Excerpt from The History of Napoleon the First, Vol. 1

This lesson, which is common to all epochs, comes out with striking force in the progressive movement of the century in which Napoleon was born, down to the dawn Of the French Revolution, and the deviation which took place later is no contradiction to its teaching. Never has activity been more free notwithstanding its extravagances, more rational notwithstanding its illusions never have men sought truth with more generous or more sincere ardour. The success Of their efi'orts may have been compromised by passion, by error, by the power of old prejudices and the difficulties inherent in circumstances, but their efforts have not been lost. A host of great men sprang up, who brought new life into every part of the domain of science and thought they introduced a higher idea of human dignity, a wider conception of the rights of nations and individuals, they fought against every kind of servitude, and they reconciled policy with justice and liberty. They softened their temper to such a point as even to tolerate abuses, so as to give them time to die a natural death.

Was the eighteenth century an exception in this? Did it pursue an Utopia? Nay, it carried on the work of its forerunners, - the sixteenth which saw the birth of the Reformation, and the seventeenth which saw the triumph of English institutions, it was in communion with all the stirring spirits of the past, it marched along the great high way of the human mind, and knew this, and it was this confidence that threw over its decline an air Of serene majesty. The thinkers who had shed a lustre over its course were followed by great practical men who carried their plans into execution. After Locke, Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Rousseau, rose Turgot, Franklin, Mirabeau, and Washington. The American Republic, child of experi ment, irreproachable as a creation of pure reason, was on the point Of rising up beyond the seas to serve as a beacon to all future societies. The future appeared so assured, and the course of events so irresistible, that even the wisest among them were not proof against a certain intoxi cation, and in their too scornful impatience of facts they pushed impetuously out to the very verge and final limits of the possible. Not content with proclaiming the end of religious and political despotism, they went on to predict the end of superstition, the end of misery, the end of slavery, the end Of conquest, the end Of war. It was towards this time that there was born in a small island, Obscure and nearly without history, a child who was to be called napoleon bonaparte.

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