n,
possessed of speculative quality, would be in any sense complete which
should leave out of sight his view of the manner and significance of the
break-up of the old European structure. The historian is pretty sure to
be guided in his estimate of the forces which have contributed to
dissolution in the past, by the kind of anticipation which he entertains
of the probable course of reconstruction. Like Comte, in his ideas of
temporal reconstruction, Mr. Carlyle goes back to something like the
forms of feudalism for the model of the industrial organisation of the
future; but in the spiritual order he is as far removed as possible from
any semblance of that revival of the old ecclesiastical forms without
the old theological ideas, which is the corner-stone of Comte's edifice.
To the question whether mankind gained or lost by the French Revolution,
Mr. Carlyle nowhere gives a clear answer; indeed, on this subject more
even than any other, he clings closely to his favourite method of simple
presentation, streaked with dramatic irony. No writer shows himself more
alive to the enormous moment to all Europe of that transaction; but we
hear no word from him on the question whether we have more reason to
bless or curse an event that interrupted, either subsequently to retard
or to accelerate, the transformation of the West from a state of war, of
many degrees of social subordination, of religious privilege, of
aristocratic administration, into a state of peaceful industry, of equal
international rights, of social equality, of free and equal tolerance of
creeds. That this process was going on prior to 1789 is undeniable. Are
we really nearer to the permanent establishment of the new order, for
what was done between 1789 and 1793? or were men thrown off the right
track of improvement by a movement which turned exclusively on abstract
rights, which dealt with men's ideas and habits as if they were
instantaneously pliable before the aspirations of any government, and
which by its violent and inconsiderate methods drove all these who
should only have been friends of order into being the enemies of
progress as well? There are many able and honest and republican men who
in their hearts suspect that the latter of the two alternatives is the
more correct description of what has happened. Mr. Carlyle is as one who
does not hear the question. He draws its general moral lesson from the
French Revolution, and with clangorous note warns all whom