INTRODUCTION. 



THE progress of the human mind, and of human soci- 

 ety, is seldom marked by regular and successive steps. At 

 some periods, civilization appears to be stationary; at 

 others even to retrograde; at others again, to spring for- 

 ward with rapid, gigantic, and almost convulsive strides. 

 This irregularity of advance is, doubtless, ostensible rather 

 than actual. Preparations are gradually made, ideas slowly 

 matured, and the foundations of the future superstruc- 

 ture laid with secret and patient industry. But these 

 subterranean workings are for the most part unnoticed, till 

 in the fullness of time, a rich harvest of consequences is 

 developed with apparent suddenness, from causes which 

 have been accumulating in silence for many years. The 

 fall of the Roman empire constituted one of these great 

 eras. It was the demarkation between the old world and 

 the new. From that period, society and nations alike as- 

 sumed a new aspect, and the world commenced a new 

 career. It was the moral deluge, upon the abatement of 

 which a new condition of society, new systems of govern- 

 ment, and new methods of thought sprang up. The 

 reformation effected another mighty change. It intro- 

 duced pure religion into the realm of almost pagan super- 

 stition, civil liberty into the empire of tyranny, and science 

 into the depths of national ignorance. One of its immedi- 

 ate and most momentous consequences was the struggle 

 for constitutional rights, in England, in the seventeenth 



