When such a class asked what were the benefits of art or religion, it thought first of itself; and it looked upon art and religion--and the same would be true of philosophy and science, or of political sanctions--as _merely_ objective and outward entities, foreign to the individual, yet by some mechanical influences brought into connexion with him,--as one might apply to him a drug or a viand. But clearly to a person of practical aims, bent on conveying information and enlightenment, bent on making all men as like each other as possible in the medium range of cultivation which he thinks desirable, the utility of some of these things is questionable and limited. It is only a little modicum of religion, of art and of science, which can be justified by its obvious pleasure-giving power; and it is easy to point the thesis against enthusiasm in these regions, by reference to the disastrous wars fanned by religion, to the license that has followed the steps of art, and to the lives wasted in the zeal for increasing knowledge. In his ideal of human life such a practical reformer will tend to suppress all that bears too clear a trace of natural, infra-rational, non-intelligent kindred,--all that ties us too closely to mother earth and universal nature. But if this was the dominant tone of the literary teachers who had chief audience from the public ear, there was no lack of dissentient voices who appealed to nature, who loved the past, who set sentiment and imagination above intellect, and who never bowed the knee to the great idols of enlightened middle-class utilitarianism. Even in the leaders of the enlightening host--amongst the chiefs of the _Aufklärung_--there is a breadth and a depth of human interest which sets them far above their average followers, and which should prevent us from joining without discrimination in the depreciatory judgments so often passed on the eighteenth century. The pioneers in the great emancipatory movement of modern times should not be allowed to suffer from the exaggerations and haste of their more vulgar imitators--still less refused the meed of gratitude we owe them. But when their ideas were violently translated into reality, when the levelling, unshackling process was set at work by vulgar hands, the shortcomings of their theories were made to show even greater than they were: and inevitable reaction set in. Even the revolutionist himself has come to admit that fraternity at that time came badly off in comparison with liberty and equality[2]. But these drawbacks were accentuated when the cosmopolitan reform-movement, by its haste and intolerance, awakened the spirit of national jealousy. The deeper instincts of life rose in protest against the supposed superiority of intellect: the heart claimed its rights against the head: the man of nature and feeling was roused up to meet the man of reasoning and criticism. The spirit of war evoked those energies of human nature--some of them not its least valuable--which