Both these works, however, are invaluable preparations for the writing of such a history. With firm and decided political principles of their own, both authors have determined to serve no party, but knowledge only. Both desire to know men and circumstances before they judge of the political experiments made. Both are full of the spirit of the old saying: "Human affairs are neither to be wept over nor laughed at, but to be understood." It is only when we know the soil and the seed from which the Revolution sprang that we can understand its nature and working, and only from the understanding of the whole can we pronounce upon the details with which factions have hitherto concerned themselves in endless and unprofitable debate. We will illustrate our meaning by a contrary procedure. I have not unfrequently heard the question: "How can Taine, whose first volume reveals more fully than any previous work the utter corruption of the Ancien Régime, place the Revolution in his second in an equally unfavourable light? If the old state were so completely good for nothing, the French were perfectly right in utterly destroying it." Accordingly, there has been no want of critics who, after the appearance of the first volume, declared the author to be a thorough Liberal, and, after the second, in deep disappointment, proclaimed him a thoroughly reactionary politician. There are, indeed, certain passages that might lead to such a conclusion, certain inconsistencies do appear, but on the whole it is self-evident, from an historical standpoint, that out of so evil a condition as the first volume paints the dark pictures of the second must needs grow. Rather should we have had cause to wonder if from a diseased root there had sprung a healthy tree. The men of the Revolution had grown up on no other soil and in no other atmosphere than that of the Ancien Régime; it was under it that their notions had arisen, their passions been fostered, and their ideal formed; it was there that their nature had received its stamp and their strivings their direction; and if all relations were dislocated, political feeling perverted, all portions of the people filled with bitter hatred against the State and each other, how should pupils in such a school amidst the final shock of catastrophes show themselves men of ripe experience, practical wisdom, and determined energy? He who has once taken in this simple truth will be much inclined to a mild judgment of individual men and parties; at all events, he will not be able abruptly to take sides either for or against the Ancien Régime or the Revolution. For one thing will have grown clear to him, that the Revolution was not the destroyer alone, but the undeniable offspring, of the old condition of things.