uctibility of human society as a whole. To assume, however,
that it did not suffer any essential change internally, because in
appearance everything remained as before, is inconsistent with a just
view of cause and effect. Many historians seem to have adopted such an
opinion; hence, most of them have touched but superficially on the
"great mortality" of the fourteenth century. We for our part are
convinced that in the history of the world the black death is one of the
most important events which have prepared the way for the present state
of Europe.

He who studies the human mind with attention, and forms a deliberate
judgment on the intellectual powers which set people and states in
motion, may, perhaps, find some proofs of this assertion in the
following observations. At that time the advancement of the hierarchy
was, in most countries, extraordinary; for the Church acquired treasures
and large properties in land, even to a greater extent than after the
crusades; but experience has demonstrated that such a state of things is
ruinous to the people, and causes them to retrograde, as was evinced on
this occasion.

After the cessation of the black plague, a greater fecundity in women
was everywhere remarkable; marriages were prolific; and double and
treble births were more frequent than at other times. After the "great
mortality" the children were said to have got fewer teeth than before;
at which contemporaries were mightily shocked, and even later writers
have felt surprise. Some writers of authority published their opinions
on this subject. Others copied from them, without seeing for themselves,
and thus the world believed in the miracle of an imperfection in the
human body which had been caused by the black plague.

The people gradually consoled themselves after the sufferings which they
had undergone; the dead were lamented and forgotten; and in the stirring
vicissitudes of existence the world belonged to the living.

The mental shock sustained by all nations during the prevalence of the
black plague is without parallel and beyond description. In the eyes of
the timorous, danger was the certain harbinger of death; many fell
victims to fear on the first appearance of the distemper, and the most
stout-hearted lost their confidence. The pious closed their accounts
with the world; their only remaining desire was for a participation in
the consolations of religion. Repentance seized the transgressor,
admonishing him t