THE DISEASE OF CIVILIZATIONS
singly or together, were declared to be responsible for the fall of human societies ; the natural corollary being that in the absence of these causes there can be no solvent whatever. The final conclusion is that societies, more fortunate than men, die only a violent death ; and if a nation can be imagined as escaping the destructive forces I have mentioned, there is no reason why it should not last as long as the earth itself. When the ancients invented this theory, they did not see where it was leading them ; they regarded it merely as a buttress for their ethical notions, to establish which was, as we know, the sole aim of their historical method. In their narrative of events, they were so taken up with the idea of bringing out the admirable influence of virtue, and the deplorable effects of vice and crime, that anything which marred the harmony of this excellent moral picture had little interest for them, and so was generally forgotten or set aside. This method was not only false and petty, but also had very often a different result from that intended by its authors ; for it applied the terms "virtue" and "vice" in an arbitrary way, as the needs of the moment dictated. Yet, to a certain extent, the theory is excused by the stern and noble sentiment that lay at the base of it ; and if the genius of Plutarch and Tacitus has built mere romances and libels on this foundation, at any rate the libels are generous, and the romances sublime.
I wish I could show myself as indulgent to the use that the authors of the eighteenth century have made of the theory. But there is too great a difference between their masters and themselves. The former had even a quixotic devotion to the maintenance of the social order ; the latter were eager for novelty and furiously bent on destruction. The ancients made their false ideas bear a noble progeny ; the moderns have produced only monstrous abortions. Their theory has furnished them with arms against all principles of government, which they have reproached in turn with tyranny, fanaticism, and corruption. The Voltairean way of " preventing the ruin of society" is to destroy religion, law, industry, and commerce, under the pretext that religion is another name for fanaticism, law for despotism,
