ABSTRACT
The distinctive character of Revolution, properly so called, as compared with constitutional reform, on the one hand, and with mere riot, on the other, is that society in revolution changes its principles of right and wrong. It is like a person turning on his heel; the objects which surround him may remain as they were, but his point of view is changed. Or, to take another simile, it resembles the situation of one revisiting at middle life the scenes of his early childhood. In one sense, they are the same scenes, but, in another sense, how completely altered! ‘Cari luoghi, io vi trovai; ma quei dî non trovo più.’ A sudden gust of popular passion, rising against a time-honoured institution on account of a particular incidental provocation, may jeopardise it for the moment; but when the fit has passed, the institution will be found standing in its place. It is otherwise where a conviction has grown that the institution is intrinsically worthless, and that the reverence paid to it was a mistake. This is revolutionary change.
