Outlines of Universal History, Designed As a Text-Book and for Private Reading

Chapter Viii.--Discovery and Invention: Science and Literature: Progress

OF HUMANE SENTIMENT: PROGRESS TOWARDS THE UNITY OF MANKIND

LIST OF MAPS.

THE WORLD AS KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS

PHYSICAL FEATURES OF ASIA

ANCIENT EGYPT

ANCIENT PALESTINE

PHYSICAL FEATURES OF EUROPE

ANCIENT GREECE AND THE AEGEAN ISLANDS

GREEK AND PHOENICIAN COLONIES

EMPIRE OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT

KINGDOMS OF THE SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER

ANCIENT ITALY (NORTHERN PART)

ANCIENT ITALY (SOUTHERN PART)

ANCIENT ROMAN EMPIRE

THE NEW NATIONS AFTER THE GREAT MIGRATIONS (ABOUT A.D. 500)

EMPIRE OF THE SARACENS (ABOUT A.D. 750)

EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE

EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE A.D. 843

EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE A.D. 887

CENTRAL EUROPE ABOUT A.D. 980

MEDITERRANEAN LANDS AT THE TIME OF THE CRUSADES

FRANCE AND ENGLAND, A.D. 1154-1189

CENTRAL EUROPE, A.D. 1360

CENTRAL EUROPE, A.D. 1660

ITALY ABOUT THE MIDDLE OF IHE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

EUROPE AT THE TIME OF NAPOLEON'S GREATEST POWER (ABOUT A.D. 1810)

CENTRAL EUROPE IN 1815

EUROPE AFTER 1878

AUSTRO-HUNGARY SINCE 1878

FRANCE SINCE 1871

GERMAN EMPIRE SINCE 1871

TURKISH EMPIRE, GREECE, ETC., SINCE 1878

TERRITORIAL GROWTH OF THE UNITED STATES

ASIA AT THE PRESENT TIME

UNIVERSAL HISTORY.

INTRODUCTION.

DEFINITION OF HISTORY.--The subject of history is man. History has for its object to record his doings and experiences. It may then be concisely defined as a narrative of past events in which men have been concerned. To describe the earth, the abode of man, to delineate the different kingdoms of nature, and to inquire into the origin of them, or to explain the physical or mental constitution of human beings, is no part of the office of history. All this belongs to the departments of natural and intellectual science.

But history, as we now understand the term, is more than a bare record of what men have done and suffered. It aims to point out the connection of events with one another. It seeks to explain the causes and the consequences of things that occur. It would trace the steps that mark the progress of the race, and of the different portions of it, through extended periods. It brings to light the thread which unites each particular stage in the career of a people, or of mankind as a whole, with what went before, and with what came after.

NATIONS.--History has been called "the biography of a society." Biography has to do with the career of an individual. History is concerned with the successive actions and fortunes of a community; in its broadest extent, with the experiences of the human family. It is only when men are connected by the social bond, and remain so united for a greater or less period, that there is room for history. It is, therefore, with nations, in their internal progress and in their mutual relations, that history especially deals. Of mere clans, or loosely organized tribes, it can have little to say. History can go no farther than to explore their genealogy, and state what were their journeyings and habits. The nation is a form of society that rests on the same basis--a basis at once natural and part of a divine system--as the family. By a nation is meant a people dwelling in a definite territory, living under the same government, and bound together by such ties as a common language, a common religion, the same institutions and customs. The elements that enter into that national spirit which is the bond of unity, are multiple. They vary to a degree in different peoples. As individuals are not alike, and as the history of any particular community is modified and molded by these individual differences, so the course of the history of mankind is shaped by the peculiar characteristics of the various nations, and by their interaction upon one another. In like manner, groups of nations, each characterized by distinctive traits derived from affinities of race or of religion, or from other sources, act on each other, and thus help to determine the course of the historic stream.

SCOPE OF HISTORY.--The rise and progress of culture and civilization in their various constituents is the theme of history. It does not limit its attention to a particular fraction of a people, to the exclusion of the rest. Governments and rulers, and the public doings of states,--such as foreign wars, and the struggles of rival dynasties,--naturally form a prominent topic in historical writings. But this is only one department in the records of the past. More and more history interests itself in the character of society at large, and in the phases through which it has passed. How men lived from day to day, what their occupations were, their comforts and discomforts, their ideas, sentiments, and modes of intercourse, their state as regards art, letters, invention, religious enlightenment,--these are points on which history, as at present studied and written, undertakes to shed light.

POINTS OF VIEW.--An eminent German philosopher of our day, Hermann Lotze, intimates that there are five phases of human development, and hence five points of view from which the course of history is to be surveyed. These are the intellectual (embracing the progress of truth and knowledge), the industrial, the aesthetic (including art in all its higher ramifications), the religious, and the political. An able English scholar, Goldwin Smith, resolves the elements of human progress, and thus the most general topics of history, into three, "the moral, the intellectual, and the productive; or, virtue, knowledge, and industry." "But these three elements," he adds, "though distinct, are not separate, but closely connected with each other."

THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY.--That there is, in some sense, a "reign of law" in the succession of human events, is a conviction warranted by observed facts, as well as inspired by religion. Events do not spring into being, disjoined from antecedents leading to them. Even turning-points in history, which seem, at the first glance, abrupt, are found to be dependent on previous conditions. They are perceived to be the natural issue of the times that have gone before. Preceding events have foreshadowed them. There are laws of historical progress which have their root in the characteristics of human nature. Ends are wrought out, which bear on them evident marks of design. History, as a whole, is the carrying out of a plan:

"... through the ages one increasing purpose runs."

Augustine long ago argued, that he who has not left "even the entrails of the smallest and most insignificant animal, or the feather of a bird, or the little flower of a plant, or the leaf of a tree, without a harmony, and, as it were, a mutual peace among all its parts,--that God can never be believed to have left the kingdoms of men, their dominations and servitudes, outside of the laws of his providence."

To discern the plan of history, and the causes or laws through which it is accomplished, as far as our limited capacity will allow, is the object of what is called the philosophy of history.

FREEDOM AND LAW.--It must not be forgotten, however, that man is a free agent. History, although it is not an aimless process, is, nevertheless, not subject to the forces and laws which govern in the realm of matter. Physical analogies are not a literal image of what takes place in the sphere of intelligence and freedom. Moral evil, wherever it is a factor in history, has its origin in the will of man. In respect to it, the agency of God is permissive and overruling. Through his providence, order is made to emerge, a worthy goal is at last reached, despite the elements of disorder introduced by human perversity.

Nor is progress continuous and unbroken. It is often, as one has said, a spiral rather than a straight line. It is not an unceasing advance: there are backward movements, or what appear to be such. Of particular nations it is frequently evident, that, intellectually and morally, as well as in power and thrift, they have sunk below a level once attained.

Of the inscrutable blending of human freedom with a pre-ordained design, GUIZOT says: "Man advances in the execution of a plan which he has not conceived, and of which he is not even aware. He is the free and intelligent artificer of a work which is not his own." "Conceive a great machine, the design of which is centered in a single mind, though its various parts are intrusted to different workmen, separated from, and strangers to, each other. No one of them understands the work as a whole, nor the general result which he concurs in producing; but every one executes with intelligence and freedom, by rational and voluntary acts, the particular task assigned to him." (Lectures on the History of Civilization, Lect. xi.)

PERSONAL POWER.--The progress of society has been inseparably connected with the agency of eminent persons. Signal changes, whether wholesome or mischievous, are linked to the names of individuals who have specially contributed to bring them to pass. The achievements of heroes stand out in as bold relief in authentic history as in the obscure era of myth and fable. Fruitful inventions, after the earlier steps in civilization are taken, are traceable to particular authors, exalted by their genius above the common level. So it is with the literary works which have exerted the deepest and most lasting influence. Nations have their pilots in war and in peace. Epochs in the progress of the fine arts are ushered in by individuals of surpassing mental power. Reforms and revolutions, which alter the direction of the historic stream, emanate from individuals in whose minds they are conceived, and by whose energy they are effected. The force thus exerted by the leaders in history is not accounted for by reference to general laws. Great men are not puppets moved by the spirit of the time. To be sure, there must be a preparation for them, and a groundwork of sympathy among their contemporaries: otherwise their activity would call forth no response. Independently of the age that gives them birth, their power would lose its distinctive form and hue: they would be incapable of influence.

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