I am anxious that this fundamental and distinctive character of European civilisation be borne in mind. It is true that at the present moment I only assert it, for the proof must be furnished by the development of facts. Nevertheless, it will be allowed as an important confirmation of my views, if the causes and elements of the character which I attribute to our civilisation are found at its very cradle; if at the moment when it was first born, at the period of the fall of the Roman Empire, we discover in the state of the world, and in the facts which, from its earliest days, have concurred in forming the European civilisation, the active principle of this tumultuous but fruitful diversity which so distinguishes it. Into this scrutiny I am about to enter. I shall proceed to examine the state of Europe at the fall of the Roman Empire, and endeavour to discover, by an investigation into institutions, creeds, ideas, and sentiments, what were the elements which the ancient world bequeathed to the modern. If we distinguish in these elements that character strongly marked which I have just described, it will form a groundwork for belief in its justness. First of all, it will be necessary to have a correct conception of what the Roman Empire was, and how it was constituted. Rome at its origin was only a municipality, a corporation. The Roman government was a mere concentration of the institutions which are suited to a people shut up within the walls of a town-- that is, municipal institutions. Such was its distinctive character. {43} This was not peculiar to Rome. When we look at Italy at this epoch, around Rome, we find nothing but towns. What were then called people, were mere confederations of towns. The Latin people was a confederation of Latin towns. The Etruscans, the Samnites, the Sabines, the people of Græcia Magna, were all in the same state. At this era there was no country--that is to say, the country had no resemblance to what it is at present; it was cultivated--that was necessary; but it was not inhabited. The rural proprietors were the inhabitants of the cities; they went out to look after their farms, and they often kept a certain number of slaves upon them; but what we at present call the country, consisting of a scattered population, in isolated abodes, or in villages, strewed over the whole soil, was a thing altogether unknown to ancient Italy.