¹ Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Théodicée: Essais sur la bonté de Dieu (Amsterdam, 1710)Google Scholar, Première partie, para. 8. “… qu'il y a une infinité de Mondes possibles, dont il faut que Dieu ait choisi le meilleur, puisqu'il ne fait rien sans agir suivant la suprême Raison.”

² Schopenhauer, Arthur, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (ed. Deussen, Paul, Munich, 1911), vol. I, chap. 28.Google Scholar

³ Myrdal, Gunnar, Population: A Problem for Democracy (Oxford, 1940), p. 13.Google Scholar

⁴ See Scheler, Max, Die Stellung des Menschen im Kosmos (Darmstadt, 1930), p. 102.Google Scholar

⁵ De la vicissitude ou variété des choses en l'univers(1577). Quoted by Bury, J. B. in The Idea of Progress (London, 1920), pp. 46–7.Google Scholar

⁶ The following verses from Isaiah, chap, xxi, may serve as an example of an almost frightening intensity of time-consciousness, which seems to be altogether alien to modern feeling. “A grievous vision is declared unto me ; the treacherous dealer dealeth treacherously, and the spoiler spoileth. … Therefore are my loins filled with pain: pangs have taken hold upon me as the pangs of a woman that travaileth: I was bowed down at the hearing of it; I was dismayed at the seeing of it. My heart panted, tearfulness affrighted me: the night of my pleasure hath he turned into fear unto me.”

⁷ The reader will have noticed that we distinguish between “prediction” and “prophecy.” The former refers to the highest degree of rationalization, the latter to the climax of intensity of time-consciousness.

⁸ Ad Demetrium Apologia, chap. in. Quoted by Cochrane, Charles N. in Christianity and Classical Culture (Oxford, 1940), pp. 154–5.Google Scholar

⁹ von Hutten, Ulrich, Works (ed. Böcking, , Leipzig, 1859–1861), vol. I, p. 217.Google Scholar

¹⁰ See Mannheim, Karl, Ideology and Utopia (London, 1936), chap, IVGoogle Scholar, “The Utopian Mentality.” We use the term “utopian” in a meaning slightly different from Mannheim's definition.

¹¹ Luther, Martin, Works (Weimar, edition), vol. XVIII, p. 358 Google Scholar, “Wider die räuberischen und mörderischen Bauern.”

¹² The ancients had experiences and apprehensions of their own. As to the Middle Ages, contemporary reaction to the Albigenses in the thirteenth century seems to have been somewhat comparable.

¹³ Luther, , Works, vol. XVIII, pp. 360–1.Google Scholar

¹⁴ This phrase, (“apokalyptisches Erschrecken”) has been coined by Freund, Michael, Georges Sorel, Der revolutionäre Konservativismus (Frankfurt am Main, 1932).Google Scholar

¹⁵ See Tawney, R. H., Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (London, 1926), chap, III, para. 2.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Bury, The Idea of Progress.

¹⁷ Becker, Carl L., The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers (New Haven, 1932).Google Scholar

¹⁸ Gibbon, Edward, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Modern Library ed.), vol. I, p. 75.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Ibid., vol. II, pp. 97-8.

²⁰ Forster, Georg, Werke (Leipzig, 1843), vol. VII, p. 159.Google Scholar

²¹ de Maistre, Joseph, “Discours sur le caractère extérieur du Magistrat” (Oeuvres, Lyon, 1884–1886), vol. VII, p. 30.Google Scholar Quoted by Rohden, Peter Richard, Joseph de Maistre als politischer Theoretiker (Munich, 1929), p. 134, note 43.Google Scholar

²² For the following see Gooch, G. P., Germany and the French Revolution (London, 1920)Google Scholar; Aris, Reinhold, History of Political Thought in Germany, 1789 to 1815 (London, 1936)Google Scholar; Brown, Philip Anthony, The French Revolution in English History (London, 1923).Google Scholar

²³ von Goethe, J. W., Werke (Cotta edition, 1893), vol. V, pp. 41 ff.Google Scholar Our translation is based on The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (ed. Francke, Kuno and Howard, William Guild, New York, 1913–1914), vol. I, pp. 105 ff.Google Scholar In addition G. P. Gooch's rendering of the first lines (Germany and the French Revolution, p. 200) has been consulted.

²⁴ Malthus, Thomas Robert, First Essay on Population, 1798 (reprinted London, 1926), p. 2.Google Scholar

²⁵ Ibid., p. 2.

²⁶ Ibid., p. 275.

²⁷ Burke, Edmund, “Reflections on the Revolution in France” (Works, Bohn's Standard Library, vol. II, p. 436).Google Scholar

²⁸ Malthus, , First Essay on Population, pp. 144–5.Google Scholar It is worth noting that even this passionate censure is tempered by the praise bestowed on Condorcet for not having forsaken his principles “in spite of all appearances.” It is the attitude, not of a partisan, but a philosophic controversialist who honours intellectual conviction even in his opponent.

²⁹ Ibid., preface, p. iv.

³⁰ Burke, Edmund, “Reflections on the Revolution in France,” p. 284.Google Scholar

³¹ Ibid., p. 367.

³² Ibid., p. 331.

³³ Ibid., pp. 321-2.

³⁴ Ibid., pp. 464-5.

³⁵ Ibid., p. 489.

³⁶ Ibid., p. 456.

³⁷ Burke, Edmund, “Third Letter on a Regicide Peace” (Works, Bohn's Standard Library, vol. V, p. 287).Google Scholar

³⁸ Disraeli, Benjamin, Sybil (ed. Langdon-Davies, B. N., Boston, 1904), p. 19.Google Scholar

³⁹ De Maistre's interest in the concept of “metapolitics,” which had been recently introduced by German philosophers, is significant. “It means the same with respect to politics as the word metaphysics with respect to physics. This new term seems to me a very appropriate name for political metaphysics. For there is such a thing, and it deserves the full attention of the observer” (Essai sur le principe générateur des constitutions politiques, quoted by von Srbik, Heinrich, Metternich, 2 vols., Munich, 1925, vol. I, p. 331).Google Scholar For the following see Rohden, , Joseph de Maistre, pp. 137–8.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Morley, John, “Joseph de Maistre” (Critical Miscellanies, 3 vols., London, 1886–1909, vol. II, p. 291).Google Scholar

⁴¹ von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, Die natürliche Tochter (1803) in Werke (Cotta edition, 1893), vol. XI, pp. 332–3.Google Scholar I am indebted to Professor B. Fairley and Professor D. C. MacGregor for valuable advice on the rendering of this passage. I also wish to express my sincere gratitude to Mr. Harold Burnham for continuous linguistic assistance in the writing of this paper.

⁴² von Eichendorff, Joseph, “Ahnung und Gegenwart” (Ausgewählte Werke, Leipzig, 1924, vol. II, pp. 270–1).Google Scholar

⁴³ For the following see Srbik, von, Metternich, vol. I, pp. 335 ff.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ See Schmitt, Carl, Politische Romantik (Munich, 1925), pp. 163 ff.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Disraeli, , Sybil, p. 360.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Taine, Hippolyte Adolphe, The French Revolution (English translation by Durand, John, New York, 1878–1885), vol. III, preface.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Alexis de Tocqueville in a letter of April 28, 1850, quoted by Mayer, J. P., Prophet of the Mass Age: A Study of Alexis de Tocqueville (London, 1939), p. 109.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Ibid., p. 110.

⁴⁹ Baron Viktor Andrian-Werburg, Osterreich und dessen Zunkunft, quoted by Bibl, Viktor, Der Zerfall Osterreichs (Vienna, 1924), vol. II, pp. 97–8.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich, “The Communist Manifesto” (A Handbook of Marxism, London, 1935, p. 22).Google Scholar

⁵¹ Schramm, Edmund, Donoso Cortés: Leben und Werk eines spanischen Antiliberalen (Hamburg, 1935), esp. p. 80.Google Scholar

⁵² Macaulay, Lord, The History of England (ed. Firth, Charles Harding, London, 1913–1915), vol. III, pp. 1311 ff.Google Scholar The passage quoted above was written in November, 1848.

⁵³ Marx, and Engels, , “The Communist Manifesto,” pp. 47–8.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Even this statement needs to be taken with a grain of salt. The problem is complicated by the fact that class structure and class allegiance are by no means as simple phenomena as certain social psychologists would have it. It seems to me there is a good deal of question-begging about Mannheim's “sociology of knowledge.”

⁵⁵ Burckhardt, Jacob, Briefe an einen Architekten, 1870-1889 (Munich, 1913), pp. 10–11 (04 16, 1875).Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Burckhardt, Jacob, Briefe an seinen Freund Friedrich von Preen, 1864-1893 (Stuttgart and Berlin, 1922), p. 113 (12 31, 1877).Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Ibid., p. 105 (May 30, 1877).

⁵⁸ The first part (L'ancien Régime) was published in 1876, the following volumes on the Revolution appeared in 1878, 1881, and 1884 respectively. The last section of the work (Le Régime moderne) remained unfinished and was published posthumously.

⁵⁹ Taine, , The French Revolution, vol. I, preface, p. vi.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Taine, , The Ancient Régime, preface, p. viii.Google Scholar Similarly in the preface to vol. III of The French Revolution, p. v, “This volume, like the others that have gone before it, is written solely for amateurs of moral zoology, for naturalists of understanding.”

⁶¹ Letter to E. Havet of March 24, 1878, quoted by Monod, Gabriel, Les Maîtres de l'Histoire: Renan, Taine, Michelet (Paris, 1894), p. 124.Google Scholar

⁶² Taine, , The French Revolution, vol. II, preface.Google Scholar The italics are Taine's.

⁶³ Burke, , “Reflections on the Revolution in France,” p. 334.Google Scholar “The objects of society are of the greatest possible complexity.”

⁶⁴ It may be added, however, that even a radical thinker like Harold J. Laski has found it advisable occasionally to emphasize the fragile nature of civilization and the social order. Cf. Laski, H. J., Liberty in the Modern State (Penguin edition, 1937), p. 91.Google Scholar “We should remember that civilization is, at best, a fragile thing, and that to embark upon a challenge to order is to threaten what little security it has. It may even be wise, as T. H. Green once put it, to assume that we should approach the state in fear and trembling.”

⁶⁵ Burke, , “Reflections on the Revolution in France,” p. 300.Google Scholar “These old fanatics [sc. the champions of the Divine Right of Kings] … dogmatized as if hereditary royalty was the only lawful government in the world, just as our new fanatics … maintain that a popular election is the sole lawful source of authority.”

⁶⁶ Gibbon, , Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. I, p. 146.Google Scholar “But our more serious thoughts will respect a useful prejudice [sc. hereditary monarchy], that establishes a rule of succession, independent of the passions of mankind.”

⁶⁷ Burke, , “Reflections on the Revolution in France,” p. 359.Google Scholar “You see, Sir, that in this enlightened age I am bold enough to confess that … instead of casting away all our old prejudices, we cherish them to a very considerable degree. … We are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason; because we suspect that this stock in each man is small, and that individuals would do better to avail themselves of the general bank and capital of nations and ages. Many of our men of speculation, instead of exploding general prejudices, employ their sagacity to discover the latent wisdom which prevails in them.” This, it would appear, is still the language of Enlightenment.

⁶⁸ The resemblance of thought between Bagehot's, Walter Physics and Politics (1872)Google Scholar and Taine's Origins of Contemporary France is so close that it can be safely assumed that the Frenchman knew the book, which was almost immediately translated into French (a first French edition was published in 1873, a second in 1875). We have, however, no means of proving the dependence conclusively.

⁶⁹ Taine, , The Ancient Régime, p. 208.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Taine, , The French Revolution, vol. I, p. 248 Google Scholar; vol. III, p. 204. It is instructive to compare Bagehot, , Physics and Politics, pp. 154–5.Google Scholar “We now understand why order and civilization are so unstable even in progressive communities. We see frequently in states what physiologists call “Atavism’—the return, in part, to the unstable nature of their ancestors. Such scenes of cruelty and horror as happened in the great French Revolution, and as happen, more or less, in every great riot, have always been said to bring out a secret and suppressed side of human nature; and we now see that they were the outbreak of inherited passions long repressed by fixed custom, but starting into life as sbon as that repression was catastrophically removed, and when sudden choice was given.”

⁷¹ Ibid., vol. II, p. 351. Taine expressly refers to Lombroso's, Cesare L'Uomo delinquente, which had been published in 1876.Google Scholar

⁷² Nietzsche, Friedrich, “Beyond Good and Evil” (Works, ed. Levy, Oscar, 18 vols., Edinburgh, 1909–1930, vol. XII, p. 13).Google Scholar

⁷³ Friedrich Nietzsche, “The Will to Power” (ibid., vol. XIV, p. 55).

⁷⁴ Burckhardt, Jacob, “Historische Fragmente aus dem Nachlass” (Gesamtausgabe, 14 vols., Stuttgart, 1930–1934, vol. VII, p. 423).Google Scholar