472 JURISPRUDENCE 



departure from the preceding course. The radicals of one period 

 become the conservatives of the next, and are sure that the change 

 is a retrogression; but the experience of the past assures us that it 

 is progress. 



Two such changes have come in the century under consideration. 

 The eighteenth had been on the whole a self-sufficient century; 

 the leaders of thought were usually content with the world as it 

 was, and their ideal was a classical one. The prophets of individ- 

 uality were few and little heeded. But at the end of the century, 

 following the American and French revolutions, an abrupt change 

 came over the prevailing current of thought throughout the civil- 

 ized world ; and, at the beginning of the period under discussion, 

 the rights of man and of nations became subjects not merely of 

 theoretical discussion, but of political action. The age became one 

 of daring speculation. Precedent received scant consideration. 

 The American Revolution had established the right of the common 

 people to a voice in the government. The French Revolution had 

 swept feudal rights from the civilized world. The French Republic 

 was, to be sure, just passing into the French Empire; but it was an em- 

 pire which belonged to the people, and one of which they were proud. 

 The Emperor was the representative and the idol, not of an aristo- 

 cracy, but of his peasants and his common soldiers. The dreams 

 of Napoleon himself, to be sure, were not of an individualistic 

 paradise, where each man's personality should have free play and 

 restraint on his inclinations be reduced to the minimum; but so far 

 as he was able to put his centralizing ideals into execution he raised 

 but a temporary dam, which first spread the flood of liberty over all 

 Europe and was finally swept away by the force of the current. 



Starting from this point, the spirit of the time for more than a 

 generation was humanitarian and individualistic. In political affairs 

 independence was attempted by almost every subordinate people 

 in the civilized world, and was attained by the South American 

 colonies, by Greece, and by Belgium. In religion free thinking 

 prevailed, and every creed was on the defensive. In society women 

 and children were emancipated. Slavery was abolished and the 

 prisons were reformed. It was rather a destructive than a con- 

 structive age, and its thinkers were iconoclasts. 



But a change, beginning with the second third of the century, was 

 gradually accomplished. The application of the forces of steam 

 and electricity to manufacture and transportation has had a greater 

 effect on human life and thought than any event of modern times. 

 The enormous power exerted by these forces required great collec- 

 tions of labor and capital to make them effective. Association 

 became the rule in business affairs, and as it proved effectual there, 

 the principle of association became more and more readily accepted 



