Excerpt from General History of the World, From the Earliest Times Until the Year 1831, Vol. 4 of 4: Translated From the German, and Continued to 1840 There is no greater event than the French revolution, and indeed hardly one equally great, in the history of the world. The old empires of the world were, it is true, founded and over thrown with noise, and these changes were felt far, and for a long course of years; but they were rather the result of physical forces than the effect of those of intellect, and even in this last hypothesis, they were produced only by the forces of reason, and for the gratification of common passions, such as avidity for plunder, love of glory or dominion, but not by moral motives, not by the power of ideas. In the foundation of the universal monarchy of Mohammed and Hildebrand, and in the Crusades, we discover, it is true, the action of ideas; but it is the action of ideas of fanaticism and superstition. The establishment of Christianity, finally, as well as the great inventions of writing and printing, have indeed produced manifold changes in the world; but these changes were effected either gradually and silently, or in complication with many other events which were rolled on by the stream of time. The French revolution, on the contrary, shook suddenly and omnipotently the part Of the world on which it was born; it also hurled its thunders to all others, and from its origin, it is almost alone the object of contemplation upon the whole theatre of the world's history. Only one revolution may be compared with this latest - the6 introduction. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.