in eight
days had condemned this work, in some instances, by calling
it an historical commonplace, and in others, a political
pamphlet with '_destructive tendencies_.' At the same time,
and in a manner easily accounted for, under the influence
of such an expression of public opinion, and almost before
any other could make itself heard, accusations were made
against the book, and it was confiscated. Let no one take it
amiss if, in the urgency of my defence, _I_ for a moment lay
aside modesty, as far as such modesty might prove injurious
to my cause. My work demonstrates a law of historical
development, which I do not claim as my property, or as
originating in me, but which has been demonstrated more than
two thousand years ago by the greatest thinker of all ages,
derived from observations on the history of the Grecian
State. To repeat a law which has been already demonstrated,
ought to appear but a trifling circumstance, and indeed
might merit the term of an historical commonplace; we could
even suppose that it might be mentioned in a popular as well
as in a philosophical book. Nevertheless this law has
scarcely been twice repeated in the course of two thousand
years, and then only by two imitators, who scarcely
understood its whole purport, though they were the most
thinking heads of the most thinking nations--Machiavelli in
Italy, and Hegel in Germany. I solemnly ask of the whole
philosophical world if my words can be gainsaid, and to name
for me the third, by whom the Aristotelian law, of which I
speak, has been repeated and understood. I have ventured to
consider the thought of Aristotle, and to apply it to the
history of modern European States, and I found it confirmed
by a series of developments which have occupied two thousand
years. I also found that the whole series of events
confirmatory of this law (itself deduced from experience)
are not yet entirely fulfilled. Like the astronomer, who,
from a known fraction of the path of a newly discovered
planet, calculates its whole course, I ventured to divine
that which is still wanting, and which may yet take
centuries to complete. I turned silently to those whose
profession was the study of history, to prove the justice of
my calculations; I handed my book over to coming ge