ise the past than to study it. These critics and
accusers of the modern spirit are not, however, altogether fair to it.
If the modern spirit looks so much to the future, it is because the
problems of the past are solved problems, whilst those of the future
have the interest of a game that is only just begun. We know what became
of feudalism, we know the work that it accomplished and the services
that it rendered, but we do not yet know what will be the effects of
modern democracy and of the scientific and industrial spirit. It is the
novelty of this element, the scientific spirit and the industrial
development which is a part (but only a part) of its results, that makes
the past so much less reliable as a guide than it would have been if no
new element had intervened, and therefore so much less interesting for
us. As an example of the inapplicability of past experience, I may
mention an argument against Republics which has been much used of late
by the partisans of monarchy in France. They have frequently told us
that Republics had only succeeded in very small States, and this is true
of ancient democracies; but it is not less true that railways, and
telegraphs, and the newspaper press have made great countries like
France and the United States just as capable of feeling and acting
simultaneously as the smallest Republics of antiquity. The parties which
rely on what are called the lessons of history are continually exposed
to great deceptions. In France, what may be called the historical party
would not believe in the possibility of a united Germany, because fifty
years ago, with the imperfect means of communication which then
existed, Germany was not and could not be united. The same historical
party refused to believe that the Italian kingdom could ever hold
together. In England, the historical party predicted the dismemberment
of the United States, and in some other countries it has been a favorite
article of faith that England could not keep her possessions. But
theories of this kind are always of very doubtful applicability to the
present, and their applicability to the future is even more doubtful
still. Steam and electricity have made great modern States practically
like so many great cities, so that Manchester is like a suburb of
London, and Havre the Piraeus of Paris, whilst the most trifling
occasions bring the Sovereign of Italy to any of the Italian capitals.

In the intellectual sphere the experience of the