Civilization and Decay 363 



the Administration of Madison, by his brother, 

 Henry Adams, would find that Mr. Eliot had plenty 

 of intellectual ancestors among the "blue lights" 

 Federalists of that day. Timothy Pickering showed 

 the same eager desire to stand by another country 

 to the hurt of his own country's honor, and Timothy 

 Pickering was a United States Senator whose con- 

 duct was far more resprehensible than that of any 

 private individual could be. We have advanced, not 

 retrograded, since 1812. 



This applies also to what Mr. Adams says of the 

 fall of the soldier and the rise of the usurer. He 

 quite overstates his case in asserting that in Europe 

 the soldier has lost his importance since 1871, and 

 that the administration of society since then has 

 fallen into the hands of the "economic man," there- 

 by making a change "more radical than any that 

 happened at Rome or even at Byzantium." In the 

 first place, a period of a quarter of a century is al- 

 together too short to admit of such a generalization. 

 In the next place, the facts do not support this par- 

 ticular generalization. The Germans are quite as 

 military in type as ever they were, and very much 

 more so than they were at any period during the two 

 centuries preceding Bismarck and Moltke. Nor is 

 it true to say that^'the ruler of the French people 

 has passed for the first time from the martial to the 

 moneyed type." Louis XV and Louis Philippe can 

 hardly be held to belong to any recognized martial 

 type; and the reason of the comparative sinking of 

 the military man in France is due not in the least to 



