THE GENERAL DIRECTION OF PROGRESS 193 



by a social revolution — a demand which is growing 

 louder with each century. 



The Irresistible Force of Centralization — But although 

 we see this spirit of individualism making more and 

 more emphatic demands, we can see with equal 

 clearness that the opposite tendency is working with 

 no less force. The tendency toward absorption of 

 individual rights in a central authority is as strong 

 as that toward individualization, and in reading his- 

 tory we are impressed equally with the significance 

 of centralization and individualism. It is true that 

 Rome fell because the individual lost his rights, and 

 that this placed the destinies of the world in the 

 hands of a people to whom individual rights were 

 primary. But it is equally true that it required but a 

 few centuries for feudalism to enslave once more the 

 individual. When feudalism fell, under the attack 

 of the rights of men, it was actually overthrown by 

 the force of centralization, for the king used the 

 rights of man as an excuse for centering upon him- 

 self greater central authority. Thus, though the 

 French monarchy was built originally upon its 

 appeal to justice and the welfare of the people, it 

 required but a few centuries for this centralizing 

 power to throw off all disguise of justice, and to rule 

 by might, crushing the people beneath its weight of 

 intolerable taxation. Founded upon the rights of the 

 people, the monarchy soon existed for itself alone, 

 and ruled autocratically, leaving the people in as 

 deep a misery as that from which it had rescued 

 them. It required the French Revolution to rescue 

 the individual once more. Having again come to the 

 front, the individual yielded again to centralization 

 under Napoleon. 



