, vol. V. pp. 230, 364-356, 567 ; and a good passage in Lavaliee Hist, des Fran
fais, vol Ui. p. 90, — an able Uttle work, and perhaps the best smaU history ever
pubUshed of a great country.
'"" De Eetz mentions a curious iUustration of the feelings of the eccleaiaatical
party respecting this treaty. He says, that the Biahop of Beauvaia, who, the year
after the death of RicheUeu, was for a moraent at the head of affairs, began his ad
ministration by giving to the Dutch their choice, either to abandon their reUgion,
or else forfeit their aUiance with France ; "Et U demanda dda le premier jour aux

GENEEAL INTRODUCTION. 389
great war broke out, in which the emperor attempted to subjugate
to the true faith the consciences of German Protestants, Eiche
Ueu stood forward as their protector ; he endeavoured from the
beginning to save their leader the Palatine ;'"* and, faUing in that,
he concluded in their favour an alliance with Gustavus Adol
phus,'"' the ablest miUtary commander the Eeformers had then
produced. Nor did he stop there. After the death of Gus-
ta-ms, he, seeing that the Protestants were thus deprived of
their great leader,- made stUl more rigorous efforts in their fa
vour.'"" He intrigued for them in foreign courts ; he opened ne
gotiations in their behalf ; and eventuaUy he organized for their
protection a pubUc confederacy, in which all ecclesiastical con
siderations were set at defiance. This league, which formed an
important precedent in the international poUty of Europe, was
not only contracted by EicheUeu with the two most powerful
enemies of his own church, hut it was, from its tenor, what Sis
mondi emphaticaUy, calls a " Protestant confederation," — a Prot
estant confederation, he says, between France, England, and
HoUand.'"' These things alone would have made the administration of Ei
cheUeu a great epoch in the history of European civUization. For,
his govemment affords the first example of an eminent Catholic
statesman systematically disregarding ecclesiastical interests, and
showing that disregard in the whole, scheme of his foreign as well
as domestic poUcy. Some instances, indeed, approaching to this,
may he found, at an earUer period, among the petty rulers of
ItaUan states ; but, even there, such attempts had never heen
HoUandois qu'Us se convertissent k la religion cathoUque, s'ils vouloient demeurer
dans I'aUiauce de France." Mlm. du Cardinal de Retz, vol i. p. 39. This, I sup
pose, is the original authority for the atatement in tbe Biog. Univ. vol. xiv. p. 440 ;
though, aa ia too often the case in that otherwiae valuable work, the writer has
onutted to indicate the source of Iiis information.
'"' In 1626, he attempted to form a league " en favour du Palatin." Sismondi,
Hist des Franfais, vol. xxii. p. 676. Sisraondi seems not quite certain as to the
amcerity of his proposal ; but as to this there can, I think, be Uttle doubt ; for it
appears from his own memoirs, that even in 1624 he had in view the recovery of
the Palatinate. Mlm. de Richelieu, voh il p. 405 ; and again in 1625, p. 468.
_ '°* Sismondi, vol. xxU. p. 173 ; Capefigue's Richelieu, vol i. p. 415 ; Le Vassor,
Hist (fe Louis XIII, vol vi. pp. 12, 600 ; and at p. 489 : " Le roi de Sudde qui
comptoit uniquement sur le cardinal"
™ Compare Jl/?m. de Montglat, vol i. pp. 74, 75, vol. u. pp. 92, 93, with Mem. de
Fontenay Mareuil, vol. U. p. 198 ; and HowelVs Letters, p. 247. The different views
which occurred to his fertUe mind in consequence of the death of Gustavus, are
strikingly summed up in Mlm. de Richelieu, vol. vu. pp. 272-277. On his subsequent
pecuniary advances, see voh ix. p. 395.
In 1633, "les ambassadeurs de Fraiiee, d' Angleterre et de HoUande mirent a
^ofit lerepos de I'hiver pour resserrer la confdddration protestante." Sismondi,
Hist._ des Frangais, vol. xxui. p. 221. Compare, in Whitelocke's Swedish Embassy,
vol I. p. 275, the remark made twenty years later by Christina, dauehter of Gusta
vus, on the union with " papists."

390 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
successful ; they had never been continued for any length of
time, nor had they been carried out on a scale large enough to
raise them to the dignity of international precedents. The pe
cuUar glory of EicheUeu is, that his foreign poUcy was, not oc
casionaUy, but invariably, governed by temporal considerations ;
nor do I believe that, during the long tenure of his power, there
is to be found the least proof of his regard for those theological
interests, the promotion of which had long been looked upon as
a matter of paramount importance. By thus steadUy subor
dinating the church to the state ; hy enforcing the principle of
this subordination, on a large scale, with great abUity, and with
unvarying success, he laid the foundation of that purely secular
polity, the consoUdation of which has, since his death, been the
aim of aU the best European diplomatists. The result was a
most salutary chan^ ; which had been for some time preparing,
hut which, under him, was first completed. For, hy the intro
duction of this system, an end was put to reUgious wars ; and
the chances of peace were increased, by thus remoring one of
the causes to which the interruption of peace had often been
owing.'"' At the same time, there was prepared the way for
that final separation of theology from poUtics, which it wiU he
the business of future generations fuUy to achieve. How great
a step had been taken in this direction, appears from the faciUty
with which the operations of EicheUeu were continued by men
every way his inferiors. Less than two years after his death,
there was assembled the Congress of Westphalia ;'"" the mem-
"°" This change may be iUustrated by comparing the work of Grotiua with that
of Vattel These two eminent raen are stiU respected, as the moat authoritative
expoundera of international law ; but there is this important difference between
them, that Vattel wrote more than a century after Grotius, and when the secular
principles enforced by RicheUeu had penetrated the minds even of common poUti
cians. Therefore, Vattel says (Le Droit des Gens, vol. i. pp. 379, 380) : " On demande
s'U est permis de faire aUiance avec une nation qui neprofesse pas la mdme religion?
Si les traitea faits avec les ennemis de la foi sont vaUdes ? Grotius a traitd la ques
tion assez au long. Cette discussion pouvait dtre ndcessaire dans un temps oil la
fureur des partis obscurcissait encore des principes qu'eUe avait long-terapa fidt
oubUer, osons croire qu'eUe serait superflue dans notre sidcle. La loi natureUe seule
rdgit les traitds des nations ; la diffdrence de reUgion y est absolument dtrangdre."
See also p. 318, and vol ii. p. 151. On the other hand, Grotius opposes aUiances
between nations of different reUgion, and says, that nothing can justify them except
" une extrdme necessitd. . . . Car il faut ehercher prdmidrement le rdgne cdleste,
c'est £l dire penser avant toutes choses d la propagation de I'dvangile." And he
further recommends that princes should foUow the advice given on this aubject by
Foulques, Archbishop of Rhein\s I Grotius, le Droit de la Chierrc et de la Paix, Uvre
U. chap. XV. sec. xi. vol i. pp. 486, 486, edit. Barbeyrac, Amaterdam, 1724, 4to ; a
pasaage the more inatructive, because Grotius was a man of great genius and great
humanity. On reUgioua wars, as naturaUy recognized in barbarous times, see the
curious and important work. Institutes of Timour, pp. 141, 333, 336.
"'° "Le Congres de WestpbaUe s'ouvrit le 10 avril, 1643." LavaUle, Hist, des
Franfais, vol. iii. p. 156. Its two great divisions at Munster and Osuabruck, were
formed in March, 1644. Flassan, Hist de la Diplomatie, voh iii p. 110. RicheUeu
died in December, 1642. Biog. Univ. vol xxxvUi. p. 28.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 391
hers of which concluded that celebrated peace, which is re
markable, as being the first comprehensive attempt to adjust the
confiicting interests of the leading European countries."" In
this important treaty, ecclesiastical interests were altogether
disregarded ;'" and the contracting parties, instead of, as here
tofore, depriring each other of their possessions, took the holder
course of indemnifying themselves at the expense of the church,
and did not hesitate to seize her revenues, and secularize several
of her bishoprics."" From this grievous insult, which became a
precedent in the pubUc law of Europe, the spiritual power has
never recovered : and it is remarked by a very competent au
thority, that, since that period, diplomatists have, in their offi
cial acts, neglected reUgious interests, and have preferred the
advocacy of matters relating to the commerce and colonies of
their respective countries.'" The trath of this observation is
confirmed by the interesting fact, that the Thirty Years' War,
to which this same treaty put an end, is the last great religious
war which has ever heen waged ;"* no cirilized people, during
two centuries, haring thought it worth whUe to peril their own
safety in order to disturb the heUef of their neighbours. This,
indeed, is but a part of that vast secular movement, by which
superstition has been weakened, and the civiUzation of Europe
secured. Without, however, discussing that subject, I wUl now
endeavour to show how the poUcy of EicheUeu, in regard to the
French Protestant church, corresponded with his poUcy in re
gard to the French CathoUc church ; so that, in both depart-
"" " Lea rdgnea de Charles-Quint et de Henri IV. font dpoque pour certaines
parties du droit international ; mais le point de ddpart le plus saUlant, c'est la paix
de WestphaUe." Eschbach, Introduc. & V Etude du Droit, Paris, 1846, p. 92. Com
pare the remarks on Mably, in Biog. Univ, vol xxvi. p. 7, and Sismondi, Hist, des
Frangais, vol xxiv. p. 179 : " base au droit pubUc de 1' Europe."
"|_ Compare the indignation ofthe pope at this treaty (Vattel, le Droit des Gens,
vol. U. p. 28), with Ranke's Papste, vol. U. p. 676 : " Das reUgiiiae Element ist
zuriickgetreten; die poUtischen Eucksichten beherrschen die Welt :" a summary of
the general state of affairs.
" La France obtint, par ce traitd, en indemnitd la aouverainetd dea trois
dydchds, Metz, Toul et Verdun, ainsi que celle d' Alsace. La satisfaction ou indem
nitd des autres parties intdreaadea fut convenue, en grande partie, aux ddpens de
l'dglise, et moycnnant la sdcularisation de plusieurs dvdchds et bdndfioes eccldsiaa-
tiques." Koch, Tableau des involutions, vol l p. 328.
™ Dr. Vaughan (Protectorate of Cromwell, vol. i. p. civ.) says : " It is a leading
fact, also, in the history of Modern Europe, that, from the peace of Westphalia, in
1648, reUgion, as the great object of negotiation, began every where to give place
to questions relating to colonies and commerce." Charles Butler observed, that
thia treaty " considerably lessened the mfluence of reUgion on politica." Butler's
Reminiscences, vol. I p. 181.
"* The fact of the Thirty Years' War being a reUgioua contest, formed the baaia
ot one of the charges which the church-party brought against EicheUeu; and au
author, who wrote in 1634, " montroit bien au long que I'aUiance du roy de France
avec les proteatants dtoit contraire aux intdrdts de la reUgion cathoUque ; parce que
1|. guerre des Provinces Unies, et celle d' AUemagne dtoient des giierres de religion."
Benoist, Hut. de VEdit de Nantes, vol U. p. 636.

393 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
ments, this great statesman, aided by that progress of knowledge
for which his age was remarkable, was able to struggle with prej
udices from which men, slowly, and with infinite difficulty, were
attempting to emerge.
The treatment of the French Protestants hy EicheUeu, is,
undoubtedly, one of the most honourable parts of his system;
and in it, as in other liberal measures, he was assisted hy the
course of preceding events. His administration, taken ia con
nexion with that of Henry IV. and the queen-regent, presents
the noble spectacle of a toleration far more complete than any
which had then been seen in CathoUc Europe. ; While in other
Christian countries, men were being incessantly persecuted, sim
ply because they held opinions different from those professed
by the established clergy, France refused to follow the general
example, and protected those heretics whom the church was
eager to punish. Indeed, not only were they protected, but,
when they possessed abilities, they were openly rewarded. In
addition to their appointments to ciril offices, many of them
were advanced to high mUitary posts; and Europe beheld, 'with
astonishment, the armies of the Mng of France led hy heretical
generals. Eohan, Lesdigui^res, ChatiUon, La Force, Bernard
de Weimar, were among the most celebrated of the mUitaiy
leaders employed by Louis XIIL; and aU of them were Protes
tants, as also were some younger, hut distinguished, officers,
such as Gassion, Eantzau, Schomherg, and Turenne. For now,
nothing was beyond the reach of men who, half a century earUer,
would, on account of their heresies, have heen persecuted to .the
death. Shortly hefore the accession of Louis XIIL, Lesdigoi-
^res, the ablest general among the French Protestants, was made
marshal of France.'" Fourteen years later the same high
dignity was conferred upon two other Protestants, ChatiUon
and La Force; the former of whom is said to have been the
most influential of the schismatics."" Both these appointments
were in 1622;"' and, in 1634, stUl greater scandal was caused
by the elevation of SuUy, who, notwithstanding his notorious
heresy, also received the staff of marshal of France."" This
was the work of EicheUeu, and it gave serious offence to the
"" According to a contemporary, he received this appointraent without having
asked for it: " sans dtre i la cour ni I'avoir demandd." Mim. de Fontenay Mareuil,
'vol. l p. 70. In 1622, even the Ueutenanta of Leadiguidrea were Proteatanta; "ses
Ueutenanta, qui estant tous huguenots." Ibid. vol. i. p. 538. These memoirs are
very valuable in regard to poUtical and miUtary matters, their author, having played
a couspicuoua part in the tranaactiona which he describes.
no 11 jj j^iy ^yq;;. personne dans le parti huguenot si considdrable que lui." TaU
lemant des Rlaux, Historiettes, vol. v. p. 204.
"' Biog. Univ. vol. xv. p. 247 ; Benoist, Hist, de VEdit de Nantes, vol. U. p. 400,
Additions to Sully, (Economies Royales, vol vui. p. 496; Smedley's Hist, of
the Reformed Religion in France, vol. Ui. p. 204.

GENEEAL INTRODUCTION. 393
friends of the church; but the great statesman paid so Uttle
attention to their clamour, that, after the ciril war was concluded,
he took another step equally obnoxious. The Duke de Eohan
was the most active of aU the enemies of the estabUshed church,
and was looked up to by the Protestants as the main support of
their party. He had taken up arms in their favour, and, de
clining to abandon his reUgion, had, by the fate of war, been
driven from France. But EicheUeu, who was acquainted with
bis abffity, cared little about his opinions. He, therefore, re
caUed him from exUe, employed him in a negotiation with Swit
zerland, and sent bim on foreign service, as commander of one
of the armies of the king of France.""
Such were the tendencies which characterized this new state
of things. It is hardly necessary to observe how beneficial this
great change must have been ; since, hy it, men were encouraged
to look to their country as the first consideration, and, discard
ing their old disputes, CathoUc soldiers were taught to obey
heretical generals, and foUow their standards to rictory. In
addition to this, the mere social amalgamation, arising from the
professors of different creeds mixing in the same camp, and
fighting under the same banner, must have stiU further aided to
disarm the mind, partly by merging theological feuds in a com
mon, and yet a temporal, object, and partly by showing to each
sect, that their reUgious opponents were not entirely bereft of
human -rirtue; that they stiU retained some of the quaUties of
men; and that it was even possible to combine the errors of
heresy with aU the capabUities of a good and competent citi
zen.'"" But, whUe the hateful animosities hy which Fraiice had long
been distracted, were, under the poUcy of EicheUeu, gradually
subsiding, it is singular to observe that, though the prejudices
of the CathoUcs obriously diminished, those of the Protestants
seemed, for a time, to retain all their activity. It is, indeed, a
striking proof of the perversity and pertinacity of such feeUngs,
that; it was precisely in the country, and at the period, when the
Protestants were best treated, that they displayed most turbu
lence. And, in this, as in aU such cases, the cause principally
Capefigue's Richelieu, vol. U. p. 67 ; Mlm, de Rohan, vol i. pp. 66, 69 ; Mem.
^Bassompierre, vol. Ul pp. 324, 348 ; Mem. de Montglat, vol. i. p. 86 ; Le Vassor,
Hist de Louis XIII, vol. vii. p. 157, vol. viu. p. 284. This great rise in the fortunea
of Rohan took place at different tunea between 1682 and 1635.
™ Late in the sixteenth century, Duplessis Mornay had to state, what was then
considered by the majority of men an incredible paradox, " que ce n'eatoit pas
chose incompatible d'estre bon huguenot et bon Frangoys tout ensemble." Duplessis,
Mem. et Correspond, vol. i. p. 146. Compare p. 213, vol. U. pp. 46, 46, 77, 677,
vol. VII. p. 294, vol xl pp. 31, 68 ; interesting passages for the history of opiniona
in France.

394 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
at work was the influence of that class to which circumstances,
I wiU now explain, had secured a temporary ascendency.
For, the diminution of the theological spirit had effected in
the Protestants a remarkable hut a very natural result. The
increasing toleration of the French government had laid open to
their leaders prizes which hefore they could never have obtained.
As long as aU offices were refused to the Protestant nobles, it
was natural that they should cUng with the greater zeal to their
o-wn party, by whom alone their virtues were acknowledged.
But, when the principle was once recognized, that the state
would reward men for their ahiUties, yrithout regard to their re
Ugion, there was introduced into every sect a new element of
discord. The leaders of the Eeformers could not faU to feel
some gratitude, or, at aU events, some interest for . the govern
ment which employed them; and the influence of temporal con
siderations being thus strengthened, the influence of reUgious
ties must have been weakened. It is impossible that opposite
feeUngs should he paramount, at the same moment, in the same
mind. The further men extend their view, the less they care
for each of the detaUs of which the view is composed. Patriot
ism is a corrective of superstition; and the more we feel for our
country, the less we feel for our sect. Thus it is, that in the
progress of cirilization, the scope of the inteUect is vridened;
its horizon is enlarged ; its sympathies are multiplied ; and, as
the range of its excursions is increased, the tenacity of its grasp
is slackened, untU, at length, it begins to perceive that the infi
nite variety of circumstances necessarily causes an infinite variety
of opinions; that a creed, which is good and natural for one man,
may he had and unnatural for another; and that, so far from in
terfering with the march of reUgious con-rictions, we should he
content to look into ourselves, search our own hearts, purge our
own souls, soften the evU of our own passions, and extirpate that
insolent and intolerant spirit, which is at once the cause and the
effect of aU theological controversy.
It was in this direction, that a prodigious step was taken by
the French, in the first half of the seventeenth century. Unfor
tunately, however, the advantages which arose were accompanied
hy serious drawbacks. From the introduction of temporal con
siderations among the Protestant leaders, there occurred two re
sults of considerahle importance. The first result was, that
many of the Protestants changed their reUgion. Before the
edict of Nantes, they had heen constantly persecuted, and had,
as constantly, increased.'"' But, under the tolerant poUcy of
'" See Benoist, Hist de VEdit de Nantes, vol i. pp. 10, 14, 18 ; De Thou, Hist
Univ. vol. in. pp. 181, 242, 357, 858, 643, 668, vol iv. p. 155 ; Relat des Amhassa

GENERAL INTRODUCTION, 395
Henry IV, and Louis XIII,, they continued- to diminish,'"" In
deed, this was the natural consequence of the growth of that
secular spirit which, in every country, has assuaged religious
animosities. For, by the action of that spirit, the influence of
social and poUtical views began to outweigh those theological
views to which the minds of men had long heen confined. As
these temporal ties increased in strength, there was, of course,
generated among the rival factions an increased tendency to
assimilate; whUe, as the CathoUcs were not only much more
numerous, hut, in every respect, more influential, than their
opponents, they reaped the heneflt of this movement, and gradu
aUy drew over to their side many of their former enemies. That
this absorption of the smaUer sect into the larger, is due to the
cause I have mentioned, is rendered stUl more evident hy the
interesting fact, that the change began among the heads of the
party; and that it was not the inferior Protestants who first
abandoned theh leaders, hut it was rather the leaders yvho de
serted their foUowers. This was because the leaders, heingmore
educated than the great body of the people, were more suscepti
ble to the sceptical movement, and therefore set the example of
an indifference to disputes which stiU engrossed the popular
mind. As soon as this indifference had reached a certain point,
the attractions offered by the conciUating poUcy of Louis XIII.
became irresistible; and the Protestant nobles, in particular,
being most exposed to poUtical temptations, began to aUenate
themselves from their own party, in order to form an alUance
with a court which showed itself ready to reward their merits.
It is, of course, impossible to fix the exact period at which
this important change took place.'"' But we may say with cer
tainty, that very early in the reign of Louis XIII. many of the
Protestant nobles cared notliing for their religion, whUe the re-
deurs Venitiens, vol. i. pp. 412, 686, voh u. pp. 66, 74; Ranke's Civil Wars in
France, vol i. pp. 279, 280, vol u. p. 94.
™ Compare Hallam's Const Hist vol. i. p. 173, with Ranke, die Romischen
Papste, vol. n. pp. 477-479. In spite ofthe increase of population, the Proteatanta
diminished absolutely, as weU as relatively to the CathoUcs. In 1598 they had 760
churchea ; in 1619 only 700. Smedley's Hist, of the Reformed Religion in France,
vol. ui. pp. 46, 145. De Thou, in the preface to hia Hiatory (vol. i. p. 820), obaervea,
that the Protestants had increased during the wars carried on againat thera, but
" diminuoient en nombre et en crddit pendant la paix."
™ M. Ranke haa noticed how the French Proteatant nobles feU off from their
party ; but he does not Beem aware of the reraote causes of what he deems a sudden
apostasy : " In dem nemlichen Momente trat nun auch die grosse Wendung der
Dinge iu Frankreich ein. Pragen wir, woher im Jahr 1621 die Verluste des Protes-
tantisraus hauptsachUch kamen, so war es die Entzweiung derselben, der AbfaU dea
Adels." Ranke, die Papste, vol. u. p. 476. Compare a curious passage in Benoist,
Hist de VEdit de Nantes, vol. U. p. 33, from which it appeara that in 1611 the
French Proteatanta were breaking into three partiea, one of which conaiated of " les
Beigneura d'drainente quaUtd."

396 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
mainder of them ceased to feel that interest in it yyhich theyhad
formerly expressed. Indeed, some of the most eminent of them
openly abandoned their creed, and joined that very church which
they had been taught to abhor as the man of sin, and the whore
of Babylon. The Duke de Lesdigui^res, the greatest of aU the
Protestant generals,'"* became a CathoUc, and, as a reward for
his conversion, was made constable of France.'"' The Duke de
la TremouUle adopted the same course;'"" as also did the Duke
de la Meilleraye,'"' the Duke de BouiUon,'"' and a few years
later the Marquis de Montausier.'"" These Ulustrious nobles
were among the most powerful of the members of the Eeformed
communion; hut they quitted it without compunction;' sacrific
ing their old associations in favour of the opinions professed by
the state. Among the other men of high rank, who stiU remained
nominally connected yrith the French Protestants, we find a
simUar spirit. We find them lukewarm respecting matters, for
which, if they had been bom fifty years earlier, they would have
laid down their Uves. The Mai-6chal de Bouillon, who professed
himself to he a Protestant, was unyrilling to change his reUgion;
hut he so comported himself as to show that he considered its
interests as subordinate to poUtical considerations."" A simUar
remark has heen made hy the French historians concerning the
'^* " Le plua iUuatre guerrier du parti protestant." Sismondi, Hist, des Franfais,
vol. xxu. p. 605. In the conteraporary despatches of the Spanish ambaasador, he is
caUed " l'un des huguenots les plus marquans, homme d'un grand poids, et d'un
grand crddit." Capefigue's Richelieu, vol. i. p. 60. His principal influence was m
Dauphind. Benoist, Hist de VEdit de Nantes, voh L p. 236.
'^' Biog. Univ. vol. xxiv. p. 293 ; and a dry remark on his " conversion'' in Jfan.
de Richelieu, vol U. p. 215, which may be compared with (Euvres de Voltaire, vol
xvUl p. 132, and Bazin, Hist de Louis XIII, vol U. pp. 195-197. . Rohan (Mlirii
vol. i. p. 228) plainly says, "le due de Lesdiguidres, ayant hardd sa reUgion pour la
charge de coundtable de France. See also p. 91, and Mem, de Montglat, vol i.
p. 37. "° Sismondi, Hist, des Franfais, vol xxiU. p. 67 ; Le Vassor, Hist de Lmds
XIII, vol. V. pp. 809, 810, 865.
"' Tallemant des Rlaux, Historiettes, vol. ul p. 43. La MeiUeraye was also a
duke ; and what is far more in his favour, he was a friend of Descartes. Biog. Univ.
vol. xxviu, pp. 152, 168.
"' Sismondi (Hist, des Franfais, vol. xxiii p. 27) says, " U abjura en 1637 ;" but
according to Benoist (His. de VEdit de Nantes, vol. u. p. 550) it was in 1636.
'" Tallemant des Rlaux, Historiettes, vol. iu. p. 246. Des Edaux, who saw these
changes constantly happening, simply observes, " notre marquis, voyant que sa re
ligion dtoit un obstacle k son dessein, en change."
"° " Mettoit la poUtique avant la religion." Sismondi, Hist. desFranpais, vol. xxu.
p. 264, Thia waa Henry BouUlon, whom some writers have confused with Frederick
Bo'uiUon. Both of them were dukes ; but Henry, who was the father, and who did
not actuaUy change his reUgion, was the marshal. The foUowing notices of him wiU
more than confirm the remark made by Sismondi: Mlm. de Bassompierre, vol l p.
465 ; Smedley's Reformed Religion in France, vol iu. p. 99 ; Capefigue's Richelieu,
vol i. p. 107 ; Le Vassor, Hist de "Louis XIII, vol. ii. pp. 420, 467, 664, vol. iv. p.
519; Mlm. de Richelieu, vol. i. p. 104, vol. U. p. 259; Mlm, de Duplessis Mornay,
vol. xi. p. 450, vol xu. pp. 79, 182, 263, 287, 845, 361, 412, 505.

GENERAL INTEODUCTION. 397
Duke de SuUy and the Marquis de ChatiUon, both of whom,
though they were members of the Eeformed church, displayed a
marked indifference to those theological interests which had for
merly been objects of supreme importance.'" The result was,
that when, in 1621, the Protestants began their ci-rilwar against
the government, it was found that of aU their great leaders, two
only, Eohan and his brother Soubise, were prepared to risk their
Uves in support of their reUgion.""
Thus it was, that the first great consequence of the tolerat
ing poUcy of the French government was to deprive the Protes
tants of the support of their former leaders, and in several
instances, even to turn their sympathies on the side of the
CathoUc church. But the other consequence, to which I have
aUuded, was one of far greater moment. The growing indiffer
ence of the higher classes of Protestants threw the management
of their party into the hands of the clergy. The post, which
was deserted by the secular leaders, was naturaUy seized by the
spiritual leaders. And as, in every sect, the clergy, as a body,
have always been remarkable for their intolerance of opinions dif
ferent to their oyyn, it foUowed that this change infused into the
now mutUated ranks of the Protestants an acrimony not inferior
to that of the worst times ofthe sixteenth century."' Hence it
was, that by a singular, hut perfectly natural comlbination, the
Protestants, who professed to take their stand on the right of pri-
"' Benoist, Hist de VEdit de Nantes, vol. i. pp. 121, 298, vol. U. pp. 6, 180, 267,
841 ; Capefigue's Richelieu, vol. i, p, 267 ; Felice's Hist ofthe Protestants of France,
p. 206. SuUy adviaed Henry TV., ou mere poUtical considerations, to become a
CathoUc ; and there we.re strong, but I beUeve unfounded rumours, that he himself
intended taking the same course. See Sully, CEconomies Royales, vol U. p. 81,
vol. vu. pp. 362, 863.
132 II Tiigjg ^gfg^ among aU the leaders, but the Duke de Eohan and his brother
the Duke de Soubise, who showed themselves disposed to throw their whole fortunes
into the new wars of reUgion." Felice's Hist ofthe Protestants of France, p. 241.
For this, M. FeUce, as usual, quotes no authority ; but Eohan himself says : C'est ce
qui s'est pasad en cette aeconde guerre (1626), oil Eohan et Soubiae ont eu pour
contrairea tons les grands de la reUgion de France." Mlm, de Rohan, vol. I p. 278.
Eohan claims great merit for hia reUgious aincerity ; though, from a paasage in Mlm.
de Fontenay Mareuil, vol i. p. 418, and another in Benoist, Hist, de VEditde Nantes,
-voh U. p. 178, one may be allowed to doubt if he were so single-minded as is com
monly supposed.
''* Sismondi notices thia remarkable change ; though he placea it a few yeara ear
Uer than the contemporary writera do : "Depuia que les grands seigneura a'dtoient
dloignds des dgUses, c'dtoient lea miuiatrea qui dtoient devenua les chefs, les reprd-
aentana et lea ddmagoguea des huguenots ; el ils apportoient dans leurs ddUbdra-
tions cette apretd et_ cette inflexibilitd thdologiques qui aemblent caractdriser les prd-
trea de toutes lea reUgioua, et qui donnent k leura hainea une amertume plus offen-
saute. Sismondi, Hist, des Franfais, vol. ¦x.nn p. 81, Compare p. 478. In 1621,
" Rohan lui-mdme voyait continueUement ses opdrations contrarides par le conseil-
gdndral des dgUses." LavaUle, Hist des Pramfais, vol. ui. p. 88. In the same year,
M. Capefigue (Richelieu, vol i. p. 271) says, " Le parti moddrd cessa d'avoir action
sur le prdche ; la direction des forces huguenotes dtait passde dans lea mains dea ar-
dents, conduits par les ministres."

398 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
vate judgment, became, early in the seventeenth century, more
intolerant than the CathoUcs, who based their reUgion on the
dictates of an infaUihle church.
This is one of the many instances, which show how super
ficial is the opinion of those speculative writers, who heUeve that
the Protestant religion is necessarUy more liberal than the
Catholic. If those who adopt this view had taken the pains to
study the history of Europe in its original sources, they would
have learned that the UberaUty of every sect depends, not at all
on its avowed tenets, hut on the circumstances in which it is
placed, and on the amount of authority possessed hy its priest
hood. The Protestant religion is, for the most part, more toler
ant than the Catholic, simply hecause the events which have
given rise to Protestantism have at the same time increased the
play of the intellect, and therefore lessened the power of the
clergy. But whoever has read the works of the great Calvinist
divines, and, above aU, whoever has studied their history, must
know, that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the desire
of persecuting their opponents burnt as hotly among them, as
it did among any of the Catholics even in the worst days of the
papal dominion. This is a mere matter of fact, of which any
one may satisfy himself, by consulting the original documents of
those times. And even now, there is more superstition, more
bigotry, and less of the charity of real religion, among the lower
order of Scotch Protestants, than there is among the lower order
of French CathoUcs. Yet, for one intolerant passage in Protes
tant theology, it would be easy to point out twenty in Catholic
theology. The truth, however, is, that the actions of men are
governed, not hy dogmas, and text-hooks, and rubrics, hut by the
opinions and habits of their contemporaries, hy the general spirit
of their age, and hy the character of those classes who are in the
ascendant. This seems to he the origin of that difference be
tween religious theory and reUgious practice, of which theologi
ans greatly complain, as a stumbling-block and an evU. For
reUgious theories, being preserved in hooks, in a doctrinal and
dogmatic form, remain a perpetual yritness, and, therefore, can
not he changed yrithout incurring the obvious charge of incon
sistency or of heresy. But the practical part of every religion,
its moral, poUtical, and social workings, embrace such' an im
mense variety of interests, and have to do with such complicated
and shifting agencies, that it is hopeless to fix them hy formula
ries : they, even in the most rigid systems, are left, in a great
measure, to private discretion ; and, heiug almost entirely un
written, they lack those precautions by which the permanence

GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 399
of dogmas is effectuaUy secured."* Hence it is, that whUe the
reUgious doctrines professed by a people in their national creed
are no criterion of their civUization, their reUgious practice is,
on the other hand, so pliant, and so capable of adaptation to
social wants, that it forms one of the best standards hy which
the spirit of any age can be measured.
It is on account of these things, that we ought not to he sur
prised that, during many years, the French Protestants, who
affected to appeal to the right of private judgment, were more
intolerant of the exercise of that judgment by their adversaries,
than were the Catholics ; although the CathoUcs, by recognizing
an infaUible church, ought, in consistency, to be superstitious,
and may be said to inherit intolerance as their natural birth
right.'" Thus, whUe the CathoUcs were theoreticaUy more
bigoted than the Protestants, the Protestants became practicaUy
more bigoted than the Catholics. The Protestants continued to
insist upon that right of private judgment in religion, which the
CathoUcs continued to deny. Yet, such was the force of circum
stances, that each sect, hi its practice, contradicted its own dog
ma, and acted as if it had embraced the dogma of its opponents.
The cause of this change was very simple. Among the French,
the theological spirit, as we have already seen, was decaying ;
and the decUne of the infiuence of the clergy was, as invariably
happens, accompanied by an increase of toleration. But, among
the French Protestants, this partial diminution of the theologi
cal spirit had produced different consequences ; hecause it had
brought ahout a change of leaders, which threw the command
into the hands of the clergy, and, by increasing their power, pro-
'" The church of Rorae has always seen this, and on that account has been, and
StiU is, very pUant in regard to raorals, and very flexible in regard to dogmas ; a
striking proof of the great sagacity with which her affairs are administered. In
Blanco White's Evidence against Catholicism, p. 48, and in Parr's Works, vol. vu.
pp. 464, 456, there is an unfavourable and, indeed, an unjust notice of this pecuU
arity, which, though strongly marked in the Romish church, ia by no meana confined
to it, but is found iu every reUgious, sect which is regularly organized. Locke, in his
Letters on Toleration, observes, that the clergy are naturaUy more eager against
error than against vice ( Works, vol. v. pp. 6, 7, 241) ; and their preference of dog
mas to moral truths is also mentioned by M. C. Comte, Traiti de Llgislat. vol i. p.
245 ; and is alluded to by Kant in his comparison of " ein morallscher Katechismus"
with a " ReUgiouskatechiamua." Die Metaphysik der Sitten (Ethische Methodenlehre),
in Kants Werke, vol. v. p. 321. Compare Temple's Observations upon tlie United
Provinces, in Works of Sir W, Temple, vol. I p. 154, with the atrict adhesion to for
mularies noticed in Ward's Ideal Church, p. 858 ; and analogous caaea in MilVs Hist
of India, vol. i. pp. 399, 400, and in Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, vol. Ui. p. 87 ;
also Combe's Notes_ on the United States, vol. iU. pp. 256, 267.
Blanco White (Evidence against Catholicism, p. vi.) harshly saya, " sincere
Roraan CathoUca cannot conscientiously be tolerant." But he is certainly mistaken ;
for the question is one, not of sincerity, but of consistency. A sincere Roman
CathoUc may be, and often is, conscientiously tolerant ; a consistent Eoman CathoUc,
never.

400 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
yoked a reaction, and re-rived those very feeUngs to the decay of
which the reaction owed its origin. This seems to explain, how
it is, that a reUgion, which is not protected by the government,
usually displays greater energy and greater vitaUty than one
which is so protected. In the progress of society, the theological
spirit first decUnes among the most educated classes ; and then
it is, that the government can step in, as it does in England, and,
controlUng the clergy, make the church a creature of the state ;
thus weakening the ecclesiastical element hy tempering it vrith
secular considerations. But, when the state refuses to do this,
the reins of power, as they faU from the hands of the upper
classes, are seized by the clergy, and there arises a state of things
of which the French Protestants in the seventeenth century,
and the Irish Catholics in our own time, form the best illustra
tion. In such cases, it wUl always happen, that the reUgion
which is tolerated hy the govemment, though not fully recog
nized hy it, yriU the longest retain its vitality; hecause its
priesthood, neglected hy the state, must cUng the closer to the
people, in whom alone is the source of their power.'" On the
other hand, in a reUgion which is favoured and richly endowed by
the state, -the union between the priesthood and inferior laity
wUl he less intimate ; the clergy wiU look to the govemment as
weU as to the people ; and the interference of political riews, of
considerations of temporal expediency, and, if it may he added
without irreverence, the hopes of promotion, wUl secularize the
ecclesiastical spirit,'" and according to the process I have already
traced, vriU thus hasten the march of toleration.
These generaUzations, which account for a great^part of the
present superstition of the Irish CathoUcs, wUl also account for
the former superstition of the French Protestants. In both cases,
the govemment, disdaining the supervision of an heretical re
ligion, allowed supreme authority to faU into the hands of the
priesthood, who stimulated the bigotry of men, and encouraged
them in a hatred of their opponents. What the results of this
™ We also see thia very clearly in England, where the dissenting clergy have
much more influence araong their hearers than the clergy of the EstabUahment have
among theirs. This haa often been noticed by impartial obaervers, and we are now
possessed of statistical proof that "tbe great body of Protestant dissenters are more
assiduous" in attending reUgious worship than churchmen are. See a valuable essay
by Mr. Mann On the Statistical Position of Religious Bodies in England and Wales,
in Journal of Statist, Soc, vol. xviii p. 152.
'" Respecting the working of this in England, there are some shrewd remarks
made by Le Blanc in his Lettres dun Franfais, vol. I pp. 267, 268 ; which may be
compared with Lord Holland's Mem, of the Whig Party, vol. U. p. 253, where it is
suggested, that in the case of coraplete emancipation of the CathoUcs, " eUgibility
to worldly, honours and profits would somewhat abate the fever of reUgious zeal."
On thia, there are observations worth attending to in Loid Cloncurry's Recollections,
Dublin, 1849, pp. 342, 343. \

GENERAL INTEODUCTION. 401
are in Ireland, is best known to those of our statesmen, who,
yrith unusual candour, have declared Ireland to be their great
est difficulty. What the results were in France, we will now
endeavour to ascertain.
The concUiating spirit of the French government having
drawn over to its side some of the most eminent of the French
Protestants, and having disarmed the hostility of others, the
leadership of the party feU, as we have already seen, into the
hands of those inferior men, who displayed in their new position
the intolerance characteristic of their order. Without pretend
ing to write a history of the odious feuds that now arose, I will
lay before the reader some eridence of their increasing bitterness ;
and I wUl point out a few of the steps hy which the angry feel
ings of reUgious controversy became so infiamed, that at lengh
they kindled a civU war, which nothing hut the improved temper
of the Catholics prevented from being as sanguinary as were the
horrible struggles of the sixteenth century. For, when the
French Protestants became govemed hy men whose professional
habits made them consider heresy to he the greatest of crimes,
there naturaUy sprang up a missionary and proselytizing spirit,
which induced them to interfere with the religion of the Catho
lics, and, under the old pretence of turning them from the error
of their ways, revived those animosities which the progress of
knowledge tended to appease. And as, under such guidance,
these feelings quickly increased, the Protestants soon learnt to
despise that great Edict of Nantes, by which their liberties were
secured ; and they embarked in a dangerous contest, in which
their object was, not to protect their own reUgion, but to -weaken
the reUgion of that very party to whom they owed a toleration,
which had been reluctantly conceded by the prejudices of the
age. It was stipulated, in the edict of Nantes, that the Protes
tants should enjoy the fuU exercise of their religion ; and this
right they continued to possess untU the reign of Louis XIV.
To this there were added several other privUeges, such as no
CathoUc govemment, except that of France, would then have
granted to its heretical subjects. But these things did not satis
fy the desires of the Protestant clergy. They were not content
to exercise their own religion, unless they could also trouble the
religion of others. Their first step was to caU upon the govern
ment to Umit the performance of those rites which the French
CathoUcs had long revered as emblems of the national faith.
For this purpose, directly after the death of Henry IV., they
held a great assembly at Saumur, in which they formaUy de
manded that no CathoUc processions should he aUowed in any
VOL. I.— 26 ^

403 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
town, place, or castle, occupied by the Protestants.'" As the
govemment did not seem inclined to countenance this monstrous
pretension, these intolerant sectaries took the law into their
own hands. They not only attacked the Catholic processions
wherever they met them, hut they subjected the priests to per
sonal insults, and even endeavoured to prevent them from ad
ministering the sacrament to the sick. If a Catholic clergyman
was engaged in burying the dead, the Protestants were sure to
be present, interrupting the funeral, turning the ceremonies into
ridicule, and attempting, hy their clamour, to deaden the voice
of the minister, so that the service performed in the church
should not be heard."" Nor did they always confine themselves
even to such demonstrations as these. For, certain towns hav
ing been, perhaps, imprudently, placed under their control, they
exercised their authority in them with the most wanton insolence.
At La EocheUe, which for iinportance was the second city in
the kingdom, they would not permit the Catholics to have even
a single church in which to celebrate what for centuries had been
the sole religion of France, and was stUl the religion of an enor
mous majority of Frenchmen.'*" This, however, only formed
part of a System, hy which the Protestant clergy hoped to
trample on the rights of their feUow-suhjects. In 1619, they
ordered in their general assembly at Loudon, that in none of
the Protestant towns should there he a sermon preached by a
Jesuit, or indeed by any ecclesiastical person commissioned by a
bishop.'*' In another assembly, they forbade any Protestant
even to he present at a baptism, or at a marriage, or at a fune
ral, if the ceremony was performed by a CathoUc priest.'*"
And, as if to cut off all hope of reconciUation, they not only ve
hemently opposed those intermarriages between the two parties,
"" " Les procesaiona cathoUques seraient interdites dana toutea lea places, viUes
et chateaux oooupda par ceux de la reUgion." Capefigue's Richelieu, vol l p. 39.
'"" Of these facts we have the moat unequivocal proof; for they were not only
stated by tbe Catholics in 1623, but they are recorded, without being denied, by the
Proteatant historian Benoist : " On y accusoit les Edformez d'injurier les prdtres,
quand ila les voyoient passer ; d'erapdcher les processions dea CathoUquea ; I'admin-
istration dea sacremens aux maladea ; I'enterrement dea morta avec les cdrdmonies
aocoutumdea ; - . . . que lea Edformez a'dtoient emparez des cloches en quelques
lieux, et en d'autres se aervoient de oeUes des CathoUques pour avertir de I'heure du
prdche; qu'Ua affectoient de faire du bruit autour des dglises pendant le serrice ;
qu'ils touruoient en ddrision les cdrdmonies de I'dgUse romaine." Benoist, Hist, de
VEdit de Nantes, vol. il pp. 433, 434; see also pp. 149, 150.
140 i< Qjj pouvait dire que La EocheUe dtait la capitale, le saint temple du cal-
viniarae ; ear on ne voyait li aucune dgUse, aucune cdrdmonie papiste." Capefigue's
Richelieu, vol. i. p. 342.
'" Mlm. de Richelieu, vol. ii. p. 100. For other and similar evidence, see Duplessis
Mornay, Memoires, vol xi. p. 244; Sully, CEconomies Royales, vol. vii. p. 164; Be
noist, Hist, de VEdit de Nantes, vol. ii. pp. 70, 233, 279.
"" Quick's Synodioon in Gallia, vol. U. p. 196.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 403
by which, in every Christian country, religious animosities have
heen softened, but they publicly declared, that they would with
hold the sacrament from any parents whose children were mar
ried into a Catholic famUy.'*' Not, however, to accumulate
unnecessary evidence, there is one other circumstance worth re
lating, as a proof of the spirit with which these and similar
regulations were enforced. When Louis XIIL, in 1620, visited
Pau, he was not only treated with indignity, as being an heretical
prince, but he found that the Protestants had not left him a
single church, not one place, in which the King of France, in
his oyyn territory, could perform those devotions which he be
Ueved necessary for his future salvation.'**
This was the way in which the French Protestants, influ
enced by their leaders, treated the first Catholic govemment
which abstained from persecuting them ; the first which not only
aUowed them the free exercise of their reUgion, hut even ad
vanced many of them to offices of trust and of honour.'*' AU
this, however, was only of a piece with the rest of their conduct.
They, who in numbers and in inteUect formed a miserable mi
nority of the French nation, claimed a power which the majority
had abandoned, and refused to concede to others the toleration
they themselves enjoyed. Several persons, who had joined their
party, now quitted it, and returned to the CathoUc church ; but
for exercising this undoubted right, they were insulted by the
Protestant clergy in the grossest manner, yrith every term of op
probrium and abuse.'*" For those who resisted their authority,
no treatment was considered too severe. In 1612, Ferrier, a man
of some reputation in his own day, having disobeyed their in
junctions, was ordered to appear hefore one of their synods. The
gist of his offence was, that he had spoken contemptuously of
ecclesiastical assembUes ; and to this there were, of course, added
those accusations against his moral conduct, with which theolo
gians often attempt to blacken the character of their oppo
nents.'*' Eeaders of ecclesiastical history are too famiUar with
such charges to attach any importance to them ; hut as, in this
™ For a atriking instance ofthe actual enforcement of this intolerant regulation,
see (iuick's Synodioon in Gallia, vol. U. p. 344.
-i-ir!** n??'?' -S'''- * Louis XIII, vol ii. p. 124; Mlm. de Richelieu, vol U. pp. 109.
iii,"Y ' *¦ "f '^ Protestants of France, p. 288.
In 1626, HoweU writes that the Protestants had put up an inacription on the
gates^of Montauban, "Eoy sans foy, ville sans peur." HowelVs Letters, p, 178.
bometimes they were caUedjdogs returning to the vomit of popery ; sometimes
they_were^swinejaUowing in the mire of idolatry. Quick's Synodioon in Gallia,
¦ 1" ^'-" ".'is^rvable, that on the first occasion (Quick's Synodioon, vol i. p. 362)
nothing IS said of Terrier's immoraUty ; and on the next occasion (p. 449) the synod
complains, among other things, that "he hath most licentiously inveighed againat,
and satiricaUy lampooned, the ecclesiastical assembUes."

404 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
case, the accused was tried hy men who were at once his prose
cutors, his enemies, and his judges, the result was easy to antici
pate. In 1613, Ferrier was excommunicated, and the excom
munication was pubUcly proclaimed in the church of Nimes. In
this sentence, which is stUl extant, he is declared by the clergy
to be " a scandalous man, a person incorrigible, impenitent, and
ungovernable." We, therefore, they add, "in the name and
power of our Lord Jesus Christ, by the conduct of the Holy
Ghost, and with authority from 'the church, have cast, and do
now cast and throw him out of the society of the faithful, that
he may he deUvered up unto Satan."'*'
That he may be delivered up unto Satan ! This was the
penalty which a handful of clergymen, in a corner of France,
thought they could infiict on a man who dared to despise their
authority. In our time such an anathema would only excite de
rision ;'*" but, early in the seventeenth century, the open pro
mulgation of it was enough to ruin any private person against
whom it Eoight be directed. And they whose studies have ena
bled them to take the measure of the ecclesiastical spirit, will
easily believe that, in that age, the threat did not remain a dead
letter. The people, inflamed hy their clergy, rose against Fer
rier, attacked his family, destroyed his property, sacked and gut
ted his houses, and demanded with loud cries, that the " traitor
Judas" should he given up to them. The unhappy man, with
the greatest difficulty, effected his escape ; but though he saved
his life by flying in the dead of the^-night, he was ohUged to
abandon for ever his native town, as he dared not retum to a
place where he had provoked so active and so implacable a
party."" Into other matters, and even into those connected with the or
dinary functions of govemment, the Protestants carried the same
"' See this frightful and irapioua document, in Quick's Synodioon, vol. l pp. 448-
450. '*" The notion of theologians respecting excommunication may be aeen in Mr.
Palmer's entertaining book. Treatise on the Church, vol. i. pp. 64-67, vol. U. pp, 299,
300 ; but the opinions of thia engaging writer should be contrasted with the indignant
language of Vattel, le Droit des Gens, vol. i. pp. 177, 178. In England, the terrors
of excommunication fell into contempt towards the end of the seventeenth century.
See Ufe of Archbishop Sharpe, edited by Newcome, vol. i. p. 216 ; compare p. 363;
and aee the mournful remarka of Dr. Mosheim, in his Eccles. Hist, voh ii. p. 79 ; and
Sir Philip Warwick's Memoirs, pp. 176, 176.
"'° On the treatment of Ferrier, which excited great attention as indicating the
extreme lengths to which the Protestants were prepared to go, see Mlm. de Richelieu,
vol. l p. 177 ; Mlm. de Pontchartrain, vol ii. pp. 5, 6, 12, 29, 82 ; Mlm. deDuplesm
Mornay, vol. xii pp. 317, 333, 341, 850, 389, 399, 430 ; Felice's Hist of the Protes
tants of France, p. 235 ; Biog. Univ. vol xiv. p. 440 ; Tallemant des Rlaux, Eisto-
riettes, voh v. pp. 48-54. Mr. Smedley, who refers to none of theae authorities, ex
cept two paaaages in Duplessis, has given a garbled account of this riot. See his
History ofthe Reformed Religion in France, vol ii. pp. 119, 120.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 405
spirit. Although they formed so small a section of the people,
they attempted to control the administration of the crown, and,
hy the use of threats, turn aU its acts to their own favour.
They would not aUow the state to determine what ecclesiastical
councUs it should recognize ; they would not even permit the
Mng to choose his own wife. In 1615, without the least pre
tence of complaint, they assembled in large numbers at Greno
ble and at Nimes.'" The deputies of Grenoble insisted that
government should refuse to acknowledge the CouncU of Trent;""
and both assembUes ordered that the Protestants should prevent
the marriage of Louis XIII. with a Spanish princess."' They
laid simUar claims to interfere with the disposal of civil and
nUUtary offices. Shortly after the death of Henry IV., they, in
an assembly at Saumur, insisted that SuUy should he restored to
some posts from which, in their opinion, he had heen unjustly
removed."* In 1619, another of their assembUes at Loudon de
clared, that as one of the Protestant councUlors of the parUa
ment of Paris had become a Catholic, he must he dismissed ;
and they demanded that, for the same reason, the government of
Lectoure should he taken from FontraUles, he also having adopt
ed the not infrequent example of abandoning his sect in order to
adopt a creed sanctioned hy the state."'
By way of aiding aU this, and with the riew of exasperating
stiU further reUgious animosities, the principal Protestant clergy
put forth a series of works, which, for bitterness of feeUng, have
hardly ever heen equalled, and which it would certainly be im
possible to surpass. The intense hatred with which they re
garded their CathoUc countrymen, can only be fuUy estimated
by those who have looked into the pamphlets written by the
French Protestants during the ffist half of the seventeenth cen
tury, or who have read the laboured and formal treatises of such
men as Chamier, Drelincourt, Moulin, Thomson, and Vignier.
Without, however, pausing on these, it wUl perhaps he thought
sufficient if, for the sake of brevity, I follow the mere outline of
poUtical events. Great numbers of the Protestants had joined
'°' Capefigue's Richelieu, vol. i. p. 123.
'^ Capefigue, voh i. p. 123 ; Bazin, Hist, de Louis XIII, vol. i. p. 364 ; Benoist,
Hist de VEdit de Nantes, vol U. p. 183 ; Mem, de Rohan, vol i. p. 130.
"" Capefigue's Richelieu, vol. i. p. 124 ; Mhn, de Pontchartrain, vol il p. 100 ;
Le Vassor, Hist de Louis XIII, vol. U. pp. 383, 834. The consequence was, that
tbe king waa obUged to aend a powerful eacort to protect hia bride against hia Prot
estant subjecta. Mlm. de Richelieu, vol. i. p. 274.
'^ Capefigue's Richelieu, vol. i. p. 38 ; Benoist, Hist de VEdit de Nantes, voh u.
pp. 28, 29, 63.
Mlm. de Fontenay Mareuil, vol i. p. 460 ; Mlm. de Bassompierre, vol U. p.
161. See a aimUar instance, in the case of Berger, in Benoist, Hist, de VEdit de
Nantes, vol. u. p. 136, whom the Protestants sought to deprive because "U avoit
quittd leur reUgiou."

406 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
in the rebeUion which, in 1615, was raised by Cond6 ;'" and,
although they were then easUy defeated, they seemed bent on
trying the issue of a fresh struggle. In B6arn, where they were
unusuaUy numerous,"' they, even during the reign of Henry
IV., had refused to tolerate the CathoUc reUgion ; " their fanati-
cal clergy," says the historian of France, " declaring that it
would be a crime to permit the idolatry of the mass.""' This
charitable maxim they for many years actively enforced, seizmg
the property of the CathoUc clergy, and employing it in support
of their own churches ;"" so that, whUe in one part of the do
minions of the king of France the Protestants, were aUowed to
exercise their religion, they, in another part of his dominions,
prevented the Catholics from exercising theirs. It was hardly
to be expected that any government would suffer such an anom
aly as this ; and, in 1618, it was ordered that the Protestants
should restore the plunder, and reinstate the CathoUcs in their
former possessions. But the reformed clergy, alarmed at so sac-
rUegious a proposal, appointed a pubUc fast, and inspiriting the
people to resistance, forced the royal commissioner to fly from
Pau, where he had arrived in the hope of effecting a peaceful
adjustment of the claims of the rival parties.""
The rebeUion, thus raised by the zeal of the Protestants, was
soon put down ; but, according to the confession of Eohan, one
of the ablest of 'their leaders, it was the beginning of aU their mis
fortunes.'" The sword had now heen drawn; and the only ques
tion to be decided was, whether France should he governed ac-
'*" Bazin, Hist de Louis XIII, vol i. p. 381. Siamoudi (Hist des Franfais, vol.
xxu. p. 849) aays that they had no good reason for thia ;' and it ia certain that their
privilegea, so far from being diminiahed since the Edict of Nantea, had been con
firmed and extended.
'" M. FeUce (Hist of ihe Protestants of France, p. 237), says of Lower Navarre
and Bdarn, in 1617: "Three-fourths of the population, some say nine-tenths, be
longed to the reformed communion." Thia ia perhapa overeatimated ; but we know,
from De Thou, that they formed a majority in Bdarn in 1566 i "Les Protestans y
fussent en plus grand nombre que les CathoUques." De Thou, Hist. Univ. vol v.
p. 187. '"" " Les ministres fanatiques ddclaroient qu'ils ne pouvaient sana crime souffrir
dans ce pays rdgdndrd I'idolStrie de la mease." Sismondi, Hist, des Franfais, vol
xxii p. 415.
"" Notice sur les Memoires de Rohan, vol i. p. 26. Compare the account given
by Pontchartrain, who was one of the ministers of Louia XIIL, Mem. de Pontchar
train, vol. ii. pp. 248, 264 ; and see Mem, de Richelieu, vol. i. p. 443.
'"" Bazin, Hist de France sous Louis XIII, vol U. pp. 62-64. The pith of the
question was, that 'f I'ddit de Nantes ayant donnd pouvoir, tant aux cathoUques
qu'aux huguenots, de rentrer partout dans leurs biens, lea eccldsiaatiques de Bdarn
ddmandferent auasytost lea leurs." Mem. de Fontenay Mareuil, vol. i. p; 392.
'" " L'affaire de Bdarn, source de toua noa maux." Mlm. de Rohan,, vol h p.
156 ; see also p. 183. And the Protestant Le Vassor saya (Hist.-de Louis XIII, vol.
Ui. p. 634) : " L'affaire du Bdarn et I'aaaemblde qui ae convoqua enauite k la EocheUe,
sont la source vdritable dea malheurs dea dgUaes rdformdes de France sous le rdgne
dont j'dcris rbiatoire."

GENERAL INTEODUCTION. 407
cording to the principles of toleration recently established, or
according to the maxims of a despotic sect, which, while profess
ing to advocate the right of private judgment, was acting in a
way that rendered all private judgment impossible.
Scarcely was the war in B6am brought to an end, when the
Protestants determined on making a great effort in the west of
France.'"" The seat of this new struggle was EocheUe, which
was one of the strongest fortresses in Europe, and was entirely in
the hands of the Protestants,'"' who had grown wealthy, partly
by their own industry, and partly by following the occupation of
public pirates."* In this city, which they believed to be' im
pregnable,"' they, in December, 1620, held a Great Assembly,
to which their spiritual chiefs flocked from aU parts of France.
It was soon evident that their party was now governed by men
who were bent on the most violent measures. Their great secu
lar leaders were, as we have already seen, graduaUy faUing off ;
and, hy this time, there only remained two of much ahiUty,
Eohan and Mornay, both of whom saw the inexpediency of their
proceedings, and desired that the assembly should peaceably
separate."' But the authority of the clergy was irresistible ;
and, by their prayers and exhortations, they easUy gained over
the ordinary citizens,, who were then a gross and uneducated
body.'*' Under their influence, the assembly adopted a course
™ On the connexion between the proceedings of Bdarn and those of EocheUe,
corapare Mem, de Montglat, vol. I p. 33, with Mem, de Richelieu, vol. U. p. 113, and
Mem. de Rohan, vol. i. p. 446.
'"" Their first church was estabUshed in 1556 (Ranke's Civil Warsin France, vol
i. p. 360) ; but, by the reign of Charles IX. the nlajority of the inhabitants were
Protestants. See De Thou, Hist Univ. voh iv. p. 263, vol v. p. 879, ad ann. 1562
and 1667.
'°* Or, aa M. Capefigue courteously puts it, " lea Eochelois ne respectaient pas
toujours les paviUons amis." Capefigue's Richelieu, vol i. p. 332. A deUcate circum
locution, unknown to Mezeray, who aaya (Hist, de France, vol Ui. p. 426) in 1587,
"et les Eochelois, qui par le moyen du commerce et de la, piraterie," &c.
"" " Ceste place, que les huguenots tenoient quaay pour imprenable." 3Ilm. de
Fontenay MareuilfVoL i. p. 512, "Cette orgueiUeuae citd, qui se croyoit imprena
ble." Mlm. de Montglat, vol. l p. 45. Howell, who visited Roohelle in 1620 and
1622, was greatly struck by its strength. HowelVs Leiters, pp. 46, 47, 108. At p.
204, he calls, it, in his barbaroua atyle, " the chiefest propugnacle of the Protestants
there." For a description ofthe defences of RocheUe, see De Thou, Hist Univ. vol.
vi. pp. 615-617 ; and sorae details worth conaulting in Mezeray, Hist, de France, vol.
u. pp. 977-980.
'"" Bazin, Hist de Louis XIII, vol. il p. 139 ; Sismondi, Hist, des Franfais, vol
xxU. piS. 480, 481. Rohan hunself says (Mlm. vol. i. p. 446) : "je m'efforfai de la
sdparer." In a remarkable letter, which Mornay wrote ten years before this, he
sbo-wa hia apprehenaiona of the evU that would reault from .the increaaing violence
of his party; and he advises, " que nostre zdle soit tempdrd de prudence." Mem.
eiCorrespond. vol. yi.p, 122; and as to the divisions this caused among the Prot
estants, eee pp. 164, 510, vol. xu. pp. 82, 255 ; and Sully, CEconomies Royales, vol
ix. pp. 850, 435.
"Les seigneurs du parti, et surtout le sage Duplessis Mornay, firent ce qu'Ua
purent pour engager les rdformds 4 ne pas provoquer I'aiitoritd royale pour dea

408 CIVILIZATION IN, ENGLAND.
which rendered civil war inevitable. Their first act was an edict,
hy which they at once confiscated all the property helonging to
Catholic churches.'"' They then caused a great seal to be
struck ; under the authority of which they ordered that the peo
ple should be armed, and taxes collected from them for the pur
pose of defending their religion.'"" Finally, they drew up the
regulations, and organized the estahUshment, of what they
called the Eeformed Churches of France and of B6arn ; and, with
a view to faciUtate the exercise of their spiritual jurisdiction,
they parcelled out France into eight circles, to each of which
there was allotted a, separate general ; who, however, was to be
accompanied by a clergyman, since the administration, in all its
parts, was held responsible to that ecclesiastical assembly which
caUed it into existence.""
Such were the forms and pomp of authority assumed by the
spiritual leaders of the French Protestants ; men hy nature des
tined to obscurity, and whose abUities were so despicable, that,
notwithstanding their temporary importance, they have left no
name in history. These insignificant priests, who, at the best,
were only fit to mount the pulpit of a country viUage, now arro
gated to themselves the right of ordering the affairs of France,
imposing taxes upon Frenchmen, confiscating property, raising
troops, levying war ; and all this for the sake of propagating a
creed, which was scouted by the country at large as a foul and
mischievous heresy.
In the face of these inordinate pretensions, it was erident
that the French government had no choice, except to abdicate
its functions, or else take arms in its own defence.'" Whatever
may be the popular notion respecting the necessary intolerance
causea qui ne pouvoient juatifier une guerre civUe ; mais le pouvoir dans le parti
avoit pasad preaque absolument aux bourgeois des viUes et aux ministres qui se Uv-
roient aveugldment k leur fanatisme, et a leur orgueil, et qui dtoient d' autant plus
applaudis, qu'ils montroient plus de violence." Sismondi, Hist des Frangais, vol.
xxii' p. 478.
"" " On confisqua les biens des dgUsea cathoUques." LavaUle, Hist, des Franfais,
vol. iii. p. 85 ; and see Capefigue's Richelieu, vol i. p. 258.
'"" " lis donnent des commissions d'armer et de faire des impositions sur le
peuple, et ce sous leur grand sceau, qui dtoit une ReUgion appuyde sur une croix,
ayant en la main un Uvre de I'dvangUe, foulant aux pieda un vieux aquelette, qu'ils
disoient dtre I'dgUse romaine." Mlm. de Richelieu, vol. U. p. 120. M. Capefigue
(Richelieu, vol i. p. 259) says that this seal still exists ; but it is not even aUuded to
by a late writer (Felice, Hist of the Protestants of France, p. 240), who systematic-
aUy suppresses every fact unfavourable to his own party.
"° Le Vassor, Hist, de Louis XIII, vol. iv. p. 167 ; Bazin, Hist, de Louis XIII,
vol. ii. p. 145 ; Benoist, Hist de VEdit de Nantes, vol. ii. pp. 358-866 ; Capefigue's
Richelieu, vol. i. p. 268.
"' Even Mosheim, who, as a Protestant, was naturally prejudiced in favour of
the Huguenots, aaya, that they had established " imperium in imperio ;" and he
ascribes to the violence of their rulers the war of 1621. Mosheim's Eccles. Eist.
vol. U. pp. 237, 238.

GENEEAL INTRODUCTION. 409
of the CathoUcs, it is an indisputable fact, that, early in the
seventeenth century, they displayed in France a spirit of for
bearance, and a Christian charity, to which the Protestants
could make no pretence. During the twenty-two years which
elapsed between the Edict of Nantes and the Assembly of Eo
cheUe, the government, notwithstanding repeated provocations,
never attacked the Protestants ;"" nor did they make any at
tempt to destroy the privUeges of a sect, which they were bound
to consider heretical, and the extirpation of which had been
deemed by their fathers to be one of the first duties of a Chris
tian statesman.
The war that now broke out lasted seven years, and was un
interrupted, except hy the short peace, first of Montpelier, and
afterwards of EocheUe ; neither of which, however, was very
strictly preserved. But the difference in the views and inten
tions of the two parties, corresponded to the difference between
the classes which govemed them. The Protestants, being infiu
enced mainly by the clergy, made their object reUgious domina
tion. The CathoUcs, being led hy statesmen, aimed at temporal
advantages. Thus it was, that circumstances had, in France,
so completely obUterated the original tendency of these two
great sects, that, by a singular metamorphosis, the secular prin
ciple was now represented hy the CathoUcs, and the theological
principle by the Protestants. The authority of the clergy, and
therefore the interests of superstition, were upheld hy that very
party which owed its origin to the diminution of both ; they
were, on the other hand, attacked by a party whose success had
hitherto depended on the increase of both. If the CathoUcs tri
umphed, the ecclesiastical power would he weakened ; if the
Protestants triumphed, it would he strengthened. Of this fact,
so far as the Protestants are concerned, I have just given ample
proof, coUected from their proceedings, and from the language
of their own synods. And that the opposite, of secular princi
ple, predominated among the Catholics, is evident, not only from
theu- underiating poUcy in the reigns of Henry IV. and Louis
XIIL, but also from another circumstance worthy of note. For,
their motives, were so obvious, and gave such scandal to the
church, that the pope, as the great protector of reUgion, thought
himself bound to reprehend that disregard of theological inter
ests which they displayed, and which he considered to be a cry
ing and unpardonable offence. In 1622, only one year after the
straggle between the Protestants and CathoUcs had begun, he
strongly remonstrated with the French government upon the
'" Compare Mlm. de Fontenay Mareuil, vol. il p. 88, with Flassan, Hist de la
Diplomatic Franfaise, vol U. p. 861. i >»

410 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
notorious indecency of which they were guUty, in carrying on
war against heretics, not for the purpose of suppressing the hergj
sy, hut merely with a view of procuring for the state those
temporal advantages which, in the opinion of aU pious men,
ought to be regarded as of subordinate importance."'
If at this juncture, the Protestants had carried the day, the
loss to France would have heen immense, perhaps irreparable,
For no one, who is acquainted with the temper and character of
the French Calvinists, can doubt, that if they had obtained pos
session of the government, they would have revived those relig
ious persecutions which, so far as their power extended, they had
already attempted to enforce. Not only in their writings, hut
even in the edicts of their assemblies, we find ample proof of
that meddling and intolerant spirit which, in every age, has
characterized ecclesiastical legislation. Indeed, such a spirit is
the legitimate consequence of the fundamental assumption from
which theological lawgivers usuaUy start. The clergy are taught
to consider that their paramount duty is to preserve the purity
of the faith, and guard it against the invasions of heresy. When
ever, therefore, they rise to power, it almost invariably happens,
that they carry into poUtics the habits they have contracted in
their profession ; and having long heen accustomed to consider re
Ugious error as criminal, they now naturally attempt to make it
penal. And as aU the European countries have, in the period
of their ignorance, been once ruled hy the clergy, just so do we
find in the law-books of every land those traces of their power
which the progress of knowledge is graduaUy effacing. We find
the professors of the dominant creed enacting laws against the
professors of other creeds ; laws sometimes to burn them, some
times to exUe them, sometimes to take away their civU rights,
sometimes only to take away their political rights. These are
the different gradations through which persecution passes ; and
hy observing wtich, we may measure, in any country, the energy
of the ecclesiastical spirit. At the same time, the theory hy which
such measures are supported, generaUy gives rise to other meas
ures of a somewhat different, though of an analogous character.
For, hy extending the authority of law to opinions as weU as to
acts, the basis of legislation becomes dangerously enlarged ; the
"" See the paper of instructiona frora Pope Gregory XV., in the appendix to
Ranke, die Rom. Papste, vol. iU. pp. 173, 174: "Die Hauptsache aber ist was er
dera Konige von Frankreich vorateUen soU : 1, dass er ja nicht den Verdacht auf
sich laden werde als verfolge er die Protestanten bloas aua Staata-interesae." Bazin
(Hist, de Louis XIII, vol. il p. 320) says, that RicheUeu attacked the Huguenots
"aana aucune idde de peradcution religieuse." See, to the sarae effect, Capefigue's
Richelieu, vol. i. p. 274 ; and the candid admissions of the Protestant Le Vassor, ui
his Hist de Louis XIII, vol. v. p. 11.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION, 411
indiriduaUty and independence of each man are invaded ; and
encouragement is given to the enactment of inti-usive and vex
atious regulations, which are supposed to perform for morals the
serrice that the other class of laws performs for reUgion, Under
pretence of favouring the practice of virtue, and maintaining the
purity of society, men are troubled in their most ordinaiy pur
suits, in the commonest occurrences of life, in their amusements,
nay, even in the very dress they may he incUned to wear. That
this is what has actually heen done, must he known to whoever
has looked into the writings of the fathers, into the canons of
Christian councUs, into the different systems of ecclesiastical law,
or into the sermons of the earUer clergy. Indeed, all this is so
natural, that regulations, conceived in the same spirit, were drawn
up for the govemment of Geneva by the Calvinist clergy, and for
the govemment of England hy Archbishop Cranmer and his co
adjutors ; whUe a tendency, precisely identical, may be observed
in the legislation of the Puritans, and, to give a stiU later in
stance, in that of the Methodists. It is, therefore, not surprising
that, in France, the Protestant clergy, having great power among
their own party, should enforce a similar discipline. Thus, to
mention only a few examples, they forbade any one to go to the
theatre, or even to yritness the performance of private theatri
cals."*' They looked upon dancing as an ungodly amusement,
and, therefore, they not only strictly prohibited it, hut they ordered
that aU dancing-masters should be admonished hy the spiritual
power, and desired to abandon so unchristian a profession. If,
however, the admonition faUed in effecting its purpose, the danc
ing-masters, thus remaining obdurate, were to be excommuni
cated.'" With the same pious care did the clergy superintend
other matters equaUy. important. In one of their synods, they
ordered that aU persons should abstain from wearing gay apparel,
and should arrange their hair yrith becoming modesty."" In
another synod, they forbade women to paint ; and they declared,
that if, after this injunction, any woman persisted in painting,
she should not he allowed to receive the sacrament."' To their
own clergy, as the instractors and shepherds of the fiock, there
was paid an attention stiU more scrupulous. The ministers of
the word were permitted to teach Hebrew, hecause Hebrew is a
sacred dialect, uncontaminated by profane writers. But the
Greek language, which contains all the philosophy and nearly all
the wisdom of antiquity, was to he discouraged, its study laid
"* QmjcS's Synodioon in Gallia, vol. i. p. IvU.
I'e {J'^' ^°^' ^' PP- ^™- ^''' ^^^' ^°'- ''¦ P- ¦^''*-
"" " And both sexes are required to keep modesty in their hair.'' Ibid. vol. i.
p. 119. ^" Riid. vol i. p. 165,

413 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
aside, its professorship suppressed.'" And, in order that the
mind might not be distracted from spiritual things, the study of
chemistry was likewise forbidden ; such a mere earthly pursuit
being incompatible with the habits of the sacred profession.''"
Lest, however, in spite of these precautions, knowledge should
stUl creep in among the Protestants, other measures were taken
to prevent even its earliest approach. The clergy, entirely for
getting that right of private judgment upon which their sect was
founded, became so anxious to protect the unwary from error,
that they forbade any person to print or puhUsh a work yrithout
the sanction of the church, in other words, without the sanction
of the clergy themselves."" When, hy these means, they had
destroyed the possibility of free inquiry, and, so far as they were
able, had put a stop to the acquisition of aU real knowledge, they
proceeded to guard against another circumstance to which their
measures had given rise. For, several of the Protestants, seeing
that under such a system, it was impossible to educate their
families with advantage, sent their children to some of those cele
brated Catholic colleges, where alone a sound education could then
he obtained. But the clergy, so soon as they heard of this practice,
put an end to it, hy excommunicating the offending parents ;'"
and to this there was added an order forbidding them to admit
into their own private houses any tutor who professed the Catholic
religion."" Such was the way in which the French Protestants
were watched over and protected by their spiritual masters. Even
the minutest matters were not beneath the notice of these great
legislators. They ordered that no person should go to a baU or
masquerade;"' nor ought any Christian to look at the tricks of con
jurors, or at the famous game of goblets, or at the puppet-show;
neither was he to be present at morris-dances; for aU such
amusements should he suppressed by the magistrates, because they
excite curiosity, cause expense, waste time."* Another thing to
"" The synod of Alez, in 1620, says, " A minister may at the same time be pro
fessor in divinity and of the Hebrew tongue. But it is not seemly for him to profess
the Greek also, because the most of his employment wiU be taken up in the exposi
tion of Pagan and profane authors, unless he be discharged from the ministry."
Quick's Synodicon, vol. ii. p. 57. Three years later, the synod of Charenton sup
pressed altogether the Greek profesaorahips, " as being superfluous and of smaU
profit." Tiid. voh U. p. 116.
"° The synod of St. Maixant, in 1609, orders that "coUoquies and synods shall
have a watchful eye over those ministers who study chemistry, and grievously re
prove and censure them." Ibid, voh i. p. 314.
"° Ibid. vol. i. pp. 140, 194, vol u. p. 110.
'" Quick's Synodicon, vol. i. pp. Iv. 235, 419, vol U. pp. 201, 509, 516. Compare
Benoist, Hist de VEdit de Nantes, vol. U. p. 473.
'"" (Quick's Synodicon, vol. U. p. 81.
'"" Ibid. vol. il p, 174.
_ ™ "AU Christian magistrates are adviaed not in the least to suffer them, because
it feeds fooUsh curiosity, puts upon unnecessary expenses, and waatea time." Md,
vol 1. p. 194.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 413
be attended to, is the names that are bestowed in baptism. A child
may have two christian names, though one is preferable.'" Great
care however, is to he observed in their selection. They ought to be
taken from the Bible, hut they ought not to be Baptist or Angel;
neither should any infant receive a name which has heen for
merly used hy the Pagans."" When the chUdren are grown up,
there are other regulations to which they must he subject. The
clergy declared that the faithful must hy no means let their hair
grow long, lest by so doing they indulge in the luxury of " las
civious curls."'" They are to make their garments in such a
manner as to avoid " the new-fangled fashions of the world :"
they are to have no tassels to their dress : their gloves must he
without sUk and ribands : they are to abstain from fardingales :
they are to beware of wide sleeves.""
Those readers who have not studied the history of ecclesias
tical legislation, vriU perhaps be surprised to find, that men of
gra-rity, men who had reached the years of discretion, and were
assembled together in solemn council, should evince such a pry
ing and puerile spirit ; that they should display such miserable
and chUdish imbecUity. But, whoever vrill take a wider survey
of human affairs, wiU he inclined to blame, not so much the
legislators, as the system of which the legislators formed a
part. For as to the men themselves, they merely acted after
their Mnd. They only foUowed the traditions in which they
were bred. By rirtue of their profession, they had heen accus
tomed to hold certain views, and, when they rose to power, it was
natural that they should carry those views into effect ; thus trans
planting into the law-book the maxims they had already preached
in the pulpit. Whenever, therefore, we read of meddlmg inquis
itive, and vexatious regulations imposed hy ecclesiastical author
ity, we should remember, that they are hut the legitimate result
of the ecclesiastical spirit ; and that the way to remedy such
grievances, or to prevent their occurrence, is not hy vainly labour
ing to change the tendencies of that class from whence they pro
ceed, but rather hy confining the class within its proper Umits,
by jealously guarding against its earUest encroachments, hy
'"' This was a very knotty question for the theologians ; but it was at length
decided in the afdrmative by the synod of Saumur : " On the 13th article of the
same chapter, the deputies of Poictou demanded, whether two names might be
given a child at baptism? To which it was rcpUed: The thing was indifferent;
however, parents were advised to exercise herein Christian simpUcitv." Ibid.
voh i. p. 178. ' ¦"
^ Ibid, voh l pp. xlvl 25.
'"^ I quote the language ofthe synod of Castres, in 1626. Ibid, vol. U. p. 174.
™ Quick's Synodicon, vol. i. p. 165, vol U. pp. 7, 174, 574, 683. In the same way,
the Spanish clergy, early in the present century, attempted to regulate the dresa of
women. See Doblado's Letters from Spain, pp. 202-205 : a good Uluatration of the
identity of the eccleaiastical spirit, whether it be Catholic or Protestant.

414 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
taking every opportunity of lessening its influence, and finaUy,
when the progress of society yriU justify so great a step, by de
priving it of that political and legislative power which, though
gradually falling from its hands, it is, even in the most civiUzed
countries, stiU aUowed in some degree to retain.
But, setting aside these general considerations, it will, at all
events, be admitted, that I have coUected sufficient evidence to
indicate what would have happened to France, if the Protestants
had obtained the upper hand. After the facts which I have
brought forward, no one can possibly douht, that if such a mis
fortune had occurred, the Uberal and, considering the age, the
enUghtened policy of Henry IV. and Louis XIIL would have
been destroyed, in order to make way for that gloomy and austere
system which, in every age, and in every country, has bfeen found
to he the natural fruit of ecclesiastical power. To put, therefore,
the question in its proper form, instead of saying that there was
a war between hostile creeds, we should rather say that there was
a war between rival classes. It was a contest, not so much be
tween the CathoUc religion and the Protestant religion, as be
tween CathoUc lawmen and Protestant clergy. It was a struggle
between temporal interests and theological interests, — ^between
the spirit of the present and the spirit of the past. And the
point now at issue was, whether France should he governed hy
the civil power or by the spiritual power,— whether she should
he ruled according to the large 'riews of secular statesmen, or
according to the narrow notions of a factious and intolerant
priesthood. The Protestants having the great advantage of being the ag
gressive party, and being, moreover, inflamed hy a reUgious zeal
unknown to 'their opponents, might, under ordinary ch-cum-
stances, have succeeded in their hazardous attempt ; or, at aU
events, they might have protracted the struggle for an indefinite
period. But, fortunately for France, in 1624, only three years
after the war began, EicheUeu assumed the direction of the gov
ernment. He had for some years been the secret adriser of the
queen-mother, into whose mind he had always inculcated the
necessity of complete toleration."" When placed at the head of
affairs, he pursued the same poUcy, and attempted in every way
to concUiate the Protestants. The clergy of his own party were
constantly urging him to exterminate the heretics, whose pres-
"° On his influence over her in and after 1616,' see Le Vassor, Hist de Lmds
XIII, vol. U. p. 508 ; Mlm. de Pontchartrain, vol U. p. 240; Mlm. de Montglat, vol.
i. p. 23 ; and compare, in Mem. de Richelieu, vol. U. pp. 198-200, the curious argu
ments which he put iu her mouth respecting the impoUcy of making war on the
Proteatanta.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 415
ence they thought poUuted France.'"" But EicheUeu, having
only secular objects, refused to embitter the contest by turning
it into a reUgious war. He was determined to chastize the re-
helUon, but he would not punish the heresy. Even while the war
was raging, he would not revoke those edicts of toleration, by
which the fuU liberty of reUgious worship was granted to the
Protestants. And when they, in 1626, showed signs of com
punction, or at aU events of fear, he pubUcly confirmed the
Edict of Nantes,'" and he granted them peace ; although, as he
says, he knew that hy doing so, he should fall under the suspi
cion of those '^ who so greatly affected the name of zealous Cath
oUcs."'"^ A few months afterwards, war again broke out ; and
then it was that EicheUeu determined on that celebrated siege
of EocheUe, which, if brought to a successful issue, was sure to
be a decisive blow against the French Protestants. That he was
moved to this hazardous undertaking solely by secular considera
tions, is evident, not only from the general spirit of his preceding
poUcy, but also from his subsequent conduct. With the detaUs
of this famous siege, history is not concerned, as such matters
have no value, except to mUitary readers. It is enough to say
that, in 1628, EocheUe was taken ; and the Protestants, who
had been induced by their clergy'"' to continue to resist long
after reUef was hopeless, and who, in consequence, had suffered
the most dreadful hardships, were obUged to surrender at discre
tion.'"* The privUeges of the town were revoked, and its mag
istrates removed ; but the great minister, hy whom these things
were effected, stiU abstained from that reUgious persecution to
which he was urged.'"' He granted to the Protestants the tol-
"° In 1625, the Archbishop of Lyons wrote to EicheUeu, urging him " assidger
la EocheUe, et chatier ou pour mieux dire, exterminer les huguenots, toute autre
affaire cessante." Bazin, Ilist de Louis XIII, vol. U. p. 276. See also, on the
anxiety of the clergy in the reign of Louis XTTT. to destroy the Protestants, Benoist,
Hist deV Edit de Nantes, vol il pp. 165, 166, 232,245,338, 378-379,427; Sismondi,
Hist, des Franfais, vol. xxu. p. 485.
'" He conflrmed it in March, 1626 ; Flassan, Hist de la Diplomatie Franfaise,
voh u. p. 399 ; and also in the preceding January. See Benoist, Hist de VEdii de
Nantes, vol. U. appendix, pp. 77, 81.
".!. " '^^"^ 1"' I'ffectent autant le nom de zdlda catboUquea." Mem. de Richelieu,
vol. iu. p. 16 ; and at p. 2, he, in the aame year (1626), says, that he waa oppoaed by
thoae who had "un trop ardent et prdcipitd ddsir de miner lea huguenota."
'"' Sismondi, Hist, des Franfais, vol xxUl p. 66.
' On the Bufferinga of the inhabitanta, eee extract from the Dupuia Maa., in
Capefigue s Richelieu, vol i. p. 351. Fontenay Mareuil, who was an eye-witness,
says, that the besieged, in some instances, ate their own children ; and that the
burial-grounds were guarded, tw prevent tbe corpses from being dug up and turned
into food. Mem.de Fontenay Mareuil, vol il p. 119.
And in which he would raost asauredly have been aupported by Louia XIII. ;
of whom an inteUigent writer says : -" II dtoit plein de pidtd et de zele pour le ser
vice de Dieu et pour la grandeur de I'dgUse ; et sa plus sensible joie, en prenant La
EocheUe et les autrea placea qu'U prit, fut de penaer qu'U chaaseroit de son royaume

416 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
oration which he had offered, at an earlier period, and he formally
conceded the free exercise of their public worship.'"" But, such
was their infatuation, that because he Ukewise restored the ex
ercise of the CathoUc reUgion, and thus gave to the conquerors
the same liberty that he had granted to the conquered, the Prot
estants murmured at the indulgence ; they could not hear the
idea that their eyes shoulU be offended by the performance of
Popish rites.'"' And their indignation waxed so high, that the
next year they, in another part of France, again rose in arms.
As, however, they were now stripped of their principal resources,
they were easUy defeated ; and, their existence as a poUtical fac
tion being destroyed, they were, in reference to their religion,
treated by EicheUeu in the same manner as before.'"' To the
Protestants generaUy, he confirmed the privUege of preaching
and of performing the other ceremonies of their creed.'"" To
their leader, Eohan, he granted an amnesty, and, a few years
afterwards, employed him in important public serrices. After
this, the hopes of the party were destroyed ; they never again
rose in arms, nor do we find any mention of 'them until a much
later period, when they were barbarously persecuted hy Louis
XIV.^"" But from all such intolerance EicheUeu sedulously
abstained ; and having now cleared the land from rebellion, he
embarked in that vast scheme of foreign poUcy, of which I have
already given some account, and in which he clearly showed that
his proceedings against the Protestants had not been caused hy
hatred of their reUgious tenets. For, the same party which he
attacked at home, he supported abroad. He put down the
French Protestants, hecause they were a turbulent faction that
troubled the state, and wished to suppress the exercise of aU
opinions unfavourable to themselves. But, so far from carrying
lea hdrdtiquea, et qu'il le purgeroit par cette voie dea diffdrentes reUgions qui gitent
et infectent l'dglise de Dieu. Mem. de Moiteville, vol. i. p. 425, edit. Petitot, 1824.
'"" Bazin, Hist, de Louis XIII, vol. U. p. 423 ; Sismondi, Hist, des Frangais,'vol.
xxiu. p. 77 ; Capefigue's Richelieu, vol. i. p. 367 ; Mem. de Fontenay Mareuil, vol.ii.
p. 122. '"' "Les huguenots murmuraient de voir le rdtablisseraent de I'dgUse romaine
au sein de leur viUe." Capefigue's Richelieu, vol i. p. 359.
"" " Dda qu'U ne a'agit plua d'un parti poUtique, il concdda, corame jL la Rochelle,
la libertd de conscience et la facultd de prdche." Capefigue's Richelieu, vol. I p.
381. Compare Smedley's Hist, of ihe Reformed Religion in France, vol Ui. p. 201,
with Mimoires de Richelieu, voh iv. p. 484.
"° The Edict of Niamea, in 1629, an iraportant docuraent, wiU be found in QmVs
Synodicon, vol. i. pp. xcvi.-ciU. and in Benoist, Hist, de VEdit de Nantes, vol u. ap
pendix, pp. 92-98 ; and a coramentary on it in Bazin, Hist, de Louis XIII, vol. iii.
pp. 36-38. M. Bazin, unfortunately for the reputation of thia otherwise valuable
work, never quotes his authorities.
"° In 1633, their own hiatorian says : " les Edformez ue faisoient plua de party."
Benoist, Hist, de VEdit de Nantes, voh ii. p. 532. Compare Sir Thomas Hanmer's
account of France, in 1648, in Bunbui-y's Correspond, of Hanmer, p. 809, Lond. 1838.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 417
on a crusade against their religion, he, as I have already observed,
encouraged it in other countries ; and, though a bishop of the
CathoUc church, he did not hesitate, hy treaties, by money, and
hy force of arms, to support the Protestants against the House
of Austria, maintain the Lutherans against the Emperor of Ger
many, and uphold the Calrinists against the King of Spain.
1 have thus endeavoured to draw a sUght, though, I trast, a
clear outUne, of the events which took place in France during
the reign of Louis XIIL, and particularly during that part of it
which included the administration of EicheUeu. But such oc
currences, important as they are, only formed a single phase of
that larger development which was now displaying itself in nearly
every branch of the national inteUect. They were the mere po
Utical expression of that bold and sceptical spirit which cried
havoc to the prejudices and superstitions of men. For, the gov
ernment of EicheUeu was successful, as well as progressive ; and
no govemment can unite these two qualities, unless its measures
harmonize with the feeUngs and temper of the age. Such an
administration, though it facUitates progress, is not the cause of
it, hut is rather its measure and symptom. The cause of the
progress Ues far deeper, and is govemed hy the general tendency
of the time. And as the different tendencies observable in suc
cessive generations depend on the difference in their knowledge,
it is erident, that we can only understand the working of the
tendencies, by taking a vride view of the amount and character
of the knowledge. To comprehend, therefore, the real nature of
the great advance made during the reign of Louis XIIL, it be
comes necessary that I should lay hefore the reader some evi
dence respecting those higher and more important facts, which
historians are apt to neglect, hut without which the study ofthe
past is an idle and trivial pursuit, and history itself a barren field,
whiph, bearing no fruit, is unworthy of the labour that is wasted
on the cultivation of so ungrateftU a soU.
It is, indeed, a veiy observable fact, that whUe EicheUeu, yrith
such extraordinary boldness, was secularizing the whole system
of French poUtics, and hy his disregard of ancient interests, was
setting at naught the most ancient traditions, a course precisely
simUar waa being pursued, in a stUl higher department, hy a
man greater than he ; hy one, who, if I may express my oyvn
opinion, is the most profound among the many eminent thinkers
France has produced. I speak of Een6 Descartes, of whom the!
least that can he said is, that he effected a revolution more deci-j
sive than has ever heen brought ahout hy any other single mind. '
With his mere physical discoveries we are not now concerned,',
because in this Introduction I do not pretend to trace the pro- \
VOL. I.— 27 1

418 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
gress of science, except in those epochs which indicate a new turn
in the habits of national thought. But I may remind the reader,
that he was the first who successfully appUed algebra to geome
try;"' that he pointed out the important law of the sines ;2«2
that in an age in which optical instruments were extremely im
perfect, he discovered the changes to which Ught is subjected in
the eye by the crystalUne lens ;''"' that he directed attention to
the consequences resulting from the weight of the atmosphere ;^'<
^"^ Thoraas (Eloge, in CEuvres de Descartes, vol. i. p. 32) saya, " cet instrument,
c'est Descartes qui I'a crdd ; c'est I'appUcation de I'algdbre a la gdomdtrie." And
this, in the highest sense, is strictly true ; for although Vieta and two or three others
iu the sixteenth century had anticipated thia step, we owe entirely to Descartes the
magnificent discovery of the possibility of applying algebra to the geometry of
curves, he being undoubtedly the first who expressed them by algebraic equations.
See Montucla, Hist, des Mathlmat vol L pp. 704, 705, vol U. p. 120, vol iii. p. 64.
30? iji]jg statements of Huygens and of Isaac -Vossius to the effect that Descartes
had seen the papers of Snell before pubUshing his discovery, are unsupported by
any direct evidence ; at least none of the historians of science, so far as I am aware,
have brought forward any. So strong, however, ia the diapoaition of mankind at
large to depreciate great men, and ao general ia the deaire to convict them of
plagiariam, that thia charge, improbable in itaelf, and only reating on the testimony
of two envious rivala, haa been not only revived by modern writers, but has been,
even in our own time, spoken of as a well-estabUshed and notorioua fact ! The
flimsy basis of this accusation is clearly exposed by M. Bordas Demoulin, in his val
uable work Le Cartlsianisme, Paris, 1843, vol. U. pp. 9-12 ; while, on the other side
of the question, I refer with regret to Sir D. Brewster on the Progress of Optics, Sec
ond Report of British Association, pp. 309, 310 ; and to WhewelVs Hist, of the In
ductive Sciences,'v6l. U. pp. 379, 502, 503.
"" See the intereating remarks of Sprengel (Hist, de la Mldeeine, vol. iv. pp. 271,
272), and CEimres de Descartes, vol. iv. pp. 371 seq. What makes thia the more
obaervable ia, that the atudy of the crystaUine lena was neglected long after tho
death of Descartes, and no attempt made for more than a hundred years to com
plete his -views by ascertaining ita intimate structure. Indeed, it is said (Thomson's
Animal Chemistry, p. 612) that the crystalUne lens and the two humours were first
analyzed in 1802. Compare Simon's Animal Chemistry, vol. ii. pp. 419-421 ; Senle,
Traiti d' Anatomie, vol. I p. 357 ; Lepelleiier, Physiologie Mldicale, vol iu. p. 160;
Mayo's Human Physiol, p. 279 ; BlainviUe, Physiol, comparle, vol. Ul pp. 326-328;
none of whom refer to any analyaia earlier than the nineteenth century. I notice
this partly as a contribution to the history of our knowledge, and partly as proving
how slow men have been in foUowing Descartes, and in corapleting his views; for,
as M. BlainviUe justly observes, the chemical laws of the lens must be understood,
before we can exhaustively generaUze the optical laws of its refraction ; so that, in
fact, the researches of Berzelius ou the eye are compleraental to those of Descartes.
The theory of the Umitation of the crystaUine lens according to the descending scale
of the aniraal kingdora, and the connexion between its developraent and a general
increase of sensuous perception, seem to have been Uttle studied ; but Dr. Grant
(Comparative Anatomy, p. 262) thinks that the lens exists in some of the rotU'era;
while in regard to its origin, I flnd a curious statement in Mallei's Physiology^ vol.
i. p. 450, that after its removal in mammals, it has been reproduced by .its matrix,
the capsule. (If this can be relied on, it wiU tell against the suggestion of Schwann,
who_ supposes, in his Microscopical Researches, 1847, pp. 87, 88, that its mode of
life is vegetable, and that it is not " a secretion of its capsule.") As to its probable
existence in the hydrozoa, see Rymer Jones's Animal Kingdom, 1S5B, p. 96, "re
garded either aa a crystalUne lens, or an otolithe ;" and as to ita embryonic develop
ment, see Burdach, Traits de Physiologie, vol iu. pp. 436-438.
M» TorricelU flrst weighed the air, in 1648. Brande's Chemistry, vol i. p, 360;
Leslie's Natural Philosophy, p. 419 : but there is a letter from Descartes, written as
early as 1681, " oCi il expUque le phdnomene de la auapenaiou du mercure dans w

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 419
and that he, moreover, detected the causes of the rainbow,^'"' that
singular phenomenon, yrith which, in the eyes of the viUgar, some
theological superstitions are stUl connected.'"" At the same
time, and as if to combine the most varied forms of exceUence,
he is not only aUowed to he the first geometrician of the age,""'
but, by the clearness and admirable precision of his style, he he-
came one of the founders of French prose.'"" And although he
was constantly engaged in those lofty inquiries into the nature
of the human mind, which can never be studied without wonder,
I had almost said can never he read without awe, he comhined
yrith them a long course of laborious experiment upon the animal
fi:ame, which raised him to the highest rank among the anato
mists of his time.'"" The great discovery made by Harvey of
the circulation of the blood, was neglected by most of his con
temporaries ;"" but it was at once recognized by Descartes, who
tuyau fermd par en haut, en I'attribuant au poids de la colonne d'air dlevde jusqu'au
deld des nuea." Bordas Demoulin, le Cartlsianisme, vol. l p. 311. And Montucla
(Hist des Mathlmat. vol U. p. 205) says of - Descartes, "nous avons des preuvea.que
ce philosophe reconnut avant TorricelU la pesanteur de I'air." Descartes himself
says, that he suggested the subsequent experiment of Pascal. (Euvres de Descartes,
voh X. pp. 344, 351.
™" Dr. Whewell, who has treated Descartes with marked injustice, does never
theless aUow that he is " the genuine author of the explanation of the rainbow."
Hist of tlte Indue. Sciences, vol. u. pp. 380, 884. See also Boyle's Works, vol. Ui.
p. 189 ; Thomson's Hist of the Royal Society, p. 864 ; Hallam's Ut. of Europe, vol.
ui. p. 205 ; (Euvres de Descartes, vol i. pp. 47, 48, vol. v. pp. 266-284. On the
theory of the rainbow as known in the present century, see Kaemtz, Course of
Meteorology, pp. 440-445 ; and Forbes on Meteorology, pp. 126-130, in Report of
British Association for 1840. Compa,-ce Leslie's Natural Philosophy, p. 581 ; Pouillet,
Ellmens de Physique, vol u. p. 788.
206 jijjg Hebrew notion of the rainbow is WeU known ; and for the ideas of other
nations on this subject, see Prichard's Physical History of Mankind, vol v. pp. 164,
176; Kames's Sketches of the History of Man, vol. iv. p. 252, Edinb. 1788; and
Burdach's Physiologie, vol v. pp. 646, 647, Paris, 1889.
""'' Thomas calls him " le plus grand gdomdtre de son sidcle." (Euvres de Des
cartes, vol i. p. 89. Sir W. HamUton (Discussions on Philosophy, p. 271) says,
" the greatest mathematician of the age ;" and Montucla can find no one but Plato
to compare with him : " On ne sauroit donner une idde plus juste de ce qu'a dtd
I'dpoque de Descartes dans, la gdomdtrie moderne, qu'en la comparant jt ceUe de
Platen dans la gdomdtrie ancienne. .... Dd mdme enfin que Platon prdpara par sa
ddcouverte celles des Archimdde, des ApoUonius, &c., on pent dire que Descartes a
jettd les fondemens de ceUes qui Ulustrent aujourd'hui les Newton, les Leibnitz, &c."
Montucla; Hist des Mathlmat vol u. p. 112.
" Descartea joint encore a aea autrea titres, celui d'avoir dtd un des crdateura
de notre langue." Biog, Univ, vol. xi. p. 154. Sir Jaraes Mackintosh (Dissert on
Ethical Philos. p. 186) haa also noticed the influence of Descartes iu forming the
style of French writers ; and 1 think that M. Couain haa somewhere made a simUar
remark. Thomas saya, " Descartes eut aussi la gloire d'dtre un des premiers anatomiates
de son sidcle." (Euvres de Descartes, vol, i. p. 55 ; see alao p. 101. In 1639, Dea-
cartea writes to Mersenue ((Ewj-es, vol viil p.' 100) that he had been engaged
" depuia onze ana" in atudying comparative anatomy by dissection. Compare p.
174, and -vol I pp. 175-184.
™ Dr." -WbeweU (Hist of the Inductive Sciences, voh Ui. p. 440) says, "It was
for the most part readUy accepted by his countrymen ; but that abroad it had to

430 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
made it the basis of the physiological part of his work on Man.i»"
He Ukewise adopted the discovery of the lacteals hy AseUi,"!!
which, Uke every great truth yet laid hefore the world, was, at
its first appearance, not only disbeUeved, but covered with rid
icule."' These things might have heen sufficient to rescue even the
physical labours of Descartes from the attacks constantly made
on them by men who either have not studied his works, or else,
having studied them, are unable to understand their merit. But
the glory of Descartes, and the influence he exercised over his
age, do not depend even on such claims as these. Putting them
aside, he is the author of what is emphaticaUy caUed Modem
Philosophy."* He is the originator of that great. system and
method of metaphysics, which, notwithstanding its errors, has
the undoubted merit of having, given a wonderful iinpulse to the
European mind, and communicated to it an activity which has
been been made avaUahle for other purposes of a different charac
ter. Besides this, and superior to it, there is another obUgation
which we are under to the memory of Descartes. He deserves
encounter considerable opposition." For this no authority is quoted; and yet one
would be glad to know who told Dr. WheweU that the discovery was readUy ac
cepted. So far from meeting in England with ready acceptance, it was during many
yeara alraost universaUy denied. Aubrey was assured by Harvey that in conse
quence of his book on the Circulation of the Blood he loat much of his practice, was
believed to be crackbrained, and was Opposed by " all the physicians." Aubrey's
Letters and Uves, vol U. p. 883. Dr. WUUs (Life of Harveij, p. xU, in Hanefs
Works, edit. Sydenham Society, 1847). saya, " Harvey s views were at first rejected
almost universaUy." Dr. EUiotaon (Human Physiology, p. 194) aays, " His mune-
diate reward waa general ridicule and abuae, and a grdat diminution of his practice."
Brouaaaia (Examen des Doctrines Medicales, vol. i. p. vu.) aays, " Harvey passa pour
fou quand U annonja la ddcouverte de la circulation." Finally, Sir William Temple,
who belongs to the generation subsequent to Harvey, aud who, indeed, was not
born until some years after the discovery was made, mentions it in his works m
such a manner as to show that even then it was not universally received by educa
ted men. See two curious passages, which have escaped the notice of the historians
of physiology, in Works of Sir W. Temple, voh in. pp. 293, 469, Svo, 1814.
"" " Taken by Descartes as thei basis of his physiology, in his work on Man."
WhewelVs Hist, of the Indue. Sciences, vol. iU. p. 441. " Ednd Descartes se ddclafa
un des premiera en faveur de la doctrine de' la circulation." Renouard, Eist de la
Mldeeine, vol. U. p. 163. See alao Bordas Demoulin, le Cartlsianisme, vol u. p. 324;
and CEuvres de Descartes, vol. i. pp. 68, 179, vol. iv. pp. 42,449, vol ix. pp..l69,|
332. Compare Willis's Ufe of Harvey, p. xiv. in Harvey's Works.
"¦" "Lea veinea blanches, diles lactdes, qu'AseUius a ddcouvertes depuis pea
dans le mdsentdre." De la Formation du Foetus, 'see. 49, in (Euvres de Descartes,
vol iv. p. 488.
'"' Even Harvey denied it to the last. Sprengel, Hist de la Mid. vol iv.pp-
203, 204. Compare Harvey's Works,' edit. Sydenham Soc. pp. 605, 614.
"" M. Couain (Hist, de la Philos. II. adrie, vol L p. 39) aaya of Descartes, "son
premier ouvrage dcrit eu franjaia eat de 1637. C'eat done de 1687 que date la phi-
loaophie moderne." See the aame work, I. adrie, vol. Ui. p. 77 ; and compare S(ew-
arts Philos. ofthe Mind, vol. i. pp. 14, 529, with Eloge de Parent, in (Euvres de
FonteneUe, Paris, 1766, vol v. p. 444, £^nd vol vi. p. 318 : " Cartdsien, ou, si I'on
veut, philosophe moderne."

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 421
the gratitude of posterity, not so much on account of what he
buUt up, as on account of what he puUed down. His life was
one great and successfiil warfare against the prejudices and tra
ditions of men. He was great as a creator, but he was far
greater as a destroyer. In this respect he was the true successor
of Luther, to whose labours his own were the fitting supplement.
He completed what the great German reformer had left un
done.'" He bore to the old systems of phUosophy precisely the
same relation that Luther bore to the old systems of religion.
He was the great reformer and Uberator of the European intel
lect. To prefer, therefore, even the most successful discoverers
of physical laws, to this great innovator and disturber of tradi
tion, is just as if we should prefer knowledge to freedom, and
beUeve that science is better than Uberty. We must, indeed,
always he grateful to those eminent thinkers, to whose labours
we are indebted for that vast body of physical truths which we
now possess. But, let us reserve the full measure of our hom
age for those far greater men, who have not hesitated to attack
and destroy the most inveterate prejudices; men who, by re
moving the pressure of tradition, have purffied the very source
and fountain of our knowledge, and secured its future progress,
hy casting off obstacles in presence of which progress was im
possible."" It wiU not he expected, perhaps it -wUl hardly he desired,
that I should enter into a complete detail of the phUosophy of
Descartes ; a phUosophy which, in England at least, is rarely
studied, and, therefore, is often attacked. But it yriU he necessa
ry to give such an accoimt of it as yrill show its analogy with
the anti-theological poUcy of EicheUeu, and yriU thus enable us
to see the fuU extent of that vast movement which took place
in France before the accession of Louis XIV. By this means,
we shaU he ahle to understand how the daring innovations of the
great mioister were so successful, since they were accompanied
and reinforced by corresponding innovations in the national in
teUect; thus affording an additional instance of the way in which
"Descartea avait dtabU dana le domaine de la pensde I'iuddpendance absolue
de la raison ; U avait ddclard t la scolastique et.k la thdologie que l'esprit de I'homme
ne pouvait plus relever que de I'dvidence qu'il aurait obtenue par lui-mdme. Ce
que Luther avait commencd dans la reUgion, le gdnicfransais si actif et si prompt
limportait dans la philosophie, et I'on pent dire a la double gloire de I'AUemagne
et de la France que Descartes est le fils aind de Luther." Lerminier, Philos. du
Droit, vol. II. p. 141. See alao, on the philosophy of Descartes as a product of the
Eeforraation, Wards Ideal of a Christian Church, p. 498.
A ¦ f"''/?^ Turgot finely aaya, "ce n'eat paa Terreur qui a'oppose aux progrds de
Ja vdritd. Ce sont la moUesse, I'entdtement, I'eaprit de routine, tout ce qui porte a
1 inaction. Pensles, in (Euvres de Tiirgot, vol. u. p. 848.

422 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
the poUtical history of every country is to he explained hy the
history of its inteUectual progress.
In 1637, when EicheUeu was at the height of his power,
Descartes pubUshed that great work which he had long heen
meditating, and which was the first open announcement of the
new tendencies of the French mind. To this work he gave the
name of a " Method ;" and, assuredly, the method is the most
aUen to what is commonly caUed theology that can possibly he
conceived. Indeed, so far from being theological, it is essentially
and exclusively psychological. The theological method rests on
ancient records, on tradition, on the voice of antiquity. The
method of Descartes rests solely on the consciousness each man
has of the operations of his own mind. And, lest anyone should
mistake the meaning of this, he, in subsequent works,- developed
it at great length, and vrith unrivaUed clearness. For his main
object was to popularize the views which he put forward. There
fore, says Descartes, " I write in French rather than in Latin,
hecause I trast that they who only employ their simple and
native reason wUl estimate my opinions more fairly than they
who only heUeve in ancient hooks.""' So strongly does he in
sist upon this, that almost at the beginning of : his first work, he
cautions his readers against the common error of looking to an
tiquity for knowledge; and he reminds them that " when men
are too curious to know the practices of past ages, they generally
remain very ignorant of their own.""'
Indeed, so far from foUowing the old plan of searching for
truth in the records of the past, the great essential of this new
philosophy is to wean ourselves from aU such, associations, and,
beginning the acquisition of knoyvledge by the work of. destruc
tion, first puU down, in order that afterwards we.may buUd up,'"
When I, says Descartes, set forth in the pursuit of truth, I
found that the best way was to reject every thing I had hitherto
received, and pluck out all my old opinions, in order that I
might lay the foundation of them afresh : beUeving that, by this
means, I should more easUy accompUsh the great scheme of life,
than by building on an old hasis, and supporting myself by prin
ciples which I had learned in my youth, -without examining if
''" " Et si j'dcris en franyais, qui est la langue de mon pays, plutot qu'en latin,
qui eat celle de mea prdcepteurs, c'est a cause que j'espfere que ceux qui ne se ser
vent que de leur raison natureUe toute pure, jugeront mieux de mes opiniona que
ceux qui ne croient qu'aux livres anciens." Discours de la Methods, in (Euvres m
Descartes, vol. i. pp. 210, 211.
='" B>id vol. i. p. 127.
°" " Er fing also vom Zweifel an, und ging durch denaelben zur Gewissheit
iiber." Tennemann, Gesch. der Philos. vol. x. p. 218. Compare Second Discours en
Sorbonne, in (Euvres de Turgot, vol. ii. p. 89.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 423
they were reaUy true."" " I, therefore, will occupy myself freely
and earnestly in effecting a general destruction of all my old
opinions."'" For, if we would know all the truths that can he
known, we must, in the first place, free ourselves from our preju
dices, and make a point of rejecting those things which we have
received, untU we have subjected them to a new examination.'"
We, therefore, must derive our opinions, not from tradition, hut
from ourselves. We must not pass judgment upon any subject
which we do not clearly and distinctly understand ; for, even if
such a judgment is correct, it can only be so hy accident, not
ha-ring soUd ground on which to support itself"' But, so far
are we from this state of indifference, that our memory is full of
prejudices :"* we pay attention to words rather than to things ;'"
and, being thus slaves to form, there are too many of us who
"beUeve themselves reUgious, when, in fact, they are bigoted
and superstitious ; who think themselves perfect because they
go much to church, because they often repeat prayers, hecause
they wear short hair, because they fast, hecause they give alms.
These are the men who imagine themselves such friends of God,
that nothing they do displeases Him ; men who, under pretence
of zeal, gratffy their passions hy committing the greatest crimes,
such as betraying toyvns, killing princes, exterminating na
tions : and aU this they do to those who yrill not change their
opinions.""" These were the words of wisdom which this great teacher
addressed to his countrymen only a few years after they had
brought to a close the last reUgious war that has ever heen
waged in France. The simUarity of these views to those which,
about the same time, were put forth hy ChUUngworth,'must
™ Disc, de la Mlthode, in (Euvres de Descartes, vol. i. p. 136.
'"^ " Je m'appUquerai sdrieusement et avec Ubertd i, ddtruire gdndralement toutes
mes anciennes opinions." Mlditations, in CEuvres de Descartes, vol. i. p. 236.
°^ Principes de la Philosophie, part i. sec. 75, in CEuvres de Descartes, vol ui.
pp. 117, 118 ; and compare vol U. p. 417, where he gives a striking illustration of
this -view.
^' Mlditations, in (Euvres de Descartes, voh i. pp. 803, 304.
™ "Nous avons rempU notre mdmoire de beaucoup de prdjugds." Principes de
la Philos. part l sec. 47, in CEuvres, vol iu. p. 91.
^^ (Emres, voh iU. p. 117.
" Ce qu'on peut particuUdrement remarquer en ceux qui, croyant dtre ddvots,
sont seuleraent bigots et auperatitieux, c'eat i dire qui, sous ombre qu'ils vont sou-
vent i I'dgUse, qu'ils rdcitent force prieres, qu'Us portent les cheveux courts, qu'ils
jetoent, qu'ila donnent I'aumone, pensent dtre entidreraent parfaits, et s'imaginent
qu'Us sont si grands amis de Dieu, qu'ils ne sauroient rien faire qui lui ddplaise, et
que tout ce que leur dicte leur passion est un bon zdle, bien qu'eUe leur dicte quel
quefois lea plua granda crimes qui puissent dtre comrais par des boraraes, corame
de trahir des villes, de tuer des princes, d'exterminer des peuples entiera, pour cela
seul qu'ils ne suivent paa leura opinions." Les Passions de VAme, in (Euvres de
Descartes, voh iv. pp. 194, 196.

424 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
strike every reader, but ought not to excite surprise ; for they
were but the natural products of a state of society in which the
right of private judgment, and the independence of the human
reason, were first soUdly established. If we examine this matter
a Uttle closer, we shall find stiU further proof of the analogy, be
tween France and England. So identical are the steps of .the
progress, that the relation which Montaigne hears to Descartes
is just the same as that which Hooker bears to ChiUingworth ;
the same in reference to the difference of time, and also in refer
ence to the difference of opinions. The nund of Hooker was
essentially sceptical ; but his genius was so restrained by the
prejudices of his age, that, unable to discern the supreme
authority of private judgment, he hampered it by .appeals to
councUs and to the general voice of ecclesiastical antiquity: - im
pediments which ChiUingworth, thirty years later, effectuaUy
removed. In precisely the same way,: Montaigne, like Hooker,
was sceptical ; but, Uke him, he, Uved at a period when the
spirit of douht was yet young, and when the mind stUl trembled
hefore the authority of the, church. It is, therefore, no wonder
that even Montaigne, who did so much for his age, should have
hesitated respecting the capacity of. men to-work out for them
selves great truths; and that, pausing in the; course Jhat lay be
fore him, his scepticism should often have assumed the^orm of
a distrast of the human faculties."' Such shortcomings^ and
such imperfections, are merely an evidence of the slow growth of
society, and of .the impossibility for even the greatest thinkers
to outstrip their contemporaries beyond a certain point. But,
¦with the advance of knowledge, this deficiency was at length
supplied; and, as the generation after Hooker brought forth
ChilUngworth, just so did the generation after Montaigne bring
forth Descartes. Both ChUUngworth and Descartes- were
eminently sceptical; hut their scepticism was directed, not
against the human inteUect, hut against those appeals, to
authority and tradition, without which it had hitherto been sup
posed that the intellect could not safely proceed. That thiswas
the case with Chillingworth, we have already seen. That it was
Ukewise the case with Descartes, is, if possible, stUl more appar
rent ; for that profound thinker heUeved, not only that the nund,
by its own efforts, could root out its most ancient opinions^ hut
that it could, without fresh aid, huUd up a new and soUd' sys
tem in place of the one which it had thrown down.""'
'"' As ia particularly evident in hia long chapter, headed " Apologie de Kaimdnd
Sebond." Essais de Montaigne, livie U. chap. xu. Paris, 1843, pp. 270-882; and
see Tennemann, Gesch. der Philos, vol. ix. p. 455.
^° He very clearly separates hiraself from men Uke Montaigne ; "Non que
j'iraitaaae pour cela les sceptiques, qui ne doutent que pour douter, et affeqtent

GENERiVL INTRODUCTION. 425
It is this extraordinary confidence in the power of the hu
man inteUect, which eminently characterizes Descartes, and has
given to his phUosophy that peculiar sublimity which distin
guishes it from all other systems. So far from thinking that a
knowledge of the external world is essential to the discovery of
truth, he laid it doyyn as a fundamental principle, that we must
begin by ignoring such knowledge ;"" that the first step is to
separate ourselves from the delusions of nature, and reject the
eridence presented to our senses."" For, says Descartes, nothing
is certain but thought ; nor are there any truths except those
which necessarUy foUow from the operation of our owm conscious
ness. We have no knowledge of our soul except as a thinking
substance ;'" and it were easier for us to'helieve that the soul
should cease to exist, than that it should cease to think."' And,
as to man himself, what is he hut the incarnation of thought ?
For that which constitutes the man, is not his bones, nor his
fiesh,.nor his blood*. These are the accidents, the incumbrances,
the impediments of his nature. But the man himself is the
thought. The inrisible me, the ultimate fact of existence, the
mystery of life, is this : "I am a thing that thinks." This,
therefore, is the beginning and the hasis of our knowledge.
d'etre toujours irrdaolus ; car, au contraire, tout mon deaaein ne tendoit qu'd m'assu-
rer, et k rejeter la terre mouvaute et le sable pour trouver le roc ou I'argile." Dis
cours de la Methods, in CEuvres de Descartes, vol. i. pp. 153, 154.
^_ According to the 'view of Descartes, it waa to be ignored, not denied. There
is no instance to be foimd in his worka of a denial of the exiatence of the external
world ; nor does the passage quoted from him by Mr. Jobert (New System of Philos.
vol U. pp. 161, 162, Lond. 1849) at aU justify the interpretation of that ingeuioua
writer, who confuses certainty in the ordinary sense of the word with certainty in
the Cartesian sense. A simUar error is made by those who suppoae that hia " Je
penae, donc je suis " is an enthymeme ; and having taken this for granted, they turn
ou the great phUosopher, and accuse hira of begging the question! Such critics
overlook the difference between a logical process and a psychological one ; and
therefore they do not see that this faraoua sentence waa the deacription of a mental
fact, and not the statement of a mutilated syUogism. The student of the phUoao
phy of Deacartea muat always distinguish between these two proceaaes, and remem
ber that each process has an order of proof peculiar to itself; or at aU events he
must remember that such was the opinion of Descartes. Compare, on the Cartesian;
enthymeme. Cousin, Hist, de la Philos. I. sdrie, vol iv. pp. 512, 613, with a note in
-^"mo* *»- 'reinen Vernunft, Kants Werke, vol. U. pp. 323, 324.
y,,, Mlditations, in CEmres de Descartes, vol. i. pp. 220, 226 ; and again in the
Objections et R^onses, (Euvres, vol. U. pp. 245, 246.
"Au Ueu que, lorsque nous tachona a connoitre pliis diatinctement notre
nature, nous pouvons vofr que notre arae, en tant qu'eUe eat une aubstance diatincte
du corpa, ne noua eat connue que par cela aeul qu'eUe penae." CEuvres de Descartes,
iZ'S'-J'^'^' ^°°|P''''8 Tol- "i- P- 96. Principes de la Philosophie, part i. sec. 53.
Jin sorte^ qu'U me seroit bien plus aisd de croire que 1 Sme ceaaeroit d'etre
quand, on m qu'eUe cesse de penser, que non pas de concevoir qu'eUe soit sana
penade. (Euvres de Descartes, vol. viU. p. 574. That "the aoul alwaya thinka,"
IS a conclusmn alao arrived at by Berkeley by a different process. See his subtle
argument, Pnnciples of Human Knowledge, part i. sec. 98, in Berkeley's Works,
B J ''i! -^It' ^""^ ^°'' "¦ '^""'"'^ application of thia to the theory of dreaming, aee
Burdach, Physiologie comme Science d! Observation, vol. v. pp. 205, 280.

426 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
The thought of each man is the last element to which analysis
can carry us ; it is the supreme judge of every douht ; it is the
starting-point for all wisdom,'"
Taking our stand on this ground, we rise, says Descartes, to
the perception of the existence of the Deity, For, our beUef
in his existence is an irrefragable proof that he exists. Other
wise whence does the heUef arise ? Since nothing can come out
of nothing, and since no effect can he without a cause, it foUows
that the idea we have of God must have an origin; and this
origin, whatever name we give it, is no other than God."* Thus,
the ultimate proof of His. existence is our idea of it. Instead,
therefore, of saying that we know ourselves because we beUeve
in God, -we should rather say that we heUeve in God because we
know ourselves.'" This is the order and precedence of things.
The thought of each man is sufficient to prove His existence,
and it is the only proof we can ever possess. Such, therefore, is
the dignity and supremacy of the human inteUect, that even
this, the highest of aU matters, flows from it, as from its sole
source."" Hence, our reUgion should not he acquired by the
teaching of others, hut should he worked out by ourselves ; it is
not to he borrowed from antiquity, but it is to he discovered hy
each man's mind ; it is not traditional, hut personal. It is he-
cause this great truth has heen neglected, that impiety has
arisen. If each man were to content himself with that idea of
God which is suggested hy his oyyn mind, he would attain to a
true knowledge of the Divine Nature. But when, instead of
confining himself to this, he mixes up vrith it the, notions of
others, his ideas become perplexed ; they contradict themselves ;
and, the composition being thus confused, he often ends by
denying the existence, not, indeed, of God, but of such a God
as that in whom he has heen taught to heUeve.'"
'^ CEuvres de Descartes, vol. i. pp. 251, 252, 279, 293, vol U. pp. 252, 283.
°°* Ibid, vol. i. p. 419 ; and at p. 420 : " Or de tout cela on conclut trds.'mani-
featement que Dieu exiate." See alao pp. 169-162, 280, 290, 291. But the simplest
statement ia in a letter to Mersenne (vol viii. p. 629) : " J'ai tird la preuve de
I'exiatence de Dieu de I'idde que je trouve en moi d'un etre souverainement parfait."
!S6 u^jjjgj^ quoique, de ceque je suis, je conclue avec certitude que Dieu est,
je ne puia rdciproquement affirmer, de ce que Dieu eat, que j'exiate." Regies pour
la Direction de VEsprii, in (Euvres, vol. xi. p. 274. See also Principes de la Philos
ophic, part i. aee. 7, vol. Ui. p. 66.
°'° On thia famoua argument, which it ia said was also broached by Anselm, see
King's Life of Locke, vol. ii. p. 138; the Benedictine Hist Lit de la France, vol
ix. pp. 417, 418 ; Mosheim's Eccles, Hist vol i. p. 239 ; and Cudworth's Intellect
Syst vol iii. p. 883.
™ " Et certes jamais lea homraes ne pourroient s'dloigner de la vraie connoissance
de cette nature divine, s'ils vouloient seulement porter leur attention sur I'idde qu'ils
ont de I'dtre souverainement parfait. Mais ceux qui melent quelquea autres iddes
avec celle-ia, composent par ce moyen un dieu chimdrique, en la nature duquel U y a
des choses qui se contrarieut ; et, aprds I'avoir aiuai composd, ce n'eat paa merveiUe

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 427
The mischief which these principles must have done to the
old theology is very obvious.'" Not only were they fatal, in the
minds of those who received them, to many of the common dog
mas — such, for instance, as that of transubstantiation,"" — but
they were likewise directly opposed to other opinions, equally
indefensible, and far more dangerous. For Descartes, by found
ing a philosophy which rejected aU authority except that of the
human reason,'*" was, of course, led to abandon the study of
final causes,'*' — an old and natural superstition, hy which, as
we shaU hereafter see, the German phUosophers were long im
peded, and which stiU hangs, though somewhat loosely, ahout
the minds of men.'" At the same time, by superseding the
geometry of the ancients, he aided in weakening that inordinate
respect yrith which antiquity was then regarded. In another
matter, stiU more important, he displayed the same spirit, and
met with the same success. With such energy did he attack
the infiuence, or rather the tyranny of Aristotle, that although
the opinions of that phUosopher were intimately interwoven with
s'ils nient qu'un tel dieu, qui leur est reprdaentd par une fauaae idee, existe." CEimres
de Descartes, vol i. pp. 428, 424.
"'' This ia deUcately but clearly indicated in an able letter from Arnaud, printed
in (Euvres de Descartes, vol ii. pp. 1-36 ; aee in particular pp. 31, 84. And Ducloa
bluntly aaya : " Si depuia la rdvolution que Descartes a commencde, les thdologiens se
sont dloignds des phUoaophea, c'est que ceux-ci ont paru ne pas 'respecter infiniment
les thdologiens. Une plulosophie qui prenoit pour base le doute et I'examen devoit
lea effaroucher." Duclos, Memoires, voh l p. 109.
. '"" On the relation of the Carteaian phUosophy to the doctrine of transubstantia-
tion, compare Palmer's Treatise on ihe Church, vol. U. pp.' 169, 170, viitli HallamCs
Ut. of Europe, vol ii. p. 453 ; and the remark ascribed to Hobbes, in Aubrey's Lei
ters and Uves, vol. U. p. 626. , But Hobbes, if he reaUy made thia obaervation, had
no right to expect Deacartea to become a martyr.
^*° ," Le caractdre de la phUoaophie du moyen dge est la soumiasion k une autoritd
autre que la raiaon. La philosophie moderne ne reconnalt que le'autorild de la raison.
C'est le cartdaianiame qui a opdre cette rdvolution decisive." Cousin, Hist, de la
Philos, II. sdrie, vol i. pp. 258, 259.
'*' " Nous rejetterons entidreraent de notre phUosophic la recherche des causes
finales.'' Principes de la Philos. part l sec. 28, in (Euvres de Descartes, vol. iii. p.
81. See also part iu. sec. 8, p. 182; and his reply to Gassendi, in (Euvres, voh U. pp.
280, 281. Compare Cousin, Hist, de la Philosophie, II. sdrie, vol. U. p. 71, with
Sprengel, Hist de la Mldeeine, voh v. p. 203.
'*" Dr. WheweU, for instance, says, that we must reject final causes iu the inor
ganic aciencea, but must recognize them in the organic ones ; which, in other words,
simply meana, that we know lesa of the organic world than of the inorganic, and that
because we know leaa, we are to beUeve more ; for here, aa every where else, the
smaUer the science the greater the superatitiou. WhewelVs Philos. of ihe Inductive
Sciences, Svo, 1847, vol. i. pp. 620, 627, 628 ; and his Hist of ihe Indue. Sciences, voh
iii. pp. 430, 431. If the question were to be decided by authority, it would be enough
to appeal to Bacon and Descartes, the two greatest writers on the phUosophy of
raethod in the seventeenth century, and to Auguste Comte, who is admitted by the
few persons who have mastered his Philosophie Positive, to be the greatest in our
own time. These profound and comprehensive thinkers have aU rejected the study
of final cauaes, •which, aa they have clearly aeen, is a theological invasion of scientific
rights. On the injury which this atudy has wrought, and on the check it has given
to the advance of our knowledge, aee Robin et Verdeil, Chimie Anat Paris, 1853,

428 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
the Christian theology,'*' his authority was entirely overthrown
hy Descartes ; and with it there perished those scholastic preju
dices, for which Aristotle, indeed, was not responsible, but
which, under the shelter of his mighty name, had, during sev
eral centuries, perplexed the understandings of men, and re
tarded the progress of their knowledge.''**
These were the principal services rendered to civiUzation by
one of the greatest men Europe has ever produced. The analogy
between him and EicheUeu is very striking, and is as complete
as their relative positions would aUow. The same disregard of
ancient notions, the same contempt for theological interests, the
same indifference to tradition, the same determination to prefer
the present to the past : in a word, the same essentiaUy modem
spirit, is seen aUke in the writings of Descartes, and in the ac
tions of EicheUeu. What the fiirst was to phUosophy, that was
the other to poUtics. But, whUe acknowledging the merits of
these eminent men, it behoves us to remember that their success
was the result, not only of their own ahiUties, hut Ukewise of the
general temper of their time. The nature of their labours de^
pended on themselves ; the way in which their labours were re
ceived, depended on their contemporaries. Had they Uved in a
more superstitious age, their views would have heen disregarded,
or, if noticed, would have been execrated as impious h6velties.
In the fifteenth, or early in the sixteenth century, the genius of
Descartes and of EicheUeu would have lacked, the materials
necessary to their work ; their comprehensive minds would, in
that state of society, have found no play; they' would have
awakened no sympathies; their bread would ha-T^e been cast
upon those waters which return it not again. And it would
have been weU for them if, in such a case, indifference were the
vol i. pp. 489, 493, 494, vol il p. 556 ; Renouard, Hist, de la Mldeeine, vol. i. pp.
232, 287 ; Sprengel, Hist, de la Medecine, vol ii. p. 220 ; Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, Eist.
des Anomalies de V Organisation, vol iu. pp. 485, 436 ; Herder, Ideen zwr Gesch. dfir
Menschheit, vol. Ui. p. 270; Laurencis Lectures on Man, p!%^; a,ni Burdach, Traite
de Physiologie, vol i. p. 190.
2M 11 ^uf ^ag innigste verbunden mit der Theologie, nicht aUem in den, katholi-
echen, sondern aelbst auch in den protestantischen Laudern." Tennemann, Gesch: der
Philos. voh ix. p. 516. Descartea, in a letter to Mersenne ((Emires, vol. vi. p. 73),
writes, in 1629, " La thdologie, laqueUe on a teUement assujettie a Aristote, qu'U est
impossible d'expliquer une autre phUosophie qu'U ne semble d'abord. qu'eUe soit cen
tre la foi" Compare vol vu. p. ,344, vol viil p. 281, 497.
^"J)r. Brown (Philosophy of the Mind, 'Edinb. 1838, p. 172) caUa Descartes "that
iUustrious rebel, who, in overthrowing the authority of Aristotle," &c. See also Du
vernet, Hist de la Sorbonne, 'vol U. p. 192 ; Cumer, Hist des Sciences,-, part U. p. 532;
and Locke's Works, vol. iU. p. 48. Thia, I need hardly say, refera to the habit of
"PPejhfg to Ariatptle aa if he were infalUble, and ia very different from that respect
which is naturaUy felt for a man who was probably the greatest of aU the ancient
thmkers. The difference between the AriatoteUau and Cartesian systems is touched
ou rather hastily in Cudworth's Intellect Syst vol. i. pp. 170, 171.

GENEEAL INTRODUCTION. 429
only penalty with which they would be visited. It would have
heen weU if they had not paid the forfeit incurred by many of
those iUustrious thinkers who have vainly attempted to stem the
torrent of human creduUty. It would have heen well if the
church had not risen in her wrath, — if EicheUeu had not been
executed as a traitor, and Descartes bumed as a heretic.
Indeed, the mere fact that two such men, occupying so con
spicuous a place hefore the puhUc eye, and enforcing views so
obnoxious to the interests of superstition, should have Uved with
out serious danger, and then have died peaceably in their bed,
— the mere fact that this should have happened, is a decisive
proof of the progress which, during fifty years, had been made
by the French nation. With such rapidity were the prejudices
of that great people dying away, that opinions utterly subver
sive of theological traditions, and fatal to the whole scheme of
ecclesiastical power, were with impunity advocated by Descartes,
and put in practice hy EicheUeu. It was now clearly seen, that
the two foremost men of their time could, with little or no risk,
openly propagate ideas which, half a century before, it would
have been accounted dangerous even for the most obscure man
to whisper in the privacy of his own chamber.
Nor are the causes of this impunity difficult to understand.
They are to he found in the diffusion of that sceptical spirit, by
which, in France as weU as in England, toleration was preced
ed. For, yrithout entering into detaUs which would be too long
for the limits of this Introduction, it is enough to say, that
French Uterature generaUy was, at this period, distinguished hy
a freedom and a boldness of inquiry, of which, England alone ex
cepted, no example had then been seen in Europe. The gene
ration which had listened to the teachings of Montaigne and of
Charron, was now succeeded hy another generation, the dis
ciples, indeed, of those eminent men, hut disciples who far out
stripped their masters. The result was, that, during the thirty
or forty years which preceded the power of Louis XIV.,^*' there
was not to he found a single Frenchman of note who did not
share in the general feeling, — ^not one who did not attack some
ancient dogma, or sap the foundation of some old opinion. This
fearless temper was the characteristic of the ablest writers of that
time ;'*" but what is stUl more observable is, that the movement
Thatia, in 1661, when Louis XTV. first assumed the government.
™ M. Barante (Tableau de la Uttirature Frangaise, pp. 26, 27) notices "cette
inddpendance dans lea iddes, ce jugement audacieux de toutes chosea, qu'on remarque
dana ComeUle; dana Mdzdray, dans Balzac, dana Saint-Edal,'dana Lamqthe-Levayer."
To these may be added Naudd, Patin, and probably Gaaaendi. ^fiompare Hallam's
Uterat of Europe,.vo\. n. pp. 364, 865, with Mackintosh's EtMM Philos. p. 116,
and Utires de Patin, voh i. p. 297, vol. u. pp. 83, 186, 191, 242M42, 490, 608, voh
iU. p. 87.

430

CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.

spread with such rapidity as to include in its action even those
parts of society which are invariably the last to be affected by
it. That spirit of douht, which is the necessary precursor of all
inquiry, and therefore of aU soUd improvement, owes its origin to
the taost thinking and inteUectual parts of society, and is natu
raUy opposed hy the other parts : opposed hy the nobles, hecause
it is dangerous to their interests ; opposed hy the uneducated,
because it attacks their prejudices. This is one of the reasons
why neither the highest nor the lowest ranks are fit to conduct
the government of a cirilized country ; since both of them, not
yrithstanding indi'ridual exceptions, are, in the aggregate,
averse to those reforms which the exigencies of an advancing
nation constantly require. But in France, hefore the middle of
the seventeenth century, even these classes began to participate
in the great progress ; so that, not only among thoughtful men,
hut Ukeyrise among the ignorant and the frivolous, there was
seen that inquisitive and incredulous disposition, which, whatever
may, he said against it, has at least this pecuUarity, that, in its
absence, there is no instance to he found of the establishment of
those principles of toleration and of liberty, which have'only been
recognized with infinite difficulty, and after many a hard-fought
battle against prejudices whose inveterate tenacity might almost
cause them to he deemed a part of the original constitution of
the human mind.'*'
It is no wonder if, under these circumstances, the specula
tions of Descartes and the actions of EicheUeu should have met
with great success. The system.of Descartes exercised immense
influence, and soon pervaded nearly every branch of knowledge.'*"
"" The increase of increduUty waa so remarkable, as to give rise to a ridiculous
assertion, " qu'U y avoit plus de 50,000 Athdes dans Paris vera I'an 1623." Baillet,
Jugemens des Savans, Paria, 1722, 4to, vol i.p. 186. BaUlet haa iio difliculty in re
jecting this preposterous statement (which is also noticed in Coleridge's Uterary Re
mains, vol i. p. 305 ; where, however, there ia apparently a confuaion between two
different perioda) ; but the spread of scepticism among the upper ranks and courtiers,
during the reign of Louia XIII. and the minority of Louis XIV., is attested by a
great variety of evidence. See Mlm. de Madame de MottevUle, vol. Ui. p. 52 ;' Mkn.
de Retz, vol i. p. 266 ; Conrart, Mlm. p. 235 note ; Des Rlaux, Historiettes, vol vu.
p. 148 ; Mem. de Brienne, vol u. p. 107 note.
"' Volumes might be written on the influence of Descartes, which was seen, not
only in subjects immediately connected with hia phUoaophy, but even in thoae appa
rently remote from it. Corapare Broussais, Examen des Doctrines Mldicales, vol ii.
pp. 55 aeq. ; Lettres de Patin, vol. iU. p. 153 ; Sprengel, Hist, de la Medeeine,'vol. iv.
p. 238 ; Cwvicr, Hist des Sciences, part il pp. 327, 332, 852, 363 ; Staudlin, Geschichte
der theologischen Wissenschaften, vol. i. p. 263 ; Tennemann, Gesch. der Philos. vol
X. pp.^86 aeq. ; Huetius de Rebus ad eum pertinentibus, pp. 36, 295,296, 386-389;
Mosheim's Eccles. Hist. vol. u. p, 258; Dacier, Rapport Historique, p. 334; Leslies
Nat. Philos. p. 121 ; Eloges, in (Euvres do FonteneUe, Paris, 1766, vol v. pp. ,94, 106,
137, 197, 234, 3^«||rol vi. pp. 167, 318, 449 ; ThomsorCs Hist, of Chemistry, vol i.
p. 195; QuerardjBl'ance Ut. vol. iii. p. ils.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 431
The policy of EicheUeu was so firmly established, that it was
continued yrithout the slightest difficulty by his immediate suc
cessor : nor was any attempt made to reverse it until that for
cible and artificial reaction which, under Louis XIV., was fatal,
for a rime, to every sort of ci-ril and reUgious liberty. The his
tory of that reaction, and the way in which, hy a counter-reac
tion, the French Eevolution was prepared, woU he related in the
subsequent chapters of this volume; at present we wUl resume
the thread of those events which took place in France hefore
Louis XIV. assumed the govemment.
A few months after the death of EicheUeu, Louis XIII. also
died, and the crown was inherited by Louis XIV., who was then
a chUd, and who for many years had no infiuence in public
affairs. During his minority, the government was admiiUstered,
avowedly by his mother, but in reality hy Mazarin ; a man who,
though in every point inferior to EicheUeu, had imbibed some
thing of his spirit, and who, so far as he was ahle, adopted the
poUcy of that great statesman, to whom he owed his promo
tion.'*" He, influenced partly hy the example of his predeces
sor, partly hy his own character, and partly hy the spirit of his
age, showed no desire to persecute the Protestants, or to disturb
them in any of the rights they then exercised."" His first act
was to confirm the Edict of Nantes ;'" and, towards the close of
his life, he even aUowed the Protestants again to hold those
synods which their own violence had h6en the means of inter-
rupting."^ Between the death of EicheUeu and the accession to
power of Louis XIV., there elapsed a period of nearly twenty
years, during which Mazarin, with the exception of a few inter
vals, was at the head of the state ; and in the whole of that
time, I have found no instance of any Frenchman being punish
ed for his reUgion. Indeed, the new government, so far from
protecting the church by repressing heresy, displayed that indif
ference to ecclesiastical interests which was now becoming a
settled maxim of French poUcy. EicheUeu, as we have already
™ On the connexion between RicheUeu and Mazarin, see Sismondi, Hist dea
Franfais, -vol. xxui. pp. 400, 530 ; and a curious, though, perhaps, apocryphal anec
dote in Tallemant des Rlaux, Historiettes, vol. U. pp. 231, 232. In 1636 there was
noticed "I'dtroite union" between EicheUeu and Mazarin. Le Vassor, Hist de
Louis XIII, vol viil part ii. p. 187.
''"' '; Mazarin n'avoit ni fanatisme ni esprit persdcuteur." Sismondi, Hist des
Jiranfau -vol xxiv p. 631. That he did not persecute the Protestants is grudgingly
confessed in Felice's Hist of ihe Protestants of France, p. 292. See ^Iso Smidley's
Reformed Religion m France, vol. iU. p. 222.
=" He confirmed it m July, 1643. See Benoist, Hist de VEdit de Nantes, voh ui.
appendix, p. 3 ; and Quick's Synodicon in Gallia, vol. i. p. cul
In 1659, there was assembled the Synod of Loudun, the moderator of which
Gdr T ""'' ^r° ''^™ °""'* ^^ ^^^ * national synod." Qi^'s Synodicon in

432 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
seen, had taken the bold step of placing Protestants at the head
ofthe royal armies ; and this he had done upon the simple princi
ple, that one of the first duties of a statesman is to employ' for the
benefit of the country the ablest men he can find, withoutregard
to their theological opinions, with which, as he well knew, no
government has any concern. But Louis XIII.,-whose personal
feeUngs were always opposed to the enlightened measures of his
great minister, was offended by this magnanimous disregard of
ancient prejudices ; his piety was shocked at the idea of Cath
oUc soldiers being commanded by heretics ; and, as we are as
sured by a weU-informed contemporary, he determined to put an
end to this scandal to the church, and, for the future, alloyy no
Protestant to receive the staff of marshal of France.'" Wheth
er the king, if he had Uved, would have carried his point, is
doubtful ;"* but what is certain is, that, only four months after
his death, this appointment of marshal was bestowed upon Tu
renne, the most able of aU the Protestant generals.'" And in
the very next year, Gassion, another Protestant, was raised to
the same dignity; thus affording the strange spectacle of the
highest military power in a great Catholic country wielded hy
two men against whose religion the church was never weary of
directing her anathemas."" In a simUar spirit, Mazarin, on mere
grounds of poUtical expediency, concluded an intimate alUance
yrith CromweU ; an usurper who, in the opinion of the theolo
gians, was doomed to perdition, since he was soUed by the triple
crime of rebeUion, of heresy, and of regicide.^" Finally, one of the
last acts of this pupil of Eichelieu's"' was to sign the celebrated
"^ Brienne records the determination of the king, " que cette dignitd ne seroit
plus accordde a des protestans." Sismondi, Histoire des Franfais, vol. xxiv. p. 55.
'^^ He was so uneasy about the sin he had committed, that just before his death
he entreated the Protestant marshals to change their creed : " II ne voulut pas
mourir sans avoir exhortd de sa propre bouche les marechaux de la Force et de Cha
tiUon a se faire CathoUques." Benoist, Hist, de VEdit de Nantes, vol U. p. 612,
The same circumstance is mentioned by Le Vassor, Hist, de Louis XIII, vol. x. part
u. p. 785.
'""' Louis Xin. died in May, 1643, and Turenne was made marshal in the Septem
ber foUowing. LavaUle, Hist, des Franfais, vol. iii. pp. 148, 161.
'"'' Sismondi (Hist, des Frangais, vol. xxiv. p. 65) raakes the appointment of Gas
sion in 1644; according to Montglat (Mimoires, vol i. p. 437) it was at the end of
1643. There are some singular anecdotes of Gassion in Les Historiettes de Tallemant
des Rlaux, vol v. pp. 167-180 ; and an account of his death in Mlm. de Mottemlle,
voh U. p. 290, from which it appears that he remained a Protestant to the last.
'"' The Pope especiaUy waa offended by thia alUance (Ranke, die Papste, vql jjl-
p. 158, compared with VaugharCs Cromwell, vol. i. p. 843, vol. ii. p. 124); and, judg
ing from the language of Clarendon, tbe orthodox party in England was irritated by
it. _ Clarendon's Hist, of ihe Rebellion, pp. 699, 700. Contemporary notices of thi
union between the cardinal and the regicide, will be found iu Mem, de Retz, vol. i. p.
349 ; Mlm. de Montglat, vol u. p. 478, vol Ui. p. 23 ; Lettres de Patin, vol ii. PP-
183, 302, 4:'i,e;Marchand, Diet Historique, vol. U. p. 56; Mem, of Sir PhUip-War'
wick, p. SII ¦ pnh-is's Uves of ihe Stuarts, vol. iu. p. S9S. ' __
""" De Eetz (Mimoires, vol. i. p. 59), who knew EicheUeu, calls Mazarin " son cBs-

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 433
treaty of the Pyrenees, by which ecclesiastical interests were
seriously weakened, and great injury inflicted on him who was
StiU considered to be the head of the church.""
But, the circumstance for which the administration of Maza
rin is most remarkable, is the breaking out of that great civil war
called the Fronde, in which the people attempted to carry into
poUtics the insubordinate spirit which had already displayed
itself in literature and in reUgion. Here we cannot faU to note
the simUarity between this struggle and that which, at the same
time, was taking place in England. It would, indeed, be far from
accurate to say that the two events were the counterpart of each
other ; hut there can be no doubt that the analogy between them
is very striking. In both countries, the civil war was the flrst
popular expression of what had hitherto heen rather a specula
tive, and, so to say, a Uterary scepticism. In both countries,
increduUty was followed hy rebeUion, and the abasement of the
clergy preceded the humiUation of the crown ; for EicheUeu was
to the French church what Elizabeth had been to the English
church. In both countries, there now first arose that great pro
duct of civiUzation, a free press, which showed its Uberty hy
pouring forth those fearless and innumerable works which mark
the activity of the age.'"" In both countries, the struggle was
ciple." And at p. 66 he adds, " comme U marcboit sur les pas du cardinal de Eiche
Ueu, qui avoit achevd de ddtruire toutes les anciennes maximes de I'dtat." Compare
Mem, de Moiteville, vol. u. p. 18 ; and Mim. de la Rochefoucauld, vol i. p. 444.
°'" On the open affront to the Pope by this treaty, aee Ranke, die Papste, vol. iu. p.
159 : "An dem pyrenaischen Frieden nahm er auch nicht einmal mehr einen schein-
baren AntheU : man vermied ea seine Abgeordneten zuzulassen : kaum wurde aeiner
noch darin gedacht." The conaequencea and the meaning of aU thia are weU noticed
by M. Ranke.
^^'' " La preaae jouiasait d'une entidre Ubertd pendant les troubles de la Fronde, et
le pubUc prenait un tel intdret aux ddbata poUtiquea, que les pamphlets se ddbitaient
quelquefois au nombre de huit et dix mUle exemplaires." Sainte-Aulaire, Hist, de
la Fronde, vol. i. p. 299. Tallemant des Edaux, who wrote immediately after the
Fronde, aaya (Historiettes, vol iv. p. 74), " Durant la Fronde, qu'on iraprimoit tout."
And Omer Talon, with the indignation natural to a magiatrate, mentiona, that in
1649, " toutea sortea de Ubellea et de diffamationa ae pubUoient hautement par la
viUe aana permission du raagistrat." Mkn. dOmer Talon, vol U. p. 466. For fur
ther evidence of the great importance of the press in France in the middle of the
seventeenth century, aee Mlm. de Unci, vol. i. p. 162 ; Mem, de MottevUle, vol. Ui.
pp. 288, 289 ; Lettres de Patin, vol. I p. 432, vol U. p. 617 ; Monteil, Hist des divert
Etats, vol vu. p. 175.
In England, the Long ParUament aucceeded to the licenaing authority of the
Star-oha,mber (Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. iv. p. 152) ; but it is evident from tbe
literature of that time, that for a considerable period the power was in reaUty in
abeyance. Both parties attacked each other freely through the press ; and it is said,
that between the breaking out of the civU war and the restoration, there were pub
Ushed from 30,000 to 60,000 pamphlets. Morgan's Phoenix Briiannicus, 1731, 4to,
pp. lu. 557; Carlyle's Cromwell, voh i. p. 4; Southey's Commonplace Book, third se
ries, p. 449. See also, on this great raovement of the press, Bates's Account of the
late Troubles, part i. p. 78 ;• Bulstrode's Memoirs, p. 4 ; HowelVs Letters, p. 364 ; Hunts
Eist of Newspapers, vol. i. p. 45 ; Clarendon's Hist, of the RebeUion, p. 81 ; Nich
ols's Ut. Anec. vol. iv. pp. 86, 102.
VOL.' I.— 28

434 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
between retrogression and progress ; between those who clung to
tradition, and those who longed for innovation ; while in both,
the contest assumed the external form of a war between Mng and
parUament, the Mng being the organ of the past, the parUament
the representative of the present. And, not to mention inferior
simUarities, there was one other point of vast importance in which
these two great events coincide. This is, that both of them were
eminently secular, and arose from the desire, not of propagating
reUgious opinions, hut of securing civU Uberty. The temporal
character of the EngUsh rebellion I have already noticed, and,
indeed, it must he obvious to whoever has studied the evidence
in its original sources. In France, not only do we find the same
result, but yve can even mark the stages of the progress. In the
middle of the sixteenth century, a,nd immediately after the death
of Henry IIL, the French civU wars were caused by religious
disputes, and were carried on with the fervour of a crusade.
Early in the seventeenth century, hostUities again broke out ;
hut though the efforts of the government were directed against
the Protestants, this was not hecause they were heretics, biit he-
cause they were rebels : the object being, not to punish an opin
ion, hut to control a faction. This was the first great .stage in
the history of toleration ; and it was accompUshed, as we have
already seen, during the reign of Louis XIIL That genera,tion
passing away, there arose, in the next age, the wars ofthe Fronde ;
and in this, which may he caUed the second stage of the French
intellect, the alteration was stUl more remarkable. For, in the
meantime, the principles of the great sceptical tMnkers, from
Montaigne to Descartes, had produced their natural fruit, and,
becoming diffused among the educated classes, had influenced,
as they always yriU do, not only those by whom they were re
ceived, hut also those hy whom they were rejected. Indeed, a
mere knowledge of the fact, that the most eminent men have
thrown doubt on the poputar opinions of an age, can never faU,
in some degree, to disturb the convictions even of those by whom
the doubts are ridiculed.'" In such cases, none are entirely safe :
the firmest heUef is apt to become sUghtly unsettled ; those who
outwardly preserve the appearance of orthodoxy, often uncon
sciously waver ; they cannot entirely resist the infiuence of supe
rior minds, nor can they always avoid an unwelcome suspicion,
that when abUity is on one side, and ignorance on the other, it
'" Dugald Stewart (Philos. of the Mind, vol i. p. 357) says, " Nothing can be
more just than tbe observation of FonteneUe, that 'the number of those who be
Ueve in a systera already estabUshed in the world, does not, in the least, add to its
credibility ; but that the number of those who doubt of it, has a tendency to dimin
ish it.' " Compare with this, Newman on Development, Loud. 1845, p. 31 ; and the
remark of Hylas in Berkeley's Works, edit. 1843, vol. i. pp. 151, 162, first ^alogue.

GENERAL INTEODUCTION. 435
is barely possible that the ahUity may be right, and the ignor
ance may be wrong.
Thus it feU out in France. In that country, as in every
other, when theological convictions diminished, theological an
imosities subsided. Formerly religion had been the cause of
war, and had also heen the pretext under which it was con
ducted. Then there came a time when it ceased to he the cause;
hut so slow is the progress of society, that it was stUl found
necessary to set it up as the pretext.'"' FinaUy, there came the
great days of the Fronde, in wMch it was neither cause nor pre
text ;"' and in wMch there was seen, for the first time in
France, an arduous straggle hy human beings avowedly for hu
man purposes ; a war waged hy men who sought, not to enforce
their opinions, hut to increase their Uberty. And, as if to make
this change stUl more striMng, the most eminent leader of the
insurgents was the Cardinal de Eetz ; a man of vast abiUty, but
whose contempt for Ms profession was notorious,'"* and of whom
a great historian has said, " he is the first bishop in France who
carried on aci-yUwar yrithout maMng reUgion the pretence."'".'
We have thus seen that, during the seventy years which
succeeded the accession of Henry IV., the French inteUect de
veloped itself in a manner remarkably simUar to that which took
place in England, We have seen that, in both countries, the
mind, according to the natural conditions of its growth, first
doubted what it had long heUeved, and then tolerated what it
had long hated. That this was by no means an accidental or
™ Compare Capefigu^s Richelieu, vol. i. p. 298, with a remarkable paasage in
Mhn. de Rohan, vol. i. p. 317 ; where Rohan contrasts the reUgious wars he was en
gaged in during the administration of RicheUeu, with those very different wars which
had been waged in France a Uttle earUer.
26S "L'egprit reUgieux ne a'dtait mdld en aucune manidre aux querellea de la
Fronde." Capefigue, vol. U. p. 434. Lenet, who had great influence with what waa
caUed the party of the princea, saya that he alwaya avoided any attempt "i faire
aboutir notre parti & une guerre de reUgion." Mlm. de Lenet, vol i. p. 319. Even
the people aaid that it was unimportant whether or not a man died a Protestant ;
but that if he were a partisan of Mazarin, he was sure to be damned: "Ils disoient
qu'dtant mazarin, U faUoit qu'U fut damnd." Lenet, vol i. p.' 434.
™* Indeed he does not conceal this even in his memoirs. He says (Mlm. vol.
'¦ ?-.*.)'. ,^® ,^** ." ^'^'''® peut-dtre la moins eccldsiastique qui fut dans I'univers." At

s,ance. See also the remark of hie great friend July (Mem, de Joly, p. 209, edit. Petitot,
1825) ; and the account given by TaUemant dea Rdaux, who knew De Retz well, and
had traveUed with him, Historiettes, vol vii. pp. 18-30. The aame tendency ia Ulus
trated, though in a much smaUer degree, by a conversation which Charles IL, when
m exile, held with De Retz, and which ia preserved in Clarendon's Hist of the Re
bellion, p. 806, and is worth consulting merely as an instance of the purely secular
view that De Retz always took of poUtical affairs.
^•i" "Cet homme smguUer est le premier dveque en France qui ait, fait une guerre
civile sans avoir la religion pour prdtexte." Siecle de Louis XIV, in CEmres de
Voltaire, voh^ix. p. 26L^ ¦

436 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
capricious combination, is erident, not only from general argu
ments, and from the analogy of the two countries, hut also from
another circumstance of great interest. TMs is, that the order
of events, and as it were their relative proportions, were the
same, not only in reference to the increase of toleration, hut also
in reference to the increase of Uterature and science. In both
countries, the progress of knowledge bore the same ratio to the
decline of ecclesiastical influence, although they manifested that
ratio at different periods. We had begun to throw off our su
perstitions somewhat earUer than the French were able to do ;
and thus, being the first in the field, we anticipated that
great people in producing a secular Uterature. Whoever wiU
take the pains to compare the gro-wth of the French and English
minds, wiU see that, in aU the most important departments, we
were the first, I do not- say in merit, hut in the order of time.
In prose, in poetry, and ih every branch of inteUectual excel
lence, it wUl be found, on comparison, that we were before the
French nearly a whole generation ; and that, chronologically, the
same proportion was preserved as that between Bacon and Des
cartes, Hooker and Pascal,'"" Shakespeare and ComeiUe, Massin-
ger and Eacine, Ben Jonson and MoU^re, Harvey and Pecquet
These eminent men were aU justly celebrated in their respective
countries ; and it would perhaps he invidious to institute a com
parison between them. But what we have here to observe is,
that among those who cultivated the same department, the
greatest EngUshman, in every instance, preceded the greatest
Frenchman by many years. This difference, ranning as it does
through all the leading topics, is far too regular to he considered
accidental. And as few Englishmen of the present day wiU be
so presumptuous as to suppose that we possess any native and
inherent superiority over the French, it is evident that there
must he some marked peculiarity in which the two countries dif
fered, and wMch has produced this difference, not in their knowl
edge, but in the time at wMch their knowledge appeared. Nor
does the discovery of tMs pecuUarity require much penetration.
For, notwithstanding that the French were more tardy than the
EngUsh, stiU, when the development had fairly begun, the an
tecedents of its success were among both people precisely the
same. It is, therefore, clear, according to the commonest prin
ciples of inductive reasoning, that the lateness of the develop
ment must he o-wing to the lateness of the antecedent. It is
clear that the French knew less hecause they heUeved more.'" It
"° Hooker and Pascal may properly be classed together, as the two most sub-
Ume theological writers either country has produced ; for Bossuet is as inferior to
Pascal as Jeremy Taylor is inferior to Hooker.
One of the most remarkable men they have ever possessed noticea this con-

GENERAL INTEODUCTION. 437
is clear that their progress was checked hy the prevalence of
those feelings wMch are fatal to aU knowledge, hecause, looking
on antiquity as the sole receptacle of wisdom, they degrade the
present in order that they may exaggerate the past : feelings
wMch destroy the prospects of man, stifle Ms hopes, damp his
curiosity, chill Ms energies, impair Ms judgment, and, under
pretence of humbling the pride of Ms reason, seek to throw him
hack into that more than midnight darkness from which Ms
reason alone has enabled him to emerge.
The analogy thus existing between France and England, is,
indeed, very striking, and, so far as we have yet considered it,
seems complete in all its parts. To sum up the simUarities in a
few words, it may he said, that both countries foUowed the same
order of development in their scepticism, in their knowledge, in
their literature, and in their toleration. In both countries, there
broke out a civU war at the same time, for the same object, and,
in many respects, under the same circumstances. In both, the
insurgents, at first triumphant, were afterwards defeated ; and
the rebelUon being put down, the governments of the two na
tions were fuUy restored ahnost at the same moment : in 1660
by Charles II. ; in 1661, by Louis XIV.'"' But there the simi
larity stopped. At this point there began a marked divergence
between the two countries ;'"" which continued to increase for
more than a centuiy, untU it ended in England by the consoli
dation of the national prosperity, in France by a revolution
more sanguinary, more complete, and more destructive, than
any the world has ever seen. TMs difference between the for
tunes of such great and ci-riUzed nations is so remarkable, that
a knowledge of its causes becomes essential to a right under
standing of European histoiy, and will he found to throw con
siderable Ught on other events not immediately connected with
it. Besides tMs, such an inquiry, independently of its scientific
interest, wUl have a Mgh practical value. It wiU show, what ¦
men seem only recently to have begun to understand, that,
nexion, which he expresses conversely, but with equal truth : " moins on sait, moins
on doute ; moins on a ddcouvert, moins ou voit ce qui Teste El ddcouvrir 
Quand les hommes sont ignorans, il est aisd de tout savoir." Discours en Sorbonne,
m (Euvres de Turgot, voh u. pp. 65, 70,
a ^--^7^^?""' ""^^^ '^'^ ^^^^^ '" ^^^1' exercised coraplete authority over Louis.
bee Siecle de Louis XIV, in (Euvres de Voltaire, voh xix. pp. 318, 319 ; and Lavaliee,
mst. (^s Jfrangais, vol. Ui. p. 195 : so that, as Montglat says (Mlm. vol. ui. p. Ill),
Un doit appeler ce temps-ia le commencement du rdgne de Louis XIV." The
pompous mannerm which, directly after the death of Mazarin, the king assumed
the government, is related by Brienne, who was preaent. Mlm. de Brienne, voh ii.
pp. 154-158. '
I, J. il, -^^ ^^^^ I mean, that the divergence nov/ firat became clear to everv observer ;
but the origin ofthe divergence datea from a much earlier period, aa we ahaU see in
the next chapter. ¦

438 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
in poUtics, no certain principles having yet heen discovered, the
first conditions of success are compromise, barter, expediency,
and concession. It wiU show the utter helplessness even of the
ablest rulers, when they try to meet new emergencies by old
maxims. It wUl show the intimate connexion between knowl
edge and Uberty; between an increasing civilization and an ad
vancing democracy. It wiU show that, for a progressive nation,
there is required a progressive poUty; that, within certain Umits,
innovation is the sole ground of security; that no institution
can withstand the flux and movements of society, unless it not
only repairs its structure, hut also widens its entrance ; and that,
even in a material poin't of view, no country can long remain
either prosperous or safe, in wMch the people are not gradua,Uy
extending their power, enlarging their privUeges, and, so to say,
incorporating themselves with the functions of the state.
The tranquiUity of England, and her freedom from ciril war,
are to he ascribed to the recognition of these great truths.""
while the neglect of them has entaUed upon other countries the
most woeful calamities. On this account, therefore, ff on no
other, it becomes interesting to ascertain how it was that the
two nations we have been comparing should, in regard to these
truths, have adopted 'riews diametricaUy opposite, although, in
other matters, their opinions, as we have already seen, were very
simUar. Or, to state the question in other words, we have to
inquire how it was that the French, after pursuing precisely the
same course as the English, in their knowledge, in their scepti
cism, and in their toleration, should have stopped short in then
politics ; how it was that their minds, which had effected such
great tMngs, should, nevertheless, have heen so unprepared for
Uberty, that, in spite of the heroic efforts of the Fronde, they
not only feU under the despotism of Louis XIV., but never even
cared to resist it ; and, at length, becoming slaves in their souls
as well as in their bodies, they grew proud of a condition wMch
the meanest EngUshman would have spumed as an intolerable
bondage. The cause of tMs difference is 'to he sought in the existence
of that spirit of protection which is so dangerous and yet so
plausible, that it forms the most serious obstacle with wMch
advancing civiUzation has to contend. TMs, which may truly
he caUed an evU spirit, has always heen far stronger in France
That is to say, their practical recognition ; theoreticaUy, they are stUI denied
by innumerable politicians, who, nevertheless, assist in carrying them into effect,
fondly hoping that each innovation wiU be the last, and enticing men into reform
under the pretext that by each change they are returning to the spirit of the ancient
British constitution.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 439
than in England. Indeed, among the French, it continues, even
to the present day, to produce the most mischievous results. It
is, as I shall hereafter point out, intimately connected with that
love of centraUzation which appears in the machinery of their
government, and in the spirit of their Uterature. It is this
wMch induces them to retaio restrictions by which their trade
has long been troubled, and to preserve monopoUes wMch, in
our country, a freer system has effectually destroyed. It is tMs
wMch causes them to interfere with the natural relation between
producers and consumers ; to force into existence manufactures
wMch otherwise would never arise, and which, for that very
reason, are not required ; to disturb the ordinary march of in
dustry, and, under pretence of protecting their native labourers,
diminish the produce of labour hy diverting it from those profit
able channels into wMch its own instincts always compel it to
flow. When the protective principle is carried into trade, these
are its ineritable results. When it is carried into poUtics,
there is formed what is caUed a paternal government, in wMch
supreme power is vested in the sovereign, or in a few privi-
l^ed classes. When it is carried into theology, it produces
a powerful church, and a numerous clergy, who are supposed to
he the necessary guardians of reUgion, and every opposition to
whom is resented as an insult to the pubUc morals. These are
the marks by wMch protection may he recognized ; and, from a
very early period, they have displayed themselves in France
much more clearly than in England. Without pretending to
discover their precise origin, I wUl, in the next chapter, endeav
our to trace them back to a time sufficiently remote to explain
some of the discrepancies wMch, in tMs respect, existed between
the two countries.

Note top. 429. Descartea died in Sweden on a viait to Chriatina; so that, strictly
apeaking, there is an error in the text. But thia does not affect the argument ; be
cause the works of Descartes, being eagerly read in France, and not being prohibit
ed, we must suppose that his person would have been safe, had he remained in his
own coimtry. To burn a heretic ia a more deciaive step than to suppreas a book ;
a,nda8 the French clergy were not strong enough to effect the latter, it is hardly
likely that they could have accompUshed the former.

440 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.

CHAPTER IX.
HISTOET OF THE PEOTECTIVE SPIEIT, AND OOMPAEISON OF IT IN FEANCE
AND ENGLAND.
When, towards the end of the fifth century, the Eoman em
pire was broken up, there foUowed, as is weU known, a long
period of ignorance and of crime, in wMch even the ablest minds
were immersed in the grossest superstitions. During these,
which are rightly called the Dark Ages, the clergy were supreme :
they ruled the consciences of the most despotic sovereigns, and
they were respected as men of vast learning, because they alone
were able to read and ynrite ; hecause they were the sole deposi-^
taries of those idle conceits of wMch European science then con
sisted ; and hecause they preserved the legends of the saints
and the Uves of the fathers, from which, as it was heUeved, the
teachings of di-rine wisdom might easUy he gathered.
Such was the degradation of the European inteUect for about
five hundred years, during wMch the creduUty of men reached a
height unparaUeled in the annals of ignorance. But at length
the human reason, that di-rine spark which even the most cor
rupt society is unable to extinguish, hfegan to display its power,
and disperse the nUsts hy wMch it was surrounded. Various
circumstances, which it would he tedious here to discuss, caused
tMs dispersion to take place at different times in different coun
tries. However, speaMng generaUy, we may say that it occurred
in the tenth and eleventh centuries, and that hy the twelfth
century there was no nation now called ci-viUzed, upon whom the
Ught had not begun to dawn.
It is from this point that the first great divergence between
the European nations took its rise. Before this time their super
stition was so great and universal, that it would avail Uttle to
measure the degree of their relative darkness. Indeed, so low
had they fallen, that, during the earUer period, the authority of
the clergy was in many respects an advantage, as forming a bar
rier between the people and their rulers, and as supplying the
sole instance of a class that even made an approach to inteUec-

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION, 441
tual pursuits. But, when the great movement took place, when
the human reason began to rebel, the position of the clergy was
suddenly changed. They had heen friendly to reasoning as long
as the reasoning was on their side,' WMle they were the only
guardians of knowledge, they were eager to promote its interests.
Now, however, it was faUing from their hands : it was becoming
possessed by laymen : it was growing dangerous : it must be re
duced to its proper dimensions. Then it was that there first
became general the inquisitions, the imprisonments, the tortur-
ings, the burnings, and all the other contrivances hy which the
church vainly attempted to stem the tide that had turned
agaiust her.' From that moment there has heen an unceasing
struggle between these two great parties, — the advocates of in
quiry, and the advocates of beUef ; a struggle which, however it
may be disguised, and under whatever forms it may appear, is
at bottom always the same, and represents the opposite interests
of reason and faith, of scepticism and creduUty, of progress and
reaction, of those who hope for the ffiture, and of those who
cling to the past.
This, then, is the great starting-point of modern civiUzation.
From the moment that reason began, however faintly, to assert
its supremacy, the improvement of every people has depended
upon their obedience to its dictates, and upon the success with
which they have reduced to its standard the whole of their ac
tions. To understand, therefore, the original divergence of
France and England, we must seek it in the circumstances that
took place when tMs, wMch may he caUed the great reheUion of
the inteUect, was first clearly seen.
If now, with a view to such inquiry, we examine the history
of Europe, we shaU find that just at tMs period there sprung up
' " Toute influence qu'on accordait ik la acience ne pouvait, dana lea premiers
tempa, qu'dtre favorable au clergd." Meyer, Institut. Judic. vol i. p. 498.
' Early in the eleventh century the clergy flrst began systematioaUy to repress
independent inquiries by punishmg men who attempted to think for themselvea.
Compare Sismondi, Hist des Franfais, vol. iv. pp. 145, 146 ; Neander's Hist of ihe
Church, vol vi. pp. 365, 366 ; Prescotts Hist of Ferdinand and Isabella, vol i. p.
261 note. Before this, auch apoUcy, aa Sismondi justly observes, was not required:
" Pendant plusieurs aifeclea, I'dgliae n'avoit dtd troublde par aucune bdrdaie ; I'igno-
rance dtoit trop oompldtCj la aoumisaion trop eervile, la foi trop aveugle, pour que
les questions qui avoient si long-temps exercd la subtiUtd des Greoa fusaent aeulement
compriaea par lea Latina." As knowledge advanced, the opposition between inquiry
and belief became more marked : the church redoubled her efforts, and at tbe end of
the twelfth century the popea firat formaUy caUed on the secular power to punish here
tics ; and the earUest constitution addressed " inquisitoribus bsreticffi pravitatis" is
one by Alexander IV. Meyer, Inst Jud. vol U. pp. 554, 556. See also, on this
moveraent, Llorente, Hist de VInquisition, vol. i. p. 126, vol iv. p. 284. In 1222 a
synod a_ssembled at Oxford caused an apostate to be burned; and this, says Lingard
(Hist of England, vol. u. p. 148), "is, I beUeve, tbe first instance of capital punish
ment in England on the ground of reUgion." Compare Wrights Bioq. Brit Lit
vol. u. p. 444. ° r a a

442 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
the feudal system ; a vast scheme of poUty, wMch, clumsy and
imperfect as it was, suppUed many of the wants of the rude
people among whom it arose,' The connexion between it and
the decUne of the ecclesiastical spirit is very obvious. For, the
feudal system was the first great secular plan that had heen seen
in Europe since the formation of the civU law : it was the first
comprehensive attempt which had heen made, during more than
four hundred years; to organize society according to temporal,
not according to spiritual circumstances, the hasis .of the whole
arrangement being merely the possession of land, and the .per
formance of certain miUtary and pecuniary services.*
TMs was, no douht a great step in European civilization, be
cause it set the first example of a large pubUc poUty in wMch
the spiritual classes as such had no recogmzed place ;' and hence
there foUowed that struggle between feudaUty and the church,
wMch has heen observed hy several yn-iters, hut the origin of
wMch has heen strangely overlooked. What, however, we have
now to notice is, that by the estahUshment ofthe feudal system,
the spirit of protection, far from being destroyed, was probably
not even weakened, hut only assumed a new form. Instead of
being spiritual, it became temporal. Instead of men looking up
to the church, they looked up to the nobles. For, as a necessary
consequence of this vast movement, or rather as a part of it, the
" Sir F. Palgrave (English Commonwealth, vol ii. p. ccvi.) says, " It is generaUy
admitted, by the best authorities, that from about the eleventh century benefices
acquired the narae of fiefs or feuds :" and Eobertson (State of Europe, note viu. in
Works, p. 398) supposes that the word feodum does not occur before 1008. But
according to M.- Guizot (Civilisation en France, vol. in. p. 288), "il apparait, pour
la premidre fois, dans une charte de Charles le Gros en 884." This is a question
more curious than important ; since whatever the origin of the word may be, it is
certain that the thing did not, and could not, exist before the tenth century at the
earUest : inasmuch as the extreme disorganization of society rendered so coercive
an institution impossible. M, Guizot, in another work (Essais sur VHist de France,
p. 239) rightly says, "An X' sidcle seulement, les rapports et lea pouvoirs sooiaux
acquirent quelque fixitd." See alao his Civilisation en Europe, p. 90.
* " La terre est tout dans ce systdpie  Le systdrae fdodal est comme une
reUgion de la terre." Origines du, Droit, in (Euvres de Michelet, vol. U. p. 302.
" Le caractdre de la fdodaUtdi c'dtait la prddominanoe de la realitl aur la personnaliti,
de la terre aur I'homme." Eschbach, Elude du Droit, p. 256.
" According to the social and political arrangements from the fourth to the tenth
century, the clergy were bo eminently a class apart, that they were freed from "bur
dens of the state," and were not obUged to engage in military services unless they
thought proper to do so. See Neander's Hist ofthe Church, vol. iU. p. 196, vol v,
pp. 133, 140 ; and Petrie's Ecclesiast Archit p. 382. But under the feudal system,
this immunity was lost ; and in regard to performing services no separation of classes
was admitted. " After the feudal polity became estabUshed, we do not find that
there was any dispensation for ecclesiastical fiefs." Hallam's Supplemental Notes,
p. 120 ; and for further proof of the loss of the old privileges, corapare Grose's Mili
tary Antiquities, vol. i. pp. 5, 64; Meyer, Instit Jukic. voli, p, 257; Turner's Hist
of England, vol. iv. p. 462 ; and Mably's Observations, vol. i. pp. 434, 435 : so that,
as this writer says, p. 216, " Chaque seigneur la'io avait gagnd personneUement a la
rdvolution qui forraa le gouvernement fdodal; mais les evdques et les abbds, en

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 443
great possessors of land were now being orgamzed into an hered
itary aristocracy." In the tenth century, we find the first sur
names :' by the eleventh century most of the great offices had
become hereditary in the leading famiUes :" and in the twelfth
century armorial bearings were invented as weU as other heraldic
derices which long nourished the conceit of the nobles, and were
valued by their descendants as marks of that superiority of birth,
to wMch, during many ages, aU other superiority was considered
subordinate." Such was the beginning of the European aristocracy, in the
sense in which that word is commonly used. With the consoU
dation of its power, feudaUty was made, in reference to the or
ganization of society, the successor of the church ;'" and the
nobles, becoming hereditary, graduaUy displaced in government,
and in the general functions of authority, the clergy, among whom
the opposite principle of ceUbacy was now firmly estabUshed."
It is, therefore, erident, that an inquiry into the origin of the
modern protective spirit does, in a great measure, resolve itseU'
into, an inquiry into the origin of the aristocratic power ; since
that power was the exponent, and, as it were, the cover, under
devenant souverains dans leurs terres, perdirent au contraire beaucoup de leur pou
voir et de leur dignitd."
° The great change of turning Ufe-poBsessions of land into hereditary possessions,
began late in the ninth century, being initiated in France by a capitulary of Charles
the Bald, in 877. See Allen on the Prerogative, p. 210 ; Spence's Origin of the Laws
of Europe, pp. 282, 301 ; Meyer, Instit. JuMciaires, vol. i. p. 206.
' That surnames first arose in the tenth century, ia stated by the most competent
authorities. See Sismondi, Hist, des Frangais, vol. Ul pp. 452^55 ; HaUam's Mid
dle Ages, vol. i. p. 138; Monteil, Hist des divers Etats, vol. iu. p 268; Petrie's Ec
clesiast, Archit. pp. 277, 342. Koch (Tableau des Revolutions, voh l p. 138) errone-
oualy aays, " c'est pareUlement aux croisades que I'Europe doit I'usage des surnoms
de famiUe ; " a double mistake, both as to the date .and the cause, since the intro
duction of surnames, bemg part of a large social movement, can under no circum
stances be ascribed to a single event.
" On this proceaa frora the end of the ninth to the twelfth century, compare
Hallam's Supplemental Notes, pp. 97, 98 ; Dalrymple's Hist, of Feudal Property, p.
21 ; Klimrath, Hist, du Droit, vol. i. p. 74.
' Aa to the origin of armorial bearinga, which cannot be traced higher than the
twelfth century, aee Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. i. pp. 138, 189 ; Ledwich, Antiqui
ties of Ireland, pp. 231, 232 ; Origines du Droit, in (Euvres de Michelet, vol u. p. 382.
'" For, aa Lerminier says (Philos. du Droit, vol i. p. 17), "la loi fdodale n'eat
autre choae que la terre dlevde k la aouverainetd." On the decline of the church m
consequence of the increased feudal and secular spirit, see Sismondi, Hist des
Franfais, vol. iU. p. 440, vol iv. p. 88. In our country, one fact may be mentioned
iUustrative of the earUest encroachments of laymen: namely, that, before the twelfth
century, we find no instance in England of the great seal being intruated " to the
keeping of a layman." CampbelVs Chancellors, vol. i. p. 61.
CeUbacy, on account of its supposed ascetic tendency, waa advocated, and in
some countries was enforced, at an eariy period; but the first general and decisive
movement in its favour was in the middle of the eleventh century, before which time
It was a speculative doctrine, constantly disobeyed. See Neander's Hist of the
Church, vol. VI. pp. 62, 61, 62, 72, 98, 94 note, vol. vii. pp. 127-131 ; MosheinCs Ec
cles, Hut vol. i. pp. 248, 249 ; Eecleston's English Antiq, p, 95.

444 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
which the spirit displayed itself TMs, as we shaUhereafter see,
is Ukewise connected with the great reUgious rebelUon of the six
teenth century; the success of wMch mainly depended on the
weakness of the protective principle that opposed it. But, re
serving tMs for future consideration, I wiU now endeavour, to
trace a few of the circumstances which gave the aristocracy more
power in France than in England, and thus accustomed the
French to a closer and more constant obedience, and infused into
them a more reverential spirit than that which was usual in our
country. Soon after the middle of the eleventh century, and therefore
whUe the aristocracy was in the process of formation, England
was conquered by the Duke of Normandy, who naturally intro
duced the polity existing in Ms own country," But, in his hands,
it underwent a modification suitable to the new circumstances in
which he was placed. He, being in a foreign country, the gen
eral of a successful army composed partly of mercenaries," was
able to dispense with some of those feudal usages wMch were
customary in France. The great Norman lords, thrown as
strangers into the midst of a hostUe population, were glad to ac
cept estates from the crown on almost any terms that would
guarantee their own security. Of this, WUUam naturaUy availed
himself For, by granting baronies on conditions favourable to
the crown, he prevented the barons'* from possessing that power
wMch they exercised in France, and wMch, but for tMs, they
would have exercised in England. The result was, that the most
powerful of our nobles became amenable to the law, or, at all
events, to the authority of the Mng." Indeed, to such an extent
was this carried, that WUUam, shortly before his death, obliged
aU the landowners to render their fealty to him ; thus entirely
'^ Where it was particularly flourishing : " la fdodaUtd fut organiade en Norman-
die plua fortement et plus systdmatiquement que partout aiUeurs en France." Klim
rath, Travaux sur VHist du Droit, voh i. p. 130. The " coutume de Normandie "
was, at a much later period, only to be found in the old " grand coutunuer." Klim
rath, voh ii. p. 160. On the peculiar tenacity with which the Normans clung to it,
aee Lettres d'Aguessewu, vol ii. pp. 225, 226: "acooutumds k respecter leur cou
tume comrae I'dvangile."
" Mills's Hist of Chivalry, vol i. p. 387 ; Turner's Hist of England, vol u. p.
390, vol. iv. p. 76. Mercenary troops were also eraployed by his immediate suc
cessors. Grose's Military Antiq, vol. i. p. 65.
'* On the different meanings attached to the word ' baron,' compare Klimrath,
Hist, du Droit, vol. ii. p. 40, with Meyer, Instit, Judiciaires, vol. i. p. 105. But M.
Guizot says, what seems most Ukely, " il est probable que ce nom fut commun
originairement k tous les vassaux iramddiats de la couronne, Uds au roi per servitivm
militare, par le service de chevalier." Essais, p. 265.
'" Meyer, Instit, Judic, vol. i. p. 242 ; Twrner's Hist, of England, voh ul p. 220.
Tbe same poUcy of reducing the nobles was foUowed up by Henry II., who destroyed
the baronial castles. Turner, vol iv. p. 228. Compare Ungard, vol. i. pp. 815, 371.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 445
neglecting that peculiarity of feudaUsm, according to which each
vassal was separately dependent on his own lord.'"
But in France, the course of affairs was very different. In
that countiy, the great nobles held their lands, not so much by
grant, as by prescription." A character of antiquity was thus
tMown over their rights ; which, when added to the weakness of
the crown, enabled them to exercise on their own estates aU the
functions of independent sovereigns." Even when they received
their first great check, under PhiUp Augustus,'" they, in Ms reign,
and indeed long after, yrielded a power quite unknown in Eng
land. Thus, to give only two instances : the right of coining
money, wMch has always been regarded as an attribute of sover
eignty, was never allowed in England, even to the greatest
nobles.'" But in France it was exercised by many persons in
dependently of the croyyn, and was not abrogated untU the six
teenth century." A simUar remark holds good of what was
caUed the right of private war ; by virtue of wMch, the nobles
were aUowed to attack each other, and disturb the peace of the
country with the prosecution of their private feuds. In England
the aristocracy were never strong enough to have this admitted
as a right," though they too often exercised it as a practice.
But in France it became a part of the estabUshed law; it was
incorporated into the text-hooks of feudaUsm, and it is distinctly
recognized hy Louis IX. and PhUip the Fair, — two Mugs of con
siderable energy, who did every thing in their power to curtaU
the enormous authority of the nobles."
" " Delude coepit homagia hominum totius AngUae, et juraraentum fideUtatis,
cujuscumque essent feodi vel teuementi." Matthcei Westmonast, Flores Historiarum,
vol. ii. p. 9.
" See some good remarks on this difference between tbe French and EngUah
nobles, in HaUam's Middle Ages, vol. u. pp. 99, 100. Mably (Observations, vol. i.
p. 60) says: "en effet, on ndgUgea, sur la fin de la premidre race, de conserver les
titres primordiaux de sea possessions." As to the old customary French law of pre
scription, see Giraud, Prlcis de V Ancien Droit, pp. 79, 80.
" Mably, Observations sur V Hist de France, vol i. pp. 70, 162, 178.
'" On the poUcy of PhiUp Augustus in regard to the nobles, aee Mably, Observa
tions, vol. I p. 246 ; Lerminier, Philos, du Droit, vol. i. p. 266 ; BoulainviUiers,
Hist.de V Ancien Gouvernement, vol. Ui. pp. 147-150 ; Guizoi, Civilisation en France,
-foh^iv. pp. 134, 135 ; Courson, Hist, des Peuples Britons, Paris, 1846, vol u. p. 350.
° "No subjects ever enjoyed the right of coinmg sUver in England without the
royal stamp and superintendence ; a remarkable proof of the restraint in which the
feudal aristocracy was always held in this country." Hallam's Middle Ages, vol i.
p. 164. Brougham's Polit Philos. 1849, vol i. p. 446. In addition to the evidence
there given on the right of comage,see Mably's Observations, vol. i. p. 424, vol U.
PP- 296^29^ ; and 2W«er's iVomfflJMZy, vol U. p. 26L
23 ^* . "*'* Supplemental Notes, pp. 304, 306.
11 v 1- '™''?*"^<"''3 consacra le droit de guerre. . . . PhiUppe le Bel, qui voulut
labour, finit par le rdtabUr." Moritlosier, Monarchie Frangaise, vol. i. pp. 127, 202 :
see also pp. 484, 435, and vol U." pp. 435, 436. Mably (Observations, vol U. p. 338)
mentions lettres-patentea de PhUippe-de-Valoia du 8 fdvrier 1880, pour permettre

446 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
Out of this difference between the aristocratic power of
France and England, there foUowed many consequences of great
importance. In our country the nobles, being too feeble to con
tend with the crown, were compeUed, in self-defence, to aUy
themselves with the people.'* About a hundred years after the
Conquest, the Normans and Saxons amalgamated ; and both
parties united against the Mng, in order to uphold their common
rights." The Magna Charta, wMch John was forced to yield,
contained concessions to the aristocracy; hut its most important
stipulations were those in favour of " aU classes of freemen."'"
WitMn half a century, fresh contests broke out ; the barons were
again associated yrith the people, and again there foUowed the
same results, — ^the extension of popular privUeges, being each
time the condition and the consequence of tMs singular alliance.
In the same way, when the Earl of Leicester raised a rebeUion
against Henry IIL, he found Ms own party too weak to make
head against the crown. He, therefore, appUed to the people :"
and it is to Mm that our House of Commons owes its origin ;
since he, in 1264, set the first example of issuing writs to cities
and boroughs ; thus calling upon citizens and burgesses to take
their place in what had Mtherto been a parUament composed en
tirely of priests and nobles."
dans le duohd d'Aquitaine les guerrea privdea," &c. ; and he adds, "le 9 avrU 1358
le roi Jean renouveUe I'ordonnance de S. Louia, nommde la quarantaine du roi,
touchant lea guerrea priyeeB."
'* Sir Fraucia Palgrave (in hia Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth,
voh I pp. 51-65) haa attempted to estimate the results produced by the Norman
Conquest ; but he omits to notice this, which was the most important consequence
of aU. "" On this poUtical union between Norman barons and Saxon citizens, of which
the first clear indication is at the end of the twelfth century, compare Campbelts
Chancellors, vol. i. p. 113, with Brougham's Polit Philos, vol. I p. 339, vol. Ui.
p. 222. In regard to the general question of the amalgamation of races, we have three
distinct kinds of evidence :
Ist, Towards the end of the twelfth century, a new language began to be formed
by blending Norman with Saxon ; and EngUah Uterature, properly ao called, dates
from the commencement of the thirteenth century. Compare Madden's Preface to
Layamon, 1847, vol. i. pp. xx. xxi., with Turner's Hist, of England, voh viil pp.
214, 217, 436, 437.
2d, -^Ve have the specific statement of a writer in the reign of Henry II., that
" sic permixtsB sunt nationes ut vix diacerni possit hodie, de Uberia loquor, quia
Anglicus, quis Normannus sit genere." Note in Hallam's Middle Ages, vol U. p. 106.
Sd, Before the thirteenth century had passed away, the difference of dresa, which
in that state of society would survive many other differences, was no longer ob-
served, and the distinctive peculiarities of Norman and Saxon attire had disappeared.
See Struits View of the Dress and Habits of the People of England, vol u. p. 67,
edit. Plancbd, 1842, 4to.
^° " An equal distribution of civil rights to all classes of freemen forms the pecu
Uar beauty of the charter." Hallam's Middle Ages, vol ii. p. 108. This is very finely
noticed in one of Lord Chatham's great speeches. Part, Hist vol. xvi. p. 662.
" Compare Meyer, Instit. Judic. vol. U. p. 89, with Lingard! s England, vol. u.
S. 127, and Somers Tracts, vol. vi. p. 92.
" He is to be honoured as tbe founder of a representative system of government

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 447
The EngUsh aristocracy being thus forced, by their own weak
ness, to rely on the people,'" it naturaUy foUowed that the people
imbibed that tone of independence, and that lofty hearing, of
wMch our ciril and poUtical institutions are the consequence,
rather than the cause. It is to this, and not to any fanciful pe
cuUarity of race, that we owe the sturdy and enterprising spirit
for wMch the inhabitants of tMs island have long been remark
able. It is tMs which has enabled us to haffie all the arts of
oppression, and to maintain for centuries Uberties wMch no other
nation has ever possessed. And it is this wMch has fostered and
upheld those great mumcipal privUeges, which, whatever he their
faults, have, at least, the invaluable merit of accustoming free
men to the exercise of power, giving to citizens the management
of their own city, and perpetuating the idea of independence, hy
preserving it. in a Uving type, and by enlisting in its support the
interests and affections of individual men.
But the habits of self-government which, under these cir
cumstances, were cultivated in England, were, under opposite cir
cumstances, neglected in France. The great French lords being
too powerful to need the people, were unyriUing to seek their aUi
ance.'" The result was^ that, armd a great variety of forms and
names, society was, in reaUty, only divided into two classes — the
upper and the lower, the protectors and the protected. And,
looMng at the ferocity of the prevailing manners, it is not too
in this country." Campbelts Chief-Justices, vol l p. 61. Sorae writers (see, for
instance, DalrympUs Hist, of Feudal Property, p. 832) suppose that burgesses were
summoned before the reign of Henry III. : but this assertion is not only unsupported
by evidence, but ia in itself improbable ; because, at an earUer period the citizens,
though rapidly increasing in power, were hardly important enough to warrant such
a atep being taken. The best authorities are now agreed to refer the origin of the
Hpuse of Commons to the period mentioned in the text. See Hallam's Supplement,
Notes, pp. 835-339 ; Spence's Origin of the Laws of Europe, p. 612 ; Campbelts
Chancellors, vol i.p.l66; Ungard's England, vol. u. p. 138; Guizots Essais, p.
319. The notion of tracing thia to the wittenagemot, is as absurd as finding the
origui of juries in the system of compurgators ; both of which were favourite errors
in the seventeenth, and even in the eighteenth century. In regard to the witten
agemot, this idea stUl lingers among antiquariea ; but, iu regard to corapurgatora,
even they have abandoned their old ground, and it is now weU understood that
trial by jury did not exist tUl long after the Conquest. Compare Palgrave's English
Commonwealth, part i. pp. 243 seq., with Meyer, Instit Judic. vol. U. pp. 152-178.
There are few things in our history so irrational as the admiration expressed by a
certain class of writers for the institutions of our barbarous Anglo-Saxon ancestors.
" Montlosier, with the fine spu-it of a French noble, taunts the English aristoc
racy with this : " Eu France la noblesse, attaqude aana cease, s'est ddfendue aana
cease. EUe a subi I'oppression ; eUe ne I'a pomt acceptde. En Angleterre, cUe a
couru dds la premidre commotion, se rdfugier dana les ranga des bourgeois, et sous
leur protection. EUe a abdiqud ainsi son existence." Montlosier, Monarchic Fran
faise, vol. iU. p. 162. Compare an instructive passage in De Stael, Consid. sur la
Rlvolution, vol I p. 421.
™ See some good remarks iu Mably, Observations sur VHist de France, vol. ui.
pp. 114, 115.

448 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
much to say, that in France, under the feudal system, every man
was either a tyrant or a slave. Indeed, in most instances, the
two characters were combined in the same person. For, the
practice of subinfeudation, wMch in our country was actively
checked, became in France almost universal." By this, the great
lords having granted lands on condition of fealty and other ser
vices to certain persons, these last suhgranted them; that is,
made them over on simUar conditions to other persons, who had
likewise the power of bestowing them on a fourth party, and so
on in an endless series;" thus forming a long chain of dependence,
and, as it were, orgamzing submission into a system."; In Eng
land, on the other hand, such arrangements were so unsuited to
the general state of affairs, that it is doubtful if they were ever
carried on to any extent; and, at aU events, it is certain that, in
the reign of Edward I., they were finally stopped hy the statute
known to lawyers as Quia emptores.^^
Thus early was there a great social divergence between
France and England. The consequences of tMs were still more
obvious when, in the fourteenth century, the feudal system rapidly
decayed in both countries. For in England, the principle. of
protection being feeble, men were in some degree accustomed to
self-government; and they were able to hold fast hy those great
institutions wMch would have been iU adapted to the more ohor
dient habits of the French people. Our municipal privUeges,
the rights of our yeomanry, and the security of our copyholders,
were, from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries, the three
most important guarantees for the liberties of England." In
'' Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 111.
32 11 OriginaUy there was no Umit to subinfeudation." Brougham's Polit. Philos.
vol. i. p. 279.
"' A living French hiatorian boasts that, in his own country, " toute la spcidtd
fdodale forraait ainsi une echeUe de cUenteUe et de patronage." Cassagnac, Rlvolvr
tion Frangaise, vol i. p. 459.
^* This is 18 Edw. I. c. 1 ; respecting which, see Blackstone's Comment vol u.
p. 91, vol iv. p. 425 ; Reeve's Hist of English Law, vol U. p. 223 ; Dalrymple's
Hist of Feudal Property, pp. 102, 243, 340.
^ The history of the decay of that once most iraportant claaa, the EngUsh yeo
manry, ia an interesting aubject, and one for which I have coUected considerable
materials ; at present, I wiU only say, that its decUne was flrst distinctly perceptible
in the latter half of the seventeenth century, and was consumraated by the rapidly
increaaing power of tbe commercial and manufacturing claases early in the eighteenth
century. After losing their influence, their numbers naturaUy diminished, and they
made way for other bodies of men, whose habits of mind were less prejudiced, and
therefore better suited to that new state which society assumed in the last age.
I mention this, because some writers regret the almost total destruction of the yeo
man freeholders ; overlooking the fact, that they are disappearing, not in conse
quence of any .violent revolution or stretch of arbitrary power, but simply by the
general march of affairs ; society doing away with what it no longer requires. Com
pare Kay's Social Condition of ihe People, vol i. pp. 43, 602, with a letter from
Wordsworth iu Bunbury's Correspond, of Hanmer, p. 440 ; a note in MilVs Polit.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 449
France sucn guarantees were impossible. The real division
being between those who were noble, and those who were not
noble, no room was left for the establishment of intervening
classes; but aU were compeUed to faU into one of these two
great ranks." The French have never had any thing answering
to our yeomanry; nor were copyholders recognized hy their laws.
And, although they attempted to introduce into their country
municipal institutions, aU such efforts were futUe; for, whUe they
copied the forms of Uberty, they lacked that bold and sturdy
spirit by wMch alone Uberty can be secured. They had, indeed,
its image and superscription; hut they wanted the sacred fire
that warms the image into Ufe. Every thing else they possessed.
The show and appUances of freedom were there. Charters
were granted to their towns, and pririleges conceded to their
magistrates. AU, however , was useless. For it is not hy the
wax and parchment of layyyers that the independence of men
can he preserved. Such things are the mere externals; th6y set
off Uberty to advantage; they are as its dress and paraphemalia,
its hoUday-suit in times of peace and quiet. , But, when the evil
days set in, when the invasions of despotism have begun, Uberty
wUl he retained, not by those who can show the oldest deeds and
the largest charters, but hy those who have heen most inured to
habits of independence, most accustomed to think and act for
themselves, and most regardless of that insidious protection which
the upper classes have always heen so ready to bestow, that, in
many countries, they have now left notMng worth the trouble to
protect. And so it was in France. The toyvns, with few exceptions,
feU at the first shock ; and the citizens lost those municipal
pri-vUeges wMch, not being grafted on the national character,
it was found impossible to preserve. In the same way, in our
country, power naturaUy, and hy the mere force of the demo
cratic movement, feU into the hands of the House of Commons ;
Econ. vol. i. pp. 811, 312 ; another in Nichols's -tii. Anec. vol v. p. 323 ; and Sin
clair's Correspond, vol i. p. 229.
"" This is stated as an admitted fact by French writers living in different periods,
and holding different opinions ; but aU agreed as to there being only two divisions :
"comme en France on est toujours ou noble, ou roturier, et qu'il n'y a pas de mUieu."
Mem. de Rivarol, p. 7. "La grande distinction des nobles et dea roturiera." Giraud,
Prlcis de J' Ancien Droit, p. 10. Indeed, according to the Coutumea, the noblea
and roturiers attained theu' majority at different ages. Klimrath, Hist du Droit,
voh U. p. 249 (erroneously stated in Story's Confiict of Laws, pp. 56, 79, 114). See
further respecting this capital distinction, Mem. de Duplessis Mornay, vol. U. p. 230
(" agrdable k la noblesse et au peuple") ; (Euvres de Twrgoi, vol. viu. pp. 222, 232,
237 ; Bunbury's Correspond, of Hanmer, p. 256 ; Mably, Observations, vol iu. p. 263 ;
and Mercier sur Rousseau, vol. i. p. 38 : "On dtoit roturier, vilain, homme
de ndant, canaiUe, dea qu'on ne a'appeUoit plua marquia, baron, comte, ohevaUer,
VOL. I. — 29

450 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
whose authority has ever since, notyrithstanding occasional checks,
continued to increase at the expense of the more aristocratic
parts of the legislature. The only institution answering to this
in France was the States-General ; which, however, had so Uttle
influence, that, in the opinion of native historians, it was hardly
to be caUed an institution at aU." Indeed, the French were, by
this time, so accustomed to the idea of protection, and to the
subordination which that idea involves, that they were Uttle in
cUned to uphold an estahUshment wMch, in their constitution,
was the sole representative of the popular element. The result
was, that, hy the fourteenth century, the Uberties of EngUshmen
were secured ;" and, since then, their only concern has been to
increase what they have already obtained. But, in that same
century, in France, the protective spirit assumed a new form ;
the power of the aristocracy was, in a great measure, succeeded
hy the power of the crown ; aiid there began that tendency to
centralization wMch, ha-ving been pushed still further, first, under
Louis XIV., and afterwards under Napoleon, has become the
bane of the French people.'" For, hy it the feudal ideas of su
periority and submission, have long surrived that barbarous age
to which alone they were suited. Indeed, by their transmigra-'
tion, they seem to have gained fresh strength. In France, every
tMng is referred to one common centre, in which aU ciril func
tions are absorbed. All improvements of any importance, all
schemes for bettering even the material condition of the people,
must receive the sanction of government ; the local authorities
not being considered equal to such arduous tasks. In order that
inferior magistrates may not abuse their power, no power is con-
*' " Les dtats-gdndraux sont portds dans la Uste de nos institutions. Je ne sais
cependant s'il eat permia de donner ce nom i dea rassemblemens aussi irrdguUers."
Montlosier, Monarchie Franfaise, vol i. p. 266. " En France, les dtats-gendraux,
au moment mdrae de leur plua grand dclat, c'est k dire dans le coura du xiv sidcle,
n'ont gudre dtd que dea accidents, un pouvoir national et souvent invoqud, mais non
un dtabliaaeraent constitutionnel" Guizot, Essais, p. 253. See also Mably, Ob
servations, vol iU. p. 147 ; and Sismondi, Hist des Frangais, vol xiv. p. 642.
"" Thia is frankly adraitted by one of the most candid and enUghtened of all the
foreign writers on our history, Guizot, Essais, p. 297 : " En 1307, les droits qui
devaient enfanter en Angleterre un gouvernement libre dtaient ddfinitivement re-
oonnus." " See an account of the poUcy of PhiUp the Fair, in Mably, Observations, vol
U. pp. 26-44 ; in BoulainviUiers, Ancien Gomernement, vol. I pp. 292, 314, vol ii.
pp. 37, 38 ; and in Guizot, Civilisation en France, vol iv. pp. 170-192. M. Guizot
says, perhaps too strongly, that his reign waa "la radtamorphoae de la royautd en
despotisme." On the connexion of this with the centralizing movement, see Tocqm-
ville's Dlmocratie, vol. i. p. 307 : " Le gotit de la centraUsation et la manie rd-
glementaire reraoutent, eu France, i I'dpoque oi les Idgistcs sont entres dans le
gouvernement ; ce qui nous reporte au temps de PhiUppe le Bel" Tennemann also
notices that in his reign the " Rechtatheorie" began to exerciae influence; but this
learned writer takes a purely metaphysical view, and has therefore misunderstood
the more general social tendency. Gesch. der Philos. vol. viu. p. 823.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 451
ferred upon them. The exercise of independent jurisdiction is
almost unknown. Every tMng that is done must be done at
head-quarters.*" The government is heUeved to see every tMng,
know every thing, and provide for every tMng. To enforce this
monstrous monopoly, there has heen contrived a macMnery well
worthy of the design. The entire country is covered by an im
mense array of officials ;*' who, in the regularity of their hier
archy, and in the order of their descending series, form an ad
mirable emblem of that feudal principle, wMch, ceasing to he
territorial, has now become personal. In fact, the whole busi
ness of the state is conducted on the supposition, that no man
either knows his own interest, or is fit to take care of himself
So patemal are the feeUngs of government, so eager for the wel
fare of its subjects, that it has drawn within its jurisdiction the
most rare, as weU as the most ordinary, actions of life. In order
that the French may not make imprudent wiUs, it has Umited
the right of bequest ; and, for fear that they should bequeath their
property wrongly, it prevents them from bequeathing the greater
part of it at all. In order that society may he protected by its
poUce, it has directed that no one shaU travel without a pass
port. And when men are actuaUy traveUing, they are met at
every turn by the same interfering spirit, wMch, under pretence
of protecting their persons, shackles their Uberty. Into another
matter, far more serious, the French have carried the same prin
ciple. Such is their anxiety to protect society against crimi
nals, that, when an offender is placed at the bar of one of their
*° As several writers ou law notice this syatem with a lenient eye (Origines du
Droit Frangais, in (Euvres de Michelet, vol. il p. 821 ; and Eschbach, Etude du Droit,
p. 129 : "le syatfeme dnergique de la centraUaation"), it may be well to state how it
actually works.
Mr. Bulwer, writing twenty yeara ago, says : " Not only cannot a commune de
termine its own expensea without the conaent of the minister or one of his deputed
functionaries, it cannot even erect a buUding, the cost of which shall have been
sanctioned, without the plan being adopted by a board of pubUc works attached to
the central authority, and having the supervision and direction of every public buUd
ing throughout the kingdom." Bulwer'a Monarchy of the Middle Classes, 1836, vol.
u. p. 262.
M. TocqueviUe, writing in the present year (1856), says, "Sous I'ancien rdgime,
cmnme de nos jours, U n'y avait viUe, bourg, vUlage, ni ai petit hameau en France,
hopital, fabrique, couvent ni coUdge, qui p6t avoir une volontd inddpendante dans
sea affairea particuUdres, ni adminiatrer k sa volontd ses proprea biens. AlorB,
comme aujourdhui, I'admmiatratiou tenait donc toua les Frau9ais en tuteUe, et si I'in-
solence du mot ne s'dtait pas encore produite, on avait du moins ddjfl. la chose."
TocqueviUe, V Ancien Regime, 1856, pp. 79, 80.
The number of civU functionaries in France, who are paid by the government
to trouble the people, passes aU beUef, being estimated, at different periods during
the present century, at from 188,000 to upwards of 800,000. TocqueviUe, de la Dl
mocratie, vol. i. p. I'i^-, Alison's Ewrope, vol xiv. pp. 127, 140; Kay's Condition of
the People, vol. i. p. 272 ; Laing's Notes, 2d seriea, p. 186. Mr. Laing, writing in
1850, aaya: " In France, at the expulaion of Louis-PhUippe, the civU functionaries
were atated to amount to 807,030 individuala."

452 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
courts, there is exhibited a spectacle, which it is no idle boast to
say, we, in England, could not tolerate for a single hour. There
is seen a great pubUc magistrate, by whom the prisoner is ahout
to he tried, examining him in order to ascertain Ms supposed
guUt, re-examining him, cross-examining Mm, performing the
duties, not of a judge, but of a prosecutor, and bringing to bear
against the unhappy man aU the authority of Ms judicial posi
tion, all Ms professional subtlety, aU his experience, aU the dex
terity of his practised understanding. This is, perhaps, the
most alarming of the many instances in wMch the tendencies of
the French inteUect are shown ; hecause it suppUes a machinery
ready for the purposes of absolute power ; because it brings the
administration of justice into disrepute, hy associating yrith it an
idea of unfairness ; and because it injures that calm and equable
temper, wMch it is impossible fuUy to maintain under a system
that makes a magistrate an advocate, and turns the judge into
a partizan. But this, miscMevous as it is, only forms part of a
far larger scheme. For, to the method hy which criminals are
discovered, there is added an analogous method, hy wMch crime
is prevented. With this view, the people, even in their ordi
nary amusements, are watched and carefuUy superintended.
Lest they should harm each other hy some sudden indiscretion,
precautions are taken simUar to those with which a father might
surround Ms cMldren. In their fairs, at their theatres, their con
certs, and their other places of puhUc resort, there are always
present soldiers, who are sent to see that no naiscMef is done,
that there is no unnecessary crowding, that no one uses harsh
language, that no one quarrels with his neighbour. Nor does
the vi^ance of govemment stop there. Even the education of
cMldren is brought under the control of the state, instead of be
ing regulated hy the judgment of masters or parents.*' And the
whole plan is executed yrith such energy, that, as the French
whUe men are never let alone, just so while chUdren they are
never left alone.*' At the same time, it being reasonably sup
posed that adults thus kept in pupUage cannot he proper judges
of their own food, the govemment has provided for tMs also. Its
prying eye foUows the butcher to the shambles, and the baker to
*" "The government in France possesses control over all the education of the
country, with the exception of the coUeges for the education of the clergy, which
are termed seminaries, and their subordinate institutions." Report on the State of
superior Education in France in 1843, in Journal of Statist. Soc. vol. vl p. 304.
On the steps taken during the power of Napoleon, see Alison's Europe, vol. viu, p.
203 : " Nearly the whole education of the empire was brought effectuaUy under the
direction and appointment of government."
_ "Much attention is paid to the surveillance of pupils ; it being a fundamental
principle of French education, that children should never be left alone." Report m
general Education in France in 1842, in Journal of Statist. Soc. vol. v. p. 20.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 453
the oven. By its paternal hand, meat is examined lest it should
be bad, and bread is weighed lest it should be Ught, In short,
yrithout multiplying instances, with which most readers must he
familiar, it is enough to say, that in France, as in every other
country where the protective principle is active, the government
has estabUshed a monopoly of the worst Mnd ; a monopoly which
comes home to the business and bosoms of men, foUows them in
their daUy avocations, troubles them with its petty, meddUng
spirit, and, what is worse than all, dimimshes their responsibUi-
ty to themselves ; thus depriring them of what is the only real
education that most minds receive, — the constant necessity of
proriding for ffiture contingencies, and the habit of grappling
with the difficulties of Ufe,
The consequence of all tMs has been, that the French,
though a great and splendid people, a people fuU of mettle,
high-spirited, abounding in knowledge, and perhaps less oppress
ed by superstition than any other in Europe, — have always been
found unfit to exercise political power. Even when they have
possessed it, they have never heen able to combine permanence
yrith Uberty. One of these two elements has always been want
ing. They have had free governments, wMch have not heen
stable. They have had stable governments, wMch have not heen
free. Oyring to their fearless temper, they have rebeUed, and no
doubt wUl continue to rebel, against so evU a condition.** But
it does not need the tongue of a prophet to teU that, for at least
some generations, aU such efforts must he unsuccessful. For
men can never be free, unless they are educated to freedom.
And tMs is not the education which is to be found in schools, or
ga,ined from books ; hut it is that wMch consists in self-disci-
pUne, in self-reUance, and in self-government. These, in Eng
land, are matters of hereditary descent — traditional habits, wMch
we imbibe m our youth, and wMch regulate us in the conduct
of Iffe. The old associations of the French all point in another
direction. At the sUghtest difficulty, they caU on the govem
ment for support. What with us is competition, with them is
monopoly. That which we effect by private companies, they
effect hy puhUc hoards. They cannot cut a canal, or lay down
a raUroad, yrithout appeaUng to the government for aid. With
them, the people look to the ralers ; with us, the ralers look to
the people. With them, the executive is the centre from which
society radiates.^' With us, society is the instigator, and the
** A distinguished French author saya: "La Prance aouffre du mal du sidcle;
eUe en eat plus maJade qu'aucuu autre pays; ce mal c'eat la haine de I'autoritd."
Custine Russu, vol. ii. p. 136.- Compare Rey, Science Sociale, vol u. p. 86 note.
It IS to the activity of this protective and centraUzing spirit that we must
ascribe, what a very great authority noticed thirty yeara ago, aa "le ddfaut despon-

454 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
executive the organ. The difference in the result has corre
sponded with the difference in the process. We have heen made
fit for poUtical power, hy the long exercise of ciril rights. They,
neglecting the exercise, think they can at once begin with the
power. We have always shown a determination to uphold our
liberties, and, when the times are fitting, to increase them ; and
this we have done yrith a decency and a gravity natural to men
to whom such subjects have long been faimUar. But the French,
always treated as chUdren, are, in political matters, chUdren
stiU. And as they have handled the most weighty concems
in that gay and volatile spirit wMch adoms their lighter
Uterature, it is no wonder that they have faUed in matters where
the first condition of success is, that men should have been long
accustomed to rely upon their oyvn energies, and that before
they try their skUl in a poUtical struggle, their resources should
have been sharpened hy that preliminary discipline, wMch a con
test yrith the difficulties of civil Ufe can never faU to impart.
These are among the considerations by wMch we must be
guided, in estimating the probable destinies of the great countries
of Europe. But what we are now rather concerned with is, to
notice how the opposite tendencies of France and England long
continued to be displayed in the condition and treatment of their
aristocracy ; and how from tMs there naturaUy foUowed some
striking differences between the war conducted hy the Fronde,
and that waged hy the Long ParUament.
When, in the fourteenth century, the authority of the French
Mugs began rapidly to increase, the poUtical infiuence of the
nobility was, of course, correspondingly dimimshed. What, how
ever, proves the extent to wMch their power had taken root, is
the undoubted fact, that, notwithstanding this to them unfa
vourable circumstance, the people were never ahle to emancipate
themselves from their control.*" The relation the nobles bore to the
throne became entirely changed; that which they bore to the people
tauditd, qui caractdriae les institutions de la France moderne." Meyer, Instit. Judic,
vol. iv. p. 636. It is also this which, in Uterature and in science, makea them favour
tbe eatabliahraent of acaderaiea ; and it ia probably to the same principle that their
jurists owe their love of codification. All these are manifestations of an unwffling-
neaa to rely ou the general march of affaira, and show an imdue contempt for the
unaided conclusious of private men.
_*" Mably (Observations, voh iu. pp. 154, 155, 352-3162) has coUected some strikmg
evidence of the tyranny of the French nobles in the sixteenth century ; and as to
the wanton cruelty with which tbey exercised their power in the seventeenth cen
tury, see Des Rlaux, Historiettes, voh vu. p. 156, vol. viu. p. 79, vol. ix. pp. 40, 61,
62, vol. X. pp. 255-267. In tbe eighteenth century, matters were aomewhat better;
but StiU the aubordination was excessive, and the people were poor, iU-treated, and
miserable. Compare CEuvres de Turgot, vol. iv. p. 139; Letter from tlie Earl o}
Cork, dated Lyons, 1764, in Burton's Diary, vol. iv. p. 80 ; the atatement of Fox, in
Pari. Hist, vol xxxi. p. 406 ; Jefferson's Correspond, vol. U. p. 46 ; and SmitlCs
lour on the Continent, edit. 1793, vol iu. pp. 201, 202.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 455
remained almost the same. In England, slavery, or vUlenage,
as it is mUdly termed, quickly dinunished, and was extinct by
the end of the sixteenth century.*' In France, it Ungered on
two hundred years later, and was only destroyed in that great
Eevolution hy wMch the. possessors of Ul-gotten power were
caUed to so sharp an account.*' Thus, too, until the last seventy
years, the nobles were in France exempt from those onerous
taxes wMch oppressed the people. The taille and corv6e were
hea'yy and grievous exactions, but they feU solely on men of
ignoble birth;*" for the French aristocracy, being a Mgh and
cMvalrous race, would have deemed it an insult to their illustri
ous descent, if they had heen taxed to the same amount as those
whom they despised as their inferiors.'" Indeed, every thing
tended to nurture tMs general contempt. Every thing was con
trived to humble one class, and exalt the other. For the nobles
there were reserved the best appomtments in the church, and
also the most important miUtary posts." The privUege of enter-
*' Mr. 'Eccleston (English Antiq. p. 138) aaya, that in 1460 "viUenage had al
moat paased away;" and according to Mr. Thornton (Over-Population, p. 182),
"Sir Thomas Smith, who ¦wrote about the year 1560, declares that he had never
met with any personal or domestic slaves ; and that the viUains, or predial slaves,
StiU to be found, were so few, as to be scarcely worth mentioning." Mr. HaUam
can find no "unequivocal testimony to the existence of viUenage" later than 1674.
Middle Ages, vol. U. p. 312 : see, to the same effect, Barrington on the Statutes, pp.
308, 309. If, however, my memory does not deceive me, I have met with evidence
of it in the reign of James I., but I cannot recaU the passage.
*" M. Cassagnac (Causes de la Rlvolution, voh ui. p. 11) says : " Chose surprenante,
il y avait encore, au 4 aodt 1789, un miUion cinq cent mille serfs de corps;" and
M. Giraud (Prlcis de V Ancien Droit, Paria, 1852, p. 8), juaqu'S, la rdvolution une
diviaion fondamentale partageait lea personnes en personnes Ubrea et peraonnes su-
jettea a condition servUe." A few years before the Eevolution, this shameful dis-
tmction waa abolished by Louia XVI. in Mb own domams. Corapare Eschbach,
Etude du Droit, pp. 271, 272, with Du Mesnil, Mlm. sur le Prince Le Brun, p. 94.
I notice this particularly, because M. MonteU, a learned and generaUy accurate
writer,**supposes that the aboUtion took place earUer than it reaUy did. Hist des
divers Etats, vol. vi. p. 101.
" Cassagnac, de la Revolution, vol. i. pp. 122, 173; Giraud, Ancien Droit, p.
11 ; Soulavie, Mem. de Louis XVI, vol vi. p. 156 ; Mem. au Roi sur les Municipali-
tls, m (Euvres de Twrgoi, vol vu. p. 423; Mem. de Genlis, vol. i. p. 200.
Further inforraation respecting the araount and nature of theae vexatious impo
sitions wiU be found in De Thou, Hist Univ. vol xiu. p. 24, vol. xiv. p. 118 ; Saint
Aulaire, Hist de la Fronde, vol. I p. 125; TocqueviUe, Ancien Rlgime, pp. 135, 191,
420, 440 ; Sully, (Economies Royales, vol ii. p. 412, vol. ui. p. 226, vol. iv. p. 199,
'vol. V. pp. 339, 410, vol vi. p. 94; Relat des Ambassad. Vlnit vol. i. p. 96 ; Mably,
Observations, vol. ni. pp. 865, 866 ; BoulainviUiers, Ancien Gomiernement, vol. iu.
p. 109; Le Vassor, Hist de Louis XIII, vol U. p. 29 ; Mem. d'Omer Talon, vol. ii.
pp. 103, 369 ; Mem. de Montglat, vol i. p. 82 ; TocqueviUe, Regne de Louis XV, vol.
oh?P' , ' ^^^' ®»''«« * Turgot, vol. i. p. 372, vol iv. pp. 68, 69, 74, 75, 242,
^^VS^- 1- P?- ^^®' 2*2, vol vl p. 144, vol viu. pp. 152, 280.
.bo deeply rooted were these feeUngs, that, even in 1789, the very year the
Kevolution broke out, it was deemed a great concession that the nobles " wiU consent,
S?^ i^'qo° .^1"-^ J'-'^'^t'on." See a letter frora Jefferson to Jay, dated, Paris, May
Mtn, 1/89, in Jefferson's Corresp. voh u. pp. 462, 463. Corapare Mercier sur Rous
seau, vol 1. p. 136. . r I f
;,i ab" ^»^ °?^/°^'j*'''S "S'lent le privildge exclusif des grandes dignitds et des gros
bdndfioes. ^Im. de Rivarol, p. 97 : see also Mkn. de Bouilll, vol i. p. 66 ; Lemontey,

456 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
ing the army as officers was confined to them ;" and they alone
possessed a prescriptive right to belong to the cavalry.53 ^^ ^j^g
same time, and to avoid the least chance of confusion, an equal
vigUance was displayed in the most trifling matters, and care
was taken to prevent any simUarity, even in the amusements of
the two classes. To such a pitch was tMs brought, that, in
many parts of France, the right of having an aviary, or a dove
cote depended entirely on a man's rank ; and no Frenchman,
whatever his wealth might be, could keep pigeons, unless he
were a noble ; it being considered that these recreations were too
elevated for persons of plebeian origin.'*
Circumstances like these are valuable, as eridence of the
state of society to wMch they belong ; and their importance wUl
become pecuUarly obvious, when we compare them with the
opposite condition of England.
For in England, neither these nor any simUar distinctions
have ever been known. The spirit of wMch our yeomanry, copy
holders, and free burgesses were the representatives, proved far
too strong for those protective and monopoUzmg principles, of
which the aristocracy are the guardians in poUtics, and the
clergy in religion. And it is to the successful opppsition made
hy these feelings of individual independence, that we owe our
two greatest national acts — our Eeformation in the sixteenth,
and our EehelUon in the seventeenth century. Before, however,
tracing the steps taken in these matters, there is one other point
of view to wMch I wish to caU attention, as a further Ulustra
tion of the early and radical difference between France and
England. In the eleventh century there arose the celebrated institution
of cMvalry," wMch was to manners what feudaUsm was to poU-
Etablissement Monarchique, p. 337 ; Daniel, Hist, de la Milice Franfoise, vol U. p.
666 ; Campan, Mem. sur Marie Antoinette, vol. i. pp. 238, 289,
"^ "L' ancien rdgime n'avait admis que des noblea pour officiera." J/em. de Ro
land, vol. i. p. 398. Segur mentions that, early in the reign of Louis XVI., "les
nobles aeula avaient le droit d'entrer au service comme sous-lieutenans." Mim. de
Segur, vol. l p. 68. Compare pp. 117, 265-271, with Mem. de Genlis, vol. ui. p. 74,
aud De Stael, Consid. sur la Rev. vol. i. p. 123.
'" Thus, De Thou saya of Henry III., "il remet soua I'ancien pied la cavalerie or
dinaire, qui n' dtoit composde que de la noblesse." Hist Univ. vol ix. pp. 202, 203 ;
and see vol. x. pp. 504, 505, vol. xiU. p. 22 ; and an imperfect statement of the
same fact in BouUier, Hist, des divers Corps de la Maison Militaire des Rois de
France, Paris, 1818, p. 58, a superficial work on an uninteresting subject.
it M. TocqueviUe (L'Ancien Rlgime, p. 448) mentiona, among other regulations
StUl in force late iu the eighteenth century, that " en Dauphind, en Bretagne, en Nor
mandie, il est prohibd k tout roturier d'avoir des colombiers, fuies et volidre ; U n'y
a que les nobles qui puissent avoir des pigeons."
" Dds la fin du onzierae sidcle 3. I'dpoque radme ou commencdrent les croisades,
"i" *™V® la chevalerie dtablie." Koch, Tab. des Revolutions, vol i. p. 143 : see
also Sainte-Palaye, Mem. sur le Chevalerie, vol i. pp. 42, 68. M. Guizot (Civilis. en
France, vol in. pp. 349-354) has attempted to trace it back to an earUer period ; but

* GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 457
tics. This connexion is clear, not only from tho testimony of
cohtemporaries, but also from two general considerations. In
the first place, chivalry was so Mghly aristocratic, that no one
could even receive knighthood unless he were of noble birth ;"
and the preUminary education which was held to be necessary
was carried on either in schools appointed hy the nobles, or else
in thar own baronial castles." In the second place, it was
essentiaUy a protective, and not at aU a reforming institution.
It was contrived yrith a view to remedy certain oppressions, as
they successively arose ; opposed in tMs respect to the reformmg
spirit, which, being remedial rather than palUative, strikes at
the rooLof an evU by humbUng the class from which the evU
proceeds, passmg over indiridual cases in order to direct its atten
tion to general causes. But chivalry, so far from doing tMs,
was in fact a fusion of the aristocratic and the ecclesiastical
forms of the protective spirit." For, by introducing among the
nobles the principle of kmghthood, which, being personal, could
never he bequeathed, it presented a point at which the ecclesias
tical doctrine of ceUbacy could coalesce with the aristocratic doc
trine of hereditary descent.'" Out o£ this coalition sprung re
sults of great moment. It is to tMs that Europe owes those
orders, half aristocratic, half reUgious "" the Knights Templars,
the Kmghts of St. James, the Knights of St. John, the Knights
he appearsTo have faUed, though of course its germs may be easily found. Accord
ing to some writera it originated in Northern Europe ; according to othera in Ara
bia I Mallets Northern Antiquities, p. 202 ; Journal of A siat Soc. vol. U. p. 11.
" ¦" L'ordre de chevalerie n'dtoit accordd qu'aux hommea d'un aang noble." Sis
mondi, Hist, des Frangais, vol. iv. p. 204. Compare Daniel, Hist de la Milice, vol.
I p. 97, and Mills' Hist of Chivalry, vol. i. p. 20.
" " In some places there were schoola appointed by the nobles of the country,
but most' frequently their own caatles served." Mills' Hist, of Chivalry, vol i. p.
31 ; and see Bainte-Pcdaye, Mem. sur tAnc. Chevalerie, vol i. pp. 30, 66, 67, on this
education. " This combination of knighthood and reUgioua ritea ia often ascribed to the
crusades ; but tbere is good evidence that it took place a Uttle earUer, and must be
referred to the latter half of the eleventh century. Compare Mills' Hist, of Chivalry,
vol i. pp. 10, 11 ; Daniel, Hist de la Milice, vol. i. pp. 101, 102, 108 ; Boulainvil-
liers, Ancien Gouv. vol. i. p. 826. Samte-Palaye (Mem, sur la Chevalerie, vol. i. pp.
1'19-123), who haa coUectei sorae Ulustrations of the relation between chivalry and
the church, says, p. 119, " enfin la chevalerie dtoit regardde corame une ordination,
un sacerdoce." The superior clergy possessed the right of conferring knighthood,
aud WiUiam Rufua waa actuaUy knighted by Archbiahop Lanfranc : " Archiepisco-
pus Lanfrancus, eo qudd eum nutrierat, et raiUtera fecerat." Will. Malmes. Ub. iv.,
in Scriptores past Bedam, p. 67. Corapare Fosbroke's British Monachism, 1848, p.
101,^on knighting by abbots.
'" The infiuence of this on the nobles is rather exaggerated by Mr. MiUa; who,
on the other hand, has not noticed how the unhereditary element was favourable to
the ecclesiastical apirit. Mills' Hist of Chivalry, vol. i. pp. 15, 389, vol. ii. p. 169;
a work mtereatmg aa an assemblage of facts, but almost useless aa a philosophic es
timate. "In their origin aU the military orders, and moat of the reUgioua onea, were en
tirely aristocratic." MilVs' Hist of Chivalry, voh i. p. 386.

458 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLANB.
of St. Michael : estahUshments wMch inflicted the greatest evils
on society ; and whose members, combinmg analogous rices, Ai-
Uvened the superstition of monks yrith the debauchery of sol
diers. As a natural consequence, an immense number of nohle
knights were solemnly pledged M, " defend the church ;" an
ominous expression, the meaning dPwMch is too weU known to
the readers of ecclesiastical Mstory!" Thus it was that ch^ahy,
uniting the hostUe principles of celibacy and nohle birth, became
the incarnation of the spirit of the two classes to wMch those
principles belonged. Whatever benefit, therefore, this institu
tion may have conferred upon manners,"^ there can be no d^ht
that it actively contributed to keep men in a state of BupUage,
and stopped the march of society hy prolonging the termofres
infancy."' On this account it is evident, that whether we look at the
immediate ^or at the remote tendency of cMvalry, its strength
and duration become a measure of the predominance of the pro
tective spirit. If, yrith tMs view, we compare France and Eng
land, we shaU find fresh proof of the early divergence of those
countries. Tournaments, ^e first open expression of cMvalry,
are of French origin."*-. The greatest and, indeed, the only two
great descrihers of chi-vkky are JoinvUle and Froissart, both of
"' MUU Hist, of Chivalry, vol. I pp. 148, 333. About the year 1127, St. Ber
nard wrote a discourse in' favour of the Knights Templars, in which "hj^extols this
order aa a combination of monaaticiam and knighthood  He describes the
design of it as being to give the miUtary»order and knighthood a serious Christian
direction, and to convert war into somethhig that God might approve." Neander's
Hist ofthe Church, vol. vu. p. 368. To thia may be added, that, early»in the thir
teenth century, a chivalric association was formed, and afterwards merged in the
Dominican order, called the MiUtia of Christ : " un nouvel ordre de chevalerie des-
tuid A pourauivre lea hdrdtiquea, aur le moddle de celui des TempUers, et sous le
nom de MiUce de Christ." Llorente, Hist, de VInquisition, vol. i. pp. 62, 133, 203.
"" Several writers ascribe to chivalry the merit of softening manners, and of in
creasing the influence of women. Sainte-Palaye, Mem. sur la Chevalerie, vol i. pp.
220-223, 282, 284, vol iu. pp. vi. 'vU. 159-161 ; Helvltius de VEsprit, vol u. pp. 60,
61 ; SchlegeVs Lectures, vol. i. p. 209. That there was auch a tendency is, I thmk,
in(B8putable ; but it baa been greatly exaggerated ; and an author of considerable
reading on these subjects says, " The rigid treatment shown to prisoners of war m
ancient times strongly marks the ferocity and uncultivated maimers of our ancestors,
and that even to ladies of high rank ; notwithstanding the homage aaid to have been
paid to the fair aex in thoae days of chivalry." (rrose's Military Antiquities, vol
U. p. 114. Corapare Manning on ihe Law of Nations, 1839, pp. 146, 146.
"" Mr. HaUara (Middle Ages, vol ii. p. 464) aays, " A third reproach may be
made to the character of knighthood, that it widened the separation betweenthe
different classes of society, and confirmed that aristocratical spirit of high birth,
by which the large mass of mankind were kept in unjust degradation."
°* Sismondi, Hist des Fra-ngais, vol. iv. pp. 870, 371, 87l ; Turner's Eist of
England, vol. iv. p. 478 ; Foncemagne de V Origine des Armoiries, in Mhn. de VAca-
demie des Inscriptions, vol xx. p. 580. Koch also says (Tableau des Rkvolvtiom,
vol. i. p. 139)^ 11 c'est de la France que I'usage des tournois se rdpandit chez leS
autres nations de I'Europe." They were first introduced into Enghind in the reign
of Stephen. Lingard's England, vol. U. p. 27.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION, 459
whom were Frenchmen, Bayard, that famous chevaUer, who is
always considered as the last rejy-esentative of chivalry, was a
Frenchman, and was kiUed when fighting for Francis I. Nor
was it untU nearly forty years after his death that tournaments
were finaUy aboUshed in France, the last one having heen held
m 1560,"' But in England, the protective spirit being much less active
than in France, we should expect to find that cMvalry, as its
offspring, had less influence. And such was reaUy the case.
The honours that were paid to kmghts, and the social distinc
tions hy which they were separated from the other classes, were
never so great in our country as in France."" As men became
more free, the Uttle respect they had for such matters stUl fur
ther dinunished. In the thirteenth century, and indeed in the
very, reign in wMch burgesses were flrst returned to parUament,
the leading symbol of chivalry feU into such disrepute, that a law
was passed ohUging certain persons to accept that rank of
knighthood wMch in other nations was one of the Mghest objects
of ambition."' In the fourteenth century, this was foUowed hy
another .blow, which deprived knighthood of its exclusively mil
itary character; the custom having grown up in the reign of Ed
ward III. of conferring it on the judges in the courts of law, thus
turmng a warlike title into a civil honour." Finally, hefore the
end of the fifteenth century, the spirit of cMvalry, in France stiU
at its lieight, was m our country extinct, and this miscMevous
institution had become a subject for ridicule even among the
people themselves."" To these circumstances we may add two
"' Mr. HaUam (Middle Ages, voh ii. p. 470) says they were " entirely discontin
ued in France" in consequence of the d-eath of Henry II. ; but according to Mills'
Eist of Chivalry, vol U. p. 226, they lasted the next year ; when another fatal ac
cident occurred, and " tournaments oeaaed for ever." Compare Saint-Palaye ewr
la Chevalerie, voh U. pp. 89, 40.
°" 'H.v.'B.aaa.m (MiMle Ages, vol. il p. 467) observes, that the knight, aa compared
with other claases, " was addressed by titlea of more respect. There was not, how-
ever,,so much distinction, in England as in France." The great honour paid to knights
in France ia noticed by Daniel (Milice Frangaise, vol. i. pp. 128, 129) ; and Herder
(Ideen zur Geschichte, vol. iv. pp. 266, 267) say| that in France chivalry flourished
more than in any other country. The sarae remark is made by Sismondi (Hist, des
Frangais, voh iv. p. 198).
"' The Stdtutum de Mil^bus, in 1307, was perhaps the firat recognition of this.
Compare Blackstone's Conment. vol U. p. 69 ; Barrington on the Statutes, pp. 192,
193. But we have positive evidence that compulsory knighthood existed in the
reign of Henry HI. ; or at least that those who refused it were obUged to pay a fine.
See Hallam's Const. Hist vol. i. p: 421, and Lyttelton's Hist of Hemry II. vol.U. pp.
238, 239, 2d edit, ^to, 1767. Lord Lyttelton, evidently puzzled, says, "Indeed it
seems a deviation from the original principle of thia institution; For one cannot
but think it a very great inconsistency, that a dignity, which was deemed an acces
sion of honour to kings themselves, should be forced upon any."
"w In Mills'^ Hist of Chivalry, vol. U. p. 154, it is said, that "the judges of the
courts of law were firat knighted in the reign of Edward IIL
» Mr. MUla (Hist of Chivalry, vol. U. pp. 99, 100) has printed a curious extract

460 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
others, which seem worthy of observation. The first is, that
the French, notwithstanding, their, many adrmrahle quaUties,
have always heen more remarkable for personal vanity than the
English ;'" a pecuUarity partly referable to those chivalric tra
ditions wMch even their occasional republics have heen unable
to destroy, and wMch makes them attach undue importance to
external distinctions, hy which I mean, not only dress and man
ners, hut also medals, ribands, stars, crosses, and the like, which
we, a prouder people, have never held in such Mgh estimation.
The other circumstance is, that duelUng has from the beginning,
heen more popular in France than in England ; and as this is
a custom wMch we owe to chivalry, the difference in this respect
between the two countries suppUes another Unkin that long
chain of evidence hy which we must estimate their national ten
dencies." e
from a lamentation over tbe destruction of chivalry, written in the reign of Edward
IV. ; but he has overlooked a stUl more singular instance. This is a popular baUad,
written in the middle of the fifteenth century, and called the Turnament of Totten
ham, in which the folUes of chivalry are admirably ridiculed. See Warton's Eist. of
English Poetry, edit. 1840, vol in. pp. 98-101 ; and Percy's Reliques of Ancient
Poetry, edit. 1845, pp. 92-95. According to Turner (Hist, of England, vol. vi. p.
363), " the ancient books of chivalry were laid aside" about the reign of Henry VI.
'" This ia not a mere popular opinion, but rgata upon a large amount of evidence,
BuppUed by competent and impartial observers. Addison, who was a lenient as well
as an able judge, and who had Uved rauch among the French, caUs them "the vainest
nation in the world." Letter to Bishop Hough, in Aikin's Life of Addison, vol i. p.
90. Napoleon says, " vanity is the ruUng principle of tbe French." Alison's Eist
of Europe, vol. vl p. 26. Dumont (Souvenirs sur Mirabeau, p. Ill) declares, that
" le trait le plus dominant dans le caractdre franfais, c'est I'amour propre ;" and
Sdgur (Souvenirs, vol i. pp. 73, 74), " car en France I'araour propre, ou, si on le
veut, la vanitd, est de toutes lea paasions la plus irritable." It is morec^er stated,
that phrenological observations prove that the French are vainer than the English.
Combe's Elements of Phrenology, 6th edit. Edinb. 1845, p. 90 ; and a partial recogni
tion of the same fact in Broussais, Cours de Phrenologie, p. 297. For other m-
stances of writera who have noticed the vanity ofthe French, see TocqueviUe, V Ancien
Rlgime, p. 148 ; Barante, Ut. Frang. au XVIIP Siecle, p. 80 ; Mem. de Brissot,
vol. l p. 272 ; Meziray, Hist, de France, vol. u. p. 988 ; Lemontey, Etablissement
Monarchique, p. 418; Voltaire, LeUres inedites, vol. U. p. 282 i^Tocqueville, Regne
de Louis XV, vol U. p. 358 ; De Stael sur la Rlvolution, vol. i. p. 260, vol u. p. 268.
" The relation between chivalry and duelUng has been noticed by several wri
ters ; and in France, where the chivalric spirit was not completely destroyed until
the revolution, we find occasional traces of this connexion even in the reign of Louis
XVI. See, for instance, in Mlm. de Lafayette, vol. i. p. 86, a curious letter in re
gard to chivalry and duelUng in 1778. In England theie is, I beUeve, no evidence
of even a single private duel being fought earUer thaa'fiie sixteenth century, and
there were not many tiU the latter half of EUzabeth's reign ; but in France the cus
tora arose early in the fifteenth century, and in the sixteenth it became usual for
the seconds to fight as well as the principals. Corapare Montlosier, Monarc. Fran;.
vol. u. p. 436, with Monteil, Hist, des divers Etats, vol. vi. p. 48. From that time
the love of the French for duelling became quite a passion until the end of the eigh
teenth century, wben the Revolution, or rather the. oircuniatanoea which led to the
Revolution, cauaed ita comparative ceaaation. Some idea may be formed of the
enormoua extent of thia practice formerly in France, by comparing" the following
paaaages ; which I have the more pleaaure in bringing together, aa no one has writ
ten even a tolerable hiatory of duelling, notwithstanding the great part it once

GENERAL INTEODUCTION, 461
The old associations, of wMch these facts are but the exter
nal expressioh, now continued to act with increasing vigour.
In France, the protective spirit, carried into religion, was strong
enough to resist the Eeformation, and preserve to the clergy the
forms, at least, of their ancient supremacy. In England, the
pride of men, anS their habits of seU-reUance, enabled them to
mature into a system what is caUed the right of private judg
ment, by wMch some of the most cherished traditions were erad
icated ; and tMs, as we have already seen, being quickly suc-
.ceeded, Arst by scepticism, and then by toleration, prepared the
way for'hat subordmation of the church to the state, for which
we are pre-6minent, and without a rival, among the nations of,
Europe. The very same tendency, acting in poUtics, displayed
analogous results. Our ancestors found no difficulty in humbUng
the nobles, and reducing them to comparative insignificance.
The wars of the Eoses, by breaking up the leading famiUes into
two hostUe factions, aided this movement ;" and, after the reign
of Edward IV., there is no instance of any Englishman, even of
the highest rank, venturing to carry on those private wars, hy
wMch, in other countries, the great lords stUl disturbed the peace
of society." When the ciril contests subsided, the same spirit
displayed itseff in the poUcy of Henry VII. and Henry VIIL For,
those princes, despots as they were, mainly oppressed the highest
classes ; and even Henry VIIL, notyrithstanding Ms barbarous
craelties, was loved hy the people, to whom Ms reign was, on the
whole, decidedly beneficial. Then there came the Eeformation ;
wMch, being an uprising of the hum^n mind, was essentiaUy a
rehelUous movement, and thus increasing the insubordination of
men, sowed, in the sixteenth century, the seeds of those great
poUtical revolutions wMch, m the seventeenth century, broke
played in European society. De Tliouj Hist Univ. vol. ix. pp. 592, 593, vol xv.
p. 57 ; Daniel, Milice Franfoise, vol U. p. 582 ; SuUy, (Economies, vol. i. p. 301, vol.
in. p. 406, voh vi. p. 122, vol viU. p. 41, vol. ix. p. 408 ; Carew's State of France
under Henry IV., in Birch's Historical Negotiatiohs, p. 467 ; Ben Jonson's Works, ,
edit. Gifford, vol. vl p. 69; Dulaure, Hist, de Paris (1825, 3d edit.), vol. iv. p. 567,
vol V. pp. 300, 301 ; Le Clerc, Bibliotheque Univ. voh xx. p. 242 ; Lettres de Patin, vol.
iu. p_. 536 ; Capefigue, Hist, de la Riforme, vol. vui. p. 98 ; Capefigul's Richelieu,
vol. i. p. 63 ; Des Rlaux, Historiettes, vol. x. p. 13 ; Mlm. de Genlis, vol. ii. p. 191,
vol vu. p. 215, vol. ix. p^351 ; Mem. of the Baroness dOberkirch, vol i. p. 71, edit.
Loud. 1852 ; Lettres inedites d! Aguesseau, vol i. p. 211 ; Lettres de Du Deffand A
Walpole, vol. Ui. p. 249, vol iv. pp. 27, 28, 162 ; BouUier, Mauon Militaire des Rois
de France, pp. 87, 88; Biog. Univ. vol v. pp. 402, 403, vol. xxiu. p. 411, vol. xUv.
pp. 127, 401, vol xlviU. p. 622, vol xUx. p. 130.
On the effect of the wars of the Eoses upon the nobles, compare Hallam's
(Mist Hist yol i. p. 10 ; Ungard's Hist of England, vol iu. p. 340 ; Eccleston'i
English Antiq. pp. 224, 320 : and on their iraraense pecuniary, or rather territorial,
losses, Sinclair's Hist ofthe Revenue'vol. i. p. 155.
" The laat instance of a pitched battle between two powerful noblemen in
England occurs in the reign of Edward IV." AlUn on ihe Prerogative, p. 123.

462 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
out in nearly every part of Europe. The connexion, between
these two revolutionary epochs is a subject full of interest ; hut,
for the purpose of the present chapter, it yvUl he sufficient to
notice such events, during the latter half of the sixteenth cen
tury, as explain the sympathy between the ecclesiastical and
aristocratic classes, and prove how the same cii-cumstances that
were fatal to the one, also prepared the way for the doymfaU of
the other. .,
When EUzabeth ascended the tMone of England, a large ma
jority of the nohiUty were opposed to the Protestanij^eligion.
This we know from the most decisive evidence ; an*even if
we had no such evidence, a general acquaintance with human
nature would induce us to suspect that such was the case. For,
the aristocracy, hy the very conditions of their existence, must,
as a body, always he averse to innovation. And tMs, not only
hecause by a change they have much to lose and Uttle to gain,
hut hecause some of their most pleasurable emotions are connect
ed with the past rather than with the present. In the collision of
actual life, their vanity is sometimes offended hy the assump
tions of inferior men ; it is frequently wounded by the success
ful competition of ahle men. These are mortifications to wMch,
in the progress of society, their UahUity is constantly increasing.
But the moment they turn to the past, they see in those good
old times wMch are now gone hy, many sources of consolation.
There they find a period in wMch their glory is without a rival
When they look at their pedigrees, their quarterings, their
escutcheons ; when they think of the purity of their blood, and
the antiquity of their ancestors, — they experience a comfort
wMch ought amply to atone for any present inconvenience.
The tendency of tMs is very obvious, and has showm itself in the
history of every aristocracy the world has yet seen. Men who
have worked themselves to so extravagant a pitch, as to beUeve
that it is any honour to have had one ancestor who came over yrith
the Normans, and another ancestor who was present at the first
invasion of Ireland, — men who have reached tMs ecstasy of the
fancy are not disposed to stop there, but, hy a process with
which most minds are famiUar, they generaUze their riew ; and,
even on matters not immediately connected yrith their fame,
they acquire a hahit of associating grandeur vrith antiquity, and
of measuring value hy age; thus transferring to the past an ad
miration wMch otheryrise they might reserve for the present.
The connexion between these feelings and those which aid-
mate the clergy is very evident. What the nobles are to poUtics,
that are the priests to reUgion. Both classes, constantly appeal
ing to the voice of antiquity, rely much on tradition, and make

GENEEAL INTRODUCTION. 463
great account of upholding established customs. Both take for
granted that what is old is better than what is new; and that in
former times there were means of discovering truths respecting
I government and theology which we, in these degenerate ages,
no longer possess. And it may be added, that the simUarity of
' their functions foUows from the sinularity of their principles.
Both are eminently protective, stationary, or, as they are some
times caUed, conservative. It is believed that the aristocracy
guard the state against revolution, and that the clergy keep the
church f|)m error. The first are tiie enemies of refonners; the
others are the scourge of heretics.
It does not enter into the pro-rince of tMs Introduction to ex
amine how far these principles are reasonable, or to inquire into
the propriety of notions which suppose that, on certain subjects
of immense importance, men are to remain stationary, yvhUe on
aU other subjects they are constantly advancing. But what I
now rather yrish to point out, is the manner in wMch, in the
reign of Elizabeth, the two great conservative and protective
classes were weakened hy that vast movement, the Eeformation,
wMch, though completed in the sixteenth century, had been pre
pared by a long chain of inteUectual antecedents.
Whatever the prejudices of some may suggest, it will he ad
mitted, by aU unbiased judges, that the Protestant Eeformation
was neither more nor less than an open rebellion. Indeed, the
mere mention of private judgment, on wMch it was avowedly
based, is enough to substantiate this fact. To estahUsh the right
of private judgment, was to appeal from the church to individu
als ; it was to increase the play of each man's inteUect ; it was
to test the opimons of the priesthood by the opinions of laymen;
it was, in fact, a rising of the scholars against their teachers, of
the ruled against their rulers. And although the Eeformed
clergy, so soon as they had orgamzed themselves into a hierarchy,
did undoubtedly abandon the great principle with wMch they
staffed, and attempt to impose articles and canons of their own
contrivance, stUl, tMs ought not to bUnd us to <the merits of the
Eeformation itseff. The tyranny of the church of England,
during the reign of EUzabeth, and stiU more during the reigns
of her two successors, was but the natural consequence of that
corruption wMch power always begets in those who wield it, and
does not lessen the importance of the movement by which the
power was originally obtained. For, men could not forget that,
tried by the old theological theory, the church of England was
a scMsmatic estahUshment, and could only defend itself from the
charge of heresy hy appeaUng to that private judgment, to the
exercise of wMch it owed its existence, but of the rights of wMch

464 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
its oym proceedings were a constant infraction. It was evident,
that if, in reUgious matters, private judgment were supreme, it
became a Mgh spiritual crime to issue any articles, or to take any
measure, by which that judgment could be tied up; whUe, on the i
other hand, if the right of private judgment were not supreme, the ,
church of England was guUty of apostasy, inasmuch as its found
ers did, by virtue of the interpretation which their own private
judgment made of the Bible, abandon tenets wMch they had
Mtherto held, stigmatize those tenets as idolatrous, and openly
renounce their aUegiance to what had for centuries hegn vener
ated as -the catholic and apostoUc church.
This was a simple alternative ; wMch might, indeed, be kept
out of sight, but could not he refined away, and most assuredly
has never been forgotten. The meinory of the great truth it
conveys was preserved hy the writings and teacMngs of the Puri
tans, and hy those habits of thought natural to an inquisitive
age. And when the fulMess of time had come, it did not fail to
hear its frait. It continued slowly to fructify; and before the
middle of the seventeenth century, its seed had quickened into a
Ufe, the energy of wMch notMng could withstand. That same
•right of private judgment, which the early Eeformers had loudly
proclaimed, was now pushed to an extent fatal to those who op
posed it. This it was wMch, carried into poUtics, overturned the
government;' and, carried into reUgion, upset the church.'* For,
rebellion and heresy are hut different forms of the same disregard
of tradition, the same bold and independent spirit. Both are of
the nature of a protest made hy modern ideas against old asso
ciations. They are as a struggle between the feeUngs of the
present and the memory of the past. Without the exercise of
private judgment, such a contest could never take place; the
mere conception of it could not enter the minds of men, nor
would they even dream of controlling, hy their individual energy,
those abuses to wMch aU great societies are liable. It is, there
fore, in the highest degree natural, that the exercise of this jujjg-
ment should be opposed by those two powerful classes, who, from
their position, their interests, and the habits of .their mind, are
more prone than any other to cherish antiquity, cleave to super
annuated customs, and uphold institutions which, to use their
" Clarendon (Hist of ihe Rebellion, p. 80), in a very angry spirit, but with per
fect truth, noticea (under the year 1640) the connexion between " a proud and ven
omous dialike againat the discipUne of the church of England, and so by degrees
(aa the progreas ia very natural) an equal irreverence to tbe government of the state
too." The Spanish government, perhapa, more than any other in Europe, has un
derstood this relation ; and even so late as 1789, an edict of Charles IV. declared,
qu ll y a crime d'hdrdsie dans tout ce qui tend, ou contribue, h propager les iddes
rdvolutionnaires." Llorente, Hist de VInquisition, vol. U. p. 130.

GENEEAL INTRODUCTION, 465
favourite language, have been consecrated by the wisdom of their
fathers. From this point of view, we are ahle to see with great clear
ness the intimate connexion which, at the accession of Eliza
beth, existed between the English nobles and the Catholic clergy,
Notyrithstanding many exceptions, an immense majority of both
classes opposed the Eeformation, hecause it was based on that
ri^ht of private judgment, of wMch they, as the protectors of old
opinions, were the natural antagonists. All tMs can excite no
surprise ; it was in the order of tMngs, and strictly accordant
¦with the spirit of those two great sections of society. Fortu
nately, however, for our country, the throne was now occupied by
a sovereign who was equal to the emergency, and who, instead
of yielding to the two classes, avaUed herself of the temper of
the age to humble them. The manner in which this wa^ effected
by EUzabeth, in respect, first to the Catholic clergy, and after
wards to the Protestant clergy," forms one of the most interest
ing parts of our Mstory ; and in an account of the reign of the
great queen, I hope to examine it at considerable length. At
present, it wiU be sufficient to glance at her poUcy towards the
nobles, — ^that other class yrith wMch the priesthood, hy their in
terests, opinions, and associations, have always much in com
mon. EUzabeth, at her accession to the throne, finding that the
ancient famffies adhered to the ancient reUgion, naturally caUed
to her councUs advisers who were more Ukely to uphold the nov
elties on wMch the age was bent. She selected men who, being
Uttle burdened by past associations, were more incUned to favour
present interests. The two Bacons, the two Cecils, KnoUys, Sad
ler, Smith, Throgmorton, Walsingham, were the most eminent
statesmen and diplomatists in her reign; hut all of them were
commoners ; only one did she raise to the peerage ; and they were
certainly novrise remarkable, either for the rank of their immediate
connexions, or for the celebrity of their remote ancestors. They,
however, were recommended to EUzabeth by their great ahUities,
and hy their deternUnation to uphold a reUgion wMch the an
cient aristocracy naturaUy opposed. And it is observable that,
among the accusations wMch the CathoUcs brought against the
queen, they taunted her, not only with forsaMng the old reUgion,
hut also with neglecting the old nobUity."
'* The general character of her poUcy towards the Protestant EngUsh bishops
IB aumraed up very fairly by ColUer ; though he, as a professional writer, ia naturaUy
displeased with her disregard for the heads of the church. Collier's Eccles. Hist of
Great Britain, voh vU. pp. 257, 258, edit. Barbara, 1840.
One of the charges which, in 1588, Sixtus V. pubUcly brought against EUza
beth, was, that " she hath rejected and excluded the ancient nobiUty, and promoted
VOL. I.— an ^' '

466 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
Nor does it require much acquaintance with the history of
the time to see the justice of tMs charge. Whatever explana
tion we may choose to give of the fact, it cannot be denied that,
during the reign of Elizabeth, there was an open and constant
opposition between the nobles and the executive government,
The rebeUion of 1569 was essentiaUy an aristocratic movement ;
it was a rising of the great famiUes of the north against what
they considered the upstart and plebeian administration of the
queen." The bitterest enemy of Elizabeth was certainly Mary
of Scotland ; and the interests of Mary were publicly defended
by the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Northumberland^ the Earl
of Westmoreland, and the Earl of Arundel ; wMle there is rea
son to believe that her cause was secretly favoured by the Mar
quis of Northampton, the Earl of Pembroke, the Earl of Derby,
the Earl of Cumberland, the Earl of Shrewsbury, and the Earl
of Sussex." , ,
The existence of this antagonism of interests could not es
cape the sagacity of the EngUsh government. CecU, who was
the most powerful of the ministers of EUzabeth, and who was
to honour obscure people." Butler's Mem, of the Catholics., vol. u. p. 4. Persons
also reproaches her with her low-born ininisters, and saya that ahe waa mfluenced
" by five persons in particular — aU of them sprung from the earth, — Bacon, Cecil
Dudley, Hatton, and Walsingham." Butler, vol. U. p. 81. Cardinal AUen taunted
her with " diagracing the ancient nobility, erecting baae and unworthy persons to aU
the civil and ecclesiastical dignities." Dodds Church History, edit. Tiemey, 1840,
vol. iU. appendix no. xu. p. xlvi. The same influential writer, in his Admonition,
said that she had injured England, " by great contempt and abasing of the ancient
npbiUty, repelling them from due governraent, ofiSces, and places of honour." Al
len's Admonition to the Nobility and People of England arid Ireland, 1588, (reprint
ed London, 1842), p. xv. Compare the account of the BuU of 1688, in Je Thau,
Hist, Univ. vol. x. p. 175 : " On accusoit Elisabeth d'avoir au prdjudice de la
nobleaae angloise dlevd aux dignitds, tant ci-viles qu'eccldsiastiquea, des hommes
nouveaux, sans naissauce, et indignes de les possdder."
" To the phUosophic historian thia rebelUon, though not sufficiently appreciated
by ordinary, writers, is a very important study, because it is the last attempt ever
made by the great EngUsh famUies to establish their authority by force of arms.
Mr. Wright says, that probably aU thoae who took a leading part in it "were alUed
by blood or intermarriage with the two famiUea of the Percies and Neviles."
Wrights Elizabeth, 1838, vol. i. p. xxxiv. ; a valuable work. See also, in Pari. Eist.
vol. i. p. 730, a list of some of thoae who, in 1571, were attainted on account of this
rebeUion, and who are aaid to be " all of the beat families iq the north of England.
But the most complete evidence we have respecting this struggle, consists of
the collection of original documents pubUahed in 184Q by Sir C. Sharpe, under the
title of Memorials of the Rebellion of 1669. Tbey abow very clearly the real nature
of the outbreak. On 17th November, 1669, Sir George Bowes writes, that the com
plaint of the inaurgenta waa that "there was certaine counseUors cropen"(». e.
crept) " in aboute tbe prince, which had excluded the nobiUty from the prince,"
&c.. Memorials, p. 42 ; and the editor's note saya that this is one of the charges
made in all the proclamations by the earls. Perhaps the most curious proof of how
notorious the policy of EUzabeth had become, is contained in a friendly letter from
Sussex to Cecil, dated 5th January, 1669 (Memorials, p. 137), one paragraph of which
begins, " Of late years few young noblemen have been employed in service."
' Hallam, i, p 130 ; Ungard, v, pp. 97, 102 ; Turner, xii pp. 245, 247.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 467
at the head of affairs for forty years, made it part of his busi
ness to study the genealogies and material resources of the great
famiUes ; and this he did, not out of idle curiosity, hut in order
to increase Ms control over them, or, as a great historian says, to
let them know " that his eye was upon them."' « The queen her
self, though too fond of power, was by no means of a cruel dis-
positioii ; but she seemed to deUght in humbUng the nobles. On
them her hand feU hea-rily ; and there is hardly to he found a
single instance of her pardoning their offences, whUe she punished
several of them for acts which would now be considered no
offences at aU. She was always unwilling to admit them to au
thority ; and it is unquestionably true that, taMng them as a
class, they were during her long and prosperous reign treated
with unusual disrespect. Indeed, so clearly marked was her
poUcy, that when the ducal order became extinct, she refused to
renew it ; and a whole generation passed away to whom the
name of duke was a mere matter of history, a point to be mooted
by antiquaries, hut yrith wMch the business of practical life had
no concern.'" Whatever may be her other faults, she was on
tMs subject always consistent. Although she evinced the great
est anxiety to surround the tMone with men of ahiUty, she cared
Uttle for those conventional distinctions hy which the minds of
ordinary sovereigns are greatly moved. She made no account of
dignity of rank ; she did not even care for purity of blood. She
valued men neither for the splendour of their ancestry, nor for
the length of their pedigrees, nor for the grandeur of their titles.
Such questions she left for her degenerate successors, to the size
of whose understandings they were admirably fitted. Our great
queen regiUated her conduct by another standard. Her large and
powerful inteUect, cultivated to its Mghest point by reflection and
study, taught her the trae measure of affairs, and enabled her
to see, that to make a government flourish, its counciUors must
be men of ahiUty and of -yirtue ; but that if these two condi
tions are fuMlled, the nobles may he left to repose in the enjoy
ment of their leisure, unoppressed by those cares of the state for
wMch, yrith a few brilUant exceptions, they are naturally dis-
Hallam's Coasts Hist, vol i. p. 241 ; an interesting passage. Turner (Hist.
of England, vol xu. p. 23.7) says, that CecU "knew the tendency of the great lords
to combine against the ctown, that they might reinstate the peerage in the power
from which the house of Tudor had depressed it."
° In 157 2 the order of dukes became extinct ; and waa not revived tiU fifty years
afterwarda, when Jamea I. made the miaerable VilUera, duke of Buckmghara. Black
stone's Commentaries, vol I p. 397. Thia evidently attracted attention ; for Ben
Jonson, in one of hia comediea in 1616, mentiona " the received hereay that Eng
land beara no dukes." Jonson's Works, edit. Gifford, 1816, vol. v. p. 47, where
Gifford, not being aware of the extinction in 1 57 2, has made an unsatisfactory note .

468 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
qualified hy the number of their prejudices and hy the fiivoUty
of their pursuits.
After the death of EUzabeth, an attempt was made, first hy
James, and then by Charles, to re-rive the power of the two
great protective classes, the nobles and the clergy. But so
adnurably had the policy of EUzabeth been supported by the
general temper of the age, that it was found impossible for
the Stuarts to execute their mischievous plans. The exer
cise of private judgment, both in reUgion and in poUtics, had
become so habitual, that these princes were unable to subju
gate!' it to their yrill. And as Charles I., with inconceivable
bUndness, and with an obstmacy even greater than that of his
father, persisted in adopting in their worst forms the superannu
ated theories of protection, and attempted to enforce a scheme
of goveAiment wMch men, from their increasing independence,
were determined to reject, there inevitably arose that memorable
coUision which is well termed the great EehelUon of England."
The analogy between this and the Protestant Eeformation, I
have already noticed ; but what we have now to consider, and
what in the next chajpter, I wiU endeavour to trace, is the nature
ofthe difference between our EeheUion, and those contemporary
wars of the Fronde, to which it was in some respects very similar.
" Clarendon (Hist, ofthe Rebellion, p. 216) truly calls it "the most prodigious
and the boldest rebeUion, that any age or country ever brought forth," See also
some striking remarks in Warwick's Memoirs, p. 207.

GENEEAL INTRODUCTION. 469

CHAPTER X.
THE ENEEGT OF THE PEOTECTIVE SPIEIT IN FRANCE EXPLAINS THE FAIL.
DEE OE THE EEONDE. . OOMPAEISON BETWEEN THE EEONDE AND THE
CONTEMPOEABT ENGLISH EEBELLION.
The object of the last chapter was, to inquire into the origin of
the protective spirit. From the evidence there coUected, it appears
that this, spirit was ffist organized into a distmct secular form
at the close of the dark ages ; hut that, oyring to circumstances
wMch then arose, it was, from the beginning, much less powerful
in England than in France. It has Ukewise. appeared that, in
our country, it continued to lose ground ; while in France, it
early in the fourteenth century assumed a new shape, and gave
rise to a centralizing movement, manifested not only in the civU
and poUtical institutions, hut also in the social and Uterary hab
its of the French nation. Thus far, we seemed to have cleared
the way for a proper understanding of the Mstory of the two
countries ; and I now purpose to foUow tMs up a Uttle fur
ther, and pomt out how tMs difference explains the discrepancy
between the ciril wars of England, and those which at the same
time broke out in France.
Among the ob-yious circumstances connected with the Great
EngUsh Eeheffion, the most remarkable is, that it was a war of
classes as weU as of factions. From the beginning of the contest,
the yeomanry and traders adhered to the parliament ;' the nobles
and the clergy raUied round the throne.^ And the name given
" From the beginning it may be said that the yeomanry and trading classes of
towns were generaUy hostile to the king's side, even in those counties which were
in his miUtary occupation ; except in a few, such as Cornwall, Worcester, Salop, and
most of Wales, where the prevaiUng sentiment was chiefly royalist." Hallam's Const.
Hist. vol. i. p. 578. See also Ungards Hist of England, vol. vi. p. 304 ; and Ali
son s Hist of Europe, vol. I p. 49.
' On this division of classes, which, not-withstanding a few exceptions, is undoubt
edly true as a general fact, compare Memoirs of Sir P. Warwick, p. 217 ; Carlyle's
Cromwell, vol. Ui. p. 807 ; aarendon's Hist of the Rebellion, pp. 294, 297, 845, 346,
401, 476 ; May's Hist, of the Long Parliament, book i. pp. 22, 64, book il p. 68,
book Ui. p. 78 ; Hutchinsoiis Memoirs, p. 100 ; Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 104, vol.
lu. p. 258 ; Bulstrode's Memoirs, p. 86.

470

CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.

to the two parties, of Eoundheads' and CavaUers,* proves that
the trae nature of this opposition was generally known. It
proves that men were aware that a question was at issue, upon
wMch England was dirided, not so much hy the particular inter
ests of individuals as by the general interests of the classes to
which those indi-riduals belonged.
But in the Mstory of the French reheUion, there is no trace
of so large a division. The objects of the war were in both coun
tries precisely the same ; the macMnery hy wMch those ob
jects were attained was very different. The Fronde was like our
rebellion, insomuch that it was a straggle of the parUament against
the crown ; an attempt to secure liberty, and raise up a harrier
against the despotism of government.' Soi.far,and so long, as we
merely take a view of political objects, the parallel is complete.
But the social and inteUectual antecedents of the French being
very different from those of the EngUsh, it necessarily followed
that the shape which the reheUion took should likewise be dff-
ferentj even though the motives were the same. If we examine
tMs divergence a little nearer, we shall find that it is connected
with the circumstance I have already noticed — namely, that in
England a war for Uberty was accompanied hy a war of classes,
wMle in France there was no war of classes at aU. From tMs
it resulted, that in France the reheUion being merely political,
and not, as with us, also social, took less hold of the pubUc mind ;
it was unaccompamed hy those feelings of insubordination, in
the absence of which freedom has always heen impossible ; and
strikmg no root into the national character, it could not save the
country from that servUe state into which, a few years later, it,
under the government of Louis XIV., rapidly fell.
" Lord Clarendon says, in his grand style, " the rabble contemned and despised
under the narae of roundheads." Hist, of the Rebellion, p. 186. Thiswas in 1641,
when the title appears to have been first bestowed. See Fairfax Correspond, voh
u. pp. 186, 820.
* Just before the battle of EdgehiU, in 1642, Charles said to his troops, "Ton
are caUed cavaliers in a reproachful signification." See the king's speech, in Somers
Tracts, vol iv. p. 478. Directly after the battle,' he accused his opponents of "ren
dering aU persons of honour odious to the coramon people, under the style of cava
liers'." May's Hist, of the Long Parliament, book iii. p. 26.
" M. Saint- Aulaire (Hist, de la Fronde, vol. i. p. v.) says, that the object of the
Frondeurs was, " limiter I'autoritd royale, conaacrer lea principea de la Ubertd civUe
et en confier la garde aux compagniea aouveraines ; " and at p. vi. he caUs the dec
laration of 1648, "une vdritable charte constitutionnelle." See also, at vol i. p.
128, the concluding paragraph of the speech of Omer Talon. Joly, who was much
displeased at thia tendency, complaina that in 1648, " le peuple tomboit impercepti-
blement dana le .aentiment dangereux, qu'il eat naturel et pernus de ae ddfendre et
de s'armer contre la violence des supdrieurs." Mlm. de Joly, p. 15. Of the imme
diate bbjj'^'^ proposed by the Fronde, one was to diminish the taille, and another
was (ij-pitain a law that no one should be kept in prison more than twenty-four
hours, "^ana dtre reraia entre lea raains du parlemeut pour lui faire son procfe s'U
se trouvoit criminel, ou I'dlargir s'U dtoit innocent." Mhn. de Montglat, vol. ii. p.
136 ; Mlm. de MottevUle, vol. u. p. 398 ; Mhn. de Retz, vol i. p. 265 ; Mhn. d'Omxf
Talon, vol u. pp. 221. 2»5 ?40. S9«-

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION, 471
That our Great EehelUon was, in its external form, a war of
classes, is one of those palpable facts which lie on the surface of
Mstory. At first, the parliament" did indeed attempt to draw
over to their side some of the nobles ; and in this they for a time
succeeded. But as the struggle advanced, the futiUty of this
policy became erident. In the natural order of the great move
ment, the nobles grew more loyal ;' the parUament grew more
democratic." And when it was clearly seen that both parties
were deteraoined either to conquer or to die, this antagonism of
classes was too clearly marked to be misunderstood ; the percep
tion wMch each had of its oyyn interests being sharpened by the
magnitude of the stake for wMch they contended.
For, yrithout burdemng tMs Introduction with what may be
read in our common histories, it will be sufficient to remind the
reader of a few of the conspicuous events of that time. Just
before the war began, the Earl of Essex was appointed general
of the parliamentary forces, with the Earl of Bedford as his
lieutenant. A commission to raise troops was likewise given to
the Earl of Manchester," the only man of Mgh rank against '
whom Charles had displayed open enmity.'" Notwithstanding
these marks of confidence, the nobles, in whom parUament was at
first disposed to trust, could not avoid showing the old leaven of
their order." The Earl of Essex so conducted himself, as to in
spire the popular party yrith the greatest apprehensions of his
° I use the word ' parUament' in the sense given to it by writers of that time, and
not in the legal sense.
' In May, 1642, there remained at Weatminater forty-two peers, Hallam's Coast,
Hist. vol. i. p. 559 ; but they gradUaUy abandoned the popular cause ; and, according
to Pari. Hist vol iu. p. 1282, so dwindled, that eventually " seldom more than five
or six " were preaent.
" These increaaing democratic tendenciea are moat clearly indicated in Walker'a
curioua work. The History of Independency. See, among other paaaages, book i. p. 59.
And Clarendon, under the year 1644, says (Histi of the Rebellion, p. 514) : " That
violent party, which had at first cozened the rest into the war, and afterwarda ob
structed all the approaches towards peace, found now that they had finished
as much of their work aa the toola which they had wrought with could be applied
to, and what remained to be done must be despatched by new workmen." What
these new workmen were, he afterwards explains, p. 641, to be " tbe most in
ferior people preferred to aU places of trust and profit." Book xi. under the year
1648. Compare some good remarks by Mr. BeU, in Fairfax Correspond, vol. iu. pp.
' This waa after the appointmenta of Essex and Bedford, and was in 1643. Lud-
lows^Mem. vol.1 p. 58 ; Carlyle's OromweU, vol. i. p. 189.
t" ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ attempted to arrest the five members, Manchester, at that
tune Lord Kymbolton, was the only peer whom he irapeached. This circumstance
endeared Kymboltou to the party ; his own safety bound him more closely to its in
terests. Ungards England, voh i. p. 20, It ia alao aaid that Lord Essex joined
the popular party from- personal pique againat the king. Fairfax Corresp, vol. iu.
^^''I'S''^'^'* ^^ ""-^^ """^ ^^'^y characteriatic, but very just obaervationa, on
the high Essexes and Mauchesters of Umited notiona and large estates." Carlyle's
 '!/, voh 1. p. 215.

472 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
treachery ;'^ and when the defence of London was mtrasted to
WaUer, he so obstinately refused to enter the name of that ahle
officer in the commission, that the Commons were obUged to in
sert it by virtue of their own authority, and in spite of their own
general." The Earl of Bedford, though he had received a miU
tary command, did not hesitate to abandon those who conferred
it. This apostate nohle fled from Westminster to Oxford ; but
finding that the Mng, who never forgave Ms enemies, did not
receive Mm with the favour he expected, he retumed to London ;
where, though he was aUowed to remain in safety, it could not
be supposed that he should again experience the confidence of
parliament.'* Such examples as these were not Ukely to lessen the distrust
wMch both parties felt for each other. It soon became evident
that a war of classes was unavoidable, and that the rebeUion of
the parUament against the Mng must be reinforced hy a rebeUion
of the people against the nobles." To this the popular party,
whatever may have been their first intention, now willingly
agreed. In 1645 they enacted a law, hy which not only the
Earl of Essex and the Earl of Manchester lost their command,
hut aU members of either house were made incapable of mUitary
^^ Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. Ul p. 110; Hutchinson's Memoirs, pp. 230, 231; Har
ris's Uves of the Stuarts, vol Ui. p. 106; Bulstrode's Memoirs, pp. 112, 113, 119;
Clarendon's Rebellion, pp. 486, 514; or, as Lord North puta it, "for General Essex
began now to appear to tbe private cabaliata aomewhat wreaty." North's Narrative
of Passages relating to the Long Parliament, pubUahed in 1670, in Somers Tracts, vol
vi. p. 578. At p. 584, the same elegant writer aaya of Essex, " being the first person
and last of the nobiUty eraployed by the parUament in miUtary affairs, which soon
brought him to the period of his Ufe. And may he be an example to all future ages,
to deter aU persons of like dignity from being instrumental in setting up a demo-
cratical power, whose interest it is to keep down all persons of his condition." The
" Letter of Admonition" addressed to him by parUament iu 1644, is printed in Pari,
Hist. vol. iu. p. 274.
" Ungard's Hist, of England, vol. vi. p. 318. See also, on the hostiUty between
Essex ahd WaUer, Walker's Hist of Independency, part i. pp. 28, 29 ; and Pari Eist
vol. iU. p. 177. Sir PhUip Warwick (Memoirs, p. 254) contemptuously calls WaUer
" favourite-generaU ofthe city of London.''
" Corapare Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. i. pp. 569, 570, with Bulstrode's Memoirs, p.
96, and Lord Bedford's letter, in Pari. Hist, vol in. pp. 189, 190. This shuffling
letter confirms the unfavourable account of the writer, which is given in Clarendon's
Rebellion, p. 422.
"^ Dr. Bates, who had been physician to CromweU, intimates that this was fore
seen from the beginning. He says, that the popular party offered command to some
of the nobles, " not that they had any respect for the lords, whom shortly they in
tended to turn out and to level with the commoners, but that they might poison them
with their own venom, and rise to greater authority by drawing more over to their
side." Bates's Account of the late Troubles in England, part Ip. 76. LordNorthtoo
supposes, that almost immediately after the war began, it was determined to dissolve
the House of Lords. See Somers Tracts, vol. -vi. p. 682. Beyond this, I am not aware
of any direct early evidence ; except that, in 1644, CromweU is aUeged to have stated
that " there would never be a good time in England tiU we had done with lords."
Carlyle's Cromwell, vol. i. p. 217 ; and, what is evidently the same circumstance, m
aolles's Memoirs, p. 18.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 473
serrice," And, only a week after the execution of the king,
they formaUy took away the legislative power of the peers ; put
ting at the same time on record their memorable opinion, that
the House of Lords is "useless, dangerous, and ought to be
aboUshed,"" But we may find proofs stUl more convincing of the true
character of the EngUsh reheUion, if we consider who those were
by whom it was accomplished. TMs wUl show us the democratic
nature of a movement wMch lawyers and antiquaries have
vainly attempted to shelter under the form of constitutional pre
cedent. Our great reheUion was the work, not of men who
looked behmd, but of men who looked hefore. To attempt to
trace it to personal and temporary causes ; to ascribe this un
paraUeled outbreak to a dispute respecting ship-money, or to a
quarrel about the privUeges of parliament, can only suit the
habits of those historians who see no further than the preamble
of a statute, or the decision of a judge. Such yyriters forget that
the trial of Hampden, and the impeachment of the five mem
bers, could have produced no effect on the country, unless the
people had already been prepared, and unless the spirit of in
quiry and of insubordination had so increased the discontents of
men, as to put them in a state where, the train being laid, the
SUghtest spark sufficed to kindle a confiagration.
The truth is, that the reheUion was an outbreak of the demo
cratic spirit. It was the political form of a movement, of which
the Eeformation was the reUgious form. As the Eeformation
was aided, not hy men in high ecclesiastical offices, not by great
cardinals or wealthy bishops, but by men fflling the lowest and
most subordinate posts, just so was the English rebeUion a move
ment from below, an uprising froiri the foundations, or, as some
yriU have it, the dregs of society. The few persons of high rank
who adhered to the popular cause were quicMy discarded, and
the ease and rapidity with wMch they feU off was a clear indica
tion of the tum that tMngs were 'taMng. Directly the army
was freed from its nohle leaders, the fortune of war changed, the
royalists were every where defeated, and the Mng made prisoner
by Ms own subjects. Between Ms capture and execution, the
two most important political events were his abduction by Joyce,
and the forcible expulsion from the House of Commons of those
This was the " Self-denying Ordinance,'' which was introduced in December,
1644 ; but, owing to the resistance of the peers, waa not carried untU the subsequent
AprU. Pari. Eist vol ul pp. 826-887, 840-343, 354, 355. See also Mem. of Lord
Holies, p. 30; Mem. of Sir P. Warwick, p. 288.
" On this great epoch m the history of England, see Pari. Hist, voh Ui. p. 1284;
Hallam's Const Hist. vol. i. p. 643 ; CampbelVs Chief-Justices, vol. i. p. 424 ; Ludlow's
Mem. voh i. p. 246; Warwick's Mem. pp. 182, 386, 352.

474 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
members who were thought Ukely to interfere in Ms favour.
Both these decisive steps were taken, and indeed only could have
heen taken, by men of great personal influence, and of a hold
and resolute spirit. Joyce, who carried off the king, and who
was MgMy respected in the army, had, however, been recently
a common worMng taUor ;" whUe Colonel Pride, whose name is
preserved in Mstory as having purged the House of Commons of
the maUgnants, was about on a level yrith Joyce, since his origi
nal occupation was that of a drayman." The taUor and the
drayman were, in that age, strong enough to direct the course of
public affairs, and to win for themselves a conspicuous position
in the state. After the execution of Charles, the same tendency
was displayed. The old monarchy being destroyed, that small
but active party known as the fifth-monarchy men increased in
importance, and for a time exercised considerable influence.
Their three principal and most distinguished members were
Venner, Tuffnel, and Okey. Venner, who was the leader, was
a wine-cooper ;"" Tuffnel, who was second in command, yvas a
carpenter ;2' and Okey, though he became a colonel, had filled
the menial office of stoker in an IsUngton brewery.'*
Nor are these to he regarded as exceptional cases. In that
period, promotion depended solely on merit ; and ff a man had
ahiUty, he was sure to rise, no matter what his birth or former
avocations might have been. CromweU Mmself was a brewer ;'"
and Colonel Jones, Ms brother-in-law, had heen servant to a
private gentleman.** Deane was the servant of a tradesman;
" " Cornet Joyce, who waa one of the agitators in the army, a taUor, A feUow
who had two or three years before served in a very inferior employment in Mr. Hol-
lis's house." Clarendon's Rebellion, p. 612. "A shrewd taUor-man." D'lsraelVs
Commentaries on ihe reign of Charles I., 1861, vol. ii. p. 466.
" Ludlow (Memoirs, vol. U. p. 139) ; Noble (Memoirs of the House of Cronmell,
vol. U. p. 470) ; and Winstanley (Loyal Martyrology, edit. 1§66, p. 108), mention that
Pride had been a drayman. It is said that Cromwell, in ridicule of the old distinc
tions, conferred knighthood on him " with a faggot." Orme's Ufe of Owen, p. 164 ;
Harris's Uves of the Stuarts, vol iU. p. 478.
" " The fifth-taonarchy, headed mamly by one Venner, a wine-cooper." Car
lyle's Cromwell, vol. iu. p. 282. " Venner, a wine-cooper." Lister's Ufe and Cor
resp. of Clarendon, vol. U. p. 62.
"' " The second to Venner was one Tuffnel, a carpenter living in Gray's Inn Lane."
Winstanley's Martyrology, p. 168.
°" "He waa a stoaker in a brew-houae at laUngton, and next a moat poor chandler
near Lion-Key in Thames-atreet." Pari. Hist vol. Ui. p. 1606. See also Winstan
ley's Martyrology, p. 122.
"' Some of the clumsy eulogists of CromweU wiah to auppresa the fact of his being
a brewer : but that he really practised that useful trade is attested by a variety of
evidence, and is distinctly atated by his own physician. Dr. Bates. Bates's Troubles
in England, vol. ii. p. 288. See also Walker^s Hist of Independency, part i. p. 82,
part u. p. 26, part Ul p. 37 ; Noble's House of Cromwell, vol. i. pp. 828-881. Other
passages, which 1 cannot now caU to mind, wiU occur to thoae who liave studied the
hterature of the time.
" John Jones, at first a serving-man, then a colonel of the Long ParUament,

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 475
hut he became an admiral, and was made one of the commis
sioners of the navy.*' Colonel Goffe had been apprentice to a
drysalter ;" Major-general Whalley had heen apprentice to a
draper." SMppon, a common soldier who had received no edu
cation,*' was appointed commander of the London militia ; he
was raised to the office of sergeant-major-general of the army ;
he was declared commander-in-chief in Ireland ; and he became
one of the fourteen members of CromweU's councU.*" Two of
the Ueutenants of the Tower were Berkstead and Tichhorne.
Berkstead was a pedlar, or at all events a hawker of small
wares ;'" and Tichhorne, who was a linendraper, not only re
ceived the lieutenancy of the Tower, but became a colonel, and
a niember of the committee of state in 1655, and of the councU
of state in 1659." Other trades were equally successful ; the
Mghest prizes being open to aU men, provided they displayed the
requisite capacity. Colonel Harvey was a silk-mercer ;'* so was
Colonel Eowe;" so also was Colonel Venn.'* Salway had been
apprentice to a grocer, hut, being an able man, he rose to the
rank of major in the army ; he received the Mng's remembran
cer's office ; and in 1659 he was appointed by parUament a
 married the Protector'a sister." Pari. Hist vol. iU. p. 1600. " A serving-
man ;  in process of tune married one Of CromweU's sisters." Winstanley's
Martyrology, p. 126.
™ "Richard Deane, Esq. is said to have been a servant to one Button, a toyman
m Ipswich, and to have liimself been the son of a person in the aarae eraployment ;
. . . waa appointed one of the coramiasioners of the navy with Popham and Blake,
and iu April (1649) he became an admiral and general at sea." Noble's Uves of the
Regicides, voh i. pp. 172, 178. Winstanley (Martyrol. p. 121) alao saya that Deane
waa " servant in Ipawich."
^ "Apprentice- to one Vaughan a dry-aalter." Noble's House of Cromwell, vol.
U. p. 607 : and aee his Regicides, vol. l p. 265.
" " Bound apprentice to a wooUen-draper." Winstanley's Martyr, p. 108. He
afterwards set up iu the same trade for himaelf; but with Uttle aucceas, for Dr. Bates
(Troubles in England, vol U. p. 222) calls him " a broken clothier."
™ "Altogether Uliterate." Clarendon's . Rebellion, p. 152. Two extraordinary
speeches by him are preserved in. BurioiCs Diary, vol. i. pp. 24, 25, 48-50.
™ Eolles's Mem. p. 82 ; Ludlow's Mem. vol U. p. 39 ; and a letter from Fairfax iu
Cary's Memorials of the Civil War, 1842, vol l p. 413.
° "Berkstead, who heretofore sold needles, bodkins, and thimbles, and would
have run on an errand any where for a Uttle money ; but who now by CromweU waa
preferred to the honourable charge of Ueutenant ofthe Tower of London." Bates's
Account of the Troubles, part U. p. 222.
'' Noble's Regicides, vol. U. pp. 272, 273. Lord HoUes (Memoirs, p. 174) alao
mentions that he was " a linen-draper."
"Edward Harvy, late a poor silk-man, now colonel, and hath got the Bishop
of London s house aud manner of Fulham." Walkei's Independency, part i. p. 170.
" m ^"^'^^ ^ decayed siUc-man." aarendon's Rebellion, p. 418.
Owen Rowe, "put to the trade of a sUk-mercer, .... went into the parlia
ment army, and became a colonel" Noble's Regicides, vol ii. p. 150.
A silk-man in London ; . . . . went into the army, and rose to the rank of
colonel Noble's Regicides, vol U. p. 283. "A broken ailk-man in Cheap-side."
Winstanley s Martyrol. p. 130.

476 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
¦member of the councU of state." Around that councU-board
were also gathered Bond the draper," and Cawley the brewer ;"
whUe by their side we find John Berners, who is said to have
heen a private servant," and Cornelius Holland, who is known
to have been a servant, and wjio was, indeed, formerly a Unk-
hoy.'" Among others who were now favoured and promoted to
offices of trust, were Packe the wooUen-draper,*" Pury the
weaver,*' and Pemble the tailor.** The parUament which was
summoned in 1653 is stUl remembered as Barebone's parUa
ment, being so caUed after one of its most active members, whose
name was Barebone, and who was a leather-seUer in Fleet
Street.*' Thus too. Downing, though a poor charity-hoy,** be
came teUer of the exchequer, and representative of England at
the Hague.*' To these we may add, that Colonel Horton had
heen a gentleman's servant ;*" Colonel Berry had heen a wood-
monger;*' Colonel Cooper a haberdasher;*' Major Eoffe a shoe-
"" Walker's Independency, part i. p. 143; Pari, Hist, vol. Ui. p. 1608; Ludlow's
Mem. vol. u. pp. 241, 259 ; Noble's Regicides, vol U. pp. 158, 162.
"" He was " a wooUen-draper at Dorchester," and was " one of the councU of
state in 1649 and 1661." Noble's Regicides, vol i. p. 99 : see also Pari. Hist vol.
iU. p. 1594.
" "A brewer in Chichester;  in 1650-1 he waa appointed one ofthe
councU of state." Noble's Regicides, vol. i. p. 136. "WUUam Cawley, a brewer of
Chichester." Winstanley's Martyrol. p. 188.
'" John Berners, "supposed to have been originally a ser-ving-man," was "one
ofthe councU of state in 1659." Noble's Regicides, vol. i. p. 90.
"° " Holland the Unke-boy." Walker's Independency, part in. p. 87. ' " He was
originaUy nothing more than a servant to Sir Henry Vane ; . . . upon the estabhsh
ment of the Commonwealth,' he was made one of the councU of state iu 1649, and
again in 1650." Noble's Regicides, vol i. p. 857, 358.
*° Noble's Mem, of Cromwell, vol. U. p. 502.
*' Walker's Hist, of Independency, part i. p. 167.
'^ Ellis's Original Letters illustrative of EngUsh History, third series, vol iv. p.
219, Lond. 1846.
*" Pari, Hist vol in. p. 1407 ; Rose's Biog, Diet vol. Ui. p. 172 ; Clarendon's Re
bellion, p, 794.
** " A poor chUd bred upon charity." Harris's Stuarts, voh v. p. 281. "A man
of an obacure birth, and more obacure education." Clarendon's Ufe of Himself, p.
1116. *" See Vaughan's Cromwell, vol i. pp. 227, 228, vol u. pp. 299, 302, 433; Lister's
Ufe and Corresp. of Clarendon, vol U. p. 231, vol. iu. p. 1 34. The common opmion
is, that he was the son of a clergyman at Hackney ; but if so, he was probably iUe-
gitimate, conaidering the way he waa brought up. However, hia Hackney origin is
very doubtful, and no one appears to know who his father waa. See Notes and Que
ries, vol Ul pp. 69, 213.
*' Noble's Regicides, vol. I p. 362. CromweU had a great regard for this remark
able man, who not only distinguished hiraself as a soldier, but, judging from a letter
of his recently published, appears to have repaired the deficiencies of hia early edu
cation. _ See Fairfax Correspond, vol iv. pp. 22-25, 108. There never has been a
period in the history of England in which so many men of natural abiUty were em
ployed iu the pubUo service as during the Conlmonwealth.
*' Noble's House of Cromwell, vol. U. p. 507. '
*" Noble's Cromwell, vol. ii. p. 618 ; Bates's Troubles, vol. ii. p. 222.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 477
maker ;*" Colonel Fox a tinker ;'" and Colonel Hewson a
cobbler." Such were the leaders of the EngUsh reheUion, or, to speak
more properly, such were the instruments by which the rebelUon
was consummated.'* If we now turn to France, we shall clearly
see the difference between the feelings and temper of the two
nations. In that country, the old protective spirit stUl retained
its actirity ; and the people, being kept in a state of pupUage,
had not acquired those habits of self-command and self-reUance,
by wMch alone great tMngs can be effected. They had heen so
long accustomed to look yrith timid reverence to the upper
classes, that, even when they rose m arms, they could not throw
off the ideas of submission which were quickly discarded by our
ancestors. The infiuence of the Mgher ranks was, in England,
constantly dimimshing ; in France, it was scarcely impaired.
Hence it happened that, although the English and French re-
beffions were contemporary, and, in their origin, aimed at pre
cisely the same objects, they were distinguished by one most
important difference. TMs was, that the EngUsh rebels were
headed hy popular leaders ; the French rebels by noble leaders.
The bold and sturdy habits which had long been cultivated in
England, enabled the middle and lower classes to supply their
own cMefe out of their owm ranks. In France, such chiefs were
not to be foimd ; simply hecause, owing to the protective spirit,
such habits had not been cultivated. While, therefore, in our
island, the functions of ciril government, and of war, were con
ducted yrith conspicuous abffity, and complete success, by butch
ers, by bakers, by brewers, by cobblers, and by tmkers, the
** Raters Late Troubles, vol i. p. 87 ; Ludlow's Mem. vol. i. p. 220.
°° Walker's Hist, of Independency, part U. p. 87.
" Ludlow, who was weU acquainted with Colonel Hewson, says that he " had
been a shoemaker." Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. u. p. 139. But this ia the amiable
partiaUty of a friend ; and there ia no doubt that the gaUant colonel was neither
more nor less than a cobbler. See Walker's Independency, part ii. p. 39 : Winsian-
ley's Martyrol. p. 123 ; Bates's Late Troubles, vol. U. p. 222 ; Noble's Cromwell, vol.
u. pp. 251, 345, 47b.
" WaUter, who relates what he himself witnessed, says, that, about 1649, the
army was commanded by "colonela and superior officers, who lord it in their gUt
coaches, rich apparel, costly feastings ; though some of thera led dray-horses, wore
leather-pelts, and were never able to narae their own fathers or mothers." Hist of
Independ. part. U. p. 244. The Mercurius Rusticus, 1647, says, "Chelmsford was
governed by a tinker, two cobblers, two taUors, two pedlars." Soutliey's Common
place Book, third series, 1850, p. 480. And, at p. 434, another work, in 1647, makes
a sumiar statement iu regard to Cambridge; whUe Lord HoUes assures us, that
most ot the colonels and officers (were) mean tradesmen, brewers, taylors, gold-
amitha,8hoemakera, andtheUke." Holies' s Memoirs, p. 149. When Whitelocke
waa in bweden, in 1653, the prsetor of one of the towna abuaed the pariiament,
saying, that they had kiUed their king, and were a company of tailora and cob-
D^'lf ¦ X ,™f ««* « Swedish Embassy, vol. I p. 205. See alao a note in Carwithen's
Mist ofthe Church of England, vol U. p. 156.

478 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
straggle which, at the same moment, was going on in France,
presented an appearance totaUy different. In that country, the
reheUion was headed by men of a far higher standing ; men, in
deed, of the longest and most illustrious Uneage. There, to be
sure, was a display of unexampled splendour ; a galaxy of rank,
a noble assemblage of aristocratic insurgents and titled dema
gogues. There was the Prince de Cond6, the Prince de Oonti,
the Prince de MarsUlac, the Duke de BouUlon, the Duke de
Beaufort, the Duke de LongueviUe, the Duke de Ohevreuse, the
Duke de Nemours, the Duke de Luynes, the Duke de Brissac,
the Duke d'Elhcenf, the Duke de Candale, the Duke de la Tire-
mouUle, the Marquis de la Boulaye, the Marquis de Laigues,
the Marquis de Noirmoutier, the Marquis de Vitry, the Marquis
de Fosseuse, the Marquis de SUlery, the Marqms d'Estissac, the
Marquis d'Hocquincourt, the Count de Eantzau, the Count de
Montresor. These were the leaders of , the Fronde;" and the mere an-
' nouncement of their names indicates the difference between the
French and EngUsh reheUions. And, in consequence of tMs dff-
ference, there foUowed some results, wMch are well worth the
attention of those writers who, in their ignorance of the pro
gress of human affairs, seek to uphold that aristocratic power,
which, fortunately for the interests of mankind, has long heen
waning ; and which, during the last seventy years, has, in the
most civilized countries, received such severe and repeated shocks,
that its ultimate fate is hardly a matter respecting wMch much
douht can now he entertained.
The English reheUion was headed hy men, whose tastes,
habits, and associations, being altogether popular, formed a
bond of sympathy between them and the people, and preserved
the union of the whole party. In France, the sympathy was
very weak, and therefore the union was very precarious. What
sort of sympathy could there he between the mechanic and the
peasant, toiling for their daUy bread, and the rich and dissolute
nohle, whose life was passed in those idle and frivolous pursuits
wMch debased Ms mind, and made his order a byword and a re
proach among the nations ? To talk of sympathy existing be
tween the two classes is a manifest absurdity, and most assur
edly would have heen deemed an insult hy those Mgh-born men,
who treated their inferiors with habitual and insolent contempt.
It is true, that, from causes which have been already stated, the
"" Even De Eetz, who vainly attempted to organize a popular party, found that
it was impossible to take any step without the nobles ; aud, notwithstanding his dem
ocratic tendencies, he, in 1648, thought it advisable "tScher d'engager dana leg
intdrdta pubUoa les personnes de quaUtd. Mlm. de Joly, p. 31.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 479
people did, unhappily for themselves, look up to those above
them with the greatest veneration ;'* hut every page of French
Mstory proves how unworthUy this feeUng was reciprocated, and
in how complete a thraldom the lower classes yvere kept. While,
therefore, the French, from their long-established habits of de
pendence, were become incapable of conducting their own rebel
Uon, and, on that account, were ohliged to place themselves un
der the command of their nobles, tMs very necessity confirmed
the serviUty which caused it ; and thus stunting the growth of
freedom, prevented the nation from effecting, hy their civU wars,
those great things wMch we, in England, were able to bring
about by ours.
Indeed, it is only necessary to read the French Uterature of
the seventeenth century, to see the incompatibility of the two
classes, and the utter hopelessness of fusing into one party the
popular and aristocratic spirit. WhUe the object of the people
was to free themselves from the yoke, the object of the nobles
was merely to find new sources of excitement," and minister to
that personal vanity for wMch, as a body, they have always been
notorious. As this is a department of history that has been
Uttle studied, it wUl he interesting to coUect a few instances,
wMch wiU ffiustrate the temper of the French aristocracy, and
wffi show what sort of honours, and what manner of distinc
tions, those were, 'wMch this powerful class was most anxious to
obtain. That the objects cMefly coveted were of a very trifling de
scription, -wUl be anticipated hy whoever has studied the effect
wMch, in an immense majority of mmds, hereditary distinctions
produce upon personal character. How pernicious such distinc
tions are, may be clearly seen in the history of aU the Euro
pean aristocracies ; and in the notorious fact that none of them
have preserved even a mediocrity of talent, except in countries
" Mably (Observations sur VHist de France, vol i. p. 357) frankly aaya, "L'ex-
emple d'un grand a toujours dtd plua contagieux chez le Frangaia que partout aU-
leurs." See alao vol il p. 267 : " Jamaia I'exemple dea grands n'a dtd auaai con
tagieux aUleurs qu'en France ; on durait qu'ils ont le malheureux privUdge de tout
juatifier." Rivarol, though hia opiniona on other pointa were entirely opposed to
those of Mably, says, that, in France, ' ' la noblesse eat aux y eux du peuple une eapdce
de religion dont lea gentilahommea aout lea prdtrea." Mlm. de Rivarol, p. 94.
Happily the French Revolution, or rather the circumstances which cauaed the
^^S tiTT, °' ^^'^^ ""^''^y destroyed this ignominious homage.
- -1 II ** ^^^oohefoucauld candidly admits that, in 1649, the nobles raised
p I /"' 7?^®", d'autant plus de chaleur que c'dtait une nouveautd," Mlm. de
JtoeAe/o«a«/</ vol i. p. 406. Thus too Lemontev (Etablissement de Louis XIV, p.
aoo; . L,a vieille noblesse, qui ne savait que combattre, faisait la guerre par goht,
K7^°"''P"™'''t^.Par ennui." Compare, in Mlm, d'Omer Talon, vol U. pp.
,r.A^ A.^ summary of the reasons which, iu 1649, induced the nobles to go to war;
wZ ¦ T?-"' ^^^"'^ ^^^'"^ frivoUty debased the Fronde, see LavaUle, Hist des
franfau, vol m, pp. 169, l7o.

480 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
where they are frequently invigorated hy the infusion of plebeian
blood, and their order strengthened hy the accesssion of those
masculine energies which are natural to men who make their own
position, but cannot he looked for in men whose position is made
for them. For, when the notion is once firmly implanted in the
mmd, that the source of honour is from without, rather than
from witMn, it must invariably happen that the possession of
external distinction wUl he preferred to the sense of inter
nal power. In such cases, the majesty of the human intellect,
and the dignity of human knowledge, are considered subordinate
to those mock and spurious gradations hy which weak men
measure the degrees of their own Uttleness. Hence it is, that
the real precedence of tMngs becomes altogether reversed ; that
wMch is triffing is valued more than that which is great ; and
the mind is enervated by conforming to a false standard of merit,
which its own prejudices have raised. On this account, they
are evidently in the wrong, who reproach the nobles with their
pride, as if it were a characteristic of their order. The truth is,
that if pride were once estabUshed among them, their extinction
would rapidly foUow. To talk of the pride of hereditary rank,
is a contradiction in terms. Pride depends on the conscious
ness of self-applause ; vanity is fed hy the applause of others.
Pride is a reserved and lofty passion, which disdains those ex
ternal distinctions that vanity eagerly grasps. The proud man
sees, in his own mind, the source of his own digmty ; which, as
he weU knows, can he neither increased nor diminished by any
acts except those which proceed solely from himself The vain
man, restless, insatiable, and always craving after the admira
tion of his contemporaries, must naturaUy make great account
of those external marks, those visible tokens, which, whether
they be decorations or titles, strike directly on the senses, and
thus captivate the 'vulgar, to whose understandings they. are im
mediately obvious. TMs, therefore, being the great distinction,
that pride looks within, whUe vanity looks without, it is clear
that when a man values himself for a rank wMch he inherited by
chance, without exertion, and without merit, it is a proof, not of
pride, but of vanity, and of vanity of the most despicable Mnd.
It is a proof that such a man has no sense of real dignity, no idea
of what that is in which alone aU greatness consists. What mar
vel if, to minds of this sort, the most insignificant trifles should
sweU into matters of the highest importance ? What marvel
if such empty understandings should be busied with ribands, and
stars, and crosses ; if tMs nohle should yeam after the Garter,
and that noble pine for the Golden Fleece ; if one man should
long to carry a wand in the precincts of the court, and another

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 481
man to fill an office in the royal household ; whUe the ambition
of a third, is, to make his daughter a maid-of-honour, or to raise
his wife to be mistress of the robes ?
We, seeing these things, ought not to he surprised that the
French nobles, in the seventeenth century, displayed, in their
intrigues and disputes, a frivolity, which, though redeemed by
occasional exceptions, is the natural characteristic of every hered
itary aristocracy. A few examples of this wUl suffice to give
the reader some idea of the tastes and temper of that powerful
class wMch, during several centuries, retarded the progress of
French civUization.
Of aU the questions on which the French nobles were divided,
the^most important was that toucMng the right of sitting in the
royal presence. This was considered to he a matter of such
gravity, that, in comparison with it, a mere struggle for liberty
faded into insignificance. And what made it stUl more exciting
to the minds ofthe nobles was, the extreme difficulty with which
this great social problem ^as beset. According to the ancient eti
quette of the French court, ff a man were a duke, his wife might
sit in the presence of the queen ; hut if his rank were inferior, even
ff he were a marquis, no such liberty could be allowed.'" So far,
the rule was very simple, and, to the duchesses themselves, MgMy
agreeable. But the marquises, the counts, ahd the other illus
trious nobles, were uneasy at tMs invidious distinction, and ex
erted aU their energies to procure for their own wives the same
honour. TMs the dukes strenuously resisted ; hut, owing to cir
cumstances which, unfortunately, are not fuUy understood, an in
novation was made in the reign of Louis XIIL, and the privUege
of sitting in the same room with the queen was conceded to the
female members of the BouiUon famUy." In consequence of tMs
" Hence the duchesses were called " femmes assises ;" those of lower rank "non
assises." Mhn, de Fontenay Mareuil, vol. i. p. 111. The Count de Sdgur. tells us
that "les duchesses jouissaient de la prdrogative d'dtre assises sur un tabouret chez
la reine." Mhn. deSlgur, voh l p. 79. The importance attached to this is araus-
mgly iUustrated in Mhn. de Saint-Simon, vol. iU. pp. 215-218, Paris, 1842 ; which
should be compared with De TocqueviUe, Regne de Louis XV, vol. U.p. 116, and
Mhn. de Genlis, voh x. p. 383.
" Survint incontinent une autre difficultd a la cour sur le sujet des tabourets,
que doivent avoir les dames dans la chambre de la reine ; car encore . que cela ne
aaocorde rdgulidrement qu'aux ducheasea, ndanraoina le' feu roi Louia XIII I'avoit
accordd aux fiUes de la maison de BouUlon," &c. Mhn. dOmer Talon, vol. iu. p.
5. bee also on this encroachment on the righta of the duchesses under Louis XIII.
the case of Seguier, in Dtjc/os, J!f«moires Secrets, vol. i. pp. 360, 361. The consequen
ces ot ^ mnovatiou were very serious ; and TaUemant des Edaux (Historiettes, vol
VIII. pp. 223, 224) mentions a distinguished lady, of whom he says: "Pour satisfaire
son ambition, U- Im faUoit un tabouret ; elle cabale pour dpouser le vieux BouUlon
i^' ffl ^ » Ti ^"""^ '" seconde fois." In this she failed ; but, determined not to be
baffled, elle ne^ se rebute point, et voulant k toute force avoir.un tabouret, eUe
6pouse le hia aind du due de VUlara ; c'est un ridicule de corpa et d'esprit, car U
VOL. L— 31 1- 1 .

482 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
evU precedent, the question became seriously compUcated, since
other members ofthe aristocracy considered that the purity of their
descent gave them claims nowise inferior to those of the house of
BouiUon, whose antiquity, they said, had heen grossly exaggerated.
The contest which ensued, had the effect of breaking up the nobles
into two hostile parties, one of wMch sought to preserve that ex
clusive privilege in which the other wished to participate.
To reconcUe these rival pretensions, various expedients were
suggested^ hut aU were in vain,^ and the court, during the
administration of Mazarin, being pressed hy the fear of a
reheUion, showed symptoms of giving way, and of yielding to the
inferior nobles the point they so ardently desired.- In 1648 and
1649, the queen-regent, acting under the advice of her couifcU,
fbrmaUy conceded the right of sitting in the royal presence to
the three most distinguished members of the lower aristocracy,
namely, the Countess de Fleix, Madame de Pons, and the
Princess de MarsUlac." Scarcely had this decision been pro
mulgated, when the princes of the blood and the peers of the
realm were thrown into the greatest agitation." They imme
diately summoned to the capital those members of their own
order who were interested in repelling tffis daring aggression,
and, forming themselves into an assembly, they at once adopted
measures to vindicate their ancient rights."" On the other hand,
the inferior nobles, fiushed hy. their recent success, insisted that
the concession just made should be raised into a precedent ; and
that, as the honour of being seated in the presence of majesty
had heen conceded to the house of Foix, in the person of the
Countess de Fleix, it should likewise he granted to aU those who
could prove that their ancestry was equaUy Ulustrious."' The
greatest confusion now arose ; and both sides urgently insisting
est bossu et quasi imbdcile, et gueux par-dessua cela." Thia melancholy event hap
pened in 1649.
"" As to the Countess de Fleix and Madame de Pons, aee Mhn. de Mottemlle, vol.
iii. pp. 116, 369. According to the same high authority (vol. Ul p. 367), the infe
riority of the Princeaa de MarsUlac consisted in the painful fact, that her husband
was merely the son of a duke, and the duke himself .was stiU alive, "il n'dtoit que
gentilhomme, et son pdre le due de la Eochefoucauld. n'dtoit paa mort."
"' The long account of theae proceedinga in Mhn. de Mottemlle,.ve\. iu. pp. '367-
393, ahows the iraportance attached to thera by contemporary opinion.
"° In October, 1649 " la nobleaae s'assembla a Paris aur le fait des tabourets."
Mem. de Lenet, vol I p. 184.
"' " Toua ceux donc qui par leurs a'ieux avoient dana leura- maisons de la gran
deur, par des aUiances desfemmes descendues de ceux qui dtoient autrefois maittes
et souverains des provinces de France, demanddrent la mdrae prdrogative que celle
qui venoit d'dtre accordde au sang de Foix." Mlm. de Moiteville, vol, iihp. U'-
Another contemporary says : " Cette prdtention dmut toutea lea maisons de la
cour sur cette diffdrence et indgaUtd." Mlm. d'Omer Talon, vol. ni. p. 6; and vol
U. p. 437 : "le marquis de Noirmoutier et celui de Vitry demandoient le tabouret
pour leurs femmea."

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 483
on their own claims, there was, for many months, imminent dan
ger lest the question should be decided by an appeal to the
sword."* But as the higher nobles, though less numerous than
their opponents, were more powerful, the dispute was finaUy set
tled in their favour. The queen sent to their assembly a formal
message, which was conveyed hy four of the marshals of France,
and in which she promised to revoke those privileges, the con
cession of which had given such offence to the most illustrious
members of the French aristocracy. At the same time, the
marshals not only pledged themselves as responsible for the
promise of the queen, but undertook to sign an agreement that
they would personaUy supermtend its execution."' The nobles,
however, who felt that they had heen aggrieved in their most
tender point, were not yet satisfied, and, to appease them, it was
necessary that the atonement should be as pubUc as the injury.
It was found necessary, hefore they would peaceably disperse,
that government should issue a document, signed by the queen-
regent, and by the four secretaries of state,"* in which the favours
granted to the unprivUeged nohiUty were withdra-wn, and the
much-cherished honour of sitting in the royal presence was taken
away from the Princess de MarsUlac, from Madame de Pons, and
from the Countess de Fleix."'
These were the subjects wMch occupied the minds, and
wasted the energies, of the French nobles, whUe their country
was distracted hy ci'yU wars, and wMle questions were at issue
of the greatest importance, — questions concermng the liberty of
the nation, and the reconstruction of the government."" It is
hardly necessary to pomt out how unfit such men must have
been to head the people in their arduous straggle, and how im
mense was the difference between them and the leaders of the
great EngUsh Eeheffion. The causes of the faUure of the Fronde
are, indeed, obrious, when we consider that its cMefs were dravm
from that very class respecting whose tastes and feeUngs some
Indeed, at one moment, it waa deterrained that a counter-demonatration ahould
be made on the part of the inferior nobles ; a proceeding which, if adopted, must
have caused civU war : " Nous rdaolfimes une contre-aaaerablde de noblesse pour aou-
tenir le tabouret de la maiaon de Eohan." De Retz, Mhnoires, vol. i. p. 284.
°' Mhn. di MottevUle^ vol Ui. p. 389.
• "* " Signd d'eUe, et des quatre secrdtaires d'dtat." Ibid, vol iu. p. 391.
The best accounts of thia great atruggle wUl be found in the Mlmoirs of
Madame de MottevUle, aud in those of Omer Talon ; two writers of very different
""°6^' *"."* '"'"' P^ ^^^ deeply impressed with the magnitude of the conteat.
. ^^^™* •*-l'l''"8 (Hist, de la Fronde, vol i. p. 317) saya, that in this same year
(1649)i" l'esprit de discussion fermentait dans toutes les tdtes, et chacun k cette dpoque
Boumettait lea actes de I'autoritd a un examen raisonnd." Thus, too, in Mem. de
Montglat, under 1649, "on ne parlait pub'uqueinent dans Paris que -de rdpubUque
etde Ubertd." vol. il p. 186. In 1648, " effusa est contemptio super principes." Mhn.
d'Omer Talon, vol U. p. 271,

484 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
evidence has just been given."' How that evidence might he
almost indefinitely extended, is weU known to readers of the
French memoirs of the seventeenth century, — a class of works
which, being mostly written either hy the nobles or their adhe
rents, supplies the best materials from which an opinion may be
formed. In looMng into these authorities, where such matters
are related with a becoming sense of their importance, we find
the greatest difficulties and disputes arising as to who was to
have an arm-chair at court ;"' who was to be invited to the royal
dinners, and who was to be excluded from them;"" who was to
be kissed by the queen, and who was not to be Mssed by her ;'»
who should have the.first seat in church ;" what the proper pro
portion was between the rank of different persons, and- the length
of the cloth on wMchthey were aUowed to stand ;'* what was the
digmty a nohle must have attained, in order. to justify his enter
ing the Louvre in a coach ;" who was to have precedence at
coronations ;'* whether aU dukes were equal, or whether, as some
" That the faUure of the Fronde is not to be ascribed to the inconstancy of the
people, is admitted by De Retz, by far the ablest observer of his time : " Vous vous
dtonnerez peut-dtre de ce que je dis plus sur, a cauae de I'instabilitd du peuple : mais
il faut avouer que celui de Paris se fixe plus aisdment qu'aucun autre ; et M. de
VUleroi, qui a dtd le plua habUe homrae de son sidcle, et qui en a paifaitement connij
le naturel dans toutle course de la Ugue, oii il le gouverna soua M. du Maine, a dtd
de ce sentiment. Ce que j'en dprouvois moi-radme me le persuadoit." Mhn. de
Retz, vol. i. p. 348 ; a remarkable passage, and forming a striking contrast to the
declamation of thoae ignorant writers who are always reproaching the people with
their fickleness.
"" This knotty point waa decided in favoip- of the Duke of York, to whom, in
1649, "la reine fit de grands honneurs, et lui donna une chaise ^ bras." Mem. de
.MottevUle, vol in. p. 275. In the' chamber of the king, the raatter seems to have
been differently arranged ; for Omer Talon (Mlm. vol. ii. p. 332) teUs us that "le
due d'Orleans n'avoit point de fauteuil, maia un simple sidge pliant, k cause que nous
dtiona dans la chambre du roi." In the subsequent year, the scene not being m
the king's room, the same writer deacribea "M.le due d'Orleana assia dana un
fauteuU." Ibid, vol iii. p. 95. Compare Le Vassor, Hist, de Louis XIH, vol. vra.
p. 310." Volta.ire (Did. Philos. art. Clremonies) aays : " Le fauteuU k bras, la chaise
k dos, le tabouret, la main droite et la main gauche, ont dtd pendant plusieurs
siecles d'iraportants objets de politique, et d'iUustres sujets de quereUes." (Euvres
de Voltaire, vol. xxxvii. p. 486. The etiquette ofthe "fauteuU" and "chaise" is ex
plained in Mhn. de Genlis, voh x. p.' 287.
°" See Mhn. de Moiteville, vol Ui. pp. 309, 310.
'" See a Ust of those it waa proper for the queen to kiaa, in Mhn. de MottevUle,
voh iu..p. 318.
" Mhn. d'Omer Talon, vol. i. pp. 217-219. The Prince de Condd hotly asserted,
tha,t a,t a Te.Deum "U ne poiivait dtre aaaia en autre place que dana la premidre
chaire." Tbia'waa in 1642.
'" For a quarrel reapecting the " drap de pied," see Mhn. de MottevUle, vol ii.
p. 249. ^
'° A very serious dispute was cauaed by the claim of the Prince de MarsiUac,
for " permiaaion d'entrer dans le Louvre eu carroase." Mhn, de MottevUle, voh iii.
pp. 367,-389.
'* Mhn. de Pontchartrain, vol i. pp. 422, 428, at the coronation of Louis XIH.
Y^f inatancea of difficulties caused by queBtiona of precedence, will be found m
Mhn. d'Omer Talon, vol. iU. pp. 23, 24, 437 ; an^ even in the grave work of Sully,

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 485
thought, the Duke de BouUlon, having once possessed the sov
ereignty of Sedan, was superior to the Duke de la Eochefoucauld,
who had never possessed any sovereignty at all ;" whether the
Duke de Beaufort ought or ought not to enter the council-cham
ber before the Duke de Nemours, and whether, being there, he
ought to sit above him." These were the great questions of the
day : whUe, as ff to exhaust every form of absurdity, the most
serious misunderstandings arose as to who should have the honour
of giving the kmg Ms napkin as he ate his meals," and who was
to enjoy the inestimable privUege of helping on the queen with
her shift."
It may, perhaps, be thought that I owe some apology to the
reader for ohtrading upon Ms notice these miserable disputes
respecting mattars which, however despicable they now appear,
were once valued by men not whoUy devoid of understanding.
But, it should be remembered that their occurrence, and above
aU, the importance formerly attached to them, is part of the Ms
tory of the French mind ; and they are therefore to he estimated,
not according to their intrinsic digmty, but according to the in
formation they supply respecting a state of things wMch has now
passed away. Events of tMs sort, though neglected hy ordinary
historians, are among the staff and staple of history. Not only
do they assist in bringing hefore our minds the age to which they
(Economies Royales^ voh vu. p. 126, vol. viii. p. 395 ; which should be compared
with De Thou, Eist Univ. vol. ix. pp. 86, 87.
" Mhn. de Unci, vol I pp. 378, 879. Lenet, who waa a great admirer of the
nobles, relates aU this without the faintest perception of its absurdity. I ought not
to omit a terrible dispute, in 1652, reapecting the recognition of the claims of the
Duke de Rohan (Jf4m. (fe Conrart, pp. 161, 152); nor another dispute, in the reign
of Henry IV., aa to whether a duke ought to aign hia name .before a marabal, or
whether the marshal should sign first. De Thou, Hist. Univ. vol xi. p. 11.
" This difficulty, in 1652, caused a violent quarrel between the two dukes, and
ended in a duel, in which the Duke de Nemours was killed, as is mentioned by most
of the contemporary .writers. See Mhn. de Montglat, vol. U. p. 367 ; Mhn. de la
Rochefouca-uld, vol. ii,' p, 172; Mhn.de Conrart, pp. 172-175; Mhn. de Retz, vol
u. p. 203 ; Mem, d'Omer Talon, vol. iU. p. 437.
" Pontchartrain, one of the ministers of state, writes, under the year 1620 :
"En ce mdme temps s'dtoit mk un trds grand diffdrend entre M. le prince de Condd
et M._ le comte de Soisaona, sur le sujet de la serviette que chacun d'eux prdtendoit
de'voir prdsenter au roi quand ila ae rencontreroient tous deux prda aa majestd."
Mem. de Pontchartrain, vol. il p. 295. Le Vaaaor, who givea a fuUer account
(Rlgne de Louis XIII, vol. Ul pp. 536, 637), aaya : " Cachuu des deux princes du
sang fort dohauffez t qui feroit une fonction de maitre d'hotel, tiroit la serviette de
son c6td, et la contestation augmentoit d'une manidre dont les suites pouvoient
devenir facheuses." But the king interposing, " Us furent donc obUgez de odder :
mais^ce ne fut pas sans se dire l'un ^ I'autre des paroles hautes et menafantes."
According to some authorities, a man ought to be a duke before his wife
conld be aUowed to meddle with the queen's shift ; according to other authorities,
the lady-in-waiting, whoever she might be, had the right, unleaa a princeaa hap
pened to be present. Ou these alternatives, and on the difficulties caused by thera,
compare Mem. de Saint-Simon, 1842, vol vii. p. 125, with Mem. de MottevUle, vol
ll pp. 28, 276, 277.

486 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
refer, hut in a phUosophic point of view they are highly impor
tant. They are part of the materials from which we may gen
eraUze the laws of that great protective spirit, wMch in different
periods assumes different shapes ; hut which, whatever its form
may be, always owes its power to the feeUhg of veneration as op
posed to the feeling of independence. How natural tMs power
is, in certain stages of society, becomes evident if we examine
the basis on wMch veneration is itself supported. The origin of
veneration is wonder and fear. These two passions, either alone
or comhined, are the ordinary source of veneration ; and the way
in wMch they arise is obvious. We wonder hecause we are ig
norant, and we fear because we are weak. It is therefore natural,
that in former times, when men were more ignorant and more
weak than they now are, they should Ukeyrise have heen more
given to veneration, more incUned to those habits of reverence,
wMch if carried into religion, cause superstition, and ff carried
into poUtics, cause despotism. In the ordinary march of society,
these erils are remedied by that progress of knowledge,. wMch at
once lessens our ignorance and increases our resources : in other
words, wMch diminishes our proneness to wonder and to fear, and
thus weakening our feeUngs of veneration, strengthens, in the
same proportion, our feeUngs of independence. But in France,
tMs natural tendency was, as we have already seen, counteracted
hy an opposite tendency ; so that whUe, on the one hand, the
protective spirit was enfeebled hy the advance of knowledge, it
was, on the other hand, invigorated hy those social and poUtical
circumstances wMch I have attempted to trace ; and by rirtue
of wMch, each class exercising great power over the one below it,
the subordinatioH arid subserviency of the whole were completely
maintained. Hence the mind became accustomed to look up
wards, and to rely, not on its. own resources, but on the resouapes
of others. Hence that pliant and submissive disposition, for
wMch the French, untU the eighteenth century, were always
remarkable. Hence, too, that inordinate respect for the opin
ions of others, on which vanity, as one of their national charac
teristics, is founded.'" For, the feelings of vanity and of venera
tion have e-ridently this in common, that they induce each man
to measure his actions hy a standard external to himself ; whUe
the opposite feelings of pride and of independence would make
Mm prefer that mternal standard wMch his own imnd alone can
supply. The result of aU this was, that when, in the nuddle of
the seventeenth century, the intellectual movement stimulated
the French to rebelUon, its effect was neutraUsed hy that social
" Alao connected with the inatitution of chivalry, both being cognate symptoms
of the same spirit.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 487
tendency wMch, even in the midst of the struggle, kept aUve the
habits, of their old subserrience. Thus it was that, wMle the
war went on, there stiU remained a constant inclination on the
part of the people tp look up to the nobles, on the part of the
nobles to look up to the crown. Both classes reUed upon what
they saw immediately above them. The people heUeved that
without the nobles there was no safety; the nobles heUeved
that without the crown there was no honour. In the case of the
nobles, this opinion can hardly be blamed ; for as their distinc
tions proceed from the crown, they have a direct interest in up
holding the ancient notion that the sovereign is the fountain
of honour. They have a direct interest in that preposterous doc
trine, accordmg to which, the true source of honour being over
looked, our attention is directed to an imaginary source, by whose
operation it is beUeved, that in a moment, and at the mere wUl
of a prince, the Mghest honours may he conferred upon the
meanest men. TMs, indeed, is hut part of the old scheme to
create distinctions for wMch nature has given no -warrant; to
substitute a superiority wMch is conventional for that which is
real ; and thus try to raise Uttle mmds above the level of great
ones. The utter failure, and, as society advances, the eventual
cessation of aU such attempts, is certain ; but it is evident, that
as long as the attempts are made, they who profit by them must
be inclined to value those from whom they proceed. Unless
counteracting circumstances mterpose, there must he between
the two parties that sympathy wMch is caused hy the memory
of past favours, and the hope of future ones. In France, this
natural feeUng being strengthened by that protective spirit which
induced men to cUng to those above them, it is jiot strange that
the nobles, even m the midst of their turbulence, should seek
th|gsUghtest favours ofthe crown with an eagemess of, which
some examples have just heen given. They had been so long
accustomed to look up to the sovereign as the source of their
own digmty, that they believed there was some hidden digmty
even in his commonest actions ; so that, to their minds, it was
a matter of the greatst importance which of them should hand
Mm Ms napMn, wMch of them should hold his basm, and wMclii
of them should put on Ms shirt.'" It is not, however, for the
sake of casting ridicule upon these idle and frivolous men, that
I have collected eridence respecting the disputes with wMch they
were engrossed. So far from this, they are rather to he pitied
_ "» Even just before the French Eevolution, theae feelings atUl exiated. See, for
mstance, the extraordinary detaUs in Campan, Mhn. sur Marie Antoinette, vol. i. pp.
9S, 99; which ahould be compared with an extract from Prudliomme's Miroir de
Pans, in boutheys Commonplace Book, third aeriea, 1850, p. 251, no. 165.

488 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
than blamed ; they acted according to their instincts ; they even
exerted such slender abiUties as nature had given to them. But
we may weU feel for that great country whose interests depended
on their care. And it is solely in referenpe to the fate of the
French people that the Mstorian need trouble Mmself with the
Mstory of the French nobles. At the same time, evidence of
this sort, by disclosing the tendencies of the old nohffity, dis
plays in one of its most active forms that protective and aristo
cratic spirit, of which they know little who only know it in its
present reduced and wamng condition. Such facts are to be re
garded as the symptoms of a cruel disease, hy which Europe is
indeed stUl affiicted, but wMch we now see only in a very mit
igated form, and of whose native virulence no one can have an
idea, unless he has studied it in those early stages, when, raging
uncontrolled, it obtained such a mastery as to check the growth
of liberty, stop the progress of nations, and dwarf the energies of
the human mind.
It is hardly necessary to trace at greater length the way in
which France and England diverged from each other, or to point
out, what I hope will henceforth be considered the obvious differ
ence between the civil wars in the two countries. It is evident
that the low-horn and plebeian leaders of our reheUion could
have no sympathy with those matters which perplexed the
understanding of the great French nobles. Men Uke CromweU
and his coadjutors, were not much versed in the mysteries of gen
ealogy, or in the subtleties of heraldic lore. They had paid
small attention to the etiquette of courts; they had not even
studied the rules of precedence. AU this was foreign to their
design. On the other hand, what they did was done thoroughly.
They knew that they had a great work to perform ; and they
performed it well." They had risen in arms against a coi]|§pt
and despotic govemment, and they would not stay their hands
until they had puUed down those who were in high places ; until
they had not only removed the evU, but had likewise chastised
those had men by whom the evU was committed. And although
in tMs, their glorious undertaMng, they did undoubtedly display
some of the infirmities to which even the highest minds are sub
ject ; we, at least, ought never to speak of them but with that
" Ludlow thua expresses the sentiraents which induced him to make war upon
the crown : " The question in dispute between the king's party and us being, as I
apprehended, whether the king should govern as a god by his wiU, and the nation
be governed by force Uke beasts? or whether the people should be governed by
laws made by themselves, and live under a government derived from their own
conaent ? being fuUy perauaded, that an accommodation with the king waa unsafe
to the people of England, and unjust and wicked in the nature of it." Ludlois
Memoirs, vol. i. p. 230. Compare Whitelocke's spirited speech to Chriatma, in Jo^a-
nal of the Swedish Embassy, vol. i. o. 288 ; and aee pp. 390, 391.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 489
unfeigned respect which is due to those who taught the first
great lesson to the kings of Europe, and who, in language not to
be mistaken, proclaimed to them that the impunity which they
had long enjoyed was now come to an end, and that against their
transgressions the people possessed a remedy, sharper, and more
decisive, than any they had hitherto ventured to use.

490 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.

CHAPTER XI.
THE PEOTECTIVE SPIEIT CAEEIED BT LOUIS XIV. INTO LITEEATTJEE. EXAMIN
ATION OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF THIS ALLIANCE BETWEEN THE INTEL
LECTUAL CLASSES AND THE GOVEENING CLASSES.
The reader wiU now he able to understand how it was that the
protective system, and the notions of subordination connected
with it, gained in France a strength unknown in England, and
caused an essential divergence between the two countries. To
complete the comparison, it seems necessary to examine how tMs
same spirit influenced the purely intellectual Mstory of France,
as weU as its social and poUtical history. For the ideas of de
pendence upon which the protective scheme is based, encour
aged a heUef that the subordination wMch existed in politics
and in society ought also to exist in literature ; and that the
paternal, inquisitive, and centralizing system wMch regulated
the material interests of the country, should Ukewise regulate
the interests of its knowledge. When, therefore, the Fronde was
finaUy overtMown, every thing was prepared for that singular
inteUectual poUty, which during fifty years characterized the
reign of Louis XIV., and which was to French literature what
feudaUsm was to French politics. In both cases, homage^as
paid by one party, and protection and favour accorded by the
other. Every man of letters became a vassal of the French
crown. Every hook was written with a view to the royal favour;
and to obtain the patronage of the king was considered the most
decisive proof of inteUectual eminence. The effects produced
by this system vriU he examined in the present chapter. The
apparent cause of the system was the personal character of Louis
XIV. ; but the real and overruUng causes were those circum
stances wMch I have already pointed out, and which estabUshed
in the French mind associations that remained undisturbed until
the eighteenth century. To in-rigorate those associations, and to
carry them into every department of life, was the great aim of
Louis XIV.; and in that he was completely successfrd. It is on
tMs account that the Mstory of his reign becomes highly in-

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 491
stractive, because we see in it the most remarkable instance of
despotism wMch has ever occurred; a despotism of the largest
and most comprehensive Mnd; a despotism of fifty years over
one of the most civffized people in Europe, who not only bore
the yoke without repining, hut submitted with cheerfulness, and
even vrith gratitude to him hy whom it was imposed.'
What makes this the more strange is, that the reign of Louis
XIV. must be utterly condemned if it is tried even by the lowest
standard of morals, of honour, or of interest. A coarse and un
bridled profligacy, followed by the meanest and most groveffing
superstition, characterized his private life ; wMle in his public
career, he displayed an arrogance and a systematic perfidy wMch
eventuaUy roused the anger of aU Europe, and brought upon
France sharp and signal retribution. As to Ms domestic poUcy,
he formed a strict alliance with the church ; and although he re
sisted the authority of the Pope, he yriffingly left Ms subjects to
be oppressed by the tyranny of the clergy.* To them he aban
doned every thing except the exercise of Ms oyvn prerogative.'
Led on by them, he, from the moment he assumed the govern
ment, began to encroach upon those reUgious Uberties, of wMch
Henry IV. had laid the foundation, and wMch down to this period
had been preserved intact.* It was at the instigation of the
' On the diagraceful subserviency of the most eminent men of letters, see Oape-
fgue's Louis XIV, vol. i. pp. 41, 42, 116 ; and on the feeUng of the people, Le
Vassor, who wrote late in the reign of Louis XIV., bitterly says, " mais les Franjais,
accoutumds k Tesclavage, ne aentent plua la pesanteur de leurs ohainea." Le Vas
sor, Hist, de Louis XIII, voh vi. p. 670. Foreigners were equaUy amazed at the
general, and'stiU more, at the wUUng serviUty. Lord Shaftesbury, in a letter dated
February, 1704-5, passes a glowing eulogy upon Uberty ; but he adds, that in France,
you wiU hardly find this argument understood ; for whatever flashes may now
and then appear, I never yet knew one single Frenchman a free man." Forster's
Original Letters of Locke, Sidney, and Shaftesbury, 1830, p. 205. In the same year,
De me makes a simUar remark in regard to the French nobles, Wilson's Ufe of De
Foe, vol U. p. 209 ; and, in 1699, Addison writes from Blois a letter which strikingly
illustrates the degradation of the French. Aikin's Life of Addison, vol i. p. 80.
Compare Burnets Own Time, vol, iv. p. 865, on "the gross excess of flattery to
which the French have run, beyond the exaraples of former ages, in honour of their
king." ¦M^^ *6rms of this compact between the crown and the church are fairly stated
by M. Eanke : " Wir seben, die beiden Gewalteu unterstiitzten einander. Der Konig
ward von den Einwirkungen der weltUchen, der Clerus von der unbedingteu Autor-
168 ^^'^'^''''^'' Cfewalt des Papsthums freigesprochen." Die Papste, vol. Ui.
This part of his character is skilfuUy drawn by Sismondi, Hist des Frangais,
vol. xxv. p. 43. .1 J 1 II
lAi?! f^''^^™ supposes that the first persecuting lawa were in 1679 : "Dds I'annde
1679 lea coMessions faites aux protestans avaient dtd gradueUement restreintes."
Miplomatie Frangaise, vol. iv. p. 92. But the fact is, that these laws began in 1662,
the year after the death of Mazarin. See Sismondi, Hist des Frangais, vol xxv.
p. 167 ; Benoist, Edit de Nantes, vol iU. pp. 460-462, 481. In 1667, a letter from
Ihynne to Lord Clarendon (Lister's Ufe of Clarendon, vol iU. p. 446) mentions "the
horrid persecutions the reformed reUgion undergoes in France ;" and Locke, who

492 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
clergy that he revoked the Edict of Nantes, hy which the princi
ple of toleration had for nearly a century been incorporated with
the law of the land.' It was at their instigation that, just before
this outrage upon the most sacred rights of his subjects, he, in
order to terrify the Protestants into conversion, suddenly let loose
upon them whole troops of dissolute soldiers, who were aUowed
to practise the most revolting cruelties. The frightful barbar
ities which foUowed are related hy authentic writers ;" and of the
travelled in France iu 1675 and 1676, states in his Journal (King's Ufe of Locke,
vol i. p. 110) that the Protestants were losing " every day some privilege or other."
° An account of the revocation wiU be found in all the French historians ; but I
do not remember that any of them have noticed that there was a rumour of it iu
Paris twenty years before it occurred. In March, 1665, Patin writes,' "On dit que,
pour miner dea huguenota, le roi veut supprimer les chambres de I'ddit, et aboUr
I'ddit de Nantea." Lettres de Patin, vol. iii. p. 516.
° Compare Burnets Own Time, vol iii. pp. 73-76, with Siecle de Louis XIV, in
(Euvres de Voltaire, vol. xx. pp. 377, 378. Voltaire aaya that the Protestants who
persisted in their reUgion " dtaient li'vrds aux soldats, qui eurent toute licence, ex-
ceptd ceUe de tuer. 11 y eut pourtant plusieurs personnes ai crueUement mal-
traitdea qu'eUes en raoururent." And Burnet, who was in France in 1686, says,
" all men set their thoughts on work to invent new methods of cruelty." What
some of those methods were, I shall now relate ; because the evidence, however
painful it may be, is necessary to enable us to understand the reign of Louis XIV.
It is necessary that the veil should be rent ; and that the squeamish deUcacy which
would hide such facts, should give way before the obUgation which the historian is
under of holding up to public opprobrium, and branding with pubUc infamy, the
church by which the measures were instigated, the sovereign by whom they were
enforced, and the age in which they were permitted.
The two original sources for our knowledge of these events are. Quick's Synod-
icon in Gallia, 1692, foUo; and Benoist, Histoire de tEditde Nantes, 1695, 4to.
Frora these works I extract the foUowing accounts of what happened in France in
1685. " Afterwards they faU upon the persons of the Proteatanta ; and there was
no wickedneaa, though never so horrid, which they did not put in practice, that
they might enforce them to change their reUgion  They bound them as
criminals are when they be put to the rack ; and in that posture, putting a funnel
into their mouths, they poured wine down their throats tiU ita fumea had deprived
thera of their reaaon, and they had in that condition made them consent to become
CathoUcs. Some they stripped stark naked, and after they had offered them a
thousand indignities, they stuck them with pins from head to foot ; they cut them
with pen-knives, tare them by the noses with red-hot pincers, and dragged them
about the rooras tiU they promised to become Eoman Catholics, or that the doleful
outcries of these poor tormented creatures, calUng upon God for mercy, constramed
them to let thera go  In sorae places they tied fathers and husbands to the
bedposts, and ravished their wives and daughters before their eyes  From
others they pluck off the nails of their hands and toes, which must needs cause an
intolerable pain. They burnt the feet of othera. They blew up men and women
with bellowa, tiU they were ready to burst in pieces. If these horrid usages, could
not prevail upon them to violate their consciences, and abandon their reUgion, they
did then imprison thera in close and noiaome dungeons, in which they exercised
all kinds of inhumanities upon them." Quick's Synodicon, vol. l pp. cxxx. cxxxi.
' Cependant lea troupes exerfoient partout des cruautez inouies. Tout leur dtoit
permis, pourveu qu'ils ne fissent pas mourir. lis faisoient danser quelquefois leurs
botes, jusqu'i ce qu'Us tombassent en ddfaillance. Ils bernoient les autres jnsqu'a
ce qu'Us n'en pouvoient plus  II y en eut quelques-uns & qui on versa de
1 eau bouUlante dans la bouche  II y en eut plusieurs a qui on donna des
coupa de baton sous les pieds, pour dprouver si ce suppUce est auaai cruel que les
relations le pubUent. On arrachoit k d'autres le poU de la barbe  D'autres
brflloieut k la chandeUe le poU dea braa et dea jambes de leurs bdtes. D'autres fai-

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 493
effect produced on the material interests of the nation, some idea
may be formed from the fact, that these religious persecutions
cost France half a mUlion of her most industrious inhabitants,
who fled to different parts, taMng with them those habits of la
bour, and that knowledge and experience in their respective
trades, wMch had hitherto been employed in enriching their own
country.' These things are notorious, they are incontestable, and
they lie on the surface of history. Yet in the face of them, there
are stffi found men who hold up^^r admiration the age of Louis
XIV. Although it is weU known, that in his reign every vestige
of liberty was destroyed ; that the people were weighed down by
an insufferable taxation ; that their chUdren were torn from them
hy tens of thousands to sweU the royal armies ; that the resources
of the country were squandered to an unprecedented extent ;
that a despotism of the worst Mnd was firmly estabUshed; —
although aU this is universally admitted, yet there are writers,
soient bruler de la poudre, si prea du viaage de ceux qui leur reaiatoient, qu'eUe leur
grUloit toute la peau. Ila mettoient k d'autres des charbons aUuraez dans lea raaina,
et les contraignoient delea tenir ferrades, jusqu'ace que les charbons fuaaent dteuita.
.... On brfila lea pieda k pluaieura, tenant lea uns long-tems devant un grand
feu ; appUquant aux autres une peUe ardente sous les pieda ; liantlea pieda des autrea
dans des bottines pleines de graisse, qu'on faisoit fondre et chauffer peu k peu devant
unbrasier ardent." Benoist, Hist, de VEdit de Nantes, vol. v. pp. 887-889. One of
the Protestants, named Ryau, they " Udrent fort dtroitement ; lui sevrdrent les
doigts des mains ; lui fichdrent des dpingles sous les ongles ; lui firent brfiler de la
poudre dans les oreiUes ; lui percdreut les cuisses en plusieurs Ueiix, et versdrent du
vinaigre ct du sei dana sea bleasurea. Par ce tourment ils Ipuiserent sa patience en
deux jours; ct leforcerent ct changer de religion," p. 890. "Les dragons dtoient les
mdmes en toua Ueux. Ila battoient, ila dtourdiaaoient, Ua briUoient en Bourgogne
comme en Poitou, en Champagne comrae en Guyenne, en Norraandie corarae en
Languedoc. Maia ila n'avoient pour les femmes ni plus de respect, ni plua de pitid
que pour les hommes. Au contraire, ils abusoient de la tendre pudeur qui est
une des propridtez de leur aexe ; et ila s'en prevaloient pour leur faire de plus
sensibles outrages. On leur levoit quelquefois leurs juppes par dessua la tete, et on
leur jettoit dea aeaux d'eau aur le corpa. II y en eut plusieurs que les soldats mirent
en chemise, et qu'ils forcdrent de danser avec eux dans cet dtat  Deux
fiUes de Calais, nommdes le Noble, furent mises toutes nufis sur le pavd, et fu
rent ainsi exposdea i la mocquerie et aux outragea dea paasans  Des
dragons ayant Ud la dame de Vezeufai a la quenouiUe de son Ut, lui crachoient dans
la bouche quand eUe I'ouvroit pour parler ou pour soupirer." pp. 891, 892. At p.
917 are other detaUs, far more horrible, respecting the treatraent of women, and
which indignation rather than shame prevents ine from transcribing. Indeed, the
shame can only Ught on the church and the government under whoae united au
thority such scandalous outrages could be openly perpetrated, merely for the sake
of compelling men to change their reUgious opinions.
M. Blanqui (Eist, de VEconomie Politique, vol. il p. 10) says, that the revoca
tion of the Edict of Nantes cost France " cinq cent mUle de ses enfants les plus in-
dustrieux," who carried mto other countries " les habitudes d'ordre et de travaU
dont lis dtaient imbus." - See also Siecle de Louis XIV, chap, xxxvl, in CEuvres de
Voltaire, vol. xx. pp. 380, 381. Several of thera emigrated to North America.
Compare Godvnn on Population, pp. 388, 389, with Benoist, VEdit de Nantes, vol. v.
pp. 973, 974, and LyelVs Second Visit to the United States, edit. 1849, vol ii. p. 159.
See also, on the efl'ects of the Revocation, Lettres inedites de Voltaire, vol u.
p. 473.

494 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
even in our own day, who are so infatuated yrith the glories of
literature, as to balance them agamst the most enormous crimes,
and who wiU forgive every injury inflicted by a prince during
whose life there were produced the Letters of Pascal, the Ora
tions of Bossuet, the Comedies of MoU^re, and the Tragedies of
Eacine. This method of estimating the merits of a sovereign is, in
deed, so rapidly dying away, that I shaU not spend any words in
refuting it. But it is conne^ed with a more yridely diffused
error respecting the influence ra royal patronage upon national
literature. This is a delusion wMch men of letters have them
selves been the first to propagate. From the language too many
of them are in the habit of employing, we might be led to he
Ueve that there is some magical power in the smUes of a Mng,
which stimulates the inteUect of the fortunate indiridual whose
heart they are permitted to gladden. Nor must tMs be despised,
as one of those harmless prejudices that stiU Unger round the
person of the sovereign. It is not only founded on a misconcep
tion of the nature of things, but it is in its practical con
sequences very injurious. It is injurious to the independent
spirit which Uterature should always possess ; and it is injurious
to princes themselves, hecause it strengthens that vanity of
wMch they generaUy have too large a share. Indeed, ff we con
sider the position they now occupy in the most civUized coun
tries, we shaU at once see the absurdity of an opinion which, in
the present state of knowledge, is unfit to be held hy educated
men. From the moment that there was finaUy ahandoned the theo
logical fiction of the divine right of Mngs, it necessarUy foUowed
that the respect felt for them should suffer a corresponding
diminution.' The superstitious reverence yrith which they were
formerly regarded is extinct, and at the present day we are no
longer awed by that divinity with wMch their persons were once
supposed to he hedged." The standard, therefore, %y which we
" On the diminiahed reapect for kings, caused by the abandonment of di-fine
right, see Spencer's Social Statics, pp. 423, 424 ; and on the influence of the clergy
in propagating the old doctrine, see Allen's learned work on the Royal Prerogative,
edit. 1849, p. 166. See also sorae striking remarks by Locke, inKing's Ufe of Locke,
vol ii. p. 90.
° " Qu'eat devenu, en effet, le droit divin, cette pensde, autrefois acceptde par
les raaases, que les roia dtaient les reprdsentants de Dieu sur la terre, que la tacine
de leur pouvoir dtait dans le ciel ? EUe s'eat dvanouie devant cette autre pensde,
qu'aucun nuage, aucun mysticisme n'obacurcit ; devant cette pensde ai natureUe et
brillant d'une clartd si nette et ai vive, que la souveraine puissance, sur la terre,
appartient au peuple entier, et non eL une fraction, et moins encore k un seul homme.
Rey, Science Sociale, vol iU. p. 308. Compare Manning on the Law of Nations,
p. 101 ; Laing's Sweden, p. 408 ; Laing's Denmark, p. 196 ; Burke's Works, vohi.
p. 891. . r . 1- ir 1 .

GENERAL INTEODUCTION. 495
should measure them is obrious. We should applaud their con
duct in proportion as they contribute towards the happiness of
the nation over which they are intrusted with power ; hut we
ought to remember that, from the manner in which they are
educated, and from the chUdish homage always paid to them,
their information must be very inaccurate, and their prejudices
very numerous.'" On tMs account, so far from expecting that
they shoiSld be judicious patrons of Uterature, or should in any
way head their age, we ought to be satisfied if they do not ob
stinately oppose the spirit of their time, and if they do not
attempt to stop the march of society. For, unless the sovereign,
in spite of the inteUectual disadvantages of Ms position, is a
man of very enlarged mind, it must usuaUy happen that he wiU
reward, not those who are most ahle, but those who are most
compUant ; and that whUe he refuses his patronage to a pro
found and independent tMnker, he wiU grant it to an author who
cherishes ancient prejudices and defends ancient abuses. In tMs
way, the practice of conferring on men of letters either honorary
or pecuniary rewards, is agreeable, no doubt, to those who re
ceive them ; but has a manifest tendency to weaken the bold
ness and energy of their sentiments, and therefore to impair the
value of their works. This might be made erident by pubUsh
ing a Ust of those Uterary pensions wMch have heen granted by
European princes. If tMs were done, the miscMef produced by
these and simUar rewards, would he clearly seen. After a care
ful study of the history of Uterature, I thmk myself authorized
to say, that for one instance m which a sovereign has recom
pensed a man who is hefore Ms age, there are at least twenty
mstances of Ms recompensing one who is behind Ms age. The
result is, that m every country where royal patronage has been
long and generaUy bestowed, the spirit of Uterature, instead of
being progressive, has become reactionary. An alUance has heen
struck up between those who give and those who receive. By a
system of bounties, there has heen artificiaUy engendered a
greedy and necessitous class; who, eager for pensions, and
offices, and titles, have made the pursuit of truth subordinate to
the desire of gam, and have infused into their writings the prej
udices of the court to which they cUng. Hence it is, that the
marks of favour have become the badge of servitude. Hence it
"\.^^ *iSi aa in aU instancea, the language of respect long survives tbe feeUng
to which the language owed its origin. Lord Brougham (Political Philosophy, vol
1. p. 4.i, Lond. 1849) observes, that " aU their titles are derived from a divine orig-
inal--au reier to them as representmg the Deity on earth. They are caUed ' Grace,'
Majesiy. Thej me terniei 'The Lords anointed,' 'The Vicegerent of God upon
eartn; mth many other names which are either nonaenaical or blasphemous, but
Which are outdone m absurdity by the kings of the Eaat." True enough : but if
Lord^rougham had written thus three centuries ago, he would have had his ears
out off for b'- — ¦"" ° '

496 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
is, that the acquisition of knowledge, by far the noblest of aU
occupations, an occupation which of all others raises, the dignity
of man, has heen debased to the level of a common profession,
where the chances of success are measured by the number of re
wards, and where the highest honours are in the gift of whoever
happens to be the minister or sovereign of the day.
TMs tendency forms of itself a decisive objection to the riews
of those who wish to intrust the executive government with, the
means of rewarding Uterary men. But there is also another ob
jection, in some respects stUl more serious. Every nation wMch
is aUowed to pursue its course uncontroUed, wiU easily satisfy
the wants of its oyvn inteUect, and wiU produce such a Uterature
as is best suited to its actual condition. And it is evidently for
the interest of all classes that the production shaU not he greater
than the want ; that the supply shaU not exceed the demand.
It is, moreover, necessary to the weU-heing'of society that a
healthy proportion should he kept up between the intellectual
classes and the practical classes. It is necessary that there
should be a certain ratio between those who are most inclined
to tMnk, and those who are most inclined to act. If we were aU
authors^ our material interests would suffer; if we were aU men
of business, our mental pleasures would be abridged. In the
first case, we should be famished phUosophers ; in the other case.
We should be wealthy fools. Now, it is ob-rious that, according
to the commonest principles of human action, the relative num
bers of these two classes wiU he adjusted, yrithout effort, by the
natural, or, as we caU it, the spontaneous movement of society.
But if a govemment takes upon itself to pension Uterary men,
it disturbs tMs movement ; it troubles the harmony of things.
This is the unavoidable result of that spirit of mterference, or,
as it is, termed, protection, hy which every country has been
greatly injured. If, for instance, a fund were set apart by the
state for rewarding butchers and tailors, it is certain that the
number of those useful men would be needlessly auginented. If
another fund is appropriated for the literary classeSj it is as cer
tain that men of letters wiU increase more rapidly than the exi
gencies of the country require. In both cases, an artificial
stimulus wUl produce an unhealthy action. Surely, food and
clothes are as necessary for the body as Uterature is for the mind.
Why, then, should we call, upon government to encourage those
who write our books, any more than to encourage those who kill
our mutton and mend our garments.? The truth is, that the
inteUectual march of society is, in this respect, exactly analogous
to its physical march. In some instances a forced* supply may,
indeed, create an unnatural want. But tMs is an' artificial state

GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 497
of things, which indicates a diseased action. In a healthy con
dition, it is not the supply which causes the want, but it is the
want which gives rise to the supply. To suppose, therefore, that
an increase of authors would necessarily he foUowed by a diffu
sion of knowiedge, is as if we were to suppose that an increase
of butchers must be foUowed by a diffusion of food. This is not
the way in which things are ordered. Men must have appetite
before they wUl eat ; they must have money hefore they can buy;
they must be inquisitive hefore they yriU read. The two great
principles which move the world are, the love of wealth and the
love of knowledge. These two principles respectively represent
and govern the two most important classes into which every civU
ized country is divided. What a government gives to one of
these classes, it must take from the other. What it gives to
Uterature, it must take from wealth. This can never be done
to any great extent, without entailing the most ruinous conse
quences. For, the natural proportions of society being destroyed,
society itself ynU be tMown into confusion. WhUe men of let
ters are protected, men of industry wUl he depressed. The
lower classes can count for Uttle in the eyes of those to whom
Uterature is the first consideration. The idea of the Uberty of
the people wiU be discouraged ; their persons yyUl he oppressed ;
their labour wiU he taxed. The arts necessary to Ufe wiU be de
spised, in order that those wMch emheUish life may he favoured.
The many yriU be ruined, that the few may be pleased. WhUe
every tMng is splenffid above, allwUl be rotten below. Fine pic
tures, nohle palaces, touching dramas, — these may for a time he
produced in profusion, hut it wiU be at the cost of the heart and
strength of the nation. Even the class for whom the sacrifice
has been made, wiU soon decay. Poets may continue to smg
the praises of the prince who has bought them yrith Ms gold.
It is, however, certain that men who begin hy losing their inde
pendence, -wffi end by losmg their energy. Their intellect must
be robust indeed, if it does not wither in the sicMy atmosphere
of a court. Their attention being concentrated on their master,
they insensibly contract those habits of serviUty which are suited
to their position ; and, as the range of their sympatMes is dimin
ished, the use and action of their gemus become impaired. To
them submission is a custom, and servitude a pleasure. In their-
hands, Uterature soon loses its boldness, tradition is appealed to
as the ground of truth, and the spirit of inquiry is extinguished.
Then it is, that there comes one of those sad moments in wMch,
no outlet being left for public opinion, the minds of men are
unable to find a vent ; their discontents, having no voice, slowly
ranMe into a deadly hatred ; their passions^accumulate in sUence,
V0L.J^.-x£2

498 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
until at length, losing aU patience, they are goaded into one of
those terrible revolutions, by wMch they humble the pride of
their rulers, and carry retribution even into the heart of the
palace. The truth of tMs picture is weU known to those who have
studied the Mstory of Louis XIV., and the connection between
it and the French Eevolution. That prmce adopted, during his
long reign, the miscMevous practice of rewardiag literary men
with large sums of money, and of conferring on them numerous
marks of personal favour. As tMs was done for more than haff
a century ; and as the wealth which he thus unscrupulously em
ployed was of course taken from Ms other subjects, we can find
no better iUustration of the results wMch such patronage is
likely to produce. He, indeed, has the merit of organizing into
a system that protection of Uterature which some are so anxious to
restore. What the effect of this was upon the general interests
of knowkdge, we shall presently see. But its effect upon au
thors themselves should be particularly attended to hy those men
of letters who, with Uttle regard to their own dignity, are con
stantly reproacMng the English govemment for neglecting the
profession of which they themselves are members. In no age
have Uterary men been reyrarded with such proffiseness as in
the reign ,of Louis XIV. ; and in no, age have they heen so
mean-spirited, so servUe, so utterly unfit to fulfil their great
vocation as the apostles of knowledge and the missionaries
of trutM The Mstory of the most celebrated authors of that
time proves thatj notyrithstanding their acquirements, and the
power of their minds, they were unable to resist the surrounding
corruption. To gain the favour of the Mng, they sacrificed that
independent spirit wMch should have been dearer to them than
life. They gave a-svay the inheritance of gemus ; they sold their
birthright for a mess of pottage. What happened then, would,
under the same circumstances, happen now. A, few eminent
tMnkers may he ahle for a certain time to resist the pressure of
their age. But, looking at manMnd generaUy, society can have
no hold on any class except through the medium of their inter
ests. It behoves, therefore, every people to take heed, that the
interests of literary men are on their side rather than on the side
of their rulers. For, literature is the representative of inteUect,
which is progressive ; government is the representative of order,
¦which is stationary. As. long as these two great powers are
separate, they wiU correct and react upon each other, and the
people may hold the balance. If,.hovrever, these powers coalesce,
if the government can corrupt the inteUeet, and if the inteUect
wUl yield to the govemment, the ineritable result must be, des-

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 499
potism in politics, and servUity in literature. This was the his
tory of France under Louis XIV. ; and tMs, we may rest
assured, will be the history of every country that shaU he tempted
to follow so attractive hut so fatal an example.
The reputation of Louis XIV. originated in the gratitude of
men of letters ; hut it is now supported by a popular notion that
the celebrated literature of Ms age is mainly to he ascribed to
his fostering care. If, however, we examine this opinion, we
shaU find that, Uke many of the traditions of which Mstory is
fuU, it is entirely devoid of truth. We shall find two leading
circumstances, wMch wiU prove that the Uteraiy splendour of
his reign was not the result of Ms efforts, hut was the work of
that great generation wMch preceded him ; and that the intel
lect of France, so far from being benefited by his munificence,
was hampered hy Ms protection.
I; The first circumstance is, that the immense impulse
which, during the admimstrations of EicheUeu and of Mazarin,
had been given to the highest branches of knowledge, was sud
denly stopped. In 1661 Louis XIV. assumed the govemment ;"
and from that moment untU his death, in 1715, the history of
France, so far as great discoveries are concerned, is a blank m
the annals of Europe. If, putting aside aU preconceived notions
respecting the supposed glory of that age, we examine the mat
ter fairly, it yriU be seen that in every department there was a
manifest dearth of original thmkers. There was much that was
elegant; much that was attractive. The senses of men were
soothed and flattered hy the creations of art, by paintings, by
palaces, by poems ; hut scarcely any tMng of moment was added
to the sum of human knowledge. If we take the mathematics,
and those mixed sciences to which they are appUcable, it wUl he
universaUy admitted that their most successful cultivators in
France during the seventeenth century were Descartes, Pascal,
Fermat, Gassendi, and Mersenne. But, so far from Louis XIV.
having any share in the honour due to them, these eminent men
were engaged in their investigations whUe the king was stUl in
his cradle, ahd completed them hefore he assumed the govern
ment, and therefore before his system of protection came into
play. Descartes died in 1650,'* when the king w'as twelve years
old. Pascal, whose name, Uke that of Descartes, is commonly
associated with the age of Louis XIV., had gained an European
reputation, while Louis, occupied in the nursery with his toys, was
not aware that any such man existed. His treatise on conic sec-
, „ , ,i " ^^ premidre pdriode du gouvernement de Loui^ XIV commence donc en
1661." .Capefigue's Loids XIV, vol i, p. 4.
" Biog, Uniil, vol xi. p. 157.

500 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
tions was written in 1639 ;" his decisive experiments on the
weight of air were made in 1648 ;'* and his researches on the cy
cloid, the last great inquiry he ever undertook, were in 1658,"
when Louis, still under the tutelage of Mazarin, had no sort of
authority. Ferinat was one of the most profound thinkers of
the seventeenth century, particularly as a geometrician, in which
respect he was second only to Descartes." The most important
steps are those concerning the geometry of infimtes, appUed to
the ordinates and tangents of curves ; which, however, he com
pleted in or before 1636." As to Gassendi and Mersenne, it is
enough to say that Gassendi died in 1655," six years before
Louis was at the head of affairs ; whUe Mersenne died in 1648,'"
when the great Mng was ten years old.
These were the men who flourished in France just before the
system of Louis XIV. came into operation. Shortly after their
death the patronage of the Mng began to tell upon the national
inteUect ; and during the next fifty years no addition of impor
tance was made to either branch of the mathematics, or, with
the single exception of acoustics,*" to any of the sciences to
which the mathematics are appUed.*' The further the seven-
" In Biog, Univ, vol. xxxiU. p. 50, he is said to have composed it " k I'ige de
seize ans ;" and at p. 46, to have been born in 1623.
" Leslie's Natural Philosophy, p. 201 ; Bordas Demoulin, Le Cartlsianisme, vol.
i. p. 810. Sir John Herschel (I>isc. on Nat. Philos. pp. 229, 230) caUs this " one of
the flrst, if not the very flrst," crucial instance recorded in physics ; and he thinks
that it " tended, more powerfully than any thing which had previously been done in
science, to confirm in the minds of men that diapoaition to experimental verification
which bad acarcely yet taken fuU and secure root." In this point of view, the ad
dition it actuaUy made to knowledge is the amaUeat part of ita merit.
"" Montucla (Hist, des Mathhnatiques, voh ii. p. 61) says, "vers 1668;" and at
p. 66, "U se mit, vers le comraenceraent de 1658, a considdrer plus profonddment
les propridtds de cette oourbe."
" Montucla (Hist, des Mathlmat vol U. p. 136) eutbusiasticaUy declares that,," si
Descartes eut manque a I'esprit humain. Format I'efit reraplacd en gdomdtrie." Sim
son, the celebrated restorer of Greek geometry, said that Format was the only modern
who understood porisms. See TraiVs Account of Simson, 1812, 4to, pp. 18, 41.
On the connexion between his viewa and the aubsequent discovery of the differential
calculus, see Brewster's Ufe of Newton, vol. U. pp. 7-8 ; and compare Comte, Philoso
phie Positive, vol. i. pp. 228, 229, 726, 727.
" See extracts frora two letters written by Format to Eoberval, in 1636, in Mon
tucla, Hist, des Mathhnatiques, vol il pp. 136, 137; respecting which there is no
notice in the meagse article on Format, in Hutton's Mathematical Dictionary, vol. I
p. 610, 4to, 1816. It is a disgrace to EngUah mathematicians that this unsatisfac
tory work of Hutton's should stiU remain the best they have produced on the history
of their own science. The sarae disregard of dates is shown in the hasty remarks
on Format by Playfair. See Playfair' s Dissertation on ihe Progress of Mathematical
Science, Encyclop. Brit vol i. p. 440, 7th edition.
" Hutton's Mathemat Diet vol i. p. 572. '" Ibid, vol ii. p. 46.
"" Of which Sauveur may be considered the creator. Compare Eloge de Sauveur,
in (Euvres de FonteneUe, Paria, 1766, vol v. p. 435, with WhewelVs Hist of the Indue.
Sciences, vol u. p. 334 ; Comte, Philos. Pos. vol U. pp. 627, 628.
"' In the report preaented to Napoleon by the French Inatitute, it ia said of the
reign of Louis XIV., " lea sciences exactes et les sciencea physiquea peu cultivdes en

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 501
teenth century advanced, the more evident did the decline he-
come, and the more clearly can we trace the connexion between
the waning powers of the French, and that protective spirit
wMch enfeebled the energies it yrished to strengthen, Louis had
heard that astronomy is a nohle study ; he was therefore anxious,
by encouraging its cultivation in France, to add to the glories
of his own name,** With tMs -riew, he rewarded its professors
with unexampled profusion ; he built the splendid observatory
of Paris ; he invited to his court the most eminent foreign as
tronomers, Cassini from Italy, Eomer from Denmark, Huygens
from HoUand, But, as to native abiUty, France did not produce
a single man who made even one of those various discoveries,
which mark the epochs of astronomical science. In other coun
tries vast progress was made ; and Newton in particular, by his
immense generalizations, reformed nearly every branch of physics,
and remodeUed astronomy by carrying the laws of gravitation
to the extremity of the solar system. On the other hand, France
had faUen into such a torpor, that these wonderful discoveries,
wMch changed the face of knowledge, were entirely neglected,
there being no instance of any French astronomer adopting
them until 1732, that is, forty-five years after they had been
pubUshed hy their immortal author.*' Even in matters of de
taU, the most valuable improvement made by French astrono
mers during the power of Louis XIV. was not original. They
laid claim to the mvention of the micrometer ; an admirable re
source which, as they supposed, was first contrived by Picard
and Auzout.** The truth, however, is that here again they were
France dana un siecle qui paroisaoit ne trouver de charmea que dans la littdrature."
Dacier, Rapport Historique, p. 24. Or, as Lacretelle expresses it (Dix-huitieme
Siecle, vol U. p. 10), "La France, aprds avoir fourni Descartes et Pascal, eut pen
dant quelque temps k envier aux nations dtrangdres la gloire de produire des gdnies
crdateura dans les sciences."
" A writer late in the aeventeenth century aaya, with some simpUcity, "the
present king of France is reputed an encourager of choice and able men, in aU facul
ties, who can attribute to his greatness." Aubrey's Letters, vol. il p. 624.
" The Prineipia of Newton appeared in 1687 ; and Maupertuis, in 1782, "was
the first astronomer of France who undertook a critical defence of the theory of
gravUation." Grants Hist of Physical Astronomy, pp. 31, 43. In 1788, Voltaire
writes, "La France est jusqu'k prdsent le seul pays oil les thdories de Newton en
physique, et de Boerhaave en mddecine soient combattues. Nous n'avons pas en
core de lions didments de physique; nous avons pour toute astronoraie le Uvre de
Bion, qui n'est qu'un raraas informe de quelques radmoires de I'acaddmie." Cor-
m^or^. in (Euvres de Voltaire, vol. Ivu. p. 340. On the tardy reception of New-
tons discoveries in France, compare Eloge de Lacaille, in (Euvres de Bailly, Paris,
1790, vol i. pp, 175, 176. AU this is the more remarkable, becauae aeveral of the
conclusions a,t which Newton had arrived were divulged before they were embodied
'" ™6 Prineipia; and it appears from Brewster's Ufe of Newton (vol. i. pp. 25, 26,
290), that his speculations concerning gravity began iu 1666, or perhaps in the au
tumn of 1665. ¦= J o , f i'
"L'abbd Picard fut en societd avec Auzout, I'inventeur du raicromdtre."

502 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
anticipated hy the activity of a freer and less protected people ;
since the micrometer Was invented by Gascoigne, in or just hefore
1639, when the EngUsh monarch, so far from having leisure to
patronize science, was about to embark in that struggle' which,
ten years later, cost him his crown and Ms Ufe.*'
The absence in France, during this period, not only of great
discoveries, but also of mere practical ingenuity, is certainly very
striMng. In investigations requiring minute accuracy, the ne
cessary tools, if at all compUcated, were made hy foreigners, the
native workmen being too unsMUed to constract them ; and Dr.
Lister, who was a very competent judge,*" and who was in Paris
at the end of the seventeenth century, suppUes eridence that
the best mathematical instruments sold in that city were made,
not hy a Frenchman, but by Butterfield, an Englishman residing
there.*' Nor did they succeed better in matters of immediate
and obvious utUity. The improvements effected in manufactures
were few and insigmficant, and were calculated not for the com
fort of the people, but for the luxury of the idle classes.*' What
was really valuable was neglected ; no great invention was made ;
and hy the end of the reign of Louis XIV. scarcely any tMng
had been done in machinery, or inthose other contrivances which,
by economizing national labour, increase national wealth.*"
Biog. Univ. vol xxxiv. p. 253. See also Prlface de VHist. de 'lAcad. des Sciences,
in CEuvres de FonteneUe, Paris, 1766, vol x. p. 20.
™ The best account I have seen of the invention of the micrometer, is in Mr.
Grant's recent work. History af Physical Astronomy, pp. 428, 450-453, where it is
proved that Gascoigne invented it in 1639, or possibly a year or two earlier. Com
pare Humboldts Cosmos, vol iu. p. 62 ; who also ascribes it to Gascoigne, but erro
neously dates it in 1640. Montucla (Hist, des Mathlmat. vol. ii. pp. 670, 571) ad
mita the priority of Gascoigne ; but underr^,tea hia merit, being apparently unac
quainted with the evidence which Mr. Grant aubsequently adduced.
"" For a short account of this able'man, see Lankester' s Mem. of Ray, p. 17.
"' Notwithstanding the atrong prejudice then existing againat EngUahmen, But
terfield waa employed by " the king and all the princea." Lister's Accownt of Paris
at the close of the seventeenth century, edited by Dr, Henniipg, p. 86. FonteneUe
mentiona " M. Hubin," aa one of the moat celebrated makera in Paris in 1687 (Eloge
dAniontons, in CEwvres de FonteneUe, Paris, 1766, vol. v. p. 113); but baa forgotten
to atate that be too was an EngUabraan. "Lutetite aedem poauerat ante ahquod
tempus Anglus quidam nomine Hubinus, vir ingeniosus, atque hujusmodi machina-
tionura peritus opifex et industrius. Hominera adii," &c. Huetii Commentarius de
Rebus ad eum pertinentibus, p. 346. Thus, again, in regard to time-keepers, the 'vast
superiority ofthe EngUah makera, late in the reign of Louia XIV., waa equally in-
contestabie. Compare Biog. Univ. vol. xxiv. pp. 242, 243, with Brewster s Ufe of
Newton, vol. ii. p. 262 ; and as to the middle of the reign of Louis XIV., see IMogf
de Sebastien, in CEuvres de FonteneUe, vol. vi. pp. 832, 388.
°" " Les manufactures dtaient plutot dirigds vers le brUlant que vers I'utUe. On
s'efforja, par un arrdt du mois de mars 1700, d'extirpir, ou du moins de rdduire
beaucoup les fabriques de bas au radtier. Malgrd cette fausse direction, lea objets
d un luxe trda-recberchd faisaient dea progrda bien lenta. En 1687, aprda la mort
de Colbert, la cour aoldait encore I'industrie des barbares, ct faisait fabriquer et
Moder ses plus beaux habits a Constantinople." Lemontey, Etablissement de Lads
^f F, p. 364. Lacretelle (Dix-huitieme Siecle, voh u. p. 5) saya, that during the last
"¦'/ y'^T^ °f *« '¦eigh of Louis XIV. " les manufactures tombaient."
Cuvier (Biog. Univ. vol xxxvii p. 199) thus describes the condition of France

GENERAL INTEODUCTION. 503
WhUe such was the state, not only of mathematical and as
tronomical science, but also of mechanical and inventive arts,
corresponding symptoms of declining power were seen in other
departments. In physiology, in anatomy, and in medicine, we
look in vain for any men equal to those by whom France had
once been honoured. The greatest discovery of this Mnd ever
made hy a Frenchman, was that of the receptable of the chyle ;
a discovery wMch, in the opinion of a high authority, is not in
ferior to that of the circulation of the blood hy Harvey.'" TMs
important step in our knowledge is constantly assigned to the age
of Louis XI v., as if it were one of the results of his gracious
bounty ; hut it would be (Jifficult to tell what Louis had to do
with it, since the discovery was made by Pecquet in 1647,"
when the great Mng was- nine years old. After Pecquet, the
most eminent of the French anatomists in the seventeenth cen
tury was Eiolan ; and Ms name we also find among the illus
trious men who adorned the reign of Louis XIV. But the prin
cipal works of Eiolan were written hefore Louis XIV. was horn ;
Ms last work was pubUshed in 1652 ; and he himself died in
1657.'* Then there came a pause, and, during three genera
tions, the French did notMng for these great -subjects ; they
wrote no work upon them which is now read, they made no dis
coveries, and they seemed to have lost aU heart, untU that re
vival of knowledge, wMch, as we shaU presently see, took place
in France about the middle of the eighteenth century. In the
practical parts of medicine, in its speculative parts, and in the
arts connected yrith surgery, the same law prevails. The
French, in these, as in other matters, had formerly produced
men of great eminence, who had won for themselves an Euro
pean reputation, and whose works are stUl remembered. Thus,
only to mention two or three instances, they had a long line of
ffiustrious physicians, among whom Fernel and Jouhert were the
earUest ;" they had, in surgery, Amhroise Par6, who not only
only seven years after the death of Louis XTV. : " Noa forges dtaient albrs presque
dans I'enfance ; et nous ne faisions point d'acier : tout celui qu'dxigeaient les dif-
ferents mdtiers nous venait de I'dtranger. . . . Nous ne faiaiona point non plus
alors de fer-blanc, et il ne nous venait que de I'AUemagne."
" Certainement la ddcouverte de Pecquet ne brUle paa moina dana I'histoire de
Mtre art que la vdritd ddmontrde pour la premidre fois par Harvey." Sprengel,
Eist. de la Mldeeine, vol. iv. p. 208.
Henle (Anatomie Ghnh-ale, vol U. p. 106) says, that tbe discovery was made
in 1649 ; but the historians of medicme assign it to 1647. Sprengel, Hist, de la
Ml^dne, vol. iv. pp. 207, 405 ; Renouard, Hist de la Mldeeine, vol. U. p. 173.
Biog. Univ. vol xxxviu. pp. 123, 124.
Some of the great atepa taken by Joubert are concisely stated in Broussais,
Examen des Doctrines Mldicales, voh i. pp. 293, 294, vol. Ui. p. 361. Compare Spren-
^l, Eist de la Medecine, vol. iu. p. 210. Fernel, though enthusiastically praised by
Patin, was probably hardly equal to Joubert. Lettres de Patin, vol. iu. pp. 69, 199,

504 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
introduced important practical improvements,'* hut who has the
stUl rarer merit of being one of the founders of comparative
osteology;" and they had Baillou, who, late in the sixteenth
and early in the seventeenth century, advanced pathology, hy
connectmg it with the study of morbid anatomy." Under Louis
XIV. all tMs was changed. Under Mm, surgery was neglected,
though in other countries its progress was rapid." The EngUsh,
by the middle of the seventeenth century, had taken consider
able steps in medicine ; its therapeutical branch being reformed
cMefly by Sydenham, its physiological branch hy Glisson." But
the age of Louis XIV. cannot boast of a single medical writer
who can be compared to these ; not even one whose name is
•now known as having made any specific addition to our knowl
edge. In Paris, the practice of medicme was notoriously in
ferior to that in the capitals of Germany, Italy, and England ;
whUe in the French prorinces, the ignorance, even of the best
physicians, was scandalous." Indeed, it is no exaggeration to
say that, during the whole of tMs long -period, the French in
these matters effected comparatively nothing ; they made no
648. At p. 106, Patin caUs Fernel " le preraier mddecin de sou tempa, et peut-dtre
le plua grand qui sera jamais."
'* See a sumraary of them in Sprengel, Hist de la Mldeeine, vol iU. pp. 406, 406,
vol vii. pp. 14, 16. Sir Benjamin Brodie (Lectures on Surgery, p. 21) aays, " Few
greater benefits have been conferred on mankind than that for which we are in
debted to Ambrose Parey — tbe appUcation of a ligature to a bleeding artery."
"* " C'dtait la une vue trds ingdnieuse et trds juste qu' Amhroise Pard donnait
pour la premidre foia. C'dtait un commencement d'oatdologie comparde." Cuvier,
Hist, des Sciences, part U. p. 42. To thia I may add, that he ia the firat French
writer on medical juriaprudence. See Paris and Fonblanque's Medical Jurispru-
dence, 1823, vol. i. p. xvUl
"° " L'un dea premiera auteura k qui I'on doit dea obaervationa cadavdriquea sur
lea maladies, est le fameux Baillou." Broussais, Examen des Doctrines Mldicales,
vol ii. p. 218. See also vol iU. p. 362 ; and Renouard, Hist, de la Mldeeine, vol.U.
p. 89. Tbe value of hia services is recognized in a recent able work, Phillips on
Scrofula, 1846, p. 16.
' "The most celebrated surgeon of the sixteenth century was Amhroise
Pard  Frora the time ot Pard until the commencement of the eighteenth
century, surgery was but little cultivated in France. Mauriceau, Saviard, aud Bel-
loste, were the only French surgeons of note who could be cohtrasted with so many
eminent men of other nations. During the eighteenth century, France produced two
surgeons of extraordinary genius ; these are Petit and Desault." BowmarCs Surgery,
in Encyclop. of Medical Sciences, 1847, 4to, pp. 829, 880.
"" It is unnecessary to adduce evidence respecting the services rendered by Syd
enham, aa they are universaUy adraitted ; but what, perhaps, is leas generaUy known,
is, that GUsson anticipated thoae important viewa concerning irritabiUty, which were
afterwards developed by Haller and Gorter. Compare Renouard, Hist, de la Mlde
eine, vol. ii. p. 192; Elliotson's Human Physiol, p. ill; Bordas Demoulin, Cartl
sianisme, vol i. p. 170. -In Wagner's Physiol, 1841, p 656, the theory is too exclu
sively ascribed to Haller.
Of this, we have numerous complaints from foreigners who visted France. I
will quote the testimony of one celebrated raan. In 1699, Addison writes from
Blois: "I made uae of one ofthe phyaiciana of thia place, who are aa cheap aa our
Jingbsh farriers, and generally aa ignorant." Aikin's Life of Addison, vol i. p. 74,

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 505
contributions to clinical Uterature,*" and scarcely any to thera
peutics, to pathology, to physiology, or to anatomy.*'
In what are called the natural sciences, we also find the
French now brought to a stand. In zoology, they had formerly
possessed remarkable men, among. whom Belon and Eondelet
were the most conspicuous ;** but, under Loms XIV., they did
not produce one original observer in tMs great field of inquiry.*'
In chemistry, again, Eey had, in the reign of Louis Xltl.,
strack out riews of such vast importance, that he anticipated
some of those generalizations which formed the glory of the
French inteUect in the eighteenth century.** During the cor
rupt and frivolous age of Louis XIV., aU this was forgotten ;
the labours of Eey were neglected ; and so complete was the in
difference, that even the celebrated experiments of Boyle re
mained unknown in France for more than forty years after they
were published.*'
Connected with zoology, and, to a phUosophic mind, insepar
able from it, is botany ; which, occupying a middle place be
tween the animal and mineral world, indicates their relation to
each other, and at different points touches the confines of both.
It also tMows great Ught on the functions of nutrition,*" and on
'" Indeed, France was the last great country in Europe iu which a chair of clini
cal medicine waa eatabUshed. See Renouard, Hist, de la Mldeeine, vol. ii. p. 312;
sM. Bouillaud, Philos, Mldicale, p. 114.
*' M. BouiUaud, in hia account of the atate of medicine iu the aeventeenth cen
tury, doea not mention a single Frenchman during this period. See Bouillaud,
Philosophie Mldicale, pp. 13 seq. During many years ofthe power of Louia XIV.,
the French academy only possessed one anatomist ; and of hira, few students of
physiology have ever heard : " M. du Verney fut assez long-teraps le seul anato-
miate de I'acaddmie, et ce ne fut qu'en 1684 qu'on lui joignit M. Mery." Eloge de
Du Verney, in CEwvres de FonteneUe, voh vi. p. 392.
" Cuvier, Hist, des Sciences, part U. pp. 64-73, 76-80.
" After Belon, nothing waa done in France for the natural hiatory of animals
uutU 1734, when there appeared the first volurae of Eeauraur's great work. See
Swainson on ihe Study of Nat Hist pp. 24, 48.
Ou thia remarkable man, who waa the first phUosophic chemist Europe pro-
•duced, and who, so early as 1630, anticipated some of the generaUzations made a
hundred and fifty yeara later by Lavoiaier, see Uebig's Letters on Chemistry, pp. 46,
47 ; Thomson's Hist of Chemistry, vol. U. pp. 95, 96 ; Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. u. p.
729 ; Cuvier, Progris des Sciences, vol i. p. 30.
*' Cuvier (Progrh des Sciences, vol. i. p. 80) says of Eey, " son dcrit dtait tombd
dans 1 oubU le plua profond ;" and, in another work, the aame great authority writea
(Hist des Sciences, part u. p. 333): "II y avait plus de quarantd ans que Becker
avait prdsentdsa nouveUe thdorie, ddveloppde par Stahl; U y avait encore plus long-
temps que Ies expdriences de Boyle aur la chimie pneumatique avaient dtd publidea,
et dependant rien de tout cela n'entrait encore dana renaeignement gdndral de la
chunie, du moina en France."
' The highest present generaUzations of the laws of nutrition are those by.M.
thevreul ; which are thus summed up by MM. Eobin et VerdeU, in their admirable
work, Chimie Anatomique, vol. i. p. 203, Paris, 1853 : "En passant des plantes aux
ammaux, nous voyons que plus I'organisation de ces demiers est compUqude, plus lea
ahments dont Us se nourriasent sont complexes et analogues par leurs principes ira
mddiats aux principea dea organea qu'ils doivent entretenir.
En ddfinitive. on voit aue lea vd^^tamc hp nonn-iRHpnt H'pnn il'dAiflp nurhnninnp

506 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
the laws of development ; whUe, from the marked analogy be^^
tween animals and vegetables, we have every reason to hope that
its further progress, assisted hy that of electricity, will -prepare
the way for a comprehensive theory of life, to which the re
sources of our knowledge are stiU unequal, but. towards wMch
the movements of modern science are manifestly tending. On
these grounds, far more than for the sake of practical advan
tages, botany wUl always attract the attention of tMnMng men ;
who, neglecting views of immediate utiUty, look to large and
ultimate results, and only value particular facts in so far as they
facUitate the. discovery of general truths. The first step in tMs
noble study was taken towards the middle of the sixteenth cen
tury, when authors, instead of copying what previous writers had
said, began to observe nature for themselves.*' The next step
was, to add experiment to observation ; hut it requhed another
hundred years before this could he done with accuracy ; because
the microscope, which is essential to such mquiries, was only
invented about 1620, and the labour of a whole generation was
needed to make it available for minute investigations.* ' So soon,
however, as this resource was sufficiently matured to be applied
to plants, the march of botany became rapid, at least as far as
detaUs are concerned ; for it was not until the eighteenth cen
tury that the facts were actually generalized. But, m the pre
Uminary work of accumulating the facts, great energy was
shown ; and, for reasons stated in an earlier part of the Intro
duction, this, Uke other studies relating to the external world,
advanced with pecuUar speed during the reign of Charles II.
The tracheae of plants were discovered by Henshaw in 1661;*'
d'autres gaz et de matidres organiques k I'dtat d'engrais, ou en d'autres termes altd-
rdes, c'estrEl-dire ramendes a I'dtat de principes plus simples, plua solublea. Au con
traire, lea animaux plus dlevds dans I'dchelle organique ont beaoin de matidres bien
plus complexes quant aux principea iramddiats qui les coraposent, et plus varides dans
leurs propridtds."
*' Brunfels iu 1530, and Fuchs in 1542, were the two first writers who observed
the vegetable kingdom for themaelves, instead of copying what the ancients had said.
Compare WhewelVs Hist, of ihe Sciences, vol. iU. pp. 305, 306, with Pulteney's Hist,
of Botany, vol I p. 88.
*" The microscope waa exhibited in London, by Drebbel, about 1620 ; and this
appears to be the earUest unqueationable notice of ita uae, though some writers assert
that it was invented at the beginning of the seventeenth century, or even in 1590.
Compare the different statements, in Pouillet, Ellmens de Physique, voh ii. p. 357 ;
Humboldts Cosmos, vol U. pp. 699, 700; Sprengel, Hist de la Mldeeine, vol. iv. p.
337 ; Winckler, Gesch. der Botanik, p. 136 ; Queketts Treatise on the Microscope,
1848, p. 2 ; Cuvier, Hist, des Sciences, part ii. p. 470 ; Hallam's Ut, of Europe, vol
iU. p. 202 ; Leslie's Nat Philos. p. 62. On the subsequent iraproveraent of the mi
croscope during the seventeenth century, see Brewster's Life of Newton, vol, i, pp.
29, 242, 243. " -^
*" See Balfour's Botany, p. 15. In Pulteney's Progress of Botany in England,
this beautiful discovery is, if I rightly remember, not even aUuded to ; but it appears,
from a letter written in 1672, that it was then becoming generaUy known, and had

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION, 507
and their cellular tissue by Hooke in 1667," These were con
siderable approaches towards establisMng the analogy between
plants and animals ; and, witMn a few years, Grew effected stiU
more of the same kind. He made such minute and extensive
dissections, as to raise the anatomy of vegetables to a separate
study, and prove that their organization is scarcely less compU
cated than that possessed hy animals." His first work was
written in 1670;'* and, in. 1676, another Englishman, MiUing-
ton, ascertained the existence of a distinction of sexes ;" thus
supplying further eridence of the harmony between the animal
and vegetable Mngdoms, and of the unity of idea wMch regulates
their composition.
TMs is what was effected in England during the reign of
Charles II. ; and we now ask what was done in France, during
the same period, under the munfficent patronage of Louis XIV.
The answer is, nothing : no discovery, no idea, wMch forms an
epoch in this important department of natural science. The son
of the celebrated Sir Thomas Browne visited Paris in the hope
of making some additions to Ms knowledge of botany, wMch he
thought he could not faU to do in a country where science was
held in such honour, its professors so caressed hy the court,
and its researches so hountifiiUy encouraged. To his surprise,
he, in 1665, found m that great city no one capable of teaching
his favourite pursuit, and even the pubUc lectures on it miser
ably meagre and unsatisfactory.'* Neither then, nor at a much
been confirmed by Grew and Malpighi. Ray's Correspond, edit. 1848, p. 98. Com
pare Richard, Elements de Botanique, p. 46 ; where, however, M. Eichard etrone-
ously supposes that Grew did not know of the tracheae tUl 1682.
Compare Cuvier, Hist, des Sciences, part u. p. 471, with Thomson's Vegetable
Chemistry, p. 960.
Dr. Thomson (Vegetable Chemistry, p. 960) says: "But the person to whom
we are indebted for the first attempt to ascertain the structure of plants by dissection
and microscopical observations, was Dr. Nathaniel Grew." The character of Grew's
inquiries, as " viewing the internal, as weU as external parts of plants," is also no
ticed in Ray's Correspond, p. 188; and M. Winckler (Gesch. der Botamk, p. 382)
ascribes to him and Malpighi the " neuen Aufschwung " taken by vegetable physi
ology late iu the seventeenth century. See also, on Grew, Undlefs Botany, vol i. p.
93; and Third Report of Brit. Assoc, p. 27.
" The first book of his Anatomy of Plants was laid before the Eoyal Society in
1670, aud printed in 1671. HaUam's Ui. of Europe, vol ui. p. 680 ; and Thomson's
Eist. of the Royal Society, p. 44.
61 " The presence of sexual organs in plants was flrst shown in 1676, by Sir
Ihomas MiUington ; and it was afterwards conflrmed by Grew, Malpighi, and Eay."
^alfo«r's Botany, p. 236. See also Pulteney's Progress of Botany, vol. i. pp. 336,
s37 ; and Undley's Botany, vol il p. 217 : and, as to Eay, who was rather slow in
admitting the discovery, aee Lanhester's Mem. of Ray, p. 100. Before thia, the
sexual system of vegetables had been empiricaUy knqwn to several of the ancients,
but never raised to a scientific truth. Compare Richard, Ellmmts de Botanique, pp.
353,^427, 428, with Matter, Hist de VEcole d'Alexamdrie, voh u. p. 9.
In July, 1665,- he writes from Paris to his father, "The lecture of plants here
IS only the nammg of thera, their degrees in heat and cold, and sometiraes their use

508 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
later period, did the French possess a good popular treatise on
botany : still less did they make any improvement m it. In
deed, so completely was the phUosophy of the subject misunder
stood, that Toumefort, the only French botanist of repute in the
reign of Louis, actually rejected that discovery of the sexes of
plants, which had been made hefore he began to write, and which
afterwards became the comer-stone of the Linnean system."
This showed his incapacity for those, large views respecting the
unity of the organic world, which alone give to botany a scien
tific value ; and we find, accordingly, that he did notMng for the
physiology of plants, and that his only merit was as a coUector
and classifier of them." And even in Ms classification he was
guided, not by a comprehensive comparison of their various parts,
but by considerations drawn from the mere appearance of the
flower :" thus depriving botany of its real grandeur, degrading
it into an arrangement of beautiful objects, and supplying an
other instance of the way in which the Frenchmen of that gene
ration impoverished what they sought to enrich, and dwarfed
every topic, until they suited the intellect and pleased the eye
of that ignorant and luxurious court, to whose favour they looked
for reward, and whose applause it was the business of their Iffe
to gain. The truth is, that in these, as in aU matters of real impor
tance, in questions requiring independent thought, and in ques
tions of practical utUity, the age of Louis XIV. was an age of
decay : it was an age of misery, of intolerance, and oppression ;
it was an age of bondage, of ignominy, of incompetence. This
would long since have been universaUy admitted, ff those who
have written the Mstory of that period had taken the trouble to
study subjects without wMch no history can be understood ; or,
I should rather say, without which no history can exist. If this
in physick ; scarce a word more than may be seen in every berball." Browne's
Works, vol. l p. 108.
'" Cuvier, mentioning tbe inferiority of Tournefort's -views to those of his pre
decessors, gives as an instance, " puisqu'il a rejetd les sexes des plantes." Eist des
Sciences, part ii. p. 496. Hence be held that the farina was excrementitious, Pul
teney's Progress of £otany, vol. i. p. 340.
"' This is admitted even by his eulogist Duvau. Biog. Univ. voh xlvi. p. 363.
" On the raethod of Tournefort, which was that of a corrolUst, compare Richard,
Ellments de Botanique, p. 647 ; Jussieu's Botany, edit. WUson, 1849, p. 516 ; Ray's
Correspond: pp. 381, 382; Lankester's Mem. of Ray, p. 49; Winckler, Gesch. der
Botanik, p. 142. Cuvier (Hist, des Sciences, part ii. p. 496), with quiet irony, says
of it, "vous voyez, messieurs, que cette mdthode a le mdrite d'une grande clartd;
qu'eUe est fondde sur la forme de la fieur, et par consdquent sur des considdrations
agrdables k saisir  Ce qui en fit le suocds, c'est que Tournefort joignit i son
ouvrage une figure de fleur et de fruit appartenant k chacun de ses genres." Even in
this, he appears to have been careleaa, and ia said to have described " a great many
plants be never examined nor saw." Letter from Dr. Sherard, in Nichols's IUustra
tions of the Eighteenth Century, vol. i. p. 356.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION, 509
had heen done, the reputation of Louis XIV, would at once have
shrunk to its natural size. Even at the risk of exposing myself to
the charge of unduly estimating my own labours, I cannot avoid
saying, that the facts wMch I have just pointed out have never
hefore heen coUected, hut have remained isolated in the text-
hooks and repertories of the sciences to which they belong. Yet
yrithout them it is impossible to study the age of Louis XIV.
It is impossible to estimate the character of any period except
by tracing its development ; in other words, by measuring the
extent of its knowledge. Therefore it is, that to write the his
tory of a country without regard to its inteUectual progress, is as
ff an astronomer should compose a planetary system without re
gard to the sun, hy whose Ught alone the planets can be seen,
and by whose attraction they are held in their course, and com
peUed to run in the path of their appointed orbits. For the great
luminary, even as it shines in the heaven, is not a more noble
or a more powerfiU object than is the mtellect of man m tMs
nether world. It is to the human inteUect, and to that alone,
that every country owes its knowledge. And what is it hut the
progress and diffusion of knowledge which has given us our arts,
our sciences, our manufactures, our laws, our opinions, our man
ners, our comforts, our luxuries, our civiUzation ; in short, every
tMng that raises us above the savages, who by their ignorance
are degraded to the level of the brutes with which they herd ?
Surely, then, the time has now arrived when they who un
dertake to yvrite the history of a great nation should occupy
themselves with those matters hy which alone the destiny of men
is regulated, and should abandon the petty and insignificant de
taUs hy which we have too long heen wearied ; detaUs respect
mg the Uves of kings, the intrigues of mimsters, the vices and
the gossip of courts.
It is precisely these higher considerations wMch furnish the
key to the Mstory of the reign of Louis XIV. In that time, as
m aU others, the misery of the people and the degradation of the
country foUowed the decUne of the national intellect ; whUe this
last was, in its tum, the result of the protective spirit, — that
mischievous spirit wMch weakens whatever it touches. If in
the long course and compass of Mstory there is one thing more
clear than another, it is, that whenever a government under
takes to protect mtellectual pursMts, it wUl almost always pro
tect them in the wrong place, and reward the wrong men. Nor
is it surprising that tMs should he the case. What can Mngs
and ministers know ahout those immense branches of knowledge,
to cultivate which with success is often the business of an entire
life ? How can they, constantly occupied with their lofty pur-

510 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
suits, have leisure for .such inferior matters ? .Is it to be sup
posed that such acquirements will he found among statesmen,
who are always engaged in the most weighty concerns ; some
times writing despatches, sometimes maMng speeches, some
times organizing a party in the parliament, sometimes baffling
an intrigue in the privy-chamher ? Or if the sovereign should
graciously bestow his patronage according to his own judgment,
are we to expect that mere phUosophy and science should be
famUiar to Mgh and mighty princes, who have their own pecu
liar and arduous studies, and who have to learn the mysteries of
heraldry, the nature and digmties of rank, the comparative value
of the different orders, decorations, and titles, the laws of prece
dence, the prerogatives of noble birth, the names and powers of
ribands, stars, and garters, the various modes of conferring an
honour or instaUing into an office, the adjustment of ceremomes,
the subtleties of etiquette, and aU those other courtly accom
plishments necessary to the exalted functions which they per
form .?
The mere statement of such questions proves the absurdity
of the principle which they involve. For, mUess we heUeve that
kings are ommscient as weU as immaculate, it is evident that in
the bestowal of rewards they must be guided either by personal
caprice or by the testimony of competent judges. And since no
one is a competent judge of scientific exceUence unless he is him
self scientific, we are driven to this monstrous alternative, that
the rewards of intellectual labour must be conferred injudiciously,
or else that they must he given according to the verdict of that very
class hy whom they are received. In the first case, the reward
wiU be ridiculous ; in the latter case, it wUl be disgraceful. ' In
the former case, weak men will be benefited hy wealth which is
taken from industry to he lavished on idleness. But in the lat
ter case, those men of real genius, those great and iUustrious
tMnkers, who are the masters and teachers of the human race,
are to be tricked out with trumpery titles ; and. after scrambUng
in miserable rivalry for the sordid favours of a court, they are
then to he turned into beggars of the state, who not only clamour
for their share of the spoU, hut even regulate the proportions into
which the shares are to he divided.
Under such a system, the natural results are, first, the im
poverishment and servility of genius ; then the decay of knowl
edge ; then the decline of the Country. Three times in the
history of the world has this experiment heen tried. In the ages
of Augustus, of Leo X., and of Louis XIV., the same method was
adopted, and the same result ensued. In each of these ages,
there was much apparent splendour, immediately- succeeded by

GENEEAL INTRODUCTION. 511
sudden ruin. In each instance, the brilliancy, survived the in
dependence ; and in each instance, the national spirit sank un-
der'that permcious alUance between government and Uterature,
by rirtue of which the poUtical classes became very powerful, and
the mtellectual classes very weak, simply hecause they who dis
pense the patronage wiU, of course, receive the homage ; and ff,
on the one hand, government is always ready to reward litera
ture, so, on the other hand, yyUl literature be always ready to
succumb to government.
Of these three ages, that of Louis XIV. was incomparably
the worst ; and nothing but the amazing energy of the French
people could have enabled them to raUy, as they afterwards did,
from the effects of so enfeebling a system. But though they ral-
Ued, the effort cost them dear. The struggle, as we shaU pres
ently see, lasted two generations, and was only ended by that
frightful Eevolution which formed its natural climax. What
the real history of that struggle was, I shall endeavour to ascer
tam towards the conclusion of tMs volume. Without, however,
anticipating the course of affairs, we wUlnow proceed to what I
have already mentioned, as the second great characteristic of the
reign of Louis XIV. •
II. The second intellectual characteristic of the reign of
Louis XIV. is, in importance, hardly inferior to the first. We
have aheady seen that the national intellect, stunted by the
protection ofthe cdlirt, was so diverted from the noblest branches
of knowledge, that in none of them did it produce any thing
worthy of bemg recorded. As a natural consequence, the mmds
of men, driven from the higher departments, took refuge in the
lower, and concentrated themselves upon those inferior subjects,
where the discovery of truth is not the main object, but where
beauty of form and expression are the things chiefly pursued.
Thus, the first consequence of the patronage of Louis XIV. was,
to dinunish the field for genius, and to sacrifice science to art.
The second consequence was, that, even in art itself, there
was soon seen a marked decay. For a short time, the stimulus
produced its effect ; hut was followed by that collapse which is
its natural result. So essentiaUy vicious is the whole system of
patronage and reward, that after the death of those writers and
artists, whose works form the only redeeming point in the reign
of Louis, there was found no one capable of even imitating their
exceUencies. The poets, dramatists, pamters, musicians, sculp
tors, architects, were, with hardly an exception, not only born,
hut educated under that freer policy, which existed before his
time. When they began their labours, they benefited hy a mu-
mficence wMch encouraged the activity of their genius. But in

512 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
a few years, that generation having died off, the hoUowness of
the whole system was clearly exposed. More than a quarter of
a century hefore the death of Louis XIV., most of these eminent
men had ceased to live ; and then it was seen to how miserable
a plight the country was reduced under the boasted patronage of
the great king. At the moment when Louis XIV. died, there
was scarcely a writer or an artist in France who enjoyed an Eu
ropean reputation. TMs is a circumstance weU worth our no
tice. If we compare the different classes of literature, we shall
find that sacred oratory, being the least influenced hy the Mng,
was able the longest to bear up against his system. Massillon
belongs partly to the subsequent reign ; but even of the other
great divines, Bossuet and Bourdaloue both lived to 1704,"
Mascaron to 1703," and FlecMer to 1710."" As, however, the
Mng, particularly in his latter years, was very fearful of med
dling with the church, it is in profane matters that we can best
trace the workings of his policy, because it is there that Ms in
terference was most active. With a view to this, the simplest
plan wUl be, to look, in the first place, into the Mstory of the fine
arts ; and after ascertaining who the greatest artists were. Ob
serve the year in wMch they died*, remembering that the govern
ment of Louis XIV. began in 1661, and ended in 1715.
If, now, we examine this period of fifty-four years, we shall
be struck hy the remarkable fact, that every thing which is cele
brated, was effected in the first half of it«5 wMle more than
twenty years before its close, the most eminent masters aU died
yrithout leaving any successors. The six greatest, painters in
the reign of Louis XIV. were, Poussin, Lesueur, Claude Lor
raine, Le Brun, and the two Mignards. Of these, Le Bran
died in 1690 ;"' the elder Mignard in 1668 ;"* the younger in
1695 ;"' Claude Lorraine in 1682 ;"* Lesueur in 1655 ;"' and
Poussin, perhaps the most distinguished of aU the French school,
died in 1665." The two greatest architects were, Claude Per-
^» Biog. Univ. vol v. pp. 286, 368. '>" Ibid, xxvii. p. 351.
"° Ibid. XV. p. 35. »> Ibid. xxUi. p. 496.
"» Ibid xxix. p. 17. "" Ibid xxix. p. 19.
°* " Hia beat picturea were painted frora about 1640 to 1660 ; be died in 1682."
Wornum's Epochs of Painting, Lond. 1847, p. 399. -Voltaire (/Siec/e de Louis XIV,
in CEuvres, vol. xix. p. 205) aaya that he died in 1678.
'" Biog. Univ, vol. xxiv. p. 327 ; Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, vol. U. pp. 454,
466. °" Biog. Uriiv. vol. xxxv. p. 679. Poussin was Barry's "favourite" painter.
Letter from Barry, in Burke's Correspond, voh i. p. 88. Compare Otter's Life of
Clarke, vol. U. p. 55. Sir Joshua Eeynolds ( Works, vol i. pp. 97, 351, 376) appears
to have preferred him to any of the French school ; and in the report preaented to
Napoleon by the Institute, he ia the only French painter mentioned by the aide of
the Greek and ItaUan artiata. Dacier, Rapport Historique, p. 23.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 513
rault and Francis Mansart ; but Perrault died in 1688,"' Man-
sart in 1666 ;" and Blondel, the next in fame, died in 1686.""
The greatest of aU the sculptors was Puget, who died in 1694.'"
LuUi, the founder of French music, died in 1687." Quinault,
the greatest poet of French music, died in 1688.'* Under these
eminent men, the fine arts, in the reign of Louis XIV., reached
their zemth ; and during the last thirty years of Ms life, their
decline was portentously rapid. This was the case, not only in
arcMtecture and music, but even in painting, which, being more
subserrient than they are to personal vanity, is more Ukely to
flourish under a rich and despotic government. The genius,
however, of painters feU so low, that long hefore the death of
Louis XIV., France ceased to possess one of any merit ; and
when his successor came to the throne, this beautiful art was, in
that great country, almost extinct."
These are startUng facts ; not matters of opinion, which may
he disputed, hut stuhbom dates, supported hy irrefragable testi
mony. And if we examine in the same manner the literature of
the age of Louis XIV., we shall arrive at similar conclusions.
If we ascertain the dates of those masterpieces which adorn Ms
reign, we shaU find that, during the last five-and-twenty years of
his life, when Ms patronage had been the longest in operation, it
was entirely barren of results; in other words, that when the French
had been most habituated to Ms protection, they were least able
to effect great things. Louis XIV. died in 1715. Eacine pro
duced Fhhdre in 1677 ; Andromaque in 1667 ; Athalie in
" Biog. Vniv, vol xxxui. p. 411 ; /Sftec/e de Louis XIV, iu CEuvres de Voltaire,
vol xix. p. 158.
"" Biog. Univ. vol. xxvi. p. 503. "" Ibid. vol. iv. p. 593.
'" Ibid, vol xxxvi. p. 300. Eespecting him, see Lady Morgan's France, vol. ii.
pp. 80, 31.
" M. Capeflgue (Louis XIV, vol ii. p. 79) says, " LuUi mourut en 1689 ;" but
1687 ia the date assigned in Biog. Univ. vol. xxv. p. 426 ; in Chalmers's Biog. Diet.
vol XX. p. 483 ; in Rose's Biog, Diet, vol ix. p. 360; and in Monteil, Divers Etats,
vol. vu. p. 63. In CEuvres de Voltaire, vol. xix. p. 200, he is called "le pdre de la
vraie muaique en France." He was admired by Louia XIV. Lettres de Sevignl, vol.
u. pp. 162, 163.
" Biog. Univ. vol xxxvl p. 428. Voltaire ((Euvres, vol. xix. p. 162) aays,
"personne n'a jamais dgald Quinault;" and Mr. HaUam (Ut. of Europe, vol. iii. p.
507), " the unrivaUed poet of French music." See alao Lettres de Dudeffand d Wal
pole, vol. u. p. 432.
" " When Louia 'SY. ascended the throne, painting in France waa in the lowest
state of degradation." Lady Morgan's France, vol. ii. p. 31. LacreteUe (Dix-Hui-
tihne Siecle, vol il p. 11) says, " Les beaux arts ddgdndrdrent plus sensiblement que
les lettres pendant la seconde partie du siecle de Louis XIV  H est certain
que les vingt-cinq dernidres anndes du rdgne de Louis XTV n'offrirent que des pro
ductions trds-infdrieures," &c. Thus too 'Ba.rvington (Observations on tlie Statutes,
p. 377), " It is very remarkable that the French school hath not produced any very
capital painters since the expensive estabUshraent by Louis XIV. of the academies at
Rome and Paris."
VOL. I. — 33

514 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
1691.'* Moli^re pubUshed the Misanthrope in 1658 ; Tartuffe
in 1667 ; the Avare in 1668." The Lutriri of Boileau was
written in 1674 ; his best Satires in 1666." The last Fables of
La Fontaine appeared in 1678, and Ms last Tales in 1671."
The Inquiry respecting Truth, by Malebranche, was published
in 1674 ;" the Garacthres of La Bray^re in 1687 ;'" the Maxi<mes
of Eochefoucauld in 1665.'" The Provincial Letters of Pascal
were written in 1656, and he himself died in 1662." As to
ComeUle, Ms great Tragedies were composed, some wMle Louis
was stUl a boy, and the others before the king was bom."* Such
were the dates of the masterpieces of the age of Louis XIV.
The authors of these immortal works aU ceased to write, and
nearly aU ceased to live, before the close of the seventeenth cen
tury ; and we may fairly ask the admirers of Loms XIV. who
those men were that succeeded them. Where have their names
been registered ? Where are their works to be found ? Who is
there that now reads the books of those obscure hireUngs, who
for so many years tMonged the court of the great king ? Who
has heard any tMng of Campistron, La Chapelle, Genest, Du-
cerceau, Dancourt, Danchet, Vergier, Catrou, ChauUeu, Legen-
dre, Valincour, Lamotte, and the other ignoble compilers, who
long remained the brightest ornaments of France ? Was this,
then, the consequence of the royal bounty ? Was this the fruit
of the royal patronage ? If the system of reward and protection
is reaUy advantageous to literature and to art, how is it that it
should have produced the meanest results when it had been the
longest in operation ? If the favour of kings is, as their flat
terers teU us, of such importance, how comes it that the more
the favour was displayed, the more the effects were contempti
ble .?
Nor was this almost inconceivable penury compensated hy
superiority in any other department. The simple fact is, that
Louis XIV. survived the entire inteUect of the French nation,
except that small part of it which grew up in opposition to his
'* Biog. Univ. vol. xxxvi. pp. 499, 602 ; Hallam's Ui. vol iU. p. 493.
¦" Biog, Univ. vol xxix. pp. 306, 308.
"¦ Rose's Biog. Dici. vol. iv. p. 376; and .Bios'. Univ. vol. v. pp. 7-8, where it is
said that "ses meiUeures satires" were those published in 1666.
" Ibid, vol xxUl p. 127.
'" Tennemann, Gesch. der Philos. vol. x. p. 322.
" Biog, Univ, vol. vl p. 176.
"° Brunei, Manuel du Ubraire, vol iv. p. 105, Paris, 1843 ; and note in Lettres di
Patin, vol. i. p. 421.
" Biog. Univ, vol xxxiU. pp. 64, 71 ; Palissot, Mhn, pour VHist, de Lit, vol H.
pp. 289, 241.
"' Polyeucte, which is probably his greatest work, appeared in 1640 ; Medle in
1635 ; 2746 Cid in 1636 ; Horace and Cinna both in 1639. Bioa, Univ. vol. ix. pp.
609-613. "

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 515
principles, and afterwards shook the throne of his successor."
Several years hefore his death, and when his protective system
had been in full force for nearly half a century, there was not to
be found in the whole of France a statesman who could develop
the resources of the country, or a general who could defend it
against its enemies. Both in the civU service and in the mUitary
serrice, every tMng had faUen into disorder. At home there was
nothing but confusion ; abroad there was nothing hut disaster.
The spirit of France succumbed, and was laid prostrate. The
men of letters, pensioned and decorated hy the court, had de
generated into a fewmng and hypocritical race, who, to meet the
wishes of their masters, opposed all improvement, and exerted
themselves in support of every old abuse. The end of aU this
was, a corraption, a serriUty, and a loss of power more complete
than has ever heen witnessed in any of the great countries of Eu
rope. There was no popular liberty ; there were no great men ;
there was no science ; there was no Uterature ; there were no
arts. Within, there was a discontented people, a rapacious gov
emment, and a beggared exchequer. Without, there were for
eign amues, wMch pressed upon all the frontiers, and which
nothing but their mutual jealousies, and a change in the English
cahuiet, prevented from dismembering the monarchy of France.'*
Such was the forlorn position of that noble country towards
the close of the reign of Louis XIV." The misfortunes which
" Voltaire (Siecle de Louis XIV, iu (Euvres, vol xx. pp. 319-322) reluctantly
confesses the decUue of the French inteUect in the latter part of the reign of Louis ;
and Flassan (Diplomat Franf, voh iv. p. 400) calls it " remarquable." See also
Barante, LUterature Frangaise, p. 28 ; Sismondi, Hist, des Franfaise, voh xxvi. p.
217. "* "Oppressed by defeats abroad, and by famine and misery at home, Louis was
laid at the mercy of his enemies ; and was only saved by a party revolution in the
EngUsh ministry." Arnolds Lectures on Modern History, p. 187. Compare Frag
ments sur VEisioire, article xxiU. in (Euvres de Voltaire, vol xxvii. p. 345, with De
Toequeville,'Rhgne de Louis XV, vol i. p. 86.
' For evidence of the depression and, indeed, utter exhaustion of France during
the latter years of Louis XIV., compare Duclos, Mhnoires, vol i. pp. 11-18, with
Marmontel, Eist, de la Rlgence, Paris, 1826, pp. 79-97. The Lettres inldites de
Madame de Maintenon (vol i. pp. 263, 284, 358, 389, 393, 408, 414, 422, 426,
447, 487, 463, vol. u. pp. 19, 28, 33, 46, 56, and numerous other passages) fuUy
confirm this, and, moreover, prove that in Paris, early in the eighteenth century, the
resources, even of the wealthy classes, were beginning to faU; whUe both public and
private credit were sd shaken, that it waa hardly poaaible to obtain money on any
terms. In 1710, she, the wife of Louia XIV., complaina of her inabiUty to borrow
600 Uvres : " Tout mon crddit dcboue souvent auprds de M. Desmaretz pour une
somme de cinq centa Uvrea." Ibid. vol. u. p. 33. In 1709, she writes (vol i. p. 447) :
"Le jeu devient insipide, parce qu'U n'y a presque plua d'argent." See also vol. ii.
p- 112; and m Frebruary 1711 (p. 151) : " Ce n'est pas I'abondance, maia I'avarice
qui fait jouer noa courtiaana ; on met le tout pour le tout pour avoir quelque
argent, et lea tablea de lanaquenet out plus I'air d'un triste commerce que d'un
divertissement." In regard to the people generaUy, the French writers supply us with little infor
mation, because in that age they were too much occupied with their great king and

516 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
embittered the decUning years of the Mng were, indeed, so se
rious, that they could not faU to excite our sympathy, if we did
not know that they were the result of his own turbulent ambi
tion, of Ms insufferable arrogance, hut, above aU, of a grasping
and restless vanity, which, maMng Mm eager to concentrate on
Ms single person all the glory of France, gave rise to that insid
ious poUcy, which, with gifts, with honour^, and with homed
words, began by gaining the admiration of the inteUectual classes,
then made them courtly and time-serving, and ended by destroy
ing aU their boldness, stiffing every effort of original thought, and
thus postponing for an indefimte period the progress of national
civffization.
their showy literature, to pay attention to mere popular interests. But I have
coUected from other sources sorae inforraation which I wiU now put together, and
which I recoramend to the notice of the next French author who undertakes to com
pose a history of Louis XIV.
Locke, who was travelling in France in 1676 and 1677, writea in hia journal, " The
rent of landa in France faUen one-half in theae few years, by reason of the poverty
of tbe people." King's Ufe of Locke, voh i. p. 129. About the same time. Sir
WiUiam Temple says ( Works, vol. ii. p. 268), " The French peasantry are wholly
dispirited by labour and want." In 1691, another observer, proceeding from Calais,
writes, " Frora hence, traveUing to Paria, there was opportunity enough to observe
what a prodigious state of poverty the arabition and absoluteness of a tyrant can reduce
an opulent and fertile country to. There were visible all the marks and signa of a
growing miafortune ; aU the diamal indicationa of an overwhelming calamity. The
fielda were uncultivated, the viUagea unpeopled, the houses dropping to decay." Bur
torCs Diary, note by Eutt, vol. iv. p. 79. In atract pubUahed in 1689, the author aaya
(Somers Tracts, voh x. p. 264), " I have known in France poor people seU their beds,
and Ue upon straw ; sell their pots, kettlea, and all their necessary household goods,
to content the unmerciful coUectors of the king's taxes." Dr. Liater, who visited
Paria in 1698, aays, " Such is the vaat multitude of poor wretches in aU parts of thia
city, that whether a peraon ia in a carriage or on foot, in the street, or even in a
shop, he is aUke unable to transact buainess, on account of the importunities of
mendicants." Uster's Account of Paris, p. 46. Corapare a Utter from Prior, in
Ellis's Letters of Uterary Men, p. 218. In 1708, Addison, who, from peraonal ob
servation, waa well acquainted with France, writea : " We think here as you do in
the country, that France is ou her last legs." Aikin's Life of Addison, vol i. p.
283. FinaUy, in 1718— that is, three yeara after the death of Louis — Lady Mary
Montagu gives the foUowing account of the result of his reign, in a letter to Lady
Rich, dated Paris, 10th October, 1718 : "I think nothing so terrible as objects of
misery, except one had tbe godUke attribute of being able to redress them ; and
all the country viUages of France show nothing else. While the poat-horsea are
changed, the whole town coraea out to beg, with such miserable starved faces, and
thin, tattered clothes, they need no other eloquence to persuade one of the wretch
edness of their condition." Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, vol. Ui. p. 74,
edit. 1803.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION, 517

CHAPTEE XII.
DEATH OF LOmS XIV. EEAOTION AGAINST THE PEOTECTIVE SPIEIT, AND"
PEEPAEATlONS FOE THE FEENCH EEVOLUTION.
At length Louis XIV. died. When it was positively known
that the old Mng had ceased to breathe, the people went almost
mad yrith joy.' The tyranny wMch had weighed them down was
removed; and there at once foUowed a reaction which, for sudden
riolence has no paraUel in modern Mstory.* The great majority m-
demnified themselves for their forced hypocrisy by indulging in
the grossest Ucentiousness. But among the generation then
forming, there were some Mgh-spirited youths, who had far
higher riews, and whose notions of Uberty were not confined to
the Ucense of the gammg-house and the brothel. Devoted to
the great idea of restoring to France that freedom of utterance
wMch it had lost, they naturaUy turned their eyes towards the
only country where the freedom was practised. Their determina
tion to search for Uberty in the place where alone it could be found,
gave rise to that junction of the French and EngUsh intellects
wMch, looMng at the immense chain of its effects, is by far the
most important fact in the Mstory of the eighteenth century.
During the reign of Louis XIV., the French, puffed up hy
national vanity, despised the barbarism of a people who were so
uncivilized as to he always turmng on their ralers, and who,
within the space of forty years, had executed one Mng, and de
posed another.' They could not believe that such a restless
' "L'annonce de la raort du grand roi ne produisit chez le peuple franf ais qu'une
explosion de joie." Sismondi, Hist, des Frangais, vol. xxvu. p. 220. " Le jour des
obsequea de Louia XIV, on dtabUt des guinguettes aur le cbemin de Saint-Denia.
Voltaire, que la curiositd avoit mend aux fundraiUea du souveraiu, vit dana cea guin-
guettea le peuple ivre de viu et de joie de la mort de Louis XIV." Duvernet, Vie
de Voltaire, p. 29 : see also Condorcet, Vie de Voltaire, p. 118 ; De TocqueviUe, Regne
de Louis XV, vol. i. p. 18 ; Duclos, Mhnoires, vol. i. p. 221 ; Lemontey, Etablissement
de Louis XIV, pp. 311, 388.
' " Kaum hatte er aber die Augen gescblossen, als aUes umachlug. Der repri-
mirte Geist warf sich in eine ziigeUose Bewegung." Ranke, die Papste, vol. iii. p.
" The shock which these events gave to the deUcacy of the French mind was
very serious. The learned Saumaise declared that the EngUsh are "raore savage

518 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
horde possessed any thing worthy the attention of enUghtened
men. Our laws, our literature, and our manners, were perfectly
unknown to them ; and I doubt if at the end of the seventeenth
century, there were, either in Uterature or in science, five per
sons in France acquainted with the English language.* But a
long experience of the reign of Louis XIV. induced the French
to reconsider many of their opinions. It induced them to sus
pect that despotism may have its disadvantages, and that a
government composed of princes and bishops is not necessarUy
the best for a civUized country. They began to look, first with
complacency, and then yrith respect, upon that strange and out
landish people, who, though only separated from themselves hy
a narrow sea, appeared to be of an altogether different Mnd ;
and who, havmg punished their oppressors, had carried their
Uberties and their prosperity to a height of wMch the world had
than their own mastiffs." Carlyle's Cromwell, vol i. p. 444. Another writer said
that we were "barbarea rdvoltda ;" and "lea barbarea sujets du roi." Mlm. de
MottevUle, vol U. pp. 105, 862. Patin Ukened ua to the Turka ; and aaid, that hav
ing executed one king, we ahould probably hang the next. Lettres de Patin, voh i.
p. 261, vol U. p. 518, vol. iii. p. 148. Compare Mlm. de Campion, p. 213. After
we had sent away Jamea II., the indignation of the French roae atiU higher, and
even the amiable Madame Sevignd, having occaaion to mention Mary the wife of
WilUara III., could find no better narae for her than TuUia: "la joie eat UniverseUe
de la ddroute de ce prince, dont la femrae eat une TuUie.'' Lettres de Sevigne, vol
V. p. 179. Another influential French lady mentiona " la fdrocitd dea Anglaia."
Lettres inedites de Maintenon, vol. i. p. 303 ; and elsewhere (p. 109), "je haia lea
Anglais comme le peuple  Vdritablementje ne les puia aouffrir."
I will only give two more illuatrationa of the wide diffusion of such feeUngs. In
1679, an atterapt was made to bring bark into discredit aaa"remede anglais"
(Sprengel, Hist de la Mldeeine, vol. v. p. 430) ; and at the end of the aeventeenth
century, one of the argumenta in Paria againat coffee was that the EngUsh Uked it.
Monteil, Divers Etats, vol. vU. p. 216.
* " Au temps de BoUeau, personne en France n'apprenait 1' Anglaia." (Euvres
de Voltaire, vol. xxxviu. p. 337, and see vol xix. p. 169. " Parmi nos grands
dcrivains du xvu" sidcle, U n'en est aucun, je crois, oil I'on puiaae reconnaitre un
aouvenir, une impression de I'esprit anglais." Villemain, lAt au XVIH' Siecle,
vol. iU. p. 324. Compare Barante, XVIII" Sidcle, p. 47, and Grimm, Correspond.
vol. V. p. 186, vol xvii. p. 2.
Tbe French, during the reign of Louis XIV., principaUy knew ua from the ac
counts given by two of their countrymen, Monconys and Sorbidre ; both of whom
pubUshed their travels in England, but neither of whom were acquainted with the
EngUah language. For proof of thia, aee Monconys, Voyages, vol. Ui. pp. 34, 69,
70, 96 ; and Sorbiere, Voyage, pp. 45, 70.
When Prior arrived at the court of Louis XTV. aa plenipotentiary, no one in
Paris was aware that he had written poetry (Lettres sur les Anglais, in (Euvres de
Voltaire, vol. xxvi. p. 130) ; and when Addison, being in Paris, presented Boileau
with a copy of the Musce Anglicance, the Frenchman learnt for the first time that we
had any good poets : " first conceived an opinion of the English genius for poetry."
TickeU's statement, in Aikin's Life of Addison, vol. i. p. 65. FinaUy, it is said that
Milton's Paradise Lost was not even known by report in France until after the death
of Louis XIV., though the poem was pubUshed in 1667, and the king died in 1716 :
" Noua n'avions jamaia entendu parler de ce poerae en France, avant que l'auteur
de la Henriade noua en eut donnd une idde dana le neuvidme chapitre de son Essai
sur la podsiedpique." Diet. Philos. article Epople, in CEuvres de Voltaire, voh xxxix.
p. 175: aee also vol Ixvl p. 249.

GENERAL INTEODUCTION, 519
seen no example. These feelings, which, before the Eevolution
broke out, were entertained by the whole of the educated classes
in France, were, in the beginning, confined to those men whose
inteUects placed them at the head of their age. During the
two generations which elapsed between the death of Louis XIV,
and the outbreak of the Eevolution, there was hardly a French
man of eminence who did not either visit England or learn
EngUsh ; wMle many of them did both. Buffon, Brissot,
Broussonnet, Condamine, DeUsle, EUe de Beaumont, Gournay,
Helv6tius, Jussieu, Lalande, Lafayette, Larcher, L'H6ritier,
Montesquieu, Maupertuis, MoreUet, Mirabeau, NoUet, Eaynal,
the celebrated Eoland, and his stiU more celebrated wife, Eous-
seau, S6gur, Suard, Voltaire, — aU these remarkably persons
flocked to London, as also did others of inferior ability, but of
considerahle influence, such as Brequiny, Bordes, Calonne, Coyer,
Cormatin, Dufay, Dumarest, Dezallier, Farier, Girod, Grosley,
Godin, D'HancarvUle, Hunauld, Jars, Le Blanc, Ledra, Lescal-
her, Linguet, Lesmre, Lemonnier, Levesque de PouiUy, Mont-
golfier, Morand, Patu, Poissonier, EeveUlon, SeptcMnes, Sil
houette, Siret, Soulavie, Soul^s, and Valmont de Brienne.
Nearly aU of these carefuUy studied our language, and most
of them seized the spirit of our Uterature. Voltaire, in particu
lar, devoted Mmself yrith Ms usual ardour to the new pursuit,
and acquired in England a knowledge of those doctrines, the
promulgation of wMch afterwards won for Mm so great a repu
tation.' He was the first who popularized in France the phi
losophy of Newton, where it rapidly superseded that of Des
cartes." He recommended to Ms countrymen the writmgs of
Locke;' wMch soon gained immense popularity, and which sup
pUed materials to CondiUac for his system of metaphysics," and
to Eousseau for his theory of education." Besides this, Voltaire
' "Le vrai roi du xvui' sidcle, c'est Voltaire ; maia Voltaire a aon tour eat un
dcoUer de I'Angle-terre. Avant que Voltaire e<it connu I'Angleterre, aoit par ses
voyages, soit par ses amitids, il n'dtait pas Voltaire, et le xviii" sidcle se cherchait
encore." Cousin, Hist, de la Philos, I. sdrie, vol iU. pp. 38, 89. Compare
Damiron, Hist, de la Philos. en France, Paris, 1828, vol I p. 34.
' " J'avais dtd le preraier qui eiit osd ddvelopper a ma nation lea ddcouvertes de
Newton, en langage inteUigible." (Euvres de Voltaire, vol i. p. 815 ; see also voh
xix. p. 87, vol. xxvi. p. 71 ; WhewelVs Hist of Indue. Sciences, vol u. p. 206 ;
Weld's Hist of the Royal Society, vol. i. p. 441. After this, the Cartesian physics
lost ground every day; and iu Grimm's Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 148, there is a
letter, dated Paris, 1767, which says, " II n'y a gudre plus ici de partisans de Des
cartes que M. de Mairan." Compare Observations et Pensles, in CEuvres de Turgot,
vol Ui. p. 298.
_' Which he was never weary of praising ; so that, as M. Cousin says (Hist, de la
Philos. n. sdrie, vol. U. pp. 311, 312), " Locke est le vrai maitre de Voltaire."
Locke was one of the authors he put into the hands of Madame du Chatelet. Con
dorcet, Vie de Voltaire, p. 296.
" Morelts Hist, of Philos. 1846, vol. i. p. 134; Hamilton's Discuss, p. 3.
° " Eousseau tira des ouvrages de Locke une grande partie de sea iddes sur In,

520 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
was the first Frenchman who studied Shakespeare; to whose
works he was greatly indebted, though he afterwards wished to
lessen what he considered the exorbitant respect pa,id to them
in France.'" Indeed, so intimate was Ms knowledge of the Eng
Ush language," that we can trace his obUgations to Butler,'* one
of the most difficult of our poets, and to TUlotson," one of the
duUest of our theologians. He was acquainted with the specu
lations of Berkeley,'* the most subtle metaphysician who has
ever written in English ; and he had read the works not only of
Shaftesbury," but even of Chubb," Garth,'? MandeviUe," and
Woolston.'" Montesquieu imbibed in our country many of his
principles ; he studied our language; and he always expressed
admiratiqp for England, not only in his writmgs, hut also in his
private conversation.*" Buffon learnt English, and Ms first ap
pearance as an author was as the translator of Newton and of
Hales.*' Diderot, following in the same course, was an enthu
siastic admirer of the novels of Eichardson ;** he took the idea
of several of Ms plays from the English dramatists, particularly
from LiUo; he borrowed many of Ms arguments from Shaftes-
politique et I'dducation ; CondiUac toute sa phUoaophie." VUlemain, Ut. au XVIII'
Siecle, vol i. p. 83. See alao, ou the obUgationa of Eouaaeau to Locke, Grimm,
Correspond, vol. v. p. 97 ; Musset Pathay, Vie de Rousseau, vol. I p. 88, vol u. p.
394 ; Mlm. de MoreUet, vol. i. p. 113 ; Romilly's Memoirs, vol I pp. 211, 212.
'" In 1768, Voltaire (CEuvres, vol. Ixvl p. 249) writes to Horace Walpole, " Je
aula le preraier qui ait fait connaitre Shakeapeare aux Frangais." See alao hia Lettres
inldites, vol. u. p. 600 ; Villemain, Lit. au XVIII" Siecle, vol iU. p. 826 ; and
Crrimm, Correspond, vol. xu. pp. 124, 125, 183.
" There are extant many Engliah lettera written by Voltaire, which, though of
course containing several errors, also contain abundant evidence of the spirit with
which he aeized our idiomatic expreaaiona. In addition to hia Lettres inldites, pub
Uahed at Paria in tbe preaent year (1856), see Chatham Correspond, voh U. pp. 331-
133 ; and Phillimore's Mem. of Lyttelton, vol i. pp. 323-325, vol U. pp. 555, 556,
558. " Grimm, Correspond, vol i. p. 832 ; Voltaire, Lettres inldites, vol. U. p. 258 ;
and the account of Hudibraa, with tranalations from it, in CEuvres, vol xxvi. pp.
132-137 ; also a conversation between Voltaire and Townley, in Nichols's Illustra
tions ofthe Eighteenth Century, vol ui. p. 722.
" Corapare Mackintosh's Memoirs, vol. l p. 341, with (Euvres de Voltaire, vol
xxxix. p. 259, vol. xlvU. p. 85.
" CEuvres de Voltaire, vol. xxxviu. pp. 216-218, vol. xlvi. p. 282, vol xlvil p.
439, vol. IvU. p. 178.
'" Ibid, vol xxxvu. p. 853, vol. IvU. p. 66 ; Correspond, inedite de Dudeffand, voh
il p. 280.
'" (Euvres, vol xxxiv. p. 294, vol Ivu. p. 121.
" Ibid. vol. xxxvu. pp. 407, 441. "" Ibid. vol. xxxvi. p. 46.
'" Ibid. vol. xxxiv. p. 288, vol xU. pp. 212-217 ; Biog. Univ. vol U. pp. 199, 200.
° Lerminier, Philos, du Droit, vol. i. p. 291 ; Klimrath, Hist du Droit, vol il
P- 602; Harris's Ufe of Hardwicke, vol. U. p. 398, vol. Ui. pp. 482-434; Mhn. de
Diderot, vol U. pp. 193, 194; Lacretelle, XVIII' Sikle, vol u. p. 24.
" Villemain, iii. au XVIII" Sikle, vol U. p. 182 ; Biog, Univ, vol vi. p. 236;
^^f"''' ^^}tres, vol. i. p. 98, vol. U. pp. 169, 160.
"Admirateur passiound du romancier anglaia.'' Biog, C/-m«. vol. xxxvu. p.
581. Compare Diderot, Corresp, vol i. p. 352, vol. U. pp. 44, 52, 68; Mercier sur
Rousseau, vol i. p. 44.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 521
bury and CoUins, and his earliest publication was a translation
of Stanyan's History of Greece.^^ Helv6tius, who visited Lon
don, was never weary of praising the people; many of the views
in his great work on the Mind are drawn fi-om MandeviUe; and
he constantly refers to the authority of Locke, whose principles
hardly any Frenchman would at an earlier period have dared to
recommend.** The works of Bacon, pre-riously little known,
were now translated into French ; and Ms classification of the
human faculties was made the hasis of that celebrated Encyclo
paedia, wMch is justly regarded as one of the greatest produc
tions of the eighteenth century.*' The Theory of Moral Senti
ments, by Adam Smith, was during thirty-four years translated
three different times, by three different French authors.*" And
such was the general eagemess, that directly the Wealth of Na
tions, by the same great yvriter, appeared, MoreUet, who was
then high in reputation, began to turn it into French ; and was
only prevented from printing his translation by the circum
stance, that before it could be completed, another version of it
was pubUshed m a French periodical.*' Coyer, who is stiU re
membered for Ms Lffe of SobiesM, visited England ; and after
returmng to Ms own country, showed the direction of his studies
hy rendering into French the Commentaries of Blackstone.*'
Le Blanc traveUed in England, wrote a work expressly upon
the EngUsh, and translated into French the Political Dis
courses of Hume.*" Holbach was certainly one of the most
active leaders of the liberal party in Paris ; hut a large part of
his very numerous writings consists solely in translations of Eng
Ush authors.'" Indeed, it may he broadly stated, that while, at
the end of the seventeenth century, it would have been difficult
to find, even among the most educated Frenchmen, a single
^ Villemain, Ut.. vol u. p. 115; Schlosser's Eighteenth Century, vol. i. pp. 34,
ii; Tennemann, Gesch. der Philos. vol xi. p. 314; Biog. Univ. vol xi. p. 314;
Crrimm, Correspond, vol xv. p. 81. Stanyan's History of Greece waa once famous,
and, even ao late as 1804, I find Dr. Parr recommending it. Parr's Works, vol
-rii. p. 422. Diderot told Sir Samuel Eomilly that he bad coUected materials for a
Instory ofthe trial of Charies L Ufe of Romilly, vol i. p. 46.
" Diderot, Mhn. vol U. p. 286 ; Cousin, Hist, de la Philos, II. sdrie, vol. U. p.
Bil; Eelvlti-us de VEsprit, vol. i. pp. 31, 38, 46, 65, 114, 169, 193, 266, 268, vol U.
PP- 144, _16_8, 165, 195, 212; Letters addressed to Hume, Edinb. 1849, pp. 9-10.
Thia ia the arrangement of our knowledge under the heads of Memory, Eea-
^D°! '^^ Imagination, which D'Alembert took from Bacon. Compare WhewelVs
Philos. of the Sciences, vol ii. p. 806 ; Cuvier, Hist, des Sciences, part il p. 276 ;
fi'sMjjre/, Mhn. vol U. p. 241 ; Bordas Demoulin, Cartlsianisme, vol l p. 18.
^ Quhrard, France Ut. ix. 193. "' Mhn. de Mm-ellei, i. 236, 237.
'^ (Euvres de Voltaire, Ixv. 161, 190, 212; Biog. Univ. i. 168, 159.
" Burton's Ufe of Hume, vol. i. pp. 365, 366, 406.
See the Ust, in Biog. Univ. vol. xx. pp. 468-466 ; and compare Mem. de Diderot,
vol ui. p. 49, from which it seems that Holbaoh was indebted to Toland, though
Diderot speaks rather doubtingly. In Almon's Mem. of Wilkes, 1805, vol iv. pp.
176, 177, there is an Engliah letter, tolerably well written, frora Holbach to Wilkea.

522 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
person acquainted with English, it would, in the eighteenth cen
tury, have heen nearly as difficult to find in the same class one
who was ignorant of it. Men of all tastes, and of the most op
posite pursuits, were on this point united as by a common bond.
Poets, geometricians, Mstorians, naturaUsts, aU seemed to agree
as to the necessity of studying a literature on wMch no one he
fore had wasted a thought. In the course of general reading, I
have met with proofs that the English language was knoym, not
only to those eminent Frenchmen whom I have already men
tioned, but also to mathematicians, as D'Alembert," Darquier,'*
Du Val le Eoy," Jurain,'* Lachapelle," Lalande," Le Cozic,"
Montucla," Pezenas," Prony,*" Eomme,*' and Eoger Martin ;**
to anatomists, physiologists, and writers on medicine, as Bar-
tMz,*' Bichat,** Bordeu,*' Barbeu Duhourg,*" BosquiUon,*'
Bourru,*' Begue de Presle,*" Cabanis,'" Demours," DuplanU,'*
Fouquet," Goulin,'* Lavirotte," Lassus," Petit Eadel," Pinel,"
Eoux," Sauvages,"" and Sue;"' to naturaUsts, as Alyon,"* Bre-
mond,"' Brisson,"* Broussonnet," DaUbard,"" Haiiy," Latapie,"
Eichard,"" Eigaud,'" and Eom6 de Lisle;" to Mstorians, pMlol-
ogists, and antiquaries, as Barth61emy,'* Butel Dumont," De
Brosses,'* Foucher," Freret," Larcher," Le Coq de VUleray,"
MUlot," Targe,'" VeUy," VoMey,'* and WaUly;"' to poets and
"' Musset Pathay, Vie de Rousseau, U. 10, 175 ; CEuvres de Voltaire, liv. 207.
"" Biog, Univ, x. 556. "" Ibid. xU. 418.
"* Querard, France Ui. iv. 34, 272. "= Ibid. iv. 361.
"' Biog. Univ, xxiu. 226. "' Montucla, Hist, des Mathhn. u. 170.
"" Montucla, U. 120, iv. 662, 665, 670. "» Biog. Univ, iu. 253, xxxiU. 564.
*° Qulrard, France Ut. vu. 363. *' Biog, Univ. xxxviu. 630.
" Biog. Univ. xxxviu. 411. *" Ibid. ui. 450.
** Bichat, sur la Vie, 244. ** Quhrard, i. 416.
*" Biog. Univ. Ui. 345. *' Quhrard, i. 260, 425, U. 854.
*" Querard, i. 476. *" Bioq. Univ. iv. 55, 56.
°° Notice sur Cabanis, p. viu. in bis Physique ei Moral.
" "»¦'¦" Univ. xi. 65, 66. '^ Ibid. xu. 276.

"" lUd. XV. 369. " Ibid. xviu. 187.
"" Quh-ard, iv. 641, vi. 9, 398. '" Cuvier, Eloges, i. 864.
"' Qulrard, vu. 95. "" Cuvier, Eloges, Ui. 382.
"° Biog. Univ. xxxix. 174. °° Le Blanc, Lettres, i. 93.
"' Qulrard, ix. 286. "' Robin et Verdeil, Ghim.Anat.n.4:l6.
°" Biog. Univ. v. 530, 581. °* Cuvier, Eloges, i. 196.
^^ Biog. Univ. vi. 47. "° Quh-ard, U. 872.
" Hauy, Minh-alogie, U. 247, 267, 295, 327, 629, 609, iU. 75, 298, 307, 447, 575,
iv. 45, 280, 292, 362.
•" Qulrard, iv. 698. " Ibid. vui. 22.
" Swainson, Disc, on Nat. Hist. 52 ; Cuvier, Regne Animal, iii. 416.
" De Usle, CristaUographie, 1772, xvUl xx. xxiii. xxv. xxvii. 78, 206, 264.
'" Albemarle's Rockingham, ii. 156 ; CampbeU's Chancellors, v. 866.
'" Biog. Univ. vi. 886. '* Letters to Hume, Edm. 1849, 276, 278.
" Biog. Univ. xv. 332. " Brewster's Ufe of Newton, U. 302.
" Palissot, Mlm. ii. 66. '" Biog. Univ. ix. 549.
" Biog. Univ. xxix. 51, 63. "" Ibid. xUv. 534.
"' Ibid, xlviii. 93.
"" Volney, Syrie et Egypte, ii. 100, 157 ; Quh-ard, x. 271, 278.
'= Biog. Univ. 1. 42.

GENEEAL INTRODUCTION. 523
dramatists, as Ch6ron,'* Colardeau," DeliUe," Desforges,"
Duels," Florian," Laborde,"" Lef^vre de Beauvray,"' Mercier,"*
Patu,"' Pompignan,"* Quotant,"' Eoucher,"" and Saint-Ange;"'
to miscellaneous yrriters, as Bassinet,"" Baudeau,"" Beaulaton,'""
Benoist,'"' Bergier,'"* Blavet,'"' Bouchaud,'"* BougainvUle,'"'
Brat6,'"" Castera,'"' Chantreau,'"' Charpentier,'"" Chastellux,""
Contant d'Orrille,'" De Bissy,"* Demeunier,"' Desfontaines,"*
Derienne,'" Duhocage,"" I)upr6,"' Duresnel,'" Eidous,""
Estienne,'*" Favier,'*' Flavigny,'** FontaneUe,'*' Fontenay,'**
Framery,'*' Fresnais,'*" Fr6viUe,'*' Frossard,'*' Galtier,'*" Gar-
sault,"" Goddard,'" Goudar,"* Guen6e,"' GuUlemard,"*
Gruyard,'" Jault,"" Imhert,'" Joncourt,'" K6ralio,"" Laho-
reau,'*" Lacombe,'*' Lafargue,'** La Montague,'*' Lanjuinais,'**
LasaUe,'*' Lasteyrie,'*" Le Breton,'*' Lecuy,'*" Leonard des
peines,'*" Letoumeur,"" Linguet,'" Lottin,"* Luneau,'"

" Ibid, viil 340, 341. "' Mem. de Genlis, i. 276.
"° Palissot, Mhn. i. 243. " Biog. Univ. ix. 281, xi. 172, 173.
*" Quhard, u. 626, 627. " Quhard, iU. 141.
" Biid iv. 342. " Ibid. v. 88.
" Ibid. vi. 62.
" Garrick Correspond. 4to, 1882, u. 385, 395, 416.
" Biog. Univ. xxxv. 314. "" Quh-ard, vu. 899.
" Biog. Univ. xxxix. 93. "' R>id. xxxix. 530.
°' Quhard, i. 209. "° Biog. Univ. iU. 538.
"" Biog- Univ. ui. 631. '"' (hivier, Regne Animal, iii. 334.
""' Quhard, i. 284, vn. 287. '"" Mhn. de MoreUet, i. 237.
"" Biog. Univ. v. 264. '"" Dutens, Mhn, ui. 32.
"" Biog. Univ. vi. 165.
'" Murrajfs Ufe of Bruce, 121 ; Biog. Univ. vi. 79.
™ Biog. Univ. vui. 46. ""¦ Ibid. vui. 246.
"» Ibid, vui 266. "' Ibid. ix. 497.
"= Ibid. xiv. 394.
"" Utires de Dudeffand d Walpole, ul 184.
"* CEuvres de Voltaire, Ivi. 527. "" Biog. Univ. xi. 264.
"" Quhard, U. 598. "' Biog. Univ. xu. 313, 814.
'" Nichols's Ut. Anec. U. 154 ; Palissot, Mhn. U. 311.
"' Biog. Univ. iv. 547, xu. 696. ™ Ibid, xUl 399.
"" Quhard, ui. 79. "^ Biog. Univ. xv. 29.
"= Biog. Univ. xv. 203. ™ Ibid, 218. "' Quh-ard, i. 526.
'" Biog. Univ. xvi 48. '"' Ibid. U. 508.
''' Smith's Tour on the Continent in 1786, i. 143.
™ Biog. Univ. xvi. 388. "» Ibid, xvi 502.
'" Sinclair's Correspond, i. 157. "^ Qulrard, iU. 418.
"' Biog. Univ. xix. 18. "* Quh-ard, i. 10, Ui. 586.
"' Quhard, iU. 469. "" Biog, Univ, xxi. 419.
'" Biog. Univ. xxi. 200. "° (Euvres de Voltaire, xxxvui. 244.
"' Palissot, Mlm. i. 426. "° Biog, Univ. xxUi. 34.
'" Biog. Univ. xxiU. 56. '" Ibid. xxUl 111.
'" Quhrard, iv. 503. "* Biog. Univ. xxiU. 373.
"* Querard, iv. 579. "" Sinclair's Correspond, ii. 139.
'*' Mem. and Corresp, of Sir J. E, Smith, i, 168.
"° Biog, des Hommes Vivanis, iv. 164. "° Quhard, v. 111.
™ Nichols's Lit. Anec, iv. 683 ; Longchamp et Wagniere, Mhn. i. 396.
'" Quh-ard, v. 816. ™ Biog, Univ. xxv. 87.
^' Biog. Univ, xxv. 432.

524 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
MaiUet Duclairon,"* MandriUon,'" Marsy,"" Moet*^'" Monod,'"
Mosneron,""Nagot,'"°Peyron,'"'Pr^vost,'"*Puisieux,'"Eivoire,"*Eohinet,'"' Eoger,'"" Eoubaud,'"' Salaville,"" Sauseuil,'"" Secon-
dat,"" Septch^nes,'" Simon,"* Soul^s,'" Suard,"* Tannevot,"'
Thurot,"" Toussaint,'" Tressan,'" Trochereau, "" Turpin,""
Ussieux,'" Vaugeois,"* Verlac,'" and Virloys."* Indeed, Le
Blanc, who wrote shortly hefore the middle of the eighteenth
century, says : " We have placed EngUsh in the rank of the
learned languages ; our women study it, and have ahandoned
ItaUan in order to study the language of this phUosophic peo
ple; nor is there to be found among us any one who does not
desire to learn it."'"
Such was the eagemess with which the French imbibed the
literature of a people whom hut a few years hefore they had
heartUy despised. The trath is, that in this new state of things
they had no alternative. For, where hut in England was aUterature
to be found that could satisfy those hold and inqmsitive tMnkers
who arose in France after the death of Louis XIV. P In their
oyvn country there had no douht been great displays of elo
quence, of fine dramas, and of poetry, which, though never
reaching the highest point of exceUence, is of finished and ad
mirable beauty. But it is an unquestionable fact, and one
melancholy to contemplate, that during the sixty years which
succeeded the death of Descartes, France had not possessed a
smgle man who dared to think for Mmself. Metaphysicians,
moralists, Mstorians, aU had become tainted by the serriUty of
that had age. During two generations, no Fr^ichman had been ''
aUowed to discuss with freedom any question either of poUtics
or of reUgion. The consequence was, that the largest inteUects,
'"* Ibid. xxvi. 244. '=" Ibid, xxvi. 468.
™ Ibid. XXVU. 269. ¦=' Ibid, xxix. 208.
'"" Lettres de Dudeffand A Walpole, i. 222. "" Qulrard, vi, 330.
"" Biog, Univ. xxx. 639. '"' Ibid. xxxiU. 663.
"^ Lettres de Dudeffand d Walpole, i. 22, iu. 307, iv. 207.
™ Biog, Univ. xxxvi. 306, 306. '"* Ibid, xxxviu. 174.
'"" Peignot, Diet des Uvres, ii. 233. "" Querard, viu. 111.
¦"' Biog. Univ. xxxix. 84. "" Biog, des Hommes Vivants, v. 294.
'"» Qulrard, vin. 474. "" Biog, Univ, xll 426.
"' Biog. Univ. xlU. 45, 46. "" Ibid xUi. 389. "" Ibid. xUU. 181.
"* Garrick Correspond, ii. 604 ; Mlm. de Genlis, vi. 205.
"" Biog, Univ. xUv. 512. "» Ufe of Roscoe, by his Son, I 200.
"' Biog, Univ, xlvi. 398, 899. "" Ibid. xlvi. 497.
"° Quh-ard, iv. 45, ix. 668. '"" Biog. Univ. xlvil 98.
'"' Biog. Univ. xlvU. 232. '"^ Mhn, de Brissot, i. 78.
"" Biog, Univ. xlviu. 217, 218. '"* Ibid. xUx. 228.
'"" " Nous avons mis depuis peu leur langue au rang dea languea savantes ; les
femmea mdrae I'apprenneut, et ont renoncd i I'ltaUen pour dtudier ceUe de ce peuple
philosophe. II n'est point, dans la province, d'Arraande et de Belise qui ne veuiUe
savoir I'Anglois." Le Blanc, Lettres, vol. ii. p. 465. Compare Grimm, Corresp,
vol. xiv. p. 484 ; and Nichols's Ut Anec. vol. iu. pp. 460, 461.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 525
excluded from their legitimate field, lost their energy; the na
tional spirit died away; the very materials and nutriment of
thought seemed to be wanting. No wonder, then, if the great
Frenchmen of the eighteenth century sought that aUment
abroad which they were unable to find at home. No wonder if
they turned from their own land, and gazed with admiration at
the only people who, pusMng their inquiries into the highest
departments, had shown the same fearlessness in poUtics as in
rehgion ; a people who, having punished their Mngs and con
trolled their clergy, were storing the treasures of their expe
rience in that noble literature which never can perish, and of
wMch it may be said in sober truth, that it has stimulated the
inteUect of the most distant races, and that, planted m America
and in India, it has already fertUized the two extremities of the
world. There are, m fact, few things in history so instructive, as the
extent to wMch France was infiuenced hy this new pursuit.
Even those who took part m actually consummatmg the revo
lution, were moved by the prevailing spirit. The English lan
guage was familiar to Carra,"" Dumouriez,"' Lafayette,"' and
Lanthenas."" CamUle DesmouUns had cultivated Ms mmd
from the same source."" Marat traveUed. in Scotland as well
as in England, and was so profoundly versed in our language,
that he wrote two works in it ; one of wMch, called The Chains
of Slavery, was afterwards translated into French.'" Mirabeau
is declared hy a high authority to have owed part of Ms power to
a careful study ofthe EngUsh constitution ;'"* he translated not
only Watson's History of Philip II,, but also some parts of
MUton ;'"' and it is said that when he was in the National As-
"° Williams's Letters from France, vol. in. p. 68, 2d edit. 1796; Biog.Univ, vol
vii. p. 192.
"" Adolphus's Biog. Mem. 1799, vol i. p. 352.
™ Lady Morgan's France, vol. U. p. 304 ; Mhn, de Lafayette, vol. i. pp. 41, 49,
70; vol. U. pp. 26, 74, 83, 89.
'" (Quhard, France Utthraire, vol. iv. p. 540.
'°° The last authors he read, shortly before his execution, were Young and Her
vey. Lamartine, Hist des Girondins, vol. viu. p. 45. In 1769 Madame Riccoboni
writea frora Paris, that Young'a Night Thoughts had becorae very popular there ;
and she juatly adda, " c'est une preuve aan^jrdpUque du changeraent de l'esprit fran-
Sais. . Garrick Correspondence, voh U. p. 566, 4to, 1832.
'" Lamartine, Hist, des Girondins, vol. iv. p. 119 ; Mlm. de Brissot, vol i. pp.
336, Sm ; vol U. p. 3.
_ "^ " Une dcB supdrioritda aecondairea, une dea aupdrioritda d'dtude qui apparte-
naient i Mirabeau, c'dtait la profonde connaiaaance, la vive inteUigence de la consti
tution anglaise, de ses ressorts pubUcs et de ses ressorts cacbds. ViUemain, Ut. au
XVIII' Sikle, vol. iv. p. 153.-
'" Particularly the democratic paaaages, " un corps de doctrine de tous aes dcrits
rdpubUcains." Dumont, Souvenirs sur Mirabeau, p. 119. As to his translation of
Watson, see Alison's Europe, vol. i. p. 452. He also intended to translate Sinclair's
History ofthe EevenuCr Correspond, of Sir J, Sinclair, vol. U. p. 119.

526 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
semhly, he delivered, as his own, passages from the speeches of
Burke.'"* Mounier was weU acquainted with our language, and
with our poUtical institutions both in theory and in practice;'"'
and in a work, which exercised considerable influence, he pro
posed for his own country the establishment of two chambers, to
form that balance of power of wMch England supplied the ex
ample.'"" The same idea, derived from the same source, was
advocated by Le Brun, who was a friend of Mounier's, and who,
Uke him, had paid attention to the Uterature and govemment of
the English people.'"' Brissot knew EngUsh ; he had studied
in London the worMng of the EngUsh institutions, and he him
self mentions that, in Ms treatise on criminal law, he was mainly
guided by the course of EngUsh legislation.'"' Condorcet also
proposed as a model, our system of criminal jurispradence,""
which, had as it was, certainly surpassed that possessed by
France. Madame Eoland, whose position, as well as ahUity,
made her one of the leaders of the democratic party, was an ar
dent student of the language and Uterature of the EngUsh peo-
ple.*°° She too, moved hy the universal curiosity, came to our
country; and, as if to show that persons of every shade and of
every rank were actuated by the same spirit, the Duke of Or
leans Ukeyrise visited England ; nor did Ms visit fail to produce
its natural results. "It was," says a celebrated writer, " in the
society of London that he acquired a taste for Uberty; and it was
on his return from there that he brought into- France a love of
popular agitation, a contempt for his own rank, and a fanUUarity
with those beneath him."*"'
TMs language; strong as it is, will not appear exaggerated to
any one who has carefuUy studied the Mstory of the eighteenth
century. It is no doubt, certain, that the French Eevolution
was essentiaUy a reaction against that protective and interfering
spirit which reached its zenith under Louis XIV., but wMch,
centuries hefore his reign, had exercised a most injurious influ-
'"' Prior's Ufe of Bv/rke, p. 646, 3d edit. 1889.
"'° "Ildtudiait leur langue, la thdorie et plus encore la pratique de leur insti'
tutions." Biog, Univ. -vol. xxx. p. 810.
'"'' Continuation de Sismondi, Histories Fra-ngais, vol. xxx. p. 434. Montlosier
(Monarchie FVanfaise, vol. ii. p. 340) sayB, that thia idea was borrowed from Eng
land ; but he does not mention who suggested it.
'"' Du Mesnil, Mlm. sur Le Brun, pp: 10, 14, 29, 82, 180, 182. *
"" Mhn. de Brissot„,vol. i. pp. 68, 64, vol U. pp. 25, 40, 188, 206, 260, 313.
'" Dupqnt de Nemours (Mem. surTurgot, p.ll7) says of criminal jurisprudence,
"M. de Condorcet proposait en moddle celle des Anglais."
™° Mhn. de Roland, vol i. pp. 27, 56, 89, 136, vol. il pp. 99, 135, 258.
"' " Le duo d'Orldans puisa ainsi le gout de la libertd dana la vie de Londres. II
eu rapporta en France lea habitudes d'insolenoe contre la cour, I'appdtit des agitations
populaires, le mdpria pour aon propre rang, la famUiaritd avec la foule," &c. Lam,-
ariine. Hist, des Girondins, vol. U. p. 102.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 527
ence over the national prosperity. WhUe, however, this must be
fully conceded, it is equally certain that the impetus to which
the reaction owed its strength, proceeded from England ; and that
it was EngUsh Uterature which taught the lessons of political
Uberty, first to France, and through France to the rest of Eu
rope,*"* On this account, and not at aU from mere literary curi
osity, I have traced with some minuteness that umon between
the French and EngUsh minds, wMch, though often noticed, has
never heen examined with the care its importance deserves.
The circumstances which reinforced tMs vast movement will be
related towards the end ofthe volume; at present 1 will confine
myseff to its first great consequence, namely, the establishment
of a complete schism between the literary men of France, and
the classes who exclusively governed the country.
Those emment Frenchmen who now turned their attention
to England, found in its Uterature, in the structure of its society,
and in its government, many pecuUarities of which their own
country famished no example. They heard political and relig
ious questions of the greatest moment debated with a boldness
unknoyyn m any other part of Europe. They heard dissenters
and churchmen, wMgs and tories, handUng the most dangerous
topics, and treating them with unlimited freedom. They heard
pubUc disputes respecting matters wMch no one in France dared
to discuss ; mysteries of state and mysteries of creed unfolded
and rudely exposed to the popular gaze. Andj what to French
men of that age must have heen equaUy amazing, they not only
found a pubUc press possessing some degree of |peedom, but they
found that vrithin the very walls of parliament, the administration
of the crown was assaUed with complete impunity, the character
of its chosen servants constantly aspersed, and, strange to say,
even the management of its revenues effectually controUed.*"'
The successors of the age of Louis XIV. seeing these tMngs,
and seeing, moreover, that the civiUzation of the country increased
as the. authority of the upper classes and ofthe crown diminished,
were unable to restram their wonder at so novel and exciting a
spectacle. "The English nation," says Voltaire, "is the only
one on the earth, which, by resisting its kings, has succeeded in
"' M. Lerminier (Philos. du Droit, vol. i. p. 19) says of England, " cette Ue celdbre
dome a 1' Europe renseignement de la Ubertd politique ; . eUe en fut I'doole au dix-
huitidme sidcle pour tout ce que I'Europe eut de penseurs." See also Soulavie, Regne
de Louii XVI, vol. Ui. p. 161 ; Mlm. de Marmontel, vol iv. pp. 38, 39 ; Staudlin,
Gesch. der theolog. Wissenschaften, vol. U. p. 291.
Hume, who was acquainted with several eminent Frenchmen who visited Eng
land, says (Philosophical Works, vol. Ui. p. 8), " nothing is more apt to surprise a
foreigner than the extreme Uberty which we enjoy in this country, of communicating
-whatever we please to the pubUc, and of openly censuring e.very measure entered
into by the king or his ministers."

528 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
lessening their power."*"* " How I love the boldness of the Eng
lish ! how I love men who say what they think !"*"' The Eng
lish, says Le Blanc, are wUling to have a king, provided they are
not obliged to obey him.*"" The immediate object of their gov
ernment, says Montesquieu, is political liberty ;*"': they possess
more freedom than any Eepublic;*"' and their system is in fact
a republic disguised as a monarchy.*"" Grosley, struck with
amazement, exclaims, " Property is in England a thing sacred,
which the laws protect from aU encroachment, not only i'rom en
gineers, inspectors, and other people of that stamp, hut even
from the king himself"*'" Mably, in the most celebrated of all
Ms works, says, " the Hanoverians are only ahle to reign in Eng
land because the people are free, and believe they have a right
to dispose of the crown. But if the Mngs were to claim the
same power as the Stuarts, if they were to heUeve that the croyyn
belonged to them by divine right, they would he condemning
themselves, and confessing that they were occupying a place
wMch is not their own."*" In England, says Helvetius, the
people are respected; every citizen can take some part in the
management of affairs; and authors are aUowed to enlighten
the public respecting its own interests.*'* And Brissot, who had
made these matters Ms especial study, cries out, " Admirable
constitution, ! which can only he disparaged either hy men who
*"• " La nation anglaise est la seule de la terre qui soit parvenue k rdgler le pou
voir des rois en leur rdSi^tant." Letire VIII sur les Anglais, in (Euvres de Voltaire,
vol xxvi p. 87. f '
*°" "Quej'aime la hardiesse anglaise! que j'aime les gens qui disent ce qu'ils
pensent ! " Letter fr^ Voltaire, in Correspond, de Dudeffand, vol ii. p. 263. For
other instances of his admiration of England, see CEuvres de Voltaire, vol xl. pp.
105-109; vol 11 pp. 137j 890; vol liv. pp. 298, 392; vol Ivl pp. 162, 168, 195, 196,
270 ; vol. Ivu. p. 600 ; -?ol. IviU. pp. 128, 267 ; vol Ux. pp. 265, 861 ; vol Ix. p.
601 ; vol Ixi. pp. 43, 73, 129, 140, 474, 475 ; vol. IxU. pp. 848, 879, 392; vol Ixiu.
pp. 128, 146, 190, 196, 226, 287, 415; vol Ixiv. pp. 36, 96, 269; vol kvl pp. 93,
159; vol. IxvU. pp. 353, 484.
2oa 11 jfg veulent un roi, aux conditions, pour ainsi dire, de ne lui point obdir."
Le Blanc, Utires d!un Frangois, vol i. p. 210.
'"'' "Hya auasi une nation dans le monde qui a pour objet direct de aa conati
tution la Ubertd poUtique." Esprit des Lois, livre xi. chap. v. in (Euvres de Montes
quieu, p. 264. Converaely De StadI (Consid. sur la Rev. vol. Ui. p. 261), "la Ubertd
poUtique eat le moyen suprdme."'
aod 11 L' Angleterre est h prdsent le plus libre pays qui soit au monde, je n'en ex-
cepte aucune rdpublique." Notes sur V Angleterre, in ffiteires de Montesquieu, p. 632.
""' " Une nation oi la rdpubUque se cache sous la forme de la monarchie." Es
prit des Lois, Uvre v. chap. xix. in (Euvres de Montesquieu, p. 225 ; also quoted in
Bancrofts American Revolution, vol U. p. 36.
°'" Grosley'sTour to London, vol I pp. 16, 17.
^" Mably, Observ. sur VHist de France, vol. ii. p. 186.
°'^ Helvltius de VEsprii, vol. i. pp. 102, 199 : "un pays ou le peuple est reapectd
comme en Angleterre ; . . - un paya ou chaque citoyen a part au maniement des
affairea gdndralea, oi tout homme d'esprit peut dclairer le public sur sea vdritablea
intdrdta."

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 529
know it not, or else hy those whose tongues are bridled by sla
very."*" Such were the opinions of some ofthe most celebrated French
men of that time; and it would be easy to fill a volume with
similar extracts. But, what I now rather wish to do is, to point
out the first great consequence of this new and sudden admira
tion for a country wMch, in the preceding age, had been held in
profound contempt. The events which foUowed are, indeed, of
an importance impossible to exaggerate; since they brought
about that rupture between the inteUectual anri governing
classes, of which the Eevolution itself was hut a temporary epi
sode. The great Frenchmen of the eighteenth century being stim
ulated by the example of England into a love of progress, natu
rally came mto coUision with the govemingTrlasses., among whom
the old stationary spirit stUl prevaUed. This opposition was a
wholesome reaction against that disgraceful servility for which,
in the reign of Louis XIV., literary men had been remarkable ;
and ff the contest which ensued had been conducted with any
thing approacMng to moderation, the ultimate result would have
heen highly beneficial; since it would have secured that diver
gence between the speculative and practical classes wMch, as we
have already seen, is essential to maintain the balance of civUi
zation, and to prevent either side from acquiring a dangerous
predominance. But, unfortunately, the nobles and clergy had
heen so long accustomed to power, that they could not brook the
shghtest contradiction from those great writers, whom they ig-
norantly despised as their inferiors. Hence it was, that when the
most iUustrious Frenchmen of the eighteenth century attempted
to infuse mto the literature of their country a spirit of inquiry
simUar to that which existed in England, the raling classes be
came roused into a hatred and jealousy which broke aU bounds,
and gave rise to that crusade against knowledge which forms the
second principal precursor of the French Eevolution.
The extent of that cruel persecution to which literature was
now exposed, can only be fully appreciated hy those who have mi
nutely studied the history of France in the eighteenth century.
For it was not a stray case of oppression, which occurred here and
there; hut it was a prolonged and systematic attempt to stifle
all inquiry, and punish all inquirers. If a list were drawn up of
aU the Uterary men who wrote during the seventy years succeed
ing the death of Louis XIV., it would be found, that at least
nine out of every ten had suffered from the government some
grievous injury; and that a majority of them had heen actually
*" Mlm. de Brissot, vol U. p. 25.
VOL. I. — 34

530 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
thrown into prison. Indeed, in saying thus much, I am under
stating the real facts of the case; for I question if one literary
man out of fifty escaped with entire impunity. Certainly, my
own knowledge of those times, though carefuUy collected, is not
so complete as I could have yrished ; but, among those authors
who were punished, I find the name of nearly every Frenchman
whose writings have survived the age in wMch they were pro
duced. Among those who suffered either confiscation, or im
prisonment, or exUe, or fines, or the suppression of their works, or
the ignominy of being forced to recant what they had written, I
find, besides a host of inferior writers, the names of Beaumarchais,
Berruyer, Bougeant, Buffon, D'Alembert, Diderot, Duclos, Fre
ret, Helv6tius, La Harpe, Linguet, Mably, Marmontel, Montes
quieu, Mercier, MoreUet, Eaynal, Eousseau, Suard, Thomas, and
Voltaire. The mere recital of tMs list is pregnant with instraction.
To suppose that all these eminent men deserved the treatment
they received, would, even in the absence of direct eridence, be
a manffest absurdity ; smce it would involve the supposition,
that a schism having taken place between two classes, the
weaker class was altogether wrong, and the stronger altogether
right. Fortunately, however, there is no necessity for resorting
to any merely speculative argument respecting the probable
merits of the two parties. The accusations brought against
these great men are before the world ; the penalties inflicted are
equally weU known ; and, hy putting these together, we may
form some idea of the state of society, in which such things
could be openly practised.
Voltaire, almost immediately after the death of Louis XIV.,
was falsely charged with having composed a libel on that prince;
and, for this imaginary offence, he, without the pretence of a j
trial, and without even the shadow of a prooJ^ was thrown into
the BastUle, where he was confined more than twelve months.*'*
Shortly after he was released, there was put upon him a stUl
more grievous insult; the occurrence, and, above all, the impu
nity of which, supply striking evidence as to the state of society
in which such things were permitted. Voltaire, at the table of
the Duke de Sully, was deliberately insulted hy the Chevalier de
Eohan Chahot, one of those impudent and dissolute nobles who
then abounded in Paris. The duke, though the outrage was com
mitted in Ms own house, in Ms own presence, and upon his own
guest, would not interfere; but seemed to consider that a poor
poet was honoured by being in any way noticed hy a man of
"'¦ Condorcet, Vie de Voltaire, pp. 118, 119; Duvernet, Vie de Voltaire, pp. SO,
32 ; Longchamp et Wagniere, Mhn. sur Voltaire, vol. i. p. 22.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 53]
rank. But, as Voltaire, in the heat of the moment, let fall one
of those stinging retorts which were the terror of his enemies,
the chevalier determined to visit him with further punishment.
The course he adopted was characteristic of the man, and of the
class to which he belonged. He caused Voltaire to be seized in
the streets of Paris, and in his presence ignominiously beaten,
he himself regulating the number of blows of which the chastise
ment was to consist. Voltaire, smarting under the insult, de
manded that satisfaction wMch it was customary to give. This,
however, did not enter into the plan of his noble assailer, who
not only refused to meet Mm in the field, but actually obtained
an order, hy wMch he was confined in the Bastille for six months,
and at the end of that time was directed to quit the country.*"
Thus it was that Voltaire, having first been imprisoned for
a Ubel which he never wrote, and having then been pubUcly
beaten because he retorted an insult wantonly put upon him,
was now sentenced to another imprisonment, through the influ
ence of the very man by whom he had been attacked. The
exUe wMch foUowed the imprisonment seems to have been soon
remitted ; as, shortly after these events, we find Voltaire again
in France, preparmg for pubUcation his first Mstorical work, a
life of Charles XII. In tMs, there are none of those attacks on
Christianity which gave offence in his subsequent writings ; nor
does it contain the least reflection upon the arbitrary govem
ment under wMch he had suffered. The French authorities at
first granted that permission, yrithout which no book could then
he pubUshed ; hut, as soon as it was actuaUy printed, the Ucense
was withdrayra, and the Mstory forbidden to he circulated.*'"
The next attempt of Voltaire was one of much greater value;
it was therefore repiUsed stUl more sharply. During his resi
dence in England, his mquisitive mind had been deeply interest
ed by a state of tMngs so different from any he had hitherto
seen ; and he now pubUshed an account of that remarkable peo
ple, from whose Uterature he had leamed many important traths.
His work, which he called Philosophic Letters, was received
with general applause; hut, unfortunately for himself, he adopted
"' Duvernet, Vie de Voltaire, pp. 46-48 ; Condorcet, Vie de Voltaire, pp. 125, 126.
Compare vol Ivi. p. 162; Upan, Vie de Voltaire, 1837, pp. 70, 71; and Biog.
Univ. vol xUx. p. 468. Duvernet, who, writing from materials suppUed by Voltaire,
had the best means of information, gives a specimen of the fine feeUng of a French
duke in the eighteenth century. He saya, that, directly after Eohan had inflicted
this pubUc ohaatiaeiiient, " Voltaire rentre dana I'hdtel, demande- au due de SuUy de
regarder cet outrage fait a l'un de aea convivea, comme fait a lui-mdme : il le soUicite
de se joindre k lui pour en poursuivre la vengeance, tt de venir chez un commissaire
en certifier la ddpoaition. Xe due de Sully se refuse & tout."
aio II L'j[igtoii.e de Charlea XII, dont on avait arretd une premidre dditiou aprds
I'avoir autoriade." Biog. Univ. vol xlix. p. 470. Comp. Nichols's Ut. Anec. voh
I p. 388.

532 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
in it the arguments of Locke against innate ideas. _ The rulers
of France though not Ukely to know much about innate ideas,
had a suspicion that the doctrine of Locke was in some way dan
gerous ; and, as they were told that it was a novelty, they felt
themselves bound to prevent its promulgation. Their remedy was
very simple. They ordered that Voltaire should he again arrest
ed, and that Ms work should he burned hy the common hang
man.*" These repeated injuries might weU have moved a more patient
spirit than that of Voltaire.*" Certainly, those who reproach
this iUustrious man, as ff he were the instigator of unprovoked
attacks upon the existing state of tMngs, must know very Uttle
of the age inwMch it was his misfortune to live. Even on what
has been always considered the neutral ground of physical
science, there was displayed the same despotic and persecuting
spirit. Voltau-e, among other schemes for benefiting France,
wished to make known to his countrymen the wonderful discove
ries of Newton, of wMch they were completely ignorant. With
this view, he drew up an account of the labours of that extra
ordinary tMnker; but here again the authorities interposed, and
forbade the work to he printed.*'" Indeed, the rulers of France,
as if sensible that their only security was the ignorance of the
people, obstinately set their face against every description of
knowledge. Several emment authors had undertaken to execute,
on a magmficent scale, an Encyclopaedia, wMch should contain
a summary of all the branches of science and of art. TMs, un
doubtedly the most splendid enterprise ever started by a body
of Uterary men, was at first discouraged hy the government, and
afterwards entirely proMhited.**" On other occasions, the same
tendency was shown in matters so trifiing, that notMng but the
gravity of their ultimate results prevents them from being ridicu
lous. In 1770, Imhert translated Clarke's Letters on Spain;
one of the best works then existing on that country. TMs book,
however, was suppressed as soon as it appeared ; and the only
reason assigned for such a stretch of power is, that it contained
*" Duvernet, Vie de Voltaire, pp. 63-66 ; Condorcet, Vie de Voltaire, pp. 138-140 ;
Upan, Vie de Voltaire, pp. 93, 381.
'"" The indignation of Voltaire appeara in many of his letters ; and he often an
nounced to his friends bis intention of quitting for ever a country where he was
Uable to such treatment. See CEuvres de Voltaire, vol Uv. pp. 68, 835, 336, vol.
Iv. p. 229, vol Ivi. pp. 162, 163, 358, 447, 464, 465, vol IvU. pp. 144, 146, 166, 166,
vol. Iviii. pp. 36, 222, 223, 516, 617, 519, 620, 525, 526, 563, vol Ux. pp. 107, 116,
188, 208.
'" CEuvres de Voltaire, vol. i. pp. 147, 315, vol. IvU. pp. 211, 215, 219, 247, 295;
VUlemain, Lit. au XVIII' Sikle, vol i. p. 14; BrouqhanCs Men of Utters, vol I
pp. 63, 60. > >r u J ,
^'' Grimm, Correspond, vol. i. pp. 90-96, vol. U. p. 399; Biog. Univ. vol xi. p.
816 ; Brougham's Men of Letters, vol U. p. 439.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 533
some remarks respecting the passion of Charles III. for hunting,
wMch were considered disrespectful to the French crown, be
cause Louis XV. was Mmself a great hunter.**' Several years
before tMs, La Bletterie, who was favourably know in France by
his works, was elected a member of the French Academy. But
he, it seems, was a Jansenist, and had, moreover, ventured to
assert that the Emperor Julian, notwithstanding Ms apostasy,
was not entirely devoid of good qualities. Such offences could
not be overlooked in so pure an age ; and the king obUged the
academy to exclude La Bletterie from their society.*** That the
punishment extended no further, was an instance of remarkable
leniency; for Fr6ret, an eminent critic and scholar,**' was con
fined in the BastUle, hecause he stated, in one of his memoirs,
that the earUest Prankish chiefs had received their titles from
the Eomans.*** The same penalty was inflicted four different
times upon Lenglet du Fresnoy.**' In the case of this amiable
and accompUshed man, there seems to have been hardly the
shadow of a pretext for the cruelty with wMch he was treated ;
though, on one occasion, the alleged offence was, that he had
pubUshed a supplement to the Mstory of De Thou.**"
Indeed, we have only to open the MograpMes and correspond
ence of that time, to flnd instances crowding upon us from all
quarters. Eousseau was threatened with imprisonment, was
"' Boucher de la Richarderie, Bibliotheque des Voyages, vol. iii. pp. 390-398,
Paris, 1808: "La distribution en France de la traduction de ce voyage fut arrdtde
pendant quelque temps par des ordres supdrieurs du gouvernement. ... II y a tout
Ueu de croire que les ministres de France crurent, ou feigriirent de croire, que le
passage en question pouvoit donner Ueu k des applications sur le gofit effrdnd de
louia XV pour la chassee, et inspirdrent aisdment cette prdventiou a un prince trds-
sensible, comrae on sait, aux censures les plus indirectes de sa passion pour ce genre
d'amusement." See also the account of Irabert, the translator, in Biog. Univ. vol.
xxi p. 200.
*" Grimm, Correspond, vol vi. pp. 161, 162 ; the crime being, " qu'un jansdniste
avait osd imprimer que JuUen, apostat exdcrable aux yeux d'un bon chrdtien,
n'dtait pourtant pas un homme sans quelques bonnes quaUtds a en juger mondaine-
ment." ™ M. Bunsen (Egypt, vol I p. 14) refers to Frdret's " acute treatise on the
Babylonian year ;" and Turgot, in his Etymologic, says (CEuvres de Turgot, vol. iii.
p. 83), "I'illustre Frdret, un des savans qui ont su le mieux appUquer la philo.sophie
a I'dmdition." ™ This was at the very outset of his career: "En 1716, I'homme qui devait
illustrer I'drudition franjaise au xviu' sidcle, Frdret, dtait mia a la Baatille pour
avoir avancd, dans un radraoire sur I'origine des Franfais, que les Francs ne forraaient
pas une nation i part, et que leurs premiera chefs avaient regu de I'empire remain
le titre de patrices." Villemain, Ut. au XVIII' Sikle, voI.~ il p. 30 : see also
NichoUs Xji. Anec. vol. U. p. 510.
™ He was imprisoned in the BastiUe, for the first time, in 1725 ; then in 1743,
m 1760, and finally in 1751. Biographie UniverseUe, vol. xxiv. p. 85.
'^ In 1748, Voltaire writes : " On vient de mettre k la BastiUe l'abbd Lenglet,
ponr avoir publid des radmoires ddja trds connus, qui servent de suppldment El rbia
toire de notre cdldbre De Thou. L'infatigable et raalheureux Lenglet rendait un
signald service aux bons citoyens, et aux amateurs des recherches historiques. H
meritait des rdcompensea ; on 1' empriaonne crueUement k I'age de aoixante-huit
ans." CEuvres de Voltaire, vol. l pp. 400, 401, vol. Iviu. pp. 207, 208.

534 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
driven from France, and his works were puMcly burned.**' The
celebrated treatise of Helv6tius on the Mmd, was suppressed hy
an order from the royal councU ; it was burned hy the common
hangman, and the author was compelled to write two letters, re
tracting his opinions.**" Some of the geological views of Buffon
having offended the clergy, that illustrious naturaUst was ohUged
to publish a formal recantation of doctrines which are now
known to be perfectly accurate.**" The learned observations on the
History of France, by Mably, were suppressed as soon as they ap
peared ;*'" for what reason it would be hard to say, since M. Guizot,
certainly no friend to either anarchy or to irreUgion, has thought
it worth whUe to repubUsh them, and thus stamp them with the
authority of his own great name. The History of the Indies,
by Eaynal, was condemned to the flames, and the author ordered
to he arrested.*" Lanjuinais, in his weE-known work on Joseph
IL, advocated not only religious toleration, hut even the abolition
of slavery ; his hook, therefore, was declared to be " seditious ;"
it was pronounced " destructive of all subordination," and was
sentenced to he burned.*'* The analysis of Bayle, hy Marsy,
was suppressed, and the author was imprisoned.*" The History
of the Jesuits, by Linguet, was delivered to the flames ; eight
years later, his Journal was suppressed ; and three years after
that, as he stUl persisted in writmg, Ms Political Annals were
suppressed, and he himself was thrown into the BastUle.*'* De
Usle de Sales was sentenced to perpetual exUe, and confiscation
of all Ms property, on account of his work on the PhUosophy
of Nature.*" The treatise hy Mey, on French law, was sup
pressed ;*'" that by Boncerf, on feudal law, was burned.*" The
""' Musset Pathay, Vie de Rousseau, vol i. pp. 68, 99, 296, 877, vol. il pp. Ill,
385, 390; Mercier sur Rousseau, vol i. p. 14, vol ii. pp. 179, 314.
"'^ Grimm, Corresp. vol ii. p. 349; Walpole's Letters, 1840, vol iu. p. 418.
™ LyelVs Principles of Geology, pp. 39, 40 ; Mem. of Mallet du Pan, vol i. p.
125. °"° Soulavie, Regne de Louis XVI, vol ii. p. 214; William's Utters from France,
vol. U. p. 86, 3d edit. 1796.
^" Mlm. de Slgur, vol i. p. 263 ; Mem. de Lafayette, vol. u. -p. 34 note ; Utires
de Dudeffand d, Walpole, vol. il p. 366. On Eaynal's flight, compare a letter from
Maraeillea, written in 1786, and printed in Mem. and Correspond, of Sir J. E. Smith,
voh I p. 194.
™ See the proceedinga of the avocat-gdndral, in Peignot, ikm-es condamnes, vol
i. pp. 230, 231 ; and in Soulavie, Regne de Louis XVI, vol iii. pp. 93-97.
"'" Qulrard, France Ui, vol. v. p. 666.
'"* Peignot, Uvres condamnes, vol. i. pp. 241, 242.
*'' Biog. Univ, vol. xxiv. p. 561 ; CEuvres de Voltaire, vol Ixix. pp. 374, 375 ;
Lettres inMites de Voltaire, vol. ii. p. 528 ; Duvernet, Vie de Voltaire, pp. 202, 203.
According to some of these authorities, parUament afterwarda revoked this sen
tence ; but there ia no doubt that the aentence waa paaaed, and De Salea imprisoned,
if not baniahed.
'"'° Peignot, Livres condamnes, vol. l pp. 314, 815.
*" CEuvres de Voltaire, vol Ixix. p. 204; Lettres de Dudeffand & Walpole, vol
iii. p. 260.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION, 535
Memoirs of Beaumarchais were Ukewise burned ;*" the Eloge on
Fto6lon by La Harpe was merely suppressed,*" Duvernet
haring written a History of the Sorbonne, which was stiU un-
puhUshed, was seized and thrown into the BastUle, while the
manuscript was yet in his own possession,**" The celebrated
yrork of De Lolme on the EngUsh constitution was suppressed
by edict directly it appeared,**' The fate of being suppressed,
or proMbited, also awaited the Letters of Gervaise, in 1724 ;***
the Dissertations of Courayer, in 1727 ;**' the Letters of Mont-
gon, in 1732 ;*** the History of Tamerlane, by Margat, also in
1732 ;**' the Essay on Taste, hy Cartaud, in 1736 ;**" the Life
of Domat, hy Pr6vost de la Jannes, in 1742 ;**' the History of
Louis XI., by Duclos, m 1745 ;**' the Letters of Bargeton, in
1750 ;**" the Memoirs on Troyes, by Grosley, in the same year ;*'»
the History of Clement XL, by Eehoulet, in 1752 ;*" the
School of Man, hy G6nard, also m 1752 ;*'* the Therapeutics of
Garlon, in 1756 ;*" the celebrated thesis of Louis, on Genera
tion, in 1754 ;*'* the Treatise on Presidial Jurisdiction, by
Jousse, in 1755 ;*" the Ericie of FontaneUe, hx 1768 ;*'" the
Thoughts of Jamin, in 1769 ;*" the History of Siam, by Turpin,
and the Eloge of Marcus AureUus, by Thomas, both in 1770 ;*"
the works on finance, hy Darigrand in 1764, and hy Le Trosne,
in 1779 ;*'" the Essay on MUitary Tactics, hy Guibert, in 1772 ;
the Letters of Boucquet, in the same year ;*"" and the Memoirs
of Terrai, hy Coquereau, in 1776 ;*=' Such wanton destruction
of property, was, however, mercy itself, compared to the treat
ment experienced hy other Uterary men in France. Desforges, for
example, ha-ring written against the arrest of the Pretender to
the English tMone, was solely on that account, buried in a dun-
™ " Quatre mdmoirea . . . condamnea k dtre lacdrds et brillcs par la main du
bourreau." Peignot, vol. i. p. 24.
"° Biog, Univ. vol xxUi. p. 187.
'" Duvernet, Hist, de la Sorbonne, vol i. p. vi.
_^*' "Supprimee par arrdt du conseU" in 1771, which waa the year of its pubU
cation. Compare Oassagnae's Rlvolution, vol i. p. 33 ; Biog, Univ, vol. xxiv. p.
"" Querard, France Ut. vol Ui. p. 337. **" Biog, Univ, vol x. p. 97.
"* Peignot, vol. i. p. 328. ^^ Ibid. vol. i. p. 289.
"* Biog. Univ. vol vu. p. 227.
"*' Utires d' Aguesseau, vol U. pp. 820, 321.
"*" Cassagnac, Causes de la Rev, vol i. p. 32. **" Biog, Univ, vol. iu. p. 376.
™ Qulrard, vol ui. p. 489. *" Ibid. vol. vu. pp. 483, 484.
"" Ibid vol ni. p. 302. *"" Ibid, vol ui. p. 261.
"I Ou the importance of this remarkable thesis, and on its prohibition, see Saint
Eilaire, Anomalies de V Organisation, vol i. p. 855.
™ Quh-ard, vol iv. p. 255. *" Biog, Univ. vol xv. p. 208.
'" Ibid, vol xxi. p. 391. *"" Ibid, vol xiv. p. 462, vol xIvU. p. 98.
™ Peignot, vol. i. pp. 90, 91, vol U. p. 164.
""' Ibid, vol i. p. 170, vol. U. p. 57. *"' Ibid. vol. u. p. 214.

536 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
geon eight feet square, and confined there for three years.*"*
This happened in 1749 ; and in 1770, Audra, professor at the
coUege of Toulouse, and a man of some reputation, published
the first volume of his Abridgment of General History. Beyond
this, the work never proceeded ; it was at once condemned by
the archbishop of the diocese, and the author was deprived of
Ms office. Audra, held up to public opprohrium, the whole of
his labour rendered useless, and the prospects of Ms Ufe sud
denly blighted, was unable to survive the shock. He was struck
yrith apoplexy, and within twenty-four hours was lying a corpse
in his own house.*"'
It wiU probably be aUowed that I have coUected sufficient
evidence to substantiate my assertion respecting the persecutions
directed against every description of Uterature ; but the careless
ness with wMch the antecedents of the French Eevolution have
heen studied has given rise to such erroneous opimons on this
subject, that I am anxious to add a few more instances, so as to
put beyond the possibility of doubt the nature of the provoca
tions habituaUy received by the most eminent Frenchmen of the
eighteenth century.
Among the many celebrated authors who, though inferior to
Voltaire, Montesquieu, Buffon, and Eousseau, were second only
to them, three of the most remarkable were Diderot, Marmontel,
and MoreUet. The first two are known to every reader ; wMle
MoreUet, though comparatively forgotten; had in his own time
considerable infiuence, and had, moreover, the distinguished
merit of being the first who popularized in France those great
truths wMch had been recently discovered, in political economy
by Adam Smith, and in jurisprudence by Beccaria.
A certain M. Cury wrote a satire upon the Duke d'Aumont,
which he showed to his friend, Marmontel, who, struck by its
power, repeated it to a small circle of his acquaintance. The
duke, hearing of this, was full of indignation, and insisted upon
the name of the author being given up. TMs, of course, was
impossible without a gross breach of confidence ; but Marmontel,
to do every tMng in his power, wrote to the duke, statmg, what
was really the fact, that the Unes in question had not heen printed,
that there was no intention of maMng them pubUc, and that
they had only been communicated to a few of his own particular
friends. It might have been supposed that this would have sat
isfied even a French noble ; but, Marmontel, still doubting the
" II resta trois ans dans la cage ; c'dst un caveau creuad dans le roc, de huit
pieds en carrd, oi le prisonnier ne refoit le jour que par les crevasses dea marches
Mt^^'^^-" ^^°S.- ^"*''- "'°^- ^'- P' I'^l-
Peignot, Uvres condamnk, vol i. pp. 14, 15.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 537
result, sought an audience of the minister, in the hope of pro
curing the protection of the crown. All, however, was in vain.
It wUl hardly he believed, that Marmontel, who was then at the
height of Ms reputation, was seized in the middle of Paris, and
because he refused to betray his fiiend, was thrown into the Bas
tiUe. Nay, so implacable were his persecutors, that after his
Uheration from prison, they, in the hope of reducing him to beg
gary, deprived him of the right of publishing the Mercure, upon
which nearly the whole of his income depended.*"*
To the Abh6 MoreUet a somewhat simUar circumstance oc
curred. A miserable scribbler, named Palissot, had written a
comedy ridiculing some of the ablest Frenchmen then living.
To tMs, MoreUet replied by a pleasant little satire, in which he
made a very harmless allusion to the Princess de Eobeck, one
of PaUssot's patrons. She, amazed at such presumption, com
plained to the mimster, who immediately ordered the abb6 to
he confined in the BastiUe, where he remamed for some months,
although he had not only been guilty of no scandal, but had not
even mentioned the name of the princess.*"'
The treatment of Diderot was stiU more severe. This
remarkable man owed Ms influence chiefly to his immense cor
respondence, and to the hrUUancy of a conversation for which,
even in Paris, he was unrivaUed, and which he used to display
yrith considerable effect at those celebrated dinners, where, dur
ing a quarter of a century, Holbach assembled the most Ulustri
ous thmkers in France.*"" Besides this, he is the author of
several works of interest, most of wMch are weU known to stu
dents of French Uterature.*"' His independent spirit, and the
reputation he obtained, earned for him a share in the general
"" Mimoires de Marmontel, vol ii. pp. 143-176; and see vol iii. pp. 30-46, 95,
for the treatment he afterwards received from the Sorbonne, because be advocated
reUgious toleration. See also (Euvres de Voltaire, vol Uv. p. 258 ; and Leiters of
Eminent Persons addressed to Hume, pp. 207, 212, 213.
"^ Mhn. de MoreUet, vol l pp. 86-89 ; Melanges par MoreUet, vol. U. pp. 3-12 ;
CEuvresde Voltaire, vol Uv. pp. 106, 111, 114, 122, 183.
™ Marmontel (Mhn. vol u. p. 313) says, " qui n'a connu Diderot que dana ses
dcrits ne I'a point connu :" meaning that his works were inferior to his talk. Hia con
versational powera are noticed by Sdgur, who diaUked him, aud by Georgel, who hated
hun. Slgur, Souvenirs, vol. iu. p. 34; Georgel, Mhn. vol. ii. p. 246. Compare
Forster's Ufe of Goldsmith, vol i. p. 69 ; Musset Pathay, Vie de Rousseau, vol. i. p.
95, vol. u. p. 227 ; Mhnoires dCEpinay, vol ii. pp. 73, 74, 88 ; Grimm, Corresp. vol
iv. pp. 7M0 ; MoreUet, Mhn. vol l p. 28 ; VUlemain, Ut. au XVIII' Sikle, vol i.
p. 82. As to Holbach's dinners, on which Madame de Genlis wrote a well-known libel,
see Schlosser's Eighteenth Century, vol i. p. 166 ; Biog. Univ. vol xx. p. 462 ;
Jesse's Selwyn, vol u. p. 9 ; Walpole's Utters to Mann, vol iv. p. 283 ; (ribbon's
Miscellaneous Works, p. 73.
'" It ia alao stated by the editor of his correspondence, that he wrote a great
deal for author?, which they pubUshed under their narae. Mlm. ei Corresp. de
Diderot, voh iu. p. 102.

538 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
persecution. The first work he wrote, was ordered to be pub-.
Ucly burned by the common hangman.*"' TMs, indeed, was the
fate of nearly all the best literary productions of that time ; and
Diderot might esteem himself fortunate in merely losing his prop
erty provided he saved Mmself from imprisonment. But, a few
years later, he wrote another work, in which he said that people
who are bom hUnd have some ideas different from those who are
possessed of their eyesight. This assertion is by no means im
probable,*"" and it contains nothing hy which any one need he
startled. The men, however, who then governed France, dis
covered in it some hidden danger. Whether they suspected that
the mention of blindness was an allusion to themselves, or
whether they were merely instigated hy the perversity of their
temper is uncertain ; at aU events, the unfortunate Diderot, for
ha'ring hazarded tMs opinion, was arrested, and without even the
form of a trial, was confined in the dungeon of Vincennes.*"
The natural results foUowed. The works of Diderot rose in
popularity ;*" and he, burmng yrith hatred against Ms persecu
tors, redoubled his efforts to overthrow those institutions, under
shelter of which such monstrous tyranny could he safely prac
tised. It seems hardly necessary to say more respecting the incredi-^
ble foUy with which the rulers of France, hy turmng every ahle
man into a personal enemy,*'* at length arrayed against the gov-
'"" This waa the Pensles Philosophiques, in 1746, his first original work ; the
previous ones being translations from EngUsh. Biog. Univ. xi. 314. Duvernet
( Vie de Voltaire, p. 240) says, that he waa impriaoned for writing it, but thia I be
lieve is a mistake ; at least I do not remember to have met with the stateraent else
where, and Duvernet is frequently careless.
*"" Dugald Stewart, who haa collected sorae iraportant evidence on this subject,
has confirraed several of the views put forward by Diderot. Philos. of the Mind,
vol Ui. pp. 401 seq. ; comp. pp. 57, 407, 485. Since then stiU greater attention haa
been paid to the education of the bUnd, and it haa been remarked that "it ia an ex
ceedingly difldcult task to teach thein to think accurately." M'Alister's Essay on the
Blind, in Jour, of Stat. Soc. vol. i. p. 378 ; see also Dr. Fowler, in Report of Brit,
Assoc, for 1847, T-ansac. of See. pp. 92, 93, and for 1848, p. 88. These passages
unconsciously testify to tbe sagacity of Diderot ; and they also testify to the stupid
ignorance of a government which sought to put an end to such inquiries by^punish-
ing their author.
*'" Mlm. et Corresp. de Diderot, vol. i. pp. 26-29 ; Musset Pathay, Vie de Rous
seau, vol i. p. 47, vol ii. p. 276 ; Letter to d'Argental, in CEuvres de Voltaire, vol
Ivul 464 ; Lacretelle, Dix-huitieme Sikle, vol ii. p. 54.
*" A happy arrangement, by which curiosity baffles despotism. In 1767, an
acute observer wrote, " II n'y a plus de livres qu'on imprime plusieurs fqjs, que les
livres condamnds. ll faut aujourd'hui qu'un Ubraire prie Ies magistrats de briiler
aon Uvre pour le faire vendre." (jfrimm, Corresp. vol. v. p. 498. To the same ef
fect, Mhn. de Slgur, vol. i. pp. 15, 16 ; IMhn. de Georgel, vol. ii. p. 266.
ST2 11 Qjjgj ggj. aujourd'hui parmi noua I'bomrae dea lettres de quelque mdrite qui
u'ait dprouvd plus ou moins les fureura de la calomnie et de la peradcution ?" etc.
Grimm, Corresp. vol. v. p. 451. This was written in 1767, and during raore than
forty years previously we find simUar expressions ; the earliest I have met with
being in a letter to Thiriot, in 1723, in which Voltaire says (OShtvres, vol. Ivi. p. 94),

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 539
ernment aU the inteUect of the country, and made the Eevolution
a matter, not of choice, but of necessity. I will, however, as a
fitting sequel to the preceding facts, give one instance of the way
in wMch, to gratify the caprice of the higher classes, even the
most private affections of domestic Ufe could be pubUcly out
raged. In the middle of the eighteenth century, there was an
actress on the French stage of the name of Chantilly. She,
though beloved by Maurice de Saxe, preferred a more honourable
attachment, and married Favart, the weU-known writer of songs
and of comic operas. Maurice, amazed at her boldness, applied
for aid to the French croyyn. That he should have made such
an appUcation is sufficiently strange ; hut the result of it is
hardly to he paraUeled except in some eastern despotism. The
government of France, on hearing the circumstance, had the in
conceivable baseness to issue an order directing Favart to aban
don his wffe, and intrust her to the charge of Maurice, to whose
embraces she was compelled to submit.*"
Tljese are among the insufferable provocations, by which the
blood of men is made to boU in their veins. Who can wonder
that the greatest and noblest nrinds m France were filled with
loathing at the government hy whom such tMngs were done ?
If we, notyrithstandmg the distance of time and country, are
moved to indignation by the mere mention of them, what must
have been felt by those before whose eyes they actually occurred ?
And when, to the horror they naturaUy inspired, there was added
that apprehension of being the next victim wMch every one
might personally feel ; when, moreover, we remember that the
authors of these persecutions had none of the ahiUties hy wMch
even rice itself is sometimes ennobled ; — when we thus contrast
the poverty of their understandings with the greatness of their
crimes, we, instead of being astonished that there was a revolu
tion, hy which aU the macMnery of the state was swept away,
should rather he amazed at that unexampled patience by which
alon.e the Eevolution was so long deferred.
To me, indeed, it has always appeared, that the delay of the
Eevolution is one of the most striMng proofs Mstory affords of
"lasdvdritd devient plua grande de jour en jour dana I'inquiaition de la Ubrairie.''
For other inatancea, see his letter to De Formont, pp. 423-425, also vol. IvU. pp. 144,
351, vol. IviU. p. 222 ; hia Utires inldites, vol l p. 647 ; Mhru de Diderot, vol. ii. p.
216; Letters of Eminent Persons to Hume, pp. 14, 15.
"" Part of this is related, rather inaccurately, in Schlosser's Eighteenth Century,
Vol. ui. p. 483. The fuUest account is in Grimm, Corresp, Ui. vol. viu. pp. 231-
233 : " Le grand Maurice, irritd d'une rdsistance qu'il n'avait jamais dprouvde nuUe
part, eut la faiblesse de demander une lettre de cachet pour enlever k un mari sa
femme, et pour la contraindre d'dtre sa concubine; et, choae remarquable, cette
lettre de cachet fut accordde et exdcutde. Lea deux dpoux pUereut aous le joug
de la ndcessitd, et la petite ChantiUy fut a la fois femme de Favart et maitresse de
Maurice de Saxe."

540 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
the force of established habits, and of the tenacity with which
the human mind cUngs to old associations. For, ff ever there
existed a government inherently and radicaUy had, it was the
government of France in the eighteenth century. If ever there ex
isted a state of society, likely by its crymg and accumulated evUs,
, to madden men to desperation, France was in that state. The
people, despised and enslaved, were sunk in abject poverty, and
were curbed by laws of stringent cruelty, enforced yrith mercUess
barbarism. A supreme and irresponsible control was exercised
' over the whole country by the clergy, the nobles, and the crown.
The intellect of France was placed under the ban of a ruthless
proscription, its Uterature prohibited and burned, its authors
plundered and imprisoned. Nor was there the least symptom
that these evils were likely to be remedied. The upper classes,
whose arrogance was increased by the long tenure of their power,
only thought of present enjoyment : they took no heed of the
future ; they saw not that day of reckoning, the bitterness of
which they were soon to experience. The people remamed in
slavery untU the Eevolution actually occurred ; wMle, as to the
literature, nearly every year yritnessed some new effort, to deprive
it of that share of Uberty which it stUl retained. Having, in
1764, issued a decree forbidding any work to be pubUshed in
which questions of government were discussed;*'* having, in
1767, made it a capital offence to write a hook Ukely to excite
the pubUc mind ;*" and haring, moreover, denounced the same
penalty of death against any one who attacked reUgion,*" as also
against any one who spoke of matters of finance ;*" — ^having
taken these steps, the rulers of France, very shortly before their
final fall, contemplated another measure still more comprehensive.
It is, indeed, a singular fact, that only nine years hefore the Eevo-
"''* " L'Averdy waa no sooner named controUer of finance than he published a
decree, in 1764 (arr^i du eonseil), — ^which, according to the state of the then ex
isting conatitution, had the force of a law, — ^by which every man waa forbidden to
print, or cauae to be printed, any thing whatever upon adminiatrative affaira, or
government regulations in general, imder the penalty of a breach of the police-
laws ; by which the man was Uable to be punished without defence, and not as
was the case before the law-courts, where be might defend himself, and could
only be judged according to law." Schlosser's Eighteenth Century, vol. ii. p. 166 :
aee alao Mlm. de MoreUet, vol. I p. 141, vol. ii. p. 75, " un arret du conseU, qui dd-
fendait d'imprimer sur les matidres d'adminiatration."
^" " L'ordonnance de 1767, rendue soua le ministdre du chancelier Maupeou,
portait la peine de moi-t contre tout auteur d'dcrits tendant a draouvoir lea eaprits."
Cassaanac, Causes des la Rlvolution, vol. i. p. 313.
"' In April, 1757, D'Alerabert writes from Paria, " on vient de publier une
ddclaration qui inflige la peine de mort k tous ceux qui auront publid des dcrits
teudanta k attaquer la reUgion." (Euvres de Voltaire, vol. Uv. p. 34. This, I sup
pose, is the same edict as that raentioned by M. Araddde Eende, in his continuation
of Sismondi, Histoire des Frangais, vol. xxx. p. 247.
'"' " II avait dtd ddfendu, soua peine de raort, aux dcrivains de parler dc finan
ces." LavaUle, Hist, des Frangais, vol. iU. p. 490.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 541
lution, and when no power on earth could have saved the institu
tions of the country, the govemment was so ignorant of the real
state of affairs, and so confident that it could quell the spirit
wMch its own despotism had raised, that a proposal was made by
an officer of the crown to do away with all the publishers, and
not allow any hooks to he printed except those which issued from
a press paid, appointed, and controUed by the executive magis
trate.*" This monstrous proposition, if carried into effect, would
of course have invested the king with all the influence which lit
erature can command ; it would have heen as fatal to the na
tional intellect as the other measures were to national liberty ;
and it would have consummated the ruin of France, either by re
ducing its greatest men to complete sUence, or else by degrading
them into mere advocates of those opinions which the government
might wish to propagate.
For these are by no means to be considered as trifling mat
ters, merely interesting to men of letters. In France, in the
eighteenth century, Uterature was the last resource of Uberty.
In England, ff our great authors should prostitute their ahiUties
by inculcating servile opimons, the danger would no doubt be
considerahle, because other parts of society imght find it difficult
to escape the contagion. StiU, before the corruption had spread,
there would he time to stop its course, so long as we possessed
those free poUtical institutions, by the mere mention of which the
generous imagmation of a hold people is easUy fired. And al
though such institutions are the consequence, not the cause, of
liberty, they do unquestionably react upon it, and from the force
of habit they could for a whUe survive that from which they origi
naUy sprang. So long as a country retains its poUtical free
dom, there yvUl always remain associations hy wMch, even in the
midst of mental degradation, and out of the depths of the lowest
superstition, the minds of men may he recalled to better things.
But in France such associations had no existence. In France
every tMng was for the governors, and notMng for the governed.
There was neither free press, nor free parUament, nor free de-
hates. There were no puhUc meetings ; there was no popular
suffrage ; there was no discussion on the hustings ; there was no
habeas-corpus act; there was no trial by jury. The voice of liber
ty, thus sUenced in every department of the state, coiUd only be
heard in the appeals of those great men who, by their writings,
mspirited the people to resistance. This is the point of view
"' This was the suggestion of the avocat-gdndral in 1780. See tbe proposal,
in hia own worda, in Grimm, Correspond, vol. xi. pp. 143, 144. On the iraportant
functiona of the avocata-gdndraux in the eighteenth century, see a note in Uttres
d Aguesseau, vol. i. p. 264.

542 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
from which we ought to estimate the character of those who are
often accused of having wantonly disturbed the ancient fabric.*'"
They, as well as the people at large, were crueUy oppressed by
the crown, the nobles, and the church ; and they used their
abUities to retaliate the injury. There can he no douht that tMs
was the best course open to them. There can he no doubt that
rebellion is the last remedy against tyranny, and that a despotic
system should be encountered by a revolutionary Uterature, . The
upper classes were to blame, because they strack the first blow ;
but we must hy no means censure those great men, who, having
defended themselves from aggression, eventuaUy succeeded in
smiting the government hy whom the aggression was originally
made. Without, however, stopping to vindicate their conduct, we
have now to consider what is much more important, namely, the
origin of that crusade against Christianity, in wMch, unhappUy
for France, they were compeUed to embark, and the occurrence
of which forms the third great antecedent of the French Eevolu
tion. A knowledge of the causes of this hostUity against Chris
tianity is essential to a right understanding of the philosophy of
the eighteenth century, and it wiU throw some Ught on the gene
ral theory of ecclesiastical power.
It is a circumstance well worthy of remark, that the revolu
tionary Uterature which eventuaUy overturned all the institutions
of France, was at first directed against those which were reUg
ious, rather than against those which were poUtical. The great
writers who rose into notice soon after the death of Louis XIV.,
exerted themselves against spiritual despotism ; whUe the over
throw of secular despotism was left to their immediate succes
sors.*'" TMs is not the course wMch would be pursued in a
healthy state of society ; and there is no doubt, that to this pe-
*'" And we should also remenber what the circumataneea were under which
the accuaation waa first heard in France : " Les reproohes d'avoir tout ddtruit,
adressds aux philosophes du dix-huitidme sidcle, ont commencd le jour oi il s'eflt
trouvd en France un gouvernement qui a voulu rdtabUr les abus dont les dcrivains
de cette dpoque avaient acceldrd la destruction." Comte, Traiti de Legislation,
voh j. p. 72.
"'" The nature of this change, and the circumstances under which it happened,
wiU be examined in the last chapter of the present volume ; but that the revolu
tionary movement, while headed by Voltaire and his coadjutors, was directed against
the church, and not against the state, is noticed by many writers ; some of whom
have also observed, that soon after the middle of the reign of Louis XV. the ground
began to be shifted, aud a disposition was first ahown to attack poUtioal abuses. On
this remarkable fact, indicated by several authors, but explained by none, compare
Laeretelle, XVIII' Sikle, voh ii. p. 306 ; Barruel, Mem, pour VHist du Jacobinlmiw,
vol. L p. xviu., vol U. p. 113 ; TocqueviUe, E Ancien Regime, p. 241 ; Alison's Eu
rope, vol i. p. 165, vol xiv. p. 286 ; Mhn. de Rivarol, p. 85 ; Soulavie, Regne do Louis
XVI, vol. iv, p. 397 ; Lamartine, Hist, des Girondins, vol i, p. 183 ; CEmres de Vol-
" "¦ I vol Ix. p. 807, vol Ixvl p. 34.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 543
cuUarity the crimes and the lawless violence of tho French Eev
olution are in no small degree to be ascribed. It is evident,
that in the legitimate progress of a nation, political innovations
should keep pace with reUgious innovations, so that the people
may increase their liberty whUe they diminish their superstition.
In France, on the contrary, during nearly forty years, the church
was attacked, and the government was spared. The consequence
was, that the order and balance of the country were destroyed ;
the minds of men became habituated to the most daring specu
lations, whUe their acts were controUed hy the most oppressive
despotism ; and they felt themselves possessed of capacities
which their rulers would not allow them to employ. When,
therefore, the French Eevolution broke out, it was not a mere
rismg of ignorant slaves against educated masters, but it was a
rising of men in whom the despair caused hy slavery was qmck-
ened by the resources of advancing knowledge ; men who were
in that frightful condition when the progress of mteUect outstrips
the progress of Uberty, and when a desire is felt, not only to re
move a tyranny, but also to avenge an insult.
There can he no doubt that to tMs we must ascribe some of
the most hideous peculiarities of the French Eevolution. It,
therefore, becomes a matter of great interest to inquire how it
"was, that whUe in England poUtical freedom and religious scep
ticism have accompanied and aided each other, there should, on
the other hand, have taken place in France a vast movement, in
wHch, during nearly forty years, the ablest men neglected the
freedom, whUe they encouraged the scepticism, and diminished
the power of the church, without increasing the Uberties of the
people. The first reason of this appears to be, the nature of those
ideas out of wMch the French Jiad long constructed the tradi
tions of their glory. A train of circumstances wMch, when treat
ing of the protective spirit, I attempted to indicate, had secured
to the French Mngs an authority wMch, by making all classes
subordinate to the crown, flattered the popular vanity.*" Hence
it was, that in France the feeUngs of loyalty worked into the
national mind deeper than in any other country of Europe, Spain
alone excepted.*"* The difference between this spirit and that
'" See aome atriking remarks in M. TocqUeville's great work, De la Democratic,
vol I p. 5 ; which should be compared with the observation of Horace Walpole,
who was weU acquainted with French society, and who says, happily enough, that
the French " love themselves iu their kinga." Walpole's Mem, of George III, vol
il p. 240.
"' Not only the political history of Spain, but also ita literature, oontaina melan
choly evidence of the extraordinary loyalty of tbe Spaniarda, and of the injurious
results produced by it. See, on this, eome useful reflections in Ticknor's Hist, of
Spanish Uterature, vol l pp. 95, 96, 133, vol. iU. pp. 191-193.

544 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
observable in England has been already noticed, and may be stiU
further iUustrated by the different ways in wMch the two na
tions have dealt with the posthumous reputation of their sover
eigns. With the exception of Alfred, who is sometimes caUed
the Great,*" we in England have not sufficiently loved any of
our princes to bestow upon them titles expressive of personal ad
miration. But the French have decorated their Mngs "with every
variety of panegyric. Thus, to take only a single name, one
kmg is Louis the Mild, another is Louis the Samt, another is
Louis the Just, another is Louis the Great, and the most hope
lessly vicious of aU was caUed Louis the Beloved.
These are facts wMch, insignificant as they seem, form most
important materials for real Mstory, smce they are unequivocal
symptoms of the state of the country in wMch they exist.*"*
Their relation to the subject before us is obrious. For, by them,
and hy the circumstances from which they sprung, an intimate
and hereditary association was engendered in the minds of French
men between the glory of their nation and the personal reputa
tion of their sovereign. The consequence was, that the poUtical
conduct of the rulers of France was protected against censure by
a fence far more impassable than any that could he erected hy
the most stringent laws. It was protected by those prejudices
which each generation bequeathed to its successor. It was pro
tected by that halo wMch , time had thrown round the oldest
*"' Our admiration of Alfred ia greatly increaaed by the fact, that we know very
little about hira. The principal authority referred to for hia reign ia Asser, whose
work, there ia reaaon to beUeve, ia not genuine. See the arguments in Wright's
Biog. Brit, iii., vol. i. pp. 408-412. It moreover appeara, that some ofthe institu
tions popularly ascribed to bim, existed before his time. Kemble's Saxons in Eng
land, vol. l pp. 247, 248.
'"* The French writers, under the old rdgime, constantly boast that loyalty was
the characteristic of their nation, and taunt the EngUsh with their opposite and
insubordinate spirit. "II n'est pas ici (Juestion des Franjais, qui se sont toujoura
diatinguda ides autres nations par leur amour pour leurs rois." U Blanc, Utires dun
Franpois, voh iu. p. 523. " The EngUsh do not love their sovereigns as much as
could be desired." Sorbiere's' Voyage to England, p. 58. " Le respect de la majestd
royale, caractdre distinctif des Franfais." Mlm. de Montbarey, vol U. p. 64.
" L'amour et la fiddUtd que lea Frangais ont natureUement pour leurs princes." Mhn.
de MottevUle, vol. ii. p. 3. "Les Franfais, qui aiment leurs princes." De Thou, Hist.
Univ. vol. iU. p. 381; and see vol. xi. p. 729. For further evidence, see Sully,
CEconomies, vol. iv. p. 346 ; Monteil, Divers Etats, vol. vii. p. 106 ; Slgur, Mhnoires,
vol. i. p. 32 ; Lamartine, Hist, des Girondins, vol iv. p. 58.
Now, contrast with all this the sentiraents contained in one of the most celebrated
histories in the English language : " There is not any one thing more certain and
more evident, than that princes are made for the people, and not the people for
them ; and perhaps there is no nation under heaven that is more entirely possessed
with thia notion of princea than the Engliah nation ia in this age ; so that they wUl
soon be uneasy to a prince who doea not govern himaelf by thia maxim, and in time
grow very unkind to him." Burnets History of his Own Time, vol vi. p. 223. This
manly and wholesome passage was written while tbe French were Ucking the dust
from the feet of Louis XIV.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 545
monarchy in Europe.*" And above all, it was protected by that
miserable national vanity, wMch made men submit to taxation
and to slavery, in order that foreign princes might be dazzled by
the splendour of their sovereign, and foreign countries intimi
dated by the greatness of his -rictories.
The upshot of aU tMs was, that when, early in the eigh
teenth century, the inteUect of France began to he roused into
action, the idea of attacMng the abuses of the monarchy never
occurred even to the boldest thinker. But, under the protection
of the crown, there had grown up another institution, ahout which
less deUcacy was felt. The clergy, who for so long a period had
been aUowed to oppress the consciences of men, were not shel
tered by those national associations wMch surrounded the person
of the sovereign ; nor had any of them, -with the single excep
tion of Bossuet, done much to increase the general reputation of
France. Indeed, the French church, though during the reign of
Louis XIV. it possessed immense authority, had always exer
cised it in subordination to the crown, at whose bidding it had
not feared to oppose even the pope himself.*"" It was, therefore,
natural, that in France the ecclesiastical power should be at
tacked before the temporal power ; because, whUe it was as des
potic, it was less influential, and because it was unprotected by
those popular traditions wMch form the principal support of
every ancient mstitution.
These considerations are sufficient to explain why it was that,
in tMs respect, the French and EngUsh inteUects adopted courses
so entirely different. In England, the minds of men, being less
hampered yrith the prejudices of an indiscriminate loyalty, have
heen able at each successive step in the great progress to direct
their doubts and inquiries on poUtics as well as on reUgion ; and
thus estabUshing their freedom, as they dimmished their super
stition, they have maintamed the balance of the national intel
lect, without aUowing to either of its dirisions an excessive pre
ponderance. But in France the admiration for royalty had be
come so great, that tMs balance was- disturbed ; the inquiries of
"La race des rois la plua ancienne." Mhn. de Genlis, vol. ix. p. 281. "Noa
rois,_is8us de la plua grande race du monde, et devant qui lea Cdsars, et la plus grande
partie dea princes qui jadia ont commaudd tant de nations, ne sont que des roturi
ers. ' Mtm. de MottevUle, vol. U. p. 417. And a. Venetian ambassador, in the six
teenth century, says, that France " d regno piu antico d'ogn' altro che sia in essere
al presente." Relat: des Ambassad. vol i. p. 470. Compare BouUier, Maison Mili
taire des Rois de France, p. 360.
'!! Capefigue's Louis XIV, vol i. pp. 204, 301 ; Koch, Tableau des Rlvolutions,
vol u. p. 16. M. Ranke (Die Papste, vol ii. p. 257) ascribea thia to the circum
stances attending the apostasy of Henry IV. ; but the cause Ues rauch deeper, being
connected with that triuraph of the aecular interests over the spiritual, of which the
poUcy of Henry IV. was itaelf a consequence.
VOL. I.— 35

546 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
men not daring to settle on politics, were fixed on reUgion, and
gave rise to the singular phenomenon of a rich and powerfiU lit
erature, in which unanimous hostiUty to the church waB unac
companied by a single voice agamst the enormous abuses of the
state. There was Ukeyrise another circumstance, wMch increased
this pecuUar tendency. During the reign of Louis XIV. the
personal character of the hierarchy had done much to secure
their dommion. All the leaders of the church were men of
virtue, and many were men of ahUity. Their conduct, tyran
nical as it was, seems to have been conscientious ; and the e-rils
wMch it produced are merely to be ascribed to the gross impoUcy
of intrusting ecclesiastics with power. But after the death of
Louis XIV. a great change took place. The clergy, from causes
which it would be tedious to investigate, became extremely disso
lute, and often very ignorant. TMs made their tyranny more
oppressive, because to submit to it was more disgraceful. The
great ahUities and unblemished morals of men Uke Bossuet, F6n-
61on, Bourdaloue, FlecMer, and Mascaron, diminished m some
degree the ignominy wMch is always connected yrith blind obe
dience. But when they were succeeded by such bishops and
cardinals as Dubois, Lafiteau, Tencin, and others who fiour
ished under the regency, it became difficult to respect the heads
of the church, tamted as they were -with open and notorious de
pravity.*" At the same time that there occurred tMs unfavour
able change among the ecclesiastical rulers, there also occurred
that immense reaction of wMch I have endeavoured to trace the
early worMngs. It was, therefore, at the very moment when the
spirit of inquiry became stronger, that the character of the clergy
became more contemptible.*" The great writers who were now
rising in France, were moved to indignation when they saw that
those who usurped unUnuted power over consciences had them
selves no consciences at aU. It is evident, that every argument
which they borrowed from England against ecclesiastical power,
*" LavaUle, Hist, des Frangais, vol. iU. p. 408 ; Flassan, Hist, de la Diplomatie,
vol. V. p. 3 ; Tocqiievillc, Rlgne de Louis XV, vol. i. pp. 85, 347 ; Duclos, Mhnoires,
vol. U. pp. 42, 43, 154, 155, 223, 224. What was, if possible, stUl more scandalous,
was, that in 1723 the assembly of the clergy elected as their president, unanimously
(" d'une voix unanime "), the infamous Dubois, the most notoriously immoral man
of hia time. Duclos, Mhn. vol ii. p. 262.
"" On thia decUne of the French clergy, aee Villemain, XVIII' Sikle, voh iu.
pp. 178, 179 ; Cousin, Hist, de la Philos. II. adrie, vol i. p. 301. TocqueviUe (Regne
de Louis XV, vol l pp. 35-38, 365) says, " le clergd prdchait une morale qu'U
compromettait par sa conduite ;" a noticeable remark, when made by an opponent
of the sceptical philosophy, like the elder M. TocqueviUe. Among this profligate
crew, MaasUlon atood alone ; he being the last French bishop who was remarkable
for virtue as weU as for ability.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 547
would gain additional force when directed against men whose
personal unfitness was universaUy acknowledged.*""
Such was the position of the rival parties, when, almost im
mediately after the death of Louis XlV., there began that great
struggle between authority and reason, which is stUI unfinished,
although in the present state of knowledge its result is iio longer
doubtful. On the one side there was a compact and numerous
priesthood, supported hy the prescription of centuries and by the
authority of the crown. On the other side there was a small
body of men, yrithout rank, without wealth, and as yet without
reputation, but animated by a love of liberty and by a just con
fidence in their own abiUties. Unfortunately, they at the very
outset committed a serious error. In attacMng the clergy, they
lost their respect for reUgion. In their determination to weaken
ecclesiastical power, they attempted to undermine the founda
tions of Christianity. TMs is deeply to be regretted for their own
sake, as well as for its ultimate effects in France ; but it must
not be imputed to them as a crime, since it was forced on them
hy the exigencies of their position. They saw the frightful evUs
wMch their country was suffering from the institution of priest
hood as it then existed ; and yet they were told that the preserva
tion of that institution in its actual form was essential to the
very being of Christianity. They had always heen taught that
the interests of the clergy were identical with the interests of re
Ugion ; how, then, could they avoid including both clergy and
religion in the same hostility ? The alternative was cruel ; hut
it was one from wMch, in common honesty, they had no escape.
We, judging these things by another standard, possess a meas
ure wMch they could not possibly have. We should not now
commit such an error, because we know that there is no con
nexion between any one particular form of priesthood and the
interests of Christianity. We know that the clergy are made for
the people, and not the people for the clergy. We know that
all questions of church-government are matters, not of religion,
hut of poUcy, and should be settled, not according to traditional
dogmas, but according to large views of general expediency. It
IS because these propositions are now admitted by aU enlightened
men, that in our country the truths of reUgion are rarely attacked
except hy superficial tMnkers. If, for instance, we were to find
Voltaire says of the EngUsh, " quand ils apprennent qu'en France de jeunes
gens connuB par leurs ddbauches, et dlevds k la prdlature par dea intrigues de
femmes, font publiquement I'araour, a'dgaient k corapoaer dea chanaona tendrea,
donnent toua lea joura des aoupera ddUcata et longs, et de Ih. vont implorer les lumi
eres du Samt-Esprit, et ae nomment hardiraent lea successeurs des apotres; ils
remercient Dieu d'dtre protestants." Lettres swr les Anglais, iu CEuvres, vol. xxvi.
p. 29.

548 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
that the existence of our bishops, with their pri-rileges and their
wealth, is unfavourable to the progress of society, we should not
t»n that account feel enmity against Christiamty ; hecause we
should remember that episcopacy is its accident, and not its es
sential, and that we could do away yrith the institution, and yet
retain the reUgion. In the same way, ff we should ever find,
what was formerly found in France, that the clergy were tyran
nical, this would excite in us an opposition, not to Christianity,
hut merely to the external form wMch Christianity assumed.
So long as our clergy confine themselves to the beneficent duties
of their caUing, to the aUeviation of pain and distress, either
bodUy or mental, so long wUl we respect them as the ministers
of peace and of charity. But if they should ever again entrench
on the rights of the laity, — if they should ever agam interfere
with an authoritative voice in the govemment of the state, — ^it
wUl then be for the people to inquire, whether the time has not
come to effect a rerision of the ecclesiastical constitution of the
country. " This, therefore, is the manner in wMch we now view
these things. What we tMnk of the clergy wUl depend upon
themselves ; but yriU have no connexion with what we thmk of
Christianity. We look on the clergy as a body of men who, not
yrithstanding their disposition to intolerance, and notwithstand
ing a certain narrowness incidental to their profession, do un
doubtedly form a part of a vast and nohle institution, by wMch
the manners of men have been softened, their sufferings assuaged,
their distresses relieved. As long as this institution performs its
functions, we are weU content to let it stand. If, however, it
should he out of repair, or if it should he found inadequate to the
sMfting circumstances of an advancing society, we retain both
the power and the right of remedying its faults ; we may, ff need
be, remove some of its parts ; hut we would not, we dare not,
tamper vrith those great reUgious truths wMch are altogether in
dependent of it ; truths wMch comfort the mind of man, raise
Mm above the instincts of the hour, and infuse into Mm those
lofty aspirations which, reveaUng to Mm his own immortaUty,
are the measure and the symptom of a future Ufe.
Unfortunately, this , was not the way in which these matters
were considered in France. The government of that country, by
investing the clergy with great immunities, hy treating them as
if there were somethmg sacred about their persons, and hy pun
ishing as heresy the attacks which were made on them, had
established in the national mind an indissoluble connexion be
tween their interests and the interests of Christianity. The con-
seq_uence was, that when the struggle began, the ministers of
reUgion, and religion itseff were both assaUed with equal zeal.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 549
The ridicule, and even the abuse, heaped on the clergy, will sur
prise no one who is acquainted yrith the provocation that had
been received. And although, in the indiscriminate onslaught
winch soon foUowed, CMistianity was, for a time, subjected to a
fete wMch ought to have been reserved for those who caUed
themselves her ministers ; tMs, whUe it moves us to regret, ought
by no means to excite our astomshment. The destruction of
Christiamty in France was the necessary result of those opinions
wHch hound up the destiny of the national priesthood with the
destiny of the national reUgion. If both were connected by the
same origin, both should faU in the same ruin. If that which is
the tree of Ufe, were, in reaUty, so corrupt that it could only
hear poisonous fruits, then it avaUed Uttle to lop off the boughs
and cut down the branches ; but it were better, by one mighty
effort, to root it up from the ground, and secure the health of
society by stopping the very source of the contagion.
These are reflections wMch must make us pause before we
censure the deistical writers of the eighteenth century. So per
verted, however, are the reasomngs to which some minds are ac
customed, that those who judge them most uncharitably are
precisely those whose conduct forms their best excuse. Such are
the men who, hy putting forth the most extravagant claims in
favour of the clergy, are seeMng to establish the principle, by the
operation of wMch the clergy were destroyed. Their scheme for
restoring the old system of ecclesiastical authority, depends on
the supposition of its divine origm ; a supposition which, if in
separable from Christiamty, wUl at once justify the infideUty
wMch they hotly attack. The increase of the power of the clergy
is incompatible with the interests of civiUzation. If, therefore, any
reUgion adopts as its creed the necessity of such an increase, it
becomes the bounden duty of every friend to humanity to do his
utmost, either to destroy the creed, or, faiUng in that, to over
turn the reUgion. If pretensions of this sort are an essential part
of Christiamty, it behoves us at once to make our choice ; since
the only option can he, between abjuring our faith, or sacrificing
our Uberty. Fortunately, we are not driven to so hard a strait ;
and we Imow that these claims are as false in theory, as they
Would be pernicious in practice. It is, indeed, certain, that if
they were put into execution, the clergy, though they might enjoy
a momentary triumph, would have consummated their own ruin,
hy preparmg the way among us for scenes as disastrous as those
which occurred in FranCe.
The trath is, that what is most blamed in the great French
writers, was the natural consequence ofthe development of their
age. Never was there a more striking illustration of the social

550 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
law already noticed, that, if govemment wiU allow reUgious
scepticism to run its course, it wUl issue in great things, and
wUl hasten the march of civiUzation ; but that, ff an attempt is
made to put it down with a strong hand, it may, no douht, be
repressed for a time, but eventuaUy will rise with such force as to
endanger the foundation of society. In England, we adopted the
first of these courses ; in France, they adopted the second. In
England men were aUowed to exercise their own judgment on
the most sacred subjects ; and, as soon as the diminution of
their credulity had made them set hounds to the power of the
clergy, toleration immediately foUowed, and the national pros
perity has never heen disturbed. In France, the authority of
the clergy was increased by a superstitious Mng ; faith usurped
the place of reason, not a wMsper of douht was aUowed to be
heard, and the spirit of inquiry was stified, until the country fell
to the brink of ruin. If Louis XIV. had not interfered with
the natural progress, France, Uke England, would have con
tinued to advance. After his death, it was, indeed, too late to
save the clergy, against whom all the inteUect of the nation was
soon arrayed. But the force of the storm might stiU have heen
hroken, if the govemment of Louis XV. had concUiated what it
was impossible to resist ; and, instead of madly attempting to
restrain opimons by laws, had altered the laws to suit the opm-
ions. If the rulers of France, instead of exerting themselves to
silence the national Uterature, had yielded to its suggestions, and
had receded before the pressure of advancing knowledge, the fa
tal collision would have heen avoided; because the passions
which caused the coUision would have been appeased. In such
case, the church would have faUen somewhat earUer ; hut the
state itself would have been saved. In such case, France would,
in all prohabiUty, have secured her liberties, yrithout increasing
her crimes ; and that great country, which, from her position and
resources, ought to he the pattern of European civiUzation, might
have escaped the ordeal of those terrible atrocities, through wMch
she was compeUed to pass, and from the effects of wMch she has
not yet recovered.
It must, I think, he admitted that, during, at all events, the
first half of the reign of Louis XV., it was possible, hy timely
concessions, stiU to preserve the poUtical institutions of France.
Eeforms there must have heen ; and reforms too of a large and
uncompromising character. So far, however, as I am able to
understand the real Mstory of that period, I make no douht that,
ff these had heen granted in a frank and ungrudging spirit, every
tMng could have been retained necessary for the only two objects
at which govemment ought to aim, namely, the preservation of

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 551
order, and the prevention of crime. But, hy the middle of the
reign of Louis XV., or, at all events, immediately afterwards,
the state of affairs began to alter ; and, in the course of a few
years, the spirit of France became so democratic, that it was im
possible even to delay a revolution, which, in the preceding gene
ration, imght have been altogether averted. This remarkable
change is connected yrith that other change already noticed, by
rirtue of which, the French inteUect began, ahout the same pe
riod, to direct its hostiUty against the state, rather than, as
heretofore, against the church. As soon as tMs, which may ho
caUed the second epoch of the eighteenth century, had been
fahly entered, the movement became irresistible. Event after
event foUowed each other in rapid succession ; each one linked
to its antecedent, and the whole forming a tendency impossible
to withstand. It was in vain that the government, yielding
some pomts of real importance, adopted measures by wMch the
church was contrtJled^sthe power of the clergy diminished, and
even the order of the JSfeuits suppressed. It was in vain that
the crown now caUed to its counSls, for ~the first time, men im
bued with the spirit of reform ; men, like TPurgot and Necker,
whose wise and Uberal proposals would, in calmer days, have
stiUed the agitation of the popular mind. It was in vam that
promises were made to equaUze the taxes, to redress some of the
most crying grievances, to repeal some of the most obnoxious
laws. It was even in vain that the states-general were summon
ed ; and that thus, after the lapse of one hundred and seventy
years, the people were agam admitted to take part in the man
agement of their oyvn affairs. AU these things were in vain ; he-
cause the time for treaty had gone hy, and the time for battle had
come. The most Uberal concessions that could possibly have
been devised would have failed to avert that deadly struggle,
which the course of preceding events made inevitable. For the
measure of that age was now fuU. The upper classes, intoxi
cated by the long possession of power, had provoked the crisis ;
and it was needful that they should abide the issue. There was
no time for mercy ; there was no pause, no compassion, no sym
pathy. The only question that remained was, to see whether
they who had raised the storm could ride the whirlwind ; or,
whether it was not rather Ukely that they should he the first vic
tims of that frightful hurricane, in which, for a moment, laws,
reUgion, morals, aU perished, the. lowest vestiges of humanity
were effaced, and the civUization of France not only submerged,
hut, as it then appeared, irretrievably ruined.
To ascertain the successive changes of this, the second epoch
of the eighteenth century, is an undertaMng full of difficulty ;

552 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
not only on account of the rapidity with wMch the events oc
curred hut also on account of their extreme comphcation, and
of the' way in wMch they acted and reacted upon each other.
The materials, however, for such an inquiry are very numerous ;
and as they consist of evidence suppUed hy aU classes and all
interests, it has appeared to me possible to reconsthict the Ms
tory of that time, according to the only manner in wMch history
deserves to be studied ; that is to say, according to the order of
its social and inteUectual development. In the concluding chap
ter of the present volume, I shaU, therefore, attempt to trace
the antecedents of the French Eevolution during that remark
able period, in which the hostiUty of men, slackening in regard
to the abuses of the church, was, for the first time, turned agamst
the abuses of the state. But, before entermg into this, which
may be distinguished as the poUtical epoch of the eighteenth cen
tury, it yvUl be necessary, according to the plan which I have
sketched, to examine the changes that occurred in the method
of writing history, and to indicate the way m which those changes
were affected by the tendencies of the earUer, or, as it may be
termed, the ecclesiastical epoch. In tMs manner, we shaU the
more easUy understand the activity of that prodigious movement
which led to the French Eevolution ; hecause we shaU see that
it not only affected the opinions of men in regard to what was
passmg under their eyes, hut that it also biassed their specula
tive views in regard to the events of preceding ages ; and thus
gave rise to that new school of historical Uterature, the formation
of wMch is hy no means the least of the many benefits wMch we
owe to the great thinkers of the eighteenth century.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 553

CHAPTER XIII.
STATE OF HISTOEIOAL LITEEATUEE IN FRANCE FEOM THE END OF THE SIX- ,
TEiarTH TO THE END OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTDET.
It may be easUy supposed, that those vast movements in the in
teUect of France, which I have just traced, could not faU to pro
duce a great change in the method of writing history. That
bold spirit yrith wMch men were heginmng to estimate the
transactions of their oyvn time, was sure to influence their opin
ions respectmg those of a former age. In this, as in every branch
of knowledge, the first mnovation consisted in recognizing the
necessity of doubtmg what had Mtherto heen heUeved ; and this
feeling, when once estabUshed, went on increasing, destroying at
each step some of those monstrous absurdities hy which, as we
have seen, even the best Mstories were disfigured. The germs of
the reform may be discemed in the fourteenth century, though
the reform itseff did not begin until late in the sixteenth century.
During the seventeenth century, it advanced somewhat slowly ;
but in the eighteenth century it received a sudden accession of
strength, and, m France, in particular, it was hastened by that
fearless and mqmsitive spirit which characterized the age, and
wMch, purging Mstory of innumerable foUies, raised its standard,
and conferred on it a dignity hitherto unknoyyn. The rise of
Mstorical scepticism, and the extent to wMch it spread, do indeed
form such curious features in the annals of the European intel
lect, as to make it surprising that no one should have attempted
to examine a movement to wMch a great department of modern
literature owes its most valuable peculiarities. In the present
chapter, I hope to supply this deficiency so far as France is con
cerned ; and I shall endeavour to mark the different steps by
which the progress was effected, in order that, by knowing the
circumstances most favourable -to the study of history, we may
with the greater ease mquire mto the probabUity of its future
improvement. There is, in reference to this subject, a preUminary consider
ation weU worthy of notice. TMs is, that men seem always to

554 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
have begun to doubt in matters of religion, hefore they ventured
to do so in matters of Mstory. It might have heen expected
that the reproaches, and, in a superstitious age, the dangers, to
wMch heresy is exposed, would have intimidated inquirers, and
would have induced them to prefer the safer path of directing
their scepticism upon questions of literary speculation. Such,
however, is by no means the course wMch the human mind has
adopted. In an early stage of society, when the clergy had uni
versal influence, a belief in the unpardonable criminaUty of re
ligious error is so deeply rooted, that it engrosses the attention
of all ; it forces every one who thinks, to concentrate upon theol
ogy Ms reflections and Ms doubts, and it leaves no leisure for
topics which are conceived to he of inferior importance.' Hence,
during many centuries, the subtlest inteUects of Europe exhausted
their strength on the rites and dogmas of Christianity; and wMle
upon these matters they often showed the greatest ahUity, they,
upon other subjects, and especiaUy upon Mstory, displayed that
infantine credulity, of which I have already given several ex
amples. But when, in the progress of society, its theological element
begins to decay, the ardour with which religious disputes were
once conducted becomes sensibly weakened. The most advanced
inteUects are the first to feel the groyring indifference, and, there
fore, they are also the first to scrutinize real events with that m-
quisitive eye which their predecessors had reserved for religious
speculations. TMs is a great turning-point in the history of
every civiUzed nation. From tMs moment theological heresies
become less frequent,* and Uterary heresies become more common.
From tMs moment, the spirit of inquiry and of douht fastens it
self upon every department of knowledge, and begins that great
career of conquest, in which by every succeeding discovery the
' See some very just remarks in WhewelVs Philos. of the Indue. Sciences, vol. u.
p. 143. In Neander's Hist of ihe Church, vol iv. pp. 41, 128, there are two curious
iUustrations of the universal interest which theological diacuasions once inspired in
Europe ; and on the former subaervience of phUoaophy to theology, compare^ Ham
ilton's Discussions on Philosophy, p. 197. But no one has treated this subject so
ably as M. Auguste Comte, in Ua great work, Philosophie Positive. The aervice
which the metaphyaiciana rendered to the church by their development of the doc
trine of tranaubstantiation (BlancoWhite's Evidence against Catholicism, pp. 256-258)
is a Btriking instance of this subordination of the intellect to ecclesiastical dogmas.
'^ M. TocqueviUe says, what I am incUned to think is true, that an increasing
apirit of equaUty lessens the disposition to form new religious creeds. Dlmocratie en
Amerique, vol. iv. pp. 16, 17. At aU events, it is certain that increasing knowledge
has this effect ; for those great men whose turn of mind would formerly have made
them heretics, are now content to confine their innovations to other fields of thought.
If St. Augustin bad lived in the seventeenth century, he would have reformed or
created the physical sciences. If Sir Isaac Newton had Uved in the fourth century,
he would have organized a new sect, and have troubled tbe church with his origi
naUty.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION, 555
power and dignity of man are increased, whUe at the same time
most of Ms opinions are disturbed, and many of them are de
stroyed : untU, in the march of this vast but noiseless revolution,
the stream of tradition is, as it were, interrupted, the influence
of ancient authority is subverted, and the human mind, waxing
in strength, learns to rely upon its own resources, and to tMow off
incumbrances by which the freedom of its movements had long
heen impaired.
The appUcation of these remarks to the history of France,
wiU enable us to explam some interesting phenomena in the Ut
erature of that country. Durmg the whole of the Middle Ages,
and I may say, till the end of the sixteenth century, France,
though fertUe in annaUsts and chroniclers, had not produced a
smgle historian, because she had not produced a single man who
presumed to douht what was generally beUeved. Indeed, untU
the pubUcation of Du HaiUan's Mstory of the Mngs of France,
no one had even attempted a critical digest of the materials wMch
were knoyyn to be extant. This work appeared in 1576 ;' and
the author, at the conclusion of Ms labours, could not disguise the
pride wMch he felt at having accompUshed so great an under
taking. In his dedication to the Mng he says, "I am, sire, the
first of aU the French who have written the Mstory of France,
and, in a poUte language, shoyvn the grandeur and dignity of our
kings ; for before there was notMng hut the old rubbish of chron
icles wMch spoke of them." He adds in the preface : " Only
I wUl say, yrithout presumption and boasting, that I have done a
thing wliich had not heen done hefore, or seen by any of our na
tion, and have given to the Mstory of France a dress it never ap
peared in before."* Nor were these the idle boasts of an obscure
man. His work went through numerous editions ; was trans
lated into Latin, and was reprinted in foreign countries. He Mm-
seff was looked upon as one of the glories of tlie French nation,
and was rewarded by the favour of the Mng, who' conferred on
him the office of secretary of finance.' From his work, we may,
therefore, gain some notion of what was then the received stand
ard of historical literature ; and with tMs view, it is natural to
inquire what the materials were wMch he chiefly employed.
About sixty years earUer, an Italian named Paulus EmUius had
published a gossiping compUation on " the Actions of the
French."" TMs book, which is fuU of extravagant fables, was
' Biog. Univ. vol. xix. pp. 815, 816 ; where it is said, " I'ouvrage de Du Haillau
est remarquable, en ce que c'est le premier corps d'histoire de France qui ait paru
dans notre langue." See also Dacier, Rapport sw les Progrh de VHistoire, p. 170 ;
and Des Rlaux, Historiettes, voh x. p. 186.
* Bayle, article Haitian, note L.
" Mercure Frangois, iu Bayle, article Haillan, note D.
" De Rebus aestis Franeorum. which aoneared about 1516. Biog. Univ. vol xul

556 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
taken hy Du HaiUan as the basis of his famous history of the
kings of France ; and from it he unhesitatingly copies those idle
stories which EmiUus loved to relate. This wUl give us some
idea of the creduUty of a writer, who was reckoned by his con
temporaries to be, beyond all comparison, the greatest historian
France had produced. But this is not aU.. Du HaiUan, not
Content with borrowing from his predecessor every thing that
was most incredible, gratifies his passion for the marvellous hy
some circumstances of his own invention. He hegms his Mstory
with a long account of a councU which, he says, was held by the
celebrated Pharamond, in order to determine whether the French
should he governed by a monarchy or hy an aristocracy. It is,
indeed, doubtfiil if any such person as Pharamond ever existed ;
and it is certain that ff he did exist, aU the materials had long
perished from wMch an opinion could he formed respecting Mm.'
But Du HaUlan, regardless of these little difficulties, gives us the
fuUest information touching the great cMeftain ; and, as if de-
tenmned to tax to the utmost the creduUty of Ms readers, men
tions, as members of the councU of Pharamond, two persons,
Charamond and Quadrek, whose very names are invented by the
historian.' Such was the state of historical Uterature in France early in
the reign of Henry III. A great change was, however, at hand.
The remarkable inteUectual progress made hy the French towards
the close of the sixteenth century, was, as I have shown, preceded
p. 119. Compare, respecting the author, Mhhray, Hist, de France, vol U. p. 363,
with Audigier, V Origine des Frangois, vol ii. p. 118, who complains of his opinion
about Clovis, " quoy qu'U fasse profession de relever la gloire des Fraufois." Even
tbe superflcial BoulainvilUera (Hist, de V Ancien Gouvernement, vol. U. p. 166) con
temptuously notices " les rdtoriciens postdrieurs, tels que Paul EmUe."
' Compare Sismondi, Hist, des Frangais, vol i. pp. 176, 177, with Monthsier,
Monarchie Frangaise, vol i. pp. 43, 44. Philippe de Comines, though superior to
Sismondi and Montlosier in point of abiUty, lived in the middle ages, and, therefore,
had no idea of doubting, but simply aaya, " Pharamond fut ealeu roy, I'an 420, et
regna dix aua." Mhn. de Comines, Uvre viU. chap. xxvu. vol. iii. p. 232. But De
Thou, coming a hundred years after Comines, evidently suspected that it was not
aU quite right, and, therefore puta it on the authority of othera. ''Pharamond, qui
selon nos hisioriens a portd le preraier la couronne des Fraufois." De Thou, Hist.
Univ, vol. X. p. 580. See a singular passage on Pharamond in Mem, de Duplessis
Mornay, vol. U. p. 405.
_ " Sorel (La Bibliotheque Franfoise, Paris, 1667, p. 878) says of Du Haillan, ''On
lui peut reprocher d'avoir donnd un comraenceraent fabuleux k son histoire, qui est
entidreraent de son invention, ayant fait tenir un conseU entre Pharamond et sea
plus fidelles conaeiUera, pour sfauoir ai ayant la puissance en main il deuoit reduire
les Franf oia au gouuernement ariatocratique ou monarchique, et faisant faire une
harangue k chacun d'eux pour aouatenir aon opinion. On y voit lea noma de Chara
mond et de Quadrek, personnages imaginaires." Sorel, who had a gUraraering notion
that this waa not exactly the way to write history, adds, " C'est une chose fort sur
prenante. On est fort peu asseurd si Phararaond fut jamais au monde, et quoy qu'on
sfache qu'il y ait estd, c'est une terrible hardiesse d'en raconter des choaes qui n'ont
aucun appuy."

GENERAL INTEODUCTION. 557
by that scepticism wMch appears to be its necessary precursor.
The spirit of doubt, which had begun with religion, was com
municated to literature. The impulse was immediately felt in
every department of knowledge, and now it was that Mstory first
emerged from a debasement in which it had for centuries been
sunk. On this subject, a mere statement of dates may be of
serrice to those persons who, from a dislike to general reasoning,
would otheryrise deny the connexion wMch I wish to estabUsh.
In 1588 was pubUshed the first sceptical hook ever written in
the French language." In 1598, the French government, for the
first time, ventured upon a great pubUc act of reUgious toleration.
In 1604, De Thou pubUshed that celebrated work, which, is al
lowed by aU critics to be the first great history composed by a
Frenchnan.'" And at the very moment when these thmgs were
passing, another eminent Frenchman, the Ulustrious Sully," was
coUectmg the materials for his Mstorical work, wMch, though
hardly equal to that of De Thou, comes immediately after it m
abUUy, m importance, and in reputation. Nor can we fail to
remark, that both these great Mstorians, who left aU their pre
decessors immeasurably beMnd them, were the confidential min
isters and intimate friends of Henry IV., the first king of France
whose memory is stained hy the imputation of heresy, and the
first who dared to change his reUgion, not in consequence of any
theological arguments, hut on the broad and notorious ground of
poUtical expediency.'*
But it was not merely over such eminent Mstorians as these,
that the sceptical spirit displayed its influence. The movement
was now becoming sufficiently active to leave its marks in the
writings of far inferior men. There were two particulars in
wMch the creduUty of the earUer Mstorians was very striking.
These consisted in the uncritical manner in wMch, by bUndly
copying their predecessors, they confused the dates of different
events ; and in the readiness yrith wMch they heUeved the most
" " Die erate Eegung dea akeptischen Geistes finden wir in den Verauchen des
Michael von Montaigne." Tennemann, Gesch. der Philos. vol. ix. p. 443.
'" The first volurae appeared in 1604. See Le Long, Bibliotheque Historique de
la France, vol. U. p. 375 ; and preface to De Thou, Hist. Univ: vol. i. p. iv.
" Sismondi haa scarcely done justice to Sully ; but the reader wiU find a fuller
account of him in Capefigue, Hist, de la Riforme, vol. viu. pp. 101-117 ; and a. still
better one in Blanqui, Histoire de VEconomie Politique, vol. i. pp. 847-861.
'¦' According to D'Aubignd, the king, on his conversion, said, " Je ferai voir k
tout le monde que je n'ai eatd perauadd par autre thdologie que la ndceaaitd de
I'estat." Smedley's Reformed Religion in France, vol u. p. 362. That Henry felt
this is certain ; and that he expressed it to his finends is probable ; but he had a
difficult game to play with the Catholic church ; and in one of his edicts we find
"une grande joye de son retour k I'dgUse, dont il attribuoit la cause h la grace du
Tout-Puiasant, et aux pridrea de ses fiddles sujeta." De Thou, Hist. Univ. vol. xU.
pp. 106, 106. Compare, at pp. 468, 469, the message he sent to the pope.

558 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
improbable statements, upon imperfect e'ridence, and often upon
no eridence at aU. It is surely a singular proof of that inteUec
tual progress wMch I am endeavouring to trace, that, within a
very few years both these sources of error were removed. In
1597, Serres was appointed Mstoriographer of France ; and, in
the same year, he pubUshed his Mstory of that country." In
tMs work, he insists upon the necessity of carefully recording the
date of each event ; and the example, which he first set, has,
since his time, heen generally foUowed.'* The importance of
this change yviU he -wUlingly acknowledged hy those who are
aware of the confusion into which history has heen thrown, hy
the earlier writers having neglected, what now seems, so obvious
a precaution. Scarcely had tMs innovation heen estabUshed,
when it was foUowed, in the same country, by another of stUl
greater moment. This was the appearance, in 1621, of a Ms
tory of France, hy Scipio Dupleix ; in wMch, for the first time,
the evidence for historical facts was pubUshed yrith the facts
themselves." It is needless to insist upon the utUity of a step
wMch, more than any other, has taught Mstorians to be indus
trious in coUecting their authorities, and careful in scrutinizing
them." To tMs may he added, that Dupleix was also the first
Frenchman who ventured to puhUsh a system of phUosophy ia
" Marchamd, Dictionnaire Historique, vol. u. pp. 206, 209, La Haye, 1768,
foUo. This curioua and learned work, which is much less read than it deserves,
contains the only good account of Serres I have been able to meet with ; vol. u. pp.
197-213. " "On ne prenoit presque aucun soin de marquer les dates des dvdnemena dana
lea ouvragea hiatoriques. . . . De Serrea reconnut ce ddfaut ; et pour y remddier, il
rechercha avec beaucoup de soin les dates des dvdnemens qu'U avoit k employer,
et lea marqua dans son histoire le plus exactement qu'U lui fut poasible, Cet ex
emple a dtd imitd depuis par la plfipart de ceux qui I'ont suivi ; et c'est &lui qu'on est
redevable de I'avantage qu'on tire d'une pratique si ndcessaire et si utUe." Marchand,
Diet, Historique, vol. ii. p. 206.
'" " H est le premier historien qui ait citd en marge ses autoritda ; prdcaution ab
solument ndcessaire quand on n'dcrit pas I'histoire de aon tempa, & moins qu'on ne
s'en tienne aux feits connus." CEuvres de Voltaire, vol. xix. p. 96. And the Biog.
Univ. vol. xU. p. 277, says, " On doit lui faire bonneur d'avoir citd en marge les
auteurs dont U s'est servi ; prdcaution indispensable, que I'on connaissait peu avant
lui, et que lea hiatoriena modernea ndgUgent trop aujourd'hui." Bassompierre, who
had a quarrel with Dupleix, has given some curious detaUs respecting him and hia
History ; but they are, of courae, not to be reUed on. Mhn. de Bassompierre, vol
iu. pp. 356, 367. Patin speaks favourably of his history of Henry IV. Lettres
de Patin, vol i. p. 17 : but compare Sully, (Economies Royales, vol ix. pp. 121,
249. " The ancients, as is weU known, rarely took this trouble. Mure's Hist, of
Greek Uterature, vol iv. pp. 197, 306, 307. But what is much more curious is,
that, even in scientific works, there waa an equal looaeness ; and Cuvier aaya, that,
in the sixteenth century, " ou se bornait k dire, d'une manidre gdudrale, Aristote a
dit telle chose, sans indiquer ni le passage ni le livre dans lequel la citation, se
trouvait." Cuvier, Hist, dls Sciences, part U. p. 63 ; and at p. 88, "suivant I'usage de
BOU temps, Gessner n'indique paS avec prdcision les endroits d'oi il a tird ses cita
tions :" see also p. 214.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 559
his own language." It is trae, that the system itself is intrin-
sicaUy of little value ;" but, at the time it appeared, it was an
unprecedented, and, on that account, a profane attempt, to un
fold the mysteries of philosophy in the vulgar speech ; and, in
this point of view, suppUes evidence of the increasing diffusion
of a spirit bolder and more inquisitive than any formerly known.
It is not, therefore, surprising that, almost at the same moment,
there should be made, in the same country, the first systematic
attempt at historical scepticism. The system of pMlosophy hy
Dupleix appeared in 1602 ; and in 1599, La Popelini^re pub
lished at Paris what he caUs the History of Histories, in wMch
he criticizes historians themselves, and examines their works
vrith that sceptical spirit, to wMch his own age was deeply in
debted." TMs able man was also the author of a Sketch ofthe
New History of the French ; containing a formal refutation of
that fable, so dear to the early historians, according to wMch the
monarchy of France was founded by Francus, who arrived in
Graul after the conclusion of the siege of Troy.*"
It would be useless to coUect all the instances in which this
advancing spirit of scepticism now began to purge history of its
falsehoods. I yyUl only mention two or three more of those
wMch have occurred m my reading. In 1614, De Eubis pub
hshed at Lyons a work on the European monarcMes ; in wMch
he not only attacks the long-estahUshed belief respecting the
descent from Francus, hut boldly asserts, that the Franks owe
theu- name to their ancient Uberties.*' In 1620, GomberviUe,
in a dissertation on history, refutes many of those idle stories
respecting the antiquity of the French, which had heen univer
saUy received untU Ms time.** And, in 1630, Berthault pub-
" " Le premier ouvrage de phUosophie pubUd dans cette langue." Biog, Univ,
vol xu. p. 277.
'" So it aeemed to me, when I turned over its leaves a few yeara ago. How
ever, Patin says, " aa phUosophie franijoise n'est paa mauvaiae." Uttres de Patin,
vol. iu. p. 367. On the dialectic powers of Dupleix, see a favourable judgraent in
Eamilton's Discuss, on Philos. p. 119.
"Biog. Univ. vol. xxxv. p. 402. Sorel (Bibliothique Frangaise, p. 165), who
is evidently displeased at the unprecedented boldness of La PopeUnidre, says,
"U dit ses sentimens en bref des historiens de toutes les nations, et de plusieurs
langues, et particuUdrement dea hiatoriena fraufois, dont U parle avec beaucoup
d'aaseurance." " "H refute I'opinion, alors fort accrdditde, de I'arrivde dana les Gaules de
Francus et des Troyens." Biog. Univ. vol. xxxv. p. 402. Compare Le Long,
Bibliotheque Historique de la France, vol ii. p. 39. Patin saya that De Thou was
muchindebted to him: " M. de Thou a pria hardiraent de la PopeUnidre." Uttres
de Patin, voh i. p. 222. There ia a notice of PopeUnidre, in connexion with Richer,
in Mhn. de Richelieu, vol. v. p. 349.
" " n refute les fables qu'on avan^oit sur I'origine des Frangois, appuydes aur
le tdmoignage du faux Bdroae. II dit que leur nom vient de leur ancienne fran
chise." Le Long, Bibliotheque Historique, vol. U. p. 750.
^ Compare Sorel, Bibliotheque Frangoise, p. 298, with DuFresnoy, Mlthode pour

560 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
lished at Paris the " French Floras," in wMch he completely
upsets the old method ; since he lays it down as a fundamental
principle, that the origin of the French must only he sought for
in those countries where they were found by the Eomans.*'
AU these, and simUar productions, were, however, entirely
ecUpsed by Mezeray's History of France; the first volume of
which was published in 1643, and the last in 1651.** It is, per
haps, hardly fair to his predecessors, to call him the first general
historian of France;*' hut there can he no douht that his work
is greatly superior to any that had yet heen seen. The style of
Mezeray is adnurably clear and vigorous, rising, at times, to con
siderable eloquence. Besides this, he has two other merits much
more important. These are, an indisposition to heUeve strange
things, merely hecause they have Mtherto heen heUeved ; and
an inclination to take the side of the people, rather than that
of their rulers.*" Of these principles, the first was too common
among the ablest Frenchmen of that time to excite much atten
tion.*' But the other principle enabled Mezeray to advance an
important step before all Ms contemporaries. He was the first
Frenchman who, in a great historical work, threw off that super
stitious reverence for royalty wMch had long troubled the minds
of his countrymen, and which, indeed, continued to haunt them
for another century. As a necessary consequence, he was also
the first who saw that a Mstory, to he of real value, must he a
Mstory, not only of Mngs, but of nations. A steady perception
of this principle led Mm to incorporate into his book matters
which, before his time, no one cared to study. He commumcates
etudier VHistoire, vol x. p. 4, Paris, 1772. There is an account of GomberviUe in
Us Historiettes de Tallemant des Rlaux, vol viu. pp. 15-19 ; a singularly curious
book, which is, for the seventeenth century, what Brantome is for the sixteenth.
I ought to have raentioned earUer, the inimitable ridicule with which Rabelais treats
the habit historians bad of tracing tbe genealogies of their heroes back to Noah.
CEwvres de Rabelais, vol. i. pp. 1-3, and vol ii. pp. 10-17 : see also, at vol. v. pp. 171,
172, his defence of the antiquity of Chinon.
'" " L'auteur croit qu'U ne faut pas la ehercher aiUeura que dans le pays oft Us ont
dtd connus des Remains, c'est-^dire entre I'Elbe et le Ebin." U Long,Bibliothique
Historique, vol. ii. p. 66. This work of Berthault's waa, for many yeara, a text
book in the French colleges. Biog. Univ. voh iv. p. 347.
"* The first volume in 1643 ; the second in 1646 ; and the last in 1651. Biog.
Uniii. vol. xxviii p. 610.
'" " The French have now their first general historian, Mezeray.^ HaUam's
Uterature of Europe, vol in. p. 228 ; and see Stephen's Lectures on the History of
France, 1861, vol. i. p. 10.
^° Bayle says, that Mezeray is " de tous les historiens celui qui favorise le plus les
peuples contre la cour." Le Long, Bibliothlque Historique, vol. iU. p. Ixxxvl
'" Though it did not prevent bim from believing that sudden tempests, and un
usual appearances in the heavens, were aberrations, due to supernatural interference,
and, as auch, were tbe prognoaticators of poUtical change. Mezeray, Hist, de France,
-vol I pp. 202, 228, 238, 241, 317, 792, vol U. pp. 485, 573, 1120, vol Ui. pp. 31,
167, 894 ; instructive passages, as proving that, even in powerful minds, the scientific
and secular method was stUl feeble.

GENERAL INTEODUCTION. 561
aU the information he could collect respecting the taxes which
the people had paid ; the sufferings they had undergone from
the griping hands of their governors; their manners, their com
forts, even the state of the towns which they inhalDited ; in a
word, what affected the interests of the French people, as well
as what affected the interests of the French monarchy.*' These
were the subjects wMch Mezeray preferred to insignificant details
respectmg the pomp of courts and the Uves of Mngs. These
were the large and comprehensive matters on which he loved to
dwell, and on wMch he expatiated ; not, indeed, with so much
fulness as we could desire, hut stUl yrith a spirit and an accuracy,
wMch entitles him to the honour of being the greatest historian
France produced hefore the eighteenth century.
• TMs was, in many respects, the most important change
wMch had yet heen effected in the matter of writing history.
If the plan begun hy Mezeray had been completed by his suc
cessors, we should possess materials, the absence of wMch no
modem researches can possibly compensate. Some things, in
deed, we should, in that case, have lost. We should know less
than we now know of courts and of camps. We should have
heard less of the peerless beauty of French queens, and of the.
dignified presence of French Mngs. We might even have miss
ed some of the links of that evidence hy wMch the genealogies
of princes and nobles are ascertained, and the study of wMch
delights the curiosity of antiquaries and heralds. But, on the
other hand, we should have heen able to examine the state of
the French people during the latter half of the seventeenth
century; wMle, as tMngs now stand, our knowledge of them, in
that most important period, is inferior in accuracy and in extent
to the knowledge we possess of some of the most barbarous
tribes of the earth.*" H the example of Mezeray had heen fol
lowed, yrith such additional resources as the progress of affairs
would have supplied, we should not only have the means of
minutely tracmg the growth of a great and civUized nation, hut
"' -What he did on theae subjects is inost remarkable, conaidering that aome of
the best materials were unknown, and in manuscript, and that even De Thou givea
scarcely any information reapecting them ; so that Mezeray had no model. See,
among other passages which have struck me in tbe first volume, pp. 145-147, 204,
363, 356, 362-365, 630, 581, 881, 812, 946, 1039; Compare his indignant expres
sions at vol U. p. 721. ,
Those who have atudied the French memoirs of the aeventeenth century,
know how Uttle can be found in them reapecting the condition of the people ; while
the fuUest private correspondence, such as the letters of Sevignd and De Maintenon,
are equaUy unsatisfactory. The greater part of the evidence now extant has been
coUected by M. MonteU, in his valuable work, Histoire des divers Etats ; but who
ever wUl put aU this together, must admit, that we are better informed aa to tbe
condition of many savage tribes, than we are concerning the lower classes of France
, during the reign of Louis XIV.

563 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
we should have materials that would suggest or verify those
original principles, the discovery of wMch constitutes the real
use of history.
But tMs was not to be. UnhappUy for the interests of
knowledge, the march of French cirilization was, at this period,
suddenly checked. Soon after the middle of the seventeenth
century, that lamentable change took place in France, which
gave a new tum to the destinies of the nation. The reaction
wMch the spirit of inquiry underwent, and the social and intel
lectual circumstances wMch, by bringing the Fronde to a prema
ture close, prepared the way for Louis XIV., have been described
in a former part of this volume, where I have attempted to m-
dicate the general effects of the disastrous movement. It now
remains for me to point out how tMs retrogressive tendency
opposed obstacles to the improvement of historical Uterature,
and prevented authors, not only from relating with honesty what
was passing around them, hut also from understanding events
wMch had occurred hefore their time.
The most superficial students of French Uterature must be
struck by the dearth of Mstorians during that long period in
.wMch Louis XIV. held the rems of government.'" To this, the
personal peculiarities of the Mng greatly contributed. His edu
cation had heen shamefuUy neglected ; and as he never had the
energy to repair its deficiencies, he all Ms life remained ignorant
of many things yrith which even princes are usuaUy famiUar."
Of the course of past events he knew UteraUy notMng, and he
took no interest in any Mstory except the Mstory of Ms own ex
ploits. Among a free people, tMs indifference on the part of
the sovereign could never have produced injurious results ; in
deed, as we have already seen, the absence of royal patronage is,
in a highly civiUzed country, the most favourable condition of
Uterature. But at the accession of Louis XIV., the Uberties of
the French were stUl too young, and the habits of independent
thought too recent, to enable them to bear up against that com
bination of the croyvn and the church, wMch was directed
against them. The French, becoming every day more servUe,
at length sunk so low, that, by the end of the seventeenth cen-
"° This is noticed in Sismondi, Hist, des Frangais, vol. xxvii. pp. 181, 182 ; also
iu Villemain, Utth-aiure Frangaise, vol ii. pp. 29, 30. Compare D'Argenson, Re
flexions sur les Historiens Frangois, in Mimoires de VAcadhnie des Inscriptions,
vol. xxviii. p. 627, with BoulainviUiers, Ancien Gouvernement de la France, vol i.
p. 174. "' "Le jeune Louis XIV n'avait re^u aucune dducation inteUectueUe." Cape-
flaue's Richelieu, Mazarin et la Fronde, vol il p. 246. On the education of Louis
XIV., which was as shamefuUy neglected as that of our George IIL, see Lettres in
ldites de Maintenon, voh ii. p. 869 ; Duclos, Mhn. Secrets, vol. i. pp. 167, 168 ; Mhn.
de Brienne, vol. l pp. 391-893.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 563
tury, they seemed to have lost even the wish of resistance.
' The Mng, meeting no opposition, endeavoured to exercise over
the intellect of the country an authority equal to that with
wMch he conducted its government.'* In all the great questions
of religion and of politics, the spirit of inquiry was stifled, and
no man was allowed to express an opinion unfavourable to the
existing state of tMngs. As the Mng was wUling to endow
literature, he naturaUy thought that he had a right to its ser
rices. Authors, who were fed by his hand, were not to raise
their voices agamst his policy. They received his wages, and
they were hound to do the bidding of him who paid them.
When Louis assumed the government, Mezeray was still living;
though I need hardly say that his great work was published be
fore tMs system of protection and patrogage came into play.
The treatment to wMch he, the great historian of France, was
now subjected, was a specimen of the new arrangement. He
received from the crown a pension of four thousand francs ; but
when he, m 1668, pubUshed an abridgment of his History," it
was intimated to Mm, that some remarks upon the tendency of
taxation were likely to cause offence in high quarters. As, how
ever, it was soon found that Mezeray was too honest and too
fearless to retract what he had written, it was determined to
have recourse to intimidation, and half of his pension was taken
from Mm.'* But as tMs did not produce a proper effect, another
order was issued, wMch deprived him of the remaining half;
and thus early, in tMs had reign, there was set an example of
punishing a man for writmg with honesty upon a subject in
which, of aU others, honesty is the first essential."
'^ On his poUtical maxims, see Lemontey, Etablissement de Louis XIV, pp. 326-
327, 407, 408. The eloquent remarks made by M. Eanke upon an ItaUan despot
ism, are admirably applicable to his whole systera: " Sonderbare Gestalt menach-
Uchen Dmge ! Die Krafte dea Landes bringen den Hof hervor, der Mittelpunkt des
Hofes ist der Fiirst, das letzte Product des gesammten Lebens ist zuletzt das Selbst-
gefiihl des Fursten." Die Papste, vol. u. p. 266.
" His Abrlgl Chronologique was published in 1668, in three voluraes quarto.
Biog. Univ. vol. xxviU. p. 510. Le Long (Bibliotheque Historique, vol. iii. p. Ixxxv.)
says, that it was only allowed to be pubUshed in consequence of a " privildge" which
Mezeray had formerly obtained. But there seema to have been some difficulty, of
which these writers are not aware ; for Patin, in a letter dated Paris, 23 December,
1664, speaks of it as being then in the press : " on imprime ici en grand-in-quarto un
Abrdgd de I'Histoire de France, par M. Mezeray." Lettres de Patin, vol. in. p. 503 :
compare p. 665. It long reraained an eatabUshed school-book : Bee D'Argenson's
Essay, , in Mhn. de VAcadhnie, vol. xxviu. p. 635 ; and Works of Sir William
Temple, vol. iu. p. 70.
Barriere, Essai sur les Mceurs du Dix-sepiiime Siecle, prefixed to Mlm. de
Brienne, vol i. pp. 129, 180, where reference is made to his original correspond
ence with Colbert. This treatraent of Mezeray is noticed, but imperfectly, in
Boulainvilliers, Hist, de V Ancien Gouvernement, vol. I p. 196 ; in Lemontey, Etab
lissement de Louis, p. 881 ; and in Palissot, Mem. pour VHist. de Ut. vol. U. p. 161.
" In 1686 was pubUshed at Paris what was caUed an improved edition of Mez-

564 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
Such conduct as this, showed what historians were to expect
from the government of Louis XIV. Several years later, the
Mng took another opportunity of displaying the same spirit.
Fen6lon had been appointed preceptor to the grandson of Loms,
whose early -rices Ms firmness and judgment did much to re
press.'" But a single circumstance was thought sufficient to
outweigh the immense service which F6n61on thus rendered to
the royal famUy, and, if his pupU had come to the throne, would
have rendered prospectively to the whole of France. His cele
brated romance, Telemachus, was pubUshed in 1699, as it ap
pears, yrithout his consent." The Mng suspected that, under
the guise of a fiction, Fen6lon intended to reflect on the conduct
of government; It was in vain that the author domed so dan
gerous an imputation. The indignation of the kmg was not
to he appeased. He banished F6n61on from the court ; and
would never again a,dmit to Ms presence a man, whom he sus
pected of even insinuating a criticism upon the measures adopted
by the admmistration of the country."
If the Mng could, on mere suspicion, thus treat a great
writer, who had the rank of an archbishop and the reputation of
a saint, it was not likely that he would deal more tenderly with
inferior men. In 1681, the Ahh6 Primi, an ItaUan, then re
siding at Paris, was induced to write a Mstory of Loms XIV.
The Mng, deUghted with the idea of perpetuating Ms own fame,
conferred several re-wiards upon the author; , and arrangements
were made that the work should he composed in ItaUan, and
immediately translated into French. But when the Mstory, ap
peared, there were found in it some circumstances wMch it was
thought ought not to have heen disclosed. On this account,
Louis caused the book to be suppressed, the papers of the author
to he seized, and the author Mmself to he thrown into the Bas
tiUe."eray's History ; that is, an edition from which the honest remarks were expunged.
See Le Long, Biblioihigue Historique, vol. U. p. 53, vol. iv. p. 381 ; and Brunei,
Manuel du Ubraire, vol. Ul p. 888, Paris, 1843. Hampden, who knew Mezeray, has
recorded an interesting interview he had with him in Paris, when the great historian
lamented the loss of the Uberties of France. Sete Calamy's Life of Himself, vol. i.
pp. 392, 393.
'" Sismondi, Hist, des Frangais, vol. xxvi. pp. 240, 241.
"' " Par I'infiddUtd d'un domeatique chargd de transcrire le manuscrit." Biog.
Univ. voh xiv. p. 289 ; and see Peignot, Did. des Uvres condamnes, vol. i. pp. 134,
136. It was suppressed in France, and appeared in HoUand in tbe same year, 1699.
Uttres de Sevignl, vol. vi. pp. 484, 435 note.
"" " Louis XIV prit le Tdldmaque pour une personualitd. . . Comrae U (Fdndlon)
avait ddplu au roi, il mourut dans I'exU." Lerminier, Philos. du Droit, vol. u, pp.
219, 220 ; and see Sikle de Louis XIV, chap. xxxU^, in CEuvres de Voltaire, vol xx.
p. 307. "' These circumstances are related in a letter from Lord Preston, dated Paris,
22 July, 1682, and printed in Dalrymple's Memoirs, pp. 141, 142, appendix to vol i.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 565
Those, indeed, were dangerous times for independent men ;
times when no writer on politics or reUgion was safe, unless he
followed the fashion of the day, and defended the opinions of the
court and the church. The king, who had an insatiable tMrst
for what he caUed glory,*" laboured to degrade contemporary
historians into mere chroniclers of Ms own acMevements. He
ordered Eacine and BoUeau to yyrite an account of Ms reign; he
settled a pension upon them, and he promised to supply them
with the necessary materials.*' But even Eacine and Boileau,
poets though they were, knew that they would faU in satisfying
his morbid vamty; they, therefore, received the pension, hut
omitted to compose the work for wMch the pension was con
ferred. So notorious was the unwUUngne'ss of able men to med
dle yrith Mstory, that it was thought ad-risahle to heat up
literary recruits from foreig-n countries. The case of the Abb6
Primi has just heen mentioned ; he was an ItaUan, and only one
year later a simUar offer was made to an EngUshman. In 1683,
Bumet risited France, and was given to understand that he
might receive a pension, and that he might even enjoy the hon
our of conversing yrith Louis himself, prorided he would write
a history of the royal affairs ; such Mstory, it was carefully
added, being on the " side" of the French Mng.**
Under such circumstances as these, it is no wonder that
history, so far as its great essentials are concerned, should have
rapidly declmed during the power of Louis XIV. It became,
as some thmk, more elegant ; hut it certainly became more
feeble. The language in wMch it was composed was worked
with great care, the periods neatly arranged, the epithets soft
and harmonious. For that was a poUte and obsequious age, fuU
of reverence, of duty, and of admiration. In history, as it was
then written, every Mng was a hero, and every bishop was a
samt. AU unpleasant traths were suppressed ; nothing harsh
or unkmd was to he told. These docUe and submissive senti-
The account given by M. Peignot (Uvres condamnes, vol. U. pp. 52, 53) is incom
plete, he being evidently ignorant of the existence of Lord Preston's letter.
" An able writer has weU caUed hira " glorieux plut6t qu'apprdciateur de la vraie
gloire." Flassan, Histoire de la Diplomatie Frangaise, voh iv. p. 899.
In 1677, Madarae de Sevignd writes from Paris respecting the king : " Vous
savez bien qu'il a donnd deux miUe dcus de pension k Eacine et k Desprdaux, eu
leur commandant de travaiUer k son histoire, dont il aura soin de donner des Md
moirea." Uttres de Sevignl, vol iU. p. 362. Compiae Eloge de Valincourt, in CEuvres
de FonteneUe, vol vl p. 383 ; and Hughes's Utters, edit. 1778, vol. U. pp. 74, 76.
" Burnet relates this with deUghtful simpUcity : " Others more probably thought
that the king, hearing I was a writer of history, had a mind to engage me to write
on his side. I was told a pension would be ofiered me. But I m*le no steps
towards it ; for though I was offered an audience of the king, I excused it, since I
could not have the honour to be presented to that king by the minister of England."
Burnet's Own Time, vol. U. p. 385.

566 CIVILIZATION IN EN^GLAND. ^
ments being expressed in an easy and floyying style, gave to his
tory that air of refinement, that gentle, unobtrasive gait, wMch
made it popular with the classes that it flattered. But even so,
whUe its form was poUshed, its Ufe was extinct. AU its inde
pendence was gone, aU its honesty, aU its boldness. The noblest
and the most difficult department of knowledge, the study of
the movements of the human race, was ahandoned to every
timid and creeping inteUect that cared to cultivate it. There
were BoulainviUiers, and Daniel, and Maimhourg, and VariUas,
and Vertot, and numerous others, who in the reign of Louis
XIV. were heUeved to he historians ; hut whose Mstories have
scarcely any merit, except that of enabUng us to appreciate the
period in wMch such productions were admired, and the system
of which they were the representatives.
To give a complete view of the decUne of historical Utera
ture in France, from the time of Mezeray untU early in the
eighteenth century, would require a summary of every history
which was written ; for aU of them were pervaded by the same
spirit. But, as this would occupy much too large a space, it
wUl probably be thought sufficient if I confine myself to such
iUustrations as wUl bring the tendency of the age most clearly
before the reader; and for tMs purpose, I wUl notice the works
of two historians I have not yet mentioned ; one of whom was
celebrated as an antiquary, the other as a theologian. Both
possessed considerable learmng, and one was a man of undoubted
genius ; their works are, therefore, worth attention, as symptoms
of the state of the French inteUect late in the seventeenth cen
tury. The name of the antiquary was Audigier ; the name of
the theologian was Bossuet : and from them we may learn some-
tMng respecting the way in wMch, during the reign of Louis
XIV., it was usual to contemplate the transactions of past
ages. The celebrated work of Audigier, on the Origin of the
French, was published at Paris in 1676.*' It would be unjust
to deny that the author was a man of great and careful reading.
But Ms credulity, Ms prejudices, his reverence for antiquity, and
Ms dutfful admiration for every thing established hy the church
and the court, warped Ms judgment to an extent wMch, in our
time, seems incredible; and, as there are probably few persons
in England who have read his once famous hook, I yriU give an
outUne of its leading views.
*° During many yeara it enjoyed great reputation ; and there is no history written
lu that period respecting which Le Long gives so many details. See his Bibliotheque
Historique de la France, vol ii. pp. 13, 14. Compare La Bibliotheque de Uber, vol.
il p. 110, Paris, 1839.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION, 567
In this great history we are told, that 3464 years after the
creation of the world, and 590 years before the birth of Christ,
was the exact period at wMch Sigovese, nephew to the king of
the Celts, was first sent into Germany,** Those who accom
panied him were necessarUy traveUers ; and as, in the German
language, wandeln means to go, we have here the origin of the
Vandals.*' But the antiquity of the Vandals is far surpassed
by that of the French. Jupiter, Pluto, and Neptune, who are
sometimes supposed to be gods, were in reaUty kings of Gaul.*"
And, ff we look back a Uttle further, it becomes certain that
GaUus, the founder of Gaul, was no other than Noah himseff ;
for in those days the same man frequently had two names.*'
As to the subsequent history of the French, it was fully equal
to the digmty of their origin. Alexander the Great, even in all
the pride of his -rictories, never dared to attack the Scythians,
who were a colony sent from France.*' It is from these great
occupiers of France that there have proceeded aU the gods of
Europe, aU the fine arts, and aU the sciences.*" The English
themselves are merely a colony of the French, as must he evi
dent to whoever considers the similarity of the words Angles
and Anjou ;'" and to this fortunate descent the natives of the
British islands are indebted for such bravery and politeness as
they stiU possess." Several other pomts are cleared up by this
great critic yrith equal facUity. The SaUan Franks were so
caUed from the rapidity of their flight ;'* the Bretons were evi
dently Saxons ;" and even the Scotch, about whose independence
so much has heen said, were vassals to the kings of France.'*
Indeed, it is impossible to exaggerate the dignity of the crown of
^* Audigier, L'Origine des Frangois, Paris, 1676, vol. i. p. 5. See also p.
45, where he congratulates himself on being the first to clear up the history of

** Audigier, voh I p. 7. Other antiquaries have adopted the same preposterous
etymology. See a note in Kemble's Saxons in England, vol. l p. 41.
*° "Or le plus ancien Jupiter, le plus ancien Neptune, et le plus ancien Pluton,
sont ceux de Gaule ; Us la divisdrent les premiera en Celtique, Aquitaine et Belgique,
et obtinrent chacun ime de cea partiea en partage. Jupiter, qu'on fait rdgner au ciel,
eut k Celtique  Neptune, qu'on fait rdgner sur lea eaux, et sur les mers, eut
I'Aquitdne, qui n'est appellde de la aorte qu'd cauae de I'abondance de aes eaux, et de
la situation sur I'ocdan." Audigier, L'Origine des Frangais, vol. l pp. 223, 224.
*' See his argument, vol. i. pp. 216, 217, beginning, " le nom de Nod, que por-
tdrent les Galates, eat GaUua ;" and corapare vol. U. p. 109, where he expreaaes aur-
prise that ao Uttle should have been done by previous writers towards estabUshing
this obvious origin of the French.
*" Audigier, vol. I pp. 196, 197, 266, 266.
*° " VoUi donc les anciennes divinitez d'Europe, originaires de Gaule, aussi bieu
que les beaux arts et les hautes sciences." Audigier, vol. i. p. 234.
" Ibid, vol i. pp. 73, 74. He suras up, " e'en est assez pour relever 1' Anjou, a
qui cette gloire appartient Idgitimeraent."
" Vol i. pp. 265, 266. " Vol i. p. 149.
" Vol. U. pp. 179, 180. "' VoL U. p. 269.

568 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
France ; it is difficult even to conceive its splendour. Some
have supposed that the emperors are superior to the Mngs of
France, but this is the mistake of ignorant men; for an emperor
means a mere mUitary ruler, while the title of Mng includes aU
the functions of supreme power." To put the question, there
fore, on its real footing, the great king Louis XIV. is an emperor,
as have been aU his predecessors, the illustrious ralers of France,
for fifteen centuries.'" And it is an undoubted fact, that Anti
christ, about whom so much anxiety is felt, wUl never be aUowed
to appear in the world untU the French empire has heen destroy
ed. This, says Audigier, it wpuld be idle to deny; for it is
asserted by many of the saints, and it is distinctly foreshadowed
hy St. Paul, in Ms second epistle to the Thessalomans."
Strange as aU this appears, there was nothmg m it to revolt
the enlightened age of Louis XIV. Indeed, the French, daz
zled hy the hriUiancy of their prince, must have felt great m-
terest in learning how superior he was to aU other potentates,
and how he had not only been preceded by a long Une of em
perors, but was in fact an emperor himself. They must have
been struck with awe at the information communicated hy Audi
gier respecting the arrival of Antichrist, and the connexion be
tween that important event and the fate of the French mon
archy. They must have Ustened -with pious wonder to the illus
tration of these matters from the writings of the fathers, and
from the epistle to the Thessalomans. All tMs they would
easUy receive; hecause to worship the Mng, and venerate the
church, were the two cardinal maxims of that age. To obey,
and to beUeve, were the fundamental ideas of a period, in wMch
the fine arts did for a time flourish, — ^in wMch the perception of
beauty, though too fastidious, was undoubtedly keen,— in wMch
taste and the imagination, in its lower departments, were zeal
ously cultivated, — but in which, on the other hand, originaUty
and independence of thought were extinguished, the greatest
and the largest topics were forbidden to be discussed, the sciences
were almost deserted, reforms and innovations were hated, new
opinions were despised, and their authors pumshed, untU at
length, the exuberance of genius being tamed into sterility, the
national intellect was reduced to that dull and monotonous level
which characterizes the last twenty years of the reign of Louis
XIV.
" Vol U. p. 124. ^ Vol. ii. pp. 451-454.
"' "A quoy nous pourrions ioindre un autre monument fort authentique, c'est le
resultat de certains pdres, et de certains docteura de I'dgliae, qui tiennent que I'Ante-
chriat ne viendra point au monde, qu'aprda la diacection, c'eat-a-dire aprds la dissipa
tion de nostre empire. Leur fonderaent est dana la seconde dpistre de saint Paul
aux Tbeasaloniciena." Audigier, vol ii. p. 462.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 569
In no instance can we find a better example of this reac
tionary movement, than in the case of Bossuet, bishop of Meaux.
The success, and indeed the mere existence, of his work on Uni
versal History, becomes, from this point of view, highly instructive.
Considered by itself, the book is a pamful exhibition of a great
genius cramped by a superstitious age. But considered in refer
ence to the time in wMch it appeared, it is invaluable as a symp
tom of the French intellect; since it proves, that towards the
end of the seventeenth century, one of the most eminent men,
in one of the first countries of Europe, could wUlingly submit to
a prostration of judgment, and could display a hUnd credulity,
of which, in our day, even the feeblest minds would be asham
ed ; and that tMs, so far from causing scandal, or bringing a re
buke on the head of the author, was received with umversal and
unqualified applause. Bossuet was a great orator, a consum
mate dialectician, and an accomplished master of those vague
suhUmities by wMch most men are easUy affected. AU these
qualities he, a few years later, employed in the production of
what is probably the most formidable work ever directed
against Protestantism." But when he, learing these matters,
entered the vast field of history, he could think of no better way
of tieatmg Ms new subject, than by following the arbitrary rules
peculiar to Ms own profession.'" His work is an audacious at
tempt to degrade Mstory to a mere handmaid of theology."" As
ff, on such matters, doubt were synonymous with crime, he,
without the slightest hesitation, takes every tMng for granted
wMch the church had heen accustomed to believe. This en
ables Mm to speak with perfect confidence respectmg events
wMch are lost m the remotest antiquity. He knows the exact
"' This ia the opimon of Mr. HaUam reapecting Bossuet's Hiatory of the Varia
tions of Protestant Churches. Const, Hist, vol. i. p. 486 : compare Urminier, Philos,
du Droit, vol. U. p. 86. Attempts have been made by Proteatant theologiana to
retort againat the CathoUcs the arguments of Bossuet, on the ground that religioua
variationa are a neceaaary consequence of the honest pursuit of reUgious truth. See
Blanco White's Evidence against Catholicism, pp. 109-112 ; and his Utters from
Spain, by Doblado, p. 127. With this I fuUy agree ; but it would be easy to show
that the argument is fatal to all eccleaiastical systems with strictly defined creeds, and,
therefore, strikes as heavUy against tbe Protestant churches aa againat the Catholic.
Beauaobre, in hia acute and learned work on Manichseiam, seeras to have felt this ;
and he makes the dangerous admission, " que si I'argument de M. de Meaux vaut quel
que chose contre la Edformation, U a la mdme force contre le Christianisme." Ilist
de Maniehee, voh i. p. 526. On Bossuet as a controversialist, see Staudlin, Geschichte
der theologischen Wissenschaften, vol. u. pp. 43-45 ; and for a contemporary opinion
of his great work, see a characteristic passage in Lettres de Sevignl, vol v. p. 409.
' " His method is fairly stated by Sismondi, Hist, des Frangais, vol. xxv. p. 427.
'" See, on this attempt of Bossuet's, aome good remarka iu Sidudlin, Geschichte
aer theologischen Wissenschaften, vol. U. p. 198 : " Kirche und Chriatenthum sind fiir
diesen Bischoff der Mittelpunct der ganzen Geschichte. Aus diesem Gesichtspuncte
betrachtet er nicht nur die Patriarchen und Propheten, das Judenthum und die alten
Weissagungen, sondern auch die Eeiche der Welt."

570 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
number of years which have elapsed since the moment when
Cain murdered his brother ; when the deluge overwhelmed the
world ; and when Abraham was summoned to his mission."
The dates of these, and similar occurrences, he fixes with a pre
cision, which might almost make us heUeve that they had taken
place in his own time, if not under Ms own eyes."* It is trae,
that the Hebrew books on wMch he wiUingly reUed, supply no
e-ridence of the slightest value concerning the chronology even of
their own people; whUe the information they contain respecting
other countries, is notoriously meagre and unsatisfactory."' But
so narrow were the -riews of Bossuet upon history, that yrith q,ll
this he, in his own opinion, had no concern. The text of the
Vulgate declared, that these -tMngs had happened at a particu
lar time; and a number of holy men, caUing themselves the
council of the church, had, in the middle of the sixteenth cen
tury, pronounced the Vulgate to he authentic, and had taken
upon themselves to place it above aU other versions."* This
theological opinion was accepted hy Bossuet as an historical
law; and thus the decision of a handful of cardinals and bishops,
in a superstitious and uncritical age, is the sole authority for
that early chronology, the precision of which is, to an uninfortn-
ed reader, a matter of great admiration."'.
In the same way, hecause Bossuet had heen taught that the
Jews are the chosen people of God, he, under the title of Uni
versal History, almost confines Ms attention to them, and treats
this obstinate and ignorant race as ff they .formed the pivot upon
wMch the affairs of the universe had been made to turn."" His
"' Bossuet, Discours sur VHistoire UniverseUe, pp. 10, 11, 16, 17 ; see also, at p.
90, a curious specimen of his chronological calculations.
"" He says, that if the ordinarily received dates of the Pentateuch and the Pro
phets are not true, then the miracles must faU, and the writings themselves are not
inspired. Hist Univ, p, 860. It would be hard to find, even in the works of Bos
suet, a more rash aaaertion than this.
'" Indeed tho Jews have no consecutive chronology before Solomon. See Bun
sen's Egypt, vol i. pp. vUi. xxv. 170, 178, 185, vol. U. p. 899.
"* Doing this, as they did every thing else, on account, not of reason, but of
dogma : for, aa a learned writer says, " rEglise a bien distingud, certains Uvres, en
apocryphes et enorthodoxes ; eUe s'est prononcde d'une manidre formelle aurlechoix
dea ouvrages canoniquea ; ndanmoins sa critique n'a jamais dtd fondde aur un examen
raisonnd, mais seulement sur la queation de savoir si tel ou tel dcrit dtait d'accord
avec les dogmea qu'eUe enaeignait." Maury, Ligendes Pieuses, p, 224.
."" Theologiana have always been remarkable for the exactness of their knowledge
on subjects respecting which nothing is known ; but none of thera have surpassed
the learned Dr. Stukeley. In 1780, this eminent divine writes: "But according to
the calculations I have made of this matter, I find God Almighty ordered Noah to get
the creatures into the ark on Sunday the 12th of October, the very day of the au
tumnal equinox that year ; and on this present day, on the Sunday se'nnight foUowing
(the 19th of October), that terrible catastrophe began, the moon being past her tUrd
quarter." Nichols's Illustrations of the Eighteenth Century, vol. il p. 792.
"° " Premidrement, ces erapires ont pour la plupart une Uaison ndcessaire avec
I'histoire du peuple de Dieu. Dieu s'est servi des Assyriens et des Babyloniens pour

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 571
idea of an universal history excludes those nations who were the
first to reach cirilization, and to some of whom the Hebrews
owed the scanty knowledge which they subsequently acquired."'
He says Uttle of the Persians, and less of the Egyptians; nor
does he even mention that far greater people between the Indus
and the Ganges, whose pMlosophy formed one of tho elements
of the school of Alexandria, whose subtle speculations anticipat
ed all the efforts of European metaphysics, and whose sublime
inquiries, conducted in their own exquisite language, date from
a period when the Jews, stained with every variety of crime,
were a plundermg and vagabond tribe, wandermg on the face of
the earth, raising their hand against every man, and every man
raising Ms hand against them.
When he enters the more modern period, he allows himself
to he governed hy the same theological prejudices. So con
tracted is his view, that he considers the whole history of the
church as the history of providential interference; and he takes
no notice of the manner in which, contrary to the original
scheme, it has been affected by foreign events."' Thus, for ex
ample, the most important fact relating to the early changes in
CMistiamty, is the extent to wMch its doctrines have been in
fluenced by the African form of the Platonic phUosophy." But
tMs, Bossuet never mentions ; nor does he even hint that any
such tMng had occurred. It suited Ms views to look upon the
church as a perpetual miracle, and he, therefore, omits the most
unportant event in its early Mstory.'" To descend a little
chitier ce peuple ; des Perses pour le rdtabUr ; d' Alexandre et de ses preraiers suc
cesseurs pour le protdger ; d'Autiochus I'lUustre et de sea successeurs pour I'exercer ;
des Eomains pour soutenir sa Ubertd contre lea roia de Syrie, qui ne songeaient qu'&
le ddtruire." Bossuet, Hist Univ, p. 882. WeU raay M. Lermmier say (Philos, du
Droit, vol u. p. 87), that Boaauet "a eacrifid toutea lea nationa au peuple juif"
On the extraordinary and prolonged ignorance of the Jewa, even to tbe time
of the Apoatles, see Mackay's Progress of tlw-Intellect, vol. i. pp. 18 seq. ; a work of
profound learning.
'" The original scheme of Christianity, aa atated by ita Great Author (Matthew
i. 6, and xv. 24), waa merely to convert the Jews ; and if the doctrines of Christ had
never extended beyond that ignorant people, they could not have received those
modifications which phUosophy imposed upon them. The whole of this subject is
admirably discussed iu Mackay's Progress of the Intellect in Religious Development,
vol ii. pp. 382 seq. ; and on the " universaliBm," first clearly announced "by the
HeUenist Stephen," see p. 484. Neander makes a noticeable attempt to evade the
difficulty caused by the changes in Christianity from " various outward causes :". see
his History of the Church, voh iu. p. 126.
" Neander (Hist, of the Church, vol. u. p. 42) even thinka that Cerinthus, whose
views are reraarkable as being the point where Gnoaticiara aud Judaiam touch each
other, borrowed hia aystera frora Alexandria. But this, though not unUkely, seems
only to rest on the authority of Theodoret. On tbe influence of the Platonism of
Alexandria, in developing the idea of the Logos, see Neander, vol. il pp. 304, 306-
314.^ Compare Sharpe's Hist, of Egypt, vol U. pp. 152 seq.
And having to mention Clemens Alexandrinus, who waa more deeply veraed in
the philosophy of Alexandria than were any of tho other fathers, Bossuet merely

572 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
later: every one acquainted with the progress of civiUzation
wiU aUow, that no smaU share of it is due to those gleams of
Ught, which, in the midst of surroundmg darkness, shot from the
great centres of Cordova, and Bagdad. These, however, were
the work of Mohammedanism ; and as Bossuet had heen taught
that Mohammedanism is a pestilential heresy, he could not
bring himseff to beUeve that Christian nations had derived
any tMng from so corrupt a source. The consequence is, that he
says nothing of that great religion, the noise of which has filled
the world ;" and having occasion to mention its founder, he
treats him with scorn, as an impudent impostor, whose preten
sions it is hardly fitting to notice.'* The great apostle, who
diffused among milUons of idolaters the subUme verity of one
God, is spoken of hy Bossuet with supreme contempt ; because
Bossuet, with the trae spirit of his profession, could see nothing
to admire in those whose opinions differed from Ms own." But
when he has occasion to mention some obscure member of that
class to wMch he himself belonged, then it is that he scatters Ms
praises with boundless profusion. In his scheme of universal
history, Mohammed is not worthy to play a part. He is passed
hy ; hut the truly great man, the man to whom the human race
is reaUy indebted, is — Martin, bishop of Tours. He it is, says
Bossuet, whose unrivaUed actions fiUed the universe with Ms
fame, both during Ms Ufetime and after his death.'* It is trae,
says, p. 98, " k peu prds dans le mdme tempa, le saint prdtre CIdment Alexandrin
ddterra les antiquitds du paganisme pour le confondre."
" About tbe time that Bossuet wrote, a very learned writer calculated that the
area of tbe countries which professed Mohammedanism, exceeded, by one-fifth, those
where Christianity was beUeved. See Brerewood's Inquiries touching ihe Diversity
of .Languages arid Religions, Lond. 1674, pp. 144, 145. The estimate of Southey
(Vindidoe Ecclesice Anglicana, London, 1826, p. 48) is very vague; but itia much
easier to judge ofthe extent of Mohammedan countries than ofthe extent of their
population. On thia latter point we have the moat conflicting atatementa. In the
nineteenth century, there are, according to Sharon Turner (Hist, of England, vol. iU.
p. 485, edit. 1889), eighty miUion Mobammedana ; according to Dr. EUiotaon (Human
Physiology, p. 1056, edit. 1840), more than a hundred and twenty-two miUion ; while,
according to M-r. -WUkin (note in Sir Thomas Browne's Works, vol U. p. 37, edit.
1885), there are a hundred and eighty-eight miUion.
'" " Le faux prophdte donna ses victoires pour toute marque de aa mission.''
Bossuet, p. 125.
'" The greatest Mohammedan writera have always expressed ideaa regarding the
Deity more lofty than thoae poasessed by the majority of Chriatiana. The Koran
contajua noble pasaages on the onenesa of God ; and for the views of their ordinary
theologians, I may refer to an interesting Mohammedan sermon, in Transactions of ihe
Bombay Society, vol i. pp. 146-158. See alao, in vol iu. pp. 398-448, an Essay by
Vana Kennedy ; and corapare a remarkable paaaage, conaidering the quarter from
which it comes, in Autobiography of the Emperor Jehangueir, p. 44. Those who
a»e,so thoughtless as to beUeve that Mohammed was a hypocrite, bad better study
tbe admirable remarka of M. Comte (Philos. Pos. vol v. pp. 76, 77), who truly saya,
" qu'un homme vraiment supdrieur n'a jamais pu exercer aucune grande action sur
ses semblables sans dtre d'abord lui-radme intimement convaincu."
'* " Saint Martin fut fait dvdque de Tours, et rerapUt tout I'univers du bruit de

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 573
that not one educated man in fifty has ever heard the name of
Martin, bishop of Tours. But Martin performed miracles, and
the church had made him a saint ; Ms claims, therefore, to the
attention of Mstorians must be far superior to the claims of one
who, Uke Mohammed, was without these advantages. Thus it
is that, in the opinion of the only eminent writer on history
during the power of Louis XIV., the greatest man Asia has ever
produced, and one of the greatest the world has ever seen,
is considered in every way inferior to a mean and ignorant
monk, whose most important achievement was the erection of a
monastery, and who spent the best part of his lffe in useless sol
itude, tremhUng hefore the superstitious fancies of Ms weak and
ignoble nature."
Such was the narrow spirit with wMch the great facts of
history were contemplated by a writer, who, when he was con
fined to Ms own department, displayed the most towering ge
nius. TMs contracted view was the inevitable consequence of
his attempt to explain the compUcated movements ofthe human
race by principles wMch he had generalized from Ms own inferior
studies." Nor need any one he offended, that, from a scientific
point of view, I assign to the pursuits of Bossuet a rank lower
than that m wMch they are sometimes placed. It is certain
that reUgious dogmas do, in many cases, influence the affairs of
men. But it is equaUy certam, that as civUization advances,
such influence decreases, and that even when the power of those
dogmas was at its height, there were many other motives hy
wMch the actions of manMnd were also governed. And since
the study of Mstory is the study of the aggregate of these mo
tives, it is evident that Mstory must he superior to theology.;
just as the whole is superior to a part. A neglect of tMs sim
ple consideration has, with a few eminent exceptions, led aU
sa saintetd et de ses miracles, durant sa vie, et aprds sa mort." Bossuet, Hist Univ.
p. 111. " The Benedictinea have written the Ufe of Martin in their Hist. Ui. de la France,
vol l part U. pp. 413-417, Paria, 1733, 4to. They aay that he erected the flrst mon
astery in Gaul: "Martin, toujoura paasionnd pour la solitude, drigea un monastdre
qui fut le premier que I'on eut encore vii dans lea Gaules." p. 414. At p. 415, they
make the unnecessary admiaaion, that the aaint " n'avoit point dtudid lea aciencea pro
fanes." I may add, that the miraclea of Martin are related by Fleury, who evidently
beUeves that they were reaUy performed. Flewijy, Hist Eccllsiastique, Uvre xvi. no.
31, vol iv. pp. 215-217, Paris, 1768, 12mo. Neander, ha-ring the advantage of Uving
a hundred years later than Fleury, ia content to say, "the veneration of bis period
denominated him a worker of miracles." Hist of the Church, voh iv. p. 494. There
IS a characteristic anecdote of him, from Sulpitius Severua, in Mosheim's Eccles, Hist.
Tol I p. 128.
'I At pp. 479, 480, Boaauet gives a sort of aummary of hia historical principles ;
and if they are true, history is evidently impoaaible to be written. On thia account,
though fully recogniaing. the geniuB of Boaauet, I cannot agree with the remarks
made upon him by M. Comte, Philos. Pos. vol. iv. p. 280, vol vl pp. 816, 317.

574 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
ecclesiastical authors into serious errors. It has induced in them
a disposition to disregard the immense variety of external events,
and to suppose that the course of affairs is regulated by some
principles which theology alone can detect. This, mdeed, is
only the result of a general law of the mind, hy which those
who have any favourite profession, are apt to exaggerate its ca
pacity ; to explam events hy its maxims, and, as it were, to re
fract through its medium the occurrences of Ufe." Among
theologians, however, such prejudices are more dangerous than
in any other profession, hecause among them alone are they for-
tifled hy that hold assumption of supernatural authority on
wMch many of the clergy willingly rely.
These professional prejudices, when supported hy theological
dogmas, in a reign Uke that of Louis XIV.," are sufficient to
account for the pecuUarities wMch mark the Mstorical work (ff
Bossuet. Besides tMs, in his case, the general tendency was
aggravated hy personal characteristics. His mmd was remark
able for a haughtiness, which we find constantly hreaMng out
into a general contempt for mankind.'" At the same time his
amazing eloquence, and the effects which it never faUed to pro
duce, seemed to justify the overweenmg confidence that he felt
in Ms own powers. There is, indeed, in some of his greatest
efforts, so much of the fire and majesty of genius, that we are
reminded of those lofty and burmng words with wMch the pro
phets of antiquity thrilled their hearers. Bossuet, thus stand
ing, as he supposed, on an eminence wMch raised Mm above the
ordinary weaknesses of men, loved to taunt them with their
foUies, and to deride every aspiration of their genius. Every
tMng like inteUectual boldness seemed to gaU his own superior
ity.'" It was tMs boundless arrogance yrith wMch he was fiUed,
wMch gives to his works some of their most marked pecuUar
ities. It was this, that made Mm strain every nerve to abase
and vUify those prodigious resources of the human understand-
" And then, aa M. Charlea Comte well says, they caU this prejudice their moral
sense, or their moral instinct. Comte, Traiti de Ugislation, vol. i. p. 116.
" The connection between the opinions of Bossuet and the despotism of Louis
XrV. is touched on by Montlosier, who, however, has probably laid too much stress
on the influence which the civU law exercised over both. Montlosier, Monarchie
Frangaise, vol ii. p. 90.
'" He belonged to a class of historians, described by a celebrated writer in a single
sentence : " dans leurs dcrits l'auteur parait souvent grand, mais I'humanitd eat tou
joura petite.", TocqueviUe, Democratic, vol. iv. p. 139.
™ Hardly any one acquainted with the writings and the hiatory of Boaauet wUl
require evidence of his singular arrogance. But the reader may consult Sismondi,
Hist, des Frang. vol. xx-vi. p. 247 ; and on his treatment of Fdndlon, which waa the
moat ahameful transaction of his life, compare Burnets Own Time, vol. iv. p. 884,
with Capefigue's Louis XIV, voh ii. p. 68 ; where there is printed one of the many
epigrams to which the conduct of Bossuet gave rise.

GENEEAL INTRODUCTION. 575
ing, which are often despised hy men who are ignorant of them ;
but which in reaUty are so great, that no one has yet arisen able
to scan them in the whole of their gigantic dimensions. It was
this same contempt for the human intellect, that made him
deny its capacity to work out for itself the epochs through which
it has passed ; and, consequently, made him recur to the dogma
of supernatural interference. It was this, again, that, in those
magnificent orations which are among the^ greatest wonders of
modern art, caused him to exhaust the language of eulogy, not
upon inteUectual enunence, but upon mere mUitary achieve
ments, upon great conquerors, those pests and destroyers of men,
who pass their lives in discovering new ways of slaying their
enemies, and in devising new means of aggravating the miseries
of the world. And, to descend still lower, it was tMs same con
tempt for the dearest interests of manMnd, which made Mm
look with reverence upon a Mng, who considered aU those inter
ests as notMng ; hut who had the merit of enslaving the mind
of France, and of increasing the power of that body of men,
among whom Bossuet himself' was the most distinguished.
In the absence of sufficient evidence respecting the general
state of the French at the end of the seventeenth century, it is
impossible to ascertain to what extent such notions as these had
penetrated the popular mind. But, looking at the manner in
which govemment had hroken the spirit of the country, I should
he inclined to suppose that the opinions of Bossuet were very
acceptable to Ms own generation. This, however, is a question
rather of curiosity than of importance ; for only a few years later
there appeared the first symptoms of that imprecedented move
ment, which not merely destroyed the political institutions of
France, hut effected a greater and more permanent revolution
in every department of the national intellect. At the death of
Louis XIV., m Uterature, as well as in politics, in religion, and
in morals, every thing was ripe for reaction. The materials stUl
existing are so ample, that it would be possible to trace with
considerable minuteness the steps of tMs great process ; but it
will, I thmk, he more agreeable to the general scheme of this
Introduction, if I pass over some of the intermediate links, and
confine myseff to those saUent instances in which the spirit of
the age is most strikingly portrayed.
There is, indeed, something extraordinary in the change
wMch, in France, one generation was able to effect in the
method of writmg history. The best way, perhaps, to form an
idea of this, wiU he to compare the works of Voltaire with those
of Bossuet ; because these great authors were probably the most
ahle, and were certainly the most infiuential. Frenchmen during

576 ' CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
the period they respectively represented. The first great im
provement which we find in Voltaire, as compared with Bos
suet, is an increased perception of the dignity of the human in
tellect. In addition to the circumstances already noticed, we
must remember that the reading of Bossuet lay in a direction
which prevented him from feeUng this. He had not studied
those branches of knowledge where great things have heen
acMeved ; hut he was very conversant with the writings of the
saints and fathers, wliose speculations are hy no means calculated
to give us a high opmion of the resources of their oym under
standing. Thus accustomed to contemplate the worMngs of the
mind m what is, on the whole, the most puerUe literature Eu
rope has ever produced, the contempt wMch Bossuet felt for
manMnd went on mcreasing ; untU it reached that inordinate
degree wMch, in Ms later works, is painfuUy conspicuous. But
Voltaire, who paid no attention to such things as these, passed
Ms long lffe in the constant accumulation of real and avaUahle
knowledge. His mind was essentiaUy modem. Despising un
supported authority, and heedless of tradition, he devoted Mmself
to subjects in wMch the triumph of the human reason is too ap
parent to he mistaken. The more his knowledge advanced, the
more he adnUred those vast powers hy which the knowledge had
heen created. Hence his admiration for the inteUect of man, so
far froin dimimsMng, grew yrith his growth ; and, just in the
same proportion, there was strengthened his love of humamty,
and Ms disUke to the prejudices which had long obscured its Ms
tory. That this, in the march of his mind, was the course it
actuaUy followed, wUl be evident to any one who considers the
different spirit of Ms works, in reference to the different periods
of Ufe in which they were produced.
The first Mstorioal work of Voltaire was a Ufe of Charles
XIL, in 1728." At tMs time Ms knowledge was stiU scanty,
and he was stiU influenced by the ser'rile traditions of the pre
ceding generation. It is not, therefore, wonderfiU, that he should
express the greatest respect for Charles, who, among the ad
mirers of military fame, will always preserve a certain reputa
tion ; though Ms only merits are, that he ravaged many coun
tries and Mlled many men. But we find Uttle sympathy -with
his unfortunate subjects, the accumulations of whose industry
supported the royal armies ;'* nor is there much pity for those
" He says that he wrote it in 1728. (Euvres de Voltaire, vol xxu., p. 6 ; but, ac
cording to M. Lepan (Vie de Voltaire, p. 382), "U parut en 1781." Both state
ments may be accurate, aa Voltaire frequently kept hia worka for some time m
manuscript. "'' Sir A. AUson, who certainly cannot be accused of want of resjiftct for military
conqperors, aays of Sweden, " the attempt which Charlea XH. made to engage her

GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 577
nations who were oppressed hy this great robber in the immense
Une of Ms conquests from Sweden to Turkey. Indeed, the ad
miration of Voltaire for Charles is unbounded. He calls him
the most extraordinary man the world had ever seen;" he de
clares Mm to be a prince fuU of honour ;"* and wMle he scarcely
blames Ms infamous murder of Patkul," he relates with evident
emotion how the royal lunatic, at the head of forty servants, re
sisted an entire army." In the same way, he says, that
after the battle of Narva, aU the attempts of Charles were
unable to prevent medals from being struck at Stockholm in
celebration of that event;" although Voltaire weU knew that a
man of such extravagant vanity must have been pleased hy so
durable a homage, and although it is quite certain that if he had
not heen pleased, the medals would never have been struck : for
who would venture, without an object, to offend, in Ms owm cap
ital, one of the most arbitrary and revengeful of princes ?
So far, it might appear, that Uttle had been gained in the
method of writing Mstory." But, even thus early, we find one
m long and arduous wars, so completely drained the resources of the country, that
they cOd not recover the loss for half a century." Hist, of Europe, vol x. p. 604.
See also, on the effecta produced by the conacriptiona of Charles XIL, Laing's
Sweden, p. 69 ; Koch, Tableau des Revolutions, vol. ii. p. 63 ; and above aU, a curious
passage in Duclos, Mlm. Seerets, vol. i. p. 448. Several of the soldiers of Charles
XH., who were taken prisoners, were sent into Siberia, where BeU feU in with thera
early m the eighteenth century. Belts Travels in Asia, edit. Edinb. 1788, vol. i. pp.
223, 224.
" " Charles XII, I'homme le plus extraordinaire peut-dtre qui ait jamais dtd sur
la terre, qui a rduni en lui toutes les grandes quaUtds de ses aleux, et qui n'a eu
d'autre ddfaut ni d'autre malheur que de les avoir toutes outrdes. Ilist, de Charles
XH, Uvre i., in (Euvres de Voltaire, vol. xxii. p. 30.
" "Plein d'honneur." Ibid, iu CEuvres, vol. xxn. p. 63.
^ Which Burke, not without justice, compares to the murder of Moualdeschi by
Christma. Burke's Works, vol. i. p. 412. See some reraarks on the raurder of
Patkul, in Vattel, Droit des Gens, vol i. p. 230 ; and an account of it, from Swedish
authorities, in Somers Tracts, vol xUl pp. 879-881. For Voltaire's version, see his
(Euvres, voh xxU. pp. 136, 137; which raay be contrasted with Crichton and
Wheaton's History of Scandinavia, Edinb. 1838, vol. ii. p. 127.
"^ (Ewvres de Voltaire, vol xxU. pp. 260-260. It may interest sorae persons to
hear, that the Utter in which this madman "was borne frora the battle of Pultava"
18 stm preserved at Moscow. KohVs Russia, p. 220. It was also seen by M. Cuatme.
Ouetine's R-ussie, vol. iU. p. 268.
¦11 " ^ '""destie ne put erapdcher qu'on ne frapp^t k Stockholm plusieurs mdd-
mea pour perpdtuer la mdmoire de ces dvdnements." Charles XII, Uvre ii. in
(Ekivres, vol xxu. p. 70.
Even some of itB geographical details are said to be inaccurate. Compare
nilemain, Utthaiure au XVIIP Siecle, vol. U. p. 33, with Kohl's Russia, p. 606.
However, as M. VUlemain says, thia muat alwaya be the caae, when writera, who
only know a country from raaps, atterapt to enter into detaUa reapecting mUitary
geography. In regard to Btyle, it cannot be too highly praiaed ; and a weU-known
cntio, LacreteUe, calla it "le moddle le plua accorapU de narration qui existe dans
notre langue." Lacretelle, Dix-huitihne Sikle, vol. U. p. 42. In 1843 it waa stiU
Med as a text-book in the French royal colleges. See Report on Education in
trance, in Journal of Stat, Soc, vol vi. p. 308. Further information respecting
VOL. I. — 37

678 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
vast improvement. In Voltaire's Ufe of Charles XII., faulty as
it is, there are none of those assumptions of supernatural inter
ference in wMch Bossuet deUghted, and wMch were natural to
the reign of Louis XIV. The absence of tMs marks the first
great stage in the French school of Mstory in the eighteenth
century ; and we find the same pecuUarity in all the subsequent
historians, none of whom recurred to a method, wMch, though
suitable for the purposes of theologians, is fatal to aU independ
ent inquiries, since it not only prescribes the course the inqmrer
is bound to take, hut actuaUy sets up a limit beyond wMch he is
forbidden to proceed.
That Voltaire should have infringed upon tMs ancient method
only tMrteen years after the death of Louis XIV., and that he
should have done tMs in a popular work, abounding with such
dangerous adventures as are always found to tempt the mind to
an opposite course, is a step of no common merit, and becomes
stUl more worthy of remark, if taken in connexion with another
fact of considerable interest. This is, that the lffe of Charles
XII. represents the first epoch, not only in the eighteenth cen
tury, but also in the inteUect of Voltaire himself"" After it
was pubUshed, tMs great man turned a wMle from history, and
directed Ms attention to some of the noblest subjects : to math
ematics, to physics, to jurisprudence, to the discoveries of New
ton, and to the speculations of Locke. In these tMngs he per
ceived those capabUities of the human mind, wMch his own
country had formerly witnessed, hut of wMch, during the au
thority of Louis XIV. the memory had been almost lost. Then
it was that, with extended knowledge and sharpened inteUect,
he retumed to the great field of Mstory."" The manner in wMch
he now treated Ms old subject, showed the change that had come
over Mm. In 1752, appeared his celebrated work on Louis
this work may be found in Longchamp et Wagnih-e, Mhn, sur Voltaire, vol il p.
494 ; and in Mhn, de Genlis, vol. vui. p. 224, vol. x. p. 304.
" It ia evident, from Voltaire's correspondence, that he afterwards became aome
what aahamed of the praiaes be had beatowed on Charlea XII. In 1736, he writea
to De Formont, " si Charlea XII n'avait paa dtd excessivement grand, malheureux,
et fou, je me aeraia bien donnd de garde de parler de lui." CEuvres de Voltaire, vol
Ivi. p. 462. In 1768, advancing atiU further, he aaya of Charles, " voiM, monsieur,
ce que lea bomraea de tous lea tempa et de toua lea pays appeUent un hdros ; mais
c'est le vulgaire de tous les temps et de toua lea paya qui donne ce nom d la soif du
carnage." Ibid, vol. Ix. p. 411. lu 1759, he writea, that he was then engaged on the
history of Peter the Great : " maia je doute que cela soit aussi amusant que la vie de
Charles XII ; car ce Pierre n'dtait qu'un sage extraordinaire, et Charlea un fou ex
traordinaire, qui ae battait, corame Don Quichotte, contre des raouUns h vent." vol
1x1 p. 23 ; see also p. 350. These passages prove the constant progress Voltaire
waa raaking in his conception of what history ought to be, and what ita uses were.
"" In 1741, he mentions his increasing love of history. Corresp, in CEuvres de Vol
taire, vol U. p. 96.

GENEEAL INTRODUCTION. 579
XIV.," the very title of wMch is suggestive of the process
through which his mind had passed. His former history was an
account of a Mng ; tMs is an account of an age. To the pro
duction of Ms youth he gave the title of a History of Charles
XIL; tMs he caUed the Age of Louis XIV, Before, he had
detaUed the pecuUarities of a prince ; now, he considered the
movements of a people. Indeed, in the introduction to the work,
he announces his intention to describe, " not the actions of a sin-
,gle man, but the character of men.""* Nor, in this point of view,
is the execution inferior to the design. WhUe he is contented
with giring a summary of mUitary acMevements, on which Bos
suet hung yrith deUght, he enters at great length into those reaUy
important matters wMch, before his time, found no place in the
history of France. He has one chapter on commerce and in
ternal government ;"' another chapter on finances ;"* another on
the history of science ;"' and three chapters on the progress of
the fine arts."" And though Voltaire did not attach much value
to theological disputes, still he knew that th^y have often played
a great part m the affairs of men ; he, thferefore, gives several
distinct chapters to a relation of ecclesiastical matters during the
reign of Loms." It is hardly necessary to observe the immense
superiority which a scheme Uke this possessed, not only over the
narrow riews of Bossuet, but even over Ms own earUer Mstory.
StiU it cannot he domed, that we find in it prejudices from which
it was difficult for a Frenchman, educated m the reign of Louis
XIV., to be entirely free. Not only does Voltaire dweU at need
less length upon those amusements and debaucheries of Louis,
with wMch Mstory can have little concern, but he displays an
erident disposition to favour the Mng himself, and to protect his
name from the mfamy with wMch it ought to be covered."
" Lord Brougham, iu hia life of Voltaire, aaya that it appeared in 1761. Uves of
Men of Utters, voh i. p. 106. But 1752 ia the date given in Biog, Univ, xUx. 478 ;
In (iuh-ard, France Ui, voh x. p. 366 ; and in Upan, Vie de Voltaire, p. 382.
" " On veut eaaayer de peindre k la poatdritd, non lea actiona d'un aeul homme,
maia I'esprit dea homraes dans le sidcle le plus dclaird qui fut jamais." Sikle de Louis
XIV, in (Eum-es de Voltaire, voh xix. p. 213. And in his correspondence respecting
his work on Louis XIV., he carefuUy makes the same distinction. See vol. Ivi. pp.
453, 488, 489, 500, vol Ivu. pp. 337, 342-844, vol. Ux. p. 103.
" Chap, xxix., in (Euvres de Voltaire, vol xx. pp. 234-267.
" Chap. XXX., in (Euvres, vol. xx. pp. 267-291. This chapter is praiaed in Sin/-
dair's Eist. of the Public Revenue, vol Ul appendix, p. 77 ; an indifferent work, but
the beat we have on the important subject to which it refers.
" Chap, xxxi., in (Euvres, vol xx. pp. 291-299 ; necessarily a very short chapter,
because of the paucity of materials.
'" Chapters xxxu. to xxxiv., in (Ewvres, vol. xx. pp. 299-338.
" (Eu-m-es, vol. xx. pp. 338-464.
'" Thia diapoaition to favour Louia XIV. ia noticed by Condorcet, who aaya it
was the only early prejudice which Voltaire was unable to shake off: "c'est le seul
prdjugd de sa jeunesse qu'U ait conservd." Condorcet, Vie de Voltaire, in CEuvres de

580 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND,
But the next work of Voltaire showed that this was a mere
personal feeling, and did not affect Ms general views as to the
part which the acts of princes ought to occupy in history. Four
years after the appearance of the Age of Louis XIV., he pub
Ushed his important treatise on the Morals, Manners, and Char
acter of Nations,^'' , This is not only one of the greatest hooks
wMch appeared during the eighteenth century, hut it stiU re
mains the best on the subject to wMch it refers. The mere
reading it displays is immense ;'"" what, however, is far more
admirable, is the skUl with which the author connects the va
rious facts, and makes them iUustrate each other, sometimes hy
a single remark, sometimes only by the order and position in
wMch they are placed. Indeed, considered solely as a work of
art, it would he difficult to praise it too highly ; whUe, as a
symptom of the tunes, it is important to observe, that it con
tains no traces of that adulation of roya,lty which characterized
Voltaire in the period of Ms youth, and wMch is found in all the
best writers during the power of Louis XIV. In the whole of
tMs long and important work, the great historian takes little
notice of the intrigues of courts, or of the changes of ministers,
or of the fate of Mngs ; hut he endeavours to discover and de
velop the different epochs through which Man has successively
passed. " I wish," he says, " to yvrite a Mstory, not of wars,
hut of society ; ahd to ascertain how men lived in the interior of
their families, and what were the arts which they commonly cul
tivated."'"' For, he adds, " my object is the history of the hu-
Voltaire, vol. i. p. 286. See also, on this defect, Grimm ei Diderot, Corresp, Ut.
vol. u. p. 182 5 Lemontey, Etablissement Monarchique, pp. 451, 452 ; Mhn. de Bris
sot, vol. U. pp. 88, 89. It is interesting to observe, that Voltaire's earUer opinions
were atUl more favourable to Louis XIV. than thoae which he afterwarda expressed
in hia hiatory. See a letter which he wrote in 1740 to Lord Harvey, printed in
CEum-es de Voltaire, vol. IviU, pp. 57-63.
°° Mr. Burton, in hia intereating work, Ufe and Correspondence of Hume, vol. il
p. 129, says it was " first published in 1766 ;" and tbe sarae date is given by Qudrard
(France Litteraire, vol. x. p. 359), who is a very accurate bibliographer ; so that
Condorcet (Vie de Voliai-re, p. 199) and Lord Brougham (Men of Letters, vol. i. p.
98) are probably in error in assigning it to 1757. In regard to its title, I translate
' Moeura ' aa ' morals and manners ;' for M. TocqueviUe uses ' moeurs ' as equivalent
to the Latin word ' raorea.' TocqueviUe, Dhnocratie en Amhrique, vol. iU. pp. 60, 84.
""' Superficial writers are so much in the habit of calUng Voltaire superficial,
that it may be well to observe, that his accuracy has been praised, not only by. his
own countrymen, but by several EngUsh authors of admitted learning. For three
remarkable instances of this, from men whom no one wiU accuse of leaning towards
his other opiniona, aee notes to Charles V., in Robertson's Works, pp. 431, 432 ;
Barrington's Observations on the Statutes, p. 293 ; and Warton's Hist, of English.
Poetry, vol. l p. xvi. Even Sir W. Jonea, in hia preface to the Ufe of Nader Shah,
says, that Voltaire is "the best historian" the French have produced. Works of
Sir William Jones, vol. v. p. 642 ; and compare the preface to his Persian Gram
mar, in Works, vol. ii. p. 128.
"" " Je voudrais ddcouvrir queUe dtait alors la socidtd des hommes, comment on
vivait dana I'intdrieur dea famUles, quels arts dtaient cultivds, plut6t que de rdpdter

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 581
man mind, and not a mere detaU of petty facts ; nor am I con
cerned with the Mstory of great lords, who made war upon
French Mngs ; hut I want to know what were the steps hy
wMch men passed from barbarism to cirilization."'"*
It was in this way, that Voltaire taught historians to concen
trate their attention on matters of real importance, and to neg
lect those idle detaUs with which history had formerly heen filled.
But what proves this to he a movement arising as much from the
spirit of the age as fix»m the indiridual author, is, that we find
precisely the same tendency in the works of Montesquieu and
Turgot, who were certainly the two most eminent of the contem
poraries of Voltaire ; and both of whom followed a method simi
lar to his, m so far as, omittmg descriptions of kings, courts, and
battles, tiiey confined themselves to points which Ulustrate the
character of manMnd, and the general march of cirilization.
And such was the popularity of this change in the old routine,
that its influence was felt hy other historians of inferior, hut still
of considerable, abUity. In 1755, Mallet'"' published his inter
estmg, and, at the time it was written, most valuable work, on
the history of Denmark ;'"* in which he professes himseff a pupU
of the new school. " For why," he says, " should history be
only a recital of battles, sieges, intrigues, and negotiations ?
And why should it contain merely a heap of petty facts and
dates, rather than a great picture of the opmions, customs, and
even mcUnations of a people ?"'"' Thus too, in 1765, Mably
published the flrst part of his celebrated work on the history of
Prance ;'"" in the preface to wMch, he complains that historians
tant de malheurs et tant de combats, fuuestes objets de I'histoire, et lieux corarauns
de la mechancetd humaine." Essai sur les Moeurs, chap. Ixxxl, in CEuvres, vol. xvi.
p. 381. "" "L'objet dtait I'histoire de l'esprit humain, et non paa le ddtaU dea faits
presque toujoura ddfigurda ; il ne a'agiasait pas de rechercher, par exeraple, de queUe
famiUe dtait le seigneur de Puiset, ou le seigneur de MontUidri, qui firent la guerre
i des roia de France ; maia de voir par quels degrda on est parvenu de la rusticitd
barbare de ces temps k la poUtesse du notre." Supplement to Essai sur les Mceurs,
m (Euvres, voh xviU. p. 435. Compare Fragments sur VHistoire, vol. xxvii. p. 214,
with two letters in vol Ix. pp. 158, 154, vol Ixv. p. 370.
"' MaUet, though bom in Geneva, was a Frenchman in the habits of his mind ;
he wrote in French, and ia claaaed araong French hiatoriana in the report preaented
to Napoleon by the Inatitute. Dacier, Rapport sur les Progrk de VHistoire, p. 173.
'"* Gothe, in hia Autobiography, mentiona hia obUgationa to thia work, which, I
suspect, exercised considerable influence over the early associations of his raind :
" Ich hatte die Fabeln der Edda schon laugst aus der Vorrede zu Mallet's Danischer
Geschichte kennen gelernt, und mich derselben sogleich bemaohtigt ; sie gehorten
unter diejenigen Mahrchen, die ich, von einer Gesellschaft aufgefordert, am liebaten
erzahlte." Wahrheit u. Dichtung, in Goethe's Werke, vol il part U. p. 169. Percy,
a very fair judge, thought highly of Mallet'a history, part of which, indeed, he trans
lated. See a letter from him, in Nichols's Rlustrations of the Eighteenth Centwry,
vol vu. p. 719.
"' Mallets Northern Antiquities, edit. BlackeU, 1847, p. 78.
"" The first two volumes were pubUahed in 1766 ; the other two in 1790. Biog.
Univ. vol. xxvi pp. 9, 12.

582 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
" have neglected the origin of laws and customs, in favour of
sieges and battles."'"' In the same spirit, VeUy and VUlaret,
m their voluminous history of France, express regret that Msto
rians should usually relate what happens to the sovereign, in
preference to what happens to the people, and should omit the
manners and characteristics of , a nation, in order to study the
acts of a smgle man.'"" Duclos, again, announces that his his
tory is not of war, nor of poUtics, but of men and manners ;'""
while, strange to say, even the courtly H6nault declares that Ms
object was to describe laws and manners, which he calls the soul
of history, or rather history itseff.""
Thus it was, that historians began to shift, as it were, the
scene of their labours, and to study subjects connected with those
popular interests, on which the great writers under Louis XIV.
disdained to waste a thought. I need hardly observe, how agree
able such views were to the general spirit of the eighteenth cen
tury, and how well they harmonized with the temper of men,
who were striving to lay aside their former prejudices, and despise
what had once been universaUy admired. AU this was hut part
of that vast movement, which prepared the way for the Eevolu
tion, hy unsettUng ancient opinions, by encouraging a certam
mohUity and restlessness of mind, and, above aU, by the disrespect
it showed for those powerful individuals, Mtherto regarded as
gods rather than as men, hut who now, for the first time, were
neglected hy the greatest and most popular historians, who
passed over even their prominent actions, in order to dwell upon
the weffare of nations, and the interests of the people at large.
To retum, however, to what was actuaUy effected by Voltaire,
there is no douht that, in his case, tMs tendency of the time was
strengthened by a natural comprehensiveness of mind, which
predisposed Mm to large views, and made him dissatisfied with
that narrow range to wMch Mstory had heen hitherto confined.'"
'"' Mably, Observ, sur VHist, de France, vol i. p. U. ; and compare vol. in. p. 289 :
but thia latter paaaage was written several years later.
108 11 Born^g ^ uo„g apprendre lea victoirea ou lea ddfaites du souverain, ils ue
nous disent rien ou presque rien des peuples qu'il a rendua heureux ou malheureux.
On ne trouve dans leurs dcrits que longues descriptions de sidges et de bataiUes ;
nuUe mention des moeura et de I'eaprit de la nation. EUe y est presque toujours
sacrifide k un seul homme." Histoire de France par VeUy, Paris, 1770, 4to, vol. i.
p. 6 ; and see, to the same effect, the Continuation by VUlaret, vol. v. p. vl
"' " Si I'histoire que j'dcris, n'est ni mUitaire, ni poUtique, ni dconomique, du
moina dana le seua que je coufoia pour ces diffdrentes parties, on me demandera
quelle est donc celle que je me propose d'dcrire. C'eat I'biatoire dea hommea et des
moBura." Duclos, Louis XIV et Louis XV, vol. i. p. xxv.
uo u Jg youloia connoitre nos loix, nos moeurs, et tout ce qui est I'Srae de I'his
toire, ou plutdt I'histoire meme." Hlnault, Nouvel Abrlgl chronologique de VHistoire
de France, edit. Paris, 1775, vol. i. p. i.
_ "' In 1763, he writes to D'Argental : " il y a environ douze bataillea dont je n'ai
point parld, Dieu raerci, parceque j'dcris I'histoire de l'esprit humain, et non une ga-

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 583
Whatever may he thought of the other quaUties of Voltaire, it
must be aUowed that, in his inteUect, every thing was on a great
scale."* Always prepared for thought, and always ready to gen
eraUze, he was averse to the study of individual actions, unless
they could be made available for the establishment of some
broad and permanent principle. Hence his habit of looMng at
history with a view to the stages through wMch the country
had passed, rather than with a view to the character of the men
hy whom the country had heen governed. The same tendency
appears in Ms Ughter works ; and it has been weU observed,'"
that, even in Ms dramas, he endeavours to portray, not so much
the passions of individuals, as the spirit of epochs. In Mahomet,
his subject is a great reUgion ; m Ahire, the conquest of Amer
ica ; in Brutus, the formation of the Eoman power ; in the Death
of Ccesar, the rise of the empire upon the ruins of that power. "*
By tMs determination to look upon the course of events as a
great and connected whole, Voltaire was led to several results,
wMch have heen complacently adopted by many authors, who,
even wMle using them, revUe him from whom they were taken.
He was the first Mstorian who, rejecting the ordinary method of
investigation, endeavoured, hy large general views, to explam
the origm of feudaUty ; and, by mdicatmg some of the causes of
its decline in the fourteenth century,'" he laid the foundation for
a phUosopMc estimate of that important institution."" He was
the author of a profound remark, afterwards adopted by Con-
zette." (Euvres de Voltaire, vol. IxiU. p. 61. See also his letter to Tabareau (Uttres
inedites de Voltaire, vol. ii. p. 585) : " Personne ne Ut Ies detaUa des combats et des
sidges ; rien n'est plus ennuyeux que la droite et la gauche, les bastions et la con-
trescarpe." "^ M. Lamartine characterizes hira as " ce genie non pas le plus haut, mais le
plua vaste de la France." Hist, des Girondins, vol i. p. 180.
'" Biog, Univ. vol xUx. p. 493. His Orphelin de la Chine is taken frora Chinese
sources: see Davis's China, vol. U. p. 258.
"* The surprising versatiUty of Voltaire's mind is shown by tbe fact, unparaUeled
m Uterature, that he was equaUy great aa a dramatic writer and as an historian. Mr.
Forster, m his admirable Ufe of Goldsmith, 1864, says (vol. l p. 119), " Gray's high
opinion of Voltaire's tragedies is shared by one of our greatest authorities on such
a matter now Uving, Sir Edward Bulwer Lyttou, whom I have often heard maintain
the marked superiority of Voltaire over aU bis countrymen in the knowledge of
dramatic art, and the power of producing theatrical effects." Compare Correspond
ence of Gray and Mason, edit. Mitford, 1866, p. 44.
Essai sur les Moeurs, chap. Ixxxv. in CEuvres, vol. xvi. p. 412, and elsewhere.
"' During the eighteenth century, and, I may say, until the pubUcation iu 1818
of HaUam's Middle Ages, there was in the EngUsh language no comprehensive ac
count of the feudal system ; unless, perhapa, we except that given by Eobertaon,
who in thia, aa in many other mattera of hiatory, was a pupil of Voltaire, Not
only Dalrymple, and writers of hia kind, but even Blackstone, took so narrow a view
of this great institution, that tbey were unable to connect it with the general atate
of society to which it belonged. Some of our historians gravely traced it back to
Moses, in whose laws they found the origin of aUodial landa. See a charming paaaage
in Barry's Wstory of the Orkney Islands, p. 219. On the apirit of feudaUty, there
are some remarka worth reading in Comte's Philos, Posit, vol v. pp. 393-413.

584 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
stant, to the effect, that Ucentious reUgious ceremonies have no
connexion with Ucentious national morals."' Another observa
tion of Ms, wMch has been only partly used hy writers on eccle-
siastical history, is pregnant with instraction. He says, that
one of the reasons why the bishops of Eome acquired an author
ity so superior to that of the eastern patriarchs, was the greater
subtlety of the Greek mind. Nearly all the heresies proceeded
from the east ; and, with the exception of Honorius I., not a sin
gle pope adopted a system condemned by the church. TMs
gave to the papal power an unity and consoUdation, which the
patriarchal power was unable to reach ; and thus the Holy See
owes part of its authority to the early dullness of the European
fancy.'" It would be impossible to relale aU the original remarks of
Voltaire, wMch, when he made them, were attacked as danger
ous paradoxes, and are now valued as sober truths. He was the
first historian who recommended universal freedom of trade,
and although he expresses himseff with great caution,"" stUl
"' Constant, in bis work on Roraan polytheisra, aaya, " des rites inddcens peuvent
dtre pratiquds par un peuple reUgieux avec une grande puretd de coeur. Maia quand
I'incrdduUtd atteint cea peuplea, ces rites sont pour lui la cause et le prdtexte de la
plus rdvoltante corruption." This passage is quoted by Mr. Milman, who calls it
" extreraely profound and just." Milman's History of Christianity, 1840, vol. l
p. 28. And so it is — extremely profound and just. But it happens that precisely
the same remark was made by Voltaire, just about the time that Constant was born.
Speaking of tbe worship of Priapus, he says (Essai sur les Moeurs, chap. cxliU., in
(Euvres de Voltaire, vol xvii. p. 341), " nos iddes de biensdance nous portent h croire
qu'une cdrdmonie qui noua parait ai infeme n'a dtd inventde que par ia ddbauche ;
maia U n'eat gudre croyable que la ddpravation dea moeurs ait jamais chez aucun
peuple dtabU des cdrdmonies reUgieuaea. II eat probable, au oontrsure, que cette
couturae fut d'abord introduite dans les teraps de simpUcitd, et qu'on ne pensa d'a
bord qu'A honorer la Divinitd dans le symbole de la vie qu'eUe nous a donnde. Une
teUe cdrdmonie a dii inspirer la Ucence k la jeunesse, et paraitre ridicule aux esprita
sages, dans lea terapa plus raffinds, plus corrompus, et plus dclairds." Compare the
remarks on the indecency of the Spartan cuatoraa, in Tliirlwalts Hist, of Greece,
vol. l pp. 826, 327.
"" !Essai sur les Mceurs, chapa. xiv. and xxxi, in CEum-es, vol xv. pp. 391, 514.
Neander obaervea, that in the Greek church there were raore bereaies than in the
Latin church, because the Greeks thought raore ; but he has failed to perceive how
this favoured the authority of the popes. Neander's History of the Church, vol. U.
pp. 198, 199, vol. iu. pp. 191, 492, vol. iv. p. 90, vol vi. p. 293, vol. viu. p._257.
"° In his account of the trade of Archangel, he aays, " les Anglaia obtinrent le
privUdge d'y commercer aana payer aucun droit ; et c'eat ainai que toutes les nations
devraient peut-dtre ndgocier ensemble." Hist, de Russie, part i. chap, l, in (Euvres,
vol. xxiu. p. 85. Remarkable words to have been written by a Frenchman, born at
the end of the seventeenth century ; and yet they have, ao far as I ara aware, escaped
the attention of aU tbe historiana of poUtical economy. Indeed, on thia, aa on most
mattera, sufiScient juatice has not been done to Voltaire, whose opinions were more
accurate than those of Quesnay and his foUowers. However, Mr. M'CuUoch, in no
ticing one of the economical errors of Voltaire, honestly admits that his " opinions
on Buch subjects are, for the most part, very correct." MCulloch's Principles of
Political Economy, p. 680. For proof of his sympathy with Turgot's efforts to es
tabUsh free trade, corapare Lettres inedites de Voltaire, vol ii. pp. 867, 403, 423,
with Longchamp, Mhn, sur Voltaire, vol i. pp. 376, 878.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 585
the mere announcement of the idea in a popular history,
forms an epoch in the progress of the French mind. He is the
origmator of that important distinction between the increase of
population and the increase of food, to wMch political economy
has been greatly indebted ;'*" a principle adopted several years
later by Townsend, and then used by Malthus as the basis of his
celebrated work.'*' He has, moreover, the merit of being the
first who dispeUed the cMldish admiration with which the Mid
dle Ages had heen hitherto regarded, and wMch they owed to
those duU and learned writers, who, in the sixteenth and seven
teenth centuries, were the principal mvestigators of the early his
toiy of Europe. These industrious compilers had coUected ex
tensive materials, wMch Voltaire turned to good account, and hy
their aid overtMew the conclusions at which the authors had
themselves arrived. In Ms works, the Middle Ages are, for the
first time, represented as what they reaUy were,-^a period of ig
norance, ferocity, and licentiousness ; a period when injuries were
unredressed, crime unpunished, and superstition unrehuked. It
may be said, yrith some show of justice, that Voltaire, in the
picture he drew, fell mto the opposite extreme, and did not suf
ficiently recognize the merit of those truly great men, who, at
long intervals, stood here and there, like solitary beacons, whose
Hght only made the surrounding darkness more visible. StUl,
after every aUowance for that exaggeration wMch a reaction of
opinions always causes, it is certam that Ms view of the Middle
Ages is not only far more accurate than that of any preceding
writer, hut conveys a much juster idea of the time than can he
found m those subsequent compilations wMch we owe to the in
dustry of modem antiquaries ; a simple and plodding race, who
admire the past hecause they are ignorant of the present, and
_ "^ " The idea of the different ratios by which population and food increase, was
orighiaUy thrown out by Voltaire ; and was picked up and expanded into raany a
goodly volume by our English poUtical econonusts in the present century." Laing's
Notes, second aeriea, p. 42.
¦"' It ia often aaid that Maltbua waa indebted to Townaend'a writings for his
views on population ; but this obUgation has been too strongly stated, as, indeed, is
always the case when charges of plagiarism are brought against great works. StUl,
Townsend is to be considered as the precursor of Malthus ; aud if the reader is inter
ested m tracing the paternity of ideas, he wiU find some interesting econoraioal re
marks m Townsend s Journey ihrough Spain, voh I pp. 379, 383, vol. U. pp. 85, 337,
387-393 ; which muat be compared with M Cullqch's Literature of Political Economy,
pp. 269, 281-3. Voltaire having preceded theae authora, has, of course, faUen into
errors which they avoided ; but nothing can be better than the way in which be
opposes the ignorant beUef of his own time, that every thing should be done to in
crease population. "Le point principal n'est paa d'avoir du auperflu en hommea,
mais de rendre ce que noua en avona le moins malheureux qu'il est possible," is the
summing-up of his able remarks, in Diet Philos., article Population, sect. 2, in
CBum-es, vol xU. p. 466. Godwin, in his notice of the history of these opinions, ia
evidently ignorant of what waa done by Voltaire. Sinclair's Corresp. vol. i. p. 396.

586 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
who, spending their lives amid the dust of forgotten manuscripts,
think themselves ahle, with the resources of their Uttle learmng,
to speculate on the affairs of men, to trace the history of different
periods, and even to assign to each the praise it ought to receive.
With such writers as these, Voltaire was always at war ; and
no one has done so much to lessen the influence they once exer
cised over even the highest branches of knowledge. There was
also another class of dictators, whose authority tMs great man
was equally successful in reducing, namely, the old class of clas
sical scholars and commentators, who, from the middle of the
fourteenth tUl early in the eighteenth century, were the cMef
dispensers of fame, and were respected as being hy far the most
distmguished men Europe had ever produced. The flrst great
assaiUts made upon them were late m the seventeenth century,
when two controversies sprang up, of wMch I shaU hereafter give
an account, — one in France, and one in England, — by both of
which their power was considerably damaged. But their two
most formidable opponents were, undoubtedly, Locke and Vol
taire. The immense services rendered by Locke in lessemng the
reputation of the old classical school, wUl he exanuned m another
part of this work ; at present we are only concerned yrith the
steps taken by Voltaire.
The authority wielded hy the great classical scholars, rested
not only on their ahiUties, which are undemahle, hut also on the
supposed dignity of their pursuits. It was generaUy believed
that . ancient Mstory possessed some inherent superiority over
modern Mstory; and tMs being taken for granted, the inference
naturaUy followed, that the cultivators of the one were more
praiseworthy than the cultivators of the other ; and that a
Frenchman, for instance, who should write the history of some
Greek repubUc, displayed a nobler tum of mind than ff he had
written the Mstory of Ms own country. TMs singular prejudice
had for centuries been a traditional notion ; wMch men accepted,
hecause they had received it from their fathers, and which it
would have been almost an impiety to dispute. The result was,
that the few reaUy able writers on Mstory devoted themselves
cMefly to that of the ancients ; or, if they pubUshed an account
of modern times, they handled their theme, not according to
modern ideas, but according to ideas gathered from their more
favourite pursuit. This confusion of the standard of one age
yrith the standard of another, caused a double evU. Historians,
hy adoptmg tMs plan, injured the originality of their own minds;
and, what was far worse, they set a had example to the literature
of their country. For, every great nation has a mode of expression,
and of thought, peculiar to itself, and with' which its sympatMes

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 587
are intimately connected. To introduce any foreign model, how
ever admirable it may be, is to violate this connexion, and to im
pair the value of Uterature by limitmg the scope of its action.
By such a course, the taste may possibly he refined, but the
vigour yyiU certamly he weakened. Indeed, the refinement of
the taste may weU he doubted, when we see what has taken place
in our country, where our great scholars have corrupted the Eng
lish language by a jargon so uncouth, that a plain man can hardly
discern the real lack of ideas which their barbarous and mottled
dialect strives to Mde.'** At aU events, it is certain, that every
people worthy of being caUed a nation, possess in their o-wn lan
guage ample resources for expressing the Mghest ideas they are
able to form ; and although, in matters of science, it may he con
venient to coin such words as are more easUy understood m foreign
countries, it is a grave offence to depart on other subjects from
the vernacular speech; and it is a stUl graver one, to introduce
notions and standards for action, suited perhaps to former times,
but wMch the march of society has left far beMnd, and with
which we have no real syn>pathy, though they may excite that
sickly and artfficial interest, wMch the classical prejudices of
early education stUl contrive to create.
It was against these evUs that Voltaire entered the field.
The wit and the ridicule with wMch he attacked the dreaming
scholars of Ms oyvn time, can only he appreciated by those who
have studied his works. Not, as some have supposed, that he
used these weapons as a substitute for argument, stiU less that
he feU mto the error of making ridiciUe a test for truth. No one
could reason more closely than Voltaire, when reasoning suited
his pm-pose. But he had to deal with men impervious to argu
ment ; men whose inordmate reverence for antiquity had only
left them two ideas, namely, that every tMng old is right, and
that every tMng new is wrong. To argue against these opin
ions would he idle indeed ; the only other resource was, to make
them ridiculous, and weaken their infiuence, hy holding up their
'" With the single exception of Porson, not one of the great EngUsh scholars
has shown an appreciation of the beauties of hia native language ; and many of thera,
such as Parr (in aU hia works) and Bentley (in hia raad edition of MUton), have done
every thing in their power to corrupt it. And there can be Uttle doubt, that the
principal reaaon why weU-educated woraen write and converse in a purer style than
well-educated men, is because they have not formed their taste according to thoae
ancient classical standards, which, admirable as tbey are in themaelves, ahould never
be introduced into a atate of society unfitted for thera. To thia may be added, that
Cobbett, the moat racy and idiomatic of all our writera, and Erskine, by far the
greatest of our forenaic orators, knew little or nothing of any ancient language ;
and the aame obaervation appUes to Shakespeare. On the supposed connection be
tween the improvement of taste and tbe study of classical models, there are some
remarks worth attending to in Rey's Theorie ei Pratique de la Science Sociale, vol.
>• pp. 98-101.

588 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
authors to contempt. This was one of the tasks Voltaire set
himself to perform ; and he did it weU.'*' He, therefore, used
ridicule, not as the test of trath, but as the scourge of foUy.
And with such effect was the punishment administered, that not
only did the pedants and theologians of Ms own time -wince
under the lash, hut even their successors feel their ears tmgle
when they read Ms biting words ; and -they revenge themselves
by revUing the memory of that great writer, whose works are as
a thom in their side, and whose very name they hold in undis-
gmsed abhorrence.
These two classes have, mdeed, reasons enough for the hatred
with wMch they stUl regard the greatest Frenchman of the eigh
teenth century. For, Voltaire did more than any other man to
sap the foundation of ecclesiastical power, and to destroy the su
premacy of classical studies. This is not the place for (Uscussmg
the theological opmions wMch he attacked ; hut of the state of
classical opimons an idea may he formed, hy considermg some of
those circumstances which were recorded hy the ancients respect
ing their Mstory, and wMch, until the appearance of Voltaire,
were implicitly heUeved hy modern scholars, and through them
by the people at large.
It was heUeved that, in ancient times. Mars ravished a virgin,
and that the offspring of the intrigue were no other than Eom-
ulus and Eemus, both of whom it was mtended to put to death;
hut they were fortunately saved hy the attentions of a she-wolf
and fi woodpecker ; the woff giving them suck, and the wood
pecker protecting them from insects. It was, moreover, believed
that Eomulus and Eemus, when groyvn up to man's estate, de-
termmed to buUd a city, and that, being joined by the descend
ants of the Trojan warriors, they succeeded in erectmg Eome.
It was beUeved that both brothers came to an untimely end ;
Eemus being murdered, and Eomulus being taken up to heaven
hy his father, who descended for that purpose m the midst of a
tempest. The great scholars then proceeded to relate the suc
cession of several other kings ; the most remarkable of whom was
Numa, whose only communications -with his wife were carried on
in a sacred grove. Another of the sovereigns of Eome was Tul-
lus HostUius, who, having offended the clergy, perished from the
effects of their anger ; Ms death being caused by Ughtning, and
123 "'We can best judge from the Jesuitical rage with which he was persecuted,
how admirably he had deUneated the weaknesses and presumption of the interpret
ers of the aucients, who shone iu the schools and academies, and had acquired
great reputation by their' various and copiously exhibited learning." Schlosser's
Eighteenth Century, vol l p. 120. At p. 270, M. Schlosser says, " And it was only
a man of Voltaire's wit and talents, who could throw the Ught of an entirely new
criticism upon the darkness of those grubbing and coUecting pedants."

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 589
preceded hy pestUence. Then again, there was one Servius
TulUus, who was also a king, and whose greatness was prognos
ticated by the appearance of fiames round Ms head as he was
sleeping in his cradle. After this, it was but a slight matter
that the ordinary laws of mortaUty should he suspended ; we
were, therefore, assured that those ignorant barbarians, the early
Eomans, passed two hundred and forty-five years under the gov
ernment of only seven Mngs, aU of whom were elected in thie
prime of lffe, one of whom was expeUed the city, and three of
whom were put to death.
These are a few of the idle stories in wMch the great scholars
took intense deUght, and which, durmg many centuries, were sup
posed to form a necessary part of the annals of the Latin empire.
Indeed, so universal was the creduUty, that, until they were de
stroyed hy Voltaire, there were only four writers who had ventured
openly to attack them. Cluverius, Perizomus, PouiUy, and Beau
fort, were the names of these hold innovators ; but by none of
them was any impression made on the pubUc mind. The works
of Cluverius and Perizonius, being composed in Latin, were ad
dressed entirely to a class of readers who, infatuated with a love
of antiqmty, would Usten to notMng that diminished the reputa
tion of its Idstory. PomUy and Beaufort wrote m French ; both
of them, and especiaUy Beaufort, were men of considerable abU
ity; but their powers were not versatile enough to enable them
to extirpate prejudices wMch were so strongly protected, and
which had heen fostered hy the education of many successive
generations. The serrice, therefore, rendered by Voltaire in purging Mstory
of these fooUsh conceits, is, not that he was the first by whom
they were attacked, hut that he was the first to attack them
with success ; and tMs hecause he was also the first who mingled
ridicule yrith argument, thus not only assailing the system, but
also weakenmg the authority of those by whom the system was
supported. His irony, Ms wit, Ms pungent and teUing sarcasms,
produced more effect than the gravest arguments could have
done ; and there can he no douht that he was fiiUy justified m
using those great resources with which nature had endowed Mm,
since hy their aid he advanced the interests of truth, and reUeved
men from some of their most inveterate prejudices.
It is not, however, to be supposed that ridicule was the only
means employed hy Voltaire in effecting tMs important object.
So far from that, I can say with confidence, after a careful com
parison of both writers, that the most decisive arguments ad
vanced hy NiehuM against the early history of Eome, had all
heen anticipated by Voltaire ; in whose works they may be found.

590 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
hy whoever will take the trouble of reading what tMs great man
has yvritten, instead of ignorantly raUing against him. Without
entering mto needless detaU, it is enough to mention that, amidst
a great variety of very ingenious and very leamed discussion,
Niebuhr has put forward several views yrith which later critics
have been dissatisfied ; but that there are three, and only three,
principles which are fundamental to his history, and wMch it is
impossible to refute. These are : — I. That, on account of the
inevitable intermixture of. fable essential to a rude people, no na
tion can possess trustworthy detaUs respecting its own origin.
II. That even such early documents as the Eomans might have
possessed, had been destroyed hefore they were incorporated into
a regular Mstory. III. That ceremonies estabUshed in honour
of certain events aUeged to have taken place in former times,
were a proof, not that the events had happened, hut that they
were believed to have happened. The whole fabric of the early
Mstory of Eome at once feU to pieces, as soon as these three prin
ciples were appUed to it. What, however, is most remarkable,
is, that not only are aU three laid down by Voltaire, but their
hearing upon Eoman history is distinctly shoyvn. He says that
no nation is acquamted with its own origin ; so that aU primitive
history is necessarUy an invention.'** He remarks, that since
even such Mstorical works as the Eomans once possessed, were
all destroyed when their city was burned, no confidence can be
placed m the accounts wMch, at a much later period, are given
hy Livy and other compUers.'*' And, as innumerable scholars
busied themselves in coUecting evidence respecting ceremonies
mstituted in celebration of certain events, and then appealed to
the e-ridence in order to prove the events, Voltaire makes a re
flection which now seems very obvious, hut which these leamed
men had entirely overlooked. He notices, that their labour is
bootless, because the date of the evidence is, with extremely few
exceptions, much later than the date of the event to which it re-
"' "C'est I'imagination seule qui a dcrit les premiferes histoires. Non seulement
chaque peuple inventa son origine, mais il inventa auaai I'origine du monde entier."
Dici, Philos, article Histoire, aee. 2, in (Euvres, vol xl. p. 196. See also hia arti
cle on Chronology, vol. xxxviu. p. 77, for the appUcation of thia to the hiatory of
Eome, where he says, " Tite Live n'a garde de dire en queUe annde Eomulus com-
raenfa son prdtendu rdgne." And at vol. xxxvi. p. 86, " tous les peuples se sont
attribuda des origines unaguiairea ; et aucun n'a touchd k la vdritable."
126^ " Qu'on faase attention que la rdpubUque romaine a dtd cinq centa ans sans
historiens ; que Tite Live lui-mdme ddplore la perte des autrea monuments qui pd-
rirent presque tous dans I'incendie de Eome," &c. Diet Philos. in CEwvres, vol. xl. p.
2p2. At p. 188, "ce peuple, si rdcent en comparaison dea nations aaiatiques, a dtd
cinq centa anndes sans historiens. Ainsi, U n'est pas surprenant que Romulus ait
dtd le fils de Mars, qu'une louve ait dtd sa nourrice, qu'il ait marchd avec mUle
hommea de sou vUlage de Rome contre 'vingt-oinq miUe combattanta du vUlage des
Sabina."

GENERAL INTEODUCTION. 591
fers. In such cases, the existence of a festival, or of a monument,
proves, indeed, the belief wMch men entertain, hut by no means
proves the reahty of the occurrence concerning which the belief
is held.'*" TMs simple, hut important maxim, is, even in our
own days, constantly lost sight of, whUe before the eighteenth
century it was umversaUy neglected. Hence it was that histo
rians were able to accumulate fables wMch were believed without
examination ;'*' it bemg altogether forgotten, that fables, as Vol
taire says, begin to be current in one generation, are estabUshed
in the second, become respectable in the third, whUe in the fourth
generation temples are raised in honour of them.'*'
I have heen the more particular in stating the immense ob-
hgations Mstory is under to Voltaire, because, in England there
exists against him a prejudice, which nothing but ignorance, or
something worse than ignorance, can excuse ; '*' and hecause,
™ " Par quel excda de ddmence, par quel opiniatretd abaurde, tant de corapUa-
teurs ont-Us voulu prouver dans tant de volumes dnorraes, qu'une fdte pubUque
dtabUe en mdmoire d'un dvdnement dtait une ddmonstration de la vdritd de cet
dvdnement ?" Essai sur les Moeurs, in (Euvres, vol xv. p. 109. See alao the sarae
remark appUed to raonuments, in chap, cxcvil, (Euvres, vol. xviii. pp. 412-414 ; and
agam, m vol. xl. pp. 203, 204.
™ "La plupart dea histoirea ont dtd crues sana examen, et cette crdance est un
prdjugd. Fabius Pictor raconte que, plusieurs sidcles avant lui, une vestale de la
viUe d'Albe, aUant puiser de I'eau dans sa cruche, fut violde, qu'elle accoucha de
Romulus et de Rdmus, qu'Us furent nourris par une louve, etc. Le peuple romain
crut cette fable ; U n'examina point si dans ce temps-lii U y avait des veatalea dana
le Latium, a'U dtait vraiaemblable que la fille d'un roi aortit de son couvent avec sa
cruche, s'll dtait probable qu'une louve aUaitat deux enfants au Ueu de les manger ;
le prdjugd s'dtabUt." Diet. Philos. article Pr^ugls, in (Euvres, vol. xU. pp. 488, 489.
'^' " Les amateurs du merveiUeux disaient : H faut bien que ces faits soient
vrais, puisque tants de monuments en sont la preuve. Et nous diaions : II faut bieu
qu'ila soient faux, puisque le vulgaire lea a crua. Une fable a quelque coura dans
une gdndration ; elle s'dtabUt dans la seconde ; elle devient respectable dana la
troisidme ; la quatridme lui dldve dea templea." Fragments sur VHistoire, article l,
m (Euvres, vol xxvii. pp. 168, 159.
'"' In thia caae, aa in many othera, ignorance haa been fortified by bigotry ; for,
as Lord CampbeU truly aays of Voltaire, " since the French Revolution, an indis-
crimumte abuse of thia author haa been in England tbe teat of orthodoxy and loy
alty." CampbelVs Chief-Justices, vol. U. p. 335. Indeed, ao extenaively baa the pub
lic mind been prejudiced againat thia great raan, that, untU a very few yeara ago,
when Lord Broughara pubUahed a life of hira, there waa no book in tbe EngUah
language containing even a tolerable account of one of tbe most influential writera
France haa produced. This work of Lord Brougham's, though a middUng perform-
a,nce, is at least an honest one, and, as it harmonizes with tbe general spirit of our
tune, it has probably had considerable weight. In it he aaya of Voltaire, " nor can
any one aince the days of Luther be named, to whora the apirit of free inquiry, nay,
the emancipation of the huraan raind frora apiritual tyranny, owea a more laating
debt of gratitude." Brougham's Ufe of Voltaire, p. 132. It ia certain, that the
better the history of the eighteenth century ia underatood, the more the reputation
of Voltaire wiU increase ; aa was clearly foreseen by a celebrated writer nearly a gen
eration ago. In 1831, Lerminier wrote these remarkable, and, as the result has
proved, prophetic words : " H est tempa de revenir a des sentimena plua reapectueux
pour la mdmoire de Voltaire. . . . Voltaire a fait pour la France ce que Leibnitz a
fait pour I'AUemagne ; pendant troia-quarts de siecle il a reprdsentd son pays, puis
sant k la mauidre de Luther et de Napoldon ; il est destind £l survivre a bien des

592 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
taking him on the whole, he is probably the greatest Mstorian
Europe has yet produced. In reference, however, to the mental
habits of the eighteenth century, it is important to show, that in
the same period simUar comprehensiveness was being displayed
hy other French historians; so that in tMs case, as in all others,
we shaU find that a large share of what is effected, even hy the
most eminent men, is due to the character of the age in wMch
they Uve.
The vast labours of Voltaire towards reforming the old method
of writing history, were greatly aided by those important works
which Montesquieu put forward during the same period. In
1734,"" tMs remarkable man published what may be truly
caUed the first book in which there can be found any information
concerning the real history of Eome ; because it is also the first
in wMch the affairs of the ancient world are treated in a large
and comprehensive spirit.'" Fourteen years later, there ap
peared, hy the same author, the Spirit of Laws ; a more famous
production, but, as it seems to me, not a greater one. The im
mense merit of the Spirit of Laws is, indeed, mcontestable, and
cannot be affected by the captious attempts made to diminish
it hy those nunute critics, who seem to think that when they
detect the occasional errors of a great man, they in some degree
reduce Mm to their own level. It is not such petty ca-rilUng
wMch can destroy an European reputation ; and the noble work
of Montesquieu wUl long surrive all attacks of this Mnd, hecause
its large and suggestive generaUzations would retaui their value
even if the particular facts of wMch the illustrations consist were
all unfounded."* StiU, I am incUned to beUeve, that m point
of origmal thought it is barely equal to his earlier work, though
it is unquestionably the fruit of much greater reading. With-
gloires, et je plains ceux qui ae sont oubUda juaqu'^ laiaaer tomber des paroles
dddaigneuses sur le gdnie de cet homme." Lerminier, Philosophie du Droit, vol.
i. p. 199. Corapare the glowing eulogy in Longchamp et Wagniere, Mimoires em-
Voltaire, vol U. pp. 388, 889, -with the remarks of Saint-Lambert, in Mhn. dEpinay,
vol i. p. 268.
'"" Vie de Montesquieu, p. xiv. prefixed to his works.
"' Before Montesquieu, the only two great thinkers who had really studied Ro
man history were MacchiaveUi and Vico : but MacchiavelU did not attempt any thing
approaching the generaUzations of Montesquieu, and he suffered, moreover, from
the serious deficiency of being too much occupied with the practical utiUty of his
subject. Vico, whose genius was perhaps even raore vast than that of Montesquieu,
can hardly be considered his rival ; for, though his Scienza Nova contains the moat
profound views on ancient history, they are rather glirapses of truth, than a syste
matic investigation of any one period.
"^ Which M. Guizot (Civilisation en France, vol iv. p. 36), in his remarka on
the Esprit des Lois, doea not take sufiiciently into consideration. A juster apprecia
tion of Montesquieu wiU be found in Cousin, Hist, de la Philosophie, part U. vol i.
p. 182 ; and in Comte, Philosophie Positive, vol iv. pp. 248-262, 261. Compare
Charles Comic, Traiti de Llgislation, vol i. p. 126, with Meyer, Esprit des Institutions
Judiciaires, vol l p. 1x1 respecting the vast innovations he introduced.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 593
out, however, instituting a comparison between them, our pres-r
ent object is merely to consider the contributions they jointly
contain towards a right understanding of history, and the way in
wMch those contributions are connected with the general spirit
of the eighteenth century.
In this point of view, there are, in the works of Montesquieu,
two leading peculiarities. The first is, the complete rejection of
those personal anecdotes, and those trivial details respecting in
diriduals, wMch belong to biography, hut with which, as Mon
tesquieu clearly saw, Mstory has no concern. The other pecu
Uarity is, the very remarkable attempt which he first made to
effect an union between the history of man and those sciences
which deal with the external world. As these are the two great
characteristics of the method adopted by Montesquieu, it yriU be
necessary to give some account of them, hefore we can under
stand the place he reaUy occupies, as one of the founders of the
pMlosophy of history.
We have already seen that Voltaire had strongly insisted on
the necessity of reforming Mstory, by paying more attention to
the history of the people, and less attention to that of their po
Utical and miUtary rulers. We have also seen, that this great
improvement was so agreeable to the spirit of the time, that it.
was generaUy and quicMy adopted, and thus became an mdica-
tion of those democratic tendencies, of which it was in re
aUty a result. It is not, therefore, surprising that Montesquieu
should have taken the same course, even before the movement
had been clearly declared ; since he, like most great thinkers,
was a representative of the inteUectual condition, and a satisfier
of the mteUectual wants, of the age in wMch he Uved.
But, what constitutes the pecuUarity of Montesquieu in
this matter, is, that with Mm a contempt for those detaUs re
specting courts, ministers, and princes, in wMch ordinary com
pilers take great deUght, was accompanied by an equal contempt
for other detaUs wMch are reaUy interesting, hecause they con
cern the mental habits of the few truly emment men who, from
time to time, have appeared on the stage of public Ufe. This
was hecause Montesquieu perceived that though these tMngs are
very interesting, they are also very unimportant. He knew,
what no Mstorian hefore Mm had even suspected, that m the
great march of human affairs, individual pecuUarities count for
nothing ; and that, therefore, the historian has no business with
them, but should leave them to the biographer, to whose prov
ince they properly belong. The consequence is, that not only
does he treat the most powerful princes with such disregard as
VOL. I.— 38

594 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
to relate the reigns of six emperors in two Unes,"' hut he con
stantly enforces the necessity, even in the case of eminent men,
of subordinating their special infiuence to the more general in^
fluence of the surroundmg society. Thus, many writers had
ascribed the ruin ofthe Eoman Eepublic to the ambition of
Caesar and Pompey, and particularly to the deep schemes of
Caesar. This, Montesquieu totaUy denies. According to Ms
view of Mstory, no great alteration can he effected, except hy rir
tue of a long train of antecedents, where alone we are to seek
the cause of what to a superficial eye is the work of individuals.
The republic, therefore, was bverthroym, not hy Caesar and Pom
pey, hut by that state of things wMch made the success of Caesar
and Pompey possible."* It is thus that the events wMch ordi
nary historians relate, are utterly valueless. Such events, in
stead of being causes, are merely the occasions on which the real
causes act."' They may be caUedthe accidents of history ; and
they must he treated as subserrient to those vast and compre
hensive conditions, hy wMch alone the rise and fall of nations
are ultimately governed.""
This, then, was the first great merit of Montesquieu, that he
effected a complete separation between biography and history,
and taught Mstorians to study, not the pecuUarities of individual
character, but the general aspect of the society in which the pe
cuUarities appeared. If this remarkable man had accomplished
nothing further, he would have rendered an incalculable service
to history, by pointing out how one of its most fertUe sources of
error might he safely removed. And although, unhappUy, we
have not yet reaped the full benefit of Ms example, this is be
cause Ms successors have rarely had the capacity of rising to so
Mgh a generaUzation : it is, however, certain, that since his time,
an approximation towards such elevated views may be noticed,
even among those inferior writers who, for want of sufficient
grasp, are unable to adopt them to their fuU extent.
'"" He says of tbe emperor Maxirain, "il fut tud avec son fils par ses Boldats.
Lea deux premiera Gordiens pdrirent en Afrique. Maxime, Balbin, et le troisidme
Gordien furent masaacrda." (jhandeur et Decadence des Romains, chap, xvi., m
(Euvres de Montesquieu, p. 167.
'*' Ibid. chap, xl, in CEuvres de Montesquieu, pp. 149-168. Compare a Similar
remark, respecting Charlea XIL, iu Esprit des Lois, Uvre x. chap, xul, (Euvres,
p. 260. "" Ou tbe difference between cauae and occasion, see (Srandeur et Dlcad. chap.
I p. 126.
11)0 11 II y a dea causea gdndrales, aoit morales, soit physiques, qui agissent dans
chaque monarchie, I'dldvent, la maintiennent, ou la prdcipitent; tons les accidents
sont soumis k ces causes ; et si le hasard d'une bataUle, c'est-a-dire une cause par-
ticuUdre, a ruind un dtat, il y avoit une cause gdndrale qui faisoit que cet dtat,
devoit pdrir par une seule bataUle. En un mot, 1 aUure principale entraine avec eUe
tous les accidents particuliers." Grand, et Dlcad. des Romains, chap. xvui. p. 172.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION.

595

In addition to this, Montesquieu made another great advance
in the method of treating history. He was the first who, in an
inquiry into the relations between the social conditions of a coun
try and its jurispradence, called in the aid of physical knowledge,
in order to ascertam how the character of any given civiUzation
is modified hy the action of the external world. In his work on
the Spirit of Laws, he studies the way in wMch both the ciril
and poUtical legislation of a people are naturally connected -with
their cUmate, soil, and food.'" It is true, that in tMs vast en
terprise he ahnost entirely faUed ; hut tMs was because meteorol
ogy, chemistry, and physiology, were still too backward to admit
of such an undertaMng. This, however, affects the value only
of Ms conclusions, not of his method; and here, as elsewhere, we
see the great thinker tracing the outline of a plan, which, in the
then state of knowledge, it was impossible to fill up, and the
completion of wMch he was ohUged to leave to the riper expe
rience and more powerful resources of a later age. Thus to an
ticipate the march of the human mteUect, and, as it were, fore-
staU its subsequent acquisitions, is the pecuUar prerogative of
mmds of the Mghest order ; and it is this wMch gives to the
writings of Montesquieu a certam fragmentary and provisional
appearance, wMch was the necessary consequence of a profoundly
speculative gemus dealing vrith materials that were intractable^
simply hecause science had not yet reduced them to order hy
generaUzmg the laws of their phenomena. Hence it is, that
many of the inferences drayyn hy Montesquieu are untenable ;
such, for instance, as those regardmg the effect of diet in stimu
lating population by mcreasmg the fecundity of women,"" and
the effect of cUmate in altering the proportion between the births
ofthe sexes."" In other cases, an increased acquaintance with
barbarous nations has sufficed to correct his conclusions, particu
larly those concerning the effect wMch he supposed climate to
produce on individual character ; for we have now the most de
cisive evidence, that he was wrong in asserting'*" that hot cU
mates make people unchaste and cowardly, while cold climates
make them virtuous and brave.
These, mdeed, are comparatively trifling objections, hecause,
in all the Mghest branches of knowledge, the main difficulty is,
not to discover facts, hut to discover the true method according
to wMch the laws of the facts may he ascertained.'*' In tMs,
'" De VEsprit des Lois, books xiv. to xviU. inclusive ; in CEuvres, pp, 300-336.
'" Ibid, Uvre xxui. chap. xUi. p. 395. Compare Burdach, Traiti de Physiologie,
ToL u. p. 116.
™ Ibid, livre xvi. chap, iv., and Uvre xxiU. chap. xU. pp. 317, 895.
'*" Ibid, Uvre xiv. chap, il, Uvre x-rii. chap, il, and elaewhere.
'" On the Bupreme iraportance of method, see my defence of Bichat in the next
chanter.

596 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
Montesquieu performed a double serrice, since he not only en
riched history, but also strengthened its foundation. He en
riched Mstory by incorporating with it physical inquiries ; and
he strengthened Mstory by separatmg it from biography, and
thus freeing it from detaUs wMch are always unimportant, and
often unauthentic. And although he committed the error of
studying the influence of nature over men considered as indi
viduals,'** rather than over men considered as an aggregate so
ciety, this arose principally from the fact that, in his time, the
resources necessary for the more compUcated study had not yet
heen created. Those resources, as I have shown, are poUtical
economy and statistics : political economy supplymg the means
of connecting the laws of physical agents with the laws of the
inequaUty of wealth, and, therefore, yrith a great variety of so
cial disturbances ; whUe statistics enable us to verffy those laws
in their widest extent, and to prove how completely, the voUtion
of mdividual men is controUed by their antecedents, and by the
circumstances in which they are placed. It was, therefore, not
only natural, hut ine-ritahle, that Montesquieu should fail in his
magnificent attempt to unite the laws ofthe human mind yrith
the laws of external nature. He faUed, partly because the sci
ences of external nature were too backward, and partly hecause
those other branches of knowledge which connect nature with
man were stUl unformed. For, as to poUtical economy, it had
no existence as a science untU the pubUcation of the Wealth of
Nations in 1776, twenty-one years after the death of Montes
quieu. As to statistics, their phUosophy is a stiU more recent
creation, since it is only during the last thirty years that they
had heen systematicaUy appUed to social phenomena ; the earUer
statisticians being merely a body of industrious coUectors, groping
m the dark, bringing together facts of every kind without selection
or method, and whose labours were consequently unavaUable for
those important purposes to which they have been successfuUy
applied during the present generation.
Only two years after the publication of the Spirit of Laws,
Turgot deUvered those celebrated lectures, of which it has been
said, that in them he created the phUosopliy of Mstory.'*' TMs
"" How completely futUe this was, as regards results, is evident from the fact,
that a hundred years after he wrote, we, with all our increased knowledge, can
aflSrm nothing positively respecting tbe direct action of cUmate, food, and soU, in
modifying individual character ; though it has, I trust, appeared in the second chap
ter of this Introduction, that soraething can be ascertained respecting their indirect
action, that is, their action on individual minds through the medium of social and
economical organization.
™ "11 a crdd en 1750 la phUosophie de I'histoire dans ses deux discours pro-
noncds en Sorbonne." Cousin, Hist, de la Philosophie, I. sdrie, vol. i. p. i47.
There is a short notice of these striking productions in Condorcet, Vie de Turgot,
pp. 11-16.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 597
praise is somewhat exaggerated; for in the most important mat
ters relating to the philosophy of his subject, he takes the same
riew as Montesquieu ; and Montesquieu, besides preceding him
in point of time, was his superior certainly in learning, perhaps
in genius. Still, the merit of Turgot is immense ; and he be
longs to that extremely smaU class of men, who have looked at
history comprehensively, and have recognised the almost hound-
less knowledge needed for its investigation. In this respect, his
method is identical with that of Montesquieu, since both of these
great men excluded from their scheme the personal detaUs which
ordinary Mstorians accumulate, and concentrated their attention
upon those large general causes, hy the operation of which the
destinies of nations are permanently affected. Turgot clearly
perceived, that, notyrithstanding the variety of events produced
by the play of human passions, there is amid this apparent con
fusion, a principle of order, and a regularity of march, not to be
mistaken by those whose grasp is firm enough to seize the his
tory of man as a complete and smgle whole.'** It is true that
Turgot, subsequently engaged in political Ufe, never possessed
sufficient leisure to fiU up the splendid outline of what he so suc-
cessfiUly sketched : but though in the execution of Ms plan he
feU short of Montesquieu, stiU the analogy between the two
men is obrious, as also is their relation to the age in wMch
they lived. They, as well as Voltaire, were the unconscious ad
vocates of the democratic movement, inasmuch as they discoun
tenanced the homage wMch Mstorians had formerly paid to
indiriduals, and rescued Mstory from being a mere recital of the
deeds of political and ecclesiastical rulers. At the same time,
Turgot, by the captivating prospects wMch he held out of future
progress,'*' and by the picture wMch he drew of the capacity of
society to improve itself, increased the impatience which his
countrymen were hegmning to feel against that despotic govern
ment, in whose presence amelioration seemed to he hopeless.
"' Nothing can be better than his summary of this vast conception : " Tous les
4ges sont enchainds par une suite de causes et d'effets qui lient I'dtat du monde a
tous ceux qui I'ont prdcddd." Second Discours en Sorbonne, in CEuvres de Turgot,
vol. n. p. 52. Every thing Turgot wrote on history is a development of this preg
nant aentence. That he underatood tbe neceasity of an historian being acquainted
with physical science, and with the laws of the configuration of tbe earth, cUmate,
soU, and the Uke, ia evident in his fragraent, La Glographie Politique, in CEuvres,
vol U. pp. 166-208. It ia no aUght proof of his political sagacity, that in 1750 he
distinctly foretold the freedom of the American colonies. Compare (Euvres de
Twraot, vol u. p. 66, with Mhn, sur Turgot, vol. i. p. 139.
*' A confidence which is apparent in his economical as weU aa in hia hiatorical
worka. In 1811, Sir Jamea Mackintosh writes, that Turgot" had raore compre
hensive viewa of the progresa of society than any man since Bacon :" Mem. of
Mackintosh, vol. ii. p. 133 ; and see a similar remark by Dugald Stewart, in bis
Philos. ofthe Mind, vol. l p. 246.

598 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
These, and similar speculations, wMch now for the first time ap
peared in French Uterature, stimulated the activity of the intel
lectual classes, cheered them under the persecutions to which
they were exposed, and emboldened them to the arduous enter
prise of leadiig on the people to attack the institutions of their
native land. Thus it was, that in France every tMng tended to
the same result. Every thmg indicated the approach of some
sharp and terrible straggle, in wMch the spirit of the present
should war with the spirit of the past ; and m which it should
he finaUy settled, whether the people of France could free them
selves from the chains in wMch they had long heen held, or
whether, missmg their aim, they were doomed to sink still lower
in that ignomimous vassalage, wMch makes even the most
splendid periods of their political Mstory a warning and a lesson
to the civiUzed world.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 599

CHAPTER XIV.
PROXIMATE CAUSES OF THE FEENOH KEVOLUTION AFTER THE MIDDLE OF
THE EIGHTEENTH OENTDBT.
In, the last chapter hut one, I have attempted to ascertain what
those circumstances were which, almost immediately after the
death of Louis XIV., prepared the way for the French Eevolu
tion. The result of the inquiry has been, that the French in
teUect was stimulated into activity hy the examples and teachings
of England ; and that tMs stimulus caused, or at all events en
couraged, a great breach between the government of France and
its Uterature ; — a breach the more remarkable, because during
the reign of Louis XIV. the Uterature, notwithstanding its tem
porary brilUancy, had been invariably submissive, and had inti
mately alUed itseff with the government, which was always ready
to reward its services. We have also seen that, tMs rupture
haring arisen between the governing classes and the inteUectual
classes, it foUowed, that the former, true to their ancient in
stincts, began to chastize that spirit of inquiry to which they
were unaccustomed : hence those persecutions which, yrith hardly
a single exception, were directed agamst every man of letters,
and hence too those systematic attempts to reduce literature to
a subserriency simUar to that in which it had been held -under
Louis XIV. It has, moreover, appeared, that the great French
men of the eighteenth century, though smarting from the inju
ries constantly infficted on them by the government and the
church, abstained from attacking the government, but directed
all their hostiUty agamst the church. This apparent anomaly,
of the religious mstitutions being assaUed, and the political insti
tutions being spared, has heen shoyyn to he a perfectly natural
circumstance, arising out of the antecedents of the French na
tion; and an attempt has been made to explain what those
antecedents were, and how they acted. In the present chapter,
I purpose to complete tMs inquiry by examining the next great
stage in the history of the French mind. It was needful that, be
fore both church and state could faU, men should change the

600 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
ground of their hostiUty, and should attack poUtical abuses yrith
the zeal they had Mtherto reserved for reUgious ones. The
question, therefore, now arises, as to the circumstances under
which this change took place, and the period when it actuaUy
occurred. The circumstances wMch accompamed this great change are,
as we shaU presently see, very compUcated ; and, as they have
never yet been studied in connexion yrith each other, I shaU, in
the remaimng part of this volume, examine them at considerahle
length. On this point it yriU, I think, be practicable to arrive
at some precise and weU-defined results respecting the history of
the French Eevolution. But the other point, namely, the time
at which the change took place, is not only much more obscure,
hut by its nature wiU never admit of complete precision. This,
however, is a deficiency it possesses in common with every
other change in the Mstory of man. The circumstances of each-
change may always he knowm, provided the evidence is ample
and authentic. But no amount of evidence can enable us to fix
the date of the change itseff. That to which attention is usuaUy
drayyn hy the compUers of Mstory is, not the change, but is merely
the external result wMch foUows the change. The real history of
the human race is the history of tendencies wMch are perceived
hy the mind, and not of events wMch are discerned by the senses.
It is on tMs account that no historical epoch wUl ever admit of
that chronological precision famiUar to antiquaries and genealo
gists. The death of a prince, the loss of a battle, and the change
of a dynasty, are matters which faU entirely yrithin the provmce
of the senses ; and the moment in wMch they happen can he re
corded by the most ordinary observers. But those great mtel
lectual revolutions upon which aU other revolutions are based,
cannot be measured by so simple a standard. -To trace the
movements of the human mind, it is necessary to contemplate
it under several aspects, and then co-ordmate the results of what
we have separately studied. By this means we arrive at certain
general conclusions, wMch, like the ordinary estimate of averages,
increase in value in proportion as we increase the number of in
stances from which they are coUected. That tMs is a safe and
available method, appears not only from the history of physical
knowledge,' hut also from the fact, that it is the hasis of the em
pirical maxims hy which all men of sound understanding are
guided in those ordinary transactions of Ufe to yyMch the gen
eraUzations of science have not yet been appUed. Indeed, such
maxims, wMch are highly valuable, and which in their aggregate
' For a popular but able view of the value of averages in scientiflc inquiries, see
HerscheVs Disc, on Nat Philos. pp. 215-219.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 601
form what is caUed common sense, are never collected with any
thing Uke the precautions that the philosophic historian ought to
feel himseff bound to employ.
The real objection, therefore, to generalizations respecting
the development of the intellect of a nation is, not that they
want certainty, but that they lack precision. This is just the
point at wMch the Mstorian diverges from the annalist. That
the English inteUeot, for example, is graduaUy becoming more
democratic, or, as it is termed, more Uberal, is as certain as that
the crown of this country is worn hy Queen Victoria. But though
both these statements are equaUy certain, the latter statement
is more precise. We can tell the very day on which the Queen
ascended the throne : the moment of her death wiU he known
-with equal precision ; and there can be no doubt that many
other particulars respecting her wUl be minutely and accurately
preserved. In tracing, however, the growth of EngUsh liberal
ism, aU such exactness deserts us. We can point out the year
in wMch the Eeform BUl was passed ; hut who can point out
the year in wMch the Eeform BiU first became necessary ? In
the same way, that the Jews wUl be admitted into parliament,
is as certam as that the CathoUcs have heen admitted. Both
these measures are the inevitable result of that increasing indif
ference to theological disputes, wMch must now he obyious to
every man who does not wUfully shut Ms eyes*. But whUe we
know the hour in wMch the bUl for CathoUc emancipation re
ceived the assent of the crown, there is no one now living who
can teU even the year m wMch simUar justice wUl be granted to
the Jews. Both events are equaUy certain, hut both events are
not equaUy precise.
This distinction between certainty and precision I have stated
at some length, because it seems to be Uttle understood,* and he-
' Aa we aee in the pretensions set forth by mathematicians, who often auppoae
that an amount of certainty can be attained in their own purauita not to be found
m any other. This error has probably arisen, as Locke suggests, from confusing
clearness with certainty. Essay on Human Understanding, book iv. chap. ii. sees.
9 and 10, m Works, vol. U. pp. 73, 74. See also Comte, Philos. Pos. vol i. p. lt)3,
where it is justly observed, that all branches of knowledge capable of being gener
alized into sciences admit of equal certainty, but not of equal precision : " si, d'aprda
I'expUcation prdcddente, lea diversea aciencea doivent ndcesaairement 'prdsenter une
prdcision trds-indgale, il n'en eat nuUement ainai de leur certitude." Thia ia han
dled nnsatia&ctorUy by Montucla (Hist, des Mathlmat. vol i. p. 33), who says, that
the principal cause of the pecuUar certainty reached by the mathematician is, that
"d'une idde claire U ne ddduit que des consdquences claires et incontestablea."
SimUarly, Cudworth (Intellect System, vol. iU. p. 377): "nay the very eaaence of
truth here is thia clear perceptibiUty, or inteUigibility." On the other hand, Kant,
a far deeper thinker, avoided this confusion, by making mathematical clearness the
mark, of a kind of certainty rather than of a degree of it: "Die mathematische
Gewissheit heisst auch Evidenz, weil ein intuitivea Erkenntniaa klarer iat, ala ein
discursiveai Obgleich also -beides, das mathematische und daa philoaophisohe Ver-

602 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
cause it is intimately connected with the subject now hefore us.
The fact of the French inteUeet havmg, during the eighteenth
century, passed through two totally distinct epochs, can be
proved by every description of evidence ; hut it is impossible to
ascertain the precise time when one epoch succeeded the other.
AU that we can do is, to compare the different indications wMch
the Mstory of that age presents, and arrive at an approximation
which may guide future inquirers. It would perhaps be more
pradent to avoid making any particular statement ; hut as the
employment of dates seems necessary tohring such matters clearly
before the mind, I wUl, hy way of provisional hypothesis, fix on
the year 1750, as the period when those agitations of society
which caused the French Eevolution entered into their second
and political stage.
That this was ahout the. period when the great movement,
hitherto directed against the church, began to he turned against
the state, is an inference wMch many circumstances seem to
warrant. We know on the best authority, that towards the
year 1750, the French began their celebrated inquiries respect
mg poUtical economy,' and that in their attempt to raise it to a
science, they were led to perceive the immense injury wMch the
interference of government had produced on the material inter
ests of the country.* Hence a conviction arose that, even m re
gard to the accumulation of wealth, the authority possessed by
the rulers of France was roiscMevous, since it enabled them,
under the notion of protecting commerce, to trouble the freedom of
individual action, and to prevent trade from running into those
profitable channels which traders are best able to select for them
selves. Scarcely had a knowledge of this important truth been
nunfterkenntnisa, an aich gleich gewias ist, so ist doch die Art der Gewiasheit in
beiden verschieden." Logik, Einleitung, sec. 9, in Kants Werke, vol I p. 399.
On the opiniona of the ancients respecting certainty, compare Matter, Eist de
VEcole d'Alexandrie, voh I p. 196, vrith Ritter's Hist of Ancient Philos. vol. u. p.
46, vol. iU. pp. 74, 426, 427, 484, 614.
' " Vers i750, deux homraes de gduie, observateurs judicieui et profonds, con
duits par une force d'attention trds-aoutenue a une logique rigoureuse, animds d'un
noble amour pour la patrie et pour I'humanitd, M. Queanay et M. de Gournay, s'oc-
oupferent avec suite de savoir si la nature des choses n'indiquerait paa une science
de I'dconomie poUtique, et quels seraient les principes de cette sciencd." Additions
aux CEuvres de Turgot, vol in. p. 810. M. Blanqui (J35«<. de VEconomie Politicpie,
vol. U. p. 78) also says, "vers I'annde 1750;" and Voltaire (Diet. Philos. article
Bll, in (Eum-es, vol. xxxvU. p. 384) says, "vers I'an 1750, la nation, raaaaside de vers,
de tragddies, de coraddies, d'opdra, de roraans, d'histoirea romanesques,de rdflexions
morales plus romanesquea encore, et de disputea thdologiquca sur la grace et aur les
eonvulaions, ae mit enfin k raisouner aur lea bids."
* The revolutionary tendency of this economical movement is noticed in Alison's
Europe, vol i. pp. 184, 185; where, however, ita commencement is erroneously
assigned to " about the year 1761." See also, on the hostiUty this caused against
government, Mhn. de Campan, vol. i. pp. 7-8 ; Mem, of Mallet du Pan, vol. i. p. 82 ;
and Barruel, Hist du Jacobinisme, vol i. p. 193, vol. li. p. 152.

GENERAL INTEODUCTION. 603
diffused, when its consequences were quickly seen in the national
Uterature, and in the habits of national thought. The sudden
increase in France of works relating to finance and to other ques
tions of govemment, is, indeed, one of the most remarkable feat
ures of that age. With such rapidity did the movement spread,
that we are told that, soon after 1755, the economists effected a
schism between the nation and the government ;' and Voltaire,
writing in 1759, complains that the charms of lighter Uterature
were entirely neglected amidst the general zeal for these new
studies." It is not necessary to foUow the subsequent Mstory of
this great change ; nor need I trace the influence exercised
shortly hefore the Eevolution by the later economists, and par
ticularly hy Turgot, the most eminent of their leaders.'' It is
enough to say, that yrithin ahout twenty years after the move
ment was flrst clearly seen, the taste for econonaical and flnancial
inquiries became so common, that it penetrated those parts of
society where habits of thought are not very frequent ; since we
find that, even m fasMonahle Ufe, the conversation no longer
tumed upon new poems and new plays, hut upon poUtical ques
tions, and subjects immediately connected yrith them.' Indeed,
when Necker, in 1781, pubUshed Ms celebrated Eeport on the
" "D'aiUeurs la nation s'dtoit accoutumde k se sdparer toujours de plus en plus
de son gouverneraent, en raiaon meme de ce que ses dcrivains avoient commencd k
aborder lea dtudes poUtiques. C'dtoit I'dpoque ou la secte des dconomistes se don-
noit le plus de mouvement, depuis que le marquis de Mirabeau avoit publid, en
1765, son Ami des Hommes." Sismondi, Hist, des Frang. vol. xxix. p. 269. Com
pare Tocqueville, Regne de Louis XV, vol ii. p. 58. In this same year, 1755, Gold
smith was in Paris, and was so struck by the progress of insubordination, that be
foretold the freedom of the people ; though I need hardly aay that he was not a
man to understand the moveraent of the economists. Prior's Ufe of Goldsmith,
vol I pp. 198, 199 ; Forster's Ufe of Chldsmith, vol i. p. 66.
' In February, 1759, he vmtes to Madame du Boccage: "H me parait que lea
graces et le bon goM sont bannis de France, et ont cddd la place a la mdtapbysique
embrouUlde, k la poUtique des cerveaux creux, k des discussions dnorraes aur les
financea, aur le commerce, aur la population, qui ne mettront jamaia dana I'dtat ni
un dcu, ni un homme de plus." CEuvres de Voltaire, vol. Ix. p. 486. In 1763 (vol.
Ixiu. p. 204) : " Adieu noa beaux arta, ei les choses continuent comme elles sont.
La rage des remontrances et des projets sur Ies finances a saisi la nation." Many
of the ablest men being thus drawn off from mere literary pursuits, there began,
about twenty years before the Eevolution, a marked deterioration iu style, particu
larly among prose writers. Compare Lettres de Dudeffand A Walpole, voh ii. p. 868,
vol ui. pp. 163, 299 ; Mem. de Genlis, vol U. p. 374, vol v. p. 123, vol. viu. pp.
180, 275; Mercier sur Rousseau, vol. ii. p. 151.
' Georgel, who hated Turgot, says of hira: "sou cabinet et aes bureaux se
transformdrent en ateUera oii lea dconomistes forgeoient leUr systdrae et leurs apdc-
ulations:" Mhn. de Georgel, vol. i. p. 406 : see alao Blanqui, Hist, de VEcon. Poli
tique, vol ii. pp. 96-112 ; Condorcet, Vie de Turgot, pp. 32-35 ; Twiss, Progress of
Political Econ, pp. 142 aeq.
" Sismondi, under the year 1774, notices "lea dcrita innombrablea que chaque
jour voyoit dclore sur la poUtique, et qui avoient ddsormais reraplacd dans I'intdrdt
des salons cea nouveautds Uttdraires, ces vers, ces anecdotes galantea, dont peu
d'anndes auparavant le pubUc dtoit uniquement occupd." Hist, des Frangais, vol.
xxix. p. 496 ; and a simUar remark in Schlosser's Eighteenth Century, vol. u. p. 126.

604 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
Finances of France, the eagerness to obtain it was beyond all
hotmds ; six thousand copies were sold the first day ; and the
demand stUl increasing, two presses were kept constantly at work
in order to satisfy the universal curiosity." And what makes the
democratic tendency of all this the more oh-rious is, that Necker
was at that time one of the servants of the crown ; so that his
work, looMng at its general spirit, has heen truly caUed an ap-
-peal to the people against the Mng hy one of the mimsters ofthe
king himself."
This evidence of the remarkable change, wMch, in or ahout
1750, the French mind underwent, and which formed what I
term the second epoch of the eighteenth century, might he easily
strengthened by a wider survey of the Uterature of that time.
Immediately after the middle of the century, Eousseau published
those eloquent works, which exercised immense influence, and in
wMch the rise of the new epoch is very observable ; for this most
powerful writer abstained from those attacks on Christianity,"
which unhappUy had been too frequent, and exerted himseff al
most exclusively against the civil and poUtical abuses of the
existing society.'* To trace the effects wMch this wonderful,
hut in some instances misguided, man produced on the mind of
his own and of the succeeding generation, would occupy too large
a share of this Introduction ; though the inquiry is fuU of inter
est, and is one which it were to be wished some competent Ms
torian would undertake." Inasmuch, however, as the phUosophy
" See the account written in Feb. 1781, in Grimm, Corr. Ut, vol. xi. 260, where
it is said of Necker's Compie Rendu, " La sensation qu'a faite cet ouvrage est, je
crois, sans exemple ; U s'en est ddbitd plus de six raiUe exemplaires le jour mdme
qu'il a paru, et depuia, le travail continuel de deux imprimeriea n'a pu sujffire encore
aux demandea multiplides de la capitale, des provinces, et des pays dtrangers."
Sdgur (Souvenirs, vol. i. p. 188) mentions, that Necker's work was " dans la poche
de tous les abbes, et sur la toilette de toutes lea dames." The daughter of Necker,
Madame de Stael, says of her father's work. Administration des Finances, " on en
vendit quatre-vingt miUe exemplaires." De Stael sur la Rkoluiion, vol. i. p. 111.
'" The expression of tbe Baron de Montyon : aee Adolphus's History of George
III. vol. iv. p. 290 ; and on the revolutionary tendency of Necker's financial works,
Soulavie, Rlgne de Louis' XVI, vol. ii. pp. xxxvii. xxxviU., vol iv. pp. 18, 143.
Necker published a justification of bis book, "malgrd la ddfense du roi." Du
Mesnil, Mlm. sur Lebrun, p. 108.
" So far as I remember, there ia not a single instance in any of his works ; and
those who assaU him on this ground should adduce the passages on which they rely,
instead of bringing vague general cbargea. Compare Ufe of Rousseau,in BroughanCs
Men of Letters, vol. l p. 189 ; Staudlin, Gesch. der theolog. Wissenschaften, vol ii.
p. 442 ; Mercier sur Rousseau, 1791, vol. i. pp. 27-32, vol. il pp. 279, 280. .
'""Eouaaeau, qui ddj^ en 1753 avoit touchd aux baaes mdmea de la socidtd
humaine, dans son Discours sur Vorigine de Vinlgaliil parmi les hommes," Sismondi,
vol. xxix. p. 270. Schlosser (Hist of the Eighteenth Century, vol i. p. 188) notices
" the entirely new aystera of abaolute democracy which was brought forward by J.
J. Rousseau :" seealso p. 289, and Soulavie, Regne de Louis XVI, vol. v. p.' 208.
_ Napoleon said to Stanislas Girardin respecting Eousaeau, " sans lui la France
nauroit paaeu de rdvolution." Hollands Foreign Reminiscences, hond. 1850,- p.
261. This is certainly an exaggeration ; but the influence of Rousseau waa, during

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 605
of Eousseau was itseff only a single phase of a far larger move
ment, I shall at present pass over the individual, in order to
consider the general spirit of an age in wMch he played a vast,
hut stiU a subsidiary part.
The formation of a new epoch in France, about the year
1750, may he further Ulustrated hy three circumstances of con
siderable interest, aU pointing in the same direction. The first
.circumstance is, that not a single great French writer attacked
the poUtical institutions of the country hefore the middle of
the century ; whUe after that period the attacks of the ablest
men were incessant. The second circumstance is, that the
¦ only emment Frenchmen, who continued to assaU the clergy, and
yet refused to interfere in poUtics, were those who, like Voltaire,
had already reached an advanced age, and had, therefore, drawn
their ideas from the preceding generation, in which the church
had heen the sole object of hostiUty. The third circumstance,
rwMch is even more striking than the other two, is, that almost
at the same moment there was seen a change in the policy of the
govemment ; since, singularly enough, the ministers of the
crown displayed, for, the first time, an open enmity against the
church, just as the mteUect of the country was preparing for its
decisive onslaught on the government itself. Of these three
propositions, the first two wUl probably be admitted hy every
student of French Uterature : at aU events, if they are false,
they are so exact and peremptory, that it will he easy to re
fute them hy gi-ving examples to the contrary. But the third
proposition, being more general, is less susceptible of a nega
tive, and yyiU therefore require the support of that special evi
dence wMch I wUl now adduce.
The great French writers having hy the middle of the
eighteenth century succeeded in sapping the foundations of the
ihe latter half of the eighteenth century, most extraordinary. In 1765, Hume writea
fi'om Paria : " It ia impossible to express or imagine the enthusiaam of thia nation
m his favour ; ... no person ever so rauch engaged their attention as Eousseau.
Voltaire and evdry body else are quite ecUpsed by him." Burton's Ufe of Hume, vol
ii. p. 299. A letter written in 1754 (in Grimm, Correspond, vol. l p. 122) says that
his Dijon Discourse "fit une espdce de rdvolution k Paris." The circulation of his
works waa unprecedented ; and when La Nouvelle Blloise appeared, " les libraires
ne pouvaient sulEre aux demandea de toutea lea claases. On louait I'ouvrage k tant
par jour, ou par heure. Quand U parut, on exigeait douze soua par volume, en
n'aocordant que aoixante minutea pour le Ure." Musset Pathay, Vie de Rousseau,
vol il p. 361. For further evidence of tbe effect produced by his worka, aee

champ, Mlm, sur Voltaire, voh ii. p. 50 ; Ufe of Romilly, vol i. p. 267 ; Mem, of
Malkt du Pan, vol I p. 127 ; Burke's Works, vol I p. 482 ; Cassagnac, Causes de la
Rh. vol Ui. p. 549; Lamartine, Hist des (jirondins, vol. U.p. 88, vol iv. p. 93,
vol viU. p. 125 ; Wahrheit und Dichtung, in Gothe's Werke, Stuttgart, 1837, vol. il
part u. pp. 83, 104 ; Grimm, Correspond, Ut. vol xu. p. 222 ; De Stael, Consid. sur

606 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
church, it was natural that the govemment should step in and
plunder an estahUshment wMch the course of events had
weakened. TMs, which took place m France under Louis XV.,
was simUar to what occurred in England under Henry VIII. ;
for in both cases a remarkable inteUectual movement, directed
against the clergy, preceded and facUitated the attacks made
on them by the crown. It was in 1749 that the French gov
ernment took the first decisive step against the church. And
what proves the hitherto backward state of the country in such
matters is, that tMs consisted of an edict against mortmain, a
simple contrivance for weakenmg the ecclesiastical power, which
we in England had adopted long hefore. Machault, who had
recently been raised to the office of coniroUer-general, has the
glory of being the originator of tMs new poUcy. In August,
1749,'* he issued that celebrated edict which forbade the forma
tion of any reUgious estahUshment without the consent of the
crown, duly expressed in letters-patent, and registered in parUa
ment ; effective precautions, wMch, says the great Mstorian of
France, show that Machault "considered not only the mcrease,
hut even the existence of these ecclesiastical properties, as a
miscMef to the kingdom.""
This was an extraordmary step on the part of the French
government ; hut what foUowed showed that it was only the
hegmning of a much larger design." Machault, so far from
bemg discountenanced, was, the year after he had issued tMs
edict, intrusted with the seals in addition to the controUersMp ;"
for, as LacreteUe observes, the court "thought the time had
now come to tax the property of the clergy."" Duringthe
forty years wMch elapsed between tMs period and the beginning
of the revolution, the same anti-ecclesiastical poUcy prevaUed.
Among the successors of Machault, the only three of much abil
ity were Choiseul, Necker, and Turgot, aU of whom were stren-
'* Sismondi (xxix. p. 20), LacreteUe (XVIIP Sikle, vol n. p. 110), and Tocque-
vUle (Regne de Louis XV, vol. u. p. 103), give the date 1749 ; so that 1747, in
Biog, Univ, vol. xxvi. p. 46, is apparently a misprint.
" " Laisaant voir dana toute cette loi, qui est aaaez longue, qu'il regardoit non-
aeulement I'accroisaement, maia I'exiatence de ces propridtds eccldsiastiques, comme
un mal pour le royaume." Sismondi, Hist, des Frang, vol. xxix. p. 21. Tins, I
suppoae, ia the edict mentioned by Turgot, who -mahed to push the principle stUl
further. (Euvres de Turgot, voh iU. pp. 254, 255 ; a bold and striking passage.
'" Mably mentiona the excitement cauaed by thia proceeding of Machault,^ 06-
servations sur VHistoire de France, vol. u. p. 415 : " On attaqua alors, dans plusieurs
dcrita, lea immunitds du clergd." On the disUke felt by the clergy against the mima-
ter, see Segur, Souvenirs, vol i. p. 35 ; Soulavie, Regne de Louis XVI, vol i. pp.
288, 310, vol. n. p. 146.
" In 1750, "Machault obtint les sceaux en conservant le controle-gdndral"
Biog, Univ. vol. xxvi. p. 46.
" Croyait surtout que le temps dtait venu d'imposer les biens du clergd."
Lacretelle, XVIIP Sikle, vol. U. p. 107. Nearly the same words are used in Biog.
Univ. vol. xxvi. p. 46.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 607
uous opponents of that spiritual body, which no minister
would have assaUed in the preceding generation. Not only
these emment statesmen, hut even such inferior men as Calonne,
Malesherbes, and Terray, looked on it as a stroke of policy to at
tack pririleges which superstition had consecrated, and which
the clergy had hitherto reserved, partly to extend their own in-
flueiice, and partly to minister to those luxurious and profligate
habits, wMch in the eighteenth century were a scandal to the
ecclesiastical order.
WMle these measures were being adopted against the clergy,
another important step was taken in precisely the same direc
tion. Now it was that the government began to favour that
" great doctrme of reUgious liberty, the mere defence of which it
had hitherto punished as a dangerous speculation. The con
nexion between the attacks on the clergy and the subsequent
progress of toleration, may be iUustrated, not oaly hy the rapid
ity with wMch one event succeeded the other, hut also by the
fact, that both of them emanated from the same quarter, Ma-
chaiilt, who was the author of the edict of mortmain, was also
the first minister who showed a yrish to protect the Protestants
against the persecutions of the CathoUc priesthood.'" In tMs
he only partly succeeded ; hut the impetus thus given soon he-
came irresistible. In 1760, that is only , nme years later, there
was seen a marked change in the admimstration of the laws ;
and the edicts against heresy, though not yet repealed, were en
forced yrith unprecedented mUdness.*" The movement quicMy
spread from the capital to the remoter parts of the Mngdom ;
and we are assured that, after the year 1762, the reaction was
felt even in those provinces, wMch, from their backward condi-
tiouj had always heen most remarkable for reUgious bigotry.*'
At the same time, as we shaU presently see, a great schism arose
in the church itseff, wMch lessened the power of the clergy, hy
diriding them mto two hostUe parties. Of these factions, one
made common cause with the state, stiU further aiding the over
throw of the ecclesiastical Merarchy. Indeed, the dissensions
" On which account, he stiU further provoked the indignation of tbe CathoUc
clergy. See Felice, Hist, ofthe Protest, of France, pp. 401, 402; a letter written in
M 11 rjjjg approach of the year 1760 witnessed a sensible relaxation of persecu
tion, . . . The clergy perceived this with dismay ; and, in their general aasenibly of
1760, they addressed urgent remonstrances to the king against this remission of the
laws." Felice, Protest of France, p. 422. Comp. an interesting letter from Nismes
hi 1776, in Thicknesse's Journey ihrough France, London, 1777, vol. I p. 66.
" Sismondi says of 1762, " Dds lors, la rdaction de I'opinion pubUque contre
I'intoldrance pdndtra jusque dans les provinces les plus fanatiques." Hist, des Frang.
vol xxix. p. 296. See also a letter to Damilaville, dated 6th of May, 1765, in Utires
inMites de Voltaire, vol i. p. 412 ; and two other letters in CEwvres de (Voltaire, vol.
Uv. p. 226, vol. Ixvi. p. 417.

608 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
became so violent, that the last great Mow dealt to spiritual
ascendency by the govemment of Louis XVI. proceeded not
from the hands of a layman, hut from one of the leaders of the
church ; a man who, from Ms standing, would, under ordinary
circumstances, have protected the interests which he now eagerly
attacked.- In 1787, only two years hefore the Eevolution,
Brienne, archbishop of Toulouse,** who was then minister, laid
before the parUament of Paris a royal edict, by which the dis
couragement Mtherto thrown upon heresy was suddenly remov
ed. By this law, the Protestants were invested with, all those
ciril rights wMch the CathoUc clergy had long held out as the
reward of adherence to their own opinions.*' It was, therefore,
natural that the more orthodox party should condemn, as an im
pious innovation,** a measure which, by placing the two sects,
in some degree, on the same footing, seemed to sanction the
progress of error ; and which certainly deprived the French
church of one of the chief attractions by wMch men had Mtherto
heen induced to join her commumon. Now, however, aU these
considerations were set at naught. Such was the prevailing
temper, that the parUament, though then in a mood very refrac
tory to the royal authority, did not hesitate to register -the edict
of the king ; and this great measure became law ; the dommant
party being astonished, we are told, how any doubt could be en
tertained as to the yrisdom of the principles on wMch it was
based.*' These were omens of the coming storm ; signs ofthe time,
wMch those who run may read. Nor are there wanting other
marks, hy which the true complexion of that age may be clearly
seen. In addition to what has been just related, the govern
ment, soon after the middle of the eighteenth century, mfficted
a direct and fatal injury upon the spiritual authority. TMs
consisted in the expulsion of the Jesuits ; wMch is an event,
important not only for its ultimate effects, hut also as an evi
dence of the feelings of men, and of what could be peaceably
^ Of whom Hume, several yeara before, had formed a very high opinion. See
Burton's Ufe of Hume, voh u. p. 497 ; a too favourable judgraent, which should be
contrasted with the opposite exaggerations, in Mhn, de Genlis, vol ix. pp. 360-363,
and Barruel, Hist, du Jacobinisme, vol i. pp. 87, 199.
'" LaiieUlle, Hist, des Frang. iu. p. 516 ; Biog, Univ, xxiv. p. 656.
_ '* Georgel, Mimoires, vol U. pp. 293, 294 ; a violent outbreak against " I'irrdUgieux
ddit .... qui autorise tous lea cultes."
^' "Leparlement de Paris diseutait I'ddit sur les protestans. Vingt ans plus
tdt, corabien une teUe rdaolution n'eiit-eUe pas agitd et diviad les esprits? En 1787,
on ne s'dtonuait que d'une chose : c'dtait qu'il put y avoir une discussion sur des
principes evidens." Lacretelle, XVIIP Sikle, vol Ui. pp. 342, 348. In 17.76,
Malesherbes, who waa then minister, wished to secure nearly the same privUeges for
the Proteatants, but was prevented from doing so. Dutens, Mimoires, vol u. pp.
56-58. Dutens was hiraself concerned in the, negotiation.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 609
accompUshed hy the government of him who was caUed " the
most Christian Mng."*"
The Jesuits, for at least fifty years after their institution,
rendered immense services to ciriUzation, partly by tempering
with a secular element the more superstitious -riews of their great
predecessors, the Domimcans and Franciscans, and partly by
organizing a system of education far superior to any yet seen in
Europe. In no umversity could there be found a scheme of in
struction so comprehensive as theirs ; and certainly no where
was displayed such skUl in the management of youth, or such
insight into the general operations of the human mind. It
must, m justice, he added, that this iUustrious society, not-with
standing its eager, and often unprincipled, ambition, was, dur
ing a considerable period, the steady friend of science, as well as
of Uterature ; and that it aUowed to its members a freedom and
a boldness of speculation wMch had never been permitted by
any other monastic order.
As, however, ci-rilization advanced, the Jesuits, like every
spmtual Merarchy the world has yet seen, began to lose ground ;
and this not so much from their own decay, as from a change in
the spirit of those who surrounded them. An institution admira
bly adapted to an early form of society, was Ul suited to the
same society in its maturer state. In the sixteenth century, the
Jesuits were hefore their age ; in the eighteenth century they
were behind it. In the sixteenth century, they were the great
missionaries of knowledge; because they beUeved that, by its aid,
they could subjugate the consciences of men. But, in the
eighteenth century, their materials were more refractory; they
had to deal with a perverse and stiff-necked generation ; they
saw in every country the ecclesiastical authority rapidly declin
ing; and they clearly perceived that their only chance of retain
ing their old dominion was, hy checkmg that knowledge, the
progress of wMch they had formerly done much to acceler
ate.*' Under these circumstances, the statesmen of France, almost
" Henry II. used to refer to this title, by way of justifying his persecution of
the Protestants (Ranke's Civil Wars in France, vol I p. 241) ; and great account
waa made of it by that exemplary prince, Louis XV. Soulavie, Regne de Louis XVI,
vol i. p. 155. The French antiquariea trace it back to Pepin, tbe father of Charle
magne. Barrington's Observations on the Statutes, p. 168.
" The Prince de Montbarey who was educated by the Jeauita about 1740, aays,
that, m their schools, the greatest attention waa paid to pupils intended for the
church; whUe the abilitiea of those destined for aecular profeaaiona were neglected.
See this atatement, which, coming from auch a quarter, is very remarkable, in Mhn,
de Montbarey, voh i. pp. 12, 13. Montbarey, ao far from being prejudiced againat
the Jeauita, ascribes the Eevolution to their overthrow. Ibid. vol. iu. p. 94. For
other evidence of the exclusive and unsecular character of their education in the
eighteenth century, aee Schlosser's Eighteenth. Century, vol iv. pp. 29, 30, 245.

610 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
immediately after the middle of the eighteenth century, deter-
mmed to ruin an order which had long ruled the world, and
which was stUl the greatest bulwark of the church. In this de
sign they were aided by a curious movement which had taken
place in the church itself, and which, being connected with views
of much yrider import, deserves the attention even of those for
whom theological controversies have no interest.
Among the many points on which metaphysicians have
wasted their strength, that of freC-yriU has provoked the hottest
disputes. And what has increased the acerbity of their lan
guage, is, that tMs, which is eminently a metaphysical question,
has heen taken up hy theologians, who have treated it with that
warmth for wMch they are remarkable.*' From the time of
Pelagius, if not earUer,*" Christianity has been divided into two
great sects, which, though in some respects uniting by msensihle
shades, have always preserved the broad features of their origmal
difference. By one sect, the freedom of the wUl is -rirtuaUy, and
often expressly, denied ; for it is asserted, not oMy that we can
not of our own wiU effect any thing meritorious, hut that what
ever good we may do wUl be useless, since the Deity has predes
tined some men to perdition, others to salvation. By the other
sect, the freedom of the wiU is as strongly upheld ; good works
are declared essential to salvation ; and the opposite party is
accused of exaggerating that state of grace of which faith is a
necessary accompaniment.'"
These opposite principles, when pushed to their logical con
sequences, must lead the first sect into antinomianism," and the
second sect into the doctrine of supererogatory works.'* But
since on such subjects, men feel far more than they reason, it
iisuaUy happens that they prefer foUowmg some common and
"" See sorae aingular obaervationa in Parr'a flrst aerraon on faith and morals
(Parr's Works, vol vi. p. 598), where we are told that, in the management of the
feud between Calvinists and Arrainiana, " the ateadineaa of defence ahould be pro
portionate to tbe irapetuoaity of assault ;" unnecessary advice, so far aa his own pro
fession is concerned. However, the Mohararaedan theologians are said to have been
even keener than tbe Christians on this subject. See Troyer's Discourse on the
Dabistan, vol i. p. cxxxv. ; an iraportant work on the Aaiatic religions.
^° Neander (Hist ofthe Church, vol. iv. p. 106) flnds the germ of the Pelagian
controversy in the dispute between Athanasiue and ApolUnaria. Compare,
respecting its origin, a, note in Milman's History of Christianity, 1840, vol iU. pp.
"° No writer I have met with, has stated so fairly and clearly the theolo^cal
boundaries of these doctrines, as Gothe. Wahrheit und Dichtung, in Werke, vol
U. part ii. p. 200, Stuttgart, 1837.
"' Compare Butler's Mem, of ihe Catholics, vol iu. p. 224 ; Copleston on Neces
sity and Predestination, pp. 25, 26 ; Mosheim's Eccles, History, vol. U. p. 264.
Hence the theory of indulgences, constructed by the Church of Eome with
perfect consistency, and against which most of the Protestant arguments are il
logical.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 611
accredited standard, or appealing to some ancient name :'» and
they, therefore, generally class themselves on the one side under
Augustin, Calrin, and Jansenius ; on the other side under Pela
gius, Armimus, and MoUna.
Now, it is an interesting fact, that the doctrines wMch
in England are caUed Calvinistic, have been always connected
with a democratic spirit; whUe those of Arminianism have found
most favour among the aristocratic or protective party. In the
republics of Switzerland, of North America, and of HoUand,
Calvinism was always the popular creed.'* On the other hand,
in those eril days, immediately after the death of Elizabeth,
when our Uberties were in imminent peril ; when the church of
England, aided hy the crown, attempted to subjugate the con
sciences of men ; and when the monstrous claim of the divine
right of episcopacy was first put forward ;" — then it was that
Armimanism became the cherished doctrine of the ablest and
most ambitious ofthe ecclesiastical party.'" And in' that sharp
retribution wMch foUowed, the Puritans and Independents, hy
whom the punishment was inflicted, were, yrith scarcely an ex
ception, Calvimsts :" nor should we forget, that the first open
movement agamst Charles proceeded from Scotland, where the
principles of Calrin had long been in the ascendant.
" This seems to be the natural tendency, and has been observed by Neander
in his instructive account of the Gnostics, History of the Church, vol ii. p. 121 :
" The custom with such sects to attach themselves to some celebrated name or
other of antiquity."
** The Dutch church was tbe first which adopted, as an article of faith, the doc
trine of election held at Geneva. Mosheim's Eccles. History, vol U. p. 112. See
also, on this doctrine in the Netherlands, Sinclair's Corresp, vol. U. p. 199 ; Coven
try's Speech in 1672, in Pari. Hist. vol. iv. p. 537 ; and Staudlin, Gesch. der theolog.
Wissenschaften, vol. i. p. 262 : "In den Niederlanden wurde der Calvinische Lehr-
begriff zuerst in eine scholastiscbe Form gebracht."
As to the Calvinism of North America, compare Bancrofts American Revolution,
vol I pp. 165, 178, 174, vol. U. pp. 329, 363, vol iii p. 213 ; LyelVs- Second Visit
to the United States, 1849, vol. i. p. 61 ; and Combe's Notes on ilie United States, vol.
I pp. 36, 99, 223, vol Ui. pp. 88, 118, 219, 226.
" It is sometimes said that this was advocated by Bancroft as early as 1688 ;
but tliis assertion appears to be erroneous, and Mr. HaUara can find no instance be
fore the reign of Jaraes I. Const. Hist vol. l p. 390. The dogma, though new in
the Church of England, waa of great antiquity. See, on ita origin among the early
Christiana, Klimrath, Hist, du Droit, vol I p. 263.
"¦ The epread of Arminianiam waa frequently noticed in parliaraent during the
reign of Charlea L Pari, Hist, voh ii. pp. 444, 452, 455, 470, 484, 487, 491, 660,
947, 1368. On the decUne of Calviniara at the Umversities of Oxford and Cara
bridge early hi the seventeenth century, aee a curioua letter from Beale, in Boyle's
Works, vol V. p. 483 ; and on thia moveraent in the church after EUzabeth, compare
Tonge's Diary, p. 98, edit. Camden Soc. 1848 ; Orme's Ufe of Owen, p. 32 ; Harris's
lives ofthe Stuarts, vol i. pp. 154-166, vol U. pp. 208, 213, 214 ; Hutchinson's Mem,
pp. 66, 77 ; Hallam's Const Hist vol. i. p. 466 ; Des Maizeaux's Ufe of Chilling-
m-th, p. 112.
" Eespecting the Calvinism of tbe opponents of the king, see Clarendon s Re
bellion, pp. 86, 37 ; Bulstrode's Memoirs, pp. 8, 9 ; Burton's Diary, vol. iu. p. 206_ ;
Carlyle's Cromwell, voh i. p. 68 ; and on its infiuence in the Houae of Commona in
1628. nn.mmthj„n'„ mat nfthi, nh-iim-h nf WnnlnnA vol ii p. 64.

612 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
TMs different tendency of these two creeds is so clearly
marked, that an inquiry into its causes becomes a necessary part
of general Mstory, and, as we shall presently see, is intimately
connected yrith the Mstory of the French Eevolution.
The first circumstance by wMch we must he strack is, that
Calvinism is a doctrine for the poor, and Armimamsm for the
rich. A creed which insists upon the necessity of faith, must
he less costly than one which msists upon the necessity of works.
In the former case, the sinner seeks salvation hy the strength of
Ms beUef ; in the latter case, he seeks it hy the fuUness of Ms
contributions. And as those contributions, wherever the clergy
have much power, always flow in the same direction, we flnd
that in countries wMch favour the Arminian doctrine of works,
the priests are better paid, and the churches more richly orna
mented, than they are where Calvimsm has the upper hand.
Indeed it is evident to the most vulgar calculation, that a reli
gion wMch' concentrates our charity upon ourselves, is less ex
pensive than one wMch directs our charity to others.
This is the flrst great practical divergence ofthe two creeds:
a divergence wMch may he verified hy any one who is acquamted
with the Mstories of different Christian nations, or who has even
traveUed in countries where the different tenets are professed.
It is also observable, that the Church of Eome, whose worship
is addressed mainly to the senses, and who deUghts in splendid
cathedrals and pompous ceremonies, has always displayed agamst
the Calrimsts an animosity far greater than she has done against
any other Protestant sect."
Out of these circumstances, mevitahly arose the aristocratic
tendency of Arminianism, and the democratic tendency of Cal-
vmism. The people love pomp and pageantry as much as the
nobles do, but they do not love to pay for them. Their untutored
minds are easUy captivated hy the array of a numerous priest
hood, and hy the gorgeousness of a weU-appointed temple. StUl,
they know fuU weU that these tMngs absorb a large part of that
wealth wMch would otherwise flow into their oyvn cottages. On
the other hand, the aristocracy, hy their standing, their habits,
and the traditions of their education, naturaUy contract a taste
for expense, wMch makes them unite splendour with reUgion,
and connect pomp with piety. Besides tMs, they have an intui-
'" Heber (Ufe of Jeremy Taylor, p. cxx.) aays, that Calvinism is " a system of
aU others the least attractive to the feeUnga of a Eoman CathoUc." PhUip H., the
great CathoUo champion, eapeciaUy hated the Calvinists, and in one of bis edicts
caUa their sect " ddtestable." De Thou, Hist, vol x. p. 705 : corapare vol xl p. 468.
To give an earUer instance ; when the Roman inquisition waa revived in 1642, it
waa ordered that heretica, and in particular Calvinists, should not be tolerated :
"besondera Calviniaten." Ranke, Die Papste, vol. i. p. 211.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 613
tive and weU-founded heUef that their own interests are associ
ated with the interests of the priesthood, and that whatever
weakens the one wUl hasten the doyynfaU of the other. Hence
it is, that every Christian democracy has simplified its external
worsMp; every Christian aristocracy has embelUshed it. By a
parity of reasomng, the more any society tends to equality, the
more Ukely it is that its theological opinions wUl he Calvinistic;
whUe the more a society tends towards inequality, the greater
the probabiUty of those opimons bemg Armiman.
It would he easy to push this contrast stiU further, and to
show that Calvinism is more favourable to the sciences, Armm-
ianism to the arts ;'" and that, on the same principle, the first
is better suited to thinkers, the other to scholars.*" But with
out pretending to trace the whole of tMs divergence, it is very
important to observe, that the professors of the former religion
are more likely to acquire habits of independent tMnking than
those of the latter. And tMs on two distinct grounds. In the
first place, even the most ordinary of the Calvinistic party are,
hy the very terms of their creed, led, in religious matters, to fix
their attention on their oyyn minds rather than on the mmds
of others. They, therefore, as a body, are mteUectually more
narrow than their opponents, hut less servile; their views, though
generalized from a smaUer field, are more mdependent; they are
less attached to antiquity, and more heedless of those traditions
to wMch the Armiman scholars attach great importance. In
the second place, those who associate metaphysics with their re
ligion are led hy Cal-rimsm into the doctrine of necessity;*' a
" By way of iUustrating this, I may raention, that an intelUgent observer, who
traveUed aU through Germany, remarked, in 1780, that the Calvinists, though
richer than their opponents, had less taste for the arts. Riesbeck's Travels through
Germany, London, 1787, vol. U. p. 240. An interesting passage, in which, how
eyer, the author has shown himself unable to generaUze the facts which he in
dicates. *" The Anninians have had among them many men of great learning, particular
ly of patristic learmng ; but the most profound thinkers have been on the other
side, as in the inatancea of Auguetiu, Paacal, and Jonathan Edwarda. To theae
Calviniatic metaphyaiciana the Arminian party can oppose no one of equal abiUty ;
and it is remarkable, that the Jesuits, by far the most zealous Anninians in the
Eomish church, have always been celebrated for their erudition, but have paid so
httle attention to tbe study of tbe mind, that, as Sir James Mackintosh says (Dissert.
on Ethical Philos, p. 185), Buflier is " the only Jesuit whose narae has a place in
the history of abstract phUosophy." And it is interesting to observe, that this
superiority of thought on the part of the Calvinists, accompanied by an inferiority
of learning, existed from the beginning; for Heander (History ofthe Church, vol. iv.
p. 299) remarks, that Pelagius " was not possessed of the profound speculative spirit
which we find in Augustin," but that "in learning he was Augustin's superior."
*' " A phUosophical necessity, grounded on the idea of God's foreknowledge,
has been supported by theologians of the Calvinistic achool, more or lesa rigidly,
throughout the' whole of the present century." Morell's Speculative Philosophy of
ihirope, 1846, vol. i. p. 866. Indeed this tendency is so natural,, that we find tbe

614 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
theory which, though often misunderstood, is pregnant with
great truths, and is better calculated than any other system to
develop the intellect, hecause it involves that clear conception of
law, the attainment of wMch is the Mghest point the human
understanding can reach.
These considerations wiU enable the reader to see the im
mense importance of that re-rival of Jansenism, which took place
in the French church during the eighteenth century. For, Jan
senism being essentially Calvinistic,** those tendencies appeared
in France by which Calvinism is marked. There appeared the
inquisitive, democratic, and insubordinate spirit, which has
always accompamed that creed. A further confirmation of the
truth of the principles just laid down is, that Jansenism origi
nated with a native of the Dutch Eepublic;*' that it was intro
duced into France during the glimpse of freedom which preceded
the power of Louis XIV.;** that it was forcibly repressed in Ms
arbitrary reign ;*' and that before the middle of the eighteenth
century, it again arose, as the natural product of a state of society
hy wMch the French Eevolution was brought ahout.
The connexion between the revival of Jansenism and the
destruction of the Jesuits, is obvious. After the death of Loms
XIV., the Jansenists rapidly gained ground, even in the Sor
bonne;*" and by the middle of the eighteenth century, they had
doctrine of necessity, or something extreraely Uke it, laid down by Augustin. See
the interesting extracta in Neander's Hist, of the Church, vol. vi. pp. 424, 425 ;
where, however, a loophole ia left to let in tbe idea of interference, or at aU events
of superintendence. *^ " Tbe flve principal tenets of Jansenism, which amount in fact to the doctrine
of Calvin." Palmer on the Church, vol. i. p. 820 ; and see the remarks of Mackin
tosh in his Memoirs, vol i. p. 411. According to the Jeauita, "Paulua genuit
Augustinsum, Auguatinua Calvinum, Calvinua Janaenium, Jansenius Sancryanum,
Sanoryanus Arnaldura et fratres ejua." Des Rlaux, Historiettes, vol. iv. pp. 71,72.
Corapare Huetius de Rebus ad eum pertinentibus, p. 64 : " Janaeniura dogmata sua ex
Calvinianis fontibua derivasse."
'" Jansenius was born in a viUage near Leerdara, and waa educated, if I mistake
not, in Utrecht.
** The introduction of Jansenism into Trance is superflciaUy related by Duver
net (Hist, de la Sorbonne, vol. ii. pp. 170-175) ; but tbe reader will find a contem
porary and highly characteristic account in Mlm. de MottevUle, vol. U. pp. 224-227.
The connexion between it and the spirit of insubordination was remarked at the
time ; and Dea Rdaux, who wrote in tbe middle of the seventeenth century, men
tiona an opinion that the Fronde " dtoit venue du Jansdnisme." Historiettes, vol.
iv. p. 72. Omer Talon too says that, in 1648, " U se trouvoit que tous ceux qui
dtoient de cette opinion n'aimoient pas le gouvernement prdsent de I'dtat. Mhn.
d'Omer Talon, vol ii. pp. 280, 281.
_ " Brienne, who knew Louia XIV. peraonaUy, says, " Janadniame, I'horreur du
roi." Mlm. de Brienne, vol. ii. p. 240. Compare Duclos, Mlm. Secrets, vol i. p-
112- At the end of hia reign he promoted a bishop on the avowed ground of his
opposition to the Jansenista ; thia waa in 1713. Uttres inMites de Maintenon, vol
11- pp. 396, 406 ; and see further vol. i. pp. 220, 222.
" La Sorbonne, moUniate aous Louis XIV, fut jansdniste sous le rdgent, et
toujours divisde." Duvernet, Hist,\de la Sorbonne, vol.U. p. 226.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 615
organized a powerful party in the French parliament.*' Ahout
the same period, their influence began to show itseff in the ex
ecutive govemment, and among the officers of the crown.
Machault, who held the important post of controUer-general,
was known to favour their opinions,*' and a few years after Ms
rethement, Choiseul was caUed to the head of affairs ; a man of
considerable ahiUty, by whom they were openly protected.*"
Their views were Ukewise supported by Laverdy, controUer-
general in 1764, and by Terray, controller of finances in 1769.'°
The procureur-general, GUbert des Voisins, was a Jansenist ;"
so also was one of Ms successors, Chauvelin ;'* and so was the
advocate-general PeUetier de Saint-Fargeau;" and so too was
Camus, the weU-knowm advocate of the clergy.'* Turgot, the
greatest statesman of the age, is said to have embraced the same
opimons;" wMle Necker, who on two different occasions possessed
almost supreme power, was notoriously a rigid Calrinist. To
this may he added, that not only Necker, but also Eousseau, to
whom a large share in causing the Eevolution is justly ascribed,
were bom in Geneva, and drew their earUest ideas from that
great nursery of the Calvinistic theology.
In such a state of things as this, it was impossible that a
body Uke the Jesuits should hold their ground. They were the
last defenders of authority and tradition, and it was natural that
they should fall m an age when statesmen were sceptics, and
theologians were Calvimsts. Even the people had already
marked them for destruction ; and when Damiens, in 1757, at
tempted to assassinate the king, it was generaUy heUeved that
they were the instigators of the act."- TMs we now know to be
false ; hut the existence of such a rumour is evidence of the state
of the popular mmd. At aU events, the doom of the Jesuits was
fixed. In April, 1761, parUament ordered their constitutions to
*' On the atrength of the Janaeniata in tbe parliaraent of Paria, aee Tocqueville,
Rigne de Louis XV, voh i. p. 352, vol U. p. 176 ; Flassan, Diplomatic, vol vi. p.
486; Mhn. de Georgel, vol U. p. 262 ; Mlm. de BouilU, vol i. p. 67 ; Palmer's Trea
tise on (he Church, vol. i. pp. 327, 828.
*" Lav allle. Hist, des Frangais, vol. iii. p. 439.
*" Soulavie, Rigne de Louis XVI, vol i. pp. 81, 145.
" Tocqueville, Regne de Louis XV, vol U. p. 386 ; CEuvres de Voltaire, vol Uv.
P- 275 ; Mhn, de Georgel, vol. i. pp. 49-61.
" Duasernet, Vie de Voltaire, p. 90.
^ Lacretelle, XVIIP Sikle, vol. ii. p. 119 ; Lavaliee, vol in. p. 477.
" Mhn. de Georgel, vol i. p. 67.
" La Fayette, Mhn. vol u. p. 53 ; Dumont, Souvenirs, p. 154; Georgel, vol. u.
p. 353, vol Ui. p. 10.
"' Soulavie, Regne de Louis XVI, vol. ni. p. 137.
" " The Jesuits are charged by the vulgar as promoters of that attempt." Letter
from Stanley, written in 1761, in Chatham Correspond, vol. ii. p. 127. Compare
Oampan,Mlm. de Marie Antoinette, vol. iu. pp. 19, 21 ; Sismondi, Hist, des Frang.
vol. xxix. pp. Ill, 227.

616 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
he laid hefore them." In August, they were forbidden to re
ceive novices, their colleges were closed, and a number of their
most celebrated works were pubUcly humed hy the common
hangman." FinaUy, in 1762, another edict appeared, by wMch
the Jesuits were condemned yrithout even bemg heard m their
oyyn defence ;'" their property was directed to he sold, and their
order secularized ; they were declared " unfit to he admitted into
a weU-govemed country," and their institute and society were
formaUy ahoUshed."" •
Such was the way in wMch tMs great society, long the terror
of the world, feU hefore the pressure of puhUc opmion. What
makes its fall the more remarkable, is, that the pretext wMch
was aUeged to justify the examination of its constitutions, was
one so slight, that no former government would have Ustened to
it for a smgle moment. TMs immense spiritual corporation was
actuaUy tried hy a temporal court for Ul faith in a mercantUe
transaction, and for refusmg to pay a sum of money said to be
due !"' The most important body in the CathoUc church, the
spiritual leaders of France, the educators of her youth, and the
confessors of her Mngs, were brought to the bar, and sued in their
coUective capacity, for the fraudulent repudiation of a common
debt !"* So marked was the predisposition of affairs, that it was
not found necessary to employ for the destruction of the Jesuits
any of those arts by wMch the popular noind is commonly in
flamed. The charge upon which they were sentenced, was not
that they had plotted against the state ; nor that they had cor
rapted the puhUc morals ; nor that they wished to subvert re
ligion. These were the accusations which were brought in the
seventeenth century, and wMch suited the genius of that age.
But in the eighteenth century, aU that was required was some
trifling accident, that might serve as a pretence to justify what
the nation had already determmed. To ascribe, therefore, tMs
great event to the bankruptcy of a trader, or the mtrigues of a
mistress," is to confuse the cause of an act with the pretext
"' LavaUle, Hist, des Frangais, vol. iii. p. 476.
" Flassan, Diplomatie Frang. vol vi. p. 491.
"" "Sans que les aocusds eussent dtd entendus." Lavallk, vol. ill p. 477. "Pas
un aeul n'a dtd entendu dans leur cauae." Barruel sur VHistoire du Jacobinisme,
vol. u. p. 264.
"° LavaUle, ui. p. 477 ; Flassan, vi. pp. 604, 505 ; Sismondi, xxix. p. 284 ; and
the lettera written by Diderot, who, though he waa in Paria at the time, givea rather
an mcoraplete account, Mlm, de Diderot, vol. u. pp. 127, 180-182.
" Flassan, Hist, de la Diplomatie, vol vi. pp. 486-488.
..." ¦^°fi'i ils furent mis en cause, et le parlemeut de Paris eut I'dtonnement et
la joie de voir lea jdauites amends devant lui comme de vila banqueroutiers." Laere-
air ¦^^^^^' Sikle, vol. ii. p. 262. " Condemned in Prance aa fraudulent traders."
Schlosser's Eighteenth Century, vol. iv. p. 451.
-tr r ^^¦^^"¦"¦1 -writers attribute the destruction of the Jeauita to the exertions of
Madame de Pompadour 1

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 617
under wMch the act is committed. In the eyes of the men of
the eighteenth century, the real crime of the Jesuits was, that
they belonged to the past rather than to the present, and that hy
defending the abuses of ancient estahUshments, they obstructed
the progress of manMnd. They stood in the way of the age, and
the age swept them from its path. This was the real cause of
their aboUtion : a cause not likely to he perceived hy those writers,
who, under the guise of Mstorians, are oMy coUectors of the prat
tle and gossip of courts ; and who beUeve that the destimes of
great nations can he settled in the ante-chambers of ministers,
and in the councils of kmgs.
After the fall of the Jesuits, there seemed to he notMng re
maimng wMch could save the French church from immediate
destraction.'* The old theological spirit had been for some time
declining, and the clergy were suffering from their own decay
even more than from the attacks made upon them. The ad
vance of knowledge was producmg in France the same results as
those wMch I have pointed out in England ; and the increasing
attractions of science drew off many iUustrious men, who in a
preceding age would have heen active members of the spiritual
profession. That splendid eloquence, for which the French
clergy had heen remarkable, was now dying away, and there were
no longer heard the voices of those great orators, at whose bid
ding the temples had formerly heen filled."' MassiUon was the
last of that celebrated race who had so enthralled the mind, and
the magic of whose fascination it is even now hard to yrithstand.
He died m 1742 ; and after him the French clergy possessed no
eminent men of any Mnd, neither thmkers, nor orators, nor
writers." Nor did there seem the least possibiUty of their re
covering their lost position. WMle society was advancing, they
were receding. All the sources of their power were dried up.
Theyhad no active leaders ; they had lost the confidence of gov
emment ; they had forfeited the respect of the people ; they had
become a mark for the gibes of the age."
"* Choiseul is reported to have said of the Jesuits: "leur dducation ddtruite,
tous lea autrea corpa reUgieux tomberont d'eux-mdraes." Barruel, Hist du Jacobin
isme, vol i. p. 63.
'" Iu 1771, Horace Walpole writes from Paris that the churches and convents
were become so empty, as to " appear like abandoned theatres destined to destruc
tion;" and this he contrasts with his former experience of a different state of things.
Wahole's Utters, vol. v. p. 310, edit. 1840.
" So low had the talents of the once iUustrious church of France faUen, that
in the latter part of the eighteenth century, when Christianity itself was assaUed,
not one champion of note appeared in its ranks ; and when the convocation of tbe
clergy, in 1770, published their famous anathema against the dangers of unbeUef,
and offered rewards for the best essays in defence of the Christian faith, the pro
ductions caUed forth were so despicable that they sensibly injured the cause of re
ligion." Alison's Hist of Europe, vol i. pp. 180, 181.
" In 1766, the Eev. WUUam Cole writes to Alban Butler : " I traveUed to Paris

618 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
It does, at first sight, seem strange that, under these circum
stances, the French clergy should have heen ahle, for nearly
thirty years after, the abolition of the Jesuits, to maintain their
standing, so as to interfere yrith impunity in puhUc affairs."
The truth, however, is, that this temporary.reprieve of the eccle
siastical order was owing to that movement wMch I have already
noticed, and by virtue of which the French inteUect, during the
latter haff of the eighteenth century, changed the ground of its
attack, and, directmg its energies against poUtical abuses, neg
lected in some degree those spiritual abuses to which its atten
tion had heen Mtherto confined. The result was, that in France
the government enforced a poUcy which the great thinkers had
indeed originated, hut respecting wMch they were becoming less
eager. The most eminent Frenchmen were heginnmg their at
tacks upon the state, and in the heat of their new warfare they
slackened their opposition to the church. But in the mean time,
the seeds they had sown germinated in the state itself So rapid
was the march of affairs, that those anti-ecclesiastical opinions
which, a few years earUer, were punished as the paradoxes of de
signing men, were now taken up and put into execution by sena
tors and ministers. The rulers of France carried into effect prin
ciples wMch had hitherto been simply a matter of theory ; and
thus it happened, as is always the case, that practical statesmen
only apply and work out ideas wMch have long hefore heen sug
gested by more advanced tMnkers.
Hence it foUowed, that at no period during the eighteenth
century did the speculative classes and the practical classes thor
oughly combine against the church: since, in the first half of
the century, the clergy were principaUy assaUed hy the litera
ture, and not hy the government ; in the latter haff of the. cen
tury, hy the govemment, and not by the Uterature. Some of
the circumstances of tMs singular transition have heen aheady
stated, and I hope clearly brought hefore the mind of the reader.
I now purpose to complete the generaUzation, by. prqving that a
correspondmg change was taMng place in aU other branches of
inquiry ; and that, whUe in the first period attention was cMefly
directed towards mental phenomena, it was m the second period
through LiUe and Cambray in their pubUc voitures, and was greatly scandaUzed
and amazed at the open and unreserved disrespect, both of tbe trading and miUtary
people, for their clergy and reUgious estabUshraent. Wben I got to Paris, it was
much worse." Ellis's Original Letters, second series, vol iv. p. 486. See also
Walpole's Letters to Lady Ossory, vol. ii. p. 613, edit. 1848; and the complaint
made at Besan^on in 1761, in Upan, Vie de Voltaire, p. 113.
°" And also to retain their imraense property, which, when the Eevolution oc
curred, waa eatunated at 80,000,000?. EngUsh money, bringing in a yearly revenue
of "somewhat under 76,000,000 francs." Alison's Europe, vol i. p. 183, vol. u. p.
20, vol. xiv. pp. 122, 128.

GENEEAL INTRODUCTION. 619
more directed towards physical phenomena. From this, the po
Utical movement received a vast accession of strength. For the
French inteUect, sMfting the scene of its labours, diverted the
thoughts of men from the internal to the external, and concen
trating attention upon their material rather than upon their
spmtual wants, turned against the encroachments of the state
an hostUity formerly reserved for the encroachments ofthe church.
Whenever a tendency arises to prefer what comes from without
to what comes from yritMn, and thus to aggrandize matter at the
expense of mind, there will also be a tendency to beUeve that an
institution wMch hampers our opimons is less hurtful than one
wMch controls our acts. Precisely in the same way, men who
reject the fundamental traths of reUgion, wUl care little for the
extent to wMch those truths are perverted. Men who deny the
eristence of the Deity and the immortality of the soul, will take
no heed of the way in wMch a gross and formal worsMp obscures
those subUme doctrmes. AU the idolatry, all the ceremomals,
aU the pomp, aU the dogmas, and aU the traditions hy wMch re
ligion is retarded, wUl give them no disquietude, hecause they
consider the opimons that are checked to be equaUy false with
those that are favoured. Why should they, to whom transcen
dental truths are unknoyyn, labour to remove the superstitions
wMch darken the truths ? Such a generation, so far from at
tacking ecclesiastical usurpations, would rather look on the clergy
as convement tools to ensnare the ignorant and control the vul
gar. Therefore it is that we rarely hear of a sincere atheist being
a zealous poleimc. But ff that should occur, wMch a century
ago occurred in France ; ff it should happen that men of great
energy, and actuated hy the feelings I have described, were to
find themselves in the presence of a poUtical despotism, — they
would direct agamst it the whole of their powers ; and they
would act with the more determined -rigour, hecause, beUe-ring
that their aU was at stake, temporal happiness would be to them
not only the flrst, hut also the sole consideration.
It is from tMs pomt of view that the progress of those athe
istical opinions, wMch now rose in France, becomes a matter of
great though painful interest. And the date at wMch they ap
peared, fuUy corroborates what I have just said respecting the
change that took place in the middle of the eighteenth century.
The first great work in wMch they were openly promulgated, was
the celebrated Encyclopedia, pubUshed m 1751."" Before that

b abjurd 1 _ .
un front plus hardi, et proclamer que tout sentiment reUgieux dtait une rdverie et

620 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
time such degrading opinions, though occasionaUy broached, were
not held by any men of ahUity ; nor could they in the preceding
state of society, have made much impression upon the age. But
during the latter half of the eighteenth century, they affected
every department of French Uterature. Between 1758 and
1770, atheistical tenets rapidly gained ground ;" and in 1770
was pubUshed the famous work, caUed the System of Nature;
the success, and, unhappily, the ahiUty of wMch, make its ap
pearance an important epoch in the Mstory of France. Its
popularity was immense;''' and the 'riews it contains are 'so
clearly and methodically arranged, as to have earned for it the
name of the code of atheism,''* Five years later, the Archbishop
of Toulouse, in a formal address to the kmg on hehaff of the
clergy, declared that atheism had now become the prevaiUng
opimon.''' TMs, Uke aU similar assertions, must have been an
exaggeration ; hut that there was a large amount of truth in it,
is knowm to whoever has studied the mental habits of the gener
ation immediately preceding the Eevolution. Among the infe
rior class of writers, DamUaviUe, Deleyre, Marechal, Naigeon,
Toussaint, were active supporters of that cold and gloomy dogma,
which, in order to extinguish the hope of a future lffe, blots out
from the mind of man the glorious instincts of Ms own immor
taUty.'* And, strange to say, several even of the Mgher mtel-^
lects were unable to escape the contagion. Atheism was openly
advocated hy Condorcet, by D'Alembert, hy Diderot, hy Helv6tius,
un ddsordre de l'esprit humain. C'est de I'dpoque de I'Encyclopddie que datent les
dcrits oil cette opinion est le plus expressdment professde. Hs furent peu imitds."
This last sentence is erroneous, I am sorry to aay.
¦" " Dans un intervaUe de douze anndes, de 1768 a 1770, la Uttdrature fransaise
fut souiUde par un grand nombre d'ouvrages oil I'athdiame dtoit ouvertement professd."
Lacretelle, XVIIP Sikle, vol ii. p. 310.
" Voltaire, who wrote against it, mentions its diffusion among aU classea, and
saya it was read by " des savanta, des ignorants, des femmes." Diet. Philos, article
Dieu, section iv., in CEwvres de Voltaire, vol xxxviU. p. 866 : see also vol Ixvu. p.
260 ; Longchamp ei Wagnih-e, Mhn. swr Voltaire, vol. i. pp. 13, 384 ; Uttres inldites
de Voltaire, vol n. pp. 210, 2i6 ; and a letter from him iu Correspond, de Dudeffand,
vol. ii. p. 829. Compare Tennemann, Gesch. der Philos. vol. si. p. 320: "mit
ungetheUtem BeifaUe aufgenommen worden und grosaeu Einfluaa gehabt hat."
¦"* " Le code monatrueux d'athdiame." Biog, Univ, vol. xxix. p. 88. MoreUet,
who iu such matters waa by no means a harsh judge, says, " U Systems de la Nature,
surtout, est un catdchisme d'athdisme complet." Mhn, de MoreUet, vol. i. p. 133.
Staudlin (Gesch, der theolog, Wissenschaften, vol. u. p. 440) calls it "ein System
des entschiedenen Atheismua :" whUe Tennemann, who haa given by far the best
account of it I have met with, says, "Es machte bei seinem Erscheinen gewaltiges
Aufaehen, und ist fast immer als das Handbuch des Atheismus betrachtet worden."
Gesch. der Philos. voh xi. p. 349.
" " Le monstrueux athdisme est devenu I'opinion dominante." Soidavif, Regne
de Louis XVI, voh iU. p. 16 : the address of the archbishop with a deputation,
"muni des pouvoirs de I'aBBemblde gdudrale du clergd," in September, 1775.
* Biog. Univ, voh x. pp. 471, 669, vol xxvii. p. 8, vol xxx. p. 542 ; Mhn, de
Brissot, vol i. p. 806 ; Tocqueville, Regne de Louis XV, vol u. p. 77.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 621
by Lalande, hy Laplace, hy Mirabeau, and hy Saint Lambert.'"
Indeed, so thoroughly did all tMs harmomze with the general tem
per, that in society men boasted of what, in other countries, and
in other days, has heen a rare and singular error, an eccentric
taint, which those affected by it were yriUing to conceal. In
1764 Hume met, at the house of Baron d'Holhach, a party of
the most celebrated Frenchmen then residing in Paris. The
great Scotchman, who was no doubt aware of the prevailing
opinion, took occasion to raise an argument as to the existence
of an atheist, properly so caUed ; for his own part, he said, he
had never chanced to meet with one. " You have heen some
what unfortunate," repUed Holbach ; " hut at the present mo
ment you are sitting at table yrith seventeen of them." '"
This, sad as it is, only forms a single aspect of that immense
movement, hy wMch, during the latter half of the eighteenth
century, the French intellect was withdrawn from the study of
the intemal, and concentrated upon that of the external world.
Of this tendency, we find an interesting instance in the celebrated
work of Helv6tius, unquestionably the ablest and most influential
treatise on morals wMch France produced at tMs period. It
was published in 1758 ;" and, although it bears the title of an
essay on "the Mind," it does not contain a single passage from
which we could infer that the nrind, m the sense in which the
word is commonly used, has any existence. In tMs work, wMch,
during fifty years, was the code of French morals, principles are
laid down wMch bear exactly the same relation to etMcs that
atheism hears to theology. Helv6tius, at the heginmng of Ms
inquiry, assumes, as an incontestable fact, that the difference be
tween man and other animals is the result of a difference in their
external form ; and that ff, for example, our wrists, instead of
ending yrith hands, and flexible flngers, had merely ended Uke a
horse's foot, we should have always remamed wanderers on the
face of the earth, ignorant of every art, entirely defenceless, and
" Mhn, of Mallet du Pan, voh i. p. 60 ; Soulavie, Rigne de Louis XVI, vol v.
p. 127 ; Barruel, Hist du Jacobin, vol. i. pp. 104, 185, 226, vol. U. p. 23, vol. Ui. p.
200 ; Idfe of Romilly, vol. i. pp. 46, 145 ; Staudlin, Theolog. Wissenschaften, vol ii.
p. 440; Georgel, Mhn. vol U. pp. 250, 360; Grimm, Correspond, vol xv. p. 87 ;
Mhn de MoreUet, vol i. p. 130 ; Lepan, Vie de Voltaire, p. 369 ; Tennemann, Gesch.
der Philos. vol. xi. p. 350 ; Musset Pathay, Vie de Rousseau, vol ii. pp. 177, 297 ;
Mem. de Genlis, vol. v. p. 180 ; Hitchcock's Geol. p. 263 ; Mhn, d'Epinay, vol. ii.
pp. 63, 66, 76.
" This was related to EomiUy by Diderot. Ufe of Romilly, vol i. pp. 131,
132; see also Burion'sUfe of Hume, vol. n. p. 220. Priestley, who visited France
in 1774, saya, that " aU the phUosophical persons to whom I was introduced at Paris
(were) unbelievers in Christianity, and even professed atheists." Priestley's Me
moirs, vol. i. p. 74. See also a letter by Horace Walpole, written frora Paris in
1766 (Walpole's Utters, edit. 1840, vol v. p. 96): "their avowed doctrine is
atheism." " Biog, Univ, vol. xx. p. 29.

622 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
haring no other concern, hut to avoid the attacks of wild-beasts,
and find the needful supply of our daUy food.'" That the strac-
ture of our bodies is the sole cause of our boasted superiority, he-
comes evident, when we consider that our thoughts are simply
the product of two faculties, which we have in common with aU
other animals ; namely, the faculty of recei-ring impressions from
external objects, and the faculty of remembering those impressions
after they are received.'" From tMs, says Helv6tius, it follows,
that the internal powers of man being the same as those of all
other ammals, our sensihiUty and our memory would be useless,
if it were not for those external peculiarities hy which we are
eminently distingmshed, and to wMch we owe every thing that is
most valuable.'" These positions being laid doym, it is easy to
deduce aU the essential principles of moral actions. For, memory
being merely one ofthe organs of physical sensihiUty." and judg
ment being only a sensation,'* aU notions of duty and of virtue
must he tested hy their relation to the senses ; in other words, hy
the gross amount of physical enjoyment to wMch'they give rise.
This is the trae hasis of moral phUosophy. To take any other
view, is to allow ourselves to he deceived by conventional expres?
sions, which have no foundation except in the prejudices of ig
norant men. Our vices and our virtues are solely the result of
our passions ; and our passions are caused hy our physical sen-
sibUity to pain and to pleasure." It was in tMs way that the
sense of justice first arose. To physical sensihiUty men owed
pleasure and pain; hence the feeUng of their own interests, and
hence the desire of U-ring together m societies. Being assembled
in society, there grew up the notion of a general interest, smce,
without it, society could not hold together ; and, as actions are
only just or unjust m proportion as they minister to tMs general
interest, a measure was established, hy which justice is discrim
inated from injustice.'* With the same inflexible spirit, and
" " Si la nature, au Ueu de mains et de doigts flexibles, efit termind noa pdigneta
par un pied de cheval ; qui doute que les hommes, sana art, sans habitationa, aans
ddfense contre Ies animaux, tout occupda du soin de pourvoir a leur hourriture et
d'dviter les bdtes fdroces, ne fussent encore errants dans les fordts comme dea trou-
peaux fugutifa ?" Helvltius de VEsprii, vol. i. p. 2. Had Helvdtiua ever read the
attack of Ariatotle againat Anaxagoraa for asserting that Sih rb x^'pas «X*'>'> ^l"»"-
lidruTov cTi/ai tUv fcSav rhv &rApanrov? Cudworth, InteUec. Syst, vol in p. 811.
" De VEsprit, vol i. p. 2. "° Ibid. vol. i, p. 4.
"' " En eifet la mdmoire ne peut dtre qu'un des organes de la aensibUitd physique."
vol. l p. 6. Compare what M. LepeUetier aaya on this, in his Physiologie Mldicale,
voh iU. p. 272.
M "D'oHje conclus que tout jugement n'est qu'une sensation." De VEsprit, vol.
i, p. 10 ; "juger, comme je I'ai ddj^ prouvd, n'est proprement que seniir," p. 41.
'" "Nd sensible k la. douleur et au plaisir, c'est k la sensibiUtd physique que
I'homme doit ses passions ; et k aea paaaiona, qu'U doit tous sea vices et toutes ses
vertus." Ibid. vol. U. p. 53 ; and see vol. i. p. 289.
"' " Une foia parvenu k cette vdritd, je ddcouvre facilement la source dea vertus

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION, 623
-irith great fulness of Ulustration, Helv6tius examines tho origin
of those other feeUngs wMch regulate human actions. Thus, he
says that both ambition and friendship are entirely the work of
physical sensibUity, Men yearn after fame, on account either of
the pleasure which they expect the mere possession of it wUl
give, or else as the means of subsequently procuring other pleas
ures," As to friendsMp, the only use of it is to increase our pleas
ures or mitigate om- pains ; and it is with tMs object that a man
longs to hold commumon with Ms friend.'" Beyond this, lffe has
nothmg to offer. To love what is good for the sake of the good
ness, is as impossible as to love what is bad for the sake of the
eril." The mother who weeps for the loss of her chUd, is solely
actuated hy selflshness ; she mourns hecause a pleasure is taken
from her, and hecause she sees a void difficult to ffll up." So it
is, that the loftiest -rirtues, as weU as the meanest vices, are
equaUy caused by the pleasure we flnd in the exercise of them.""
This is the great mover and originator of aU. Every thing that
we have, and every thing that we are, we owe to -the external
world ; nor is Man himseff aught else except what he is made by
the objects wMch surround him.""
The -riews put forward in tMs celebrated work I have stated
at some length ; not so much on account of the ahiUty with
wMch they are advocated, as on account of the clue they furmsh
to the movements of a most remarkable age. Indeed, so com
pletely did they harmonize yrith the prevaiUng tendencies, that
they not only quicMy ohtamed for their author a vast European
reputation,"' hut, during many years, they contmued to increase
ia influence, and, in France in particular, they exercised great
humamea ; je voia que sans la sensibiUtd a la douleur et au plaisir physique, lea
hommes, sans ddaira, sans passions, dgalement indifferents k tout, n'eussent point
connu d'intdret personnel ; que sans intdrdt personnel isl ne se fussent point ras-
semblds en socidtd, n'eussent point fait entr'eux de conventions, qu'U n'y evit point
eu d'intdrdt gdndral, par consdquent point d'actions justes ou injustes ; et qu'ainsi
la sensibiUtd physique et I'intdrdt personnel ont dtd les auteurs de toute justice."
Ibid. vol. i. p. 278.
" De VEsprit, vol U. pp. 19, 20, 30, 84, 293, 294, 318. Compare Epicurus, iu
Diog. Laert. de Vii. Philos, Ub. x. seg. 120, vol i. p. 664.
De VEsprit, vol. U. p. 45. He sums up: "il s'enauit que I'amitid, ainai que
I'avarice, I'orgueil, I'ambitiou et lea autres paaaiona, eat I'effet immddiat de la aensi
bUitd physique."
" " H lui est aussi impossible d'aimer le bieu pour le bien, que d'aimer le mal
pour le mal." Ibid, vol I p. 73.
" Ibid, vol U. p. 249. "» Ibid, vol. u. p. 68.
" "Nous sommes uniquement ce que nous font les objets qui noua environnent."
Md. vol u. p. 306.
" Saint Surin, a zealous opponent of Helvdtiua, admits that " les dtrangers les
plus dminents par leurs dignitds ou par leurs lumidr'es, ddsiraient d'dtre introduits
chez un phUosophe dont le nom retentissait dans toute I'Europe." Biog. Univ, vol.
K. p. 38.

624 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
sway."* As that was the country in which they arose, so also was
it the country to which they were best adapted. Madame Dudef
fand, who passed her long Ufe in the midst of French society,
and was one of the keenest observers of her time, has expressed
tMs with great happiness. The work of Helv6tius, she says, is
popular, since he is the man who has told to aU their oym se-
creti" True it was, that, to the contemporaries of Helvetius, his
views, notyrithstanding their immense popularity, bore the ap
pearance of a secret ; because the connexion between them and
the general march of events was, as yet, hut dimly perceived.
To us, however, who, after tMs interval of time, can examine the
question with the resources of a larger experience, it is obrious
how such a system met the wants of an age of which it was the
exponent and the mouthpiece. That Helv6tius must have car
ried yrith him the sympatMes of his countrymen, is clear, not
only from the evidence we have of Ms success, hut also from a
more comprehensive view of the general complexion of those
times. Even whUe he was stUl pursuing his labours, and only
four years before he pubUshed them, a work appeared in France,
wMch, though displaying greatei* ahiUty, and possessing a Mgher
influence than that of Helv6tius, did, nevertheless, pomt in ex
actly the same direction. I allude to the great metaphysical
treatise by CondiUac, in many respects one of the most remark
able productions of the eighteenth century ; and the authority
of which, during two generations, was so irresistible, that, yrithout
some acquaintance with it, we cannot possibly understand the
nature of those complicated movements hy wMch the French
Eevolution was brought ahout.
In 1754,"* CondUlac put forth Ms celebrated work on the
mind ; the very title of which was a proof ofthe bias with which
it was written. Although tMs profound thinker aimed at noth
ing less than an exhaustive analysis of the human faculties, and
although he is pronounced by a very able, hut hostUe critic, to
he the only metaphysician France produced during the eighteenth
"^ Briaaot (Mimoires, vol. i. p. 339) says, that in 1775, "le systdme d'Helvdtius
avait alors la plua grande vogue." Turgot, who wrote againat it, complains that it
was praised " avec une sorte de fureur" (CEwvres de Turgot, vol. ix. p. 297); and
Georgel (Mimoires, vol. ii. p. 266) says, " ce Uvre, dorit avec un style plein de cha
leur et d'images, se trouvoit sur toutes les toUettes."
°" " D'aiUeurs le sidcle de Louis XV se reconnut dans I'ouvrage d'Helvdtius, et
on prdte k Mme. Dudeffand ce mot fin et profond: 'C'est un homme qui a ^tle
secret de tout le monde.' " Cousin, Hist, de la Philos, I. sdrie, voh iii. p. 201.
Compare Corresp, de Dudeffand, vol. i. p. xxu. ; and a similar sentiment in Mhn, de
Roland, vol. i. p. 104. The relation of Helvdtius's work to the prevaiUng phUoso
phy is noticed in Comte's Philos. Pos. vol ui. pp. 791, 792, voh v. pp. 744, 746.
°* Biog. Univ. vol ix. p. 899.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 625
century," stUl he found it utterly impossible to escape from
those tendencies towards the external wMch governed his own
age. The consequence was, that he called Ms work a " Treatise
on Sensations ;""" and in it he peremptorily asserts, that every
thing we know is the result of sensation ; hy which he means
the effect produced on us by the action of the external world.
Whatever may be thought of the accuracy of tMs opmion, there
can be no douht that it is enforced yrith a closeness and severity
of reasonmg wMch deserves the highest praise. To examine,
however, the arguments hy wMch his view is supported, would
lead to a discussion foreign to my present object, which is, merely
to point out the relation between his phUosophy and the general
temper of Ms contemporaries. Without, therefore, pretending to
any thing Uke a critical examination of Ms celebrated book, I yrill
simply bring together the essential positions on which it is based,
in order to Ulustrate the harmony between it and the inteUectual
habits ofthe age in wMch it appeared,"'
The materials from wMch the phUosophy of CondiUac was
originaUy drawm, were contained in the great work pubUshed by
Locke about sixty years before this time. But though much of
what was most essential was borrowed from the EngUsh phUoso
pher, there was one very important point in which the disciple
differed from Ms master. And tMs difference is strikingly charac
teristic of the direction which the French inteUect was now
taking, Locke, with some looseness of expression, and possibly
with some looseness of thought, had asserted the separate exist
ence of a power of reflection, and had mamtained that by means
of that power the products of sensation became available,"" Con
dillac, moved by the prevaUing temper of his own time, would
not hear of such a distinction. He, like most of his contempo
raries, was jealous of any claim which increased the authority of
the intemal, and weakened that of the external. He, therefore,
altogether rejects the faculty of reflection as a source of our ideas;
and tMs partly because it is but the channel through which ideas
'° " CondiUac eat le mdtapbysicien franjais du xviii* aidcle." Cousin, Hist, de la
Philos. I. sdrie, voh iU. p. 83.
" "Traitd des Sensations," which, aa M. Couain aays, is "sans comparaison, le
chef-d'oeuvre de CondUlac." Hist, de la Philos. II. sdrie, vol. U. p. 77.
" On the immenae influence of CondiUac, compare Renouard, Hist de la Medi
cine, vol. il p. 855 ; Cuvier, Eloges, vol. iii. p. 387 ; Broussais, Cours de Phrenologie,
pp. 45, 68-71, 829 ; Pinel, Alihi. Mentale, p. 94 ; Brown's Philos. of the Mind,
p. 212. " Whether or not Locke held that refiection ia an independent aa well as a
separate faculty, is uncertain ; because pasaagea could be quoted from hia writings
to prove either the affirmative or the negative. Dr. WheweU justly remarks, that
Locke uses the word so vaguely as to " allow hia diaciplea to make of hia doctrines
what they please." History of Moral Philosophy, 1852, p. 71.
VOL. I. — 40

626 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
ran from the senses, and partly because in its origin it is itseff a
sensation."" Therefore, according to Mm, the only question is as
to the way in which our contact with nature supplies us with
ideas. For in this scheme, the faculties of man are solely caused
hy the operation of Ms senses. The judgments which we form
are, says CondUlac, often ascribed to the hand of the Deity ; a
convenient mode of reasoning, which has only arisen from the
difficulty of analyzing them.'"" By considering how our judg
ments actuaUy arise, we can alone remove these obscurities. The
fact is, that the attention we give to an object is nothing hut the
sensation wMch that object excites;'"' and what we call abstract
ideas are merely different ways of being attentive.'"* Ideas bemg
thus generated, the subsequent process is very simple. To attend
to two ideas at the same time, is to compare them ; so that com
parison is not a result of attention, hut is rather the attention
itseff.'"' TMs at once gives us the faculty of judgmg, because di
rectly we institute a comparison, we do of necessity form a judg
ment.'"* Thus, too, meinory is a triansformed sensation ;'"'
whUe the imagination is notMng but memory, wMch, bemg car
ried to its highest possible vivacity, makes what is absent appear
to be present.'"" The impressions we receive from the extemal
world being, therefore, not the cause of our faculties, but being
the faculties themselves, the conclusion to which we are driven
is inevitable. It foUows, says CondiUac, that in man nature is
the beginning of aU ; that to nature we owe the whole of our
knowledge ; that we only instruct ourselves accordmg to her
lessons ; and that the entire art of reasomng consists in continu
ing the work which she has appointed us to perform,'"'
"" "Locke distingue deux sources de nos iddes, les aena et la rdflexion. H
seroit plua exact de n'en reconnoitre qu'une, soit parceque la rdfiexion n'est dans
son principe que la sensation mdme, soit parcequ'eUe eat moins la source des iddea,
que le canal par lequel eUea ddcoulent dea sens.'l Condillac, Traite des Sensations,
p. 13 :' see also, at pp. 19, 216, the way in which sensation becomes reflection; and
the summing up, at p. 4i6, " que toutes nos connoissances viennent des sens, et
particuUdrement du toucher."
"° He says of MaUebranche (Traiti des Sensations, p. 312), "ne pouvant com-
prendre comment nous forraeriona nous-radmes cea jugeraena, il les attribue k Dieu ;
manidre de raiaonner fort commode, et presque toujours la ressource des phi-
losbphea." '"' " Maia k peine j'arrdte la vue sur un objet, que lea aensationa particulieres que
j'en refois aont I'attention mdrae que je lui donne." Traiil des Sensations, p. 1".
™ "Ne sont que diffdrentes manidrea d'dtre attentif " p. 122.
103 ti -p^g qjjijj y ^ double attention, il y a comparaiaon ; car dtre attentif k deux
iddea ou les comparer, c'eat la mdme choae." p. 17.
"* " Dds qu'il y a comparaiaon, U y a jugement." p. 65.
'"^ "La mdmoire n'eat donc que la senaation tranaformde." p. 17. Compare
p. 61. ¦
"" " L' imagination est la mdmoire mdme, parvenue k toute la vivaoitd dont eUe
eat ausceptible." p. 78. " Or j'ai appeld iraagination cette mdmoire vive, qui fait
paroitre prdsent ce qui est absent." p. 245.
" il rdsulte de cette vdritd, que la nature commence tout en nous : aussi ai-

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 627
It is so impossible to mistake the tendency of these views,
that I need not attempt to estimate their result otherwise than
hy measuring the extent to wMch they were adopted. Indeed,
the zeal with wMch they were now carried into every depart
ment of knowledge, can only surprise those who, being led hy
then- habits of mind to study history in its separate fragments,
have not accustomed themselves to consider it as an united whole,
and who, therefore, do not perceive that in every great epoch
there is some one idea at work, wMch is more powerful than any
other, and which shapes the events of the time and determines
their ultimate issue. In France, during the latter half of the
eighteenth century, tMs idea was, the inferiority of the internal
to the external It was this dangerous but plausible principle
wMch drew the attention of men from the church to the state ;
wHch was seen in Helvetius the most celebrated of the French
moraUsts, and in CondUlac the most celebrated ofthe French met
aphysicians. It was tMs same principle which, by increasing, ff I
may so say, the reputation of Nature, induced the ablest tMnkers
to devote themselves to a study of her laws, and to abandon those
other pursuits wMch had heen popular m the preceding age. In
consequence of tMs movement, such wonderful additions were
made to every branch of physical science, that more new traths
concermng the external world were discovered in France durmg
the latter haff of the eighteenth century than during aU the pre-
rious periods put together. The details of these discoveries, so
far as they have heen subservient to the general purposes of
civilization, yriU be related in another place ; at present I wUl
indicate only the most prominent, in order that the reader may
understand the course of the subsequent argument, and may see
the connexion between them and the French Eevolution.
TaMng a general view of the extemal world, we may say,
that the tMee most important forces hy which the operations of
nature are effected, are heat, Ught, and electricity ; including
under tMs last magnetic and galvanic phenomena. On all these
subjects the French, for the first time, now exerted themselves
with signal success. In regard to heat, not only were the mate
rials for subsequent induction coUected with mdefatigahle indus
try, hut hefore that generation passed away, the induction was
actuaUy made ; for whUe the laws of its radiation were worked
out hy Prevost,'"' those of its conduction were established by
je ddmontre que, dans le principe ou dans le commencement, nos connoissances sont
uniquement son ouvrage, que nous ne nous instruisons que d'aprds aea lejons, et
que tout Part de raiaonner consiste a continuer comrae eUe nous a fait commencer."
p. 178. "" Compare Powell on Radiant Heat, p. 261, in Second Rep. of Brit. Assoc. ;
WhewelVs Hist of Sciences, vol U. p. 526 ; and his Philosophy, vol. i. pp. 339, 340.

628 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
Fourier, who, just before the Eevolution, employed Mmseffm rais
ing thermotics to a science hy the deductive application of that
celebrated mathematical theory wMch he contrived, and which
stUl bears Ms name.'"" In regard to electricity, it is enough to
notice, during the same period, the important experiments of
D'AUbard, foUowed by those vast labours of Coulomb, wMch
brought electrical phenomena under the jurisdiction of the
mathematics, and thus completed what OEpinus had already pre
pared."" As to the laws of light, those ideas were now accumu
lating wMch rendered possible the great steps that, at the close
of the century, were taken by Mains, and stUl later hy Fres-
nel.'" Both of these eminent Frenchmen not only made im
portant additions to our knowledge of double refraction, hut
Malus discovered the polarization of Ught, undoubtedly the most
splendid contribution received hy optical science smce the analy
sis of the solar rays."* It was also in consequence of tMs, that
Fresnel began those profound researches wMch placed on a soUd
hasis that great undulatory theory of wMch Hooke, Huygens,
and above aU Young, are to he deemed the founders, and hy
wMch the corpuscular theory of Newton was finaUy over
thrown."'Prevost was professor at Geneva ; but hia great viewa were foUowed up in France
by Dulong and Petit ; and the celebrated theory of dew by Dr. WeUs is merely an
appUcation of thera. HerscheVs Nat. Philosophy, pp. 163, 315, 316. Eespectmg the
further prosecution of these inquiries, and our present knowledge of radiant heat,
aee Uebig and Kopp's Reports, vol. i. p. 79, vol. iu. p. 30, vol. iv. p. 46.
"" On Fourier's mathematical theory of conduction, see Comte, Philos. Positive,
voh i. pp. 142, 175, 346, 346, 351, vol ii. pp. 453, 551 ; Fronts Bridgewater Treatise,
pp. 203, 204 ; Kelland on Heat, p. 6, iu Brit Assoc, for 1841 ; ErmarCs Siberia,
vol. I p. 248 ; Humboldts Cosmos, vol I p. 169 ; Hitchcock's Geology, p. 198 ; Pou-
illei, Ellmens de Physique, ii. 696, 697.
"° Coulomb's memoirs on electricity and magnetism were pubUshed from 1782
to 1789. Fifth Report of Brit. Assoc, p. 4. Corapare Uebig and Kopp's Reports,
vol iU. p. 128 ; and on nig relation to CEpinua, who wrote in 1759, aee WliewelVs
Indue. Sciences, voh ul pp. 24-26, 85, 36, and Hauy, Traiti de Minh-alogie, vol. ul
p. 44, vol. iv. p. 14. There ia a atUl fuUer account of what was effected by Coulomb
iu M. PouiUet's able work, Ellmens de Physique, voh i. part U. pp. 63-79, 130-135.
'" Fresnel belongs to the preaent century ; but M. Biot says that the researohea
of Malus began before the passage of the Ehine in 1797. Biots Ufe of Malus, in
Biog. Univ. vol. xxvi. p. 412.
'"" Pouillet, Elemens de Physique, vol. U. part ii. pp. 484, 514 ; Report <^ Brit.
Assoc, for 1832, p. 314; Leslie's Nat Philos. p. 88 ; WhewelVs Hist, of Sciences,
vol. U. pp. 408-410; Philos. of Sciences, vol. i. p. 360, vol u. p. 25; HerscheVs Nat.
Philos. p. 258.
'" The struggle between these rival theories, and tbe ease with which a man of
such immenae powera aa Young was put down, and, as it were, auppreaaed, by those
ignorant pretenders who preaumed to criticiae bim, wiU be related in another part
of thia work, aa a valuable iUuatration of the hiatory and habita of the EngUah mind.
At present the controversy is finished, so far as the advocates of eraiaaion are con
cerned ; but there are atiU difScultiea on the other aide, which ahould have prevented
Dr. WheweU frora expressing hiraself with such extrerae positiveneaa on an unex
hausted subject. This able writer says : "The undulatory theory of Ught ; the only
discovery which can stand by the side of the theory of universal gravitation, aa a

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 629
Thus much as to the progress of French knowledge respect
ing those parts of nature which are in themselves mvisible, and of
which we cannot tell whether they have a material existence, or
whether they are mere conditions and properties of other
bodies."* The immense value of these discoveries, as increasing
the number of knoyyn traths, is incontestable : hut, at the same
time, another class of discoveries was made, wMch, deaUng more
palpably with the -risible world, and being also more easUy un
derstood, produced more immediate results, and, as I shall pres
ently show, exercised a remarkable influence in strengthening
that democratic tendency wMch accompanied the French Eevo
lution. It is impossible, within the Umits I have assigned to
myself, to give any thing like an adequate notion of the marvel
lous actirity yrith wMch the French now pushed their researches
into every department of the orgamc and inorgamc world ; stUl
it is, I think, practicable to compress into a few pages such a
summary of the more saUent points as wUl afford the reader
some idea of what was done hy that generation of great tMnkers
wMch flourished in France during the latter haff of the eighteenth
century. If we confine our view to the globe we inhabit, it must he al
lowed that chemistry and geology are the two sciences wMch not
only offer the fairest promise, hut already contain the largest gen
eraUzations. The reason of tMs will become clear, ff we attend
to the ideas on wMch these two great subjects are based. The
idea of chemistry, is the study of composition ;'" the idea of geol
ogy, is the study of position. The object of the first is, to learn
the laws wMch govern the properties of matter ; the object of
the second is, to learn the laws which govern its locaUty. In
chemistry, we experiment; in geology, we observe. In chemistry,
we deal yrith the molecular arrangement of the smallest atoms ; " "
in geology, with the cosmological arrangement of the largest
doctrine belonging to the same order, for its generality, ita fertiUty, and ita cer
tainty." WheweU's Hist, of the Indue. Sciences, vol. ii. p. 425 ; aee alao p. 608.
'" Aa to the supposed impossibiUty of conceiving the existence of matter with
out properties which give rise to forces (note in Pagets Lectures on Pathology, 1853,
vol l p. 61), there are two reasons which prevent me from attaching much weight
to it. First, a conception which, in one stage of knowledge, is caUed impossible,
becomes, in a later stage, perfectly easy, and so natural as to be often termed neces
sary. Secondly, however indissoluble the connexion may appear between force and
matter, it was not found fatal to the dynamical theory of Leibnitz ; it baa not pre
vented other eminent thinkers from holding aimUar viewa ; and the argumenta of
Berkeley, though conatantly attacked, have never been refuted.
"° Every chemical decompoaition being only a new form of composition. Robin
ei Verdeil, Chimie Anatomique, voh I pp. 455, 466, 498 : " de tout cela il rdsulte,
que la dissolution eat un cas particuUer des combinaisons."
™ -What ia erroneously caUed the atomic theory, ia, properly speaking, an hy
pothesis, and not a theory : but hypothesis though it be, it ia by ita aid that we
wield the doctrine of definite proportions, the corner-stone of chemiatry.

630 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
masses. Hence it is that the chemist by Ms minuteness, and
the geologist by his grandeur, touch the two extremes of the ma
terial universe ; and, starting from these opposite pomts, have,
as I could easily prove, a constantly increasing tendency to bring
under their own authority sciences which have at present an in
dependent existence, and wMch, for the sake of a division of la
bour, it is stiU convenient to study separately ; though it must
be the busmess of phUosophy, properly so called, to integrate
them into a complete and effective whole. Indeed it is obrious,
that if we knew all the laws of the composition of matter, and
Ukewise all the laws of its position, we should Ukeyrise know aU
the changes of which matter is capable spontaneously, that is,
when iminterrupted by the mind of man. Every phenomenon
wMch any given substance presents must he caused either hy
something takmg place in the substance, or else by sometMng
taMng place out of it, but acting upon it ; whUe what occurs
withm must he expUcahle hy its own composition, and what oc
curs without must he due to its ^position in relation to the objects
'by wMch it is affected. TMs is an exhaustive statement of every
possible contingency, and to one of these two classes of laws every
thmg must he referrible ;' even those mysterious forces wMch,
whether they he emanations from matter, or whether they he
merely properties of matter, must in an ultimate analysis depend
either on the internal arrangement, or else on the extemal lo
caUty of their physical antecedents. However convement,
therefore, it may be, in the present state of our knowledge, to
speak of vital principles, imponderable fluids, and elastic sethers,
such terms can only be provisional, and are to he considered as
mere names for that residue of unexplained facts, which it wUl
he the business of future ages to bring under generaUzations wide
enough to cover and mclude the whole.
These ideas of composition and of position hemg thus the
hasis of all natural science, it is not surprising that chemistry
and geology, which are their best, but still their insufficient rep
resentatives, should in modern times liave made more progress
than any other ofthe great branches of human knowledge. Al
though the chemists and geologists have-not yet risen to the full
height of their respective subjects,"' there are few tMngs more
curious than to note the way in which, during the last two gene
rations, they have been rapidly expandmg their -riews, — encroach
ing on topics with which, at first sight, they appeared to have no
concern, — making other branches of inquiry tributary to their
own,^ — and collecting from every quarter that intellectual wealth
Many of them being stiU fettered, in geology, by the hypothesis of catastro
phes ; in chemistry, by the hypotheais of vital forces.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 631
which, long hidden m obscure corners, had been wasted in the
cultivation of special and inferior pursuits. This, as being one
ofthe great inteUectual characteristics of the present age, I shall
hereafter exanune at considerable length ; but what I have now
to show is, that in these two vast sciences, which, though stiU
veiy imperfect, must eventuaUy he superior to aU others, the first
important steps were made by Frenchmen during the latter haff
ofthe eighteenth century.
That we owe to France the existence of chemistry as a
science, wiU be admitted by every one who uses the word science
in the sense m wMch alone it ought to he understood, namely,
as a body of generalizations so irrefragahly true, that, though
they may be subsequently covered by higher generalizations,
they cannot he overthrowm hy them ; m other words, generalizar-
tions wMch may be absorbed, hut not refuted. In this point of
riew, there are in the Mstory of chemistry oMy three great stages.
The first stage was the destruction of the phlogistic theory, and
the estahUshment, upon its ruins, of the doctrines of oxidation,
combustion, and respiration. The second stage was the estab
lishment of the principle of definite proportions, and the appli
cation to it of the atomic hypothesis. The tMrd stage, above
wMch we have not yet risen, consists in the umon of chemical
and electrical laws, and m the progress we are making towards
fusing into one generalization their separate phenomena. WMch
of these tMee stages was in its own age the most valuable, is not
now the question; but it is certain that the first of them was
the work of Lavoisier, by far the greatest of the French chemists.
Before Mm several important pomts had been cleared up by the
EngUsh chemists, whose experiments ascertained the existence
of bodies formerly unknown. The links, however, to connect
the facts, were stUl wanting ; and until Lavoisier entered the
field, there were no generaUzations yride enough to entitle chem
istry to he called a science; or, to speak more properly, the only
large generaUzation commonly received was that by Stahl, which
the great Frenchman proved to he not only imperfect, but alto
gether maccurate. A notice of the vast discoveries of Lavoisier
wUl he found m many weU-known boots :'" it is enough to say,
that he not only worked out the laws of the oxidation of bodies
and of their combustion, hut that he is the author of the trae
theory of respiration, the purely chemical character of which he
first demonstrated ; thus laying the foundation of those views
"' See, for instance, Cumer, Progres des Sciences, vol i. pp. 32-34, 40 ; Liebig's
Letters on Cliemistry, p. 282 ; Turner's Chemistry, vol. i. pp. 184, 185 ; Brande's
Chemistry, vol. i. pp. Ixxxv.-lxxxix. 802 ; Thomson's Animal Cliemistry, pp. 620, 634 ;
and a great part of the second volume of hia History of Chemistry ; also Muller's
Physiol, voh i. pp. 90, 323.

632 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
respecting the functions of food, wMch the German chemists
subsequently developed, and which, as I have proved in the sec
ond chapter of this Introduction, may he appUed to solve some
great problems in the Mstory of Man. The merit of this was
so obriously due to France, that though the system now estab
Ushed was quicMy adopted in other countries,"" it received the
name of the French chemistry.'*" At the same time, the old
nomenclature being full of old errors, a new one. was required,
and here again France took the imtiative ; since this great
reformation was begun hy four of her most eminent chenusts,
who flourished only a few years hefore the Eevolution.'*'
WhUe one dirision of the French tMnkers was reducmg to
order the apparent irregularities of chenoical phenomena, another
division of them was performing precisely the same service for
geology. The first step towards popularizmg tMs nohle study
was taken by Buffon, who, in the middle of the eighteenth cen
tury, broached a geological theory, wMch, though not quite
original, excited attention by its eloquence, and hy the lofty
speculations with wMch he connected it.'** This was followed
hy the more special hut stiU important labours of EoueUe, Des-
marest, Dolomieu, and Montlosier, who, in less than forty years,
effected a complete revolution 'in the ideas of Frenchmen, by
famiUarizing them with the strange conception, that the surface
of our planet, even where it appears perfectly stable, is constant
ly undergoing most extensive changes. It began to he under-
™ According to Mr. Harcourt (Brit Assoc. Report for 1889, p. 10), Cavendish
has this merit, so far as England ia concerned : " He, firat of all his conteraporaries,
did juatice to the rival theory recently propoaed by Lavoisier."
™ "La chimie frangaise." Thomson's Hist, of Chemistry, vol n. pp. 101, 130.
On the excitement caused by Lavoisier's views, see a letter which Jefferaon wrote in
Paria, in 1789, printed partly in Tucker's Ufe of Jefferson, vol. i. pp. 314, 816 ; and
at length iu JeffersorCs Correspond, vol. ii. pp. 453-455.
isi 11 rpjjg £j.gj attempt to form a systematic chemical nomenclature was made by
Lavoisier, BerthoUet, G. de Morveau, aud Fourcroy, aoon after the diacovery of oxy
gen gas." Turner's Chemistry, vol. i. p. 127. Cuvier (Progrk des Sciences, vol. I
p. 39) and Eobin et Verdeil (Chimie Anaiomigue, vol i. pp. 602, 603) ascribe the
chief merit to De Morveau. Thomson saya (Hist, of Chemistry, vol. U. p. 133) :
" this new nomenclature very soon made its way into every part of Europe, and
became the common language of chemists, in spite of the prejudices entertained
against it, and the opposition which it every where met with."
'^ The famous central heat of Buffon is often supposed to have been taken from
Leibnitz ; but, though vaguely taught by the ancients, the real founder of the doc
trine appears to have been Descartes. See Bordas Demoulin, Cartlsianisme, Paria,
1843, vol. i. p. 312. There ia an unaatisfactory note on thia in Prichard's Physical
Hist vol. i. p. 100. Compare Experimental Hist, of Cold, tit. 17, in Boyle's Works,
vol. il p. 808 ; Brewster's Ufe of Newton, vol U. p. 100. Ou the central heat of
the Pythagoreana, see Tennemann, Gesch. der Philos. vol l p. 149 ; and as to the
central fire mentioned in the so-called Oracles of Zoroaster, see Beausobre, Hist, de
Manichie, vol. U. p. 152. But the coraplete ignorance of the ancients respecting
geology made these views nothing but guesses. Compare some sensible remarks in
Matter's Hist de VEcole d'Alexandrie, vol u. p. 282.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 633
stood, that this perpetual flux takes place not only in those parts
of nature which are oh-riously feeble and evanescent, hut also in
those which seem to possess every element of strength and per
manence, such as the mountains of granite wMch waU the globe,
and are the sheU and encasement in wMch it is held. As soon
as the mind became habituated to this notion of universal
change, the time was ripe for the appearance of some great
thinker, who should generaUze the scattered observations, and
form them into a science, hy connectmg them with some other
department of knowledge, of wMch the laws, or, at all events,
the empirical umformities, had been already ascertamed.
It was at tMs point, and whUe the inquiries of geologists,
notwithstanding their value, were stiU crude and unsettled, that
the subject was taken up by Cuvier, one of the greatest natural
ists Europe has ever produced. A few others there are who
have surpassed him in depth; hut in comprehensiveness it would
be hard to find Ms superior; and the immense range of Ms studies
gave him a pecuUar advantage in surveymg the operations and de
pendencies of the extemal world.'*' TMs remarkable man is un
questionably the founder of geology as a science, smce he is not
only the first who saw the necessity of bringing to hear upon it the
generaUzations of comparative anatomy, but he is also the first
who actuaUy, executing this great idea, succeeded in co-ordina
ting the study of the strata of the earth yrith the study of the
fossil ammals found in them.'** Shortly hefore his researches
were pubUshed, many valuable facts had indeed heen coUected
respectmg the separate strata; the primary formations being
investigated hy the Germans, the secondary ones by the Eng
lish.'*' But these observations, notwithstanding their merit,
were isolated ; and they lacked that vast conception wMch gave
'"" This comprehensiveness of Cuvier is justly remarked by M. Flourens aa the
leading characteriatic of his mind. Flourens, Hist, des Travaux de Cuvier, pp. 76,
142, 806 : " ce qui caractdriae partout M. Cuvier, c'eat I'eaprit vaste."
¦** Hence he is caUed by Mr. Owen, " the founder of pateontological science."
Owen on Fossil Mammalia, in Report of Brit, Assoc, for 1843, p. 208. It was in
1796 that there were thus " opened to him entirely new views of the theory of the
earth." p. 209. See also BakewelVs Geology, p. 368 ; and Milne Edwards, Zoologie,
part U. p. 279. The importance of this step is becoming more evident every year ;
and it has been justly remarked, that without palaeontology there would be, properly
speaking, no geology. Balfour's Botany, 1849, p. 691. Sir R. Murchison (Siluria,
1864, p. 366) says, " it is essentiaUy the atudy of organic remaina which has led to the
clear subdivision of the vast mass of older rocks, which were there formerly merged
under the unmeaning term ' Grauwacke.' " In the same able work, p. 466, we are
told that, " in surveying the whole series of formations, tbe practical geologist is
fully impressed with the conviction that there has, at all periods, subsisted a very
mtunate connexion between the existence, or, at aU events, the preservation of ani
mals, and the media in which they have been fosaiUzed." For an inatance of thia
in the old red sandstone, see p. 329.
™ WhewelVs Hist, of Sciences, voh iu. p. 679 ; LyelVs Geol. p. 69. Indeed gneiss
received ita name from the Germans. BakewelVs Geol, p. 108.

634 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
unity and grandeur to the whole, hy connecting inquiries con-
ceming the inorganic changes of the surface of the globe with
other inquiries concerning the organic changes of the ammals
the surface contained.
How completely this immense step is due to France, is eri
dent not only from the part played by Cuvier, hut also frpm the
admitted fact, that to the French we owe our knowledge respect
ing tertiary strata,'*" in wMch the orgamc remains are most nu
merous, and the general analogy to our present state is most inti
mate.'*' Another circumstance may Ukeyrise he addedj as
pointing to the same conclusion. TMs is, that the first applica
tion of the principles of comparative anatomy to the study of
fossU hones, was also the work of a Frenchman, the celebrated
Dauhenton. Hitherto these bones had heen the object of stupid
wonder; some saying that they were rained from heaven, others
saying that they were the gigantic limbs of the ancient patri
archs, men who were heUeved to he taU because they were Miown
to he old.'*' Such idle conceits were for ever destroyed by Dau
henton, in a Memoir he pubUshed in 1762 ;'*" yrith wMch, how
ever, we are not now concerned, except that it is evidence of the
state of the French mind, and is worth notmg as a precursor of
the discoveries of Cuvier.
By tMs union of geology and anatomy, there was first m-
troduced into the study of nature a clear conception of the
magnificent doctrine of umversal change; wMle at the same
'™ Compare Conybeare's Report on Geology, p. 871 (Brit, Assoc, for 1832), with
BakewelVs Geol, pp. 367, 368, 419, and LyelVs Geol, p. 69.
'°' In the older half of the secondary rocks, mammals are hardly to be found,
and they do not become coramon uutU the tertiary. Murchison's Siluria, pp. 466,
467 ; and Strickland on Ornithology, p. 210 (Brit Assoc, for 1844). So too in the
vegetable kingdom, many of tbe plants in the tertiary strata belong to genera stiU
existing ; but this is rarely the case with the secondary strata ; whUe in the prunary
strata, even the famiUes are different to those now found on the earth. Balfour's
Botany, pp. 592, 593. Compare WUson's additions to Jussieu's Botany, 1849, p. 746 ;
and for further Ulustration of this reraarkable law of the relation between advancing
tirae and diminished similarity, a law suggesting tbe most curious speculations, see
Hitchcock's Geology, p. 21 ; LyelVs Geology, p. 183 ; and Owen's Uctures on the In
vertebrata, 1865, pp. 38, 576.
"" M. Geoffroy Saint HUaire (Anomalies de V Organisation, vol. i. pp. 121-127)
has coUected sorae evidence respecting the opinions formerly held on these subjects.
Among other instances, he mentions a learned man named Henrion, an academician,
and, I suppose, a theologian, who in 1718 pubUshed a work, m which "U assignait
a Adam cent -vingt-trois pieds neuf pouces ;" Noah being twenty feet shorter, and so
on. The bones of elephants were soraetiraes taken for giants : see a pleasant cir
cumstance in Cuvier, Hist des Sciences, part ii. p. 43.
"" " Daubenton a le premier ddtruit toutes ces iddes ; il a le premier appUqud
1 anatoraie comparde -k la ddtermination de ces os. . . . Le mdmoire oi Daubenton
a tentd, pour la premidre fois, la solution de ce probldrae iraportant est de 1762."
Mourens, Travaux de Cuvier, pp. 86, 37. Agassiz'(.Sepo)-i on Fossil Fishes, p. 82,
Brit. Assoc, for 1842) clairas this merit too exclusively for Cu-vier, overlooking the
earUer researches of Daubenton ; and the aame mistake is made in Hitchcock's
Geol. p. 249, and in BakewelVs Geol. p. 884.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 635
time there grew up hy its side a conception equaUy steady of
the regularity yrith wMch the changes are accomplished, and of
the undeviating laws by wMch they are governed. SimUar ideas
had no douht heen occasionaUy held in preceding ages ; but tho
great Frenchmen of the eighteenth century were the first who
appUed them to the entire stracture of the globe, and who thus
prepared the way for that stiU Mgher -riew for wMch their minds
were not yet ripe,"" but to wMch m our own time the most
advanced thinkers are rapidly rising. For it is now beginning
to be understood, that since eveiy addition to knowledge affords
fresh proof of the regularity with wMch all the changes of na
ture are conducted, we are hound to heUeve that the same
regularity existed long hefore our Uttle planet assumed its pres
ent form, and long hefore man trod the surface of the earth. We
have the most abundant evidence that the movements incessantly
occurring in the material world have a character of uniformity;
and this unfformity is so clearly marked, that in astronomy, the
most perfect of all the sciences, we are able to predict events
many years hefore they actuaUy happen ; nor can any one douht,
that ff on other subjects our science were equally advanced, our
predictions would he equaUy accurate. It is, therefore, clear,
that the burden of proof lies not on those who assert the eternal
regularity of nature, hut rather on those who deny it; and who
set up an imagmary period, to wMch they assign an imaginary
catastrophe, durmg wMch they say new laws were introduced
and a new order estabUshed. Such gratuitous assumptions, even
ff they eventuaUy tum out to he trae, are in the present state
of knowledge unwarrantable, and ought to he rejected, as the last
remams of those theological prejudices hy which the march of
every science has in its turn been hindered. These and all
analogous notions work a double miscMef. They are mischiev
ous, hecause they cripple the human mind hy imposing Umits to
its inquiries ; and above aU they are mischievous, hecause they
weaken that vast conception of continuous and uninterrupted
law, which few indeed are ahle firmly to seize, hut on which the
highest generalizations of future science must ultimately de
pend. "" Even Cuvier held the doctrine of catastrophes ; but, aa Sir Charlea LyeU saya,
(Principles of Geology, p. 60), hia own discoveries suppUed us with the means of
overthrowing it, and of famiUarizing us with tbe idea of continuity. Indeed, it was
one of the fossil observations of Cuvier which first aupplied the Unk between reptUes,
fishes, and cetaceous mammals. See Owen on Fossil Reptiles, pp. 60, 198, Brit.
Assoc, for 1841 ; and compare Carus's Comparative Anatomy, vol i. p. 165. To this
I may add, that Cuvier unconsciously prepared the way for disturbing the old dog
ma of fixity of species, though he himself clung to it to the laat. See aorae obaer
vationa, which are very reraarkable, considering the period when they were written,
in Cabanis, Rapports du Physique et du Moral, pp. 427, 428 ; conclusions drawn
from Cuvier, which Cuvier would have hiraself rejected.

636 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
It is this deep conviction, that changing phenomena have
unchanging laws, and that there are principles of order to which
aU apparent disorder may be referred, — ^it is tMs, which in the
seventeenth century, guided m a limited field Bacon, Descartes,
and Newton ; which in the eighteenth century was appUed to
every part of the material universe ; and wMch it is the business
of the nineteenth century to extend to the Mstory of the human
inteUect. TMs last department of inquiry we owe cMefly to
Germany ; for, with the smgle exception of Vico, no one even
suspected the possibiUty of arriving at complete generaUzations
respecting the progress of man, until shortly before the French
Eevolution, when the great German thinkers began to cultivate
tMs, the highest arid most difficult of aU studies. But the French
themselves were too much occupied with physical science to pay
attention to such matters;"' and speaking generaUy, we may say
that, in the eighteenth century each of the three leading nations of
Europe had a separate part to play. England difiused a love of
freedom ; France, a knowledge of physical science ; whUe Ger
many, aided in some degree hy Scotland, revived the study of
metaphysics, and created the study of phUosophic Mstory. To
this classiflcation some exceptions may of course he made ; but
that these were the marked characteristics of the three countries,
is certain. After the death of Locke in 17(0'4, and that of New
ton in 1727, there was in England a smgular dearth of specula
tive thinkers ; and tMs not hecause the ahUity was wantmg, hut
hecause it was turned partly into practical pursmts, partly into
poUtical contests. I shaU hereafter exanune the causes of this
pecuUarity, and endeavour to ascertam the extent to wMch it has
influenced the fortunes of the country. That the results were,
on the whole, beneficial, I entertain no doubt ; hut they were
unquestionably injurious to the progress of science, because they
tended to divert it from all new truths, except those likely to
'" Neither Montesquieu nor Turgot appear to have beUeved in the possibUity of
generaUzing the past, bo aa to predict the future ; whUe aa to Voltaire, the weakeat
point in hia otherwise profound view of history, was his love of the old saying, that
great events spring from Uttle causes ; a singular error for ao comprehenaive a mind,
because it depended on confusing causea with conditions. That a man Uke Voltaire
should have committed what now aeems ao gross a blunder, is a mortifying reflection
for thoae who are able to appreciate his vast and penetrating genius, and it may
teach the best of us a wholesome lesson. This faUacy was avoided by Montesquieu
and Turgot ; and the forraer writer, in particular, displayed such extraordinary abfl-
jty, that there can be Uttle doubt, that had he Uved at a later period, and thus had
the means of employing iu their fuU extent the resources of poUtical economy and
physical science, he would have had tbe honour not only of laying the basis, but also
of rearing the atructure of the phUoaophy of the hiatory of Man. Aa it waa, he
failed in conceiving what ia the final object of every scientific inquiry, namely, the
power of foreteUing the future : and after his death, in 1775, aU the flnest intellects
in France, Voltaire alone excepted, concentrated their attention upon tbe study of
natural phenomena. '

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 637
produce obvious and practical benefit. The consequence was,
that though the EngUsh made several great discoveries, they did
not possess, during seventy years, a smgle man who tools: a reaUy
comprehensive view of the phenomena of nature ; not one who
could he compared with those iUustrious thinkers, who in France
reformed every branch of physical knowledge. Nor was it untU
more than two generations after the death of Newton, that the
flrst symptoms appeared of a remarkable reaction, wMch quickly
displayed itseff m nearly every department of the national intel
lect. In physics, it is enough to mention Dalton, Davy, and
Young, each of whom was in Ms own field the founder of a new
epoch ; wMle on other subjects I can only just refer, first, to the
influence of the Scotch school ; and, secondly, to -that sudden
and weU-deserved admiration for the German Uterature, of which
Coleridge was the principal exponent, and wMch mfused into
the English mmd a taste for generaUzations Mgher and more
fearless than any Mtherto known. The Mstory of tMs vast move
ment, wMch began early in the nineteenth century, wiU he
traced m the future volumes of this work : at present I merely
notice it as iUustrating the fact, that untU the movement began,
the EngUsh, though superior to the French in several matters of
extreme importance, were for many years inferior to them in
those large and pMlosopMc views, without wMch not only is the
most patient industry of no avail, hut even real discoveries lose
their proper value, for want of such habits of generaUzation as
would trace their connexion yrith each other, and consoUdate
their severed fragments into one vast system of complete and
harmomous truth.
The interest attached to these inquiries has induced me to
treat them at greater length than I had mtended ; perhaps, at
greater length than is suitable to the suggestive and preparatory
character of tMs introduction. But the extraordinary success
wiljh wMch the French now cultivated physical knowledge, is so
ounous on account of its connexion with the Eevolution, -that I
must mention a few more of its most prominent instances ;
though, for the sake of brevity, I yviU confine myseff to those
three great di-risions, wMch, when put together, form what is
caUed Natural Histoiy, and in aU of which we shaU see that the
most important steps were taken m France during the latter
haff of the eighteenth century.
In the first of these divisions, namely the department of zool
ogy, we owe to the Frenchmen of the eighteenth century, those
generalizations wMch are stUl the Mghest this branch of knowl
edge has reached. TaMng zoology in the proper sense of the
term, it consists only of two parts, the anatomical part, which is

638 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
its statics, and the physiological part, wMch is its dynamics : the
first referring to the structure of animals ; the other, to their
functions."* Both of these were worked out, nearly at the same
time hy Cuvier and Bichat ; and the leadmg conclusions at
which they arrived, remain, after the lapse of sixty years, undis
turbed in their essential points. In 1795, Cu'rier laid down the
great principle, that the study and classification of animals was
to be, not as heretofore, with a view to extemal peculiarities, hut
yrith a view to internal orgamzation ; and that, therefore, no real
advance could he made in our knowledge except hy extendmg
the boundaries of comparative anatomy."' TMs step, simple
as it now appears, was of immense importance, since by it zool
ogy was at once rescued from the hands of the observer, and
thrown into those of the experimenter : the consequence of wMch
has heen the attainment of that precision and accuracy of de
tail, wMch experiment alone can give, and which is every way
superior to such popular facts as observation suppUes. By thus
indicating to naturaUsts the true path of inquiry, hy accustom
ing them to a close and severe method, and hy teaclung them to
despise those vague descriptions in which they had formerly de
Ughted, Cuvier laid the foundation of a progress, which during
the last sixty years has surpassed the most sanguine expecta
tions. TMs, then, is the real service rendered by Cu'rier, that
he overthrew the artificial system wMch the gemus of Linnaeus
had raised up,"* and substituted in its place that far superior
scheme wMch gave the freest scope to future inquiry : since,
according to it, aU systems are to he deemed imperfect and pro
visional so long as any thing remams to be leamed respecting the
comparative anatomy of the animal kmgdom. The influence
exercised hy tMs great view was increased by the extraordinary
sMU and industry yrith which its proposer foUowed it out, and
™ The Une of demarcation between anatomy as statical, and physiology as
dynamical, is clearly drawn by M. Comte (Philos, Positive, voh iu. p. 803) and byiKM.
Robin et -Verdeil (Chimie Anatomique, vol i. pp. 11, 12, 40, 102, 188, 434). What
is said by Carus (Comparative Anatomy, vol u. p. 856) and by Sir Benjamin Brodie
(Lectures on Pathology and Surgery, p. 6) comes nearly to the same thing, though
expressed with less precision. Ou the other band, M. Milne Edwards (Zoologie,
part i. p. 9) caUs physiology " la acience de la vie ;" which, if true, would simply
prove that there ia no phyaiology at all, for there certainly is at preaent no acience
of Ufe. "" In hia Regne Animal, voh i. pp. vi. vii, he aaya that preceding naturaUsta
" n'avaient gudre conaiddrd que les rapports extdrieurs de cea eapeces, et personne
ne s'dtait occupd de coordonner les classes et les ordres d'aprds I'ensemble de la
structure  Je dus donc, et cette obUgation me prit un temps considdrable,
je dus faire marcher de front I'anatomie et la zoologie, les dissections et les classe-
ment. ...... Les premiers rdsultats de ce double travaU parurent en 1795, dans
un mdmoire spdcial sur une nouveUe division des animaux k sang blanc."
™ On the opposition between the methods of Linnseus and of Cuvier, see Jenyns
Report on Zoology, pp. 144, 145, in Brit Assoc, for 1834.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 639
proved the practicahiUty of Ms own precepts. His additions to
our knowledge of comparative anatomy are probably more nu
merous than those made by any other man ; but what has gained
him most celebrity is, the comprehensive spirit with which he
used what he acqmred. Independently of other generaUzations,
he is the author of that vast classification of the whole animal
kingdom mto vertebrata, moUusca, articulata, and radiata ;'"
a classffication which keeps its ground, and is one of the most
remarkable instances of that large and philosophic spirit which
France brought to hear upon the phenomena of the material
world."" Great, however, as is the name of Cuvier, a greater stUl re
mains beMnd. I allude, of course, to Bichat, whose reputation
is steadUy mcreasmg as our knowledge advances, and who, ff we
compare the shortness of Ms lffe yrith the reach and depth of
his views, must be pronounced the most profound thinker and
the most consummate observer hy whom the organization of the
animal frame has yet heen studied."' He wanted, indeed, that
comprehensive knowledge for wMch Cu'rier was remarkable ;
but though, on this account, his generalizations were drawn from
a smaUer surface, they were, on the other hand, less provisional :
they were, I think, more complete, and certainly they dealt yrith
more momentous topics. For, the attention of Bichat was pre
eminently directed to the human frame'" in the largest sense
"^ The foundations of this celebrated arrangement were laid by Cuvier, in a
paper read iu 1795. WhewelVs History of the Indue, Sciences, vol. iU. p. 494. It
appears, however (Flourens, Travaux de Cuvier, pp. 69, 70), that it was in, or just
after, 1791, that the dissection of sorae moUusca suggested to him the idea of re
forming the classification of the whole animal kingdom. Corapare Cuvier, Regne
Animal, voh i. pp; 51, 52 note.
'" The only formidable opposition made to Cuvier's arrangement has proceeded
fi:om the advocates of the doctrine of circular progression : a remarkable theory, of
which Lamarck and Macleay are the real originators, and which is certainly supported
by a considerable amount of evidence. StUl, among the great majority of corape
tent zoologists, the fourfold division holds its ground, although the constantly-increas-
mg accuracy of microscopical observations bas detected a nervous systera much lower
in the scale than was formerly suspected, and has thereby induced some anatomists
to divide the radiata into acrita and nematoneura. Owen's Invertebrata, 1856, pp. 14,
15 ; and Rymer Jones's Animal Kingdom, 1865, p. 4. As, however, it seeras proba
ble that aU animals have a distmct nervous ayatem, thia aubdivision ia only provi
sional ; and it ia very lUcely that when our microacopea are more improved, we shaU
have to return to Cuvier's arrangement. Some of Cuvier's successors have removed
the apodous echiuoderms from the radiata; but in this Mr. Eymer Jonea (Animal
Kingdom, p. 211) vindicates the Cuverian classification.
^ We may except Aristotle ; but between Ariatotle and Bichat, I can find no
middle raan.

'quand on ne considere que ce qui ae passe I
This, however, is much too positively stated. Bichat mentions "les expdriences
nombreuses que j'ai faites sur lea animaux vivana." Bichat, Anatomie Glnhale, voh
i. p. 832 • and for other instancea of hia experimenta on animals below man, see the

640 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
of the word ; his object being so to investigate the orgamzation
of man, as to rise, ff possible, to some knowledge concermng the
causes and nature of Ufe. In this magnificent enterprise, con
sidered as a whole, he faUed ; but what he effected m certain
parts of it is so extraordinary, and has given such an impetus to
some of the Mghest branches of inquiry, that I wUl briefly indi
cate his method, in order to compare it with that other method,
wMch, at the same moment, Cuvier adopted, with immense success.
The important step taken by Cuvier was, that he insisted on
the necessity of a comprehensive study of the organs of ammals,
instead of following the old plan of merely describing their hab
its and extemal pecuUarities. TMs was a vast improvement,
since, in the place of loose and popular observations, he substi
tuted direct experiment, and hence introduced into zoology, a
precision formerly unknown."" But Bichat, with a stiU keener
insight, saw that even this was not enough. He saw that, each
organ 'being composed of different tissues, it was reqmsite to
study the tissues themselves, hefore we could learn the way in
wMch, by their combination, the organs are produced. This,
like all reaUy great ideas, was not entirely strack out hya single
man ; for the physiological value of the tissues had heen recog
nized by three or four of the immediate predecessors of Bichat, such
as Oarmichael Smyth, Bonn, Bordeu, and Fallopius. These in
quirers, however, notyrithstanding their industry, had effected
nothing of much moment, since, though they coUected several
special fects, there was in their observations that want of har
mony and that general incompleteness always characteristic of
same work, vol. i. pp. 164, 284, 311, 812, 326, vol. U. pp. 13, 25, 69, 78, 107, 133,
185, 225, 264,, 423, vol. iu. pp. 161, 218, 242, 262, 363, 364, 400, 478, 501, vol iv.
pp. 27, 28, 34, 46, 229, 247, 471 : see also Bichat, Recherches sur la Vie, pp. 262, 265,
277, 312, 336, 356, 368, 360, 868, 884, 400, 411, 439, 466, 476, 482, 494, 612; and
his Traiti des Membranes, pp. 48, 64, 67, 130, 168, 196, 201, 224. These are aU ex
periments on inferior animals, which aided this great physiologist in estabUshing
those vast generaUzations, which, though appUed to man, were by no means coUected
merely from huraan anatomy. The irapossibiUty of understanding physiology with
out studying coraparative anatoray, is weU pointed out in Mr. Eymer Jones's work.
Organization of the Animal Kingdom, 1855, pp. 601, 791.
'"" Mr. Swainson (Geography and Classification of Animals, p. 170) complains,
strangely enough, that Cuvier "rejects tbe more plain and obvious characters which
every one can see, and which had been so happUy employed by Linnaeus, and makea
the differences between these groups to depend upon circumstances which no one but
au anatomist can understand." See also p. 173 : " characters which, however good,
are not always comprehensible, except to the anatomist." (Compare Hodgson on the
Ornithology of Nepal, in Asiatic Researches, vol. xix. p. 179, Calcutta, 1836.) In
other words, this is a complaint that Cuvier attempted to raise zoology to a science,
and, therefore, of course, deprived it of some of its popular attractions, in order to
invest it with other attractions of a far higher character. The errors introduced into
the natural sciences by relying upon observation instead of experiment, have been
noticed by many writers ; and by none more judiciously than M. Saint Hilaire in
hia Anomalies de V Organisation, vol i. 98.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 641
the labours of men who do not rise to a commanding view of the
subject with wMch they deal.'*"
It was under these circumstances that Bichat began those
researches, which, looMng at their actual and stUl more at their
prospective results, are probably the most valuable contribution
ever made to physiology by a single mmd. In 1801^ only a year
hefore his death,'*' he pubUshed his great work on anatomy, in
which the study of the organs is made altogether subservient to
the study of the tissues composing them. He lays it down, that
the body of man consists of twenty-one distinct tissues, all of
which, though essentiaUy different, have in common the two
great properties of extensibility and contractiUty.'** These tis
sues he, vrith indefatigable industry,'*' subjected to every sort of
examination ; he examined them in different ages and diseases,
with a riew to ascertam the laws of their normal and pathological
development.'** He studied the way each tissue is affected hy
"° It is very doubtful if Bichat was acquainted with tbe works of Smyth, Bonn,
or FaUopius, and I do not remember that he any where even mentiona their names.
He had, however, certainly studied Bordeu ; but I suspect that the author by whom
he waa most influenced was Pinel, whose pathological generaUzations were put for
ward just about the time when Bichat began to write. Corapare Bichat, Traiti des
Membranes, pp. 8-4, 107, 191 ; Beclard, Anat, Gen, pp. 66, 66 ; Bouillaud, Philos,
Medicale, p. 26 ; BlainviUe, Physiol, comparle, vol. i. p. 284, vol U. pp. 19, 252 ;
Senle, Anat Ghi. vol I pp. 119, 120.
'" Biog. Univ. vol iv. pp. 468, 469.
'" For a list of the tissues, see Bichat, Anat. Gen. vol i. p. 49. At p. 60 he says,
"en effet, quel que soit le point de vue sous lequel on considdre ces tissus. Us ne se
ressemblent nuUeraent : c'est la nature, et non la science, qui a tird une Ugue de dd-
marcation entre eux." There is, however, now reason to think, that both animal and
vegetable tissues are, in aU their varieties, referrible to a ceUular origin. This great
view, wliich M. Schwann principaUy worked out, wiU, if fully estabUshed, be the
largest generaUzation we possess respecting the organic world, and it would be difS-
cult to overrate ita value. StUl there is danger lest, in prematurely reaching at so
vast a law, we should neglect the subordinate, but strongly-marked differences be
tween the tissues as they actuaUy exist. Burdach (Traiti de Physiologie, vol. 'vi. pp.
195, 196) has made some good remarks on the confusion introduced into the study
of tissues, by neglecting those saUent characteristics which were indicated by Bichat.
'" Pinel says, " dans un seul hiver U ouvrit plus de six centa cadavres." Notice
sur Bichat, p. xUl, in vol I of Anat. Gin. By such enormoua labour, and by work
ing day and night in a neceasarily poUuted atmoaphere, he laid tbe foundation for
that diaeased habit, which cauaed a sUght accident to prove fatal, and carried him
off at the age of thirty-one. " L'esprit a peine a concevoir que la vie d'un seul
homme puisse sufdre El tant de travaux, k tant de ddcouvertes, faitea ou indiqudea :
Bichat eat raort avant d'avoir accompli aa trente-deuxidme annde !" Pinel, p. xvi.
"' To this sort of comparative anatomy (if it may be so caUed), which before hia
time aoarcely existed, Bichat attached great importance, and clearly saw that it would
eventually becorae of the utmost value for patholtigy. Anat, Ghn. vol. i. pp. 331,
332, vol. u. pp. 284-241, vol. iv. p. 417, &c. Unfortunately theae investigations were
not properly foUowed up by his immediate successors ; and MiiUer, writing long after
his death, was obUged to refer chiefly to Bichat for " the true principles of general
pathology." Muller's Physiology, 1840, voh i. p. 808. M. Vogel, too, in his Path
ological Anatomy, 1847, pp. 398, 413, notices the error committed by tbe earlier
pathologists, iu looking at changes in the organs, and neglecting those in the tissues ;
and the same remark ia made in Robin ei Verdeil, Chimie Anatomique, 1853, vol i.
p. 45 ; and iu Henle, Traite d' Anatomie, vol. i. p. vU., Paria, 1843. That " structural
VOL. I.  41

642 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
moisture, air, and temperature ; also the way in wMch their prop
erties are altered hy various chemical substances, '*' and even
their effect on the taste.'*" By these means, and hy many other
experiments tending in the same direction, he took so great and
sudden a step, that he is to he regarded not merely as an inno
vator on an old science, hut rather as the creator of a new one.'*'
And although subsequent observers have corrected some of Ms
conclusions, this has only heen done hy foUowing his method ;
the value of which is now so generally recogmzed, that it is
adopted hy nearly aU the best anatomists, who, differing in other
points, are agreed as to the necessity of basing the future pro
gress of anatomy on a knowledge of the tissues, the supreme im
portance of wMch Bichat was the first to perceive.'*'
The methods of Bichat and of Cuvier, when put together,
anatoray,'' and "structural development," are to be made the foundations of pathol
ogy, is, moreover, observed in Simon's Pathology, 1850, p. 115 (compare Williams's
Principles of Medicine, 1848, p. 67), who ascribes the chief merit of thia "rational
pathology " to Henle and Schwann ; omitting to mention that they only executed
Bichat'a acheme, and (be it aaid with every reapect for theae eminent men) executed
it with a comprehensiveness much inferior to that displayed by their great prede
cessor. In Broussais, Examen des Doctrines Mldicales, vol. iv. pp. 106, 107, there are
sorae just and Uberal observations on the imraense service which Bichat rendered to
pathology. See also Beclard, Anatomie,Tans, 1852, p. 184.
"" Bichat, Anat Gin. vol. i. pp. 51, 160, 161, 259, 372, vol. ii. pp. 47, 448,449,
vol iU. pp. 33, 168, 208, 309, 406, 435, vol iv. pp. 21, 52, 455-461, 617.
"" According to M. Comte (Philos. Pos. vol. iU. p. 319), no one had thought of
this before Bichat. MM. Eobin et VerdeU, in their recent great work, fully admit
the necessity of employing this singular resource. Chimie Anatomique, 1863, voh l
pp. 18, 125, 182, 357, 531.
"' "Dds-lors il crda une science nouveUe, I'anatomie gdndrale." Pinel sur Bichat,
p. xu. "A Bichat appartient vdritablement la gloire d'avoir concu et surtout exd-
cutd, le premier, le plan d'une anatomie nouvelle." Bouillaud., Philos. Mldicale, p.
27. " Bichat fut le crdateur de I'bistologie, en assignant des caractdres prdcis a chaque
classe de tiasus." Burdach, Physiologie, vol vii. p. 111. "Le crdateur de I'anato
mie gdndrale, fut Bichat." Henle, Anatomie, vol i. p. 120. Similar remarks wiUbe
found in Saint Hilaire, Anomalies de V Organisation, vol. i. p. 10 ; and in Robin et
Verdeil, Chimie Anat, vol i. p. xviu., vol iii. p. 405.
''" In Blclard, Anat. Gin. 1852, p. 61, it ia said that " la recherche de cea tissus
dldmentaires, ou didments organiques, eat devenue la prdoccupation preaque excluaive
dea anatomiates de nos joura." Compare BlainviUe, Physiol. Gin. ei Comp, vol i.
p. 93 : "Aujourd'hui nous allons plus avant, nous pdudtrona dana la structure intime,
non seuleraent de ces organes, mais encore des tissus qui concourent k leur composi
tion ; noua faisons en un mot de la vdritable anatomie, de I'anatomie proprement
dite." And at p. 106 : " c'eat un genre de recherche^ qui a dtd cultivd avec beau
coup d'activitd, et qui a refu une grande extension depuis la pubUcation du bei ouv
rage de Bichat." See alao voh ii. p. 303.
In conaequence of this movement, there has sprung up, under the name of De-:
generations of Tissues, an entirely new branch of morbid anatomy, of which, I be
Ueve, no instance wiU be found before the time of Bichat, but the value of -which is
now recognized by most pathologists. Corapare Pagets Surgical Pathology, vol. i.
pp. 98-112; Williams's Principles of Medicine, pp. 369-376; Burdach's Physiologic,
vol viil p. 367 ; Reports of Brit Assoc, vol vi. p. 147 ; Jones and Sieveking's Path
ological Anatomy, 1864, pp. 154-156, 302-304, 655-558. "They are," say these
last writers, " of extremely frequent occurrence ; but their nature haa scarcely been
recognized untU of late."

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 643
exhaust the actual resources of zoological science; so that all sub
sequent naturaUsts have been compeUed to follow one of these
two schemes ; that is, either to follow Cuvier in comparing the
organs of animals, or else to follow Bichat in comparing the tis
sues which compose the organs.'*" And inasmuch as one com
parison is cMefly suggestive of function, and the other comparison
of structure, it is erident, that to raise the study of the animal
world to the Mghest point of which it is capable, both these great
plans are necessary: but ff we ask wMch of the two plans, un
aided hy the other, is more Ukely to produce important results,
the palm must, I think, be yielded to that proposed by Bichat.
Certainly, ff we look at the question as one to be decided by au
thority, a majority of the most eminent anatomists and physiol
ogists now incUne to the side of Bichat, rather than to that of
Cuvier; while, as a matter of Mstory, it may he proved that the
reputation of Bichat has, with the advance of knowledge, in
creased more rapidly than that of his great rival. What, however,
appears to me stUl more decisive, is, that the two most important
discoveries made in our time respecting the classification of am
mals, are entirely the result of the method wMch Bichat sug
gested. The first discovery is that made by Agassiz, who, in the
course of Ms ichthyological researches, was led to perceive that
the arrangement hy Cuvier according to organs, did not fulfil its
purpose in regard to fossU fishes, hecause in the lapse of ages the
characteristics of their structure were destroyed."" He, there
fore, adopted the only other remaining plan, and studied the tis
sues, wMch, being less complex than the organs, are oftener found
intact. The result was the very remarkable discovery, that the
tegumentary membrane of fishes is so intimately connected with
their organization, that if the whole of a fish has perished except
tMs membrane, it is practicable, by noting its characteristics, ta
reconstract the animal in its most essential parts. Of the value
of this principle of harmony, some idea may be formed from the
circumstance, that on it Agassiz has based the whole of that eel- ,
ebrated classification, of wMch he is the sole author, and by
wMch fossU ichthyology has for the first time assumed a precise (
and defiLnite shape." '
'*' Cuvier corapletely neglected the study of tissues ; and in the very few instancea
m which he mentiona them, hia language ia extremely vague. Thua, in hia Eigne
Animal, vol i. p. 12, be says of Uving bodies, "leur tissu est donc composd de
reseaux et de mdUes, ou de fibres et de lames soUdes, qui renferment des hquidea
dana leura intervaUea." .. ^, , .„
^ A well-known ornithologist makes the sarae coraplaint respecting the classifi
cation of birds. Strickland on Ornithology, Brit Assoc, for 1844, pp. 209, 210.
Even in regard to Uvmg species, Cuvier (Regne Animal, vol u. p. 128) saya, " La
classe dea poisaons est de toutes, ceUe qui offre le plua de difficultda quand ou veut
h, aubdiviaer en ordrea d'aprds dea caractdres fixes et sensibles." ,
^' Ihe discoveries of M. Agassiz are embodied in his great work, Recherches sur

644 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
The other discovery, of wMch the appUcation is much more
extensive, was made in exactly the same way. It consists of
the striking fact, that the teeth of each animal have a neces
sary connexion with the entire orgamzation of its frame ; so that
witMn certain limits, we can predict the organization 'by exam-
ming the tooth. This beautiful instance of the regularity of the
operations of nature was not known untU more than thirty years
after the death of Bichat, and it is evidently due to the prose
cution of that method wMch he sedulously inculcated. For the
teeth never having heen properly examined m regard to their
separate tissues, it was beUeved that they were essentially devoid
of structure, or, as some thought, were simply a fibrous texture."*
But by minute microscopic investigations it has heen recently
ascertained that the tissues of the teeth are strictly analogous
to those of other parts of the body ;"' and that the ivory, or den
tine, as it is now caUed,"* is highly organized; that it, as weU as
the enamel, is ceUular, and is, in fact, a development of the Uving
pulp. TMs discovery, wMch, to the phUosopMc anatomist, is
pregnant with meaning, was made ahout 1838; and though the
preliminary steps were taken by PurMnj6, Eetzius, and Schwann,
the principal merit is due to Nasmyth and Owen,'" between
whom it is disputed, but whose rival claims we are not here
caUed upon to adjust."" What I yrish to observe is, that the
les Poissons fossiles : but the reader who may not have an opportunity of consulting
that costly pubUcation, wiU find two essays by this eminent naturaUst, which wiU
give an idea of his treatment of the subject, in Reports of British Assoc, for 1842,
pp. 80-88, and for 1844, pp. 279-810. How essential thia study is to the geologist,
appears from the remark of Sir E. Murchison (Siluria, 1864, p. 417), that "fossil
fishes have every -where proved the most exact chronometers of the age of rocks."
'"' That they were composed of fibres, waa the prevaiUng doctrine, untUthe dia
covery of their tubes, in 1886, by Purkinjd. Before Purkinjd, only one observer,
Leeuwenhoek, had announced their tubular structure ; but no one beUeved what he
said, and Purkinjd was unacquainted with his researches. Corapare Nasmyth's Re
searches on ihe Teeth, 1889, p. 159 ; Owen's Odontography, 1840-1845, vol. i. pp. ix.
X. ; Henle, Anat, Gin, vol. ii. p. 457 ; Reports of Brit, Assoc, vol vii. pp. 185, 136
(Transac. of Sections).
'*" Mr. Nasmyth, in bis valuable, but, I regret to add, posthumous work, notices,
as the result of these diacoveries, " the cloae aflBnity subsisting between the dental
aud other organized tissues of the animal frame." Researches on ihe Development,
d-c., of ihe Teeth, 1849, p. 198. This is, properly speaking, a continuation of Mr.
Nasmyth's former book, which bore the same title, and was pubUahed in 1839.
"' This narae, which Mr. Owen appears to have first suggested, has been objected
to, though, as it seeras to me, ou insufficient grounds. Compare Owen's Odontogra
phy, vol. I p. iU., with Nasm.yth's Researches, 1849, pp. 3-4. It is adopted in Car
penter's Human Physiol. 1846, p. 164 ; and in Jones and Sieveking's Patholog. Anat
1854, pp. 483, 486.
'"" See the correspondence in Brit Assoc. for 1841, Sec, pp^ 2-28.
In the notice of it in Whewelts Hist of Sciences, vol. iii. p. 678, nothing is
said about Mr. Nasmyth; whUe in that in Wilson's Human Anatomy, p. 65, edit.
1851, nothing is said about Mr. Owen. A apeciraen of the justice with which men
treat their conteraporaries. Dr. Grant (Supplement to Hooper's Medical Diet. 1848,
p. 1890) says, " the researches of Mr. Owen tend to confirm those of Mr. Nasmyth."

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 645
discovery is simUar to that wMch we owe to Agassiz ; similar in
the method by wMch it was worked out, and also in the results
wMch have foUowed from it. Both are due to a recognition of
the fundamental maxim of Bichat, that the study of organs must
be subordinate to the study of tissues, and both have supplied
the most valuable aid to zoological classification. On this point,
the service rendered hy Owen is incontestable, whatever may he
thought of Ms original claims. This eminent naturaUst has,
-with immense industry, appUed the discovery to aU vertebrate
ammals ; and in an elaborate work, specially devoted to the sub
ject, he lias placed beyond dispute the astomshing fact, that the
structure of a single tooth is a criterion of the nature and organ
ization of the species to wMch it belongs.'"
Whoever has reflected much on the different stages through
wMch our knowledge has successively passed, must, I think, be
led to the conclusion, that while fully recognizing the great
merit of these investigators of the animal frame, our Mghest ad
miration ought to be reserved not for those who make the dis
coveries, hut rather for those who point out how the discoveries
are to be made.'" When the trae path of inquiry has once been
mdicated, the rest is comparatively easy. The beaten Mghway
is always open ; and the difficulty is, not to find those who will
travel the old road, hut those who will make a fresh one. Every
age produces in abundance men of sagacity and of considerable
mdustry, who, whUe perfectly competent to increase the details
of a science, are unable to extend its distant boundaries. TMs
is hecause such extension must he accompanied by a new
method,"" wMch, to he valuable as well as new, supposes on
Naamyth, in hia last work (Researches on the Teeth, 1849, p. 81), only refera to Owen
to point out an error; whUe Owen (Odontography, vol i. pp. xlvi-lvl) treata Na
smyth as an impudent plagiarist.
'"-Dr. -WbeweU (Hist, of Indue. Sciences, vol. iU. p. 678) says, that "he has car
ried into every part of the aniraal kingdora an exaraination, founded upon this dis
covery, and has published the resulta of this in his Odontography." ' If this able, but
rather hasty writer, had read the Odontography, he would have found that Mr. Owen,
so far from carrying the examination " into every part of the animal kingdom," dis
tinctly confines himself to " one of tbe primary divisions of the aniraal kingdora"
(I quote his own words from Odontography, vol l p. IxvU.), and appeara to think,
that below the vertebrata, tbe inquiry would furniah Uttle or no aid for the purpoaea
of claasification. '-" But in comparing the merita of discoverers theraselves, we must praise him
w:ho proves rather than him who suggests. See sorae senaible remarks iu Owen's
Odontography, vol i. p. xlix. ; which, however, do not affect ray obaervationa on the
superiority of method.
'" By a new method of inquiring into a subject, I mean an appUcation to it of
generaUzations frfim some other subject, ao as to widen the field of thought. To
caU this' a new meSiod is rather vague ; but there is no other word to express the
process. Properly apeaking, there are only two raethoda, the inductive and the de
ductive ; which, though easentiaUy different, are so mixed together, aa to raake it
unpoasible wholly to separate them. The diacuaaion of the real nature of thia differ-

646 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
the part of its suggester, not only a complete mastery over the
resources of Ms subject, 'but also the possession of originaUty and
comprehensiveness, — the two rarest forms of human genius. In
tMs consists the real difficulty of every great pursuit. As soon
as any department of knowledge has heen generalized into laws,
it contains, either in itseff or in its appUcations, three distinct
branches ; namely, inventions, discoveries, and method; Of
these, the first corresponds to art ; the second to science ; and
the third to pMlosophy. In this scale, inventions have 'by far
the lowest place, and minds of the Mghest order are rarely occu
pied by them. Next in the series come discoveries ; and here
the pro-rince of inteUect reaUy begins, since here the first at
tempt is made to search after truth on its own account, and to
discard those practical considerations to wMch inventions are of
necessity referred. TMs is science properly so caUed ; and how
difficult it is to reach tMs stage, is e-rident from the fact, that all
half-civUized nations have made many great inventions, hut no
great discoveries. The Mghest, however, of all the tMee stages,
is the pMlosophy of method, which bears the same relation to
science that science hears to art. Of its immense, and indeed
supreme importance, the annals of knowledge supply abundant
evidence ; and for want of it, some very great men have effected
absolutely notMng, consuming their lives in fruitless industry,
not hecause their labour was slack, hut hecause their method was
sterUe. The progress of every science is affected more by the
scheme according to wMch it is cultivated, than hy the actual
ahiUty of the cultivators themselves. If they who travel in an
unknown country, spend their force in runmng on the wrong
road, they wUl miss the point at which they aim, and perchance
may faint and fall by the way. In that long and difficult jour
ney after trath, which the human mmd has yet to perform, and
of which we in our generation can only see the distant prospect,
it is certain that success will depend not on the speed with wMch
men hasten in the path of inquiry, hut rather on the skUl yrith
which the path is selected for them by those great and compre
hensive thmkers, who are as the lawgivers and founders of knowl
edge ; hecause they supply its deficiencies, not hy investigating
particular difficulties, but hy estabUshing some large and sweep
ing innovation, wMch opens up a new vein of thought, and cre
ates fresh resources, which it is left for their posterity to work
out and apply.
It is from -this point of view that we are to rate the value of
Bichat, whose works, Uke those of aU men of the Mghest emi-
ence I reaerve for my comparison, in the next volume, of the German and Ameri
can civilizations.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 647
nence, — like those of Aristotle, Bacon, and Descartes, — ^mark an
epoch in the history of the human mind ; and as such, can only
be fairly estimated by connecting them with the social and in
teUectual condition of the age in wMch they appeared. This
gives an importance and a meaning to the writings of Bichat, of
which few indeed are fully aware. The two greatest recent dis
coveries respectmg the classification of animals are, as we have
just seen, the result of his teaching ; hut Ms infiuence has pro
duced other effects stUl more momentous. He, aided by Cab
anis, rendered to physiology the incalculable service, of prevent
ing it from participating in that melancholy reaction to which
France was exposed early in the mneteenth century. This is ,
too large a subject to discuss at present ; but I may mention,
that when Napoleon, not from feeUngs of conviction, hut for seff-
ish pm-poses of his own, attempted to restore the power of ec
clesiastical principles, the men of letters, with disgraceful sub
serviency, feU. into Ms view ; and there began a marked decline
in that independent and innovating spirit, with wMch during
fifty years the French had cultivated the highest departments of
knowledge. Hence that metaphysical school arose, which, though
professing to hold aloof from theology, was intimately aUied yrith
it ; and whose showy conceits form, m their ephemeral splendour,
a strikmg contrast to the severer methods followed in the preced
ing generation.'"" Agamst tMs movement, the French physiolo
gists have, as a body, always protested ; and it may be clearly
proved that their opposition, wMch even the great ahiUties of
Curier were unable to -wm over, is partly due to the impetus
given hy Bichat, in enforcmg in Ms own pursuit the necessity of
rejecting those assumptions by which metaphysicians and theo
logians seek to control every science. As an illustration of this,
I may mention two facts worthy of note. The first is, that in
England, where during a considerahle period the infiuence of
Bichat was scarcely felt, many, even of our eminent physiologists,
have shown a marked disposition to aUy themselves with the
reactionary party ; and have not only opposed such novelties as
they could not immediately explain, but have degraded their oyvn
nohle science hy maMng it a handmaid to serve the purposes of
"" In literature and in theology, Chateaubriand and De Maistre were certainly
the most eloquent, and were probably the most influential, leaders of thia reaction.
Neither of them Uked induction, but preferred reaaoning deductively from premises
which they aaaumed, and which they caUed flrst principles. De Maistre, boi^ever,
waa a powerful dialectician, and on that account hia worka are read by many who
care nothing for the gorgeous declamation of Chateaubriand. - In metaphysioa, a
precisely similar movement occurred ; and Laroraiguidre, Royer CoUard, and Maine
de Biran, founded that celebrated school which culminated in M. Cousin, and which
is equaUy characterized by an ignorance of the philosophy of induction, and by a
want of sympathy with physical science.

648 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
natural theology. The other fact is, that in France the disciples
of Bichat have, yrith scarcely an exception, rejected the study of
final causes, to which the school of Cu'rier stiU adheres : wMle as
i a natural consequence, the foUowers of Bichat are associated in
i geology with the doctrine of unfformity ; in zoology, with that of
! the transmutation of species ; and m astronomy, yrith the nebular
I hypothesis^ vast and magnificent schemes, under whose shelter
' the human mind seeks an escape from that dogma of interference,
wMch the march of knowledge every where reduces, and the ex
istence of wMch is incompatible with those conceptions of eter
nal order, towards wMch, durmg the last two centuries, we have
•been constantly tending.
These great phenomena, wMch the French inteUect presents,
and of wMch I have only sketched a rapid outUne, yriU be related
with suitable detaU in the latter part of this work, when I shaU
examine the present condition of the European mind, and en
deavour to estimate its future prospects. To complete, however,
our appreciation of Bichat, it yriU be necessary to take notice of
what some consider the most valuable of aU Ms productions, in
wMch he aimed at notMng less than an exhaustive generalization
of the functions of lffe. It appears, indeed, to me, that in many
important points, Bichat here feU short ; hut the work itself still
stands alone, and is so striking an instance of the gemus of the
author, that I wiU give a short account of its fundamental views.
Life considered as a whole has two distmct branches ;'"' one
branch being characteristic of animals, the other of vegetables.
That which is confined to animals is called animal Ufe; that which
is common both to animals and vegetables is caUed organic Ufe.
While, therefore, plants have only Ufe, man has two distinct
Uves, wMch are governed by entirely different laws, and which,
though intimately connected, constantly oppose each other. In
the organic lffe, man exists solely for Mmself; m the animal Ufe
he comes in contact with others. The functions of the first
are purely internal, those of the second are external His or
ganic life is Umited to the double process of creation and destruc-"
tion : the creative process being that of assimilation, as digestion,
circulation, and nutrition ; the destructive process being that of
excretion, such as exhalation and the Uke. This is what man
has in common with plants; and of tMs lffe he, when in a natu
ral state, is unconscious. But the characteristic of Ms animal
lffe is consciousness, since by it he is made capable of moving, of
feeUng, of judging. By virtue of the first Ufe he is merely a
vegetable; by the addition ofthe second he becomes an animal.
"" Bichat, Recherches sur la Vie et la Mort, pp. 5-9, 226 ; and his Anat Gin.
vol. I. p. 73.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 649
If now we look at the organs by which in man the functions
of these two lives are carried on, we shaU he strack by the re
markable fact, that the organs of his vegetable life are very irreg
ular, those of his ammal life very symmetrical. His vegetative,
or organic, lffe is conducted hy the stomach, the intestines, and
the glandular system in general, such as the liver and the
pancreas; aU of which are irregular, and adnut of the greatest
variety of form and development, without their functions being
seriously disturbed. But in Ms animal Ufe the organs are so es
sentiaUy symmetrical, that a very sUght departure from the ordi
nary type unpairs their action.'"* Not only the brain, but also
the organs of sense, as the eyes, the nose, the ears, are perfectly
symmetrical; and they as weU as the other organs of animal Ufe,
as the feet and hands, are double, presenting on each side of the
body two separate parts wMch correspond with each other, and
produce a symmetry unknown to our vegetative Ufe, the organs
of which are, for the most part, merely single, as in the stomach,
Uver, pancreas, and spleen.'"'
From this fundamental difference between the organs of the
two Uves, there have arisen several other differences of great in-
laa 11 C'est de la, sans doute, que nait cette autre diffdrence entre lea organes des
deux vies, savoir, que la nature se Uvre bien plus rarement k dea dcarts de confor
mation dans la vie animale que dans la vie organique. . . C'est une remarque qui n'a
pu dchapper k celui dont les dissections ont dtd un peu raultipUdes, que les frdquen-
tes variationa de forraes, de grandeur, de position, de direction dea organea in
ternes, corame la rate, le foie, I'estomac, les reins, lea organes aalivairea, etc. . . .
Jetona raaintenant lea yeux sur lea organes de la vie animale, sur les sens, les nerfs,
le cerveau, les muscles volontaires, le larynx ; tout y est exact, prdcis, rigoureuae
ment ddtermind dans la forme, la grandeur, et la position. On n'y voit presque
jamais de varidtd de conformation ; s'U en existe, les fonctions sont troubldea,
andanties ; tandis qu'eUes restent les memos dans la vie organique, au milieu des
altdrations diverses des parties." Bichat sur la Vie, pp. 23-26. Part of this view
is corroborated by the evidence coUected by Saint HUaire (Anomalies de V Organi
sation, vol. i. pp. 248, seq.) of the extraordinary aberrations to which the vegetative
organa are liable ; and he mentiona (vol. ii. p. 8) the case of a raan, in whoae body,
on dissection, " on reconnut que toua lea viacdres dtaient tranapoada." Comparative
anatomy auppUes another Ulustration. The bodies of moUusca are leaa aymmetri'cal
than those of articulata ; and in the former, the "vegetal series of organs," says Mr.
Owen, are more developed than the animal series ; whUe in the articulata, "the ad
vance ia most conspicuous in the organs pecuUar to aniraal Ufe." Owen's Inverte
brata, p. 470. Compare Burdach's Physiologie, vol i. pp. 153, 189 ; aud a confir
mation ofthe " unsymraetrical" organs ofthe gasteropoda, in Grants Comparative
Anatomy, p. 461. Thia curious antagonism is stUl further seen in the circumstance,
that idiots, whoae functiona of nutrition and of excretion are often very active, are
at the same tirae reraarkable for a want of symmetry in the organa of aenaation.
Esquirol, Maladies Mentales, vol ii. pp. 331, 382.
A reault, though perhapa an unconacioua one, of the application and extenaion of ,
these ideas,'ia, that within the laat few yeara there haa arisen a patholo^cal theory
of what. are caUed "symmetrical diseases," the leading facts of which have been
long known, but are now only beginning to be generaUzed. See Pagets Pathology,
vol I pp. 18-22, vol. il pp. 244, 245 ; Simon's Pathology, pp. 210, 211 ; Carpenter's
Human Physiol, pp. 607, 608.
"^ Bichat sur la Vie, pp. 15-21.

650 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
terest. Our animal Ufe being double, whUe our orgamc life is
single, it becomes possible for the former Ufe to take rest, that
is, stop part of its functions for a time, and afterwards renew
them. But in organic lffe, to stop is to die. The Ufe, wMch we
have in common yrith vegetables, never sleeps; and if its move
ments entirely cease only for a single instant, they cease for ever.
That process by wMch our bodies receive some substances and
give out others, admits of no interraption; it is, hy its nature,
incessant, hecause, being single, it can never receive supple
mentary aid. The other Ufe we may refresh, not only in sleep,
hut even when we are awake. Thus we can exercise the organs
of movement wMle we rest the organs of thought; and it is even
possible to reUeve a function wMle we continue to employ it, he-
cause, our animal Ufe being double, we are able for a short time,
in case of one of its parts being fatigued, to avail ourselves of
the corresponding part; using, for instance, a single eye or a
smgle arm in order to rest the one which circumstances may have
exhausted; an expedient which the single nature of orgamc life
entirely prevents.'"*
Our animal lffe being thus essentiaUy intermittent, and our
organic Ufe being essentiaUy continuous,'"' it has necessarily
followed that the first is capable of an improvement of wMch
the second is incapable. There can he no improvement without
comparison, smce it is only by comparing one state yrith another
that we can rectffy previous errors, and avoid future ones. Now,
our organic Ufe does not admit of such comparison, because,
being uninterrupted, it is not hroken into stages, but when un-
chequered hy disease, runs on m duU monotony. On the other
hand, the functions of our animal Ufe, such as thought, speech,
sight, and motion, cannot he long exercised without rest; and as
they are constantly suspended, it becomes practicable to compare
them, and, therefore to improve them. It is hy possessing this
resource that the first cry of the infant gradually rises into the
perfect speech of the man, and the unformed habits of early
thought are ripened into that maturity which nothing can give
but a long series of successive efforts."" But our organic lffe,
which we have in common with vegetables, admits of no inter
raption, and consequently of no improvement. It obeys its own
'"* Ibid. pp. 21-50.
"" On interraittence as a quaUty of animal Ufe, see Holland's Medical Notes, pp.
318, 314, where Bichat is mentioned as its great expounder. As to the essential
continuity of organic Ufe, see Burdach's Physiologie, vol viu. p. 420. M. Comte haa
made some interesting remarks on Bichat's law of interraittence. Philos. Positive,
¦"^oh^hi. pp. 800, 395, 744, 745, 760, 751,
On the developraent arising frora practice, see Bichat sur la Vie, pp. 207-

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION, 651
laws ; hut it derives no benefit from that repetition to which
animal Ufe is exclusively indebted. Its functions, such as nutri
tion and the Uke, exist in man several months hefore he is born,
and whUe, his animal lffe not having yet begun, the faculty of
comparison, wMch is the basis of improvement, is impossible.'"'
And although, as the human frame increases in size, its vege
tative organs become larger, it cannot he supposed that their
functions reaUy improve, smce, in ordmary cases, their duties
are performed as regularly and as completely in childhood as in
middle age.'"'
Thus it is, that although other causes conspire, it may be
said that the progressiveness of animal life is due to its intermit-
tence; the unprogressiveness of orgamc lffe to its continuity. It
may, moreover, he said, that the intermittence of the first Ufe
results from the symmetry of its organs, whUe the continuity of
the second lffe results from their irregularity. To this wide and
striMng generaUzation, many objections may be made, some of
them apparently insuperable; but that it contains the germs of
great truths I entertain Uttle douht, and, at all events, it is cer
tain that the method cannot he too highly praised, for it unites
the study of function and stracture with that of embryology, of
vegetable physiology, of the theory of comparison, and of the in
fluence of habit; a vast and magnificent field, which the gemus
of Bichat was ahle to cover, but of which, smce Mm, neither
physiologists nor metaphysicians have even attempted a general
survey. TMs stationary condition, during the present century, of a
subject of such intense interest, is a decisive proof of the extra
ordinary genius of Bichat; since, notwithstanding the additions
made to physiology, and to every branch of physics connected
yrith it, nothing has been done at aU comparable to that theory
of Ufe which he, with far inferior resources, was ahle to construct.
This stupendous work he left, indeed, very imperfect; but even
m its deficiencies we see the hand of the great master, whom, on
'"¦" Ibid. pp. 189-203, 225-230.' M. Broussais also (in bis able work, Coiirs de
Phrinologie, p. 487) says, that coraparison begins only after birth ; but surely this
must be very doubtful. Few physiologists ' wUl deny that embryological phenomena,
though neglected by metaphysicians, play a great part in shaping the future char
acter; and I do not see how any system of psychology can be complete which
ignores considerations, probable in themselvea, and not refuted by special evidence.
So careleaaly, however, haa thia aubject been inveatigated, that we have the most
conflicting statements respecting even the vagitus uterinus, which, if it exists to the
extent aUeged by some pbysiologiata, would be a decisive proof that animal Ufe (in
the sense of Bichat) does begin during the fcetal period. Compare Burdach, Phy
siol, vol. iv. pp. 113, 114, with Wagner's Physiol, p. 182. _ ,
"'^ " Les organes internes qui entrent alors en exercioe, ou qui accroissent beau
coup leur action, n'ont besoin d'aucune dducation ; Ua atteignent tout k coup une
perfection k laqueUe ceux de la vie animale ne parviennent que par habitude d'agir
souvent." Bichat sur la Vie, p. 231.

652 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
Ms own subject, no one has yet approached. His essay on lffe
may well be likened to those hroken fragments of ancient art,
which, imperfect as they are, stiU bear the impress of the inspi
ration which gave them birth, and present in each separate part
that umty of conception wMch to us makes them a complete
and liring whole.
From the preceding summary of the progress of physical
knowledge, the reader may form some idea of the abiUty of those
eminent men who arose in France durmg the latter half of the
eighteenth century. To complete the picture, it is only neces
sary to examine what was done in the two remaimng branches of
natural Mstory, namely, botany and mineralogy, in both of which
the first great steps towards raising each study to a science were
taken by Frenchmen a few years before the Eevolution.
In 'botany, although our knowledge of particular facts has,
during the last hundred years, rapidly increased,"" we are only
possessed of two generaUzations wide enough to he caUed laws
of nature. The first generaUzation concerns the structure of
plants; the other concems their physiology. That concerning
their physiology is the heautfful morphological law, according to
wMch the different appearance of the various organs arises from
arrested development : the stamens, pistUs, coroUa, calyx, and
bracts, being simply modifications or successive stages of the
leaf TMs is one of many valuable discoveries we owe to Ger
many; it being made hy Gothe late in the eighteenth century.""
With its importance every botanist is familiar; wMle to the Ms
torian of the human mind it is pecuUarly mteresting, as strength
ening that great doctrine of development, towards wMch the
highest branches of knowledge are now hastening, and which, in
'"" Dioacorides and Galen knew frora 450 to 600 plants. Winckler, Geschichte
der Botanik, 1854, pp. 34, 40 ; but, according to Cuvier (Eloges, vol ul p. 468),
Linnaeus, in 1778, " en indiquait environ huit miUe eapdcea ;" and Meyen (Geog. of
Plants, p. 4) aayB, " at tbe time of Linnseus's death, about 8000 species were known."
(Dr. WheweU, in his Bridgewater Treatise, p. 247, says " about 10,000.") Since then
the progress haa been uninterrupted ; and in Henslow's Botany, 1887, p. 186, we are
told that '' the nuraber of apecies already known and classified in works of botany
amounts to about 60,000." Ten years later. Dr. Linilej (Vegetable Kingdom, 1847,
p. 800) statea them at 92,930 ; and two yeara afterwarda, Mr. Balfour saya " about
100,000." Balfour's Botany, 1849, p. 560. Such ia the rate at which our knowledge
of nature ia advancing. To complete this historical note, I ought to have mentioned,
that in 1812, Dr. Thomaon says " nearly 30,000 apeciea of planta have been examined
aud described." Thomson's Hist, of the Royal Society, p. 21.
""_ It was pubUahed in 1790. "Winckler, Gesch. der Botanik, p. 389. But the
hiatoriana of botany have overlooked a abort passage in Gotbe's works, which proves
that he had gUmpses of tbe discovery in or before 1786. See lialidnische Reise, in
Gothe's Werke, vol il part U. p. 286, Stuttgart, 1837, where he writea from Padua,
in Septeraber, 1786, " Hier in dieser neu mir entgegen tretenden Mannigfaltigkeit
wird jener Gedanke immer lebendiger: daaa man aich aUe Pflanzengestalten viel-
leiclit aus Einer entwickeln kOnne." There are some interesting remarks on thia
brilUant generaUzation in Owen's Parthenogenesis, 1849, pp. 53 seq.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 653
the present century, has heen also carried into one of the most
difficult departments of animal physiology.'"
But the most comprehensive truth with which we are ac
quamted respecting plants, is that which includes the whole of
their general structure; and this we learnt from those great
Frenchmen who, in the latter haff of the eighteenth century, be
gan to study the external world. The first steps were taken di
rectly after the middle of the century, hy Adanson, Duhamel de
Monceau, and, above all, Desfontaines; three eminent tMnkers,
who proved the practicahiUty of a natural method Mtherto un
known, and of which even Eay himseff had only a faint percep
tion."* TMs, hy weakenmg the influence of the artificial system
of Linnaeus,' " prepared the way for an innovation more com
plete than has been effected in any other branch of knowledge.
In the very year in wMch the Eevolution occurred, Jussieu put
forward a series of botanical generalizations, of which the most
important are aU intimately connected, and stiU remain the
Mghest this department of inquiry has reached."* Among these,
"' That is, into the study of animal monstrosities, which, however capricious
they may appear, are now understood to be the necessary result of preceding events.
Within the last thirty years several of tbe laws of these unnatural births, as they
used to be caUed, have been diacovered ; and it haa been proved that, ao far from
being unnatural, they are strictly natural. A freah acience baa thus been created,
under the name of Teratology, which is destroying the old lusus naturce in one of
its last and favourite strongholds.
'"' Dr. Lindley (Third Report of Brit. Assoc, p. 83) says, that Desfontaines was
the first who demonstrated the opposite modes of increase in dycotyledonoua and
monocotyledonous atema. See also Richard, !EIllments de Botanique, p. 131 ; and
Cuvier, Eloges, vol i. p. 64. In regard to the atepa taken by Adanaon and De Mon
ceau, aee Winckler, (fesch. der Botanik, pp. 204, 205 ; Thomson's Chemistry of Veg
etables, p. 951 ; Undley's Introduc. to Botany, vol ii. p. 132.
"' It ia curioua to obaerve how even good botaniata clung to tbe LinuEean ayatem
long after the auperiority of a natural ayatem waa proved. Thia is tbe more notice
able, becauae Linnaeus, who was a man of undoubted genius, aud who possessed ex
traordinary powers of combination, always aUowed that his own system was merely
provisional, and that the great object to be attained was a classification according
to natural famiUes. See Winckler, Geschichte der Botanik, p. 202 ; Richard, Ell
ments de Botanique, p. 570. Indeed, what could be thought of the permanent value
of a scheme which put together the reed and tbe barberry, because they were both
hexandria ; and forced sorel to associate with saffron, because both were trigynia ?
Jussieu's Botany, 1849, p. 524.
"* The Genera Plantarum of Antoine Jussieu was printed at Paris in 1789 ;
and, though it is known to have been tbe result of many years of continued labour,
aome writers have asserted that the ideaa iu it were borrowed froiu hia uncle, Ber
nard Juaaieu. But asaertiona of this kind rarely deserve attention; and aa Bernard
did not chooae to pubUah any thing of hia own, hia reputation ought to suffer for hia
uncommunicativeneas. Corapare Winckler, Gesch. der Botanik, pp. 261-272, with
Biog. Univ. vol xxii. pp. 162-166. I wUl only add the foUowing reraarks frora a
work of authority, Richard, Ellments de Botanique, Paris, 1846, p. 572 : " Maia ce
ne fut qu'en 1789 que I'on eut vdritablement im ouvrage complet aur la mdthode des
famiUes natureUes. Le Genera Plantarum d'A. L. de Jussieu prdaenta la science
des vdgdtaux soua un point de vue ai nouveau, par la prdcision et I'dldgance qui y
rdgnent par la profondeur et la juatesse dea principes gdndraux qui y aont exposds
pour la premidre fois, que c'est depuia cette dpoque seulement que la mdthode des

654 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
I need only mention the three vast propositions which are now
admitted to form the hasis of vegetable anatomy. The first is,
that the vegetable kmgdom, in its whole extent, is composed of
plants either with one cotyledon, or with two cotyledons, or else
yrith no cotyledon at aU. The second proposition is, that tMs
classification, so far from being artfficial, is strictly natural; since
it is a law of nature, that plants having one cotyledon are en
dogenous, and grow hy additions made to the centre of their
stems, wMle, on the other hand, plants havmg two cotyledons
are exogenous, and are compeUed to grow hy additions made,
not to the centre of their stems, hut to the circumference.'"
The tMrd proposition is, that when plants grow at their centre,
the arrangement of the fruit and leaves is threefold ; when,
hovsrever, they grow at the circumference, it is nearly always
fivefold."" TMs is what was effected by the Frenchmen of the eighteenth
century for the vegetable kingdom:"' and ff we now turn to the
mineral kingdom, we shaU find that our obUgations to them are
equaUy great. The study of minerals is the most imperfect of
the three branches of natural history, because, notwithstandmg
its apparent simpUcity, and the immense number of experiments
which have heen made, the true method of investigation has not
yet heen ascertamed; it being doubtful whether mineralogy
ought to he subordinated to the laws of chemistry, or to those of
crystaUography, or whether both sets of laws -wUl have to be con-
famiUes natureUes a dtd vdritablement crdde, et que date la nouveUe dre de la science
des vdgdtaux. . . . L'auteur du Genera Plantarum posa le preraier les baaea de la
science, en faisant voir quelle dtait I'unportance relative des diffdrents organes entre
eux, et par consdquent leur valeur dans la classification. ...Ha fait, selon la re-
raarque de Cuvier, la mdrae rdvolution dans Ies sciences d'observation que la chimie
de Lavoisier dans les sciences d'experience. En effet, U a non aeulement changd la
face de la botanique ; maia aon influence a'eat dgalement exercde aur lea autrea
branchea de I'hiatoiro natureUe, et y a introduit cet eaprit de recherches, de com
paraison, et cette mdthode pbilosophique et natureUe, vers le perfectionnement de
laqueUe tendent ddsorraais lea efforts de toua les naturalistes."
"" Hence the removal of a great source of error ; since it is now understood that
in dicotyledons alone can age be known with certainty. Henslow's Botany, p. 243 :
corapare Richard, Elhnenis de Botanique, p. 159, aphoriame xxiv. On the atema of
endogenoua plants, which, being mostly tropical, have been lesa atudied than the
exogenoua, see Lindley's Botany, voh i. pp. 221-286; where there is also an
account, pp. 229 seq., of the views which Schleiden advanced on this subject in
1839. "° On the arrangement of the leaves, now called phyUotaxis, see Balfour's Bot
any, p. 92 ; Burdach's Physiologie, vol. v. p. 518.
" The claasification by cotyledons has been so succeaaful, that, " with very few
exceptions, however, nearly aU planta may be referred by any botaniat, at a aingle
glance, and with unerring certainty, to their proper clasB ; and a mere fragment
even of the stem, leaf, or some other part, ia often quite sufficient to enable him to
decide thia question." Henslow's Botany, p. 30. In regard to some difficultiea stiU
remaining in the way of the threefold cotyledonoua diviaion of the whole vegetable
worid, aee Undley's Botany, vol. U. p. 61 aeq.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 655
sidered,'" At aU events it is certain that, down to the present
time, chemistry has shown itself unable to reduce mineralogical
phenomena; nor has any chemist, possessing sufficient powers
of generalization, attempted the task except BerzeUus; and most
of his conclusions were overthrown by the splendid discovery of
isomorphism, for which, as is weU known, we are indebted to
Mitscherlich, one of the many great thinkers Germany has pro
duced."" Although the chemical department of mineralogy is in an
unformed and indeed anarcMcal condition, its other department,
namely, crystaUography, has made great progress; and here again
the earliest steps were taken by two Frenchmen, who lived in the
latter haff of the eighteenth century. Ahout 1760, Eom6 De
Lisle"" set the first example of studying crystals, according to a
scheme so large as to include all the varieties of their primary
forms, and to account for their irregularities, and the apparent
caprice with which they were arranged. In this investigation
he was guided hy the fundamental assumption, that what is
called an irregularity, is in truth perfectly regular, and that the
operations of nature are invariable.'" Scarcely had this great
"" Mr. Swainson (Study of Natural History, p. 356) aaya, "mineralogy, indeed,
which forms but a part of chemistry." This ia deciding the question very rapidly ;
but in tbe mean time, what becomea of the geometrical lawa of minerala ? and what
are we to do with that relation between their structure and optical phenomena,
which Sir David Brewster baa worked out with signal abiUty ?
"" The difficulties introduced into the study of minerals by the discovery of
isomorphism and polymorphism, are no doubt conaiderable ; but M. Beudant (Min
eralogie, Paria, 1841, p. 37) aeema to me to exaggerate their effect upon " I'impor-
tance dea formes crystallines." They are much raore daraaging to the purely chem
ical arrangement, because our implements for measuring the minute angles of crystala
are atiU very imperfect, and the goniometer raay fail in detecting differencea which
really exiat ; and, therefore, raany aUeged cases of isomorphisra, are probably not
so in reaUty. WoUaston'a refiecting goniometer has been long conaidered the beat
matrument poBaeaaed by crystaUographers ; but I learn from Liebig and Kopp's Re
ports, vol i. pp. 19, 20, that Frankenbeim bas recently invented one for measuring
the angles of " microscopic crystals." On the amount of error in the measurement
of angles, aee Phillips's Mineralogy, 1837, p. viu.
"° He says, " depuis plus de vingt ans que je m'occupe de cet objet." Roml de
Usle, CristaUographie, ou Description des Formes propres d, tous les Corps du Regne
Minhral, Paris, 1788, voh i. p. 91.
"' See his Essai de CristaUographie, Paris, 1772, p. x. : " un de ceux qui m'a le
plus frappd ce sont lea formes rdguUdres et constantes que prennent natureUement
certains corps que noua ddaignons par le nom de cristaux." In the same work, p.
13, " U faut ndcesaairement aupposer que les moldcules intdgrantes des corpa ont
chacune, suivant qui lui est propre, une figure constante et ddterrainde." In hia
later treatiae (CristaUographie, 1783, vol i. p. 70), after giving aorae inatancea of
the extraordinary compUcations presented by minerala, he adda: "il n'est donc paa
dtonnant que d'habilea chimistes n'aient rien vu de constant ni de ddtermind dans
les formes cristalUnes, tandis qu'il n'en est aucune qu'on ne puisse, avec un peu
d'attention rapporter k la figure dldmeutaire et primordiale dont eUe ddrive." Even
Buffon, notwithstanding his fine perception of law, had juat declared, " qu'en gdndral
la forme de criataUisation n'eat pas un caractdre constant, mais plua dquivoque et
plus variable qu'aucun autre dea caractdres par lesquels on doit distinguer lea

656 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
idea heen applied to the almost innumerable forms into which
minerals crystalUze, when it was foUowed up with stiU larger re
sources hy Haiiy, another eminent Frenchman."* This remark
able man acMeved a complete union between mineralogy and
geometry; and, bringing the laws of space to hear on the molec
ular arrangements of matter, he was ahle to penetrate mto the
intimate structure of crystals.'" By this means, he succeeded
in proving that the secondary forms of aU crystals are derived
from their primary forms by a regular process of decrement;"*
and that, when a substance is passing from a liquid to a soUd
state, its particles are compeUed to cohere, according to a scheme
which provides for every possible change, since it mcludes even
those subsequent layers wMch alter the ordinary type of the
crystal, by disturbing its natural symmetry.'" To ascertam
mindraux." De Usle, vol. I p. xviu. Compare, on thia great achievement of De Liale's,
HerscheVs Nat. Philos. p. 239 : "be first ascertained tbe important fact ofthe con
stancy of the angles at which their faces meet."
'"° The flrat work of Haiiy appeared in 1784 (Qulrard, Ftance Utilraire, vol iv.
p. 41) ; but he had read two apecial meraoira in 1781. Chivier, Eloges, vol in. p.
138. The inteUectual relation between hia viewa and those of his predecessor must
be obvious to every mineralogist ; but Dr. WheweU, who has noticed this judiciously
enough, adda (Hist, of the Indue. Sciences, vol. iU. pp. 229, 230) : " Unfortunately
Eomd de Liale and Haiiy were not only rivals, but in some measure enemies 
Hafly revenged hiraself by rarely mentioning Romd in lus works, though it waa
manifeat that his obligations to him were immense ; and by recording his errora
while he corrected thera." Tbe truth, however, is, that bo far from rarely mention
ing De Lisle, he mentions bim incessantly ; and I have counted upwarda of three
hundred inatances in Hauy's great work, in which he is named, and his writings are
referred to. On one occasion he says ofDe Lisle, "En un mot, sa CristaUographie
est le fruit d'un travail immense par son dtendue, presque entierement neuf par son
objet, et trds prdcieux par son utiUtd. Ha-Hy, Traiti de Mineralogie, Paris, 1801,
vol. L p. 17. Elsewhere he caUs him, " cet habile naturaliste ; ce sayant cdldbre,"
vol. u. p. 328 ; " ce cdlebre naturaUste," vol iii. p. 442 : see also vol. iv. p. 51, &c.
In a work of so much merit as Dr. WheweU's, it is important that these errors
should be indicated, because we have no other book of value on the general history
of tbe sciences ; and many authors have deceived themselves and their readers, by
impUcitly adopting the statements .^f this able and industrious writer. I would par
ticularly caution the student in regard to the physiological part of Dr. WheweU's
History, where, for instance, the antagonism between the methods of Cuvier and
Bichat is entirely lost sight of, and while whole pages are devoted to Cuvier, Bichat
is disposed of in four Unes.
"" " Haiiy est donc le seul vdritable auteur de la science mathdmatique des
cristaux." Cuvier, Progrk des Sciences, vol. i. p. 8 ; see also p. 317. Dr. Clarke,
whose celebrated lectures on mineralogy excited much attention among his hearers,
was indebted for some of his principal views to his conversations with Haiiy : see
Otter's Ufe of Clarke, vol. U. p. 192.
'"* See an admirable statement of the three forms of decrement, in Haiiy, Traiti
de Minh-alogie, vol. l pp. 285, 286. Compare WhewelVs Hist ofthe Indue. Sciences,
vol. iu. pp. 224, 225 ; who, however, does not mention Hauy's classiflcation of " dd-
croisseraens sur les bords," " ddcroissemens sur les angles," and " ddcrdissemens in-
terraddiairea." And, as be clearly saw, the proper method waa to study the lawa of symme
try, and then apply them deductively to minerala, inatead of riaing inductively from
the aberrationa actuaUy preaented by minerals. This is interesting to observe, be
cauae it ia aualogoua to the method of the best pathologists, who seek the phUos-

GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 657
that such violations of symmetry are susceptible of mathematical
calculation, was to make a vast addition to our knowledge; hut
what seems to me stUl more important, is, that it indicates an
approach to the magnificent idea, that every thing which occurs
is regulated hy law, and that confusion and disorder are impos
sible."" For, hy proving that even the most uncouth and sin
gular forms of minerals are the natural results of their antece
dents, Haiiy laid the foundation of what may he called the
pathology of the inorganic world. However paradoxical such a
notion may seem, it is certain that symmetry is to crystals what
health is to animals; so that an irregularity of shape in the first,
corresponds with an appearance of disease in the second."'
When, therefore, the minds of men became famUiarized with the
great trath, that in the mineral kingdom there is, properly
speaMng, no irregularity, it became more easy for them to grasp
the stiU higher truth, that the same principle holds good of the
animal Mngdom, although from the superior complexity of the
phenomena, it wUl he long hefore we can arrive at an equal de
monstration. But, that such a demonstration is possible, is the
principle upon wMch the future progress of aU organic, and in
deed of aU mental science, depends. And it is very observable,
that the same generation wMch estabUshed the fact, that the
apparent aberrations presented hy mmerals are strictly regular,
also took the first steps towards establishing the far Mgher fact,
that the aberrations ofthe human mmd are govemed by laws as
unfaUing as those wMch determine the condition of inert matter.
The examination of this would lead to a digression foreign to my
present design; but I may mention that, at the end of the cen
tury, there was written in France the celebrated treatise on in
sanity, by Pinel; a work remarkable in many respects, hut cMefly
ophy of their subject in physiological phenomena, rather than in pathological ones ;
striking downwarda from the normal to the abnormal " La symltrie des formes
aous lesquelles se prdsentent les soUdea que nous avona considdrds jusqu'ici, nous a
fourni des donnees pour exprimer les lois de ddcroiasemena dont cea aolides sont aua-
ceptibles." Ha-uy, Traiti de Minh-alogie, vol l p. 442 ; compare vol U. p. 192.

purs jeux <
aon ignorance.
deaqueUea le calcul reprdaente et enchaine l'un k I'autre lea rdaultats observes ; lois
si variables et en meme temps si prdcises et si reguUdres ; ordinairement trda aim-
plea, sana rien perdre de leur fdconditd." Hauy, Minhalogie, vol. i; pp. xul xiv.
Agam, vol. il p. 57, "notre but, qui est de prouver que lea lois d'ou ddpend la
structure du criatal sont les plua aimplea possibles dans leur enserable."
'" On tbe remarkable power possessed by crystals, in common with animala, of
repairmg their own injuriea, see Pagets Pathology, 1863, vol. i. pp. 162, 153, con
firming the experimenta of Jordan on thia curioua aubject : " The abiUty to repair
the damagea sustained by injury ... ia not an excluaive property of living beinga ;
for even cryatals wiU repair themselves wben, after pieces have been broken from
them they are placed iu the same conditions in which they were first formed;"
VOL. I. — 42

658 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
in this, that in it the old notions respecting the mysterious and
inscrutable character of mental disease are altogether discarded : '"
the disease itseff is considered as a phenomenon ine-ritably oc
curring under certain given conditions, and the foundation laid
for supplymg another Unk in that vast chain of e'ridence which
connects the material yrith the immaterial, and thus uniting
mind and matter into a single study, is now preparmg the way
for some generalization, wMch, hemg common to 'both, shall serve
as a centre round which the disjointed fragments of our knowledge
may safely raUy.
These were the views wMch, during the latter haff of the
eighteenth century, began to dawn upon French tMnkers. The
extraordmary ahiUty and success yrith wMch these enunent men
cultivated their respective sciences, I have traced at a length
greater than I had intended, hut still very madequate to the im
portance of the subject. Enough, however, has heen brought
forward, to convince the reader of the truth of the proposition I
wished to prove ; namely, that Hiie mteUect of France was,
during the latter haff of the eighteenth century, concentrated
upon the extemal world with unprecedented zeal, and thus
aided that vast movement, of wMch the Eevolution itseff was
merely a single consequence. The intimate connexion between
scientific progress and social reheUion, is evident from the fact,
that both are suggested hy the same yearning after improvement,
the same dissatisfaction yrith what has heen previously done, the
same restless, prying, insubordinate, and audacious spirit. But
in France this general analogy was strengthened hy the curious
circumstances I have aheady noticed, by virtue of wMch, the
activity of the country was, during the first haff of the century,
directed against the church rather than agamst the state ; so
that in order to complete the antecedents of the Eevolution, it
188 11 j[_ piQgi g^ imprirad une marche nouveUe k I'dtnde de la foUe. ... En la
rangeant simplement, et sans diffdrences aucunes, au nombre des autres ddrange-
mens de nos organes, en lui assignant une place dans le cadre nosographique, U fit
faire un pas immense k son histoire." Georget, de la Folie, Paris, 1820, p. 69. In
the same work, p. ^95, " M. Pinel, le premier en France, on pourrait dire en Europe,
jeta les fondemens d'un traiteraent vraiment rationnel en rangeant la folie au nombre
des autres affections organiques." M. Esquirol, who expresses the modern and
purely scientific view, says in his great work (Des Maladies Mentales, Paris, 1888,
vol l p. 336), " L'aUdnation mentale, que lea anciens peuplea regardaient comme
une inspiration ou une punition des dieux, qui dans la suite fut prise pour la pos
session des ddmons, qui dans d'autres temps passa pour une oeuvre de la magie :
1 aUenation mentale, dis-je, avec toutes ses especes et ses varidtds innombrables, ne
diffdre en rien des autrea maladies." The recognition of thia he expressly ascribes
to bis predecessor: "gr^ce aux principes exposda par Pinel" p. 340. Pinel himaelf
dearly saw the connexion between bis own opinions aud the spirit of the age : see
Pinel, Traite Midico-Philosophique sur VAlUnation Mentale, p. xxxii. : " Un ouv
rage de mddecine, pubUd en France k la fin du dix-huitidme sidcle, doit avoir un
autre caractdre que s'U avoit dtd dcrit k une dpoque antdrieure."

GENERAL INTEODUCTION. 659
was necessary that, in the latter haff" of the century, the ground
of attack should be shffted. This is precisely what was done hy
the wonderful impetus given to every branch of natural science.
For, the attention of men being thus steadily fixed upon the ex
ternal world, the intemal fell into neglect ; while, as the exter
nal corresponds to the state, and the internal to the church, it
was part of the same intellectual development, that the assaUers
of the existing fabric should tum against poUtical abuses the
energy wMch the preceding generation had reserved for reUgious
ones. Thus it was that the French Eevolution, like every great
revolution the world has yet seen, was preceded hy a complete
change in the habits and associations of the national inteUect.
But besides tMs, there was also taMng place, precisely at the
same time, a vast social movement, which was intimately con
nected yritli the inteUectual movement, and indeed formed part
of it, in so fer as it was foUowed by simUar results and produced
by sinular causes. The nature of tMs social revolution I shall
examine only very briefiy, because in a future volume it wiU be
necessary to trace its Mstory mmutely, in order to iUustrate the
sUghter but stUl remarkable changes, wMch m the same period
were going on in EngUsh society.
In France, hefore the Eevolution, the people, though always
very social, were also very exclusive. The upper classes, pro
tected by an imaginary superiority, looked yrith scorn upon those
whose birth or titles were unequal to their own. The class im
mediately below them copied and commumcated their example,
and every order in society endeavoured to find some fanciful dis-
tmction wMch should guard them from the contamination of
their inferiors. The only three real sources of superiority, — the
superiority of morals, of mteUect, and of knowledge,— were en
tirely overlooked in this absurd scheme ; and men became ac
customed to pride themselves not on any essential difference, but
on those inferior matters, which, with extremely few exceptions,
are the result of accident, and therefore no test of merit.""
The first great blow to this state of things, was the unpre
cedented impulse given to the cultivation of physical science
Those vast discoveries which were bemg made, not only stimu
lated the mteUect of thmMng men, but even roused the curiosity
of the more thoughtless parts of society. The lectures of chem
ists, of geologists, of mmeralogists, and of physiologists, were at-
™ Comp Mhn. de Slgur, voh l p. 23, with tbe Introduction to Des Rlaux, His
toriettes vol i P- 34. A good iUustration of this is, that the Prince de Montbarey,
in his Mdmoirs, gently censures Louis XV., not for his scandalous profligacy, but be
cause he selected for his mistresses some woraen who were not of high birth. Mhn.
de Montbarey, vol. i. p. 341, and see vol. in. p. 117.

660 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
tended hy those who came to wonder, as weU as by those who
came to learn. In Paris, the scientific assemblages were crowded
to overflowing."" The haUs and ampMtheatres in which the
great truths of nature were expounded, were no longer ahle to
hold their audience, and in several instances it was found neces
sary to enlarge them."' The sittings of the Academy, instead
of being confined to a few solitary scholars, were frequented hy
every one whose rank or influence enabled them to secure a
place.'"* Even women of fashion, forgetting their usual frivoUty,
hastened to hear discussions on the composition of a mineral, on
the discovery of a new salt, on the structure of plants, on the
organization of animals, on the properties of the electric flmd."'
A sudden craving after knowledge seemed to have smitten every
rank. The largest and the most difficult inqiriries found favour
in the eyes of those, whose fathers had hardly heard the names
of the sciences to wMch they belonged. The hriUiant imagina
tion of Buffon made geology suddenly popular ; the same thing
was effected for chemistry by the eloquence of Fourcroy, and for
electricity hy NoUet ; whUe the admirable expositions of Lalande
caused astronomy itseff to he generaUy cultivated. In a word,
it is enough to say, that during the thirty years preceding the
'°° And that too even on such a subject as anatomy. In 1768, Antoine Petit
began his anatomical lectures in the great amphitheatre of the Jardin du Eoi ; and
tbe presa to bear him was so great, that not only aU the aeats were occupied, but
the very window-ledges were crowded. See the animated description in Biog.
Univ. vol. xxxUl p. 494.
"' Dr. Thomson (Hist, of Chemistry, vol. U. p. 169) says of Fourcroy's lectures
on chemiatry, which began in 1784 : " Such were tbe crowda, both of raen and
women, who flocked to hear bim, that it was twice necessary to enlarge the aize of
the lecture-room." Thia circumatance ia also mentioned in Cuvier, Eloges, voh ii.
p. 19. "^ In 1779, it was remarked that " les sdanoes pubUques de I'Acaddmie franjaise
sont devenues une espdce de spectacle fort a la mode :" and as this continued to
increase, the throng became at length ao great, that in 1786 it waa found neceaaary
to diminiah the number of ticketa of admiasion, and it was even proposed that ladies,
should be excluded, in conaequence of aome uproarious scenes which had happened.
Grimm et Diderot, Correspond. Ut. vol. x. p. 841, vol. xiv. pp. 148, 149, 186, 251.
"" Goldsmith, who waa in Paria in 1755, aaya with surprise, " I have seen as
bright a circle of beauty at the chemical lectures of EoueUe, as gracing the court of
VersaiUea." Prior's Life of Goldsmith, vol. i. p. 180; Forster's Ufe of Goldsmith,
vol. i. p. 65. In the middle of tbe century, electricity was very popular among the
Parisian ladies ; and tbe intereat felt in it waa revived several years later by FrankUn.
Corapare Grimm, Correspondance, vol. vU. p. 122, with Tucker's Ufe of Jefferson,
vol. i. pp. 190, 191. Cuvier (Eloges, vol. l p. 66) teUs us that even the anatomical
descriptions which Daubenton wrote for Buffon were to be found " aur la toilette
dea femmes." Thia change of taate ia alao noticed, though in a jeering spirit, m
Mlm. de Genlis, vol vi. p. 32. Corapare the account given by Townsend, who vis
ited France in 1786, on his way to Spain : " A numerous society of gentlemen and
ladies of the first fashion meet to hear lectures on the aciencea, deUvered by men of
the higheat rank in their profeaaion. ... I was much struck with the fluency and
elegance of language with which the anatomical professor spoke, and not a little ao
with the deep attention of his auditors." Townsend's Journey through Spain, vol.
i. p. 41 ; see alao Smith's Tour on the Continent in 1786, vol. i. p. 117.

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 661
Eevolution, the spread of physical science was so rapid, that in
its favour the old classical studies were despised :'"* it was con
sidered the essential basis of a good education, and some slight
acquaintance with it was deemed necessary for eveiy class, ex
cept those who were ohUged to support themselves hy their daUy
labour.'"' The results produced by tMs remarkable change are very
curious, and from their energy and rapidity were very decisive.
As long as the different classes conflned themselves to pursuits
peculiar to their owm sphere, they were encouraged to preserve
their separate habits ; and the subordination, or, as it were, the
Merarchy, of society was easUy mamtained. But when the mem
bers of the various orders met in the same place with the same
object, they became knit together hy a new sympathy. The
Mghest and most durable of aU pleasures, the pleasure caused by
the perception of fresh traths, was now a great Unk, which band
ed together those social elements that were formerly wrapped up
in the pride of their own isolation. Besides this, there was also
given to them not only a new pursmt, hut also a new standard
of merit. In the ampMtheatre and the lecture-room, the first
object of attention is the professor and the lecturer. The dirision
is between those who teach and those who learn. The subordi
nation of rank makes way for the subordination of knowledge.'""
The petty and conventional distinctions of fashionable life are
succeeded hy those large and genuine distinctions, by which alone
man is reaUy separated from man. The progress of the intel
lect supplies a new object of veneration ; the old worship of rank
is rudely disturbed, and its superstitious devotees are taught to
"' In a letter written in 1756, it is said, "Mais c'est peine perdue aujourd'hui
que de plaisanter lea drudita ; U n'y en a plua en France." Grimm, Correspond, vol.
u. p. 15. In 1764, "II eat honteux et incroyable k quel point I'dtude des anciena
eat negligde." vol iv. p. 97. In 1768, " Une autre raison qui rendra lea traductions
des auteurs anciena de plus en plua rares en France, c'eat que depuis long-terapa on
n'y Bait plua le Grec, et qu'on neglige I'dtude du Latin toua les jours davantage."
vol vi. p. 140. Sherlock (New Letters from an English Traveller, London, J781, p.
86) aaya, " It ia very rare to meet a man in France that underatands Greek." In
1785, Jefferson writes from Paris to Madison, "Greek and Eoman authora are
dearer here than, I beUeve; any where in the world ; nobody here reada them,
wherefore they are not reprinted." Jeffersgn's Correspond, vol. I p. 301. See fur
ther, on this neglect of the ancienta, a aignificant precursor of the Eevolution, Mlm,
de Montbarey, vol. iU. p. 181 ; Villemain, Uttlraiure au XVIIP Sikle, vol. iu. pp.
243-248 ; Schlosser's Eighteenth Century, vol. i. p. 344.
"° For further evidence of the popularity of physical knowledge, aud of ita
atudy even by those who might have been expected to neglect it, see Mhn, de Ro-
land,'vol, i. pp. 115, 268, 324, 843; Mhn, de MoreUet, vol l p. 16; Dupont de
Nemours, Mhn. sur Turgot, pp. 45, 52, 53, 411 ; Mhn.de Brissot, vol. i. pp. 62, 151,
319, 336, 338, 857 ; Cuvier, Progrk des Sciences, vol. i. p. 89.
'"" A celebrated writer has weU said, though in a somewhat different pomt of
view "H ne peuty avoir dana lea sciences morales, pas plua que dana les sciences
physiquea, ni maitrea, ni esclaves, ni roia, ni sujets, ni citoyens, ni dtrangers."
Comte, Traiti de Llgislation, vol. I p. 48.

662 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
bow the knee hefore what to them is the shrine of a strange god.
The hall of science is the temple of democracy. Those who come-
to learn, confess their own ignorance, abrogate in some degree
theu- oyyn superiority, and begin to perceive that the greatness
of men has no connexion with the splendour of their titles, or
the digmty of their birth ; that it is not concerned vrith their
quarterings, their escutcheons, their descents, their dexter-cMefs,
their sinister-cMefs, their chevrons, their hends, their azures, their
gules, and the other trumperies of their heraldry ; but that it de
pends upon the largeness of their minds, the powers of their in
teUect, and the fulness of their knowledge.
These were the views wMch, in the latter haff of the
eighteenth century, began to influence those classes wMch had
long heen the undisputed masters of society.'"' And what shows
the strength of tMs great movement is, that it was accompamed
hy other social changes, wMch, though in themselves apparently
triffing, become fuU of meaning when taken in connexion with
the general Mstory of the time.
WMle the immense progress of physical knowledge was revo
lutionizing society, by inspiring the different classes with an ob
ject common to aU, and thus raising a new standard of merit, a
more trivial, hut equaUy democratic tendency was observable
even in the conventional forms of social Ufe. To describe the
yvhole of these changes wpuld occupy a space disproportioned to
the other parts of tMs Introduction ; hut it is certain that, until
the changes have been carefuUy examined, it wUl he impossible
for any one to write a history of the French Eevolution. As a
specimen of what I mean, I wUl notice two of these mnovations
wMch are very conspicuous, and are also interesting on account
of their analogy with what has happened in EngUsh society.
The first of these changes was an alteration in dress, and a
marked contempt for those extemal appearances Mtherto valued
as one of the most important of aU matters. During the reign
of Louis XIV., and indeed during the first haff of the reign of
Louis XV., not only men of frivolous tastes, h-ut even those dis
tinguished for their knowledge, displayed in their attire a dainty
precision, a nice and studied adjustment, a pomp of gold, of sU
ver, and of ruffles, such as in our days can nowhere be seen, ex-
"' The reraarks which Thomas made upon Descartes in' 1766, in an Uoge crowned
by the Academy, iUustrate the opinions which, in the latter half of the eighteenth
century, were becoming rapidly diffused in France. See the passage beginning
"0 prdjugds! 6 ridicule fiertd des places et du rang!" etc. CEuvres de Descartes, vol.
1. p. 74. Certainly no one would have uaed auch language, on such an occasion,
thirty years earUer. So, too, the Count de Sdgur says of the younger noblea before
the Revolution, "nous prdfdrions un mot d'dloges de D'Alembert, de Diderot, k la
faveur la plus signalde d'un prince." Mhn. de Segur, vol. l p. 142 : see also vol il
p. 46.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 663
cept in the courts of European princes, where a certain barba
rian splendour is stUl retained. So far was this carried, that in
the seventeenth century the rank of a person might he imme
diately known hy his appearance ; no one presuming to usui-p a
garb worn by the class immediately above Ms own.'"" But in
that democratic movement which preceded the French Eevolu
tion, the minds of men became too earnest, too intent upon
higher matter, to busy themselves with those idle devices which
engrossed the attention of their fathers. A contemptuous disre
gard of such distinctions became general. In Paris the innova
tion was seen even in those gay assemblies, where a certain
amount of personal decoration is still considered natural. At
dinners, suppers, and haUs, it is noticed hy contemporary observ
ers, that the dress usuaUy worn was becoming so simple as to
cause a confusion of ranks, until at length every distinction was
ahandoned hy both sexes ; the men, on such occasions, coming
in a common frock-coat, the women in their ordinary morning-
gowns."" Nay, to such a pitch was tMs carried, that we are as
sured hy the Prince de Montbarey, who was in Paris at the time,
that shortly hefore the Eevolution, even those who had stars and
orders were careful to hide them by buttonmg their coats, so
that these marks of superiority might no longer be seen.*""
™ Araong raany other illustrations which raight be given of this distinction of
classes by dreaa, aee Monteil, Hist, des divers Etats, vol. vii. pp. 7-10; and Talle
mant des Reaux, Historiettes, vol i. p. 86 note.
™ In August, 1787, Jefferaon writea from Paria (Correspondence, vol. U. p. 224) :
" In society, the habit habilll is almoat baniahed, and they begin to go even to
great auppera in frock : the court and diplomatic corps, however, raust alwaya be
excepted. They are too high to be .reached by any improvement. They are the
laat refuge from which etiquette, formality, and foUy wUl be driven. Take away
theae, and they would be on a level -with other people." Jefferson was a statesraan
and a diploraatiat, and waa weU acquainted with his profession. The change, how
ever, which he noticed, had been coming on aome years eariier. In a letter written
in May, 1786, it is said : "H est rare aujourd'hui de rencontrer dans le monde des
personnes qui soient ce qu'on appelle babUldes. Les femmea aont en chemise et en
chapeau, lea hommes en froc et en gUet." Grimm, Correspond, vol. xiv. p. 485 ;
and on the increased simplicity of attire in 1780, see vol xi. pp. 141, 142. Sdgur,
who witnessed these changea, and was much displeaaed by them, aaya of their advo-
catea, "Ua ne voyaient paa que lea frocs, remplagant les amples et imposana vete-
mens de I'ancienne cour, prdsagaient un penchant gdndral pour I'dgaUtd." Mhn,
de Segur vol. i. p. 131. Soulavie (Regne de Louis XVI, yol. vi. p. 38) observes.

Corapare Mhn. sur Marie Antoinette, vol i. pp. 226, 372, vol U. p. 174, and Mhn,
de Madame du Hausset, intToinc. p. n. ^ .
*"" " Les personnes du premier rang et meme d'un Sge raur, qui avaient travamd
toute leur vie pour obtenir lea ordrea du roi, preuve de la plua haute faveur, s'habi-
tudrent k en cacber les marques distinctivea aous le froc le plus simple, qui leur per-
mettait de courir k pied dana les rues et de se confondre dans la foule." Mlm. de
Montbarey vol. ui. pp. 161, 162. Another alteration of the aame tendency is worth
recording.' The Baroness d'Oberkirch, who revisited Paria in 1784, remarked, on

664 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
The other mnovation to wMch I have referred is equaUy in
teresting as characteristic of the spirit of the time. This is,
that the tendency to amalgamate the different orders of society*"'
was shown in the institution of clubs ; a remarkable contriv
ance, wMch to us seems perfectly natural because we are accus
tomed to it, but of which it may be truly said, that untU the
eighteenth century its existence was impossible. Before the
eighteenth century, each class was so jealous of its superior
ity over the one below it, that to meet together on equal terms
was impracticable ; and although a certain patronizmg famU-
iarity towards one's inferiors might he safely indulged in, tMs
only marked the immense interval of separation, since the great
man had no fear of Ms condescension being abused. In those
good old times a proper respect was paid to rank and birth ; and
he who could count his twenty ancestors was venerated to an
extent of which we, in these degenerate days, can hardly form
an idea. As to any thing like social equality, that was a no
tion too preposterous to he conceived ; nor was it possible that
any mstitution should exist wMch placed mere ordinary men on
a level with those iUustrious characters, whose veins were fiUed
\rith the purest blood, and the quarterings of whose arms none
could hope to rival.
But in the eighteenth century the progress of knowledge be
came so remarkable, that the new prmciple of inteUectual su
periority made rapid encroachments on the old principle of aris
tocratic superiority. As soon as these encroachments had
reached a certain point, they gave rise to an institution suited
to them ; and thus it was that there were first estabUshed clubs,
in wMch aU the educated classes could assemble, without regard
to those other differences wMch, in the precedmg period, kept
them separate. The peculiarity of tMs was, that, for mere pur
poses of social enjoyment, men were brought into contact, who,
according to the aristocratic scheme, had nothing in common,
but who were now placed on the same footing in so far as they
belonged to the same estahUshment, conformed to the same
rules, and reaped the same advantages. It was, however, ex
pected that the members, though varying in many other respects,
were to he aU, in some degree, educated ; and in this way so
ber arrival, that " gentlemen began about thia time to go about unarmed, and wore
aworda only in fuU dreaa  And thua the French nobUity laid aside a uaage
which the example of their fathera had conaecrated through centuriea." D'Ober-
kirch's Memoirs, Lond. 1852, vol. ii. p. 211.
A atriking inatance of which was, moreover, seen in tbe number of misalli
ances, vthich first became frequent about the middle of the reign of Louis XV. Com
pare Jfem. de Montbarey, vol. Ui. pp. 116, 156, 157 ; Lacretelle, Dix-huitieme Sikle,
vol. Ul. p. 220. rr , , , , ,

GENERAL INTEODUCTION. 665
ciety first distinctly recognized a classification previously un-
knowm ; the dirision between noble and ignoble being succeeded
hy another dirision between educated and uneducated.
The rise and growth of clubs is, therefore, to the phUosophic
observer, a question of immense importance; and it is one
which, as I shall hereafter prove, played a great part in the his
tory of England during the latter haff of the eighteenth cen
tury. In reference to our present subject, it is interesting to
observe, that the first clubs, in the modem sense of the word,
wMch ever existed in Paris, were formed ahout 1782, only seven
years hefore the French Eevolution. At the beginning they
were merely intended to he social assemblages ; but they quicMy
assumed a democratic character, conformable to the spirit of the
age. Their first result, as was noticed by a keen observer of
what was then passing, was to make the manners of the upper
classes more simple than they had hitherto been, and to weaken
that love of form and ceremony suitable to their earUer habits.
These clubs Ukewise effected a remarkable separation between
the sexes ; and it is recorded, that after their establishment,
women associated more -with each other, and were oftener seen
in puhUc unaccompamed hy men.*"* TMs had the effect of en
couraging among men a repuhUcan roughness, which the influence
of the other sex would have tended to keep down. AU these
thmgs effaced the old lines of demarcation between the different
ranks, and by merging the various classes into one, made the
force of their umted opposition irresistible, and speedUy over
threw both the church and the state. The exact period at
wMch the clubs became poUtical cannot, of course, be ascertain
ed, hut the change seems to have taken place about 1784.*"'
*"* "Nous coramenjAmea auasi a avoir dea clubs ; les hommes s'y rdunisaaient,
non encore pour discuter, maia pour diner, jouer au wish, et Ure toua les ouvragea
nouveaux. Ce premier pas, alors presque inaperfu, eut dans la suite de grandes, et
momentandment de funestes consdquences. Dans le commencement, son premier
resultat fut de sdparer les hommea des femmes, et d'apporter ainsi un notable
changeraent dans nos mceurs : eUes devinreut moins frivoles, mais moins poUes ;
plus fortes, maia raoins aimables : la poUtique y gagna, la socidtd y perdit." Mhn, de
Segur, vol u. p. 28. By the spring of 1786, this separation of the sexes had becorae
atUl more marked ; and it waa a comraon complaint, that ladies were obUged to go
to the theatre alone, raen being at their clubs. See the very curious observations
in Grimm, Correspond, vol xiv. pp. 486-489, where there is also a notice of " le
prodigieux succds qu'a eu I'dtablisaement dea clubs a I'anglaise." See also, on the
diminished attention paid to women, Williams's Letters from France, voh U. p. 80,
3d. edit. 1796.
^"^ The remarks of Georgel appear to apply to the poUtical clubs only : "A Paris
les assembldes de uouvelUstes, les clubs qui s'dtoient forrads k I'instar de ceux dea
Anglaia, s'expUquaient hauteraent et sana retenue sur -lea droita de I'homme, sur les
avantages de la Ubertd, aur lea granda abus de I'indgaUtd des conditions. Ces clubs,
trop accrdditds, avoidnt commencd k se former en 1784." Mhn, de Georgel, vol. il
p. 310.

666 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
From tMs moment aU was over ; and although the goverpment,
in 1787, issued orders to close the leading cluh,_in which all
classes discussed poUtical questions, it was found impossible to
stem the torrent. . The order, therefore, was rescinded ; the
club re-assembled, and no further attempt was made to inter
rupt that course of affairs wMch a long train of preceding events
had rendered inevitable.*"*
WhUe aU these tMngs were conspiring to overthrow the old
institutions, an event suddenly occurred which produced the
most remarkable effects m France, and is itself strikingly char
acteristic of the spirit of the eighteenth century. On the other
side of the Atlantic, a great people, provoked hy the intolerable
injustice of the EngUsh govemment, rose m arms, turned on
their oppressors, and, after a desperate straggle, gloriously ob
tained their independence. In 1776, the Americans laid hefore
Europe that nohle Declaration, wMch ought to he hung up in
the nursery of every Mng, and blazoned on the porch of every
royal palace. In words, the memory of which can never die,
they declared, that the object of the institution of government
is to secure the rights ofthe people ; that from the people alone
it derives its powers ; and " that whenever any form of govern
ment becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the
people to alter or ahoUsh it, and to institute a new government,
laying its foundations on such principles, and organizing its
powers in such form, as to them shaU seem most Ukely to effect
their safety and happiness."*"'
If tMs declaration had heen made only one generation earlier,
the whole of France, with the exception of a few advanced tMnk
ers, would have rejected it with horror and with scorn. Such,
however, was now the temper of the puhUc mind, that the doc
trines it contained were not merely welcomed by a majority of
the French nation, hut even the govemment itself was unable to
withstand the general feeUng.*"" In 1776, FranMin arrived in
"'* " Le lieutenant de poUce fit former le club nommd club du salon-; ordre ar-
bitraire et inutile : ce club alora dtait composd de personnes distingudes de la nobleaae,
ou de la haute bourgeoiaie, ainai que des artistes et des hommea de lettres les plus
considdrds. Cette rdunion offrait, pour la premidre fois, I'image d'une dgaUtd qui
devient bientdt, plus que la Ubertd mdme, le voeu le plus ardent de la plus grande
partie de la nation. Aussi le mdcontentement produit par la cloture de ce club fut
si vif, que I'autoritd se crut obUgde de le rouvrir." Mhn. de Slgur, voh in. pp. 258,
259. On the increase of these clubs from 1787 to 1789, compare Du Mesnil, Mhn.
sur U Brun, p. 148 ; Mlm. de La Fayette, vol l pp. 312, 322, 391, 484, vol, U. p. 9 ;
Barruel, Hist du Jacob, vol i. p. 40, vol. ii. p. 310, vol. v. pp. 101, 168 ; ^iers,
Hist^, de la Rlvolution, vol. i. p. 36, Paris, 1884.
Mem, of Franklin, vol U. pp. 14 seq., and Mem. of Jefferson, vol i. pp. 17-22,
200 *^ passages are given which Congress altered.
Sdgur (Mem. vol. i. p. Ill) says, that-his father had been frequently told by
Maurepas that pubUc opinion forced the government, against its own wishes, to aide

GENEEAL INTEODUCTION. 667
France, as envoy from the American people. He met with the
warmest reception from aU classes,*"' arid succeeded in inducing
the government to sign a treaty, engaging to defend the young
repubUc in the rights it had gloriously won.*"" In Paris, the
enthusiasm was irresistible.*"? From every quarter large bodies
of men came forward, volunteering to cross the Atlantic and to
fight for the Uberties of America. The heroism with which
these auxiUaries aideid the noble struggle, forms a cheering pas
sage in the history of that time ; but is foreign to my present
purpose, wMch is merely to notice its effect in hastening the ap
proach of the French Eevolution. And this effect was indeed
most remarkable. Besides the indirect result produced by the
example of a successful rebeUion, the French were stUl further
stimulated hy actual contact with their new aUies. The French
officers and soldiers who served in America, introduced mto their
oym country, on their return, those democratic opimons wMch
they had imbibed in the infant republic.*'" By this means
fresh strength was given to the revolutionary tendencies already
prevalent ; and it is worthy of remark, that Lafayette borrowed
from the same source one of his most celebrated acts. He drew
his sword on hehaff of the Americans ; and they, in their turn,
commumcated to bim that famous doctrme respecting the rights of
man, which, at Ms instigation, was formaUy adopted hy the Na
tional Assembly.*" Indeed, there is reason to beUeve, that the
final blow the French governments received was actually dealt
with America. Compare Mem. de Georgel, vol. iv. p. 370 ; and Flassan, Diplomatie
Frangaise, voh vii. p. 166.
=»' The news of which soon reached England. In January, 1777, Burke writes
(Works, voh U. p. 394), "I hear that Dr. Franklin has bad a most extraordinary
reception at Paris from all ranks of people." Soulavie (Regne de Louis XVI, vol. U.
p. 50) says, " J'ai vu FranckUn devenir un objet de culte." See also, on his popu
larity, Mem. d'Epinay, vol. iU. p. 419.
*"" Flassan, Diplomatic Frangaise, vol. vU. p. 159 ; Ufe of Franklin, by Himself,
vol. U. pp. 60, 61 ; Mahon's Hist of England, vol. vU. pp. 197, 198.
"' The sneering letter written frora Paris by Lord Storraont, aa early as Decem
ber 1774 (Adolphus's George IIL vol u. p. 316), should be compared with Lafayette,
Mhnoires, vol I pp. 24, 169, 229 ; Dutens, Mhn. d'un Voyageur, vol U. p. 817 ;
Mhn de Slgur, vol. i. p. 149 ; and Schlosser's Eighteenth Century, vol. v. p. 176.
*'» De Stall sur la Revolution, vol i. p. 88 ; Mhn. de Montbarey, vol. Ui. pp. 134,
186 • Mem. de Slgur, vol i. p. 277 ; Campan, Mhn. de Marie Antoinette, vol i.
p 233 vol ui pp. 96, 116 ; Soulavie, Regne de Louis XVI, vol. U. pp. xxiv. U. Ui. ;
Dumont Souvenirs sur Mirabeau, p. 176 ; Mhn. de Du Hausset, introduc. p. 40 ;
Mhn de Genlis, vol. vi. p. 57 ; Jefferson's Mem. and Correspond, vol. i. p. 59; and
Maitland's Speech, in Pari. Hist vol xxx. pp. 198, 199 ; also the remarks of the
Duke of Bedford, vol xxxi p. 663. . „„, „
*" Lamartine, Hist, des Girondins, vol i. p. 46. Dumont (Souvenirs, p. 97) caUs
this " une idde amdricaine ;" and see to the same effect Mhn. de Lafayette, vol. i.
DO 193 268, 269, 416, voh il pp. 139, 140; Jefferson's Correspond, vol l p. 90;
Barruel Hist, du Jacobinisme, vol v. p. 311. The influence which the American
Eevolution exercised over the mind of Lafayette, is noticed by BouUld, his cousin
and his enemy. Mhn. de BouilU, vol. i. p. 102, vol u. pp. 131, 183.

668 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
by the hand of an American ; for it is said that it was in con
sequence of the ad-rice of Jefferson, that the popiUar part of the
legislative body proclaimed itseff the National Assembly, and
thus set the crown at open defiance.*'*
I have now brought to a close my examination of the causes
of the French Eevolution ; hut hefore concluding the present
volume, it appears, to me that the variety of topics wMch have
heen discussed, makes it advisable that I should sum up their
leading points ; and should state, as briefly as possible, the
steps of that long and compUcated argument, b^ wMch I have
attempted to prove, that the Eevolution was an event inevitably
arising out of preceding circumstances. Such a summary, by
recaUing the entire subject hefore the reader, wUl remedy any /
confusion wMch the fuUness of detaU may have produced, and
yriU simpUfy an investigation wMch many yriU consider to have
heen needlessly protracted ; hut wMch could not have heen
abridged without weakemng, in some essential part, the support
of those general principles that I seek to establish.
Looking at the state of France immediately after the death
of Louis XIV., we have seen that, his poUcy having reduced the
country to the brink of rain, and having destroyed every vestige
of free inquiry, a reaction became necessary ; but that the ma
terials for the reaction could not he found among a nation, wMch
for fifty years had heen exposed to so dehUitating a system. This
deficiency at home, caused the most emment Frenchmen to tum
their attention abroad, and gave rise to a sudden admiration for
the EngUsh Uterature, and for those habits of thought wMch
were then pecuUar to the EngUsh people. New Ufe being thus
breathed mto the wasted frame of French society, an eager and
inquisitive spirit was generated, such as had not been seen since
the time of Descartes. The upper classes, taMng offence at tMs
imexpected movement, attempted to stifle it, and made stren
uous efforts to destroy that love of inquiry wMch was daUy
gaining ground. To effect their object, they persecuted Uterary
men yrith such bitterness, as to make it evident that the mtel-
lect.of France must either relapse into its former serviUty, or
else boldly assume the offensive. Happily for the interests of
civUization, the latter alternative was adopted ; and, in or about
1750, a deadly struggle began, m wMch those principles of Ub
erty wMch France borrowed from England, and which had
212 11 tpjjg Du]jg of Dorset, the EngUsh ambassador, writing to Mr. Pitt from
Paris, July 9th, 1789, said, "Mr. Jefferson, the American minister at this court,
has been a great deal consulted by the principal leaders of the tiers liat ; and I
have great reason to think that it was owing to his advice, that order caUed itself
LAssemblleNaiionale,'" Tomline's Ufe of Pitt, vol il p. 266.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 669
Mtherto been supposed only appUcable to the church, were for
the first time applied to the state. Coinciding with this move
ment, and indeed forming part of it, other circumstances occur
red ofthe same character. Now it was that the poUtical econo
mists succeeded in proving that the interference of the govern
ing classes had infficted great nuschief even upon the material
interests of the country ; and had, hy their protective measures,
injm-ed what they were beUeved to have benefited. This re
markable discoveiy in favour of general freedom, put a fresh
weapon into the hands of the democratic party ; whose strength
was stUl further increased hy the unrivaUed eloquence with
wMch Eousseau assaUed the existing fabric. Precisely the same
tendency was exhibited in the extraordinary impulse given to
every branch of physical science, which fanuliarized men with
ideas of progress, and brought them into coUision with the sta
tionary and conservative ideas natural to government. The dis
coveries made respecting the external .world, encouraged a rest
lessness and excitement of mind hostile -to the spirit of routine,
and therefore full of danger for institutions only recoinmended by
their antiquity. TMs eagerness for physical knowledge also
effected a change in education ; and the ancient languages
being neglected, another link was severed wMch connected the
present with the past. The church, the legitimate protector of
old opimons, was unable to resist the passion for novelty, hecause
she was weakened by treason in her oyyn camp. For hy tMs
time, Calvinism had spread so much among the French clergy,
as to break them into two hostUe parties, and render it impossi
ble to raUy them against their common foe. The growth of
this heresy was also important, hecause Calvinism being essen
tiaUy democratic, a revolutionary spirit appeared even in the
ecclesiastical profession, so that the feud in the church was ac
companied hy another feud between the govemment and the
church. These were the leading symptoms of that vast move
ment which culminated in the French Eevolution ; and aU of
them mdicated a state of society so anarchical and so thorougMy
disorgamzed, as to make it certain that some great catastrc^he
was impending. At length, and when every thing was ready
for explosion, the news of the American EeheUion feU Uke a
spark on the inflammatory mass, and ignited a flame which
never ceased its ravages untU it had destroyed all that French
men once held dear, and had left for the instraction of manMnd
an awful lesson of the crimes into which continued oppression
may hurry a generous and long-suffermg people.
Such is a rapid outUne of the view which my studies have
led me to take of the causes of the French Eevolution. That

670 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
I have ascertained aU the causes, I do not for a moment sup
pose; hut it yrill, 1 heUeve, he found that none of importance
have been omitted. It is, indeed, trae, that among the materi
als of which the evidence consists, many deficiencies wUl he seen;
and a more protracted labour would have heen rewarded hy a
greater success. Of these shortcomings I am deeply sensible;
and I can only regret that the necessity of passing on to a stUl
larger field has compeUed me to leave so much for future in
quirers to gather in. At the same time, it ought to he remem
bered, that tMs is the first attempt wMch has ever been made
to study the antecedents of the French Eevmution accordmg to
a scheme yride enough to include the whole of their mteUectual
hearings. In defiance of sound pMlosophy, and, I may say, in
defiance of common understanding, historians obstinately persist
in neglecting those great branches of physical knowledge, m wMch
in every ci-riUzed country the operations of the human mind may
he most clearly seen, and therefore the mental habits most easi
ly ascertamgd. The result is, that the French Eevolution, un-
questionaTW the most important, the most compUcated, and the
most glorious event in Mstory, has heen given over to authors,
many of whom have displayed considerable ahiUty, hut all of whom
have shoyvn themselves destitute of that preUminary scientific
education, m the absence of which it is impossible to seize the
spirit of any period, or to take a comprehensive survey of its
various parts. Thus, to mention only a single instance : we
have seen that the extraordinary impulse given to the study of
the extemal world was intimately connected with that democratic
movement wMch overthrew the mstitutions of France. But this
connexion Mstorians have heen unable to trace; hecause they were
unacquamted with the progress of the various 'branches of natural
phUosophy and of natural Mstory. Hence it is that they have ex-
Mbited their great subject maimed and mutUated, shom of those
fair proportions wMch it ought to possess. According to this
scheme, the Mstorian sinks into the annaUst ; so that, mstead of
solvmg a problem, he merely paints a picture. Without, therefore,
disparaging the labours of those industrious men who have collect
ed materials for a Mstory of the French Eevolution, we may assured
ly say, that the history itseff has never heen written ; smce they
who have attempted the task have not possessed such resources
as would enable them to consider it as merely a smgle part of
that far larger movement wMch was seen in every department of
science, of pMlosophy, of religion, and of poUtics.
Whether or not I have effected any thing of real value to
wards remedying this deficiency, is a question for competent
judges to decide. Of this, at least, I feel certam, that what-

GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 671
ever imperfections may be observed, the fault consists, not in
the method proposed, but in the extreme difficulty of any single
man putting into fuU operation aU the parts of so vast a scheme.
It is on tMs point, and on this alone, that I feel the need of
great indulgence. But, as to the plan itself, I have no misgiv
ings ; hecause I am deeply convinced that the time is fast ap
proacMng when the history of Man wUl be placed on its proper
footing ; when its study yviU he recognized as the noblest and
most arduous of aU pursuits ; and when it yriU he clearly seen,
that, to cultivate it with success, there is wanted a -wide and
comprehensive mirid, ricMy furnished vrith the Mghest branches
of human knowledge. When this is fuUy admitted, history wiU
he written only by those whose habits fit them for the task; and
it yyUl he rescued from the hands of biographers, genealogists,
coUectors of anecdotes, chromclers of com-ts, of prmces, and of
nobles, — those babblers of vain things, who Ue m wait at every
corner, and infest this the puhUc Mghway of our national Utera
ture. That such compUers should trespass on a province so far
above their oyra, and should tMnk that by these means they can
tMow light on the affairs of men, is one of many proofs of the
stUl backward condition of our knowledge, and of the mdis-
tmctness yrith wMch its boundaries have been mapped out. If
I have done any thing towards bringing these intrasions into
discredit, and inspiring historians themselves with a sense of the
digmty of their own caUing, I shaU have rendered in my time
some Uttle service, and I shaU he weU content to have it said,
that m many cases I have faUed in executing what I origmally
proposed. Indeed, that there are in tMs volume several in
stances of such faUure, I willingly allow; and I can only plead
the immensity of the subject, the shortness of a single life, and
the imperfection of every single enterprise. I, therefore, wish this
work to be estimated, not according to the fimsh of its separate
parts, hut according to the way in which those parts have been
fiised into a complete and symmetrical whole. TMs, in an under
taMng of such novelty and magnitude, I have a right to expect.
And I would, moreover, add, that ff the reader has met yrith opm
ions adverse to Ms own, he should remember that his views are,
perchance, the same as those wMch I too once held, and wMch
I have abandoned, because, after a wider range of study, I found
them unsupported hy solid proof, subversive of the mterests of
Man, and fatal to the progress of his knowledge. To examine
the notions in which we have been educated, and to turn aside
from those which yyUl not bear the test, is a task so pamful, that
they who shrink from the suffering should pause hefore they re
proach those by whom the suffering is undergone. What I have

672 CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND.
put forward may, no doubt, be erroneous ; hut it is, at aU events,
the result of an honest searchmg after truth, of unsparing labour,
of patient and anxious reflection. Conclusions arrived at in tMs
way, are not to be overturned by stating that they endanger
some other conclusions ; nor can they he even affected hy aUega-
tions against their supposed tendency. The principles wMch I
advocate, are based upon distinct arguments, supported hy weU-
ascertained facts. The only pomts, therefore, to be ascertamed,
are, whether the arguments are fair, and whether the facts are
certain. If these two conditions have heen obeyed, the principles
foUow by an inevitable inference. Their demonstration is, in
the present volume, necessarily incomplete; and the reader must
suspend Ms flnal judgment untU the close of this Introduction,
when the subject in aU its hearings yriU he laid before Mm.
The remaining part of the Introduction wUl he occupied, as I
have already intimated, yrith an investigation of the ci^izations
of Germany, America, Scotland, and Spain ; each of wMch pre
sents a different type of intellectual development, and has,
therefore, followed a different direction in its reUgious, scientiflc,
social, and poUtical Mstory. The causes of these differences I
shall attempt to ascertain. The next step yriU be to generaUze
the causes themselves ; and having thus referred them to cer
tain principles common to aU, we shaU he possessed of what may
he caUed the fundamental laws of European thought ; the diver
gence of the different countries being regulated either by the
direction those laws take, or else liy their comparative energy.
To discover these fundamental laws yyUl he the business of the
Introduction ; wMle, in the body of the work, I shaU apply
them to the history of England, and endeavour hy their aid to
work out the epochs through which we have successively passed,
fix the hasis of our present cirilization, and indicate the path of
our future progress.

END OF VOL. I,

ALPHABETICAL INDEX.

AbM Primi., imprisoned by Louis XIV., page
5&4.
Agassis, ichthyological system of, 643.
Agriculturuita., superstition of, 2a.
Aim of the "work, 4.
AmeHcan devolution, advantafre to England,
346 ;— influence upon the French revolu
tion, 667.
America, South, physical influences of, 72.
^717!^, Queen, 801.
Antiquaries, estimate of, oS5.
Arabs,, 34.
ArcMeacon of Monmouth, 233.
Aristocracy, tendency o^ 462.
Arminianism, a doctrine for the rich, 612.
Arnold, Dr., 259;— on toleration, 250.
Armorial bearings invented, 443.
Aspects of nature, influence o^ 85.
Art and Science, 89.
Art, influence of governmental protection of,
497.
Art., science, and method, gradation of, 646.
Arthur, king, history of, 232.
AVieism, first promulgation of, in France, 619 ;
—prevalence o^ in France, 620.
Atheists indiflferent to religion, 619 ;— interested
in government, 619.
Audigier on the origin of the French, 556.
Authors begin to be independent, 314.

Bacon, Francis, as a historian, 5.
BaUads, the groundwork of historical knowl
edge, 212.
Ba/rrow, Isaac, how treated by Charles II., 238.
Baron a'Solbach and David Hume, 621.
Bichat, labors and estimate of, 639.
Biography, separation from history, 594.
Boileau, 565.
Botam/y, progress of, 505 ; — early generalizations
in, 652 ; — natural system of, 658.
Bossuefs universal history, 569 ; — contempt for
human nature, 5T4; — compared with Vol
taire, 575.
Boyle, 251 ;— achievements in science, 265 ;^his
" Skeptical Chemist," 267.
Brazil, 75 ;— civilization in, 75 ;— in Peru, 77.
Bra/in, does its capacity improve from age to
age ? 127.
Brown, Sir Tliomas, inquiries into vulgar and
common errors, 263 ; — superstition of, 264.
TOL, I.  43

BuckU^s introduction, subjects remaining to be
discussed in, 672.
Buffon, 633 ;— compelled to recant, 534.
Burke, Edmiund., view of, 826;— never in the
British cabinet, 831 ; — relation to the Ameri
can war, 383;— mental hallucination of, 334;
— on the French Eevolution, 888.

Calvinism, and Arminianism, contrast of, 618.
CalviivisUc doctrines democratic. 611.
Cardinal de Eetz, liberality of, 435.
CathoUc church, secularization of, in France,
409.
Causes of the French Eevolution, recapitulation
of, 668.
Chance, doctrine of, 8.
ChaMilly, the French actress, 589.
Clharl&magne, 280.
Charles I., effect of his execution, 260.
CJiarles IL, his period commonly misunder
stood, 274; — ^his personal character, 275-280;
misgovernment of, 275;^benet^cent meas
ures of bis time, 276;— cause of these leg
islative reforms, 279 ; — good influence of his
faults, 280 ;— treatment of the clergy, 280 ;—
his respect for Hobbes, 281 ; — treatment of
the church, 282.
Charles XIL, Voltaire's opinion of, 576.
Character, hereditary descent of, 127.
Oha/rron, treatise on wisdom, 875.
Chermstry and geology, comparison of, 629.
ChilUngworth^ s "religion of Protestants,' 251.
Chivalry, origin and effects of, 456 ; compara
tive influence in France and England, 458.
ChristiamMy, crusade against, in France, 542;—
early corruption of, 187.
Ohroivicle of Turpin, 230.
Church, early strength of, inFrance, 364;— earlv
benefits o^ 865.
Cities, influence of, 112.
CimUzation, dependence upon soil and climate,
87 ¦— influenced by food, 47 ; — European, 59 ;
—Egyptian, 59;— in Central America, 67;—
influenced by trade winds, 73 ; — of Mexico
and Peru, 80 ;^European and non-European,
characteristics of, 109 ; — European, the hu
man mind predominates in, 110;— why the
inquiry was restricted to English, 167 ;— in
Germany, 171 ;— in America, 174 ;— Scotch,
177;— affected by religion, literature, and
government, 188 ;— literature, 198 ;— influ
ence of government, 197;— starting-point of
modern, 441.

674

ALPHABETICAL INDEX,

Classical study, effect upon history, 586 ;— effect
in corrupting the vernacular, 587.
Classical fables, 588.
Clergy, repositories of learning, 222 ;— English,
decline of, 299 ; — ^in France, degeneracy of,
after Louis XIV., 546 ;— confounded with
^ Christianity in France, 547.
Clim,ate and soil, comparative influence of, 87.
Clubs, institution of, in France, 664;— effects of,
665.
Comines, 286.
Commercial restrictions, 201.
Consciousness, nature or, 11.
Conditions of ci'rilized advancement, 162.
Condillac's treatise on sensation, 624; — his rela
tion to Locke, 625.
Condorcet, 337.
Conservative and stationary spirit, 83.
Conquest of England by the Duke of Nor
mandy, 444.
Com}ocatton falls into disrepute, 293.
Corn laws, repeal of, 198.
County people, superstition of, 273.
CreduUty, early historic, 223.
Crystallograpn/y, progress of, 655.
Cimier, labors of, 633.
" classiflcation of, 688.

D
Dates, as food, 60.
" first introduced into French history, 558.
Daubenton, 684.
Declaration of American Independence, 666.
" " influence of, upon France, 666.
Deistical writers of the 18th century, excuse
for, 549.
Deluge predicted in 1524, 239.
Descartes, physical discoveries of, 417;— as a
metaphysician, 420 ;— compared with Chil
lingworth, 424 ;— as a reformer, 421 ; — his
method, 422 ;— foundation of his philosophy,
425 ;— on the idea of God, 426 ;— influence
upon theology, 427 ; — analogy to Eichelieu,
428 ; — significance of his career, 429.
Dlionrra, as food, 62,
Diderot, persecution and imprisonment of, 537.
Dissenters, persecution of, 802.
DistincUonoetwQQU certainty and precision in
history, 601.
Divine right of kings, abandonment of, 494.
Doubt must precede investigation, 242.
Dress, changes in, before the French revolution,
662.
Du Rwillan's history of the kings of France,
555 ;— credulity of, 555.
Dupleix, history of France, 558.

Earthquakes, influence of, upon the mind, 87.
EcclesiasUcalpow&r, influence of, upon national
prosperity, 868.
EcclesiasUcal spirit in- France and England In
the middle of the 16th century, 366.
Ed/uoation, its objects, 194.
Edict of JN'antes, 372.
SQyp% population of, 63.
Elizabeth, Queen, religious toleration in her
time, 244.
'' repression of the clergy by, 465 ;— char
acter of her advisers, 465 ;— opposition to
the nobles, 466.
Encyclopedia, French, prohibited, 532.
England, critical period of, 855.
" death of great scientiflc men in, 637.
mghsh and French prejudices, 15S.
Eiighah advanc&ment, conditions of, 438.
EngUsh people, independence- of character, 447

EngUsh bishops, policy of, in the time of Wil
liam III.. 292.
English goverrmient, despotic measures of, late
in 18th century, 349.
EngUsh church, arrogance of, in times of James
IL, 285.
EngUsh vntellect, influence of upon France, 519.
English freedom of government, effect of, upon
France after Louis XIV., 527.
EngUsh rebelUon, disposition of classes in,
469 ;— a war of classes, 471 ;— a democratic
movement, 473.
EngUsh national progress, 168.
EngUsh nobiUty begin to travel, 169.
Europecvn aristocracy, beginning of, 443.
Europe, intellectual regeneration of, begins, 238.
Events controlled by law, 6.

Fenelon, banishment of, 564.
Ferrier, persecution o^ 403.
Fefudal system, origin of, 442 ;— in France, 447.
Feudalists and the church, 442.
Final ea/uses, 4:21.
Food, effects of, 40;— in hot climates, 42 ;— in
fluences population, 40 ; — ^in cold climates,
48 ;^cheap national, effect oi^ 56 ;— ^physio
logical effecta of, (note) 106.
Fo(B, Cliarles Ua/mes, estimate of, 822.
Fra/nce, provocation to revolution, 539 ; — ^infatu
ation of the govemment previous to the
revolution, 540 ;— extent of legislative inter
ference, 450 ;— second epoch of 18th century,
desperate condition o^ 551 ; — depth of the
loyal sentiment, 543.
FrankUn, ambassador to France, 666.
French, why backward in the production of
history, 555.
French and English aristocracies, different ef
fects o:^ 446.
FreTich a/nd EngUsh intellects, connexion of,
170.
Frencli church, subordinate to the crown, 545.
FreThch vntellect, history of, 868.
Fre/nch govern/ment invades the church, 606 ;—
adopts the policy of toleration, 607.
Fr&nch history changes its purpose, 581 ;— in
fluence of Turgot upon, 596.
Fr&nch/mmi, eminent learned, persecuted in
tho ISth century, 530.
French nobiUty, frivolity oi^ 484;- powers of,
445.
Frendi Ignorance of the English in the time of
Louis XIV., 518.
Frenchmen visit England after the death of
Louis XIV., 519.
Fre/nch ProtestamAs, intolerance ofi 401 ;— their
interference in private affairs, 410-413.
French rebelUon (yvat of the Fronde), condi
tions of, 470 ;— why it was neutralized, 486.
French revolution, effects of English inter
ference concerning, 846 ; — ^how to have avoid
ed it, 550; — antecedents, 659;— causes of,
after the middle of the 18th century, 599 ;—
its causes complicated, 600.
Free Press in France, 433.
Free-will, doctrine of, 610.
Fron.de, wars of, 435 ;— leaders of, 477;— objects
aimed at, 479.

Geology and chemistry, comparison of, 629.
George IIL, estimate of, 819 ;— fruits ofhis pol
icy, 343.
German literature and thought, peculiaritiea
of, ITl.
Gibbon, 808.
Golden tooth, story of, 240.
Goethe, botanical discoveries of, 652.

ALPHABETICAL INDEX.

675

Govemineni, a htndraneo to progress, 197;-
limitation of its functions, 203.
(?oi'^rnHwn/rt^ policy, French aud English, con
trasted, 463. "^ '
Greek mind, influonee of nature upon 98
Gtmpowder, effect of tho invention oi; 146.
II
Uarnilton, Sir WilUa/n, 257.
Bail!/, crystallography, systora of, 066.
Heat, diiitribution of, in America, 70.
Jlehreic reiigio7i', progress of, 1S7.
ffelvetlm, philosophy of, 621.
ffetu^ IV. of France, liberality of, 872;—policy
of, towanls tbe Protestants, 878 ; — effect of
his death, 879;— Queen of, 879.
Jlero-icorship, origin of, in Greece, 103.
Heretical opinions, last burning for, in England,
249.
EistoricaZ literature in France from end of 16th
to end of ISth century, 553.
Bistorians, death o^ in time of Louis XIV,, 562.
Bist^ry, extent of its materials, 1 ; — their mis-
use^Sj — as a science, 5; — its key and basis,
24; — infiuence of physical science upon,
25 ;— history of^ 209 ;— European, origin of,
211 ; — how its sources are corrupted, 218 ; —
fictions of, in the middle ages, 224;— su
perior to theology, 573 ; — quality o^ in time
of Louis XIV., 565;— individuals of but lit
tle account in, 593 ; — in what real history
consists, 600 ;— distinction between certainty
and precision in, 601 ; — dignity of, 671 ; —
what the author hopes to have accomplish
ed in, 671.
Bouse of Commons, origin of, 446.
House of Lords, deterioration of, 323.
Bouse of Stuart, effect of expulsion o^ 289.
Booker^s ecclesiastical polity, 246.
Burst, Dr., on the golden tooth, 240.
Human actions, mutability of standards of, 129.

Idealism, 115.
Imagination and understanding, 85; — most
powerful in the tropics, 87 ; — development
of, in India, 96.
Independents, influence of their rule, 260.
India, wages in, 55 ; — condition of laborers (Su
dras,) 56 ; — diet of, 51 j — literature of, 95.
Industry controlled by cUmate, 82.
Intellect, import o^ in national progress, 509.
IntdlectiMil systems progressive, 130.
IntelZectuM achievem&rUs lasting, 131.
Interest in India, 54.
Intercomm/unication, ameliorating effect of, 158.
Ingmsitora not morally bad, 135.
InsmiUy, progress of knowledge of; 657.
IrekMid, diet and population, 47.

Ja/mes IL, policy of, 285.
Jansmdsm, revival of; 614 ;— influences eminent
men, 615. . , , ^„_
Jeff&rson and the French NationalAssembly, 667.
Jesuits serve civilization, 609; they are out
grown by it, 609.
t/esMite, repression of, in France, 615.
Jewess apologj; for the church of England, 246.
J&ws characterized, 570.
Judas, middle age view of, 229.

Knowledge preceded by accumulation of wealth,
31' state of, in America, 174; real, in what
it consists, 194.

La Fayette, Burko's opinion of, 887.
Laud Archbishop, intiimy of, 251.
Lavoisier, 681.
Leaders of tho Endlsh rebellion from tho
working classes, 474.
Legidiifion, religious effect of, 204 ;— true policy
of, 861.
Letters forgotten to bo directed, 24.
EHdpital, 369.
Liberal opinions, effect of, 367.
Liberal treatment of the Fronch Protestants,
892.
Liberties of England, guaranties of, 448.
LibraHes and books, restraints upon, 851.
Life, animal and organic, 648.
Literature oi India, 95;— function of, 193; — ^how
it bocomos injurious, 195;— in the middle
ages, 195 ; — royal patronage of, 494 ; — should
not be rewarded by government, 496; —
French and English, relations o^ 486.
Longevity in the early ages, Indian view of, 97.
Louis XIV., his despotism, 490 ;— his policy, 491;
— effects ofhis persecutions, 492 ; — patronage
of literature, 498 ;— unfavorable to science,
499 ; — to mechanical improvement, 502 ; —
characteristics of his age, 508; — influence
upon art, 511 ; — state of tho masses in the
time of, 516;— death of, 517;— neglect of his
education, 562 ; — his treatment of historians,
563 ;— mental oharaoteristics of his reign, 568.

M
Macaulay, estimate of, 284.
Machia/oelli, 286.
Mahom/med, supposed cause of his death, 228.
Mallets "History of Denmark," 581.
Maize, 78.
Mamifacturers, superstition of, 271; — effect of
. the progress of, 274.
Marlborough as a civilian, 144.
Martin, bishop of Tours, Bossuet's view of, 572.
Marriages, proportion of, regulated by general
laws, 24.
MassiUon, 617.
Mazarin succeeds Eichelieu and adopts his lib
eral policy, 431.
Meinory, regularity of its failures, 24.
Men influenced by physical agents, 29,
Mental and physical laws, 112.
Metaphysical method of inquiiy, 109-118;—
difficulty of, 114.
Metaphysical school, modern French, 647.
Meteorology, superstition still connected with,
271.
Method, value ofj in science, 645,
Mexico, why civilized early, 71.
Mezermfs " History of France," 560 ;^persecu-
tion of, 563.
MiUtary commanders, ancient and modern, 148.
MiMary and ecclesiastical classes, decline oi; 143.
Mvneralogy, position of, 654,
Missionaries, failure of, 184.
Montaigne, essays of, 378.
MoTitesqui&u's, "Spirit of Laws," 592 ;-— charac
teristics of his method of treating history,
593 ;— flrst connects physical knowledge
with history, 595.
MonopoUes, French governmental, 450 ;— effect
of, 453.
Moral system immutable, 129.
Moral effects transitory, 131.
Moral and mie^ec^MCti progress, 125.
Moral mid ¦^tellect/uat laws, comparative in
fluence o.^ 121.
Morals, its separation from theology, 805 ; — flrst
moderii attempt to disconnect from theolo
gy, 375.

676

ALPHABETICAL INDEX.

Mwrd&r, regularity of its commission, 18.
Mythologies, Grecian and Indian, compared, 101,

Nature, aspects of, in Europe, favorable to the
understanding, 94.
Nature, mastery of, 100.
Napoleon restores ecclesiasticism, 64T.
Necessity, doctrine of, favorable to the intel
lect, 618.
Normal phenomena should be studied first, 363.

Ow&rCs odontography, 644.

Parker, Theodore, 257,
People, the, begin to figure in French history,
560.
Persecution, religious, in Spain, 134; — ^in times
of Elizabeth, 245 ;— of literary men in France
in 18th century, 535.
P&rsonal representaUon, doctrine of; in poli
tics, 312.
Physical phenomena, effect of giving attention
to, 619:
Physical Science invades the exclusive spirit in
France, 659 ;^opularity of, before the rev
olution, 660 ; — democratic tendencies of, 661 ;
cause of advancement of, in France before
the revolution, 627.
Pinel, treatise on insanity, 657.
Pitt, WilUam, 820.
Poetry, origin of, 213.
PoUUcs, condition of, 361.
PoUHcians, occupation oi; 510.
PoUtical economy, a modern science, 151 ; — old
errors of; 152 ;— French first studied, 602.
PopeUniere^s history of histories, ^59.
Pope's toe, kissing of, 229.
Potatoes as diet, 47.
Powers of nature constant, 112.
Press, liberty o^ 206.
Pride and vanity, distinction between, 480.
Private judgment, effect of, 464.
Proceedings ofthe legislature first reported, 312.
Predestination, doctrine of. 6.
Protestant reformation a rebellion, 463.
Protestants, effect of Eichelieu's liberal policy
towards, 894.
Protestantism, why more liberal than Catholi
cism, 898 ;— effect of, 189 ;— arrest of, 190 ;— a
normal movement, 365.
Protective spirit, history oi; 440 ; — carried into
literature by Louis XIV., 490 ;— reaction
against France, 517.
Protection, effect of, 438; — on French character,
453 ; — of intellect impossible by government,
609 ;— of intellect, course of events foUow
ing, 510.
PubUo meetings forbidden in England, 360.
PubUc political meeting begin In England, 811.
PubUc opinion, present authority of, 860.
Puritans, influence of, 261.

R
Rabelads, 872.
Races, distinctions of, 24.
Bacine, 565.
Reaction against the intellectual movement of
the 18th century, 815;— of the mind with
nature, 15.
Recoil of the French government at liberal
opimons in ISth century, 629.

Reform measures of the present generation, 360.
Regularity of nature, 685 ; — of human actions,
16.
Reign of terror in England, 864.
ReUgion, relation to civilization, 184 : — the ef
fect of human improvement, change of,
corrupts history, 219.
ReUgious persecutors well intentioned, 182;—
persecution, criminality of; 132, 186 ; — con
troversies, decUne of, 256;^n8titutions at
tacked in France before poUtic^, 542.
Rent in different countries, 54.
Restoration, condition of the church at the, 261.
Rhyme, early love of, 213.
Richelimc, comparison with Napoleon, 381; —
represses the spiritual classes, 382;-K;on-
firms the edict of Nantes, 415.
Rice, infiuence of; as food, 51.
Richard I. Coeur de Lion, 217.
Ri/vers, American, 69.
Rochelle, siege of, 415.
Romam, emperors, persecutions by, 138.
Rousseam, infiuence of, 604;— proscription of, 683.
Royal patronage, influence of upon literature.
494.
Royal presence, right of sitting in France, 481.
Royal societyy^mcorpoTB.tion of, 268.
Russia, miUtary spirit in, 141.

S
Sailors, superstition of, 271.
Science engages the greatest thinkers, 256 ;— ef
fect of its progress, 269.
ScienUj^c progresa and social rebellion in
France, connexion of; 658.
Scientifia ad/ca/nce/ment in France during the
latter half of the 18th century, 627.
Scotla^id, religious intolerance in, 192.
Scotch history, 177.
SensaMoncUism, 116.
Sexes, proportion in the births of, how deter
mined, 121.
Shak^eare ignorant of ancient languages, 587.
Siva, the Hindoo deity, 101.
Skeptical book, first, in the French language, 557.
Skeptical Tnovement, effect of, in 18th century,
807.
SkepUcism, effect of, 248; the beginning of sci
ence, 250 ; — ^modern, precedes inquiry, 242 ; —
benefits of, 258 ;— what the author under
stands by, 258 ;— flrst example of, in France,
372 ; — spiritual, precedes Uterary^ 554.
Smith's « Wealth of Nations,'* 154.- '^

Society, influence of legislation upon, 197.
Socialforces, complex action o^ 22.
Social orders, amalgamation o^ in France be
fore the revolution, 664.
Socrates, influence of, 258.
&)il, influence of, 88.
Soldiers, superstition of, 271.
Spain, skepticism in, 243.
/^amdsh history, 177.
Stationary classes, 463.
StaUsUcs appUed to moral actions, 17 ; — value of,
24.
Steam as a paciflcator, 160.
Stoeffler, on astronomy, of Tubingen, predicts a
deluge, 239.
^le of writing changes early in 18th century,
318.
Suicide, regularity of, 19 ; and climate, 159.
Superstition, results from physical surround
ings, 87; — of sailors and soldiers, 271 ;— how
undermined, 269; — of country-people and
towns-people, 273.
SuperaUtioua worship, origin of, 90.
Suppression of books in France in 18th cen
tury, 584.

ALPHABETICAL INDEX.

677

.s-K/'/KTmM, flrst, 448.
^icetlfii, rolisious inloleranco In, 191
"jSysiemo/Ji'ature," 020.

Taylor, Jeremy, how treated by Charles IL, 283.
Teeth, zoological import of, 644.
Theological spirit, predominance of, in Franco
in lljth century, 869.
Theology merged in polities In England, 259 ;—
and science In the time of Charles II., 263 ;
—its separation ttom politics, 808 :— decline
of, 266. r , ,
Thirty years' war, the last religious war, 891.
Tissues, animal, study ot by Bichat, 641.
Toleration, flrst public actof, in France, ST;—
in France and Scotland, 191 ; — ^forced upon
tho Christian clergy, 244; — progress of, in
England, 246 ;— present state of the Euro
pean mind concerning, 255.
Trade winei, 78.
Turgot, philosophic view of history, 596.

rn*«aWiy climates favorable to superstition, 91.
Usury laws, 205.

ToMUy, effect of upon a people, 486.
Veneration,, basis ot, 486.
Yirtue predonMuates generally oyer 'vice, 159,

Voltaire imprisoned, 580 ; beaten in the streets
of Pai'is, 681 ;— his history of Charles XII.
I'ol'bicliicn, 681 ;— roprodiicos Newton's dis
coveries, which are forbidden to bo printed,
582 ;— studios tho English, 619 ;— compared
witli Bossuet. 576 ; — turn in his studies, 678 ;
—his " Age of Louis XIV.," 579 ;— his " Mor
als, Manners, ond Characters of Nations,"
5S0; — intellectual characteristics of, 588; —
ns a historian, 588; — wars upon classical au
thors and commentators, 686 ; — uses the wea
pon of ridicule, 687 ;— services to history, 689.
W
Walpole, Horace, 828.
War-iipirit declining, 187; — causes of the de
cline of, 188 ; — ^no progress In moral views of,
187 ; — between Eussia and Turkey, 140.
Wealth precedes social Improvement, 81 ; — tho
accumulation of, controlled by physical cau
ses, 88 ;— distribution ot 88.
WeUington as a civilian, 145.
Wesley, estimate of, 808.
Wesleyanism, influence of, upon the English
church, 804
What the author understands by skepticism, 258.
Whitfield estimate o^ 808.
William III,, accession of, 290.
Women, educated, why they write in a purer
style than men, 687.
Writing, art of, 214 ; encourages the propaga
tion of falsehood, 215.

Zoology, progress of, in France, 687.

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Appleton's Dictionaiy ol MechauicB. ?
vols.  12 00
Appleton'B Mechanics' Magazine. 3 voIb.
each,  50
Allen'i PhUoaophy of Mechanics, . . S 50
Ainot'a Gothio Architecture, . . . 4 00
BaBmett'B Theory of Stonna, . . . 1 00
Boome on tho Steam Engine, . . 0 75
Brme on Logarlthma, . . . . 1 00
CAApman on the American Kifle, . 1 125
Coming's Preservation of Health, , . 15
Cnllnm on Military Bridges, . . . 2 00
Downing's Counti? HouBes, . . . 4 00
Field's City Architecture, . . . 2 00
jSriffith's Marina Architectare, . . 10 00
Gillespla'a Treatise on Surveying, . .
Haupra Theory of Bridge Construction, . S 00
Henck's Field-Book for B. R, Enfjineei-a, 1 16
Hoblyn's DictioDfuy of Scientific Terms, 1 50
HufTs Manual of Electro-Physiology, 1 25
-Jeffers' Practice of Naval Gunnery, . 2 50
Enapen'B Mechanica' Assistant, . . 1 00
lAfever'a Modem Architecture, . 4 ' 0
Lyell's Manual of Geology, . . .115
** Principles of Geology, . . .2 25
Reynold's Treatise on Handrailing, . 2 00
Templeton's Mechanic's Companion, . 1 00
Ure's Dict'ry of Arte, Manufactures, &c.
3 vols  5 00
yonmanfl' Class-Book of Chemistry, . 15
" Atlas of Chemistry, clotu, . 2 00
« Alcokol. . . . . . 50
Biography.
Arnold's Life and Correspondence, . . S 00
~ ipt. Canot, or Twenty Years of a SUvor, 1 25
_ .main's De LongueviUe, . , . . 1 00
CroBwell'a MemouB, . . . . 2 00
Evelyn's Life of Godolphin, ... 50
Garland's Life of Randolph, . . . I 50
Gilfillsn's Gallery of Portraits. 3d Series, 1 00
Heman Cortez's Life, .... 33
HuU'B CivU and Military Life, . . . 2 00
Life and Adventures of Daniel Soone, . 3S
Life of Henry Hudson, ... .38
Life of Capt. 3ohn Smith, ... 38
Moore's Life of George Castriot, . . 1 00
Napoleon's Memoirs. By Dachesa
D'Abrantes,  4 00
Napoleon. By Laurent L'ArdSche, . . 3 00
pinkney CW.) Life, By hia Nephew, . 2 00
Party Leaders : Lives of Jefferson, &c • 1 00
Boutney's life of Oliver Cromwell^ . 38
Wynne's Lives of Eminent Men, . . I 00
Webster's Life and Memorials. 2 vols. . 1 00
Books of Creneral TTtility.
A;ppletona' Southern and Western Gnide, 1 00
*^ Northern and Eastern Guide, 1 25
Appletons' Complete U. S. Guide, . . 2 00
« Map of N. Y. City, . . 25
American Practical Cook Book,
A Treatise on Artifidal Fish-Breeding, . T5
Chemistry of Common Ijfe. 2 vole. 12mo.
Cooley's Book of Useful Knowledge, . 1 S5
CuBt'a Invalid's Own Book, ... 50
Delisser's Interest Tables, . . . 4 00
The English. Cyclopaedia, per vol. . . 2 50
Miles on the Horse's Foct, ... 25
The Nursery Basket. A Book for Young
Mothers,  38
Pell'a Guide for the Young, ... 88
Reid's New Engliah Dictionary, . . I 00
Stewart's Stable Economy, . . , 1 00
Spalding's Hist, of Engjist Literature, . 1 00
Soyer's Modem Cookery, , . 1 00
The Successful Merchant, . , . I 00
Thomson on Food of Animala, , . . 50
Commerce and MercantileAffairs.
Anderson's Mercantile Correspondence, . 1 00
Deliflser's Interest Tables, , . 4 00
Merchants' Reference Book- . . . 4 00
OBtes' (Geo.) Interest Tables at 6 Per
Cent, per Annum. Svo. . . . 2 00
H «t Do. do. Abridged ed. 1 25
rf « 1 Per Cent. In'at, Tablea, 2 00
« (( Abridged, . . . 1 26
Binith's Mercantile Law, . . . . 4 00
Geography and Atlases.
Aooleton'fl Modem Atlas. 34 Mans, 3 50
**^^ « Complete Atlas. 61 Ma^-. © 00

Atlas of the Middle Ages. By Eceppeo, 4 50
Black's General Alias. 11 Maps, . .12 00
Cornell's Primary Geography, . . 50
" Intermediate Geography,
" High School Geography, .
History.
Amola's History of Rome, . , . 3 00
" Later Commonwealth, . . 2 50
" Lectures on Modem History, . 1 25
Dew's Ancient and Blodem History, . 2 00
Kceppen's History of the Middle Ages. 3
vols  2 60
" The same, folio, ¦with Maps, . 4 50
KohlrauBch's Hiatory of Germany . I 50
Mahon's (Lord) Histj^ of England Svolfl, 4 00
Michelet's History of J^rance, 3 vols. . 3 fiO
" History of the Roman Republic, 1 00
Rowan's History of the French Revolution, 63
Spragne's History of the Florida War, . 3 60
l^ylor'a Manual of Ancient History, . 1 25
" Manual of Modem History, . 1 60
" Manual of History. 1 vol. com-
lilete  3 60
Thiers' French Revolution. 4 vols. Illus. 5 00
Illustrated Works for Presents.
Bryant's Poems. 16 Illus. Svo. cloth, . 3 50
« " cloth, gilt, 4 50
*' " mor. antique, 6 00
Gems of British Art. 30 Engravings. 1
vol. 4to. morocco, . . . . 18 00
Gray's Elegy. Illustrated. Svo. . . 1 50
Goldsmith's "Deserted Village, . . 1 50
The Homes of American Authors. With
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" " cloth, gilt, 5 00
" '* mor. antqe. 1 00
The Holy Gospels. With 40 Designs by
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The Land of Bondage. By J. M. Wain-
wright, D. D. Morocco, . . . 6 00
The Queens of England. ByAgnea Strick
land. With 29 Fortr^tfl. Atvtique mor. 10 00
The Ornaments of Memory. With 18 II-
lustiations. 4to. cloth, gUt, . . . 6 00
<* " Morocco, . 10 00
Royal Gems from the Galleries of
Europe. 40 Engravings, . . , 25 00
The Republican Court ; or, American So
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Portraits. Antique mor. . . . 12 00
The Vemon Gallery. 67 Engr's. 4to. Ant. 25 00
The Women of the Bible. With 18 En-
gravings. Mor. antique, * . , 10 00
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Engravings. 4to. Antique mor. . . 25 CO
A Wmter Wreath of Summer Flowers.
By S. G. Goodrich. Illustrated. Cloth,
gilt,  3 00
Juvenile Books.
A Poetry Book for Children, ... 15
Aunt Fanny's Christmas Stories, . . 50
American Historical Tales, ... 16
UNCLE AMEREL's STORY BOOKS.
The Little Gift Book. 18mo. cloth, . 26
The Child's Story Book. Illus. ISmo. ol. 25
Summer Holidays. 18mo. cloth, . . 25
Winter Holidays. Illus. 18mo. cloth, . 25
George's Adventures in the Country. Il
lustrated. 18mo. cloth, ... 25
Christmas Stories. Illus. ISmo. cloth, . 25
Book of Trades, ..... 60
Boys at Horae. By the Author of Edgar
Clifton,  ll
Child's Cheerful Compamon, ... 60
Child's Picture and Veree Book. 100 Engs. 60
COUSIN Alice's works.
All's Not Gold that Glitters, ... 15
Contentment Better than Wealth, . . 63
Nothing Venture, Nothing Have, . . 63
No sucE Word as Fail, .... 63
Patient Waiting No Loss, ... 63
Dashwood Prioiy. By the Author of
Edfear Clifton, ••;,••"
Edgar Clifton ; or Right nnd Wrong, . 75
Fireside Fairies. By Susan Pindar, . 63
Good in Every Thmg. By Mrs, BarveU, 60
Leisure Moments Improved, . . "5
Life of Punchinello,  ''»
LIBRARY FOR MY TOUNG COUNTRY
MEN.
Adventures of Capt. John Smith. By the

Author of Un-le Philip,

Adventures of Daniel Boone. By do. . 3P
Dawnings of Genius. By Anne Pratt, . 33
Life and Adventures of Henry Hudson.
By the Author of Uncle Philip, . . 38
Life and Adventures of Heman Cortej.
By do  ss
Philip Randolph. A Tale of Virginia.
By Mary Gertrade  38 ¦
Rowan's History of the French Revolu
tion. 2 vols  75
Southey's Life of Oliver Cromwell, . 38
Louis' School-Daya. ByE. J. Ma^, . . 76
Louise ; or, The Beau^of Integrity, . 25
Maryatt's Settlers in Canada, ... 69
" Masterman Ready, ... 63
** Scenes in Africa, ... 63
Midsummer Fays. By Susan Pindar , 63
MISS Mcintosh's works.
Aunt Kitty's Tales, l2mo. ... 15
Blind Alice ; A Tale for <?ood ChCdren, . 38
Ellen Leslie ; or. The Reward of Self-Control, 38
Florence Amott ; or. Is She GeneroTisI 38
Grace and Clara ; or. Be Just as well aa
Generous,  38
Jessie Graham ; oi Friends Deat^but
Truth Dearer,  38
Emily Herbert ; or, The Happy Home, . 31
Roae and Lillle Stanhope, ... ST
Mamma's Stoiy Book, .... 75
Pebbles from the Sea-^hore, ... 31
Puss in Boots. Rlus. By Otto Specter, . 25
PETER parley's WORKS.
Faggots for the Fireside, . . . 1 13
Farley's Present for all Seosona, . . 1 DO
Wanderers by Sea and Land, . . . 1 IJ'
Wuter Wreath of Summer Flowers, . 3
TALES FOR THE PEOPLE AND
THEIR CHILDREN.
Alice Franklin. By Maiy Howitt, . . 38
Crofton Boys (The). By Harriet Martineau, 38
Dangers of Dining'Out. By Mrs. Ellis, . 3i
Domestic Tales. By HannahMore. Svols. 71
Early Friendship. By Mrs. Copley, . 3f
Farmer's Daughlier (The). By Mrs. Cam-

First Impressions. By Mrs. Ellis, . . 3S
Hope On, Hope Ever 1 By Mary Howitt, 38
Little Coin, Much Care. By do. . . 38
Looklng-GlassfortheMind. Man^ plates, 39
Love and Money. By Mary Howitt, , 38
Mmister's Faiuily. By Mrs. Ellis, . . 38
My Own Story. By Mary Howitt, . . 38
My IFncle, the Clockmaker. By do. , 39
No Sense Like Common Sense. By do. 38
Feasant and the Prince. By H, Miutinean, 28
Poplar Grove. By Mrs. Copley, , . 38
Somerville Hall. ByMrs-Ellia, . . 38
Sowing and Reaping. By Mary Howitt, 3?
Story of a Genius  38
Strive and Thrive. By do. , . . 38
The Two Apprentices. By do. . . 33
Tired of Housekeeping. By T. S. Arthur, 38
Twin Sisters (The). By Mrs. Sandhnm, 38
Which is the Wiser? By Maiy Howitt, 38
Who Shall be Greatest f By do. . , 38
Work and Wages. By do.' ... 33
SECOin) SBBBES.
Chances and Changes. By Charles Burdett, 36
Goldmaker'a ViUage. By H. Zachokke, 38
Never Too Late. By Charlea BurdetU . 38
Ocean Work, Ancient and Modem. By
J. H. Wright,  38
Picture Pleaaure Book, Ist Series, , . 1 25
" " " 2d Series, . . 1 25
Robinson Crusoe. 300 Plates, . . . I 50
Susun Pindar's Story Book, ... 75
Sunshine of Greystone, .... 16
Travels of Bob the Squirrel, . . , 3T
Wonderful Story Book, .... 50
Willy's First Present, .... 15
Week's Delight ; or, Games and Stories
for the Parlor, ..... 75
William Tell, the Hero of Switzerland, . 50
Young Student. By Madame Guizot^ ¦ 15
Miscellaneous and General Liter
ature.
An Attic Philosopher in Paris, . . 25
Appletona' Library Manual, . . . 1 2d
Agnell'a Book of Chflss, . . , . 1 28
Arnold's Miscellaneous Works, . , $ Ot
Arthur. The Successful Men:)>aot, ^

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

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