I have in front of me a copy of Fr. Rogeri Bacon Opera Quaedam Hactenus Inedita, the first edition of his Opus Minor, Opus Tertium and Compendium Philosophiae, "published by the authority of Her Majesty's Treasury, under the direction of the Master of the Rolls", edited by J.S. Brewer, Professor at King's College, London, in 1859. It is a magnificent volume, demonstrating Victorian England's commitment to scholarship. The reason for that commitment, however, becomes clear when one recalls what else was happening as Friar Roger was writing these treatises for the Pope. In 1265 Simon de Montfort summoned his Great Parliament, the first to include representatives of every shire and borough in the land, elected by ordinary freeholders, not only knights. From the crisis of Christendom that gave birth to Bacon's experimental and mathematical science, there also emerged parliamentary democracy. Victorians were well aware of the significance of this juxtaposition; that is why they were happy to pay for Bacon's works to be edited.

What do we conclude from this? In the war against the West, there have been many periods when the odds were against the survival of our civilisation. These have almost always also been its most productive epochs. This year we shall celebrate Magna Carta, the prototype of the rule of law. It too was the child of strife, a period when royal authority had collapsed. The freedom of the press really dates from the Civil War of the 17th century. The slave trade was abolished by Parliament in 1807, at the height of the Napoleonic Wars. One could multiply such examples, but the general point is this: precisely when Western civilisation seems to be most threatened from within and without, it proves its resilience and its genius.

For this reason, among others, we should not despair of the artistic inanities of our time. Nor should we be discouraged by the political weakness and inertia we see all around us. The United States, whose retreat is chronicled by George Weigel in this issue, has a unique capacity for recovery. So too does Britain, despite all the self-inflicted damage diagnosed by Douglas Murray, Nick Cohen and others. Let the enemies of the West do their worst: one day soon, the lion will roar and the eagle will soar.