has been at any time or in any part
of the world; so that the extent of what already exists prevents us from
foreseeing what may be yet to come.

The whole book which is here offered to the public has been written
under the impression of a kind of religious dread produced in the
author's mind by the contemplation of so irresistible a revolution,
which has advanced for centuries in spite of such amazing obstacles, and
which is still proceeding in the midst of the ruins it has made. It is
not necessary that God himself should speak in order to disclose to
us the unquestionable signs of His will; we can discern them in the
habitual course of nature, and in the invariable tendency of events: I
know, without a special revelation, that the planets move in the orbits
traced by the Creator's finger. If the men of our time were led by
attentive observation and by sincere reflection to acknowledge that the
gradual and progressive development of social equality is at once the
past and future of their history, this solitary truth would confer the
sacred character of a Divine decree upon the change. To attempt to
check democracy would be in that case to resist the will of God; and
the nations would then be constrained to make the best of the social lot
awarded to them by Providence.

The Christian nations of our age seem to me to present a most alarming
spectacle; the impulse which is bearing them along is so strong that it
cannot be stopped, but it is not yet so rapid that it cannot be guided:
their fate is in their hands; yet a little while and it may be so no
longer. The first duty which is at this time imposed upon those who
direct our affairs is to educate the democracy; to warm its faith,
if that be possible; to purify its morals; to direct its energies;
to substitute a knowledge of business for its inexperience, and an
acquaintance with its true interests for its blind propensities; to
adapt its government to time and place, and to modify it in compliance
with the occurrences and the actors of the age. A new science of
politics is indispensable to a new world. This, however, is what we
think of least; launched in the middle of a rapid stream, we obstinately
fix our eyes on the ruins which may still be described upon the shore we
have left, whilst the current sweeps us along, and drives us backwards
towards the gulf.

In no country in Europe has the great social revolution which I have
been describing made such rapid progr