EVOLUTION OF MODERN SOCIETY. 517 



yet we must say developmeut. The couditious then existing — the 

 iutei riipted harvests, the overwhelming taxes, the constant drain upon 

 the manhood of the countries, the capture and recapture of towns, and 

 all the horrors, external and internal, consequent on war entered upon 

 for the gratification of the caprice or pride of an individual — all tended 

 toward a better and truer condition of society. Every additional 

 impost, every new levy, was a step nearer the recognition by the people 

 of their true position and their proper rights; toward drawing'^ them 

 together in the bonds of social unity; toward the downfall of tyranny 

 in the guise of custom. 



While the progress of society on the Continent was impeded by war 

 and dissension, it was steady and uninterrupted in Britain, ^ot that 

 we were without dissensions too. But our warfare was of such a nature 

 that it tended to draw the i^eople together for common ends. The civil 

 war of 1G42 and the revolution of 1688 were mighty factors in our own 

 social history and that of the world at large. These were esseutially 

 contests between the Crown and the people, between arbitrary power 

 and individual right. And these events are of the greater significance 

 in that they could ever have happened. The victory was there won by 

 unity and the courage of the conviction of the goodness of the cause. 

 For the time, all j)nvate or sectarian animosities were forgotten. 

 Bishop, noble, squire, merchant, artisan, and plowman. High Church- 

 men, Low Churchmen, Nonconformists, and Quakers, worked together 

 for a common end — liberty, the inalienable right of each and all. 



While this was going on in Britain, Europe looked on askance. 

 But it was only that species of half admiration and half fear with 

 which the community regards an individual who is the first to venture 

 to do what no one else would dare. Soon others will follow; it only 

 needs exami)le. So it was in the seventeenth century. Hence the sig- 

 nificance and influence of British history of that time. When the 

 crisis was passed, and men once more allowed their petty jealousies 

 and animosities to have sway, they found themselves upon a new foot- 

 ing. They knew their own rights and the rights of the sovereign, and 

 the limits of these. Moreover, they were flushed with victory and full 

 of conscious strength. The effects were rapid. Towns arose, com- 

 merce developed, industries increased, wealth multiplied, and comfort 

 spread. Societies, associations, guilds, and councils began to exercise 

 an influence, representing in miniature the theory of the state. 



In political government, too, a great end was achieved by more thor- 

 ough representation. 



Under the new conditions, learning and culture began to thrive 

 enormously. Britain took the lead in social progress, and she has ever 

 since retained it. 



The eighteenth century is in Britain a record of intellectual and, 

 with it, social progress. The barriers of custom and prerogative were 

 ever falling before the conviction of natural right and equity. On the 



