all of whose natural supports have crumbled in succession, can,
with wisdom and firmness, triumph over the most formidable
obstacles. It has been very justly said that governments are not
overthrown, but that they commit suicide.


3. Revolutions effected by Governments.--Examples:
China, Turkey, &c.


Governments almost invariably fight revolutions; they hardly ever
create them. Representing the needs of the moment and general
opinion, they follow the reformers timidly; they do not precede
them. Sometimes, however, certain governments have attempted
those sudden reforms which we know as revolutions. The stability
or instability of the national mind decrees the success or
failure of such attempts.

They succeed when the people on whom the government seeks to
impose new institutions is composed of semi-barbarous tribes,
without fixed laws, without solid traditions; that is to say,
without a settled national mind. Such was the condition of
Russia in the days of Peter the Great. We know how he sought to
Europeanise the semi-Asiatic populations by means of force.

Japan is another example of a revolution effected by a
government, but it was her machinery, not her mind that was
reformed.

It needs a very powerful autocrat, seconded by a man of genius,