156 Progress and Civilisation. PT. m. 



and savage character. The Feudal System, assailed 

 by the modern philosophy of the French school, is 

 the source of all the evils which they conceive press 

 upon society. I believe that we owe to it much that 

 is great and generous in our nature, and that to it 

 may be traced much of that spirit of freedom which 

 pervades our modern institutions. ' The generous 

 loyalty to rank and sex,' in Mr. Burke's immortal 

 passage, embodied two great and fundamental ideas 

 associated with the institutions of chivalry. In a 

 rude age the deference, and almost worship, paid to 

 women, and the customs which placed their weakness 

 under the safeguard of knightly honour, raised at 

 once the tone of sentiment and morals. While all 

 the Eastern nations withdrew their women from all 

 contact with society, secluded them in harems, and 

 sometimes treated them as slaves, the gallant 

 chivalry of Western Europe placed them at the 

 head of society, in the foremost rank of honour, and 

 protected them with the rampart of their swords. 

 Thus from the bosom of these nations, accounted as 

 barbarous by the more polished Greeks and Romans, 

 sprang a purifying and ennobling influence to which 

 they had been strangers. It is in great part through 

 these influences that the germs of a higher civilisa- 



