Thus the
English Tories, by their experiment with the Duke of Wellington, lost
their boroughs and with them their political preeminence, but at least
they saved themselves, their families, and the rest of their property.
As a class they have survived to this day, although shorn of much of the
influence which they might very probably have retained had they solved
more correctly the problem of 1830. In sum, they were not altogether
impervious to the exigencies of their environment. The French Revolution
is the classic example of the annihilation of a rigid organism, and it
is an example the more worthy of our attention as it throws into
terrible relief the process by which an intellectually inflexible race
may convert the courts of law which should protect their decline into
the most awful engine for their destruction.
The essence of feudalism was a gradation of rank, in the nature of
caste, based upon fear. The clergy were privileged because the laity
believed that they could work miracles, and could dispense something
more vital even than life and death. The nobility were privileged
because they were resistless in war.
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