whether the Germans, who are sometimes supposed to have redeemed their own barbarism by reviving liberty, brought anything like freedom to Gaul. There was little more than a succession of German to Roman privileged classes. German captains shared the great estates, and assumed the rank, of the halfofficial, half-hereditary nobility, who abounded in the province. A German King, who was in reality only a Roman general bearing a barbarous title, reigned over much of Gaul and much of Central Europe. When his race was supplanted by another in its kingship, the new power got itself decorated with the old Roman Imperial style; and when at length a third dynasty arose, the monarchy associated with it gradually developed more vigour and vitality than any other political institution in Europe. From the accession of Hugh Capet to the French Revolution, there had been as nearly as possible 800 years. During all this time, the French Royal House had steadily gained in power. It had wearied out and beaten back the victorious armies of England. It had emerged stronger than ever from the wars of religion which humbled English kingship in the dust, dealing it a blow from which it never thoroughly recovered. It had grown in strength, authority, and splendour, till it dazzled all eyes. It had become the model for all princes. Nor had its government and its relation to its subjects struck all men as they seem to have

struck Chesterfield. field wrote, David Hume, a careful observer of France, had thus written in 1742, "Though all kinds of government be improved in modern times, yet monarchical government seems to have made the greatest advance to perfection. It may now be affirmed of civilised monarchies, what was formerly said of republics alone, that they are a government of laws, not of men. They are found susceptible of order, method, and constancy, to a surprising degree. Property is there secure; industry is encouraged; the arts flourish; and the Prince lives among his subjects like a father among his children." And Hume expressly adds that he saw more sources of degeneracy" in free governments like England than in France, "the most perfect model of pure monarchy." 2

Eleven years before Chester

Nevertheless, Hume was unquestionably wrong in his conclusion, and Chesterfield was as unquestionably right. The French privileged classes might conceivably have foreseen the great Revolution, simply because it happened. The time, however, which is expended in wondering at their blindness, or in pitying it with an air of superior wisdom, is as nearly as possible wasted. Next to what a modern satirist has called "Hypothetics"—the science of that which might have happened but did not-there is no

2 Hume, Essay XII. "Of Civil Liberty."

more unprofitable study than the investigation of the possibly predictable, which was never predicted. It is of far higher advantage to note the mental condition of the French upper classes as one of the most remarkable facts in history, and to ask ourselves whether it conveys a caution to other generations than theirs. This line of speculation is at the least interesting. We too, who belong to Western Europe towards the end of the nineteenth century, live under a set of institutions which all, except a small minority, regard as likely to be perpetual. Nine men out of ten, some hoping, some fearing, look upon the popular government which, ever widening its basis, has spread and is still spreading over the world, as destined to last for ever, or, if it changes its form, to change it in one single direction. The democratic principle has gone forth conquering and to conquer, and its gainsayers are few and feeble. Some Catholics, from whose minds the diplomacy of the present Pope has not banished the Syllabus of the last, a fairly large body of French and Spanish Legitimists, and a few aged courtiers in the small circles surrounding exiled German and Italian princes, may still believe that the cloud of democratic ascendency will pass away. Their hopes may be as vain as their regrets; but nevertheless those who recollect the surprises which the future had in store for men equally confident in the perpetuity of

the present, will ask themselves whether it is really true that the expectation of virtual permanence for governments of the modern type rests upon solid grounds of historical experience as regards the past, and of rational probability as regards the time to come. I endeavour in these pages to examine the question in a spirit different from that which animates most of those who view the advent of democracy either with enthusiasm or with despair.

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3

Out of the many names commonly applied to the political system prevailing or tending to prevail in all the civilised portions of the world, I have chosen popular government" as the name which, on the whole, is least open to objection. But what we are witnessing in West European politics is not so much the establishment of a definite system, as the continuance, at varying rates, of a process. The truth is that, within two hundred years, the view taken of government, or (as the jurists say) of the relation of sovereign to subject, of political superior to political inferior, has been changing, sometimes partially and slowly, sometimes generally and rapidly. The character of this change has been described by John Stuart Mill in the early pages of his "Essay on Liberty," and more recently by Mr. Justice Stephen,

3 It will be seen that I endeavour to use the term "democracy," throughout this volume, in its proper and only consistent sense; that is, for a particular form of government.

who in his "History of the Criminal Law of England" very strikingly uses the contrast between the old and the new view of government to illustrate the difference between two views of the law of seditious libel. I will quote the latter passage as less coloured than the language of Mill by the special preferences of the writer :

Two different views may be taken (says Sir James Stephen) of the relation between rulers and their subjects. If the ruler is regarded as the superior of the subject, as being by the nature of his position presumably wise and good, the rightful ruler and guide of the whole population, it must necessarily follow that it is wrong to censure him openly, and, even if he is mistaken, his mistakes should be pointed out with the utmost respect, and that, whether mistaken or not, no censure should be cast on him likely or designed to diminish his authority. If, on the other hand, the ruler is regarded as the agent and servant, and the subject as the wise and good master, who is obliged to delegate his power to the so-called ruler because, being a multitude, he cannot use it himself, it must be evident that this sentiment must be reversed. Every member of the public who censures the ruler for the time being exercises in his own person the right which belongs to the whole of which he forms a part. He is finding fault with his own servant.4

The States of Europe are now regulated by political institutions answering to the various stages of

4 Stephen's History of the Criminal Law of England, ii. 299.