thesis of an immaterial soul, animating and influencing our material bodies, is a mere fiction invented to account for phenomena which men could not understand or explain. Man is but a part of nature, and, like the rest of nature, imperfectly understood. Freewill, of course, is a fiction. Punishment is natural, because it is the expression of feelings which are necessarily aroused by certain actions on the part of others; it is justifiable, because it acts as a preventive of anti-social conduct. There is no life after death. The object of morals and legislation should be to give to man's energies a proper direction, and to make him as happy in this world as he might be made under decent social arrangements. As knowledge is limited to sensible experience, a proof of the existence of God is, of course, impossible. The theological view of man. in his relation to God is utterly repugnant to him. Man is not by nature bad, or in need of divine grace for his salvation. The evils of life and the sufferings of men are simply the result of tyranny and ignorance, and are remediable by human means.

That a nation should be trained on such literature as this was terrible to Burke. The eighteenth century was pre-eminently the age of criticism, and Burke hated criticism in the sphere of politics and ethics. He held that, instead of prying into the origin of society and government, we should thank God for the existence of them, and do all in our power to guard them. Whatever it is essential that man should know for the performance of his duty is known already. Criticism is a dangerous thing to such a creature of habit as man is. The wonder is how men were ever

brought to live together at all; and it is the height of folly to do or say anything which tends to dissolve the bonds by which they are held together. Man does not live by reason alone, but by sentiment, and by prejudice. The wise course is to strengthen and consecrate every feeling and every habit which tends to make men virtuous either in their public or private relations. Selfishness will never keep society together, and, with the disappearance of social life, man would sink to the level of a mere animal. Above all, without religion, there can be neither private nor public virtue. The severity of Burke's criticism is the greater because he thought that he saw in France the elements of a British constitution, which he regarded as the most perfect machine that has ever been invented for securing the well-being of a nation. He was blind to its defects. He did not see, or would not acknowledge, that a new spirit was infusing itself into all the peoples of Europe. He was led by his nature to give to whatever he found existing "the consecration and the poet's dream." In the mysterious fabric of the state, every part, in his eyes, is necessary to the security of the whole. Every institution is consecrated by its adaptation to the wants. and feelings of the citizens, and must be preserved by their pious care and affection. As national wants and feelings change, political changes are sometimes, no doubt, necessary; but anything like a breach in the continuity of the state must be avoided. It is not only that revolutions, like floods and earthquakes, destroy the accumulated fruits of human labour, but the pride of long descent engenders and keeps alive a generous spirit in a people. When changes are in harmony with pre

existing feelings, and manners, and institutions, the habit of obedience is continued unimpaired. People fall in naturally with reforms for which their circumstances have been gradually preparing them. The wise reformer will always proceed along the line of least resistance. Instead of forcing men into new paths, he will provide for their wants by remodelling those institutions which they know and love. His sense of responsibility will keep him from playing with the happiness of a people.

The character of books is determined by the age in which they appear. The literature which Burke attacks was provoked by a system of government which could not any longer be endured. Burke thought that it was an attack upon government as such. He seemed to himself to be confronted, as Aristotle was in old days, with sophists who impaired the authority of the state, by proclaiming that it exists only by convention and not by nature. In reality Burke and his opponents both teach true and necessary lessons. If the one teaches us the sacredness of order, and the dangers of reckless change and a mere policy of adventure; the others teach us a not less necessary regard for humanity and the rights of man as man. Burke allows that necessity sometimes justifies revolutions, but he is too slow to allow that the necessity has arisen. He could not see that in the case of France, a violent change was inevitable. The government had awakened in the nation a revolutionary spirit which was fatal to its own existence, and

All the past of Time reveals
A bridal dawn of thunder-peals,
Wherever Thought hath wedded Fact.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY.

LOUIS XVI. a well-meaning but weak monarch, ascended the throne in 1774. Turgot was almost immediately made minister of finance. The people hoped much from the administration of a man who had shown that he combined ability with integrity. Retrenchment and equal taxation were the watchwords of his policy. With full knowledge of the opposition which he would provoke, he firmly insisted that the

first step to be taken was to reduce expenditure within defect

the limits of income. He did what he could to curtail needless and corrupt expenditure, to free the peasantry from ruinous exactions, to lower the price of food by the abolition of monopolies, to remove restrictions on foreign trade, to facilitate communication in the interior of the country, and to reduce the rate of interest on state loans. He succeeded, to some extent, in reducing the deficit. He had difficulties to contend with, in the jealousy of opponents, the resistance of those who were interested in the maintenance of abuses, and the lawlessness which reigned in parts of the country owing to scarcity and high prices. The king was not strong enough to resist the influence of the court and the queen, and Turgot was dismissed in the middle of the year 1776.

Turgot was succeeded by Necker, a man inferior to

him in ability and energy, but skilled in finance, liberal, and humane. He effected certain reforms by the suppression of useless offices, and by alterations in the revenue system. But in 1778 France sided with America in her struggle with England. The expenses of the war, which lasted until near the end of 1783, again involved a large increase of the national debt. The reforms of Necker provoked the hostility of the parliament of Paris. Finding that he was not supported by the king or by the rest of the ministry, he resigned office in the summer of 1781. The management of the finances was then entrusted, first to Joly de Fleury, and afterwards to D'Ormesson, both insignificant and incapable men.

In the autumn of 1783 Calonne was appointed finance minister, chiefly through the influence of Marie Antoinette. His policy was simply to conciliate the court and the privileged classes. His reckless extravagance at length brought matters to such a pitch that it was impossible even to pay the interest on the state loans. He was driven to propose the very reforms which Turgot had in vain attempted to carry, and, with a view of obtaining a semblance of public sanction, he induced the king to summon an assembly of the notables, "a sort of popular Privy Council selected by the king at his discretion, neither recognized nor protected by law, but still a body known in the history of France." "'* This assembly met at Versailles in February, 1787. Being composed of members of the privileged classes, it naturally rejected the proposed equalization of imposts, and the abolition of the pecun* Mackintosh.