CHAPTER XXVI CONCLUSION
THE French Revolution closes in a final and definite manner an epoch in the. world’s history. The middle ages, proper, it is true, came to an end with the 16th century. But they left a kind of afterglow behind them in the shape of the centralized and quasi-absolute prince doms and monarchies which prevailed during the 17th and 18th centuries; in the continuance in rural districts and the smaller towns of the old methods of industry but slightly, if at all, modified; in the perpetuation un- abated, for over a century at least, of medieval and re- naissance superstitions and habits of thought; in short, in the survival of most of the external forms of the old- world civilization, decayed like the foliage of a St. Mar- tin’s summer. The conversion of the feudal hierarchies into centralized monarchies but imperfectly freed the middle classes; the combined or workshop system of pro- duction had not in any marked er violent manner revolu- tionized industry; the learning of the renaissance had, to a large extent, merely given a quasi-scientific and systematic shape to old habits of thought.
The political, moral and social changes leading up to modern times were of course going on all the while, and were observable to the truly observant, but were not at that time of a “run and read” character.
The French Revolution definitely closes this epoch. It does even more. It constitutes the dividing line be- tween the world of to-day and all past ages whatever. The Revolution was scarcely over when the electric tele- graph appeared on the scene. At the same time the idea
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