ction of events escapes them; or rather, they do not believe
in any such connection. To them the clew of history seems every instant
crossed and broken by the step of man. In democratic ages, on the
contrary, as the historian sees much more of actions than of actors, he
may easily establish some kind of sequency and methodical order amongst
the former. Ancient literature, which is so rich in fine historical
compositions, does not contain a single great historical system, whilst
the poorest of modern literatures abound with them. It would appear
that the ancient historians did not make sufficient use of those general
theories which our historical writers are ever ready to carry to excess.

Those who write in democratic ages have another more dangerous tendency.
When the traces of individual action upon nations are lost, it often
happens that the world goes on to move, though the moving agent is no
longer discoverable. As it becomes extremely difficult to discern and
to analyze the reasons which, acting separately on the volition of each
member of the community, concur in the end to produce movement in the
old mass, men are led to believe that this movement is involuntary, and
that societies unconsciously obey some superior force ruling over them.
But even when the general fact which governs the private volition of all
individuals is supposed to be discovered upon the earth, the principle
of human free-will is not secure. A cause sufficiently extensive to
affect millions of men at once, and sufficiently strong to bend them all
together in the same direction, may well seem irresistible: having seen
that mankind do yield to it, the mind is close upon the inference that
mankind cannot resist it.

Historians who live in democratic ages, then, not only deny that the few
have any power of acting upon the destiny of a people, but they deprive
the people themselves of the power of modifying their own condition, and
they subject them either to an inflexible Providence, or to some blind
necessity. According to them, each nation is indissolubly bound by its
position, its origin, its precedents, and its character, to a certain
lot which no efforts can ever change. They involve generation in
generation, and thus, going back from age to age, and from necessity
to necessity, up to the origin of the world, they forge a close and
enormous chain, which girds and binds the human race. To their minds it
is not enough to show what events have