suddenly.

There is, however, another way of looking at that great revolution of
which we habitually set the beginning in 1789. That date is, indeed,
momentous; more so than any other in modern history. It marks the
outbreak in legislation and politics of ideas which had already been
working for a century, and which have changed the face of the civilized
world. These ideas are not all true nor all noble. They have in them a
large admixture of speculative error and of spiritual baseness. They
require to-day to be modified and readjusted. But they represent sides
of truth which in 1789, and still more in 1689, were too much overlooked
and neglected. They suited the stage of civilization which the world had
reached, and men needed to emphasize them. Their very exaggeration was
perhaps necessary to enable them to fight, and in a measure to supplant,
the older doctrines which were in possession of the human mind.
Induction, as the sole method of reasoning, sensation as the sole origin
of ideas, may not be the final and only truth; but they were very much
needed in the world in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and
they found philosophers to elaborate them, and enthusiasts to preach
them. They made their way chiefly on French soil in the decades
preceding 1789.

The history of French society at that time has of late years attracted
much attention in France. Diligent scholars have studied it from many
sides. I have used their work freely, and acknowledgment will be found
in the foot-notes; but I cannot resist the pleasure of mentioning in
this preface a few of those to whom I am most indebted; and first M.
Albert Babeau, without whose careful researches several chapters of this
book could hardly have been written. His studies in archives, as well as
in printed memoirs and travels, have brought much of the daily life of