establishment of a new religion. Compare this with the way in which the destructive element in France, when once aroused against Catholicism, criticised it out of fashion, without dreaming of creating any thing new to supply its place. The French Revolution was a destructive criticism of royal government. When this flame ceased for want of fuel, France could find no alternative but military power.[1] Compare this with the results of the English Revolution and our own. All ancient nations, relaxing from the simple virtues of heroic ancestors, declined and disappeared, pushed from their stools by new and fresher races. Modern nations would have followed their example, but for the influence of the reconstructive principle in the Germanic race; the same principle which is in literature scientific criticism, is in religion reformation, is in politics reform.
This reconstructive criticism, based upon the profoundest scholarship and strong natural genius, has produced in Germany those works which are esteemed the flower of their literature, in which the mind of the nation is fused into moulds, not of pedantic or even of elegant formality, but of living, significant form. Has the same taken place in England? Certainly not in later times; and, since we have included the English among the Germanic nations with reference to the presence of the critical spirit, it will be interesting to inquire, why not?
From position and circumstance, as from natural character, England has enjoyed a freer and more active political existence than any other modern nation. The basis of this liberty was criticism. England alone has enjoyed freedom of the press; and naturally this criticism has been applied to the absorbing interests of politics, and the representatives of political opinions,—persons. A rigid aristocracy assailable in this way only, and freely to be attacked thus, this liberty has in England always been licentious, simply because it was the only liberty; in other words, the only ground where birth and place had no vantage. Personalities always tend to brutalize and degrade; and it is undeniable, that a brutal
- ↑ The course of the new Revolution may serve as a farther illustration.
