at the present day; the errors which he has destroyed, and the truths which he has brought to light: all which he has left upon his path, and all which he has collected on it in the course of more than six thousand years. Magnificent spectacle of human destinies, the circle of which expands in proportion as each new century passes on to eternity.

It would be the history of a lofty conception, that of the progress of truth upon the earth. The greatest glories, the bloody glories, would occupy in it but the smallest space; all the people would be excluded from it who have left nothing to the world.

Egypt, notwithstanding its castes, its idolatry, its slavery, and the mutilation of men, might obtain in it some lines. This country was a vast workshop, where a multitude of hands worked for the profit of the master. But whilst darkness enveloped the people, a hidden light shone in the temples and in the tombs ;-Pythagoras and Plato went thither to seek wisdom, and with this light the sceptre of civilisation was transferred to Greece.

Athens and Sparta presented the spectacle of two free nations. It was the first trial of this truth, yet unknown, that all men being equal before the gods, ought to be equal before the laws. Greece bequeathed this principle to Rome, together with the doctrines of Socrates, the example of his death, and the idea of an only God, as the source of all truth.

Rome profited but little by the legacy. She prided herself upon the love of country, and upon her family virtues : the chastity of a woman, and a temple raised to filial piety, established her power, and made her great in the eyes of the gods and men. She held the earth in her chains; she exhibited to it the example of the most heroic devotedness; but upon her fall she left to it none of those great truths which are the patrimony of the human race.

And this is not one of those thoughtless accusations which history takes pleasure in contradicting.

Open Tacitus and Titus Livius, you perceive Rome powerful; Rome knows how to fight, to conquer, and to civilise ; but she adds nothing to the legacy of Greece, she takes off nothing from the ferocity of her civilisation. Polytheism, idolatry, slavery, the glory of suicide, the bloody games of the circus, human sacrifices, the earth declared barbarian, the people considered as a prey, and the right of arms raised above moral right; such are the popular errors, the religious, patriotic and political cruelties, against which during more than twenty centuries no complaining voice was raised.

Antiquity was shrouded by these errors as by a veil, which concealed from its genius the greatness of God, the dignity of man, and the laws of nature.

The progress of ancient society was restricted to these three ideas,-unity in marriage, civil and political liberty, and equality before the law. These two latter principles were, however, circumscribed within the narrowest limits; they did not emanate from the nation, and they afforded no help to the conquered. It was not the man which the law honoured, it was the citizen.

This was the moral work of forty centuries. Then the great empire fell, and with it all the ancient fabric of society. Amidst these ruins the rights of the citizen were lost, but those of the man were again found. They served to lay the foundation for a more enlarged, a more fruitful, and especially a more human order of things; they were based upon the unity of God, from which arises the unity of the human race.

It is from Jesus Christ that we derive this light. He caused the veil to fall which concealed from the world the God of Moses transfigured by love; he restored the chil

dren to the father, and the father to the children; and the loftiest idea of Socrates became at once prevalent among the people.

The first effect of this truth was a prodigious event,the destruction of slavery. The people of a hundred nations now know that which no sage of antiquity knew, that, to buy and sell a slave, is to buy and sell the blood of a man ; it is to violate at once the laws of God and the rights of humanity. A simple truth, a natural truth, which raises itself like a wall between ancient and modern times. At the present day, slavery is a barbarity of barbarous nations; it was formerly a custom of civilised nations, so much so, that Plato made it one of the elements of his ideal republic.

Aristotle himself, the man of reason, was deceived by it; he took the consent of mankind for a law of nature; from the custom he inferred the right. Not being able to recognise man in the abjection of the slave, he announced that there was an inferior race, made to serve, as the horse is made to carry; not perceiving that this abjection, which he took for the character of the race, was the work of slavery, and not the work of nature.

Moral life is then enlarged with a thought which was wanting to Socrates, to Plato, and Aristides, and which one vainly seeks for in Moses. Jesus Christ caused it to be heard from the cross: it was lost amidst barbarity, and after eighteen centuries of conflict, we again find it in the Gospel.

This single idea, thrown out amidst a world of masters and slaves, effected a great révolution. Rome still reigned over the whole world, and all over the world there were markets where man bought and sold his fellow-man. The thought of Jesus Christ was only comprehended by the victims; all the rest, people, kings, moralists, sophists, perceived in it only an ideal conception, a theory which

might be discussed, perhaps the dream of a philosopher, till of a sudden the virtuous will of the civilised world was called into activity by the power of this dream.

From all that has preceded, we may conclude that morality and policy have undergone three great revolutions : the belief in one only God, manifested by the Hebrews and by Socrates; the first appearance on the earth of political liberty, manifested by the Greeks; the realisation of these two ideas; and further, the destruction of slavery, the powerful work of Jesus Christ. These are the first chapters of the moral history of the human race.

Humanity progresses then, and it progresses towards the attainment of truth. The law of nature draws it on towards this object, of which the regeneration of the world will be the completion. That this progress should have been at first a little slow may easily be conceived, the first truths are the most difficult to discover; but at the present day the movement is accelerated, and the progress has become more rapid.

The unity of God,-the unity of the human race,—the love of humanity,—the abolition of castes,-the abolition of slavery,—the subjection of the rights of the citizen to the rights of man,-and, liberty of conscience.

All these truths were unknown to the ancients, and mark well, they are all truths which harmonise with the laws of nature. But this advancement is only the prelude to the progress which yet remains to be effected.

So long as our eyes shall see crime triumphant and persecuting virtue,-so long as the popular masses shall be deprived of intelligence, and of those noble developments of the soul which distinguish us from the brute,-so long as man shall possess man as a merchandise, or as a beast of burden, so long as there exist beggars, tyrants, and executioners, and human blood flows upon the earth, the

law will not be fulfilled. The work of perfectibility is to cause the fall one by one of all these sufferings and opprobria with which society surrounds us at our birth; a divine and certain law, which leaves us no repose, which speaks to the human race as death speaks to man, in the terrible phrase of Bossuet, "Onwards-onwards;" and all civilised. nations answer, while looking up to heaven, "We advance."

CHAPTER XXIV.

CONTINUATION OF THE SAME SUBJECT.

FIRST APPEARANCE OF POLITICAL LIBERTY ON THE EARTH-A FRAGMENT OF THE MORAL HISTORY OF THE HUMAN RACE.

"En étudiant l'histoire il me semble qu'on acquiert la conviction que tous les événemens principaux tendent au même but, la civilization universelle."

MADAME DE STAEL. De la Littérature.

THE appearance of liberty on the earth constitutes a grand epoch in the history of the world. Man breaks the chains of despotism, and chooses for himself a better condition. Man can then choose; man can then move; he can then create. First manifestation of the law of progress,,-first revelation of a moral work imposed on the human race! Happy discovery! Magnificent spectacle!

Asia, with its gigantic cities, its cyclopean monuments, its stationary arts and sciences, its despotic system of murder and rapine, its flocks of men, its barbarity, its luxury, its magnificence, was without a rival on the globe, until a small colony escaped from its bosom, and settled amidst the mountains of Greece. There, forgotten by all, they