etition instead of the corporate privileges of guilds,
and into the State the right of personal character against the rights
of birth. And yet it is only since this truth has penetrated into
society, morals and legislature, that a sure, and as far as man can
judge, indestructible foundation has been formed for the vitality of
the nation. So slow has been the progress here of modern development.

It was from the capacity and the pride of the working citizen that the
conviction arose in the German mind of the value of work. It first made
the serf a free labourer of the commonalty; then it created a wealthy
citizen class which spread itself firmly between the other classes;
then it helped to add science to the mechanical labour and art of the
citizen, and thus made him the representative of intellect, the
guardian of civilisation, and the centre of the national strength. By
this he ceased to be one of a class, and formed the essential element
of the nation.

Nothing is more instructive than to observe the way in which the power
of the German citizen became effective. However great was the industry,
and however much developed the technical skill of handicraft under the
Roman supremacy, the collective industrial activity lay under the ban
of disregard. In the cities indeed at the beginning of the great
migration, the remains of a sumptuous life still continued amidst
marble columns and the vaulted halls of costly baths; and the guilds of
the old handicrafts, with their chapels and exchanges were not only the
casual forerunners of the later guilds of the middle ages, but perhaps
their real progenitors, from whom the Germans acquired numerous
handicraft implements and technical dexterities; nay, even many noble
customs. But a great portion of the handicraft of antiquity was not the
work of freemen: at least where anything of the nature of manufactures
paid well, slave labour increased. Nevertheless, many freed men entered
the old guilds; having been furnished by their masters with a small
capital, they bought themselves into a Roman corporation: but it must
be observed, that not only was such handicraft held to a certain degree
in contempt by the full citizens up to the latest time, but the
artizans, according to Roman tradition, were allowed little share in
the government of the city; they had, together with undeniable local
patriotism, a deficiency of the political culture, the self-respect,
and the capacity of self-defence