If I should apply, at the present day, to these historical studies of 1820, all the lessons which political life has given me since that period, I should perhaps modify some of the ideas which I have expressed in reference to some of the conditions and forms of representative government. This system of government has no unique and solely good type, in conformity to which it must necessarily and universally be instituted. Providence, which allots to nations different origins and destinies, also opens to justice and liberty more than one way of entering into governments: and it would be foolishly to reduce their chances of success if we condemned them to appear always with the same lineaments, and to develope themselves by the same means. One thing only is important, and that is, that the essential principles of order and liberty should subsist beneath the different forms which the interference of the country in its own affairs may assume amongst different peoples and at different epochs. These essential and necessary principles of all representative government are precisely those which, in our days, are ignored and outraged. I venture to believe that they will be found faithfully expounded in these lectures; and that on this account, even at the present day, my work will not be devoid either of utility or of interest. Guizot. {ix} Contents. Part I. Representative Institutions In England, France, And Spain, From The Fifth To The Eleventh Century. Lecture I.--Page 1 Simultaneous development of history and civilization. Two errors in our method of considering the past; proud disdain, or superstitious admiration. Historic impartiality the vocation of the present age. Divisions of the history of the political institutions of Europe into four great epochs. Representative government the general and natural aim of these institutions. Object of the course; inquiry into the origin of representative government in France, Spain, and England. State of mind appropriate to this inquiry. Lecture II.--Page 23 General character of political institutions in Europe, from the fourth to the eleventh century. Political sterility of the Roman Empire. Progress of the Germanic invasions. Sketch of the history of the Anglo-Saxons. Lecture III.--Page 32 Subject of the lecture. A knowledge of the state of persons necessary to the proper study of institutions. Essential difference between antiquity and modern societies, as regards the classification of social conditions. State of persons among the Anglo-Saxons. Thanes and Ceorls. Central and local institutions. Predominance of the latter among the Anglo-Saxons. Its cause. {x} Lecture IV.--Page 41 Local institutions among the Anglo-Saxons. Divisions of territory; their origin and double object.