AMERICAN AND FRENCH REVOLUTIONS. The spirit that has imparted life to this movement, that has animated these discoveries and inventions, is Individualism; in some minds the hope of gain, in other and nobler ones the expectation of honor. It is, then, not to be wondered at that this principle found a political embodiment, and that, during the last century, on two occasions, it gave rise to social convulsions--the American and the French Revolutions. The former has ended in the dedication of a continent to Individualism--there, under republican forms, before the close of the present century, one hundred million people, with no more restraint than their common security requires, will be pursuing an unfettered career. The latter, though it has modified the political aspect of all Europe, and though illustrated by surprising military successes, has, thus far, not consummated its intentions; again and again it has brought upon France fearful disasters. Her dual form of government--her allegiance to her two sovereigns, the political and the spiritual--has made her at once the leader and the antagonist of modern progress. With one hand she has enthroned Reason, with the other she has re-established and sustained the pope. Nor will this anomaly in her conduct cease until she bestows a true education on all her children, even on those of the humblest rustic. SCIENCE AND CIVILIZATION. The intellectual attack made on existing opinions by the French Revolution was not of a scientific, but of a literary character; it was critical and aggressive. But Science has never been an aggressor. She has always acted on the defensive, and left to her antagonist the making of wanton attacks. Nevertheless, literary dissent is not of such ominous import as scientific; for literature is, in its nature, local--science is cosmopolitan.