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other hand. And these two conditions, these two movements -the progress of society and the progress of humanity—are, he argues, so connected, that, sooner or later, whatever improves or degrades the internal man turns to the profit or hurt of soci ety, and whatever affects the development of society similarly affects the individual. The progress of humanity is the end; that of society the means.

It has been said that M. Guizot forgets this distinction in practice, and studies exclusively the progress of society. Those who have urged the charge, however, have overlooked the Course of 1829, which is the only complete Course of the three, and in which there is a careful examination, not merely of the political but of the intellectual state of Europe during the period of which it treats; and that the lectures of 1828 and 1830 did not embrace more than political and social development, simply because the Courses of these years were unfinished,—the former having been begun late, and the latter prematurely broken off in consequence of political events.

More might be said for an attack on the distinction itself. Humanity internal life-intellectual development, are hardly synonymous expressions, and they are neither logical antitheses nor co-ordinates to society-civil life-political development. But it must be considered that a logically satisfactory division is here. scarcely possible, and that whatever faults that of M. Guizot may have had, it was not only much better than none, but very tolerably served his purpose.

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The appeal to "natural good sense' or "general instinct" for proof of civilisation implying progress is plainly illegitimate. They have no right to pronounce civilisation to be progress, or even progress to be an essential and universal characteristic of civilisation. The truth or falsity of these propositions must be determined by facts; and the facts happen to establish that both are false. A very large part of the civilisation of the world is stationary or declining. Progressive civilisation is probably not the rule but the exception. It is only progressive civilisation which involves the notion of progress. But although progress is not essentially implied in the idea of civilisation, the opinion of Guizot to the contrary exerts no evil influence on the course of his speculations, seeing that European civilisation, the real subject of his studies, is, viewed as a whole, undoubtedly progressive.

He shows in the second lecture that modern civilisation is distinguished from ancient civilisation by being much less simple, much more diversified and complicated, by the continued coexistence, conflict, and co-operation of a vast variety of powers

and interests which in the ancient world were found apart. He insists that this in great part accounts for its superiority. And he explains it by the great diversity of the elements from which, and of the circumstances under which, modern society was formed. When Rome fell, she left behind her the municipal system, the idea of imperial majesty, and a body of written law; nor did she drag down with her the Christian Church, an organisation resting on religious doctrines and convictions, and possessed of a regular government and definite aims. Alongside of the Church was the barbaric invasion, animated by a spirit of personal liberty and of voluntary association previously unknown. Thus, at the beginning of modern civilisation, there were almost all the elements which have united in its progressive development; three societies--the municipal, a legacy of the Roman Empire, the Christian, and the Barbaric societyvery variously organised, founded upon wholly different principles, and inspiring men with wholly different sentiments. "We find the craving after the most absolute independence side by side with the most complete submission; military patronage side by side with ecclesiastical dominion; the spiritual and temporal powers everywhere present; the canons of the Church, the learned legislation of the Romans, the almost unwritten customs of the barbarians; everywhere the mixture, or rather the coexistence of the most diverse races, languages, social situations, manners, ideas, and impressions." This lecture has justly been the object of special admiration. The theory it contains is not only indubitably true as a whole, but highly important and beautifully expounded.

M. Guizot proceeds in the third lecture to point out that although the facts are as he has stated, an opinion directly to the contrary prevails, and each element, each system, has put forth a claim to have alone ruled society. "A school of feudal publicists, represented by M. de Boulanvilliers, pretends that after the fall of the Roman Empire, the conquering nation, afterwards become the nobility, possessed all powers and rights, which they have lost only through the usurpation of kings and peoples; a school of monarchists, represented by the Abbé Dubos, maintains, on the other hand, that all the acquisitions of the nobility have been unjustly wrung from the German kings, who, as the

heirs of the Roman emperors, alone ruled legitimately; a democratic school, represented by the Abbé de Mably, argues that nobles and kings have only risen to power on the ruins of popular freedom, and that the government of society primitively belonged to, and still properly belongs to, the people; while above all these monarchical, aristocratical, and popular pretensions, rises theocratical pretension, the claim of the Church to rule society in virtue of her divine title and mission." This leads our author to insist first on what he calls the idea of political legitimacy. All powers claim to be legitimate. They all refuse to admit themselves founded on force. They all thereby profess to rest on right, justice, reason. And this is why they also claim long duration, a high antiquity; for the mere fact that a power has long existed is itself a ground for believ ing that reason and right have in some measure belonged to it. "From the mere fact of its enduring, we may conclude with certainty that a society is not completely absurd, insensate, or iniquitous-that it is not utterly destitute of those elements of reason, truth, and justice which alone can give life to society. If, further, the society develops itself—if its principle grows in strength and is daily accepted by a greater number of menthat convincingly proves that in the lapse of time there has been progressively introduced into it more reason, justice, and right. It is this introduction of right and truth into the social state which has given rise to the idea of political legitimacy; it is thus that it has been established in modern civilisation."

M. Guizot is here-what he very rarely is-obscure; the reason of which no doubt is, the mysterious nature of the subject, the inscrutable profundity of the idea of political legitimacy. It is only in the dark that such a spectre of a thought can show itself. The light causes it to vanish-makes apparent its nonentity. It pretends to be a something-a right to authority-a claim to obedience; but the slightest criticism, the slightest explanation even, shows it to be in and of itself absolutely nothing. The right of any power to rule in society depends solely on the truth and justice of the reasons on which the right is rested; legitimacy is a word which may be allow ably used to express a conviction that these reasons are in a given instance satisfactory, but not to denote a reason in itself, nor anything apart from the reasons, anything added to or developed out of the reasons. Of course, if this were admitted, there would be an end of what is spoken of as political legitimacy in France.

A French legitimist is a man who argues that the claims of his party to rule are good because of legitimacy, not that they are legitimate exclusively because, and only in so far as, they are good. Legitimacy is a fiction which he interposes between his own mind or the public mind and reasons which he half-consciously suspects to be an insufficient basis for his theory; a fiction which serves to conceal their insufficiency from himself and others. It is curious to see a mind like that of M. Guizot under the sway of so poor an idol; curious to see how, instead of "casting it to the moles and bats," he decks and dresses it up anew for public homage. To M. de Boulanvilliers, feudalist; the Abbé Dubos, monarchist; the Abbé de Mably, democrat; and the Comte de Maistre, defender of the theocracy, he virtually says, "I admit all your claims; you are all right in what you affirm, and wrong only in what you deny-the powers which you severally defend are all legitimate: and my system, which comprehends and harmonises them all, is consequently pre-eminently legitimate. It is a great word—a great idea-legitimacy." And there is a certain impartiality and comprehensiveness in the answer which makes it attractive and plausible. Yet none the less is it erroneous and ensnaring. The cobweb may not be so perceptible when thus drawn out wider and thinner, but that is all,—it is still there. The truth in this case is not to be found in a general affirmation, but in a general negation. The claims which different parties have made under the name of legitimacy have not had their source in the facts and reasons which truly entitle these parties to a certain measure of authority; but in the insufficiency of their facts and reasons as a title to all the authority which they desire to exercise. Instead, therefore, of all the claims being granted, all ought to be repelled and this truth affirmed that no power has any other legitimacy than its reasonableness and its utility. This, besides being a truth, will be found at least as impartial and comprehensive a conclusion as M. Guizot's.

He next maintains that "the very dispute which has arisen between the various systems that have a share in European civilisation upon the question which predominated at its origin, proves that then they all coexisted, without any one of them prevailing generally enough, or certainly enough, to give to society its form and its name." He points out that this was precisely the characteristic of the barbarian epoch. "It was the chaos of all elements, the infancy of all systems, a universal turmoil, in which even strife was not systematic." The work of the centuries which have since elapsed has been to effect in some measure the reconciliation of these elements, the amalgamation of these systems, and to bring order and peace, with

their products, out of this chaos and turmoil. And the task which M. Guizot proposed to himself was to trace the progress of the work of the centuries.

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Other labours-other duties-prevented the complete performance of what he intended; but he accomplished sufficient to show both the excellence of his method of operation and the superiority of his intellect. The history of Europe from the fall of the Roman Empire is divided into three periods; the period of confusion, the feudal period, and the modern period. The outlines of the development of civilisation during these three periods were twice drawn by M. Guizot, first in the 'Essais' and next in the 'Cours de 1828.' But he rightly felt that outlines were not enough-that what was above all needed was a thorough, a detailed, an exhaustive analysis of civilisation. In the Cours de 1829' he undertook and accomplished such an analysis of civilisation, so far as it was represented by the civilisation of France, for the period of confusion-for the five centuries between Clovis and the end of the Carlovingian dynasty. In the following year he entered on the analysis of the feudal period; and was carrying it forward on the same comprehensive scale, and with an ability and success no less remarkable, when his Course was abruptly terminated before it was half finished-before the speculative, religious, and literary characteristics of the period had been brought under review. Beyond that point the work, unfortunately, never got. The last or strictly modern period of European, or even French history, was never taken up at all. Thus the Course of 1829 is the only one in which the method of M. Guizot is seen fully exemplified; in which a period of civilisation is analysed with the thoroughness and exhaustiveness which he deemed essential. It is especially in it that his historical philosophy is to be seen in operation. Let us recall what he does there.

After the preliminary lecture to which I have already had occasion to refer, he describes the social and intellectual, the civil and religious, state of society in Gaul prior to the German invasion, at the end of the fourth and the beginning of the fifth century (L. 2-6); then the dispositions, the manners, and institutions of the Germans before they began to take possession of the lands of the Celt and the Roman (7); and next, the invasion

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