The whole position brings into fuller prominence the fundamental problem previously proposed, of reconciling Order and Progress. The urgent necessity of doing so is acknowledged by all; but the utter incapacity of any of the existing schools of opinion to realize it becomes increasingly evident. The abolition of monarchy removes the most important obstacle to social Progress: but at the same time it deprives us of the only remaining guarantee for public Order. Thus the time is doubly favourable to constructive tendencies; yet at present there are no opinions which possess more than the purely negative value of checking, and that very imperfectly, the error opposite to their own. In a position which guarantees Progress and compromises Order, it is naturally for the latter that the greatest anxiety is felt; and we are still without any organ capable of systematically defending it. Yet experience should have taught us how extremely fragile every government must be which is purely material, that is, which is based solely upon self-interest, and is destitute of sympathies and convictions. On the other hand, spiritual order is not to be hoped for at present in the absence of any doctrine which commands general respect. Even the social instinct is a force on the political value of which we cannot always rely: for when not based on some definite principle, it not unfrequently becomes source of disturbance. Hence we are driven back to the continuance of a material system of government, although its inadequacy is acknowledged by all. In a republic, however, such a government cannot employ its most efficient instrument, corruption. It has to resort instead to repressive measures of a more or less transitory kind, every time that the danger of anarchy becomes too threatening. These occasional measures, however, naturally proportion themselves to the necessities of the case. Thus, though Order is exposed to greater perils than Progress, it can count on more powerful resources for its defence. Shortly after the publication of the first edition of this work, the extraordinary outbreak of June, 1848, proved that the republic could call into play, and, indeed, could push to excess, in the cause of public Order, forces far greater than those of the monarchy. Thus royalty no longer possesses that monopoly of preserving Order, which has hitherto induced a few sincere and thinking men to continue to support it; and henceforth the sole political characteristic which it retains is that of obstructing Progress. And yet by another reaction of this contradictory position of affairs, the monarchical party seems at present to have become the organ of resistance in behalf of material Order. Retrograde as its doctrines are, yet from their still retaining a certain organic tendency, the conservative instincts rally round them. To this the progressive instincts offer no serious obstacle, their insufficiency for the present needs being more or less distinctly recognized.