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to check or restrain them. Thus allowed to become " chartered libertine," the spirit of examination dashed over all barriers-cast away every restraint-respected nothing, spared nothing. M. Guizot forcibly states the result:

"I should be embarrassed to tell what were the external facts that the human mind respected, or to whose influence it submitted; it hated or despised the whole social state; it began to consider itself as a species of creator; institutions, opinions, manners, society, and man himself, all were to be remodelled, and human reason undertook the enterprise."

This wildness of thought finally embodied itself in wildness of action. This is neither the time nor the place for entering into any consideration of the French Revolution: we need not portray opinion succeeding to opinion, and institution to institution, nor the bloodshed produced by these struggles and vicissitudes; one great truth was evolved by the struggle, which the world ought to have discovered long before-namely, that social happiness results from the co-ordination of the elements of civilization, and that it is injured, if not destroyed, by giving exclusive predominance to any one of them, even the most promising.

In this rapid examination of European civilization, we have found that fedualism, ecclesiastical power, royalty, and finally unrestricted reason have gained absolute power by the force of the truth which they contained; that they grew tyrannical when they perverted that truth into falsehood, and were then torn down from "their pride of place" by insulted and outraged humanity. The moral lesson to be deduced from these views has been eloquently stated by M. Guizot, and after having had occasion to differ from him so often in this chapter, it is pleasant to find perfect harmony in the conclusion:

"It is the duty, and it will be, I trust, the peculiar merit of our time to recognise that every power, whether intellectual or temporal, whether it belongs to governments or to the people, to philosophers or to ministers, whether exercised in one cause or in another—that every human power, I say, carries within itself an inherent evil, a principle of weakness and abuse which must assign it a limit. It is only the general liberty of all rights, all interests, and all opinions, the free manifestation of all their forces, their legal co-existence; it is this system only that can restrain each force and each power within its legitimate limits, and hinder it from usurping the rights of others; in one word, free examination should really subsist, and for the profit of all."

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Of Californis

CHAPTER XI.

THE INDEPENDENT CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO THE ADVANCE OF CIVILIZATION.

In the preceding chapter we examined the leading elements of European civilization as they were successively developed, and shown how they passed from speculative opinion into settled conviction, and how they then became embodied in institutions which influenced the internal condition of society, and the external relations of states. These revolutions were neither the result of force, nor of wisdom: no great masses were put in motion to subvert established order; no skilful statesmen arranged the combinations of profound policy, to effect these mighty changes; they were the result of a progressing advancement of intellect, sometimes accelerated, and sometimes retarded, by accidental causes. About the close of the fifteenth century,

however, an unparalleled impulse was given to the progress of European civilization, by the simultaneous invention, or at least introduction from the East, of the mariner's compass, gunpowder and artillery, an improved system of arithmetic, and the art of printing. Combined with the e, were a renewed study of the Roman law, the cultivation of Greek literature, the restoration of the fine arts, and the opening of new paths to industry and commercial enterprise. Useful as these inventions, discoveries, and re

vivals were, their origin and history is involved in great obscurity it would, indeed, be impossible, within our limits, to enumerate, much less to discuss, the controversies to which they have given rise; but we shall rather briefly examine some of the beneficial effects which they produced on the condition of European society.

Among the most prominent evils of feudalism, noticed in the preceding chapter, we particularly mentioned the want of a code of laws and a regular system of jurisdiction. The barbarous expedients of ordeal and wager of battle were so obviously repugnant to common sense, that the Church succeeded in bringing many civil suits, under the canon law, and ecclesiastical jurisprudence became an object of such admiration and respect, that exemption from civil jurisdiction was courted as a privilege, and conferred as a reward. Towards the middle of the twelfth century, a copy of the Pandects of Justinian is said to have been accidentally discovered in Italy, and the superiority of the system of Roman jurisprudence to the vague and rude traditions of barbarism was so obvious, that in less than half a century law became a highly honoured profession, and universities for its study were founded in Bologna, Naples, Padua, and other places.

The social effect of the study of law was very great. Hitherto, arms were considered the only profession worthy of a gentleman; and the education of the higher ranks was confined to war and its usages; even their exercises and pastimes had a military character. But when law began to be studied, a knowledge of it was rendered necessary to the discharge of magisterial and judicial functions; a new profession-different from arms, but not less honourable-was introduced among the laity, and was zealously pursued, as a new road to wealth and eminence.

Civil law being separated from ecclesiastical, the lawyers succeeded to a large portion of the power which had formerly been possessed by the clergy; and thus a jealousy arose between the two professions, which soon ripened into open hostility. The lawyers were naturally opposed to the ecclesiastics and the nobles-for it was with them an object of great importance to remove the trial of causes from the spiritual and baronial courts, into the royal courts, where they themselves practised. Their interest in extending the royal jurisdiction, made them, at the first, zealous supporters of the royal prerogative; but when their courts were firmly established, they became strenuous supporters of the majesty of law. Hence the lawyers, who, in the reign of Elizabeth and the earlier years of the reign of James I., carried the notions of prerogative to their utmost extent, were, in the reign of Charles I., equally zealous in enforcing the constitutional rights of the people. The expansion of law and the legal profession, not only put an end to the dominion of feudal force, but imposed restrictions on the usurped power of the papacy, and on the despotic tendencies which were manifested when royalty acquired the ascendency in Europe.

From the time that the Eastern Empire was deprived of the Exarchate of Ravenna, the knowledge of the Greek language and literature rapidly declined in Europe and sunk almost into complete oblivion. The disputes between the Greek and Latin churches prevented the ecclesiastical powers of Europe from sanctioning any effort for the revival of these studies. Even when a Latin empire was established in Constantinople, the crusaders, by whom it was founded, paid no attention to the literary treasures contained in the city. Heeren, indeed, asserts that the great destruction of the works preserved in the Byzantine libraries was owing VOL. II.

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