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morality. And if there seemed reason to apprehend that the subordination of the female sex would suffer by the independence obtainable by women under the industrial system, the danger was fully compensated for by men having engrossed various occupations that before belonged to women, and thus consigned the feebler sex to that domestic destination to which alone it is completely adapted.

Social effect.

Proceeding to the social aspect of the change, we see that the industrial movement abolished the system of Caste by setting up against the ancient superiority of birth that of wealth acquired by industry. What the Catholic system had done in suppressing the sacerdotal caste, and founding spiritual rank on capacity, the industrial movement realized in its own way, in regard to even the lowest social functions. The tendency to inheritance of occupation gave way in the lower ranks before the instinct of general improvement which had caused the enfranchisement itself; and in the higher ranks, before the well-known impossibility of preserving great commercial and manufacturing fortunes in the same families. These causes, combined with the increasingly special character of employments, favoured, by merely temporal methods, a closer agreement between aptitudes and destination : and at the same time, the natural connection between private and public interest was directly improved by that marvellous instinctive social economy by which each industrial member is constantly employed in devising and carrying out new methods of serving the community, every private operation assuming the character of a public function, and the broad old division between the two becoming indistinguishable. Much of this action arose, certainly, from the self-interest and cunning proper to emancipated slaves: but the love of gain is surely preferable to the love of pillage which preceded it. Much of the imperfection of the industrial system is due to the absence of organization; and the rest to the imperfection of human nature; but the vices which may be remedied and those which cannot are a good exchange for those of a period of slavery and war. As for the industrial influence, as it affected social transactions,-it substituted the principle of reconciliation of interests for the spirit, first hostile and then litigious, which had prevailed before. During the medieval period, when industrial communities legislated independently, before the formation of the greater polities, there were commercial tribunals and regulations which do great honour to the Hanseatic merchants, whose jurisdiction contrasts very favourably with others of that age. Even such despotic action as there was in the system was an improvement. Considering the natural indolence of the human. constitution, it could hardly have been foreseen that the prevailing desire of the majority of free men would be for permanent labour; but when this happened, the granting or refusal of work became the

common basis of social discipline, preventive and coercive, and the great substitute for direct force. However this new power may need regulation, there can be no doubt of its superiority to the military principle of discipline, in which pain and death were the sanction of all subordination. The industrial principle of discipline is less oppressive, more indirect, and therefore avoidable; and it leaves room for a clearer and more active sense of the reciprocal need of co-operation, and for more conciliating manners. The international operation of the industrial spirit is as remarkable as any part of its action. All causes of international antipathy, even the religious, have succumbed to it. Deficient as it is in organization, the most powerful retrograde system has receded before it; even the national egotism of England having been unable to restrain the perpetual extension of the pacific dispositions of commerce towards rival nations. Whatever may have been the original effect of the military spirit in extending human association, it not only had been completely exhausted, but it could never have been comparable to the industrial spirit in admitting of the total assimilation of the human race.

This estimate of the qualities of the industrial system was required by the vastness of the change which it introduced into social life. It brings us up to the assigned date, at the opening of the fourteenth century, whence, having settled the relation of the industrial period to more ancient institutions, we may proceed with our historical analysis of its development. In what remains for me to say, it will be understood that, for reasons already sufficiently explained, I speak of the concentrated industry of

towns.

The policy of the labouring classes, from their first emancipation onwards, has been, generally speaking, distinguished by two characteristics, speciality, with liberty for its condition; that is, such new powers as have been sought have been desired for industrial purposes; and political efforts have had industrial liberty for their object.

It was as a safeguard of such elementary freedom that the Industrial primitive independence of the town populations was policy. so important, in the midst of many errors: and this was the destination of the guilds which incorporated the members of each craft, and protected individual industry at first, however they might oppress it at last. By preventing capricious changes of occupation also, they helped the formation of industrial manners, and exerted a moral influence which was of high importance in so new a mode of life. This is the true origin of the characteristic passion of modern society for universal and permanent liberty, as a natural consequence of personal emancipation, and a condition of every man's proper activity. In as far as it rested on an industrial basis, their policy was secure: and we must therefore depart from

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common opinion so far as to think that the preceding political repression, under the theological and military system, was fortunate for the new element, as long as it was not fatal to it. An evidence of this is afforded by the misfortunes of communities in which the repression ceased too soon, and retrograde influences were mixed. up with the progressive, in the form of political ambition. The Italian cities, which had been foremost in political liberty, paid for the privilege by fatal mutual animosities and internal quarrels, till their turbulent independence issued everywhere in the supremacy of a local family,-first feudal in Lombardy, and afterwards industrial in Tuscany. But Venice was saved from the fate of her neighbours: and the Hanse Towns, by their political liberty being restricted till their commerce was established, escaped all fruitless disturbances of the industrial life, which grew up within them as prosperously as in the midst of the most powerful feudal organizations,-like those of England and France. And thus the action of the corresponding régime, which appeared to be so much pure hindrance to the new element, was in fact one of the main conditions of its development.

The relation of the industrial element to the corresponding powers, and especially the spiritual, may be easily Relation to anticipated. It was warmly welcomed by Catholi- Catholicism. cism, both on account of its conformity with the general spirit of the system, and as an ally of the ecclesiastical power in its political antagonism. On the other hand, there were discordances from the theological character of the philosophy of the time. Besides the anti-theological character of industry, as action by Man on the external world, a more direct discrepancy arose between the ardour of industrial activity and the due Christian care for personal salvation. The absolute character of theological doctrine prevented its accommodation to circumstances unforeseen at the time of its formation; and it could only interfere by vague and imperfect precepts, which were often incompatible with the conditions of industrial life. One instance of this is the denunciation of usury by the clergy. After being of some use in restraining cupidity, this prohibition became a hindrance to indispensable transactions, and indirectly stimulated extortion. To this day the clergy have been unable, after all their laborious theological speculation, to agree upon any theory about the interest of money lent; and thus has religious morality, devoid of popular good sense, been for ages an unsuccessful adversary of industry, with popular wisdom for its ally. The opposition thus arising explains why the labouring classes, though receiving with respect the intervention of the clergy in their general affairs, always turned with decided preference to the temporal power, which never seriously the temporal interfered with their activity. Before the time came authority. for social rivalship between the aristocracy of birth and that of wealth,

Relation to

the industrial class regarded the nobility as (by their luxury) the great cause of production, and, by the superiority of their moral training, the best types of individual perfection. In both these ways feudal manners have certainly been constantly favourable to industry. To this day new inventions are proposed even too much with a view to the rich few rather than the great multitude of consumers; and social superiority and hereditary wealth have, on the whole, encouraged a largeness of views and a generosity of sentiment among the feudal class which would have been incompatible with the special pre-occupations of industrial pursuit, and which have ever been looked up to as matters of imitation by the labouring classes. There is every reason to suppose that the possession of a great patrimonial fortune will always be a ground of social influence; and it is difficult to overrate its importance in the times nearest to the origin of industrial pursuit. The attachment to royalty must have been more eminent than that to aristocracy; and while industry was looking up to the local temporal authority, whatever might be its form, it usually turned with a higher preference to the central element; for royalty offered all the advantages of aristocracy, without the same danger from collision; the only set-off being the payment of taxes, which could not have appeared burdensome to nations who were yet in the fresh enjoyment of this power of commuting their social difficulties. Thus the industrial populations in general were specially attached to royalty, at the very time that in some exceptional cases-in England, for one-they were leagued with the nobility against royalty, and, by that permanent tendency, retarding the natural decline of the royal

power.

Administration.

As for the management of the industrial polity, it at first fell into the hands of the clergy or nobles, whose interests were bound up with those of the industrial communities; and chief among them we observe the recent religious orders, and then some great feudal families, who acquiesced in the new state of things, and were content to establish their greatness on an alliance with industry. But a special class was soon required for the conduct of the new polity; and that class was the Legists, whom we have seen before to be occupied in taking the old system to pieces, while we here find them helping to construct the new one. However deplorable their influence has since been found, from its undue protraction, we must not forget that it was indispensable, at a time when the Legists were the only class who could confer with the ancient powers about industrial affairs, whose interests were bound up with those of town populations, and whose intervention set the working classes free to follow their own occupations, without disturbance from political agitations which could be carried on by deputy.

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The reader will remember that the five centuries of the revolu

tionary period were, in the last chapter, divided into Three periods.

three portions that the period of spontaneous decay

of the ancient system extended to the end of the fifteenth century; and that the subsequent period of systematic destruction was divided into two,-the Protestant period of the negative philosophy, extending to about the middle of the seventeenth century, and the Deistical period, occupying the rest of the time. The same division precisely suits the analysis of industrial development; and I therefore repeat it, impressed with the coincidence of the periods of critical and organic progression. It was perfectly natural that the two movements should proceed together. The decaying powers gave out some of their strength to the rising ones, both through the sympathy which the Catholic and feudal spirit entertained for nascent industry, and for the political reasons which urged the temporal power to secure the support of the new body of social forces; while, on the other hand, the extension and consolidation of industry helped the decay of the old system, by undermining the customary subordination of the classes which were learning independence. From this time the great cities, the centres of civilization, became united in common interests, and drew into their influence the more diffused populations of which they thus became the protectors; and London, Amsterdam, and other great commercial cities, and even Paris, assumed, on other than political grounds, an influence very unlike that proud spirit of universal domination exhibited of old by the few strongholds of military activity. Then arose paid armies, as an expedient at first, and soon as a permanent institution. The innovation had an industrial origin, beginning at Venice, at the opening of the fourteenth century, and then extending by way of Florence to other states, and over all Western Europe, testifying to the antipathy of the new populations for military life, which was henceforth consigned to a special minority, ever decreasing in its proportion to the rest of society, though actually more numerous in some instances of modern warfare. The decline of the old system was hastened by the people being thus withdrawn from the military chiefs and placed under industrial leaders; and again, by the discrediting of the charities administered by the clergy, when better resources against want were opened by industry. These advantages were the greater from the workmen being few, and highly-skilled workmen extremely few, in comparison with the present time, and therefore individually more powerful. We see in this period even the first indications of public credit, which is usually supposed to be of much later origin. I cannot hesitate in referring it to the efforts of Florence and Venice about the middle of the fourteenth century, presently followed by the Bank of Genoa, which was a vast and active organiza

Paid armies.

Public credit.