OF SOCIETY. 447 



question, that of the foundation, government, and con- 

 stitution of society, has been treated in the most radical 21. 



Constitution 



manner in France, where the existing historical founda- pf society 



^ treated in 



tions were most profoundly shaken, and where thinking ^''^i^ce. 

 minds were naturally invited to give their attention to 

 the work of re-constitution and re- organisation. 



Before the great Eevolution French thinkers had 

 attacked both the social and the economic problem in 

 an independent and original manner, but the fact that 

 the edifice of the State was shaken in its very ground- 

 work through the great cataclysm made it necessary 

 to attend more to the work of laying new foundations 

 or restoring the old ones than to the internal economic 

 arrangements of the structure. The Pievolution did not 

 materially shake the foundations of society in this 

 country. The Constitution was sufficiently broad and 

 elastic to weather the storm ; also sufficiently liberal 

 to allow of internal adjustments. Peace at home com- 

 bined with enterprise abroad had enabled industry and 

 commerce to develop in a degree quite unparalleled in 

 any other country of the modern world. Great Britain 

 had taken the leading position, which had before that 

 time been occupied by other nations, but lost through 

 internal or external warfare. The conditions, therefore, 

 existed here for a patient study of the problem of the 22. 



Economic 



peaceful Work of Society : the economic problem. problem in 



■'^ J i: Britain. 



And, lastly, if we look to Germany, we find that the 

 numerous existing states into which it was divided were 

 neither so fundamentally shaken as was the case in 

 France, nor did peaceful conditions and constitutional 

 government exist together as they did in England. 



