the reform in all Italy!" Carnival masks and vicious books
were burned, a law of charity and another against usurers were
passed--and the democracy of Florence remained where it was.
The old spirit had gone. By too much trusting to government,
they had ceased to trust to themselves; they were unable to
open new issues. The State had only to step in and crush down
their last liberties.

And yet, the current of mutual aid and support did not die
out in the masses, it continued to flow even after that defeat.
It rose up again with a formidable force, in answer to the com-
munist appeals of the first propagandists of the reform, and it
continued to exist even after the masses, having failed to realize
the life which they hoped to inaugurate under the inspiration of
a reformed religion, fell under the dominions of an autocratic
power. It flows still even now, and it seeks its way to find out
a new expression which would not be the State, nor the mediæval
city, nor the village community of the barbarians, nor the savage
clan, but would proceed from all of them, and yet be superior
to them in its wider and more deeply humane conceptions.

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