tion is ever one and the same. It is not as the doctrinaires would have us think; it was not for the Charte that they fought in the great week, but for those same Revolutionary interests for which the best blood in France has been spilt for forty years. But that the author of these pages may not be mistaken merely for one of these holders-forth (Prædicanten), who understand by revolution only one overthrow after another, and who see in accidental occurrences that which is the spirit of the Revolution itself, I will here explain the main idea (Hauptbegriff) as accurately as I can.
When the intellectual developments or culture of a race are no longer in accord with its old established institutions, there results necessarily a combat in which the latter are overthrown, and which is called a revolution. Until this revolution is complete, until that reformation of institutions does not perfectly agree with the intellectual development and the habits and wants of the people, just so long the national malady (Staatssiechthum) is not perfectly cured, and the sickly and excited people will often relapse into the weakness of exhaustion, yet ever and anon be subject to attacks of burning fever, when they tear away the tightest bandages and the most soothing lint from the old wounds, throw the most benevolent, noblest nurses out of the window,
