The time allowed us between this and the close of the year is very limited. I have myself had only a short period to arrange the course that I should present to you. I have sought a subject which might be the most completely handled, both with reference to the time that is left us, and to the few days that have been granted me for preparation. It has appeared to me that a general picture of the modern history of Europe, considered with respect to the development of civilisation—in other words, a glance at the history of European civilisation, of its origin, its progress, its objects, and its character—was best adapted for the space at our disposal. It is upon this subject, therefore, I have determined to address you.
I am justified in speaking of European civilisation, because it is evident that a certain identity prevails in the civilisation of the different states of Europe; that it results from facts nearly similar, notwithstanding great diversities in time, place, and circumstance; that it is traceable to the same principles, and has an almost universal tendency to analogous results. Thus I deduce an European civilisation, and with it, taken as a whole, I am desirous of interesting you.
On the other hand, it is equally clear that this civilisation is not to be looked for, that its history is not fully developed, in the history of any single state of Europe. If it possesses unity, its variety is not less prodigious: in no peculiar country can its progress be completely traced. Its features are scattered: the elements of its history are to be found sometimes in France, sometimes in England, sometimes in Germany, sometimes in Spain.
We hold a favourable position for prosecuting this search and study into European civilisation. We must avoid flattery to any individual, and even to our country; yet I believe we can say with truth that France has been the centre, the furnace, of the civilisation of Europe. It would be absurd to pretend that she has always marched in the van on all sides. She has been preceded in the arts at different eras by Italy; and in political institutions by England. Perhaps also, in other respects, we should find that other nations have at particular periods been superior to her; but it is impossible to deny that whenever France has perceived herself backward in the race, she has assumed a fresh vigour, has sprung forward, and has soon found herself equal to, or in advance of all. And not only has this come to pass; but when the civilising ideas or institutions, if I may be allowed the phrase, have been transplanted, to render them productive and universal, to fit them for the common good of European civilisation, we have seen them obliged, in some degree, to undergo a new preparatory process in France, and from her, as from a second country, of a richer and more fertile soil, go forth to the conquest of Europe. There is not a great idea, not a great principle of civilisation, which has not first passed through France to be disseminated in every quarter. There is something more sociable and sympathetic, something acting with more facility and energy, in the French character than in that of any other nation: either from our language, or the particular bent of our genius or our manners, our ideas are more popular, are more clearly perceptible to the masses, and penetrate amongst them more easily; in a word, perspicuity, sociability, and sympathy, are the peculiar characteristics of France and of her civilisation, and these qualities eminently fit her to march at the head of European civilisation.
Therefore, in entering upon the history of this great fact, it is from no arbitrary or conventional choice that we assume France as the centre of our studies, but rather that we thereby place ourselves, as it were, in the very heart of civilisation, in the very heart of what we are about to engage our minds in investigating. I call it a fact, gentlemen, and I call it so designedly. Civilisation is a fact, and one as susceptible of being studied, described, and related, as any other in history.
It has long ago been remarked with justice, that history should be comprised in facts—that it should be a relation. Nothing is more true. But there are more facts to relate, and these facts are themselves more various than we are perhaps at first disposed to believe: there are the material, visible facts, such as battles, wars, the official acts of governments; there are the moral, hidden facts, which are not the less real; there are individual facts, which have a distinct designation; and there are general facts, having no designation, to which it is impossible to assign a precise date either of day or year, which it is impossible to include in prescribed limits, and which are unquestionably facts which cannot be excluded from history without mutilating it.
That portion which we are accustomed to name the philosophical part of history—the mutual relations of facts, the bond which unites them, the causes and the effects of events—is as much history as the recitals of battles and of external circumstances. Facts of this description are doubtless more difficult to unravel, and give frequent occasions for error: it is no easy task to give them animation, or present them in clear and vivid colours; but this difficulty affects not, nor changes, their nature, nor renders them a less essential part of history.
Civilisation is one of these facts, a general, hidden, complex fact; very difficult, I grant, to describe and relate, but not the less, on that account, possessing existence, and a right to be described and related. A great number of questions may be raised on this fact: it may be asked, indeed it has been asked, whether it is for good or evil? Some have most gloomy anticipations, others most bright. It may be also asked whether there be an universal civilisation of the human species, a destiny for humanity, and whether there has been transmitted from age to age something which cannot be lost, which must increase, form a store, and thus be passed on to the end of time? For my own part, I am convinced that there is, in fact, a general destiny for humanity, a transmission of the store of civilisation, and, as a necessary consequence, an universal history of civilisation to write. But without raising questions so grave and difficult to resolve, if we confine ourselves to a fixed interval of time and space—that is, if we limit our researches to the history of a certain number of centuries and of certain people—we shall find it clear, that within these bounds civilisation is a fact which can be described, related as matter of history. I do not hesitate to add, that its history is the most important of all, and that it embraces all others.
Is it not apparent that civilisation is the main fact, the general and definite fact, in which all others terminate and are included! Take all the facts which compose the history of a nation, they being generally considered as the elements of its existence; take its institutions, its commerce, its industrial movements, its wars, all the details of its government; and when we reflect upon these circumstances in their consolidated tendency, and in their relations, when we weigh and judge them, our view is directed to ascertain how they have contributed to the civilisation of that nation, in what proportion they have influenced it, what effect they have had in accomplishing it. We thus not only form a complete idea of them, but we measure and ascertain their real value: they are in some degree like rivers, the quantity of water conveyed by which to the ocean is matter of calculation. Civilisation is a species of ocean forming a nation's wealth, and in the bosom of which all the elements and sources of its existence are united. This is so true, that, with respect to facts—which are from their nature detestable, disastrous, a painful weight upon nations, as despotism and anarchy, for example—if they have contributed in some degree to civilisation, if they have given it a considerable impetus, up to a certain point we excuse and pardon their injuries and their evil nature; insomuch, that wherever we discover civilisation, and the facts which have tended to enrich it, we are tempted to forget the price it has cost.