Since the arrival of M. Guizot in England, he has lived in studied seclusion. He has refused several invitations from public bodies, and even offers of honourable appointments, for it is the boast of Britain to feel sympathy with the unfortunate and the exiled; but upon one occasion he has been tempted from his privacy, and as the words of such a man must ever possess great value and interest, it is deemed fitting they should be here recorded. It was at a public entertainment given in August 1848 at Great Yarmouth, after the re-opening of St. Nicholas Church, that M. Guizot was present; and on his health being drunk by the chairman, he delivered himself as follows:—

'I have come but twice during my life to England. The first time I came as the ambassador of a powerful king; the second time as an exile from my native land. When I came the first time to your country, Europe was in a state of perfect tranquillity and prosperity; there was peace present, and confidence in the future. The second time, some months ago, when I came, my own country—Europe generally—was involved in much sadness and fears for the future; but I found England perfectly quiet, enjoying in the deepest tranquillity her liberty, her constitution, her moral, intellectual, and material prospects; and I was received as an exile, as I had been when an ambassador, with the same kindness, the same sympathy, and, I venture to say, with the same friendship. I have hitherto refused myself to every invitation—declined every invitation to great feasts and to great meetings. Far from my dear country, and deeply sad, it is my inclination as well as my duty to live in retirement; and this I am doing. But this occasion is one of a very different kind. The restoration of a church of God, the piety of an immense people, the eloquence of two worthy bishops—these were the motives that attracted me to your town, after I had refused every other invitation. Only one word more. Allow me to say to you, keep your faith—keep your laws—be faithful to the examples, to the tradition of your ancestors; and I trust God will continue to pour on you and your country His best, His most abundant, His most fertile blessings.'

History Of Civilisation In Europe.

Lecture I.
Objects Of The Course.
Of Civilisation In General.

Gentlemen—I am deeply affected at the reception with which you favour me, and which I accept as a pledge of the sympathy which has continued to exist between us, notwithstanding so long a separation. It is as if the same individuals, the same generation, who seven years ago took part in my labours, were now present within these walls. Because I myself return here, it seems to me that everything is as it was, that nothing is changed; yet all is changed, and changed for the better. Seven years ago, we entered this building with uneasiness, beset by sad and gloomy thoughts; we were aware that difficulties and perils surrounded us; we felt ourselves drawn towards an evil which we vainly strove to escape by a grave, calm, and reserved demeanour. Now we all come, you as well as I, with confidence and hope, our minds at peace, and our thoughts unshackled. There is only one mode by which we can testify our gratitude, gentlemen; and it is by observing in our meetings and our studies the same tranquillity and prudence that marked them when every day brought its fears that they would be fettered or suspended. Let us not forget that good fortune is of a delicate and fragile texture, and liable to accidents; that hope requires moderation like fear; that the convalescent state demands almost the same cares and caution as the approaches of illness. I feel assured, gentlemen, that your ideas correspond with mine. The sympathy, the intimate and unreserved communication of opinions and sentiments, which united us in days of difficulty, and saved us at all events from indiscretions, will equally unite us at this more favourable period, and enable us to gather all its fruits. I reckon upon your acquiescence, gentlemen, and I need nothing more.

The time allowed us between this and the close of the year is very limited. I have myself had only a short period to arrange the course that I should present to you. I have sought a subject which might be the most completely handled, both with reference to the time that is left us, and to the few days that have been granted me for preparation. It has appeared to me that a general picture of the modern history of Europe, considered with respect to the development of civilisation—in other words, a glance at the history of European civilisation, of its origin, its progress, its objects, and its character—was best adapted for the space at our disposal. It is upon this subject, therefore, I have determined to address you.

I am justified in speaking of European civilisation, because it is evident that a certain identity prevails in the civilisation of the different states of Europe; that it results from facts nearly similar, notwithstanding great diversities in time, place, and circumstance; that it is traceable to the same principles, and has an almost universal tendency to analogous results. Thus I deduce an European civilisation, and with it, taken as a whole, I am desirous of interesting you.

On the other hand, it is equally clear that this civilisation is not to be looked for, that its history is not fully developed, in the history of any single state of Europe. If it possesses unity, its variety is not less prodigious: in no peculiar country can its progress be completely traced. Its features are scattered: the elements of its history are to be found sometimes in France, sometimes in England, sometimes in Germany, sometimes in Spain.

We hold a favourable position for prosecuting this search and study into European civilisation. We must avoid flattery to any individual, and even to our country; yet I believe we can say with truth that France has been the centre, the furnace, of the civilisation of Europe. It would be absurd to pretend that she has always marched in the van on all sides. She has been preceded in the arts at different eras by Italy; and in political institutions by England. Perhaps also, in other respects, we should find that other nations have at particular periods been superior to her; but it is impossible to deny that whenever France has perceived herself backward in the race, she has assumed a fresh vigour, has sprung forward, and has soon found herself equal to, or in advance of all. And not only has this come to pass; but when the civilising ideas or institutions, if I may be allowed the phrase, have been transplanted, to render them productive and universal, to fit them for the common good of European civilisation, we have seen them obliged, in some degree, to undergo a new preparatory process in France, and from her, as from a second country, of a richer and more fertile soil, go forth to the conquest of Europe. There is not a great idea, not a great principle of civilisation, which has not first passed through France to be disseminated in every quarter. There is something more sociable and sympathetic, something acting with more facility and energy, in the French character than in that of any other nation: either from our language, or the particular bent of our genius or our manners, our ideas are more popular, are more clearly perceptible to the masses, and penetrate amongst them more easily; in a word, perspicuity, sociability, and sympathy, are the peculiar characteristics of France and of her civilisation, and these qualities eminently fit her to march at the head of European civilisation.

Therefore, in entering upon the history of this great fact, it is from no arbitrary or conventional choice that we assume France as the centre of our studies, but rather that we thereby place ourselves, as it were, in the very heart of civilisation, in the very heart of what we are about to engage our minds in investigating. I call it a fact, gentlemen, and I call it so designedly. Civilisation is a fact, and one as susceptible of being studied, described, and related, as any other in history.

It has long ago been remarked with justice, that history should be comprised in facts—that it should be a relation. Nothing is more true. But there are more facts to relate, and these facts are themselves more various than we are perhaps at first disposed to believe: there are the material, visible facts, such as battles, wars, the official acts of governments; there are the moral, hidden facts, which are not the less real; there are individual facts, which have a distinct designation; and there are general facts, having no designation, to which it is impossible to assign a precise date either of day or year, which it is impossible to include in prescribed limits, and which are unquestionably facts which cannot be excluded from history without mutilating it.

That portion which we are accustomed to name the philosophical part of history—the mutual relations of facts, the bond which unites them, the causes and the effects of events—is as much history as the recitals of battles and of external circumstances. Facts of this description are doubtless more difficult to unravel, and give frequent occasions for error: it is no easy task to give them animation, or present them in clear and vivid colours; but this difficulty affects not, nor changes, their nature, nor renders them a less essential part of history.

Civilisation is one of these facts, a general, hidden, complex fact; very difficult, I grant, to describe and relate, but not the less, on that account, possessing existence, and a right to be described and related. A great number of questions may be raised on this fact: it may be asked, indeed it has been asked, whether it is for good or evil? Some have most gloomy anticipations, others most bright. It may be also asked whether there be an universal civilisation of the human species, a destiny for humanity, and whether there has been transmitted from age to age something which cannot be lost, which must increase, form a store, and thus be passed on to the end of time? For my own part, I am convinced that there is, in fact, a general destiny for humanity, a transmission of the store of civilisation, and, as a necessary consequence, an universal history of civilisation to write. But without raising questions so grave and difficult to resolve, if we confine ourselves to a fixed interval of time and space—that is, if we limit our researches to the history of a certain number of centuries and of certain people—we shall find it clear, that within these bounds civilisation is a fact which can be described, related as matter of history. I do not hesitate to add, that its history is the most important of all, and that it embraces all others.

Is it not apparent that civilisation is the main fact, the general and definite fact, in which all others terminate and are included! Take all the facts which compose the history of a nation, they being generally considered as the elements of its existence; take its institutions, its commerce, its industrial movements, its wars, all the details of its government; and when we reflect upon these circumstances in their consolidated tendency, and in their relations, when we weigh and judge them, our view is directed to ascertain how they have contributed to the civilisation of that nation, in what proportion they have influenced it, what effect they have had in accomplishing it. We thus not only form a complete idea of them, but we measure and ascertain their real value: they are in some degree like rivers, the quantity of water conveyed by which to the ocean is matter of calculation. Civilisation is a species of ocean forming a nation's wealth, and in the bosom of which all the elements and sources of its existence are united. This is so true, that, with respect to facts—which are from their nature detestable, disastrous, a painful weight upon nations, as despotism and anarchy, for example—if they have contributed in some degree to civilisation, if they have given it a considerable impetus, up to a certain point we excuse and pardon their injuries and their evil nature; insomuch, that wherever we discover civilisation, and the facts which have tended to enrich it, we are tempted to forget the price it has cost.

There are, indeed, facts which, properly speaking, cannot be styled social—individual facts, seeming to interest the human soul rather than to affect public life: such are religious creeds and philosophical ideas, sciences, letters, and arts. These are matters apparently influencing man, either to perfect or delight him, and having for their object rather his internal amelioration or gratification, than his social condition. Yet it is with reference to civilisation that these very circumstances are frequently, and ought to be, considered. At all periods, in all lands, religion has been glorified as an engine of civilisation; sciences, letters, and arts, all the intellectual and moral pursuits, have claimed a share in this glory; and we give them praise and honour in our opinion when we admit that their claims are just. Thus facts the most important and sublime in themselves, independently of all external result, and simply taken in their relations with the human soul, increase in importance, and rise in sublimity, from their connection with civilisation. So great is the value of this general fact, that it imparts consideration to everything it touches; and not only that, but there are even occasions when the matters of which we speak—religious creeds, philosophical ideas, letters, arts—are especially estimated and judged with reference to their influence upon civilisation; and the extent of this influence becomes, up to a certain point, and during a certain time, the decisive measure of their merit and value.

It is important to inquire, before undertaking its history, and with regard only to itself, in what consists this grave, and extensive, and precious matter, thus seeming to contain, and give expression to, the entire existence of nations. And here I shall avoid falling into pure philosophy; I shall avoid laying down a reasoning principle, and then deducing the nature of civilisation from it as a consequence: there would be many chances of error in such a method. We encounter a fact preliminarily which requires to be verified and described.

During a long period, and in many countries, the word civilisation has been used; ideas more or less clear, more or less expansive, have been attached to it, but it is in general use, and it is understood. It is the general, human, popular meaning of this word that we must study. It almost invariably occurs, that in the usual acceptation of terms most in vogue, there is more truth than in the more rigorous, and apparently more precise, definitions of science. It is good sense which gives their common signification to words, and good sense is the genius of humanity. The popular meaning of a word is constituted by a successive process as facts actually arise; so that when a matter presents itself which seems to be comprised within the meaning of a received term, it is comprehended within it by, as it were, a natural tendency: the signification of the term expands and takes a larger compass; and by degrees the various facts and ideas which, from the very nature of things, men should include under this word, become so included in reality. When the meaning of a word, on the contrary, is determined by science, such determination, being fixed by one or a small number of individuals, is controlled by some particular fact which has struck their minds. Thus scientific definitions are in general much more confined, and from that circumstance alone, much less true at bottom, than popular acceptations. In studying, as a fact, the meaning of the word civilisation, in investigating all the ideas comprised within it, according to the common sense of mankind, we shall make greater progress in gaining a knowledge of the fact itself, than if we endeavoured to form for ourselves a scientific definition, although it might appear at first more clear and precise.

As a commencement to this investigation, I shall attempt to place before you certain hypotheses—I shall describe certain states of society; and then will arise the question, Whether, by general instinct, the condition of a people advancing in civilisation is at once recognised—whether the meaning which mankind attach naturally to the word civilisation is thereby developed?

Let us take a people whose outward existence is agreeable and comfortable, paying few taxes, exposed to no suffering, amongst whom justice is well administered in private affairs; in a word, whose material existence, in its full extent, is well and happily regulated. But at the same time, the intellectual and moral existence of this people is studiously held in a state of numbness and inactivity, I will not say in a state of oppression, because the feeling is unknown to it, but of compression. This order of things is not without example. There has been a great number of small aristocratic republics in which the people have been treated like flocks, well tended, and materially happy, but without moral and intellectual activity. Is this civilisation! Is this a people in the process of self-civilisation?

Let us take another hypothesis. Here is a people whose material existence is less agreeable, less comfortable, yet supportable. But in return, its moral and intellectual wants have not been neglected; a certain extent of pasture has been afforded them; elevated and pure sentiments are cultivated amongst this people; systems of religion and morality have attained a certain degree of development; but great care is taken to strangle the principle of liberty. Here the intellectual and moral wants, as before the physical wants, are satisfied: to each individual is meted out a portion of truth, but he is not permitted to seek it freely of himself alone. The characteristic of the moral life is immobility; it is the state into which the major part of the Asiatic populations has fallen, where theocratic dominations repress elasticity; it is the state of the Hindoos, for example. I ask the same question as before—Is this a people advancing in civilisation?

I change altogether the nature of the hypothesis. Here is a people amongst whom is a great development of certain individual liberties, but where disorder and inequality are excessive; the empire of force and chance: he who is not strong is oppressed, suffers, and perishes. Violence is the characteristic of the social state. Every person knows that Europe has passed through this state. Is it a civilised condition? It may doubtless contain the principles of civilisation, which will be successively developed; but the predominant fact in such a society is most assuredly not that which the common sense of mankind calls civilisation.

I take a fourth and last hypothesis. The liberty of each individual is very great, inequality is rare, or at least temporary. Each does almost what he pleases, and differs little in power with his neighbour; but there are very few general interests, public ideas or sentiments, very little society; in a word, the faculties and career of individuals are deployed, and run in isolation, without mutual action, and without leaving any marks behind: successive generations leave society at the same point at which it has come to them. This is the state of savage tribes: liberty and equality are there, and yet as certainly is not civilisation.

I could multiply these hypotheses, but I think we have enough to prove what is the popular and natural meaning of the word civilisation.

It is clear that none of the conditions which I have glanced at answers, according to the common sense of mankind, to this term. Why? It appears to me that the first fact comprised in the word civilisation (and this is deducible from the different examples I have brought forward), is that of progress, of development; its application is identical with the idea of a people on the move, not for a change of locality, but of condition; of a people whose state is in the process of expansion and amelioration. Progress and development appear to me the fundamental ideas contained in the word civilisation.

What is this progress? what this development? Here stands the great difficulty.

The etymology of the word seems to afford a clear and satisfactory solution; it says that it is the perfection of the civil life, the development of society, properly so called, of the relations of men amongst themselves.

Such is, in reality, the first idea which presents itself to the human understanding when the word civilisation is pronounced; the extension of the social relations, the imparting to them the greatest activity, the most perfect organisation, are matters of immediate implication: on the one hand, an increasing production of the means which secure strength and happiness to society; on the other, a more equitable distribution amongst individuals of the strength and happiness produced.

Is this all? Have we exhausted all that its natural and prevailing meaning conveys? Does the fact of civilisation contain nothing more?

It is almost as if we asked—Is the human species a mere swarm or aggregation demanding only order and plenty, in which the greater the amount of labour, and the more equitable the appropriation of the fruits of labour, the more effectually will the object be attained and the progress accomplished?

The human instinct rejects so narrow a definition of the destiny of mankind. At the first glance, it concludes that the word civilisation comprehends something more extended and complex, something superior to the mere perfection of the social relations, or of social power and happiness.

Facts, public opinion, the generally received acceptation of the term, are in accordance with this instinct.

Take Rome in the glorious periods of the republic, after the second Punic war, at the time of its greatest virtues, when it was marching to the empire of the world, when its social state was in evident progress: then take Rome under Augustus, at the era of the commencement of decay, when, at all events, the progressive movement of society was arrested, when evil principles were on the point of prevailing; and yet there is no one who does not think and say that the Rome of Augustus was more civilised than the Rome of Fabricius and Cincinnatus.

Again, let us take France in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In a social point of view, regarding the amount and distribution of prosperity amongst individuals, France, at those periods, was undoubtedly inferior to some other countries of Europe—to Holland and England, for example. I believe that the social activity in Holland and England was greater, increased more rapidly, and distributed its results better, than in France; yet if we consult general opinion, it will say that France, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was the most civilised country in Europe. There was no hesitation upon the question: the evidences of this public conviction, as to France, are found in all the records of European literature.

I might point out several other states in which prosperity is greater, of more rapid growth, and better dissemination amongst individuals, than elsewhere, and in which, nevertheless, according to the spontaneous instinct, the common understanding of men, civilisation is estimated as inferior to that of other countries not so well situated in a purely social sense.

How come these countries, then, thus styled civilised, to possess their exclusive right? How are they so largely compensated, in the opinion of mankind, for what they are so deficient in on other grounds?

A different development from that of social life has been brilliantly manifested by them—the development of the individual and mental existence, the development of man himself, of his faculties, sentiments, and ideas. If society be more imperfect than in other places, humanity appears with more grandeur and power. Many social conquests remain to be made, but prodigious moral and intellectual conquests are effected; many possessions and rights are wanting to numbers of men, but many great men live and shine in the eyes of the world. Letters, sciences, and arts, display all their splendour. Wherever mankind beholds these great images, so glorious to human nature, come forth resplendently, wherever it finds the treasury of those elevating gratifications, it there recognises and pronounces civilisation.

Two facts are therefore comprised in this great fact; it is based on two conditions, and is revealed by two symptoms—the development of social activity and that of individual activity; the progress of society and the progress of humanity. Wherever the external condition of man progresses, is quickened and ameliorated, wherever the internal nature of man is exhibited with lustre and grandeur—upon these two signs, the human race applauds and proclaims civilisation, often even in spite of fundamental imperfections in the social state.

Such, if I mistake not, is the result of the simple and merely common-sense examination of the general opinion of mankind. If we investigate history, properly so called, if we inquire into the nature of the great crises of civilisation, of those facts which, by universal confession, have given it a great impulse, we shall invariably recognise one or other of the two elements I have just described. They are always crises of individual or social development, or facts which have wrought a change in the internal man, in his creeds or habits, or in his external condition, or his position in relation to his fellow mortals. For example, Christianity, not merely at its first introduction, but during the first ages of its existence, in no degree addressed itself to the social state; it proclaimed aloud that it did not interfere with it; it ordered the slave to obey his master; it attacked none of the great evils and iniquities of the society of that period. Who, however, will deny that Christianity, from the first, was a great crisis in civilisation? Why? Because it changed the internal man, the prevailing principles and sentiments, because it regenerated the moral and intellectual man.

We have witnessed a crisis of another nature, one which was addressed, not to the internal man, but to his external condition, which has changed and regenerated society. That, likewise, was assuredly one of the decisive crises of civilisation. Run through the whole of history, you will everywhere find the same result: you will not discover any important fact aiding in the development of civilisation, which has not exercised one or other of the two sorts of influence which I have mentioned.

Such is, I conceive, the natural and popular meaning of the term; and we have the fact, I will not say defined, but described and exemplified almost completely, or at least in its general features. We understand the two elements of civilisation. Now, we ask ourselves, Whether one of these two things suffices to constitute it—whether, if the development of the social state, or that of the individual man, be presented in disjunction, there would be civilisation? Would the human race recognise it as such? or is there between the two facts so intimate and necessary a relation, that if they are not simultaneously produced, they are notwithstanding inseparable, and the one draws on the other sooner or later?

It appears to me we may approach this question on three sides. We may examine the real nature of the two elements of civilisation, and inquire whether by that alone they are closely united, and mutually necessary or not? We may institute a historical search to ascertain if they have, in reality, been made manifest separately, or if they have always produced each other. We may finally consult the general opinion of mankind, common sense. I will first address myself to the general opinion.

When a great change is effected in the state of a country, when a great development of wealth and power, and a revolution in the distribution of the social prosperity, are worked out, this new order of things encounters adversaries, provokes combats: it cannot be otherwise. What say the enemies of the change? They say that this progress in the social state does not ameliorate or regenerate the moral and internal condition of man, that it is a false and deceitful progress, detrimental to morality and the true interests of mankind. On the other hand, the friends of the social development repel this attack with great energy, and maintain, in opposition, that the progress of society necessarily draws with it the progress of morality, and that when the external life is better regulated, the internal is rectified and made purer. Thus stands the question between the opponents and the partisans of the new order of things.

Reverse the hypothesis: suppose the moral development in progress. What do the men who labour at it usually promise? What, at the origin of societies, have religious leaders, sages and poets, held out, when striving to soften and improve manners?— the amelioration of the social condition, the more equitable distribution of worldly goods.

Now, I ask, what do these disputes on the one hand, and these promises on the other, imply! Doubtless that in the spontaneous, instinctive conviction of mankind, the two elements of civilisation, the social and moral developments, are intimately connected, and that the appearance of one is the assured harbinger of the other. It is to this natural conviction that the arguments are addressed, when, for the purpose of assisting or repulsing the one or the other of the two developments, their union is affirmed or denied. It is known that if men can be persuaded that the improvement of the social condition will be detrimental to the moral progress of individuals, the revolution effected in society will be successfully decried and enfeebled. On the other hand, when men are promised the amelioration of society as a consequence of individual improvement, it is known that their tendency is to believe in such promise, and it is effectually appealed to. Thus it clearly results that the instinct of humanity is enlisted in the belief that the two elements of civilisation are bound up in each other, and are reciprocally productive.

If we turn to the history of the world, we shall arrive at the same conclusion. We shall find that all the great developments of the moral being have resulted in the advantage of society, and that all the great developments of the social condition have raised the character of humanity. The movement takes its peculiar character from whichever of the two facts predominates and lends its lustre. Sometimes long intervals of time, a thousand transformations and obstacles, occur before the second fact is developed, and comes, as it were, to complete the civilisation which the first had commenced. But close observation convinces us of the bond which unites them. The ways of Providence are not confined within narrow limits; he hurries not himself to display to-day the consequence of the principle that he yesterday laid down; he will draw it out in the lapse of ages when the hour is come; and even according to our reasoning, logic is not the less sure because it is slow. Providence is unconcerned as to time; his march (if I may be allowed the simile) is like that of the fabulous deities of Homer through space; he takes a step, and ages have elapsed. How long a time, how many events, before the regeneration of the moral man by Christianity exercised its great and legitimate influence upon the regeneration of the social state! It has succeeded, however: who can at this day gainsay it?

If we pass from history to the actual nature of the two facts which constitute civilisation, we are irresistibly led to the same result. It is consistent with the personal experience of every individual. When a moral change is worked upon a man, when he acquires an idea, a virtue, or a faculty, the more, in a word, when his individual powers gain fuller development, what sudden desire possesses him? It is the necessity he feels to bring his sentiments into the external world, and realise his conceptions. As soon as a man makes an acquisition, as soon as his being takes in his own eyes a fresh development and additional value, to this improved development and value is immediately attached by himself the idea of a mission: he feels himself compelled and driven by his instinct, by an internal voice, to spread and make predominant abroad the alteration, the amendment, that has been effected within himself. We owe great reformers to no other cause: the great men who have changed the face of the world, after being changed themselves, have been urged and governed by no other necessity. So much for the alteration that is worked out in the internal man: let us take the other. A revolution is accomplished in the state of society; it is better regulated, rights and possessions are more justly disseminated amongst individuals—that is to say, the aspect of the world is fairer and brighter, the action, both of governments and of men in their mutual relations, is improved. Is it credible that the contemplation of this spectacle, that this amelioration in external affairs, will have no reaction on the internal man, on humanity? All that is predicated of the authority of examples, habits, and good models, is based upon nothing, unless it be upon the conviction that an external, advantageous, reasonable, and well-regulated order of things leads sooner or later, more or less completely, to an internal order of the same nature and the same merit; that a better arranged and juster world renders man himself more just; that the inward is reformed by the outward, as the outward by the inward; that the two elements of civilisation are closely linked together; that ages and various impediments may be cast between them; that it is possible they may have to undergo a thousand transformations in order to be rejoined, but that earlier or later they will be rejoined; that such is the law of their nature, the leading fact of history, the instinctive faith of the human species.

Thus far, I think, without exhausting the subject, I have laid bare in a complete, though cursory manner, the fact of civilisation: I think I have described it, and assigned its limits, and I have weighed the principal and fundamental questions to which it gives rise. I might here stop, but I cannot avoid mentioning a question which meets me at this stage of the inquiry; one of those questions which are not strictly historical, and which I will call not hypothetical, but conjectural; questions which we can grasp at only one of the ends, without the possibility of ever reaching the other, nor can we make their circuit, nor behold more than one of their sides; and yet they are certainly not the less real, nor less imperatively call for our deep reflection, since they, in spite of ourselves, and at all moments, are forced upon our observation.

Of those two developments of which we have just spoken, and which constitute the fact of civilisation, that of society on the one hand, and that of humanity on the other, which is the end, and which is the means? Is it to expedite the perfectibility of his social condition, for the amelioration of his earthly existence, that man developes his faculties, sentiments, ideas, his whole being?—or rather is not the improvement of the social condition, the progress of society, society itself, the theatre, occasion, and stimulant of the individual development? In a word, is society made to serve the individual, or the individual to serve society? On the answer to this question inevitably depends the decision whether the destiny of man is purely social, whether society drains and absorbs the whole man, or he bears within him something foreign and superior to his existence on earth.

M. Royer-Collard, a man whom I am proud to call my friend, who has passed from such peaceable meetings as ours to assume the first station in more stormy and influential assemblies, and whose words remain engraved wherever they fall, has solved this question, or he has at least, according to his own conviction, solved it, in his speech on the project of law relative to sacrilege. I find in that speech these two sentences: 'Human societies are born, live, and die on the earth; their destinies are there accomplished. But they contain not the whole man. After he has bound himself to society, there remains to him the noblest part of himself, those lofty powers by which he elevates himself to God, to a future life, to unknown bliss in an invisible world. We as individual and identical creatures, as veritable beings endowed with immortality, have a different destiny to that of states.'

I will add nothing, nor will I undertake to treat the question itself; I content myself with bringing it forward. It will be met at the end of the history of civilisation. When the history of civilisation is run through, when there is nothing more to say concerning actual life, we are irresistibly driven to ask ourselves whether all is exhausted, whether we have reached the end? This, then, is the last and highest problem to which the history of civilisation can conduct us. It is sufficient for me to have indicated its position and importance.

From all that I have said, it is clear that the history of civilisation may be treated of after two modes, drained at two sources, considered under two different aspects. The historian may place himself in the depths of the human mind for a given period, a series of ages, and amongst a certain people; he may study, describe, relate all the events, transformations, and revolutions which are accomplished in the internal man; and when he has reached the end, he will have a history of civilisation amongst the people, and for the period he chose. He may proceed in a different manner. Instead of penetrating the inward man, he may place himself in the midst of the worldly spectacle; instead of describing the vicissitudes in the ideas and sentiments of the individual being, he may describe external facts, the events and fluctuations of the social state. These two portions, these two histories, of civilisation are closely united to each other; each is the reflection and image of the other. Nevertheless, they may be separated, and perhaps they ought to be so, at least in the beginning, in order that both the one and the other may be treated of in detail, and with perspicuity. For my own part, I do not propose to investigate the history of civilisation in the inward workings of the human mind; it is only with the history of the external events of the visible and social world that I shall occupy myself. I had a desire to unfold the fact of civilisation, such as I conceive it, in all its complexity and extent, and to lay down all those great questions which may spring from it. But at present I restrict myself, and narrow my field of inquiry; it is only the history of the social state that I purpose entering upon.

We shall begin by searching out all the elements of European civilisation in its cradle, at the fall of the Roman empire; we will study with attention society, such as it was, in the midst of those famous ruins. We will endeavour, not indeed to resuscitate, but to rear its elements side by side; and when we have them placed, we will strive to make them move, and to follow them in their developments, through the fifteen centuries that have elapsed since that epoch.

When we have advanced some way into this study, I believe we shall very shortly feel convinced that civilisation is very youthful, and that a great deal is wanting before the world can measure its career. Human thought is most assuredly very far from being at this day all that it may become, and we are very far from embracing the whole future of humanity. Let each individual search his own mind, let him interrogate himself as to the greatest possible good of which he can form a conception or a hope, and then compare his ideas with what actually exists at this moment in the world; he will be convinced that society and civilisation are very young, and that in spite of all the advance they have made, they have incomparably more to make. But this conclusion will not lessen the pleasure we shall experience in the contemplation of our actual condition. When our attention is awakened to the great critical junctures in the history of civilisation in Europe during fifteen centuries, we shall see how laborious, stormy, and harsh the condition of mankind has been, even to our own time, not only outwardly, and in the social state, but also inwardly, in the mental existence. For all those ages, the human mind has had to suffer as much as the human species. We shall see that, for the first time perhaps in modern times, the human mind has arrived at a state, certainly very imperfect, but in which some peace and harmony reign. It is the same with society; it has evidently made immense strides: the condition of men is easy and just when compared with what it previously was. We may almost apply to ourselves, when thinking of our ancestors, the verses of Lucretius:

Suave mari magno, turbantibus æquora ventis, E terrâ magnum alterius spectare laborem. [Footnote 2]

[Footnote 2: We can look calmly from the land on the perils of another tossed on the ocean by turbulent winds.]

We may even say of ourselves, without too much pride, as Sthenelaus in Homer:

[Footnote 3]

[Footnote 3: We are thankful to Heaven that we are worth infinitely more than those that went before us.]

Let us be careful, however, not to give up ourselves too much to the idea of our happiness and amelioration, or we may fall into two great dangers, pride and relaxation; and by placing too great a confidence in the power and success of the human mind, and of our actual advancement, we may become enervated by the agreeableness of our condition. I know not whether others are struck with the same thought as myself, but in my opinion we are perpetually fluctuating between the temptation to complain of having too little, and that of pluming ourselves on too much. We have a mental susceptibility, an illimitable want and ambition in the thought, in the desires, in the workings of the imagination; and when we bring them to the practical ordeal of life—and it behoves us to undergo pain, and make sacrifices and efforts, to attain the object—our arms droop, and fall listless. We despond with a facility almost equal to the impatience with which we desire. We must take care not to be carried away by either one or other of these two failings. Let us accustom ourselves to a just measurement of what we can legitimately effect with our powers, science, and strength; and let us pretend to nothing more than what can be legitimately, justly, and regularly acquired, with a due regard to the principles upon which our civilisation itself reposes. We sometimes seem disposed to invoke principles that we condemn and despise, the principles and means of barbarous Europe—force, violence, falsehood, habitual usages four or five centuries ago. And when we have yielded to this desire, we find in ourselves neither the perseverance nor the savage energy of the men of those times, who endured much suffering, and who, dissatisfied with their condition, laboured unceasingly to get freed from it. We are satisfied with ours; let us eschew the risks of vague desires, the time for which has not yet come. Much has been given to us, and much will be required from us: we must render to posterity a severe account of our conduct: at the present day, all people and governments must submit to discussion, examination, and responsibility. Let us firmly and faithfully adhere to the principles of our civilisation, justice, legality, publicity, liberty; and let us never forget that if we most reasonably ask that all things should be laid open to us, we are ourselves under the eye of the world, and will in our turn be examined and judged.

[There are some remarks at the commencement of this lecture so purely personal between M. Guizot and his hearers, as to induce the translator to omit them.]

Lecture II.
Peculiar Features Of Civilisation In Europe.
Influence Of The Church.

I have endeavoured, in the preceding lecture, to explain the fact of civilisation in general, without speaking of any civilisation in particular, without referring to circumstances of time and place, but viewing the fact in itself, and in a purely philosophical light. To-day I broach the history of European civilisation; but before entering upon the strict recital, I wish to give a general idea of the peculiar physiognomy of this civilisation. I wish to characterise it so distinctly, that it may appear quite apart from all the other civilisations that have been developed in the world. I am about to attempt this, but I can do little more than so declare, for I dare scarcely flatter myself that I shall succeed in depicting European society with so much fidelity as to lead you at once to recognise it as a true picture.

When we observe the civilisations which have preceded that of modern Europe, whether in Asia or elsewhere, including the Greek and Roman civilisation, it is impossible not to be struck with the unity which prevails in them. They appear to have emanated from a single fact, from a single idea: it would seem as if society clung to one great principle, which controlled it, and determined its institutions, manners, opinions; in a word, all its developments.

In Egypt, for example, it was the theocratic principle upon which the whole social state depended; it was pourtrayed in its manners, on its monuments, and all that remains to us of the Egyptian civilisation. In India, the same fact is perceptible—the almost exclusive domination of the theocratic principle. In other quarters we discern another organisation—the dominion of a conquering tribe: the principle of force alone possesses society, and imposes upon it laws and character. Again, elsewhere, the society is the expression of the democratic principle; thus it appeared in the commercial republics which covered the coasts of Asia-Minor and Syria, Ionia and Phoenicia. Thus, when we survey the ancient civilisations, we find them all impressed with a singular character of unity in institutions, ideas, and manners; a single, or at least a very preponderating power, governs and decides everything.