geoisie. The bourgeoisie had effected the revolution in order to rebuild public institutions from the foundation. The Catholic religion was abolished by the municipalities (not by parliament); the clergy were secularised; the nobles were deprived of their privileges; state and church were democratised; the republic was introduced.
The great revolution was continued in the risings of 1830 and 1848.
Liberty, equality, fraternity, were the watchwords of the democratic revolution.
The historic sense awakened during the eighteenth century. The philosophy of history was the manifestation of the newer evolutionary outlook upon history and society. The idea of progress was enthusiastically adopted, and in the name of progress a demand was pressed for a revolutionary change in the old order. During the last months of his life, Condorcet composed his enthusiastic Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progrès de l'esprit humain. The socialists continued these revolutionary speculations.
The state was now regarded as the protector of property, and free competition was looked upon as the best motive force of economic life. Adam Smith supplemented the humanitarian ideal by economics, which in his hands become a doctrine of consistent egoism and hedonism.
Laissez-faire became the leading socio-political principle, being interpreted by the radical Bentham in the English phrase, Be quiet. Bentham and his friend John Stuart Mill had indeed to admit that due regard must be paid to the needs of the fourth estate; but these writers could not conceive that the workers were able and entitled to lead themselves; bourgeois employers were the natural leaders of the working class!
The liberal bourgeoisie effected important social reforms. Serfdom was abolished, the peasant was made independent, industry was freed from the oppression of the guilds, women and children were partially liberated from the harsh dominance of the patriarchal system. In this respect, too, liberalism was a precursor of socialism.
It was, however, in the social domain that the political limitations of practical liberalism were made manifest. In the days of the great revolution, the first advocates of economic equality and democracy, the first experimenters in communism,
