ABSTRACT
The creative centre of liberal thought in the eighteenth century is in France. There, the problems to be solved demanded a greater effort, the need for change was more profound. In England, no small part of the mental climate necessary to a liberal evolution had already been achieved. Religion may have been on the defensive but, at least, it is active in self-defence. An economic power born of the travail of men at long last asserts its tide to political dominance. It establishes democracy by dissolving at once the power of kings and that feudal system which enslaved peasant and merchant alike to the authority of the landed proprietor. The new democracy, for Barnave, is the reign of liberty and equality; he assumes that with its triumph, there is no horizon beyond for him to scan. For industrial capital; bom of human effort, is opposed to landed property, the fruit of violence.
