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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Phoenicia, Carthage, and Egypt, the author 1 

 likewise fails to discover germs of demo- 

 cratic ideas. It will not be amiss for us 

 to state that Von Schlegel, Ferrari, and the 

 more distinguished modern critics, have 

 agreed that the East, too, has been always 

 progressing, steadily if slowly, in the path 

 of civilization, and that at no period was 

 democracy entirely unknown in Eastern 

 countries; the village communities of In- 

 dia, old as the nation itself, bear witness to 

 this assertion. 



Chapters II.-VI. are devoted to Greece 

 and Rome. An attempt to go over the 

 whole of his ground with the author would 

 be a trespass upon the limits of this no- 

 tice. We can only refer the reader to the 

 work itself, where, among many absurd 

 theories and startling declarations, he may 

 nevertheless find many good ideas. 



We cannot, we are sorry to say, so rec- 

 ommend that portion of the work which 

 treats of the fortunes of democracy during 

 the middle ages. Like the older writers 

 who had not comprehended the philosophy 

 of history, Sir Erskine May persists in call- 

 ing this epoch by the now exploded title of 

 "the dark ages," and seems to see in it 

 nothing beyond vandalism and ruins. In 

 love with " the old world," he has failed to 

 realize its shortcomings, and accordingly 

 the necessity of demolishing it in order to 

 rebuild with the old materials one more 

 in keeping with democratic ideas. He is 

 forced, however, later on, to acknowledge 

 that " this general prostration of the people 

 of Europe was gradually lessened by the 

 operation of several causes, which contrib- 

 uted to the ultimate regeneration of society 

 and the advancement of freedom. These 

 causes are to be sought in the ' free ' insti- 

 tutions of the conquerors themselves, in the 

 traditional laws and customs of Rome, in 

 the influence of Christianity and the Catho- 

 lic Church, and in the increasing enlight- 

 enment and general expansion of mediaeval 

 society." Here he presents the Church as 

 the protector of the people's rights, and as 

 counteracting the absolutism of kings and 

 barons, and therefore as a democratic in- 

 stitution ; afterward he notices the Church 

 as directly antagonistic to freedom, and in 

 the end hits upon the truth by saying : 

 " Any pretensions of the Church which im- 

 paired the absolutism of rulers were so far 



favorable to liberty ; but the pope was con- 

 tending for ecclesiastical domination, not 

 for civil freedom ; and, if the latter cause 

 sometimes profited by his intervention, it 

 was because kings were weakened not be- 

 cause the Church was the apostle of liber- 

 ty." As he proceeds, our author shows 

 how the cause of democracy was gradually 

 helped along by the growing refinement of 

 the barons, by minstrelsy, chivalry, and the 

 crusades; which, "by weakening the aris- 

 tocracy, increased on one side the power of 

 the monarchs and on the other the freedom 

 of the people," and led to the enfranchise- 

 ment of the rising communes, to the revival 

 of towns and the growth of municipal lib- 

 erties ; how all this brought about a revival 

 of learning, an impulse of new life in the 

 universities, to which was due the develop- 

 ment later on of the liberty of thought and 

 the Reformation. 



Resuming his way backward, Sir Er- 

 skine May devotes the seventh chapter to the 

 Italian republics, and, in presenting their 

 history, shows how several causes, foremost 

 among them being the earlier intellectual 

 revival, operated to bring about an early de- 

 velopment of municipal liberties in Italy. 

 He explains how feudalism never firmly took 

 root in Italy ; how, after Charlemagne, the 

 weakness of its kings favored the political 

 power of the cities ; how the fusion of the 

 sturdy northern races with the Italians 

 similarly assisted the assertion of popular 

 rights ; how a comparatively equal distribu- 

 tion of lands contributed toward social and 

 political equality ; how from all these varying 

 causes no less than two hundred free muni- 

 cipalities or republics arose in this fair land, 

 in which, in short, democracy attained to 

 an unprecedented development. But here, 

 we are afraid, the author has over-estimated 

 this "freedom" of the Italian republics, 

 each of which aimed at liberty only for it- 

 self each party in every city determin- 

 ing upon the exclusion of its rivals from 

 the enjoyment of all franchises. He con- 

 cludes with a comparison of the Italian re- 

 publics with one another, and with the old 

 republics of Greece, and surveys, briefly and 

 accurately, the causes that led to Italy's en- 

 slavement and its regeneration in our own 

 day. 



Next follows a review of the history of 

 Switzerland, which offers one of the most 



