Thus the cities, not regarding themselves as representatives or aggregations of the people, became fabulous personages, bodies without souls, corporations which had acquired vitality and strength enough to assert their existence.

As persons, therefore--gigantic individualities--they wheeled into the feudal ranks and assumed feudal powers and responsibilities.

The city of Dort; of Middelburg, of Ghent, of Louvain, was a living being, doing fealty, claiming service, bowing to its lord, struggling with its equals, trampling upon its slaves.
Thus, in these obscure provinces, as throughout Europe, in a thousand remote and isolated corners, civilization builds itself up, synthetically and slowly; yet at last, a whole is likely to get itself constructed.
Thus, impelled by great and conflicting forces, now obliquely, now backward, now upward, yet, upon the whole, onward, the new Society moves along its predestined orbit, gathering consistency and strength as it goes.

Society, civilization, perhaps, but hardly humanity.

The people has hardly begun to extricate itself from the clods in which it lies buried.
There are only nobles, priests, and, latterly, cities.