#104 Osons croire qu'il seroit plus a propos de mettre de cote ces traditions, ces usages, et ces coutumes souvent si imparfaites, si contradictoires, si incoherentes, ou de ne les consulter que pour saisir les inconveniens et les eviter; et qu'il faudroit chercher non-seulement les elements d'une nouvelle legislation, mais meme ses derniers details dans une etude approfondie de la morale.--LETROSNE, Reflexions sur la Legislation Criminelle, 137. M. Renan appartient a cette famille d'esprits qui ne croient pas en realite la raison, la conscience, le droit applicables a la direction des societes humaines, et qui demandent a l'histoire, a la tradition, non a la morale, les regles de la politique. Ces esprits sont atteints de la maladie du siecle, le scepticisme moral.--PILLON, Critique Philosophique, i. 49. #105 The subject of modern History is of all others, to my mind, the most interesting, inasmuch as it includes all questions of the deepest interest relating not to human things only, but to divine.--ARNOLD, Modern History, 311. I BEGINNING OF THE MODERN STATE MODERN HISTORY tells how the last four hundred years have modified the medieval conditions of life and thought. In comparison with them, the Middle Ages were the domain of stability, and continuity, and instinctive evolution, seldom interrupted by such originators as Gregory VII or St. Francis of Assisi. Ignorant of History, they allowed themselves to be governed by the unknown Past; ignorant of Science, they never believed in hidden forces working onwards to a happier future. The sense of decay was upon them; and each generation seemed so inferior to the last, in ancient wisdom and ancestral virtue, that they found comfort in the assurance that the end of the world was at hand.