caste privileges ; but the most far-seeing of these monarchs and of these castes know well that the sea is rising. Their only hope is that a dem- ocratic organization may not be incompatible with a monarchical form ; we shall find in Russia a patriarchal democracy growing up within the shadow of an absolute power. Literature, which always expresses the existing condition of society, could not escape this general change of base ; at first instinctively, then as a doctrine, it regulated its methods and its ideals according to the new spirit. Its first efforts at reformation were awkward and uncertain ; roman- ticism, as we know to-day, was but a bastard pro- duction. It was merely a reaction against the classic hero, but was still unconsciously permeated by the classic spirit. Men soon tired of this, and demanded of authors more sincerity, and repre- sentations of the world more conformable to the teachings of the positive sciences, which were gaining ground day by day. They demanded to know more of human life, of ideas, and the rela- tions of human beings to each other. Then it was that realism sprung into existence, and was adopted by all European literature, and is still reigning, with the various shades of difference that we shall allude to. A path was prepared for it by the universal revolution I have spoken of; but a realization of the general causes of this revolution could alone give to literature a philo- sophical turn.
