The same character is found in the literatures. We cannot but confess that in artistic form and beauty they are far inferior to the ancient literature; but in the depth of the sentiments and ideas, they are more vigorous and rich. It is evident that the later human mind has been moved on far more points, and to a much greater depth. The imperfection of form proceeds from this very cause. {41} The more rich and numerous the materials, the more difficult it is to reduce them into a simple and pure form. What makes the beauty of a composition--that which we call form in works of art--is clearness, simplicity, a symbolic unity of workmanship. From the prodigious diversity of ideas and sentiments in the European civilisation, it has been much more difficult to attain this simplicity and perspicuity. This predominant character in the modern civilisation is thus everywhere perceptible. It has doubtless been attended with this consequence, that on considering by itself such or such particular development of the human mind in letters, in arts, indeed in all the directions in which it may advance, we find it, in general, inferior to the correspondent development in the ancient civilisations; but in return, when we look at the whole, the European civilisation shows itself incomparably richer than any other, and it has simultaneously exhibited a much greater number of different developments. It has now existed for fifteen centuries, and it is yet in a state of continuous progression; it has not advanced by many degrees as quickly as the Greek civilisation, but it has never ceased to wax in vigour. A boundless career is open before it, and day by day it presses onward the more rapidly, since an increasing liberty accompanies all its movements. Whilst in the earlier civilisations the exclusive domination, or at least the excessive preponderance, of a single principle, of a single organisation, was the cause of tyranny, the diversity of the elements of social order in modern Europe, and the impossibility that has been met with of any excluding another, have generated the liberty which reigns at present. Lacking the power to exterminate, the different principles have been fain to live together, and to make amongst themselves a sort of forced compact. Each has agreed to take only so much development as it could fairly gain; and whilst elsewhere the preponderance of one principle produced tyranny, in Europe liberty has resulted from the variety in the elements of civilisation, and from the state of combat in which they have been constantly involved.