Could we for the purpose of the present inquiry analyze also the internal movements which seem destined to affect the future of Europe, we should find in them, as a whole, inducements to confidence, though some of them may afford us occasions for anxiety. It may be true that Europe needs a re-arrangement of its frontiers, that nations expunged from its map are living yet, that others with whom Europe must count are raising their pretensions. There is probably a future for revived Spain, for United Italy, and for the State or States to arise out of the common aspirations of a hundred millions of Sclavonic origin. Great empires which have been among the principal weights in the Balance of European power may dwindle, or they may change their bases, or merge much of their distinctive action in the tendencies of the German race to a common national Government. It is quite possible that Hapsburgs and Hohenzollerns may encounter a fate like that of the French Bourbons or the English Stuarts; and yet it does not follow that the European world will lose any of its elements, so useful in their mutual antagonism, and which preclude the growth of an overwhelming empire. The growth of such an empire in the Western Hemisphere is apparently forbidden by the rupture of the Federal Union, which portends the creation of a second series of States with a Balance of Power peculiar to themselves. Russia alone seems competent to menace the future of Europe, and yet Russia, notwithstanding its colossal proportions, has restraints upon its aggressive tendencies within and without. Within, it has yet to reckon with its 'eighteenth century,' and without, it is encompassed by a cordon of races, which must continue comparatively more populous and mature, with a grander history, more expansive sympa vision of Plato's Critias: no new continent peopled by youthful races, the destined restorers of our worn-out generations. Everywhere the searchi has been made, and the report has been received; we have the full account of earth's resources before us, and they seem inadequate to supply life for a third period of human history."-Arnold's Lectures on Modern History, p. 38. GROUNDS OF CONFIDENCE. 41 thies, a keener* sense of their worth and honour, with more varied and far more powerful resources. If the instincts of dynasties are untutored and inveterate, if it should turn out that they have learnt and forgotten little, the public sense of the nations they have hitherto directed is a growing, and, in the long run, a remedial power. Such proposals as those of Michel de Chevalier indicate the direction in which the mind of Europe is tending. Nor is this growth of a cosmopolitan spirit inimical to the development of nations in their several domains, according to their respective dispositions and capacities. Notwithstanding its extension, the distinctive qualities of races are obviously becoming more demonstrative and exacting, and prove at least by their efforts, even if misguided, that we have nothing to apprehend from the degeneracy of their stock. Nor can it be conceived that three centuries of experiments in government have passed over Europe, without imparting to each of its states, in turn, a better knowledge of its appropriate institutions. The more definite political changes of the last century will be found altering indeed the form, but invariably tending to the stability, of Governments. Local powers of administration in many cases have been set aside, but their place as instruments of political education has been supplied by new corporations and companies. At the same time it will be seen that the powers of the state have been vastly increased by the progress of Centralisation, that, where the latter was urged forward by violence or necessitated by emergency, its results have been accepted and perpetuated under circumstances of the strongest reaction† that local and secondary powers once superseded, the supreme "We must be free or die, who speak the tongue + Ex. gr. France under the Directory and under the Restoration. See on this point De Tocqueville's America, last vol., chap. v.; title "Que parmi les Nations Européenes de nos jours le pouvoir souverain s'accroit, quoique les souverains soient moins stables." See also his "France before the Revolution" for a more elaborate illustration of the same phenomenon. Executive, clothed with their functions, is enabled to fulfil them more efficiently, and in virtue of its strength and enlarged circumspection, to take to itself daily new responsibilities. Without, if war has achieved its conquests, peace will be seen enjoining its restorations-Westphalia-Utrecht -Paris-Vienna, all restoring the balance of Power shaken for the moment by international encroachments.* Lastly, the confluence of efforts in every direction will be found testifying to the hopeful spirit which pervades modern society. The consciousness of modern life, which is its most modern attribute, is quite as adverse to despondency as it is to presumption, for it marks our deflections, excesses, and shortcomings with a view to correctives, which are incessant in their operation. Thus, it may be inferred from all political elements and institutions, from the condition of the inhabited globe, from the aspirations of the human race, and, if we cared so to apply it, from the language and tenor of sacred Prophecy, that all point alike to the one conclusion, that the greater mutations of the world are acted-that, within the limits of a system, as a whole indissoluble, "the increasing purpose which runs through the ages" shall henceforth consummate its ends in peace. Especially confirmatory of this anticipation will be found the last testimony of the Historic school which has grown up amongst us in recent years. It is this which has purged and uplifted the mist that has so long depended doubtfully over the past. By its help we gain an eminence which discloses to us our line of march. Its points of obstruction -of perilous crisis-its rugged, winding, yet consistent course are revealed to us, step by step, as we ascend. In this higher region we look back upon the stream of our history. From * For the settlement of the balance of power by the three former of these Treaties, see Arnold's Lectures, p. 176. That there was no fixed principle of balance of power among the Grecian States, see Wachsmuth's Historical Antiquities of Greece. Standard of Mutual Recognition, vol. i., p. 197. its sources in the East we see its descent-its accelerating impulse the frequent accession of its tributary watersTiber even, and Ilyssus, Jordan and Orontes, swelling the flood which has rolled to our feet. For a moment we lose its exit beside the eminence on which we stand-but, pressing forward- Heirs,' as we are, ' of all the ages, in the foremost files of time'-—Oáλarтa! Oáλarтa! we look to the horizon, as the Ten Thousand to the sea, or the Crusaders to the City discovered on the distant hillside. While ours is the vision of the old Cosmopolitan . Πᾶν μοι συναρμόζει ὅ σοι εὐάρμοστόν ἐστιν, ὦ κόσμε· οὐδέν μοι πρόωρον οὔδε ὄψιμον, τό σοι εὔκαιρον· πᾶν καρπὸς, ὅ φέρουσιν αἱ σαὶ ὥραι, ὦ φύσις. Ἐκεῖνος φησὶ, “Πόλι ἔκ σου πάντα, ἔν σοι πάντα, εἴς σε πάντα. φίλη Κέκροπος” σὺ δὲ οὐκ ἐρεῖς, « ὦ Πόλι φίλη Διός;” Whatsoever suits thee, Divine Order of the Universe, is, or should be, welcome to us. Nothing is too early, nothing too late, which comes at the fitting moment for thee. Everything is fruit which thy seasons bring forth, O Nature. From thee everything proceeds, in thee everything has its being, and unto thee everything tends. Let the Athenian salute his loved city of Cecrops-will not you, Reader, with us, hail the City and the Scheme Divine ?"* * Marcus Aurelius, lib. iv., 23. REVIVALISTS. (A LECTURE.) "It may be said that Governments have their periods like all things human; that they may be brought back to their primitive principles during a certain time; but that when these principles are worn out in the minds of men, it is a vain enterprise to endeavour to renew them." LORD BOLINGBROKE, "Spirit of Patriotism." It is easy to recognise the fact of a social progress, but it is not so easy to determine its conditions. Though the fact of a social progress may have existed from the beginning of time, the knowledge of it is recent, and even its primary conditions are imperfectly apprehended. These conditions are the subjects of a science in its infancy, for it was not till the last century that men were agreed that there was such a fact as progress to investigate. In the East, where we distinguish its first faint vestiges, and where man was overpowered by the aspect of nature, in comparison with which he was feeble and subordinate, where he idealised the elements he could not resolve, and worshipped the powers he was unable to subdue, the notion of fatalism became paramount in his philosophy; and he could not entertain the idea of progress, for the want of the idea of liberty, its starting point. In the East, progress itself was incalculably slow. In Egypt, where its stages were more accelerated, and apparently more defined, ages elapsed between the more memorable steps. The long dynasties of Egypt indicate the intervals of stagnation, like the reaches of its canals between the watersluices. When the Father of History was at Thebes he was shown a series of 345 colossal images, each a Piromis, and the |