It is after this manner that man advances in the execution of a plan which he has not himself conceived, of which he is even quite ignorant. He is the intelligent and free labourer in a work which is not his own, and which he only recognises and understands at a later date, when it manifests itself outwardly and in realities; and even then, his comprehension is imperfect. And yet it is by him, by the development of his intelligence and liberty, that the work is accomplished. Conceive a great machine, the purpose of which is known to only one mind, but its different pieces are confided to separate workmen, kept apart and strangers to each other. Not one of them is acquainted with the entirety of the work, nor the definitive and general result towards which he is co-operating; nevertheless each executes with intelligence and liberty, by rational and voluntary acts, that with which he has been intrusted. Thus is the plan of Providence as to the world executed by the hands of mortals, and thus co-exist those two facts which break out in the history of civilisation: the one, what it has of fatalism, that which is unaffected by human knowledge and will; and the other, what it is indebted to the liberty and intelligence of man, what he has therein infused of himself, from the operations of his thought and inclination. In order perfectly to understand the fifteenth century, to obtain a clear and exact knowledge of that precursor of modern society, it will be proper to distinguish the different classes of facts. We will first examine the political facts and changes which have tended to form both nations and governments. We will then pass to the moral facts, and investigate the changes produced in ideas and manners, thence deducing what general opinions were in process of formation. With regard to political facts, to simplify and expedite our progress, I will take all the great countries of Europe, and show what the fifteenth century made of them, in what state it found and left them. {184}