We are so accustomed in this country to those things, that they have ceased to make any impression upon us. The great majority of men, actively engaged in the business of life, pay no attention to them whatever, but go on labouring to make money, or keep themselves afloat in the world, without bestowing even a passing thought of whither that world on which they are so intent is tending. Philosophers and political economists, confounded at beholding such results flowing from the adoption and practical application of their favourite principles, quietly pass by on the other side; and, without denying the facts, content themselves with disregarding them altogether, and continuing to prophesy unbounded national prosperity and moral elevation from the ultimate effect of the further abolition of restraint on thought and action. The religious portion of the community – and they form a large and highly respectable body – consider these alarming symptoms as the judgment of Heaven upon us for our sins, and the natural and well-deserved consequence of our neglect of the means of salvation, which have been so mercifully put into our hands. The merchants and manufacturers, who are rapidly making fortunes under the new system, maintain that it is founded on pure and tried reason, and that in no other way can the national resources be fully developed. The landowners, who are as rapidly losing them, are, in part, so paralysed by their individual embarrassments, in part so perplexed with the intricacy of the subject, that they are incapable of making any efforts, except on particular occasions, in their own defence, but resign themselves quietly to the stroke of fate, as the Moslem does to the bowstring of the Sultaun. The working classes are quiet during the brief periods of prosperity; but nourish in their hearts at all times a profound jealousy and hatred of the monied interest. The opinion is almost universally diffused among them, that the gains of their employers are scandalously great, and wrung out of their heart's blood – that they and their masters are naturally at war with each other – and that whatever is gained by the one is lost by the other. Meanwhile Government, obeying the new, and, as matters stand, irresistible impulse let in upon the monarchy by the Reform Bill, quietly, slide into the principles and measures dictated to them by the dominant, most active, and most influential class in the state; and, shutting their eyes to the consequences in future times, content themselves with getting through the present with as much practical support and as little obloquy as possible.
But although this is, generally speaking, the state of opinion on all social questions in the British islands, it may well be imagined that they are looked upon with very different eyes by men of intelligence out of the whirl of passing events, and beyond the reach of the passions or interests which mislead so many in this country. The civilization of Great Britain; the social questions at issue amongst us; the experiment making, on so extended a scale, of the effect of the new doctrines on the happiness of the people in the British islands; the prodigious wealth which has been accumulated in this country of late years; the magnitude and long duration of our political power; and the celebrity in arts, in arms, and in literature we have long enjoyed, have struck all surrounding nations with astonishment, which, so far from diminishing, is hourly on the increase. This effect appears variously, according to the temper and previous prepossessions of those among whom it has taken place. In the French, our ancient rivals, our persevering antagonists in the revolutionary war, it has produced no other effect, generally speaking, but envy, hatred, and malice. In the Americans, it has engendered a mingled feeling of respect, admiration, and jealousy, which appears in the strenuous efforts they are making to augment their wealth, power, and territory, by every possible means, and in every possible direction. But in reflecting minds on the Continent, on the really great in all countries, it has produced the effect of deep reflection, and anxious investigation. They have already begun to contemplate the astonishing and long-continued empire of Great Britain as we, and all subsequent ages, have so long done the corresponding, and only parallel, dominion reared by the arms of the Roman legions. In the causes of the greatness, and seeds of ruin, in both, there is a striking, and to us portentous, resemblance. The analogy has been already traced by more than one master-hand on the Continent. But none was better qualified to do justice to the subject, or has treated it in a more luminous or philosophic spirit, than Sismondi; and it is to his observations on the present social state of the British empire that we have now to direct our readers' attention.
As the views of this great philosopher and historian are almost entirely at variance with those which now generally prevail amongst us, and to which the liberal party in every part of the country have in an especial manner pinned their faith, and, at the same time, seem to be deserving of very great attention from their novelty and importance, and direct bearing on the dearest interests of the society with which we are surrounded – we hasten to premise that, in forming them, Sismondi has at least not been blinded by any political partiality for the side to which, in social questions, he inclines. He is, as all persons acquainted with foreign literature well know, a decided liberal, indeed republican, in his political opinions. Born and educated in the democratic canton of Geneva, a Protestant both by birth and connexion, the decided opponent of tyranny in all its forms, of Romish domination in all its guises, he first matured his powerful mind in writing the history of the Italian republics, and afterwards had his opinions confirmed by tracing the long annuals of the French monarchy. The brilliant episodes in the history of the former, contrasted with the hideous catalogue of persecutions and crimes which stain the latter, have confirmed in his mind, to a degree which, considering the extent of his information, and candour of his thoughts, appears surprising – the original prepossessions he had imbibed in favour of republican institutions. He even carries this so far as to advocate in his Essays, which form the immediate subject of this paper, an elective in preference to an hereditary monarchy. He is as ardent an enthusiast in the cause of civil and religious liberty as Russell or Sidney, though his views are modified as to time, by observation and experience. He yields to none of the optimist school of more recent times in sanguine expectations of the benefits which may be expected from training the people to the duties of self-government, and ultimately entrusting them with its powers. He is adverse to an hereditary aristocracy, and strongly advocates the division of landed property, by adopting in all countries the law of equal succession, which has given its powers their deathblow both in France and America. His life has been spent in painting the bright efflorescence of freedom and genius in the modern Italian republics, and their long blight under the combined powers of feudal power and Romish superstition in the French monarchy. The perfection of society, in his estimation, would be an aggregate of little republics, like those of Greece or southern Italy in ancient, or of Holland, Florence, Pisa, or Genoa, in modern times – in which supreme power was vested in the hands of magistrates, named by the heads of trades, who had been themselves elected by