Page:Russian Novelists (1887).djvu/15

11 and perceives that the existence itself, the great- ness and the dangers of this Universe are the result of the incessant accumulation of infinitesimal atoms. While institutions put the ruling of states into the hands of the multitude, science gave up the Universe to the control of the atoms of which it is composed. In the analysis of all physical and moral phenomena, the ancient theories as to their origin are entirely displaced by the doctrine of the constant evolution of microscopic and invisible beings. The moral sciences feel the shock communicated by the discoveries in natural science. The psychologist, who studies the secrets of the soul, finds that the human being is the result of a long series of accumulated sensations and actions, always influenced by its surround- ings, as the sensitive strings of an instrument vary according to the surrounding temperature. Are not these tendencies affecting practical life as well, in the doctrines of equality of classes, division of property, universal suffrage, and all the other consequences of this principle, which are summed up in the word democracy, the watchword of our times? Sixty years ago, the tide of the stream of democracy ran high, but now the stream has become an ocean, which is seeking its level over the entire surface of Europe. Here and there, little islets remain, solid rocks upon which thrones still stand, occasional fragments of feudal governments, with a clinging remnant of