Modern history is now exclusively to be considered. Modern history,
separated from the history of Greece and Rome, and the annals of
barbarous emigration, by the event which above all others has
influenced, and continues still to influence, after so many centuries,
the fate of Europe--the fall of the Western Empire--the boundary line
which separates modern from ancient history, is not ideal and
capricious, but definite and certain. It can neither be advanced nor
carried back. Modern history displays a national life still in
existence. It commences with that period in which the great elements of
separate national existence now in being--race, language, institutions,
and religion--can be traced in simultaneous operation. To the influences
which pervaded the ancient world, another, at first scarcely
perceptible, for a time almost predominant, and even now powerful and
comprehensive, was annexed. In the fourth century of the Christian era,
the Roman world comprised Christianity, Grecian intellect, Roman
jurisprudence--all the ingredients, in short, of modern history, except
the Teutonic element. It is the infusion of this element which has
changed the quality of the compound, and leavened the whole mass with
its peculiarities. To this we owe the middle ages, the law of
inheritance, the spirit of chivalry, and the feudal system, than which
no cause more powerful ever contributed to the miseries of mankind. It
filled Europe not with men but slaves; and the tyranny under which the
people groaned was the more intolerable, as it was wrought into an
artificial method, confirmed by law, established by inveterate custom,
and even supported by religion. In vain did the nations cast their eyes
to Rome, from whom they had a right to claim assistance, or at least
sympathy and consolation. The appeal was useless. The living waters were
tainted in their source. Instead of health they spread abroad
infection--instead of giving nourishment to the poor, they were the