followed that all mental acquirement was estimated not by the worth of its content but the excellence of its form: abstract intelligence in the service of enjoyment, such was the motto of this society. Genial originality, unconscious creative power, native vigour, were thoroughly antipathetic there, or only tolerated in so far as they made themselves subservient to the ruling mood. A further consideration of how essentially these characteristics of good society tended to strengthen and sharpen the revolutionary theories of its deadly foes, here becomes instructive. The development of this process may indeed be looked upon as the salient point in Taine's work, for often as the French literature and philosophy of the eighteenth century have been treated of, I know of no earlier author who with such extensive material and penetrating insight has clearly brought out the continuous reciprocal action of circumstances and theories, and thus gained an unalterable scale for the measurement of both by history. Taine begins, as is just, with the mighty impetus given to natural science since the middle of the seventeenth century throughout Europe, by which a way was opened for an utterly new view of the world and of men, in opposition to the speculative and theological conceptions of the Middle Ages. Next comes under consideration the prevalence of the inductive method, the rejection of all dogmatic assumption, the repugnance to all intuitive ideas, the proclamation of observation and experiment as the only sources of verifiable knowledge. These principles having been at once unconditionally acknowledged in the sphere of natural science, the next step was to apply the tone of thought they had engendered to the phenomena of spiritual and social life, and here also to demand thorough investigation by the one true authority--criticism. Whatever the consequence of this investigation might in particular cases be, the very fact that it had been demanded, that the right of the existing, _as such_, was denied, that the authority of tradition was subjected to that of critical reason--this betokened a new epoch in the world's history, and opened out possibilities of hitherto undreamed-of progress in politics and religion, State and Church, material and spiritual culture. It is now plain that if the inductive method can lead to such positive results, its application should be thorough and universal. No naturalist delivers a general law as to the life of an organism before he has considered its origin, existence, and decay in all their stages, compared it with its like, separated it from its unlike; for it is just through the discovery and recognition of the eminently special that analysis leads him to the comprehension of universal truth. And according to this same rule, in order to arrive at a just and practicable idea of reform for any State, a great mass of special observations by technically practised and prepared eyes would have been