missing their aim, they were doomed to sink still lower in that ignominious vassalage, which makes even the most splendid periods of their political history a warning and a lesson to the civilized world.

CHAPTER XIV.

PROXIMATE CAUSES OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AFTER THE MIDDLE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

In the last chapter but 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 Revolution. The result of the inquiry has been, that the French intellect was stimulated into activity by the examples and teachings of England; and that this stimulus caused, or at all events encouraged, a great breach between the government of France and its literature ;—a breach the more remarkable, because during the reign of Louis XIV. the literature, notwithstanding its temporary brilliancy, had been invariably submissive, and had intimately allied itself with the government, which was always ready to reward its services. We have also seen that, this rupture having arisen between the governing classes and the intellectual classes, it followed, that the former, true to their ancient instincts, began to chastize that spirit of inquiry to which they were unaccustomed: hence those persecutions which, with hardly a single exception, were directed against every man of letters, and hence too those systematic attempts to reduce literature to a subserviency similar to that in which it had been held under Louis XIV. It has, moreover, appeared, that the great Frenchmen of the eighteenth century, though smarting from the injuries constantly inflicted on them by the government and the church, abstained from attacking the government, but directed all their hostility against the church. This apparent anomaly, of the religious institutions being assailed,

and the political institutions being spared, has been shown to be a perfectly natural circumstance, arising out of the antecedents of the French nation; and an attempt has been made to explain what those antecedents were, and how they acted. In the present chapter, I purpose to complete this inquiry by examining the next great stage in the history of the French mind. It was needful that, before both church and state could fall, men should change the ground of their hostility, and should attack political abuses with the zeal they had hitherto reserved for religious ones. The question, therefore, now arises, as to the circumstances under which this change took place, and the period when it actually occurred.

The circumstances which accompanied this great change are, as we shall presently see, very complicated; and, as they have never yet been studied in connexion with each other, I shall, in the remaining part of this volume, examine them at considerable length. On this point it will, I think, be practicable to arrive at some precise and well-defined results respecting the history of the French Revolution. But the other point, namely, the time at which the change took place, is not only much more obscure, but by its nature will never admit of complete precision. This, however, is a deficiency it possesses in common with every other change in the history of man. The circumstances of each change may always be known, provided the evidence is ample and authentic. But no amount of evidence can enable us to fix the date of the change itself. That to which attention is usually drawn by the compilers of history is, not the change, but is merely the external result which follows the change. The real history of the human race is the history of tendencies which are perceived by the mind, and not of events which are discerned by the senses. It is on this account that no historical epoch will ever admit of that chronological precision familiar to antiquaries and genealogists. The death of a prince, the loss of a battle, and the change of a dynasty, are matters which fall entirely within the province of the senses; and the moment in which they

happen can be recorded by the most ordinary observers. But those great intellectual revolutions upon which all 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 coördinate the results of what we have separately studied. By this means we arrive at certain general conclusions, which, like the ordinary estimate of averages, increase in value in proportion as we increase the number of instances from which they are collected. That this is a safe and available method, appears not only from the history of physical knowledge, but also from the fact, that it is the basis of the empirical maxims by which all men of sound understanding are guided in those ordinary transactions of life to which the generalizations of science have not yet been applied. Indeed such maxims, which are highly valuable, and which in their aggregate form what is called common sense, are never collected with any thing like the precautions that the philosophic historian ought to feel himself 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 which the historian diverges from the annalist. That the English intellect, for example, is gradually becoming more democratic, or, as it is termed, more liberal, is as certain as that the crown of this country is worn by Queen Victoria. But though both these statements are equally 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 will be known with equal precision; and there can be no doubt that many other particulars respecting her will be minutely and accurately preserved. In tracing, however, the growth of English liberalism, all such exactness deserts us. We can point out the year in which the Reform Bill

For a popular but able view of the value of averages in scientific inquiries, see Herschel's Disc. on Nat. Philos. pp. 215-219.

was passed; but who can point out the year in which the Reform Bill first became necessary? In the same way, that the Jews will be admitted into parliament, is as certain as that the Catholics have been admitted. Both these measures are the inevitable result of that increasing indifference to theological disputes, which must now be obvious to every man who does not wilfully shut his eyes. But while we know the hour in which the bill for Catholic emancipation received the assent of the crown, there is no one now living who can tell even the year in which similar justice will be granted to the Jews. Both events are equally certain, but both events are not equally precise.

This distinction between certainty and precision I have stated at some length, because it seems to be little understood, and because it is intimately connected with the subject now before us. The fact of the French intellect having, during the eighteenth century, passed through two totally distinct epochs, can be proved by every description of evidence; but it is impossible to ascertain the precise time when one epoch succeeded the other. All

2 As we see in the pretensions set forth by mathematicians, who often suppose that an amount of certainty can be attained in their own pursuits not to be found in any other. This error has probably arisen, as Locke suggests, from confusing clearness with certainty. Essay on Human Understanding, book iv. chap. ii. secs. 9 and 10, in Works, vol ii. pp. 73, 74. See also Comte, Philos. Pos. vol. i. p. 103, where it is justly observed, that all branches of knowledge capable of being generalized into sciences admit of equal certainty, but not of equal precision: "si, d'après l'explication précédente, les diverses sciences doivent nécessairement présenter une précision très-inégale, il n'en est nullement ainsi de leur certitude." This is handled unsatisfactorily by Montucla (Hist. des Mathémat. vol. i. p. 33), who says, that the principal cause of the peculiar certainty reached by the mathematician is, that "d'une idée claire il ne déduit que des conséquences claires et incontestables." Similarly, Cudworth (Intellect. System, vol. iii. p. 377): “nay the very essence of truth here is this clear perceptibility, or intelligibility." 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 intuitives Erkenntniss klärer ist, als ein discursives. Obgleich also beides, das mathematische und das philosophische Vernunfterkenntniss, an sich gleich gewiss ist, so ist doch die Art der Gewissheit in beiden verschieden." Logik, Einleitung, sec. 9, in Kant's Werke, vol. i. p. 399. On the opinions of the ancients respecting certainty, compare Matter, Hist. de l'Ecole d'Alexandrie, vol. i. p. 195, with Ritter's Hist. of Ancient Philos. vol. ii. p. 46, vol. iii. pp. 74, 426, 427, 484, 614.