No More Learning

Amidst constant success,
these precautionary combinations were never discontinued. His
achievements are the earliest recorded evidence of scientific
military organization on a large scale, and of its overwhelming
effects. Alexander overawes the imagination more than any
other personage of antiquity, by the matchless development of all
that constitutes effective force, as an individual warrior, and
as organizer and leader of armed masses; not merely the blind
impetuosity ascribed by Homer to Arês, but also the intelligent,
methodized, and all-subduing compression which he personifies in
Athênê. But all his great qualities were fit for use only against
enemies; in which category indeed were numbered all mankind,
known and unknown, except those who chose to submit to him.
In his Indian campaigns, amidst tribes of utter strangers, we
perceive that not only those who stand on their defense, but also
those who abandon their property and flee to the mountains, are
alike pursued and slaughtered.
a sol-
Apart from the transcendent merits of Alexander as
dier and a general, some authors give him credit for grand and
beneficent views on the subject of imperial government, and for


## p. 6753 (#129) ###########################################

GEORGE GROTE
6753
I
intentions highly favorable to the improvement of mankind.
see no ground for adopting this opinion. As far as we can vent-
ure to anticipate what would have been Alexander's future, we
see nothing in prospect except years of ever-repeated aggression
and conquest, not to be concluded until he had traversed and
subjugated all the inhabited globe. The acquisition of universal
dominion conceived not metaphorically but literally, and con-
ceived with greater facility in consequence of the imperfect geo-
graphical knowledge of the time-was the master passion of his
soul. At the moment of his death he was commencing fresh
aggression in the south against the Arabians, to an indefinite
extent; while his vast projects against the western tribes in
Africa and Europe, as far as the Pillars of Hêraklês, were con-
signed in the orders and memoranda confidentially communicated
to Kraterus. Italy, Gaul, and Spain would have been successively
attacked and conquered; the enterprises proposed to him when
in Baktria by the Chorasmian prince Pharasmanês, but postponed
then until a more convenient season, would have been next taken
up, and he would have marched from the Danube northward,
round the Euxine and Palus Mæotis, against the Scythians and
the tribes of Caucasus. There remained moreover the Asiatic
regions east of the Hyphasis, which his soldiers had refused to
enter upon, but which he certainly would have invaded at a
future opportunity, were it only to efface the poignant humilia-
tion of having been compelled to relinquish his proclaimed pur-
pose. Though this sounds like romance and hyperbole, it was
nothing more than the real insatiate aspiration of Alexander, who
looked upon every new acquisition mainly as a capital for acquir
ing more: "You are a man like all of us, Alexander" (said the
naked Indian to him), "except that you abandon your home like
a meddlesome destroyer, to invade the most distant regions;
enduring hardship yourself and inflicting hardship upon others. "
Now, how an empire thus boundless and heterogeneous, such as
no prince has ever yet realized, could have been administered.
with any superior advantages to subjects, it would be difficult to
show. The mere task of acquiring and maintaining, of keeping
satraps and tribute gatherers in authority as well as in subordi-
nation, of suppressing resistances ever liable to recur in regions.
distant by months of march, would occupy the whole life of a
world-conqueror, without leaving any leisure for the improve-
ments suited to peace and stability, if we give him credit for
such purposes in theory.
XII-423


## p. 6754 (#130) ###########################################

6754
GEORGE GROTE
But even this last is more than can be granted. Alexander's
acts indicate that he desired nothing better than to take up the
traditions of the Persian empire: a tribute-levying and army-
levying system, under Macedonians in large proportion as his
instruments, yet partly also under the very same Persians who
had administered before, provided they submitted to him. It has
indeed been extolled among his merits that he was thus willing to
reappoint Persian grandees (putting their armed force, however,
under the command of a Macedonian officer), and to continue
native princes in their dominions, if they did willing homage
to him as tributary subordinates. But all this had been done
before him by the Persian kings, whose system it was to leave
the conquered princes undisturbed, subject only to the payment
of tribute, and to the obligation of furnishing a military contin-
gent when required. In like manner Alexander's Asiatic empire
would thus have been composed of an aggregate of satrapies
and dependent principalities, furnishing money and soldiers; in
other respects left to the discretion of local rule, with occasional
extreme inflictions of punishment, but no systematic examination
or control. Upon this, the condition of Asiatic empire in all
ages, Alexander would have grafted one special improvement:
the military organization of the empire, feeble under the Achæ-
menid princes, would have been greatly strengthened by his
genius and by the able officers formed in his school, both for
foreign aggression and for home control.
In respect of intelligence and combining genius, Alexander
was Hellenic to the full; in respect of disposition and purpose,
no one could be less Hellenic. The acts attesting his Oriental
violence of impulse, unmeasured self-will, and exaction of rever-
ence above the limits of humanity, have been already recounted.
To describe him as a son of Hellas, imbued with the political
maxims of Aristotle and bent on the systematic diffusion of
Hellenic culture for the improvement of mankind, is in my
judgment an estimate of his character contrary to the evidence.
Alexander is indeed said to have invited suggestions from Aris-
totle as to the best mode of colonizing; but his temper altered
so much after a few years of Asiatic conquest, that he came not
only to lose all deference for Aristotle's advice, but even to hate
him bitterly. Moreover, though the philosopher's full sugges-
tions have not been preserved, yet we are told generally that he
recommended Alexander to behave to the Greeks as a leader or
president, or limited chief, and to the Barbarians (non-Hellenes) as


## p. 6755 (#131) ###########################################

GEORGE GROTE
6755
a master; a distinction substantially coinciding with that pointed
out by Burke in his speeches at the beginning of the American
war, between the principles of government proper to be followed
by England in the American colonies and in British India. No
Greek thinker believed the Asiatics to be capable of that free
civil polity upon which the march of every Grecian community
was based. Aristotle did not wish to degrade the Asiatics below
the level to which they had been accustomed, but rather to pre-
serve the Greeks from being degraded to the same level. Now,
Alexander recognized no such distinction as that drawn by his
preceptor. He treated Greeks and Asiatics alike, not by ele-
vating the latter but by degrading the former. Though he
employed all indiscriminately as instruments, yet he presently
found the free speech of Greeks, and even of Macedonians, so dis-
tasteful and offensive that his preferences turned more and more
in favor of the servile Asiatic sentiment and customs. Instead
of Hellenizing Asia, he was tending to Asiatize Macedonia and
Hellas. His temper and character, as modified by a few years of
conquest, rendered him quite unfit to follow the course recom-
mended by Aristotle towards the Greeks; quite as unfit as any
of the Persian kings, or as the French Emperor Napoleon, to
endure that partial frustration, compromise, and smart from free
criticism, which is inseparable from the position of a limited.
chief. Among a multitude of subjects more diverse-colored than
even the army of Xerxês, it is quite possible that he might have
turned his power towards the improvement of the rudest por-
tions. We are told (though the fact is difficult to credit, from
his want of time) that he abolished various barbarisms of the
Hyrkanians, Arachosians, and Sogdians. But Macedonians as
well as Greeks would have been pure losers by being absorbed
into an immense Asiatic aggregate.
This process of Hellenizing Asia,— in so far as Asia was ever
Hellenized, which has often been ascribed to Alexander, was
in reality the work of the Diadochi who came after him; though
his conquests doubtless opened the door and established the mili-
tary ascendency which rendered such a work practicable. The
position, the aspirations, and the interests of these Diadochi-
Antigonus, Ptolemy, Seleukus, Lysimachus, etc. - were materially
different from those of Alexander. They had neither appetite.
nor means for new and remote conquest; their great rivalry was
with each other; each sought to strengthen himself near home


## p. 6756 (#132) ###########################################

6756
GEORGE GROTE
against the rest. It became a matter of fashion and pride with
them, not less than of interest, to found new cities immortalizing
their family names. These foundations were chiefly made in the
regions of Asia near and known to Greeks, where Alexander
had planted none. Thus the great and numerous foundations of
Seleukus Nikator and his successors covered Syria, Mesopotamia,
and parts of Asia Minor. All these regions were known to
Greeks, and more or less tempting to new Grecian immigrants,
not out of reach or hearing of the Olympic and other festivals
as the Jaxartês and the Indus were. In this way a considerable
influx of new Hellenic blood was poured into Asia during the
century succeeding Alexander; probably in great measure from
Italy and Sicily, where the condition of the Greek cities became.
more and more calamitous, besides the numerous Greeks who
took service as individuals under these Asiatic kings. Greeks,
and Macedonians speaking Greek, became predominant, if not in
numbers at least in importance, throughout most of the cities in
western Asia. In particular, the Macedonian military organiza-
tion, discipline, and administration were maintained systematically
among these Asiatic kings. In the account of the battle of Mag-
nesia, fought by the Seleukid king Antiochus the Great against
the Romans in 190 B. C. , the Macedonian phalanx, constituting
the main force of his Asiatic army, appears in all its complete-
ness, just as it stood under Philip and Perseus in Macedonia
itself.
Moreover, besides this, there was the still more important fact
of the many new cities founded in Asia by the Seleukidæ and
the other contemporary kings. Each of these cities had a con-
siderable infusion of Greek and Macedonian citizens among the
native Orientals located here, often brought by compulsion from
neighboring villages. In what numerical ratio these two elements
of the civic population stood to each other, we cannot say. But
the Greeks and Macedonians were the leading and active portion,
who exercised the greatest assimilating force, gave imposing
effect to the public manifestations of religion, had wider views
and sympathies, dealt with the central government, and carried
on that contracted measure of municipal autonomy which the city
was permitted to retain. In these cities the Greek inhabitants,
though debarred from political freedom, enjoyed a range of social
activity suited to their tastes. In each, Greek was the language
of public business and dealing; each formed a centre of attraction.


## p. 6757 (#133) ###########################################

GEORGE GROTE
6757
and commerce for an extensive neighborhood; altogether, they
were the main Hellenic or quasi-Hellenic element in Asia under
the Greco-Asiatic kings, as contrasted with the rustic villages,
where native manners and probably native speech still continued
with little modification. But the Greeks of Antioch, or Alexan-
dria, or Seleukeia, were not like citizens of Athens or Thebes,
nor even like men of Tarentum or Ephesus. While they com-
municated their language to Orientals, they became themselves
substantially Orientalized. Their feelings, judgments, and habits
of action ceased to be Hellenic. Polybius, when he visited Alex-
andria, looked with surprise and aversion on the Greeks there
resident, though they were superior to the non-Hellenic popula-
tion, whom he considered worthless. Greek social habits, festi-
vals, and legends passed with the Hellenic settlers into Asia; all
becoming amalgamated and transformed so as to suit a new
Asiatic abode. Important social and political consequences turned
upon the diffusion of the language, and upon the establishment
of such a common medium of communication throughout western
Asia. But after all, the Hellenized Asiatic was not so much a
Greek as a foreigner with Grecian speech, exterior varnish, and
superficial manifestations; distinguished fundamentally from those
Greek citizens with whom the present history has been concerned.
So he would have been considered by Sophoklês, by Thucydidês,
by Sokratês.
We read that Alexander felt so much interest in the extension
of science that he gave to Aristotle the immense sum of eight
hundred talents in money, placing under his directions several
thousand men, for the purpose of prosecuting zoölogical re-
searches. These exaggerations are probably the work of those
enemies of the philosopher who decried him as a pensioner of
the Macedonian court; but it is probable enough that Philip, and
Alexander in the early part of his reign, may have helped Aris-
totle in the difficult process of getting together facts and speci-
mens for observation, from esteem towards him personally rather
than from interest in his discoveries. The intellectual turn of
Alexander was towards literature, poetry, and history.
He was
fond of the Iliad especially, as well as of the Attic tragedians;
so that Harpalus, being directed to send some books to him in
Upper Asia, selected as the most acceptable packet various trage-
dies of Eschylus, Sophoklês, and Euripidês, with the dithyrambic
poems of Telestês and the histories of Phlistus.


## p. 6758 (#134) ###########################################

6758
GEORGE GROTE
THE RISE OF CLEON
From the History of Greece ›
UN
NDER the great increase of trade and population in Athens.
and Peiræus during the last forty years, a new class of
politicians seem to have grown up, men engaged in various
descriptions of trade and manufacture, who began to rival more
or less in importance the ancient families of Attic proprietors.
This change was substantially analogous to that which took place
in the cities of medieval Europe, when the merchants and traders
of the various guilds gradually came to compete with, and ulti-
mately supplanted, the patrician families in whom the supremacy
had originally resided. In Athens, persons of ancient family and
station enjoyed at this time no political privilege; and since the
reforms of Ephialtês and Periklês, the political constitution had
become thoroughly democratical. But they still continued to form
the two highest classes in the Solonian census founded on prop-
erty, the pentakosiomedimni, and the hippeis or knights.
An individual Athenian of this class, though without any legal
title to preference, yet when he stood forward as candidate for
political influence, continued to be decidedly preferred and wel-
comed by the social sentiment at Athens, which preserved in its
spontaneous sympathies distinctions effaced from the political code.
Besides this place ready prepared for him in the public sympathy,
especially advantageous at the outset of political life, he found
himself further borne up by the family connections, associations,
and political clubs, etc. , which exercised very great influence both
on the politics and the judicature of Athens, and of which he
became a member as a matter of course. Such advantages were
doubtless only auxiliary, carrying a man up to a certain point of
influence, but leaving him to achieve the rest by his own per-
sonal qualities and capacity. But their effect was nevertheless
very real, and those who, without possessing them, met and buf-
feted him in the public assembly, contended against great disad-
vantages. A person of such low or middling station obtained no
favorable presumptions or indulgence on the part of the public
to meet him half-way; nor had he established connections to
encourage first successes, or help him out of early scrapes. He
found others already in possession of ascendency, and well dis-
posed to keep down new competitors; so that he had to win his
―――
1


## p. 6759 (#135) ###########################################

GEORGE GROTE
6759
own way unaided, from the first step to the last, by qualities
personal to himself: by assiduity of attendance, by acquaintance
with business, by powers of striking speech, and withal by un-
flinching audacity, indispensable to enable him to bear up against
that opposition and enmity which he would incur from the high-
born politicians and organized party clubs, as soon as he appeared
to be rising up into ascendency.
The free march of political and judicial affairs raised up
several such men, during the years beginning and immediately
preceding the Peloponnesian War. Even during the lifetime of
Periklês they appear to have arisen in greater or less numbers:
but the personal ascendency of that great man-who combined
an aristocratical position with a strong and genuine democratical
sentiment, and an enlarged intellect rarely found attached to
either-impressed a peculiar character on Athenian politics. The
Athenian world was divided into his partisans and his oppo-
nents, among each of whom there were individuals high-born and
low-born-though the aristocratical party properly so called, the
majority of wealthy and high-born Athenians, either opposed or
disliked him. It is about two years after his death that we begin
to hear of a new class of politicians.
Among them all,
the most distinguished was Kleon, son of Kleænetus.
Kleon acquired his first importance among the speakers against
Periklês, so that he would thus obtain for himself, during his
early political career, the countenance of the numerous and aris-
tocratical anti-Perikleans. He is described by Thucydidês in gen-
eral terms as a person of the most violent temper and character
in Athens,—as being dishonest in his calumnies and virulent in
his invective and accusation. Aristophanês in his comedy of
'The Knights' reproduces these features, with others new and dis-
tinct, as well as with exaggerated details, comic, satirical, and
contemptuous. His comedy depicts Kleon in the point of view
in which he would appear to the knights of Athens: a leather-
dresser, smelling of the tan-yard; a low-born brawler, terrifying
opponents by the violence of his criminations, the loudness of his
voice, the impudence of his gestures, moreover, as venal in
his politics, threatening men with accusations and then receiving
money to withdraw them; a robber of the public treasury, per-
secuting merit as well as rank, and courting the favor of the
assembly by the basest and most guilty cajolery. The general
attributes set forth by Thucydidês (apart from Aristophanês, who
•


## p. 6760 (#136) ###########################################

6760
GEORGE GROTE
does not profess to write history), we may well accept: the pow-
erful and violent invective of Kleon, often dishonest, together
with his self-confidence and audacity in the public assembly.
Men of the middling class, like Kleon and Hyperbolus, who per-
severed in addressing the public assembly and trying to take a
leading part in it against persons of greater family pretension
than themselves, were pretty sure to be men of more than usual
audacity. Had they not possessed this quality, they would never
have surmounted the opposition made to them; we may well
believe that they had it to a displeasing excess—and even if
they had not, the same measure of self-assumption which in
Alkibiadês would be tolerated from his rank and station, would
in them pass for insupportable impudence. Unhappily, we have
no specimens to enable us to appreciate the invective of Kleon.
We cannot determine whether it was more virulent than that of
Demosthenes and Eschinês, seventy years afterwards, each of
those eminent orators imputing to the other the grossest impu-
dence, calumny, perjury, corruption, loud voice, and revolting
audacity of manner, in language which Kleon can hardly have
surpassed in intensity of vituperation, though he doubtless fell
immeasurably short of it in classical finish. Nor can we even
tell in what degree Kleon's denunciations of the veteran Periklês
were fiercer than those memorable invectives against the old age
of Sir Robert Walpole, with which Lord Chatham's political career
opened.
had grown
His personal hold on the public assembly
into a sort of ascendency which Thucydidês describes by saying
that Kleon was "at that time by far the most persuasive speaker
in the eyes of the people. " The fact of Kleon's great power of
speech, and his capacity of handling public business in a popular
manner, is better attested than anything else respecting him,
because it depends upon two witnesses both hostile to him,-
Thucydidês and Aristophanês. The assembly and the dikastery
were Kleon's theatre and holding-ground: for the Athenian people
taken collectively in their place of meeting, and the Athenian
people taken individually, were not always the same person and
had not the same mode of judgment; Demos sitting in the Pnyx
was a different man from Demos at home. The lofty combination
of qualities possessed by Periklês exercised ascendency over both
one and the other; but the qualities of Kleon swayed considerably
the former without standing high in the esteem of the latter.


## p. 6761 (#137) ###########################################

6761
EUGÉNIE AND MAURICE DE GUÉRIN
(1805-1848)
(1810-1839)
F THIS remarkable brother and sister might have been written
the words: "They were lovely and pleasant in their lives,
and in their death they were not divided. " "We were,"
says Eugénie, "two eyes looking out of one head. " Their history as
well as their literary work is left in the form of Journals and Letters.
Not written for publication, these are most intimate records of their
characters and spirits.
Eugénie and Georges Maurice de Guérin were born in the old
château of Cayly, Languedoc, of a noble but impoverished family;
Eugénie, the eldest of four children, in 1805, and Maurice, the young-
est, August 5th, 1810. On the death of their mother, Eugénie as-
sumed care of the delicate brother to whom her life was thenceforth
devoted. To a desolate home where sorrow and an austere religion
held sway, the morbid note of Maurice's impressionable nature must
be attributed. He went to school in Toulouse, spent five years in
college, joined in 1832 the famous Lamennais in his monastic retreat
at La Chênaie, and finally went to Paris to seek fame by literary
work. Here he taught, wrote, and married, dying at the early age
of twenty-nine on July 19th, 1839. In 1840 Madame George Sand
brought out in the Revue des Deux Mondes his principal composition,
'Le Centaur. '
Maurice was a dreamer from his infancy, possessed of a melancholy
spirit and a wonderful insight into nature's physical and mystical
beauties. "He has a truly interpretative faculty," says Matthew Ar-
nold: "the most profound and delicate sense of the life of nature, and
the most exquisite felicity in finding expressions to render that sense. "
We may divide his life into two periods: the first under the influ-
ence of Lamennais at La Chênaie, where so much of his 'Journal'
was written; and the second in Paris, where he soon became, Sainte-
Beuve tells us, "a man of the world, elegant, even fashionable; a con-
versationalist who could hold his own against the most brilliant
talkers of Paris. " To the first period belongs the greater part of his
'Journal,' upon which, with the Centaur,' his fame rests; for his
verses possess little value. Of the suggestions of landscapes in the
'Journal' Sainte-Beuve says:-"They are delicate; they are felt and


## p. 6762 (#138) ###########################################

6762
EUGÉNIE AND MAURICE DE GUÉRIN
painted at the same time: they are painted from near by on the spot,
according to nature, but without crudeness. There is no trace of the
palette. The colors have their original freshness and truth, and also
a certain tenderness. They have passed into the mirror of the inner
man, and are seen by reflection. One finds in them, above all, ex-
pression; and they breathe the very soul of things. "
Maurice de Guérin describes his own life as "made up of serious
projects ever changing, and of permanent but idle dreams; of long
intoxications of the fancy, and of almost absurd contests between my
will and my soul, which is independent and as light in flight as a
wild creature; while in the most sensitive and hidden depths of my
being there is always acute suffering or dull discomfort, according as
the disorder increases or diminishes. " Here then he gives us the key-
note to his life and writings,-morbid introspection combined with a
rare poetic fancy; and it is largely owing to this combination that
the Journal' is an interesting psychological study.
'The Centaur' was suggested by a visit to the Musée des Antiques
with his friend Trébutien, and is masterly in its conception of that
strange imaginative borderland between animal and human life. This
being, partaking equally of both these lives, is supposed to stand in
his melancholy old age on the summit of a mountain, while he
relates to an inquisitive mortal the history of his youth.
Sainte-Beuve considers Eugénie de Guérin of equal rank with her
brother; but Matthew Arnold in his Essays in Criticism' says that
Eugénie's words "are but intellectual signs, not symbols of nature like
Maurice's. They bring the notion of the thing described to the mind;
they do not bring the feeling of it to the imagination. "
The literary interest in Eugénie centres also in her 'Journal. '
Her life was passed at La Cayla, in the simple routine of household
duties and neighborhood charities. Once only she went to Paris, on
the occasion of her brother's marriage. She was intensely religious,
and spent much time in prayer, meditation, and preparation for
death.
Despite her pleasure in the beauty of nature and in the trivial
incidents of her daily life, she was subject to the moods of morbid
depression noted in Maurice. She condemns this, calling it languor,
ennui, or weariness. Of course the Roman Catholic Eugénie de
Guérin is ignorant of Puritan dogma; but allowing for her poetic
temperament and tenderness, her rigid asceticism is strangely identi-
cal with Puritanism. Everything that gives her pleasure seems to
her self-indulgent, even writing. She says, "I have renounced
poetry because I have seen that God did not ask it of me; but the
sacrifice has been so much the more painful, as in abandoning poetry,
poetry has not abandoned me. " Again she writes:-
-


## p. 6763 (#139) ###########################################

EUGÉNIE AND MAURICE DE GUÉRIN
6763
"Shall I tell you why I gave up the journal? Because I find the time lost
that I spend in writing. We owe an account of our minutes to God; and is it
not making a bad use of them to employ them in tracing the days that are
departing? Would to God that my thoughts, my spirit, had never taken their
flight beyond the narrow round in which it is my lot to live! In spite of all
that people say to the contrary, I feel that I cannot go beyond my needle-
work and my spinning without going too far; I feel it, I believe it: well then,
I will keep in my proper sphere; however much I am tempted, my spirit shall
not be allowed to occupy itself with great matters until it occupies itself with
them in heaven. »
And Maurice writes:-
:-
"So long as the wind wafts me from time to time whiffs of wild fragrance,
and my ear catches distant accents of the melodies of nature, what shall I
have to regret? Does the spider, which at evening-tide hangs suspended on
its thread between two leaves, concern itself with the flight of the eagle and
the pinions of the birds? And does the imagination of the bird, as it broods
over its nestlings well sheltered beneath some bush, regret the caprices of its
liberty and the soft undulations of its flight through the airy heights? Never
have I had the freedom of the bird, nor has my thought ever been as happy
as its wings; then let us fall asleep in resignation, as does the bird in its nest. »
Maurice was the one thought of Eugénie's life, and all her Jour-
nal' is addressed to him. Two days after his death she writes:-
"No, my dear, death shall not part us, shall not remove you from
my thoughts. Death only separates our bodies; the soul instead of
being there is in heaven, and the change of abodes takes nothing
away from its affections. Far from it; I trust one loves better in
heaven, where all becomes Divine. " Determined that the world
should know Maurice, she wrote to his friends and prepared a memoir
for his works; yet she died on May 31st, 1848, before their publica-
tion. Sainte-Beuve made her the subject of a 'Causerie de Lundi,'
and Trébutien published her 'Reliquæ' at Caen (1855). In 1862 this
tribute appeared for public circulation, was crowned by the French
Academy, and passed through sixteen editions in eight months.
-
FROM THE JOURNAL OF EUGÉNIE DE GUÉRIN
CHR
HRISTMAS is Come; the beautiful festival, the one I love most,
that gives me the same joy that it gave the shepherds of
Bethlehem. In real truth, one's whole soul sings with joy
at this beautiful coming of God upon earth,- a coming which
here is announced on all sides of us by music and by our charm-
ing nadalet. Nothing at Paris can give you a notion of what
*
* Chimes.


## p. 6764 (#140) ###########################################

6764
EUGÉNIE AND MAURICE DE GUÉRIN
Christmas is with us. You have not even the midnight mass.
We all of us went to it, papa at our head, on the most perfect
night possible. Never was there a finer sky than ours was that
midnight; so fine that papa kept perpetually throwing back the
hood of his cloak, that he might look up at the sky. The ground
was white with hoar-frost, but we were not cold; besides, the air,
as we met it, was warmed by the bundles of blazing torchwood
which our servants carried in front of us to light us on our way.
It was delightful, I do assure you; and I should like you to have
seen us there on our road to church, in those lanes with the
bushes along their banks as white as if they were in flower.
The hoar-frost makes the most lovely flowers. We saw a long
spray, so beautiful that we wanted to take it with us as a gar-
land for the communion table, but it melted in our hands: all
flowers fade so soon! I was very sorry about my garland; it
was mournful to see it drip away, and get smaller and smaller
every minute.
Он, ноw pleasant it is, when the rain is dropping from the
sky with a soft sound, to sit by one's fire, holding the tongs and
making sparks! That was my pastime just now; I am fond of
it: the sparks are so pretty; they are the flowers of the hearth.
Verily, charming things take place in the embers, and when I
am not busy I am amused with the phantasmagoria of the fire-
place. There are a thousand little forms in the ashes that come
and go, grow bigger, change, and vanish,-sometimes angels,
horned demons, children, old women, butterflies, dogs, sparrows,
everything, may be seen under the logs. I remember a figure
with an air of heavenly suffering, that seemed to me what a
soul might be in purgatory. I was struck, and wished an artist
had been near me: never was vision more perfect. Watch the
embers, and you will agree that there are beautiful things there,
and that unless one was blind one need never be weary by the
fire. Be sure you listen to the little whistling that comes out
of the embers like a voice of song. Nothing can be sweeter
or purer; it is like the singing of some tiny spirit of the fire.
These, my dear, are my evenings and their delights; add sleep,
which is not the slightest.
You will like to hear that I have just passed a nice quarter
of an hour on the terrace steps, sitting by a poor old woman who


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EUGÉNIE AND MAURICE DE GUÉRIN
6765
was singing me a lamentable ballad on an incident that once
happened at Cahuzac. It was apropos of a gold cross that was
stolen off the Holy Virgin's neck. The old woman recollects her
grandmother's telling her she had heard that there had been a
still more sacrilegious robbery in the same church; namely, of
the Host itself, one day when it was left alone in the chancel.
It was a girl, who while everybody was at harvest went to the
altar, and climbing upon it, put the monstrance into her apron
and placed it under a wild rose in the wood. The shepherds who
found it accused her, and nine priests came in procession to adore
the Holy Sacrament of the rose-bush and carry it back to the
wood; but the poor shepherdess was taken, tried, and condemned
to be burned. Just before her death she asked to confess, and
owned her theft to the priest; saying that she was not a thief,
but she wanted to have the Holy Sacrament in the forest: "I
thought that le bon Dieu would be as well pleased under a rose-
bush as on an altar! " At these words an angel descended from
heaven to announce her pardon and console the guilty saint, who
nevertheless was burned on a pile of which the wild rose formed
the first fagot! There is the story of the beggar, to whom I
listened as to a nightingale. I thanked her heartily and offered
her something as a recompense for her ditty, but she would only
take flowers: "Give me a bough of that beautiful lilac. " I gave
her four, as large as plumes, and the poor creature went off, her
stick in one hand and her nosegay in the other, and left me her
ballad.
NEVER have I seen a more beautiful effect of light on the
paper. But does not God make beauty for all the world? All
our birds were singing this morning whilst I was praying. The
accompaniment delights, though it distracts me. I stop to listen.
Then I resume with the thought that the birds and I are carol-
ing our hymns to God; and these little creatures sing, perhaps,
better than I. But the charm of prayer, the charm of communion
with God, they cannot taste: we must have a soul to feel that.
I have this happiness above theirs.
To-day, and now for a long time, I am tranquil: peace in
head and heart; a state of grace for which I bless God. My
window is open.
How calm it is! All the little noises outside
come to me. I love that of the stream. Now I hear a church
clock and the little pendule which answers it. This sound of


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6766
EUGÉNIE AND MAURICE DE GUÉRIN
hours in the distance and in the room has in the night some-
thing mysterious. I think of the Trappists who wake to pray,
of the sick who count all the hours of their suffering, of the
afflicted who weep, of the dead who sleep still and frozen in
their beds.
FROM THE JOURNAL OF MAURICE DE GUÉRIN
T HAS just been raining. Nature is fresh and radiant; the earth
seems to taste with rapture the water which brings it life.
One would say that the throats of the birds had also been
refreshed by the rain; their song is purer, more vivacious, more
brilliant, and vibrates wonderfully in the air, which has become
more sonorous and resounding. The nightingales, the bullfinches,
the blackbirds, the thrushes, the golden orioles, the finches, the
wrens, all these sing and rejoice. A goose, shrieking like a trum-
pet, adds by contrast to the charm. The motionless trees seem
to listen to all these sounds. Innumerable apple-trees in full bloom
look like balls of snow in the distance; the cherry-trees, all white
as well, rise like pyramids or spread out like fans of flowers.
The birds seem at times to aim at those orchestral effects when
all the instruments are blended in a mass of harmony. Would
that we could identify ourselves with spring; that we could go
so far as to believe that in ourselves breathe all the life and all
the love that ferment in nature; hat we could feel ours es to
be at the same time verdure, bird, song, freshness, elasticity,
rapture, serenity! What then should I become? There are mo-
ments when by dint of concentrating ourselves upon this idea
and gazing fixedly on nature, we fancy that we experience some-
thing like this.
Nothing can more faithfully represent this state of the soul
than the shades of evening, falling at this very moment. Gray
clouds just edged with silver cover the whole face of the sky.
The sun, which set but a few moments ago, has left behind light
enough to temper for a while the black shadows, and to soften.
in a measure the fall of night. The winds are hushed, and the
peaceful ocean, as I come to listen on the threshold of the door,
sends me only a melodious murmur which softly spreads over
the soul like a beautiful wave over the beach. The birds, the
first to feel the influence of the night, fly toward the woods, and


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EUGÉNIE AND MAURICE DE GUÉRIN
6767
their wings rustle in the clouds. The coppice, which covers the
entire slope of the hill of Le Val, and resounds all day long with
the chirps of the wren, the gay whistle of the woodpecker, and
the various notes of a multitude of birds, has no more a sound
along its path or within its thickets, unless it be the shrill call
of the blackbirds as they play together and chase one another,
after the other birds have hidden their heads under their wings.
The noise of men, always the last to become silent, gradually
dies away over the face of the fields. The general uproar ceases,
and not a sound is heard except from the towns and hamlets,
where, far into the night, the children cry and the dogs bark.
Silence enwraps me; all things yearn for rest except my pen,
which disturbs perchance the slumber of some living atom asleep
in the folds of my note-book, for it makes its little sound as it
writes these idle thoughts. Then let it cease; for what I write,
have written, and shall write will never be worth the sleep of a
single atom.
THE THOUGHTS OF MACAREUS
From The Centaur,' by Maurice de Guérin
I
HAD my birth in the caves of these mountains. Like the
stream of this valley, whose first drops trickle from some
weeping rock in a deep cavern, the first moment of my life
fell in the darkness of a remote abode, and without breaking
the silence. When our mothers draw near to the time of their
delivery, they withdraw to the caverns, and in the depth of the
loneliest of them, in the thickest of its gloom, bring forth, with-
out uttering a plaint, offspring silent as themselves. Their puis-
sant milk makes us surmount without weakness or dubious
struggle the first difficulties of life; and yet we leave our cav-
erns later than you your cradles. The reason is, that we have
a doctrine that the early days of existence should be kept apart
and enshrouded, as days filled with the presence of the gods.
Nearly the whole term of my growth was passed in the dark-
ness where I was born. The recesses of my dwelling ran so far
under the mountain that I should not have known on which side
was the exit, had not the winds, when they sometimes made.
their way through the opening, sent fresh airs in, and a sudden
trouble. Sometimes too my mother came back to me, having


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6768
EUGÉNIE AND MAURICE DE GUÉRIN
about her the odors of the valleys, or streaming from the waters
which were her haunt. Her returning thus, without a word said
of the valleys or the rivers, but with the emanations from them.
hanging about her, troubled my spirit, and I moved up and
down restlessly in my darkness. "What is it," I cried, "this
outside world whither my mother is borne; and what reigns
there in it so potent as to attract her so often? " At these
moments my own force began to make me unquiet. I felt in it
a power which could not remain idle; and betaking myself either
to toss my arms, or to gallop backward and forward in the
spacious darkness of the cavern, I tried to make out, from the
blows which I dealt in the empty space or from the transport
of my course through it, in what direction my arms were meant
to reach or my feet to bear me. Since that day I have wound
my arms round the busts of centaurs, and round the bodies of
heroes, and round the trunks of oaks; my hands have essayed
the rocks, the waters, plants without number, and the subtlest
impressions of the air,-for I uplift them in the dark and still
nights to catch the breaths of wind, and to draw signs whereby
I may augur my road; my feet-look, O Melampus, how worn
they are! And yet, all benumbed as I am in this extremity of
age, there are days when in broad sunlight on the mountain-
tops I renew these gallopings of my youth in the cavern, and
with the same object, brandishing my arms and employing all
the fleetness which yet is left to me.
O Melampus, thou who wouldst know the life of the centaurs,
wherefore have the gods willed that thy steps should lead thee
to me, the oldest and most forlorn of them all?
It is long
since I have ceased to practice any part of their life. I quit no
more this mountain summit, to which age has confined me. The
point of my arrows now serves me only to uproot some tough-
fibred plant; the tranquil lakes know me still, but the rivers have
forgotten me. I will tell thee a little of my youth; but these
recollections, issuing from a worn memory, come like the drops
of a niggardly libation poured from a damaged urn.
The course of my youth was rapid and full of agitation.
Movement was my life, and my steps knew no bound.
One day
when I was following the course of a valley seldom entered by
the centaurs, I discovered a man making his way up the stream-
side on the opposite bank. He was the first whom my eyes had
lighted on: I despised him. "Behold," I cried, "at the utmost


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EUGÉNIE AND MAURICE DE GUÉRIN
6769
but the half of what I am! How short are his steps! and his
movement how full of labor! Doubtless he is a centaur over-
thrown by the gods, and reduced by them to drag himself along
thus. "
Wandering along at my own will like the rivers, feeling
wherever I went the presence of Cybele, whether in the bed of
the valleys or on the height of the mountains, I bounded whither
I would, like a blind and chainless life. But when Night, filled
with the charm of the gods, overtook me on the slopes of the
mountain, she guided me to the mouth of the caverns, and there
tranquillized me as she tranquillizes the billows of the sea.
Stretched across the threshold of my retreat, my flanks hidden
within the cave and my head under the open sky, I watched
the spectacle of the dark. The sea gods, it is said, quit during
the hours of darkness their palaces under the deep; they seat
themselves on the promontories, and their eyes wander over the
expanse of the waves. Even so I kept watch, having at my feet
an expanse of life like the hushed sea. My regards had free
range, and traveled to the most distant points. Like sea-beaches
which never lose their wetness, the line of mountains to the
west retained the imprint of gleams not perfectly wiped out by
the shadows. In that quarter still survived, in pale clearness,
mountain summits bare and pure. There I beheld at one time
the god Pan descend, ever solitary; at another, the choir of the
mystic divinities; or I saw pass some mountain nymph charm-
struck by the Night. Sometimes the eagles of Mount Olympus
traversed the upper sky, and were lost to view among the far-off
constellations, or in the shade of the dreaming forests.
Thou pursuest after wisdom, O Melampus, which is the science
of the will of the gods; and thou roamest from people to people
like a mortal driven by the Destinies. In the times when I
kept my night watches before the caverns, I have sometimes
believed that I was about to surprise the thought of the sleep-
ing Cybele, and that the mother of the gods, betrayed by her
dreams, would let fall some of her secrets; but I have never
made out more than sounds which faded away in the murmur of
night, or words inarticulate as the bubbling of the rivers.
<<
"O Macareus," one day said to me the great Chiron, whose
old age I tended, we are both of us centaurs of the mountain;
but how different are our lives! Of my days all the study is
(thou seest it) the search for plants; thou, thou art like those
XII-424


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6770
EUGÉNIE AND MAURICE DE GUÉRIN
mortals who have picked up on the waters or in the woods, and
carried to their lips, some pieces of the reed pipe thrown away
by the god Pan. From that hour these mortals, having caught
from their relics of the god a passion for wild life, or perhaps
smitten with some secret madness, enter into the wildness, plunge
among the forests, follow the course of the streams, bury them-
selves in the heart of the mountains, restless and haunted by an
unknown purpose.
The mares beloved of the winds in the far-
thest Scythia are not wilder than thou, nor more cast down at
nightfall, when the North Wind has departed. Seekest thou to
know the gods, O Macareus, and from what source men, animals,
and the elements of the universal fire have their origin? But the
aged Ocean, the father of all things, keeps locked within his own.
breast these secrets; and the nymphs who stand around sing as
they weave their eternal dance before him, to cover any sound
which might escape from his lips half opened by slumber. The
mortals dear to the gods for their virtue have received from
their hands lyres to give delight to man, or the seeds of new
plants to make him rich; but from their inexorable lips, nothing! "
Such were the lessons which old Chiron gave me. Waned to
the very extremity of life, the centaur yet nourished in his spirit
the most lofty discourse.
For me, O Melampus, I decline into my last days, calm as
the setting of the constellations. I still retain enterprise enough
to climb to the top of the rocks, and there I linger late, either
gazing on the wild and restless clouds, or to see come up from
the horizon the rainy Hyades, the Pleiades, or the great Orion;
but I feel myself perishing and passing quickly away, like a
snow-wreath floating on the stream; and soon shall I be mingled
with the waters which flow in the vast bosom of Earth.
Translation of Matthew Arnold.


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F. P. GUIZOT.


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i
P.
his T
וזי


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FP. GUZT


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6771
FRANCOIS GUIZOT
(1787-1874)
BY CHARLES GROSS
RANÇOIS PIERRE GUILLAUME GUIZOT
born at Nîmes, Octo-
ber 4th, 1787. His career was eventful: he was a prolific
writer, a successful professor, a great historian, and an influ-
ential statesman. Though we are mainly concerned with his literary
activity, Guizot the author cannot be isolated from Guizot the patriot,
the Calvinist statesman, the political champion of the bourgeoisie
and of constitutional monarchy. He is one of the few great histo-
rians who have helped to make history. The polities and state-craft
of the past should be less mysterious to the experienced and judi-
cious statesman than to the secluded scholar. On the other hand,
Guizot's training in historical research may have reacted on his politi-
cal life, widening his mental horizon and helping to develop in him
the liberal spirit of catholicity and impartiality which he evinced in
his public life.
His father, a lawyer, was a victim of the Revolution in 1794. In
1812 Guizot was appointed professor of history at the Sorbonne. In
1814 he began his political career as Secretary-General of the Interior,
and in 1817 he became a Councilor of State. In 1822 his lectures at
the Sorbonne were suppressed on account of his liberal. ideas; in 1828
he recovered his chair at the Sorbonne, and during the next two
years lectured on the history of civilization in Europe and France.
Under Louis Philippe he was Minister of Instruction, and did much
to improve the French system of education. From 1840 to 1848 he
was at the head of the French Cabinet as Minister of Foreign Affairs.
With the dethronement of Louis Philippe in 1848 his political activ-
ity came to an end. Throughout his life he was a liberal. Though
he advocated the political preponderance of the middle classes and
the maintenance of a constitutional government he firmly combated
revolutionary and ultra-democratic theories; he tried to reconcile the
enjoyment of liberty with the preservation of social order. He died.
September 12th, 1874.
Of his numerous writings the most important are the 'History of
Civilization in Europe,' the 'History of Civilization in France,' the
'History of the English Revolution,' 'Shakespeare and his Times,' his


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6772
FRANÇOIS GUIZOT
'Memoirs,' and the 'History of France, Related for my Grandchild-
ren. ' As a historian he is noted for his philosophic grasp of import-
ant historical questions, his clear discernment of the broad lines of
historical development, and his insight into the relations of cause and
effect. Paying little heed to amusing and dramatic details or per-
sonal exploits, he tries to determine the dominant ideas or principles
of each period of history. All his works are marked by a seriousness
of purpose which often assumes the form of ardent patriotism or
earnest religious conviction. He believed that the study of the past
has an ethical value, that an accurate knowledge of the past helps us
to comprehend the present and to provide for the future. He also
believed in the progressive development of mankind through the vari-
ous ages.
The fundamental idea contained in the word "civilization,"
he says, is progress or development, the carrying to higher perfec-
tion the relations between man and man.
Such a philosophic treatment of history, though stimulating to
thoughtful students, may easily degenerate into vague and mislead-
ing generalizations. The philosophic historian is tempted to weave
his subjective ideas into the tissue which he fabricates, allowing the
imagination to dominate over reason. The successful application of
the philosophic method presupposes not merely a high order of men-
tal capacity, but also an accurate knowledge of facts, which was less
attainable in Guizot's time than it is at present. When he wrote his
'Civilization in Europe' and 'Civilization in France' (1828-30), the
modern method of historical research was still in its infancy; Ranke
had just begun his epoch-making career. It must be admitted how-
ever that Guizot's books are still suggestive and instructive, despite
the fact that critical investigation during the past fifty years has
revolutionized our knowledge of events and institutions; many of the
broad lines of development that he laid down still remain unchanged.
It should also be said that Guizot did much for the advancement of
historical research by aiding to establish the Society for the His-
tory of France and by creating the Historical Commission, both of
which have actively promoted this branch of study in France since
1835.
Each of the fourteen brief lectures in his 'History of Civilization
in Europe' is the delineation of a cardinal event or principle, and
these principles are linked into one chain of development. At first
he considers the influence of the three main sources of modern civil-
ization the Christian Church, the Romans, and the Germans; in the
light of recent research we may safely say that he underrates the
influence of the Germanic element and overestimates that of Rome.
Next he examines four later cardinal factors in historical develop-
ment, - namely, feudalism, the Church, the communes, and royalty,-


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FRANÇOIS GUIZOT
6773
and traces their interaction down through the period of monarchical
centralization and of the Reformation to the French Revolution. He
regards France as the centre or focus of European civilization. He
admits that at various epochs Italy has outstripped France in the
arts, and that England has had the lead in developing political insti-
tutions; but even those leading ideas or institutions whose birth must
be referred to other countries, had to be clarified in France before
they were diffused throughout Europe. Therefore France is "emi-
nently qualified to march at the head of European civilization. "
Though France does not hold this leadership at present, what Gui-
zot says is certainly applicable in large measure to the past: for
centuries the influence of French civilization radiated in all direc-
tions, and no other country forms a better nucleus for the study of
general European history.
The prominence or dominance of French ideas in European history
is also emphasized in Guizot's 'History of Civilization in France. '
Though this series of lectures extends only to the fourteenth century,
it is a
more elaborate work than the History of Civilization in
Europe. The author gives a detailed account of the leading factors
which entered into the development of France, and shows how from
the relations between feudalism, the communes, and royalty, national
and political unity was gradually evolved. His portrayal of feudalism
is particularly detailed and attractive, though his account of the
origin of that institution is now antiquated. He believes that two
great lessons may be learned from the study of French history: (1)
that the rivalry of the nobility and the commons prevented their
union against despotism; and (2) that Frenchmen have a tendency to
follow an idea or principle to its logical conclusion, regardless of
consequences. These lessons help us to understand certain great
divergences in the constitutional development of France and England.
Guizot's account of what he calls "the English Revolution" com-
prises three separate works: The History of Charles I. ' (1826-27),
The History of Oliver Cromwell' (1854), and 'The History of Rich-
ard Cromwell' (1856). Like the German historian Gneist, he stud-
ied English history in order to determine what France could learn
from the annals of her neighbor. Passionately preoccupied with the
future of his country, he wished to ascertain just how a great people
succeeded in securing and conserving a free government. In dealing
with the history of England during the seventeenth century, Guizot
exhibits an admirable spirit of impartiality and a firm grasp of the
dominant political ideas of the whole period. He also presents much
new documentary evidence derived from the French archives. These
volumes are still instructive, though Gardiner and other recent writers
have overthrown some of Guizot's conclusions.


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6774
FRANÇOIS GUIZOT
In the Memoirs of my Own Time' (1858-67) Guizot comments
upon contemporary political events, many of which he had helped to
shape. This work is particularly important for the study of Louis
Philippe's reign, and especially for the period of Guizot's ministry,
from 1840 to 1848.
In his extreme old age he wrote The History of France, Related
for my Grandchildren' (1870-75). In this work the octogenarian tries
to impress upon the rising generation of Frenchmen the need of a
lofty spirit of patriotism and a strong faith in their vanquished
country, a faith which the past history of France should nourish and
strengthen. He tries to awaken the interest of his readers by dwell-
ing upon great persons and great events, and he succeeds in giving
an admirable account of the general history of France.
Many of Guizot's books have been translated into English, but
most of the translations are marred by serious defects.
His style,
which has been assailed by some critics and admired by others, shows
an improvement in his later works. Though he was not a great his-
torical artist, his style is usually clear. All his writings are marked
by a Calvinistic soberness of tone, which, though it may repel those
in quest of picturesque historical details, attracts and stimulates
thoughtful students.
Char Gross
CIVILIZATION
From the General History of Civilization in Europe'
THE
HE situation in which we are placed, as Frenchmen, affords us
a great advantage for entering upon the study of European
civilization; for without intending to flatter the country to
which I am bound by so many ties, I cannot but regard France
as the centre, as the focus, of the civilization of Europe. It
would be going too far to say that she has always been, upon
every occasion, in advance of other nations. Italy at various
epochs has outstripped her in the arts; England, as regards
political institutions, is by far before her; and perhaps at certain
moments we may find other nations of Europe superior to her in
various particulars; but it must still be allowed that whenever
France has set forward in the career of civilization, she has


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FRANÇOIS GUIZOT
6775
sprung forth with new vigor, and has soon
passed by all her rivals.
come up with or
Not only is this the case, but those ideas, those institutions.
which promote civilization but whose birth must be referred to
other countries, have, before they could become general or pro-
duce fruit, before they could be transplanted to other lands or
benefit the common stock of European civilization, been obliged
to undergo in France a new preparation; it is from France, as
from a second country more rich and fertile, that they have
started forth to make the conquest of Europe. There is not a
single great idea, not a single great principle of civilization,
which in order to become universally spread has not first passed
through France.
There is indeed in the genius of the French something of a
sociableness, of a sympathy, something which spreads itself
with more facility and energy than in the genius of any other
people: it may be in the language or the particular turn of mind
of the French nation; it may be in their manners, or that their
ideas, being more popular, present themselves more clearly to the
masses, penetrate among them with greater ease: but in a word,
clearness, sociability, sympathy, are the particular characteristics
of France, of its civilization; and these qualities render it emi-
nently qualified to march at the head of European civilization.
In studying then the history of this great fact, it is neither
an arbitrary choice nor a convention that leads us to make
France the central point from which we shall study it; but it is
because we feel that in so doing we in a manner place ourselves
in the very heart of civilization itself—in the heart of the very
fact which we desire to investigate.
-
Civilization is just one of this kind of facts: it is so general
in its nature that it can scarcely be seized, so complicated that it
can scarcely be unraveled, so hidden as to be scarcely discerni-
ble. The difficulty of describing it, of recounting its history, is
apparent and acknowledged; but its existence, its worthiness to
be described and to be recounted, are not less certain and mani-
fest. Then, respecting civilization, what a number of problems
remain to be solved! It may be asked, it is even now disputed,
whether civilization be a good or an evil. One party decries it
as teeming with mischief to man, while another lauds it as the
means by which he will attain his highest dignity and excellence.
Again, it is asked whether this fact is universal; whether there


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6776
FRANÇOIS GUIZOT
is a general civilization of the whole human race, a course for
humanity to run, a destiny for it to accomplish; whether nations.
have not transmitted from age to age something to their suc-
cessors which is never lost, but which grows and continues as a
common stock, and will thus be carried on to the end of all
things. For my part, I feel assured that human nature has such
a destiny; that a general civilization pervades the human race;
that at every epoch it augments, and that consequently there
is a universal history of civilization yet to be written. Nor
have I any hesitation in asserting that this history is the most
noble, the most interesting of any, and that it comprehends every
other.
Is it not indeed clear that civilization is the great fact in
which all others merge; in which they all end, in which they are
all condensed, in which all others find their importance? Take
all the facts of which the history of a nation is composed, all the
facts which we are accustomed to consider as the elements of
its existence-take its institutions, its commerce, its industry, its
wars, the various details of its government; and if you would
form some idea of them as a whole, if you would see their vari-
ous bearings on each other, if you would appreciate their value,
if you would pass a judgment upon them, what is it you desire
to know? Why, what they have done to forward the progress of
civilization; what part they have acted in this great drama; what
influence they have exercised in aiding its advance. It is not
only by this that we form a general opinion of these facts, but it
is by this standard that we try them, that we estimate their true
value. These are as it were the rivers, of which we ask how
much water they have carried to the ocean. Civilization is as it
were the grand emporium of a people, in which all its wealth,
all the elements of its life, all the powers of its existence, are
stored up. It is so true that we judge of minor facts accordingly
as they affect this greater one, that even some which are nat-
urally detested and hated, which prove a heavy calamity to the
nation upon which they fall,-say for instance despotism, anarchy,
and so forth,-even these are partly forgiven, their evil nature is
partly overlooked, if they have aided in any considerable degree
the march of civilization. Wherever the progress of this princi-
ple is visible, together with the facts which have urged it for-
ward, we are tempted to forget the price it has cost; we overlook
the dearness of the purchase.


## p. 6777 (#157) ###########################################

FRANÇOIS GUIZOT
6777
Again, there are certain facts which properly speaking cannot
be called social - individual facts which rather concern the human
intellect than public life; such are religious doctrines, philosophi-
cal opinions, literature, the sciences and arts. All these seem to
offer themselves to individual man for his improvement, instruc-
tion, or amusement, and to be directed rather to his intellectual
melioration and pleasure than to his social condition. Yet still,
how often do these facts come before us - how often are we
compelled to consider them as influencing civilization!