producers, the preparers, of almost all it most essentially wants; that they, the part, therefore, of the social assemblage so obviously the most essential to its existence, and on which all the rest must depend; that they have their condition in the great social arrangement so disposed as not to acknowledge this their importance, as not to secure an adequate reward of these their services;--we say, when this shall have become the pervading intense conviction of the millions of Europe, we put it as a question to any rational thinker, whether and how this state of feeling can be reversed or neutralized, if the economy which has provoked it shall yield to no modification. But it _is_ no question, he will confess. Then will he pretend not to foresee any material change in an order of things obnoxious to so vast a combination of wills and agents? This may indeed be seriously avowed by some, who are so walled up in old prejudice and presumption that they really have no look out; who, because a thing has been long established, mistake its artificial substruction of crumbling materials for the natural rock; and it will be pretended by others, who think the bravado of asserting the impossibility of the overthrow may be a good policy for deterring the attempt. There has not been one of the great alterations effected by the popular spirit within the last half-century, that was not preceded by professions of contemptuous incredulity, on the part of the applauders of things as they were, toward those who calculated on the effects of that spirit. There were occasionally betrayed, under these shows of confidence and contempt, some signs of horror at the undeniable excitement and progress of popular feeling; but the scorn of all serious and monitory predictions of its ultimate result was at all events to be kept up,--in whatever proportions a time-serving interest and an honest fatuity might share in dictating this elated and contemptuous style. Should the latter of these ingredients at present predominate in the temper which throws off the fume of this high style, it will not leave much faculty in the defiers of all revolution, for explaining what it is they have to trust to as security against such consequences as we should anticipate from the progress of disapprobation and aversion in the people; unless indeed the security mainly relied on is just that plain, simple expedient--force, for all nations on earth--downright force. It is plainly this that is meant, when persons disinclined to speak out give us a circumlocution of delicate phrases, "the conservative energies of the public institutions," "the majesty of the law," perhaps, and others of similar cast;--which fine phrases suggest to one's imagination the ornamented fashion of the handle and sheath of the scimitar, which is not the less keen, nor the less ready to be drawn, for all this finery that hides and garnishes so menacing a symbol of power.