community,  of  which  Prance  is  merely  the  vanguard.  The  i  germs
of  progress  could  not  but  be  checked  everywhere  while  it  appeared
that  they  failed  in  Prance ;  and  the  propagation  of  the  movement
'  was  resumed  only  when  the  cause  of  the  failure  in  Prance  was  made
apparent.  The  imitation  of  the  English  type  was  never  carried  very
far ;  for  Catholic  nations  observed  its  effect  in  Prance ;  and  even  in
Germany,  where  the  aristocratic  element  is  least  reduced,  no  sub
stantial  experiment  was  tried,  while  the  spectacle  was  before  the
world  of  the  revolutionary  excitement  penetrating  the  British  org9,n-
ization  itself.  There  was  no  encouragement  to  transplant  a  systeni
whose  type  was  attacked  at  home.  The  negative  doctrine  presided
over  political  movement  everywhere ;  but  it  was  nowhere  so  ptt  to
the  trial  as  in  Prance ;  and  thus  its  radical  impotence  was  universal-
ly manifest,  without  the-  need  -  of  any  other  nation  undergoing  the

Published  in  1842,


7f)0  POSITIVE  PHILOSOPHY.
dreadful  experience  which  had  been  endured  by  the  French  people
for  the  benefit  of  all  others.  I  observe  lastly,  that  the  common
movement  is  rendered  secure  by  this  decisive  extension.  The  French
revolutionary  defence  first  guarantied  its  safety ;  and  it  now  rests
upon  the  impossibility  of  any  serious  retrograde  repression,  which
must  be  universal  to  be  of  any  effect ;  and  which  can  not  be  univer-
sal, because  the  nations  will  never  again  be  seriously  stirred  up
against  any  one  of  their  number,  and  armies  are  everywhere  engaged,
for  the  most  part,  in  restraining  interior  disturbance.
