30/86 The whole subject of the Concert of Europe, which can only be touched upon here, is of great importance. It is again referred to in Chap. 374 ff.] The truth is that there were three ideas in the air at the beginning of the nineteenth century, all excellent in themselves, but quite impossible to be realised at one and the same period. Two of these, the social or democratic idea and the national idea, were made, as we have seen, living issues by the French Revolution; the third, which may be called the international idea, was raised by the Congress of Vienna. |