A similar example in the case of Italy.

Approach

to universal

386

Passage of Europe to the same End.

adjusted to its thread. It must be gently turned, not driven, and so it retains the consenting parts firmly together.

Notwithstanding the imperfections of a system founded on such a faulty basis, that great community has accomplished what many consider to be the end of statesmanship. I have already (p. 133 of this volume) quoted the remark of Machiavelli, that, "as to governments, their form is of very little moment, though half-educated people think otherwise. The great end of statesmanship should be permanence, which is worth everything else, being far more valuable than freedom." But permanence is only, in an apparent sense, the object of good statesmanship; progression, in accordance with the natural tendency, is the real one. The successive steps of such a progression follow one another so imperceptibly that there is a delusive appearance of permanence. Man is so constituted that he is never aware of continuous motion. Abrupt variations alone impress his attention.

Forms of government, therefore, are of moment, though not in the manner commonly supposed. Their value increases in proportion as they permit or encourage the natural tendency for developement to be satisfied.

While Asia has thus furnished an example of the effects of a national organization of intellect, Europe, on a smaller scale, has presented an illustration of the same kind. The Papal system opened, in its special circumstances, a way for talent. It maintained an intellectual organization for those who were within its pale, irrespective of wealth or birth. It was no objection that the greatest churchman frequently came from the lowest walks of life. And that organization sustained it in spite of the opposition of external circumstances for several centuries after its supernatural and ostensible basis had completely decayed away.

Whatever may be the facts under which, in the different of Europe, countries of Europe, such an organization takes place, or the education. political forms guiding it, the basis it must rest upon is universal, and, if necessary, compulsory education. In the more enlightened places the movement has already nearly reached that point. Already it is an accepted doctrine that the state

Necessity of Intellectual Freedom.

387

has rights in a child as well as its parent, and that it may insist on education; conversely also, that every child has a claim upon the government for good instruction. After providing in the most liberal manner for that, free countries have but one thing more to do for the accomplishment of the

rest.

intellectual

That one thing is to secure intellectual freedom as com- Necessity of pletely as the rights of property and personal liberty have been freedom. already secured. Philosophical opinions and scientific discoveries are entitled to be judged of by their truth, not by their relation to existing interests. The motion of the earth round the sun, the antiquity of the globe, the origin of species, are doctrines which have had to force their way in the manner described in this book, not against philosophical opposition, but opposition of a totally different nature. And yet the interests which resisted them so strenuously have received no damage from their establishment beyond that consequent on the discredit of having so resisted them.

There is no literary crime greater than that of exciting a social, and especially a theological odium against ideas that are purely scientific, none against which the disapproval of every educated man ought to be more strongly expressed. The republic of letters owes it to its own dignity to tolerate no longer offences of that kind.

course of

To such an organization of their national intellect, and to The future giving it a political control, the countries of Europe are thus Europe. rapidly advancing. They are hastening to satisfy their instinctive tendency. The special form in which they will embody their intentions must, of course, depend to a great degree on the political forms under which they have passed their lives, modified by that approach to homogeneousness which arises from increased intercommunication. The canal system, so wonderfully developed in China, exerted no little influence in that respect,-an influence, however, not to be compared with that which must be the result of the railway system of Europe.

In an all-important particular the prospect of Europe is Its hopefulness, bright. China is passing through the last stage of civil life compared

China.

with that of in the cheerlessness of Buddhism; Europe approaches it through Christianity. Universal benevolence cannot fail to yield a better fruit than unsocial pride. There is a fairer hope for nations animated by a sincere religious sentiment, who, whatever their political history may have been, have always agreed in this, that they were devout, than for a people who dedicate themselves to a selfish pursuit of material advantages, who have lost all belief in a future, and are living without any God.

I have now come to the end of a work which has occupied me for many years, and which I submit, with many misgivings as to its execution, to the indulgent consideration of the public. These pages will not have been written in vain if the facts they present impress the reader, as they have impressed the author, with a conviction that the civilization of Europe has not taken place fortuitously, but in a definite manner, and under the control of natural law; that the procession of nations does not move forward like a dream, without reason or order, but that there is a predetermined, a solemn march, in which all must join, ever moving, ever resistlessly advancing, encountering and enduring an inevitable succession of events; that individual life and its advancement through successive stages is the model of social life and its secular variations.

I have asserted the control of natural law in the shaping of human affairs-a control not inconsistent with free-will any more than the unavoidable passage of an individual as he advances to maturity and declines in old age is inconsistent with his voluntary actions; that higher law limits our movements to a certain direction, and guides them in a certain way. As the Stoics of old used to say, an acorn may lie torpid in the ground, unable to exert its living force, until it receives warmth, and moisture, and other things needful for its germination; when it grows, it may put forth one bud here and another bud there; the wind may bend one branch, the frost blight another; the innate vitality of the tree may struggle against adverse conditions or luxuriate in those that are congenial; but whatever the circumstances may be, there is an

overruling power for ever constraining and modelling it. The acorn can only produce an oak.

The application of this principle to human societies is completely established by a scientific study of their history; and the more extensive and profound that study, the better shall we be able to distinguish the invariable law in the midst of the varying events. But that once thoroughly appreciated, we have gained a philosophical guide for the interpretation of the past acts of nations, and a prophetic monitor of their future, so far as prophecy is possible in human affairs.