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astical education alone, but embracing all the chief kinds of intellectual culture. The works of Thomas Aquinas, and even of Dante, show that the new metaphysical spirit had invaded the whole intellectual and moral study of individual Man, and was already extending to social speculations so as to indicate the approaching emancipation of human reason from all purely theological guardianship. The canonization of the great scholastic doctor was his due for his eminent political services; but it shows the involuntary implication of the popes in the new mental activity, and their prudence in incorporating with their system whatever was not directly hostile to it. At first, the anti-theological character of metaphysics could disclose itself only in the form of a livelier and more pertinacious heresy and schism: but the great decisive struggles of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries against the European power of the popes and the ecclesiastical supremacy of the papal see, occasioned a large and permanent application of the new philosophy to social questions. Having attained all the speculative perfection it admitted of, it entered henceforth more and more into political controversy; and, as it grew more negative in regard to the old spiritual organization, it became necessarily destructive also of the corresponding temporal power, which it had at first stimulated in its universal encroachments. Thus it is that, up to the last century, the metaphysical power of the universities came to take the lead in the work of destructive change.. When we hereafter review the results of the movement, we shall find abundant light cast upon the analysis here presented.

The Legists.

If we turn to the corresponding temporal state, we can now see how necessary was the relation, in regard both to doctrines and persons, between the class of scholastic metaphysicians and that of the contemporary legists. Through the study of ecclesiastical law, the new philosophical spirit must enter into the study of social questions and of law in general; and next, the teaching of law must be a privilege of the universities; besides that the canonists, properly so called, who were the immediate offspring of the Catholic system, were the first order of legists subjected to a distinct organization. The affinity of the two orders is so marked that it might be natural to look upon the legists as metaphysicians passed from the speculative into the active state: but they are not so; but rather an emanation of the feudal power, whose judiciary functions fell into their hands and their hostility to the Catholic power was naturally for ever on the increase through the collisions between the ecclesiastical tribunals and the civil jurisdictions, royal and seigneurial. They began to be powerful before the decline of the Catholic system; their influence increased during the absence of the feudal chiefs in the Crusades, from the judiciary administration of affairs at home remaining in their hands; and the great conflicts of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries opened

boundless scope and congenial employment to their activity. This was the season of their highest triumph, because their political ambition was then in harmony with their real service in aid of human progression: and, in regard to both classes, this was the age of lofty intellect and noble character. When this new social element had sufficiently aided, first, the efforts of the kings to free themselves from the control of the popes, and then, the opposition of the national churches to the papal supremacy, it had done its highest work on behalf of modern society, and had little more to do than to guard the results obtained from the always threatening reaction of the discomfited forces of the old organization. What its later action has been, we shall soon have occasion to observe. All that I need point out here is that, as these two bodies never had any organizing principle or power, their sway could be only temporary, and for purposes of mere preparation for a future organic state; and that such social order as was preserved during their rule must be attributed to the resistant action of the ancient powers, which still retained the direction of society, though more and more encroached upon by revolutionary modifications. If led to any attempt to construct and organize, the metaphysicians have no other resort, for principles and materials, than to the theological system, nor the legists than to the military system, which it is their very function to discredit and destroy; and thus we know by anticipation that their power must expire with the last remains of the ancient régime.

Having surveyed the revolutionary movement of modern society in its nature, its course, and its organs, we have now only to observe its fulfilment.

The spontaneous stage of the spiritual decay is the first aspect Period of sponwhich claims our attention, because it brings after it taneous spirit- all the rest. It was not only the first to be fulfilled, ual decline. the most difficult and the most decisive; but it involved the ruin of the whole régime. The efforts of the kings to overthrow the European power of the popes, which constitute the first aspect of the decline, may be referred to the fourteenth century, beginning with the strong reaction of Philippe-le-Bel, followed by the translation of the Holy See to Avignon: while the fifteenth century is the date of the second series of efforts, that of the national churches against the papacy; beginning with the schism which arose out of the removal of the Holy See, and strengthened by the impulse imparted by the spontaneous union of the various churches against the papacy, in the celebrated Council of Constance. The first movement was essential to the second; as the national clergies could not place themselves under the direction of their respective chiefs till the chiefs themselves had escaped from the papal thraldom. Of all revolutionary operations, this appears to me to be the greatest; for it broke up the foundations of the

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monotheistic régime of the Middle Ages, by occasioning the spiritual power to be absorbed by the temporal. The kings were blind to the consequences of their own acts when they destroyed the intellectual and moral foundations of the supremacy which they hoped to usurp, but which was effectual only in virtue of being independent of temporal power; and the various clergies, striving for nationality in order to escape from Romish centralization, were unaware that they were degrading their order by passing over from the authority of a single natural head to that of a multitude of military powers, whom they must regard as their spiritual inferiors; thus placing each church in an oppressive state of political dependence, through their own desire for an irrational independence. The reaction of these movements upon the popes tended to aggravate the injury to the Catholic constitution. From the middle of the fourteenth century, when the sagacity of the popes assured them of the approaching emancipation of the kings in England, France, etc., while the eagerness of the national clergies in supporting all restrictions on papal power indicated their approaching nationalization, it is evident that the popes began to occupy themselves with their principality, which had before been merely an accessory object of solicitude, but which was now becoming the only real part of their political power. Before the close of the fifteenth century, the ancient chief of the European system had sunk down to be the elective sovereign of a part of Italy, no longer ruling the civilized world, but striving for his own territorial aggrandisement, and to obtain a royal station for the long series of pontifical families, so as to make the absence of the hereditary principle almost an evil in the midst of this flood of nepotism. The papal power was now merely Italian: it had abdicated its noblest political attributes: and it lost its social utility, so as to become, more and more, a foreign element in the constitution of modern society. Hence dates the retrograde character of the Catholic polity, which had been so long progressive. Thus it was that all the essential elements of the Middle Age polity concurred, in their several ways, in the irrevocable decline of the spiritual power, which constituted its strength and dignity. And thus it is clear that the first disorganization was almost accomplished before the advent of Protestantism, which was its result and not its cause, whatever may have been the subsequent influence which flowed from its systematic sanction of the demolition of the Catholic system.

Indispensable as this demolition was, it left an immense gap in the body of European polity, the elements of which were now delivered over to conflict without restraint. A melancholy example of this is afforded by the frivolous and fierce wars of the principal countries, and especially by those between England and France, while the unavailing efforts of the popes to make peace

proved merely that their European authority was gone. An exuberant military activity remained over from the system of defensive war; and the protracted ascendency of the military caste united with it to give that strange character to the wars of the period which contrasts so unfavourably with the social interest of wars of an earlier time, and even with that of the religious wars of the next century. The evils of the situation were aggravated by the decline, at the same time, of the political influence which had hitherto regulated international relations. Two centuries before, the papacy had struggled successfully with a similar difficulty: but now it was decrepit. Its period of splendour was not long gone by, and its will was ardent and sincere as ever; but, in accordance with, and in proof of its temporary character, it failed utterly in its political vocation, through no accidental obstacles, but in consequence of its early disorganization. We shall soon see by what provisional expedient modern polity endeavoured to supply, as far as possible, this vast defalcation.

Spontaneous temporal

The disorganization of the temporal system, though proceeding throughout the thirteenth century, could not show its effects while the Catholic system remained undecline. impaired but no sooner did the spiritual system begin to fall asunder than there was such disorder in the temporal as threatened the entire subversion of the feudal system, by destroying the balance of powers of the kings and the nobles. The local force of the nobles had, before the end of the fifteenth century, almost entirely absorbed the central force of the kings, as well as the spiritual power,—an inevitable consequence of the rise of the industrial spirit, and the attendant antipathy to the old military temper. It may seem as if the struggles of that time showed anything but a release from a military state of society: but, in fact, such wars as were taking place were fatal to the social consideration of the dominant military class, who, in warring against the civilization which it had been their function to protect, were manifesting the most unquestionable of all symptoms of decay,-that of turning against their original aim. The feudal organism was near its end when, instead of restraining the system of invasion, it became the general invader. The memorable institution of standing armies, begun in Italy and fully developed in France, marked the complete dissolution of the temporal system of the Middle Ages, both by manifesting the repugnance of industrial society to feudal service, and by substituting a wholly new military subordination for that of feudal warriors to their chiefs. The change was highly beneficial to industry; but it deprived the ancient military caste of its special prerogative. In this process of change, the gain was certain to be on the side of the kings. When the balance was once destroyed, the nobles were sure to be the sufferers, from the encouragement that the feudal system offered to the growth of the central

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power. As the decline of the spiritual power wrought in the contrary direction,-that is, against the kings,-all Europe would have been in a state of complete dismemberment, but for the advantage given to the central power by the temporal dissolution. Of the few exceptional cases of the political ascendency of the aristocracy over royalty, the most remarkable is that of England; and that it is an exceptional case should be well understood by those who would transplant the temporary system peculiar to England to the Continent, with the idea that the work of political renovation was then complete. The case and polity of England are perfectly singular, owing, I think, to the two circumstances of her insular position and the double conquest she has undergone; the first admitting of an undisturbed course of social development; and the other provoking a coalition of the nobles against royalty, as a result of the Norman Conquest. Moreover, that conquest, by its results, favoured the combination of the aristocratic league with the industrial classes, by means of the valuable intermediary class of the Saxon nobles; an intervention which existed nowhere else. As it does not accord with the abstract character of my inquiry to go further into detail, I must content myself with referring the reader to the case of Scotland, in proof that the double conquest had more influence than insular position in determining the peculiarity of the English case; and to those of Venice first, and afterwards of Sweden,, as instances of the political development of which England is the most striking example.

Thus, towards the end of the fifteenth century, we see that the spiritual power was absorbed by the temporal; and one of the elements of the temporal power thoroughly subordinated to the other so that the whole of the vast organism was dependent on one active central power, generally royalty,-when the disintegration of the whole system was about to become systematic. I have already said that the process occupied two periods, the Protestant, properly so called, and the deistical.

True character

mation.

After what we have seen, we shall easily understand that the Reformation simply put the seal on the state of modern society, such as it was after the changes, of the Refor particularly of the spiritual power, of the two preceding centuries. The revolutionary condition, I must observe, was as marked among the nations who remained Catholic, as among those who professed Protestantism; though the characteristics of the change were different. The subordination of the spiritual power affected all the West of Europe, and all orders of persons who inhabited it,―priests and popes, as well as kings, nobles, and people. When Henry VIII. separated from Rome, Charles V. and Francis I. were almost as fully emancipated as re. The two points of change which alone have remained common to all sects were the breaking up the centralization of the papal power, and the national