he Republic, the Utopia, and the City of the Sun were
protests against a state of things which the experience of their authors
taught them to condemn, and from the faults of which they took refuge in
the opposite extremes. They remained without influence, and have never
passed from literary into political history, because something more than
discontent and speculative ingenuity is needed in order to invest a
political idea with power over the masses of mankind. The scheme of a
philosopher can command the practical allegiance of fanatics only, not
of nations; and though oppression may give rise to violent and repeated
outbreaks, like the convulsions of a man in pain, it cannot mature a
settled purpose and plan of regeneration, unless a new notion of
happiness is joined to the sense of present evil.

The history of religion furnishes a complete illustration. Between the
later mediaeval sects and Protestantism there is an essential difference,
that outweighs the points of analogy found in those systems which are
regarded as heralds of the Reformation, and is enough to explain the
vitality of the last in comparison with the others. Whilst Wycliffe and
Hus contradicted certain particulars of the Catholic teaching, Luther
rejected the authority of the Church, and gave to the individual
conscience an independence which was sure to lead to an incessant
resistance. There is a similar difference between the Revolt of the
Netherlands, the Great Rebellion, the War of Independence, or the rising
of Brabant, on the one hand, and the French Revolution on the other.
Before 1789, insurrections were provoked by particular wrongs, and were
justified by definite complaints and by an appeal to principles which
all men acknowledged. New theories were sometimes advanced in the cause
of controversy, but they were accidental, and the great argument against
tyranny was fidelity to the ancient laws. Since the change produced by
the French Revolution, those aspirations which are awakened by the evils
and defects of the social state have come to act as permanent and
energetic forces throughout the civilised world. They are spontaneous
and aggressive, needing no prophet to proclaim, no champion to defend
them, but popular, unreasoning, and almost irresistible. The Revolution
effected this change, partly by its doctrines, partly by the indirect
influence of events. It taught the people to regard their wishes and
wants as the supreme criterion of right