I have not hitherto stated the entire plan of my inquiry. I commenced by indicating its object, and then I proceeded, without considering European civilisation as a whole, or without marking out at one and the same time the point of departure, the course, and the port; that is, the commencement, the middle, and the end. We are now, however, arrived at an era in which this survey of the whole, this general sketch of the region we are traversing, becomes necessary. The periods that we have investigated so far, are illustrated in some sort by themselves, or by immediate and distinct results. Those upon which we are about to enter would not be understood, and would indeed fail in exciting any lively interest, if they were not connected with their most indirect and remote consequences. In so extensive an investigation, moments occur in which the mind seeks for elucidation as to the ultimate object, and feels reluctant to proceed with mists and darkness before it; not only whence we come, and where we are, does it seek to know, but also whither we go. This is what we feel at present. The epoch upon which we now open is intelligible, and its importance can be appreciated only by the relations which link it to modern times. Its true tendency has only been revealed at a very late period. We are now in possession of almost all the essential elements of European civilisation. I say almost, because I have not yet entered upon royalty. The era of the decisive development of royalty did not take place until the twelfth or even the thirteenth century; it was not till then that the institution was truly established, and began to assume its definitive station in modern society. For this reason I have not treated of it earlier, but it will form the subject of my next lecture. With this exception, however, we grasp all the great elements of European civilisation: the feudal aristocracy, the church, and the boroughs, have all been traced to their origin; the institutions corresponding to each of these matters have been laid open, and not only the institutions, but also the principles and ideas which they were calculated to excite in the minds of men. Thus, when treating of feudalism, we have gone to the cradle of the modern household, to the sanctuary of domestic life; and we have fully understood the prevailing sentiment of individual independence in all its energy, and the influence it was destined to exercise upon our civilisation. {140} On the question of the church, we have witnessed the rising of the purely religious society, its relations with civil society, the theocratic principle, the separation of the spiritual from the temporal power, the first objects of persecution, and the first cries of liberty of conscience. The consideration of the infant boroughs has shown an association founded upon very opposite principles to those of feudalism or the church, the diversity of the social classes, their contests, the first and