d some utility in human feelings and
necessities, and was on the whole expedient at the time when it arose.
Its utility may have ceased by the change of manners or of the
circumstances of society--that may be a good reason for cautiously
modifying or altering it--but rely upon it, it was once useful, if it
has existed long; and the presumption of present and continuing
utility requires to be strongly outweighed by forcible considerations
before it is abandoned. Lord Bacon has told us, in words which can
never become trite, so profound is their wisdom, that our changes, to
be beneficial, should resemble those of time, which, though the
greatest of all innovators, works out its alterations so gradually
that they are never perceived. Guizot makes, in the same spirit, the
following fine observation on the slow march of Supreme wisdom in the
government of the world:--

"If we turn our eyes to history, we shall find that all the great
developments of the human mind have turned to the advantage of
society--all the great struggles of humanity to the good of
mankind. It is not, indeed, immediately that these efforts take
place; ages often elapse, a thousand obstacles intervene, before
they are fully developed; but when we survey a long course of
ages, we see that all has been accomplished. The march of
Providence is not subjected to narrow limits; it cares not to
develope to-day the consequences of a principle which it has
established yesterday; it will bring them forth in ages, when the
appointed hour has arrived; and its course is not the less sure
that it is slow. The throne of the Almighty rests on time--it
marches through its boundless expanse as the gods of Homer
through space--it makes a step, and ages have passed away. How
many ages elapsed, how many changes ensued, before the
regeneration of the inner man, by means of Christianity,
exercised on the social state its great and salutary influence!
Nevertheless, it has at length succeeded. No one can mistake its
effects at this time."--(_Lecture_ i. 24.)

In surveying the progress of civilization in modern, as compared with
ancient times, two features stand prominent as distinguishing the one
from the other. These are the _church_ and the _feudal system_. They
were precisely the circumstances which gave the most umbrage to the
philosophers of the eighteenth century, and which