tempt to lead it. He should be satisfied with studying what is passing around him; and should modify his schemes, not according to the notions he has inherited from his fathers, but according 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 by a sense of their own progress, are growing weary of idle talk about the wisdom of their ancestors, and are fast discarding those trite and sleepy maxims which have hitherto imposed upon them, but by which they will not consent to be much longer troubled.

the natural march of affairs which still characterizes politicians, even in the freest countries.

CHAPTER VIII.

OUTLINE OF THE HISTORY OF THE FRENCH INTELLECT FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY TO THE ACCESSION TO POWER OF LOUIS XIV.

THE consideration of these great changes in the English 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 been found, that the best way of arriving at a theory of disease is by beginning with the theory of health; and that the foundation of all sound pathology must be first sought in an observation, not of the abnormal, but of the normal functions of life. Just in the same way, it will, I believe, be found, that the best method of arriving at great social truths, is by first investigating those cases in which society has developed itself according to its own 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

1 The question as to whether the study of normal phenomena should or should not precede the study of abnormal ones, is of the greatest importance; and a neglect of it has introduced confusion into every work I have seen on general or comparative history. For this preliminary being unsettled, there has been no recognized principle of arrangement; and historians, instead of following 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, sometimes according to their size, sometimes according to their antiquity, sometimes according to their geographical position, sometimes according to their wealth, sometimes according to their religion, sometimes according to the brilliancy of their literature, and sometimes according to the facilities which the historian himself possess ed for collecting materials. All these are factitious considerations; and, in a phil. osophic view, it is evident that precedence should be given to countries by the historian solely in reference to the ease with which their history can be generalized; following in this respect the scientific plan of proceeding from the simple to the complex. This leads us to the conclusion, that in the study of Man, as in the study of Nature, 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 more they have been interfered with, the lower they must be placed in an arrangement of the history of various countries. Coleridge (Lit. Remains, vol. i. p. 326, and elsewhere in his

the position of France, I have begun by examining the position of England. In order to understand the way in which the diseases 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, by being subjected to smaller interference, and allowed with greater liberty to continue its natural march. With the light, therefore, which we have acquired by 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 dearest interests of civilization were imperilled.

In France, a long train of events, which I shall hereafter relate, 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 as Coleridge, I cannot help saying that this is contradicted by an immense amount of evidence, and, so far as I am aware, is supported by none. It is contradicted by the fact, that those branches of inquiry which deal with phenomena little affected by foreign causes, have been raised to sciences sooner than those which deal with phenomena greatly affected by foreign causes. The organic world, for example is more perturbed by the inorganic world, than the inorganic world is perturbed by it. Hence we find that the inorganic sciences have always been cultivated before the. organic ones, and 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 successfully 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 systematic researches, on a large scale, have yet been made into the morbid anatomy of plants. It appears, therefore, that different ages and different sciences bear unconscious testimony to the uselessness of paying much attention to the abnormal, until considerable progress has been made in the study of the normal; and this conclusion might be confirmed by innumerable authorities, who, differing from Coleridge, hold that phys iology is the basis of pathology, and that the laws of disease are to be raised, not from the phenomena presented in disease, but from those presented in health; in other words, that pathology should be investigated deductively rather than induc tively, and that morbid anatomy and clinical observations may verify the 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 l'Organisation, vol. ii. pp. 9, 10, 127; Bowman's Surgery, in Encyclop. of the Medical Sciences, p. 824; Bichat, Anatomie Générale, vol. i. p. 20; Cullen's Works, vol. i. p. 424; Comte, Philos. Positive, vol. iii. pp. 334, 335; Robin et Verdeil, Chimie Anatomique, vol. i. p. 68; Esquirol, Maladies Mentales, vol. i. p. 111; Georget, de la Folie, pp. 2, 391, 392; Brodie's Pathology and Surgery, p. 3; Blain ville, Physiologie comparée, vol. i. p. 20; Feuchtersleben's Medical Psychology, p. 200; Laurence's Lectures on Man, 1844, p. 45; Simon's Pathology, p. 5.

Another confirmation of the accuracy of this view is, that pathological investi gations of the nervous system, numerous as they have been, have effected scarcely any thing; the reason evidently being, that the preliminary knowledge of the or mal state is not sufficiently advanced. See Noble on the Brain, pp. 76-92, $37 838; Henry on the Nervous System, in Third Report of Brit. Assoc. p. 78; Hol land's Medical Notes, p. 608; Jones and Sieveking's Patholog. Anat. p. 211.

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 enlightened age a serious evil. The proof of this was soon apparent. For when the Reformation broke out, the church had in England been so weakened that it fell almost at the first assault; 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-established prescription by which the claims of the profession are mainly supported. This, as we have already seen, was the beginning of an uninterrupted progress, in which, at every successive 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 Reformation, and thus preserve for themselves those exclusive privileges which their English brethren vainly attempted to retain.

This was the beginning of that second marked divergence between French and English civilization, which had its origin, . indeed, at a much earlier period, but which 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, by prejudging the opinions of men, has impeded the march of their knowledge. It is on this account that Protestantism, so far from

4

2 A circumstance which Harris relates with evident delight, and goes out of his way to mention it. Lives of the Stuarts, vol. iii. p. 300. On the amount of loss the church thus sustained, see Sinclair's Hist. of the Revenue, vol. i. pp. 181-184, and Eccleston's English Antiquities, p. 228.

The first divergence arose from the influence of the protective spirit, as I shall endeavour to explain in the next chapter.

On the obligations Europe is under to the Catholic clergy, see some liberal and very just remarks in Kemble's Saxons in England, vol. ii. pp. 374, 375; and in Guizot's Civilisation en France. See also Neander's Hist. of the Church, vol. iii. pp. 199-206, 255-257, vol. v. p. 138, vol. vi. pp. 406, 407; Palgrave's Anglo-Saxon Commonwealth, vol. i. p. 655; Lingard's Hist. of England, vol. ii. p. 44; Klimrath, Travaux sur l'Hist. du Droit, vol. i. p. 394; Carwithen's Hist. of the Church of England, vol. i. p. 157.

The way in which this acted is concisely stated by Tennemann: "Wenn sich nun auch ein freierer Geist der Forschung regte, so fand er sich gleich durch zwe

being, as its enemies have called it, an aberration arising from accidental causes, was essentially a normal movement, and was the legitimate expression of the wants of the European intellect. Indeed, the Reformation owed its success, not to a desire of purifying the church, but to a desire of lightening its pressure; and it may be broadly stated, that it was adopted in every civilized 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, unhappily, the case with France, where the clergy not only triumphed over the Protestants, but appeared, for a time, to have gained fresh authority by the defeat of such dangerous enemies."

The consequence of all 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 sixteenth century, become so feeble, that even intelligent foreigners were struck by the peculiarity." The same nation, which, during the Crusades, had sacrificed innumerable lives in the hope of planting the Christian standard in the heart of Asia, was

Grundsätze, welche aus jenem Supremat der Theologie flossen, beengt und gehemmt. Der erste war: die menschliche Vernunft kann nicht über die Offenbarung hinausgehen. Der zweite die Vernunft kann nichts als wahr erkennen, was dem Inhalte der Offenbarung widerspricht, und nichts für falsch erkennen, was derselben angemessen ist,-folgte aus dem ersten." Gesch. der Philos. vol. viii. part i. p. 8.

As to the influence of the Reformation generally, in increasing the power of the Catholic clergy, see M. Ranke'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. 233-235. Corero, who was ambassador in France in 1569, writes, "Il papa può dire a mio giudizio, d' aver in questi romori piuttosto guadagnato che perduto, perciochè tanta era la licenza del vivere, secondo che ho inteso, prima che quel regno si dividesse in due parti, era tanta poca la devozione che avevano in Roma e in quei che vi abita. vano, che il papa era più considerato come principe grande in Italia, che come capo della chiesa e pastore universale. Ma scoperti che si furono gli ugonotti, cominciarono i cattolici a riverire il suo nome, e riconoscerlo per vero vicario di Cristo, confirmandosi tanto più in opinione di doverlo tener per tale, quanto più lo sentivano sprezzare e negare da essi ugonotti." Relations des Ambassadeurs Venitiens, vol. ii. p. 162. This interesting passage is one of many proofs that the immediate advantages derived from the Reformation have been overrated; though the remote advantages were undoubtedly immense.

The indifference of the English 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 ii. chap. xii. p. 365. Perlin, 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 in many people, saying, Be not transported with divers sorts of winds, but be constant and steady to your belief." Antiquarian Repertory, vol. iv. p. 511, 4to, 1809. See also the remarks of Michele in 1557, and of Crespet in 1590; Ellis's Original Letters, 2d series, vol. ii. p. 239; Hallam's Constitutional History, vol. i. p. 102; Southey's Commonplace Book, 3d series, p. 408.

An historian of the thirteenth century strikingly expresses the theological feelings of the English Crusaders, and the complete subordination of the political ones: "Indignum quippe judicabant animarum suarum salutem omittere, et obse. quium cœlestis Regis, clientele regis alicujus terreni postponere; constituerunt