It is not only the Socialists who are responsible for the low esteem into which a spirit of political generalisation has fallen in other countries, in consequence of French experience.  Mr. Mill has described in a well-known passage the characteristic vice of the leaders of all French parties, and not of the democratic party more than any other.  ‘The commonplaces of politics in France,’ he says, ’are large and sweeping practical maxims, from which, as ultimate premisses, men reason downwards to particular applications, and this they call being logical and consistent.  For instance, they are perpetually arguing that such and such a measure ought to be adopted, because it is a consequence of the principle on which the form of government is founded; of the principle of legitimacy, or the principle of the sovereignty of the people.  To which it may be answered that if these be really practical principles, they must rest on speculative grounds; the sovereignty of the people (for example) must be a right foundation for government, because a government thus constituted tends to produce certain beneficial effects.  Inasmuch, however, as no government produces all possible beneficial effects, but all are attended with more or fewer inconveniences; and since these cannot be combated by means drawn from the very causes which produce them, it would often be a much stronger recommendation of some practical arrangement that it does not follow from what is called the general principle of the government, than that it does,’[2]

The English feeling for compromise is on its better side the result of a shrewd and practical, though informal, recognition of a truth which the writer has here expressed in terms of Method.  The disregard which the political action of France has repeatedly betrayed of a principle really so important has hitherto strengthened our own regard for it, until it has not only made us look on its importance as exclusive and final, but has extended our respect for the right kind of compromise to wrong and injurious kinds.

A minor event, which now looks much less important than it did not many years ago, but which still had real influence in deteriorating moral judgment, was the career of a late sovereign of France.  Some apparent advantages followed for a season from a rule which had its origin in a violent and perfidious usurpation, and which was upheld by all the arts of moral corruption, political enervation, and military repression.  The advantages lasted long enough to create in this country a steady and powerful opinion that Napoleon the Third’s early crime was redeemed by the seeming prosperity which followed.  The shocking prematureness of this shallow condonation is now too glaringly visible for any one to deny it.  Not often in history has the great truth that ’morality is the nature of things’ received corroboration so prompt and timely.  We need not commit ourselves to the optimistic or sentimental hypothesis that wickedness