ruption of the nobler powers, and, strictly speaking, it is only by the subservience of intellect and imagination that corruption reaches its highest intensity.

It may be well to examine, though it must be in a very brief and imperfect manner, whether any of these appearances of decay are at present observable in the chief civilized nations of the world. With this view I shall make a few remarks upon appearances which may be noted in France, the United States, and England. Are there any signs in those countries of a tendency towards that state of things in which the ascendancy of the more ignoble impulses destroys all that is best in the life of a nation?

France.

It requires very little knowledge of the French people to see that the appetite for sensual enjoyments of all kinds has been whetted to a most dangerous sharpness within the last half century. The upper class is probably superior in moral character to the same class in the days of Louis XV.; but the great bulk of the nation has had its desires aroused by influences from which the misery and oppression of former days was a kind of protection. New wealth has been actually attained by a portion of the middle class, but the passion for new wealth has been universally excited. The popular reading shows the popular taste. What is to be inferred from the universal and greedy perusal of such works as the "Count of Monte Christo" and the "Wandering Jew" but this, that the images on which the mass of minds love to dwell are those of immense wealth, and the varied powers of luxurious enjoyment which it affords? Here, then, is evidence of a great development of the impulses to personal gratification in classes whose position must shut them out from it. Where are the corresponding moral restraints? Upon this point it would be rash to dogmatize, because the moral restraints operating upon the life of a people often escape the eye of a foreign observer; but

T

the evidence is too clear to leave a doubt in the mind of anybody, that the restraining principles of French society have been weakened or destroyed to an extent almost unexampled. In the army, indeed, but in the army alone, there is a stern and perfect discipline sustained by sentiments of the most powerful kind. Whatever may be the case in other respects, the military virtues of the French show no decay. The old valour is still there, and the subordination which gives it effect is only too complete. The work of M. de Vigny, "De la Servitude Militaire," describes the settled principle of self-abnegation, refined and beautiful even in its excess, which makes the French officer an instrument in the hands of his superior, and which, by the invariable laws of moral relation, confers social ascendancy on the body amongst whom it prevails. Let us study the spirit of the French army in the pages of De Vigny, and that of the French bourgeoisie, with reasonable allowance for caricature, in the Jérome Paturot of M. Reybaud, and we shall be at no loss to understand why France must, for a long time to come, obey a Military Government.

It is true, indeed, that in any comprehensive survey of the indications of moral character in France, much is met with which commands not only respect but admiration. The readiness with which the people are moved by appeals made to the more generous feelings, and the lofty self-denial and chivalrous delicacy of sentiment frequently displayed by common workmen, are signally characteristic of France. The revolutionary history, too, is as rich as that of any heroic age in examples of patriotic self-devotion; and even more honourable than those bursts of disinterested enthusiasm is the calm and inflexible adherence to principle shown by particular classes-by both republican artizans and royalist nobles, in their fidelity to their respective political standards; by members of the judicial body, in the honourable discharge of their high trust, without regard to the frowns of power; and still more by the many able journalists, who, in spite of the greatest temptations, have refused to

lend their sanction to the last violent change in the constitution. But, notwithstanding these favourable indications, the general fact, that the mass of society in France has undergone, and is undergoing, a moral change which is not improvement, is apparent throughout the whole of its moral and political controversies, and nowhere more clearly than in the pages of M. Comte himself. The great fact which is continually present to the mind of M. Comte is that of moral decomposition -progressive moral and intellectual anarchy-or a constant approach to that state of universal personal isolation in which all the ties between man and man are broken, and in which every restraint imposed by tradition and early education has been uprooted. This presence and influence of an atmosphere of social decay are felt throughout the Philosophie Positive, as in the Annals of Tacitus; and it must be added, that the stoical elevation of the writer, despite of some querulous outbreaks, is quite as conspicuous as that of the great Roman historian 1. M. Comte's view is, that a condition of pro

The extraordinary position of Tacitus, however, is seldom appreciated. It has been depicted by Mr. Torrens M'Cullagh, with great force, in his "Lectures on History," in the following passage:—

"In this respect, I am inclined to look upon this work of Tacitus as one of the most stupendous efforts of truly moral greatness that we know of. I allude especially to the triumph of self-sustaining energy it manifests. In most other biographies of nations, there are magnificent materials to work upon; Tacitus had worse than none. In all of them there is likewise the great ingredient of antagonist powers in action to be depicted; but resistance was dead in his time. Herodotus is the chronicle of Grecian chivalry-the narrative of the most brilliant struggle that the world has seen, of moral discipline and daring with gigantic brutal force. Thucydides is an antithesis from end to end. Livy tells how the bloodhound cub was born, and how it grew, amid every sort of danger, from its suckling time in the wolf's den, till its matured ferocity, when every leaf in the forests of Asia and of Gaul had learned to tremble at its imperial howl. Polybius, too, had the same canvas to tint, though his colouring is more uniform.

"But Tacitus had a civilized desert for his landscape-a moral grave-yard for his scene. The conflict of political principles and powers was over and past. The cataract had worn itself down. No man dreamed any more of a democracy; no man imagined the restoration of an aristocratic commonwealth was possible. The provinces had ceased to revolt; Numidia was become a domestic corn-field; and the Greeks had learned to dance gracefully in their chains. As far as the circumspective

gressive moral decomposition is characteristic of all Europe, and that all convictions and institutions will have to be recast upon the basis of the Positive Philosophy. We may accept his testimony as to the existence of the disease within the range of his immediate observation, but by no means his remedy. What Plato could not do for Greece, M. Comte will not do for France. If an influx of new moral life is ever to reorganize and bind together her severed classes, and to restore her social health, it must be sought for elsewhere than in philosophy.

United States.

The North American Republic, though divided from us by the Atlantic, offers, in the peculiarities of her social condition, even more that is instructive and interesting to us than France. An Anglo-Saxon people, living under Anglo-Saxon institutions, may enable us to seize and understand better the tendencies of principles which are working amongst ourselves. In this study we have the aid of one of the most accomplished observers that have ever surveyed the social life of nations. The "Democracy in America" of M. de Tocqueville is a work of classical authority even in England. With all the best qualities of French thought and French style, it indicates a sympathy with English ideas, and an understanding of English peculiarities, such as was never before shown by a Frenchman.

eye could reach, there was nothing to be seen, but the rotting superincumbent weight of Rome. In the Babel chatter of the thronging of the forum, or in the dim silence of the night watch, no man any longer whispered-change. Had it been otherwise -had the sodden sense of helpless unresistance to imperial despotism been less thoroughly felt as universal and inevitable-Tacitus dared not have publicly let fall those scalding tears, which form the current of his history.

"But think what it was to have the heart to write at all, at such a time! Think what it was for one, whose soul was untainted by his time, to write of it! Think what the strength of that spirit must have been to produce a work like his, and that despite the oppressive consciousness that he should never live to see the day when it could be appreciated, possibly without any distinct hope that it should ever be so !"

Now the general conclusion of M. de Tocqueville's work is, that the uncontrolled working of the democratic and commercial principles in the United States is not favourable to the moral progress of the people. Starting on a higher level of moral and political attainment than any other new community, they have made prodigious advances in wealth and power; but if any change has taken place in their moral condition, it is not improvement but deterioration. The character of the public men has declined from what it was in the revolutionary period. Legislation has fallen into the hands of an inferior class. Demagogue adventurers have everywhere acquired an immense increase of power, and the best minds not only shrink from political life, but from all open expression of opinion where it conflicts with that of the majority. This relinquishment of independent thought and utterance, considering the naturally stubborn independence of the Anglo-Saxon character, is a fatal sign of moral decay. It is particularly striking in reference to the subject of negro slavery, respecting which the moral sentiments of a large portion of the American community have undergone so much depravation, that if the slavetrade were yet to be abolished, it is doubtful whether the measure would obtain the sanction of the legislature. It is true that a strong reaction has appeared in the abolition movement, and this shows the still powerful vitality of the moral sense in the national mind of America; but the intense and—I must say it-the unchristian violence of the Abolitionists, containing amongst them, as they do, men of the most heroic stamp, is itself the clearest evidence of the malignity of that moral evil which calls it forth. So influential over the whole field of morals, politics, and even religion in America, is that influence which may be called the Slave-power, that many of the leading Abolitionists, in spite of the patriotism which runs in the blood of every American, go the desperate and ruinous length of demanding a dissolution of the union. With respect to commercial morals, the tone is certainly lower than in England. Mr. Dickens's portrait of the "smart" man is not