The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1872-06-05
Greains state 5pltrnat.
WEDNESDAY EvEN'G, JUNE 5, 1872.
The Glory of the Eighteenth Century

The Glory of the Eighteenth Century.
If each one of these divisions of time
called centuries should present itself before
the human conscience, to hear a final iudg-
ment like that announced by religions to
men, the century which inscribed upon two
continents the idea of fundamental human
rghts-the century which founded the re-
public in America, and spread revolution
over Europe-the century which extin-
guished the fagot and destroyed the rack
the century which brought with the arrival
of Franklin the democratic spirit of the
New World to our older society, and car
ried back our chivalrous sentiment in the
crusade of Lafayette-this great century,
the author OF so many wonders, might ex-
claim before the tribunal of history, eff |
did not invent modern art, like the fifteenth
century, with the Renaissance if did
not form the modern conscience, like the
sixteenth century, with the Reformation !;
if did not train modern reason, like the
seventeenth century, with philosophy, l
did more than all these used in the cause
of justice the progress of three centuries !;
lam, therefore, the century which created
modern society, the century which has es.
tablished in institutions the sum total of
ideas, and has given to man in series of
reforms, either realized or promised, the
full enjoyments of his being"
1t would be impossible to understand the
republican movement Of Europe without
understanding this century, which pro-
duced its generating idea. As the atmos-
phere envelopes and WHITES our organism,
an idea envelopes and WHITES our spirit
and the grandeur Of the eighteenth century
is not so much in the ideas which it origi-
nally produced as in the force with which
it diffqsed these ideas in the general CON-
science. There is some analogy in the reli-
gious movement which initiated our civili-
cation, in the Christian movement in its
first century, and the philosophical move
ment which shaped and perfected it in the
eighteenth century. The primitive theology
contains few original ideas. Three great
rivers of luminous thought disembogue in
its bosom-one flowing from Athens, one
from Jerusalem, one from Alexandra.
Christianity will always claim for itself the
honor of having morally redeemed the hui
man race, because it has rescued ideas
from the schools and exposes them in the
street !; because it condenses them in apollo
CUES, and gives them in its holy commun-
ion to the poor and the humble because it
revealed the humanitarian and social mean
ing to abstract systems, which then were
converted into the leaven of q new social
life, from which sprang the redeemers, the
apostles, the martyrs, who We're destined
to transform the world.
The history of facts is an echo of the his
tory Of ideas. The eighteenth century
raised the conscience above all the prejudi-
ces of interest and of sect. After having
raised the human conscience to these
heights it educated the common intelligence,
taking from it that idea of the miraculous
which represented nature and history as
governed by within, and not by law. 1t
next gave an idea of the human unity super
ior to the Christian unity, recognizing in
all men, whatever their religions, their
doctrines, their race, their nationality, the
fundamental human character. Justice be-
came substituted in law and in morals for
arbitrary grace. Political economy, uniting
the two ideas of utility and Justice, an
nounced that war would be replaced,
through time and general culture, by COM
merce, the complex source of reciprocal en-
lightenment and general gain.
The idea of the irrenediabIe degeneracy
of the human race gave way to that of
progress. Men no longer painted lost
paradise, but imagine paradise hid in the
labor. Man recognized that as all the uni
verse was necessary for his life, so all histo-
ny was necessary for his education and pro-
gress. Each individual who rose to the
contemplation of science felt crowding in
his heart and mind the ideas ofall humanity.
His idols fell without effort, not with that
sadness with which the ancient world took
leave of the dying paganism, but among
tie epigrams OF satirical intelligence which
did not fear that it would perish beneath
the ruins of dead beliefs, but was sure of
revival in fresh and progressive ideas.
Mothers were called upon in eloquent
words not to deny or forget nature, but to
give to their children nourishment fitted for
Hercules, whose duty it was to free society
of monsters. Poetry raised nature, hith-
erto despised, to equal dignity with the
spirit heaven with its stars, the sea with
its infinite life, the earth with its varieties
OF existance, formed, as 1t were, grand
symphony of living epic. Man was not
reconciled solely with man, but with nature
as well. Voltaire and Swift brought to this
humanitarian work the immortal irony that
destroyed SO many idols /; Rousseau the
ancient republican and Calvanistic ideal of
Geneva, enriched by rare eloquence; Mon
tesquieu the historic and judicial Spir-
it Of English liberty; Franklin the revolu
tionary electricity, the democratic agitation,
felt by young America in the moment of
the birth of its new social organization
Kant, Leasing, Herder, the German con-
science and reason; Pombal, Campomanes,
Amanda, the practical sense Of the restless
Iberian race; Allieri the severe form, the
classic relief, the tragic inspiration, of the
eternal muse of Italy; and with all these
currents or ideas, even without a knowl-
edge of the authors themselves, in the mind
of the human race, a new soul was formed,
yivified with new idea of right.-From
"The Republican Movement in Europe"
by Emilio CASTELAR,, in Hnper's Magazine
for June.