I«^\ \»
 
 English Leadership
 
 ENGLISH LEADERSHIP 
 
 ENGLISH LEADINGS IN 
 MODERN HISTORY 
 
 AN ESSAY BY 
 
 J. N. LARNED 
 
 EDITOR OF "history FOR READY REFERENCE," ETC. 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT 
 
 The Geographic Factor in English History 
 
 BY DONALD E. SMITH 
 
 English Contributions to Scientific Thought 
 
 AND 
 
 The English Gift to World Literature 
 
 BY GRACE F. CALDWELL 
 
 1918 
 C. A. NICHOLS COMPANY 
 
 SPRINGFIELD, MASS. 
 
 6^
 
 Copsnight, 1918, 
 
 by 
 
 C. A. NICHOLS CO. 
 
 Press of 
 
 J.J. Little & Ives Co. 
 
 New York
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 In these days, when peace has appeared in the 
 offing of the harbor of our hopes, when the day of 
 judgment for nations and institutions is imminent, 
 in days when the great alliance of all English- 
 speaking peoples in a common cause, for a common 
 ideal, has brought to them as never before a real- 
 ization of their common inheritance and of their 
 common effort toward the same social end, — at 
 such a time it seems peculiarly fitting to bring to 
 light a manuscript on "English Leadings in Mod- 
 ern History," written before the war by the late 
 J. N. Earned, presenting the claims of the English 
 peoples to the gratitude of a democratic world. 
 
 The incomplete form in which the manuscript 
 was left at Mr. Larned's death necessitated a care- 
 ful revision and the addition of some new ma- 
 terial. For this editorial work the publishers ob- 
 tained the services of Grace F. Caldwell. The 
 editor has taken all possible care to preserve Mr. 
 Larned's meaning intact; all corrections or 
 changes have been made solely for the purpose 
 
 V
 
 VI Foreword 
 
 of clarifying and enforcing the meaning which the 
 author himself intended to convey. The addition- 
 al material inserted by the editor is distinguished 
 from the original text by inclosure in brackets. 
 The footnotes citing other works in support of, 
 or in contrast with, the opinions of the author 
 show to what a remarkable degree his scholarship 
 stands the test of comparison with later authori- 
 ties. 
 
 The purpose of the author is best expressed in 
 his own words: "I do not intend to speak boast- 
 fully of the English peoples (under which racial 
 name I include the English-speaking peoples of 
 America as well as the English of Great Brit- 
 ain), although I shall uphold large claims for 
 them, of preeminent leadership in most of the 
 modern movements of human advance. Such 
 claims are indisputable, but I find them to be 
 grounded as much, at least, on the influence of 
 helpful circumstances in history as on the work- 
 ing of qualities that are peculiar to the English 
 race. Hence a boastful account of English lead- 
 ings in modern history would be inconsistent with 
 my views. . . . This may all have been done be- 
 fore, in an equally concise way, but I have no 
 knowledge of a similar tracing of the facts on 
 their several lines, and I have thought them too
 
 Foreword VII 
 
 interesting, at least, to be left in neglect. I will 
 put no interpretation upon them, — attempt to give 
 them no meaning, but leave them to bear to those 
 who read this essay whatever significance they 
 may." 
 
 In Mr. Larned's "English Leadings in Mod- 
 ern History," the theme of English leadership 
 along one line, the political, is very carefully and 
 broadly worked out; but the suddenness of his 
 death in 19 13 prevented him from carrying out 
 w'hat was obviously his purpose, — to trace out 
 not only one but several lines of English leader- 
 ship. In order that this end might be attained, 
 the publishers have included in this volume an in- 
 troductory essay on "English Political Genius" by 
 William Howard Taft, and three other essays 
 grouped about Mr. Larned's — one by Donald E. 
 Smith on "The Geographic Factor in English 
 History," the other two by Grace F. Caldwell on 
 "English Contributions to Scientific Thought" and 
 "The English Gift to World Literature." In the 
 selection and arrangement of this material the 
 publishers have attempted to secure unity by keep- 
 ing close to the fundamental idea in Mr. Larned's 
 work, "English Leadings in Modern History." 
 
 The Publishers,
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. English Political Genius ... i 
 
 By WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT 
 
 II. English Leadings in Modern His- 
 tory 33 
 
 By J. N. LARNED 
 
 III. The Geographic Factor in English 
 
 History 163 
 
 By DONALD E. SMITH 
 
 IV. English Contributions to Scien- 
 
 tific Thought 217 
 
 By grace F. CALDWELL 
 
 V. The English Gift to World Liter- 
 ature 345 
 
 By grace F. CALDWELL
 
 Introduction 
 ENGLISH POLITICAL GENIUS 
 
 William Howard Taft
 
 Introduction 
 ENGLISH POLITICAL GENIUS 
 
 Representative popular government and 
 civil liberty are the benefits which England has 
 conferred upon the world. A study of their 
 growth is full of interest. It began in the forests 
 of Germany, with the Angles and Saxons before 
 they invaded England, and has continued, for 
 many centuries, down to the present world strug- 
 gle for their successful maintenance and suprem- 
 acy. For a time in this war the cause of free in- 
 stitutions seemed to hang in the balance. Now, 
 although there is much of the battle yet to fight, 
 its ultimate victory is assured. It is well always, 
 but now more than ever, to tell, chapter by chap- 
 ter, the wonderful story of the hammering out by 
 Englishmen, in more than a thousand years, of the 
 links of the chain that now hold government sub- 
 ject to the will of the people, and the purpose of 
 government to the maintenance of individual free- 
 dom and equality of opportunity. 
 
 Mr. Earned, one-time Librarian of the Buffalo 
 
 3
 
 4 English Leadership 
 
 Library, gave his life to the study of history, and 
 has left works of far greater volume and scope 
 than the treatise to which this is the introduction. 
 But while a detailed account of the various 
 eras in England's history is most important for the 
 serious students who have the time and inclination 
 to master the events, and to fit them into the mo- 
 saic of each century's progress. It may be ques- 
 tioned whether for the mass of men he does not 
 serve a more useful purpose who reduces to a brief 
 survey the course of the great events in the making 
 of civil liberty and representative government so 
 that the busy man may read It, and by reason of 
 its trenchant description and its emphasis in proper 
 proportion, he can carry the summary In his mind 
 permanently for constant use. This Is what Mr. 
 Larned has done in the essay entitled "English 
 Leadings In Modern History." 
 
 Instead of reviewing the admirable and inter- 
 esting essay in which Mr. Larned has traced from 
 their Teutonic home the work of the English peo- 
 ple in hammering out a government of the people, 
 by the people and for the people, I commend to 
 every lover of liberty regulated by law a reading 
 of the essay Itself. Its perspicuous style, its happy 
 arrangement, and its sense of proportion will fix 
 in his mind permanently the main and retainable
 
 English Political Genius 5 
 
 steps in the most remarkable story in secular his- 
 tory of the growth of a germinal idea through a 
 bitter, hard and discouraging struggle of twelve 
 centuries to the rule of the people by representative 
 institutions, which secure to them individual lib- 
 erty, and equality of opportunity in the pursuit of 
 happiness. 
 
 Mr. Larned has pointed out that Montesquieu 
 wrote his book on the "Spirit of the Laws" in the 
 1 8th century while the transfer of the executive 
 power from the King to a responsible Cabinet was 
 going on. His admiration and approval of the 
 English form of government were based on its di- 
 vision into three branches, — the executive in the 
 King, the legislative in Parliament, and the judicial 
 in the courts. It was under the influence of 
 Montesquieu, too, and of the framework of the 
 British constitution at that time that our own 
 Federal Constitution was framed and adopted, in 
 which the executive power, independent of Con- 
 gress in most respects, was vested in an elected 
 President, and his power separated with much care 
 from that of the legislative branch, and from that 
 of the judiciary. Since then, as we have seen, the 
 legislative and executive branches are united under 
 one control. This introduction is not the place to 
 discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the
 
 6 English Leadership 
 
 two systems. Many have claimed that the Eng- 
 lish system makes the administration of the gov- 
 ernment more responsive to the people's will be- 
 cause a majority in the House of Commons may 
 turn out a government at any time, whereas a 
 President holds office for four years, no matter 
 how popular opinion may change in the meantime. 
 But this argument is not quite fair. The change 
 of executive in England is not necessarily respon- 
 sive to the will of the people and the electorate. 
 It is responsive to the change of opinion of the 
 existing members of the Parliament who have been 
 elected on issues involving bitter partisanship and 
 who are quite likely to continue their support of 
 the Cabinet they established long after the people 
 may wish them out of office. 
 
 A Parliament may last five years, should the 
 majority therein desire it. Our Congress must be 
 renewed in the House of Representatives and in 
 one-third of the Senate every two years. It is, 
 therefore, open to argument which form of govern- 
 ment is more quickly responsive to the ultimate 
 wish of the people, but both, practically and in the 
 long run, accord with their rule. 
 
 Mr. Earned does not deal specifically, however, 
 with the growth of English civil liberty and indi- 
 vidual freedom, except as that is effected by free
 
 English Political Genius 7 
 
 representative institutions and the rule of the peo- 
 ple in government. Side by side with the develop- 
 ment of such institutions and indeed as a part of it, 
 was the growth of a bill of rights. The four im- 
 portant fundamental instruments in which it is 
 found are the Magna Carta, the Petition of Right, 
 the Habeas Corpus Act and the Bill of Rights of 
 1688. It is most interesting to note that the bills 
 of right in modern constitutions derived from 
 British precedent are not confined to mere declara- 
 tions of the value of individual liberty; they are 
 not mere formal monitions to those responsible for 
 government, directing that they be just and fair 
 md impartial in the protection of individual rights; 
 they are usually not declarations of substantive 
 law. They, most of them, relate to procedure — 
 they are adjective law. They grew in English his- 
 tory out of the necessities of actual abuses of 
 power. They are the machinery by which the self- 
 reliant and independent individual is offered the 
 opportunity to vindicate his right and to secure it 
 by invoking the action of an independent and cour- 
 ageous judiciary sworn to carry out the guaranteed 
 procedure to determine whether the rights of the 
 individual are being violated, and, if so, to cure 
 the wrong. It will be observed that the great prin- 
 ciple of Magna Carta that "no man shall be de-
 
 8 English Leadership 
 
 prived of life, liberty or property without due 
 process of law," is not a declaration that he shall 
 not be unjustly deprived of either — it is only a 
 direction that he shall have his hearing and due 
 procedure before losing anything which he claims 
 either as property, liberty or life. This is no cove- 
 nant insuring him justice. It only gives to him the 
 machinery by which he will probably secure justice. 
 He is to have his day in court, and he is to have a 
 judgment by an impartial tribunal. Take the 
 Habeas Corpus Act of 1679, enacted by Parlia- 
 ment even under the Stuart, "who never said a 
 foolish thing and never did a wise one." That 
 act made it the sworn duty of a judge appealed to 
 to look into the legality of the detention of any 
 subject of the King, to issue a writ, called the writ 
 of Habeas Corpus, and bring the person of the 
 prisoner into court and there investigate the legal- 
 ity of his custody. Either the prisoner or a friend 
 might invoke the action of the court. It was a 
 writ of high privilege, and a Judge who refused 
 to issue it when his action was properly sought by 
 a petition, was subject to heavy penalty. Other 
 guaranties of liberty were the hearing before the 
 Grand Jury before a man could be indicted for 
 infamous crimes, and the trial before a petit jury 
 before a man could be convicted. In the course of
 
 English Political Genius 9 
 
 softening the cruel severities of the common law 
 of crimes, the judges threw around the defendant 
 the protection of many rules of procedure calcu- 
 lated to save him from unjust convictions which 
 have now been embodied in our Federal Constitu- 
 tion as a part of our modern bills of rights. 
 
 As our Federal bill of rights is embodied in a 
 written constitution which It Is the function of the 
 Courts to interpret and enforce in cases brought 
 before It, even as against an act of Congress, it 
 has had more judicial exposition by our Supreme 
 Court than these same guarantees had in English 
 Courts. In England Parliament is omnipotent 
 and can violate the Bill of Rights at will. Not so 
 Congress whose lawmaking Is limited by the Con- 
 stitution. This circumstance has given at least one 
 of our guarantees a wider effect than It had at com- 
 mon law. The declaration that "no man shall 
 be deprived of life, liberty or property without due 
 process of law" meant In the Magna Carta and 
 means in English Courts that the process must be 
 one sanctioned by custom, i. e., by the common law 
 or by act of Parliament. It Is directed only 
 against executive abuses of Individual right. In 
 our Constitution, In its 5th and 14th amendments, 
 it means more than this. It is directed against 
 both executive and legislative abuses of individual
 
 10 English Leadership 
 
 right, against abuses by Congress and state legisla- 
 tures as well as against those of a President or a 
 Governor. Therefore, the Supreme Court has not 
 hesitated to ignore as invalid any law of Congress 
 or a state which does not secure to an individual 
 the procedure in defending his rights which shall 
 prevent his deprivation of them arbitrarily and 
 without a full hearing by some kind of a tribunal. 
 These guaranties of civil liberty in the English 
 constitution are a part of the common law and 
 were formulated as part of it. They were not 
 framed by a theorist in government. They are 
 not part of a magnificent system of law, admirably 
 arranged, comprehensively stated and logically 
 framed, like the civil law. The civil law is a beau- 
 tiful system. It has come down from the Roman 
 law, and has been worked over and over until in 
 modern times it finds its most beautiful expression 
 in the Code Napoleon and the kindred codes of 
 other civil law countries. As a scientific exposition 
 of law, the civil law is superior to the common 
 law. The common law is not a code — it has been 
 worked out by special instances through decisions 
 of courts in thousands and hundreds of thousands 
 of cases. It has been established by custom of the 
 realm and interpreted by courts and finally formu- 
 lated by them.
 
 English Political Genius ii 
 
 Tennyson's characterization of it, where he 
 speaks of 
 
 "the lawless science of our law, — 
 That codeless myriad of precedent, 
 That wilderness of single instances," 
 
 has much of truth in it. 
 
 And yet for many centuries it has served the 
 purpose of the English people and of those who 
 have derived their civilization from the English 
 people, and it has done so because it has reflected 
 the practical character of those peoples and the 
 practical way in which they have made the rules 
 of action to be enforced as law. 
 
 Mr. Earned makes reference to the independ- 
 ence of the judiciary established at the end of the 
 17th century, but he does not dwell upon it. That 
 was a most important step in making good the 
 guaranties of the Bill of Rights. Under the 
 Stuarts, and indeed in all previous reigns, judges 
 had been appointed to serve during the pleasure 
 of the King. Under the influence of the revolu- 
 tion of 1688, and by the acts of settlement soon 
 thereafter passed, judges ceased to hold office dur- 
 ing the pleasure of the King, and were given a 
 tenure during their good behavior. At first this 
 tenure was only during the life of the King whose
 
 12 English Leadership 
 
 commission they held, but by a subsequent legisla- 
 tion in one of the Georges, the tenure was made 
 independent of the King appointing, and they 
 served, as they now do, for life. The effect of 
 this independent tenure upon the judiciary of Eng- 
 land can hardly be overestimated. There is noth- 
 ing more greatly to the honor of English civiliza- 
 tion than the high character of England's courts 
 and the confidence that the English people have in 
 the ability, learning and impartiality of their 
 judges. The jury system gives to the people the 
 certainty that in issues of life and liberty an im- 
 partial panel of the countrymen of the accused 
 will be summoned to take part in the decision of 
 his case, and in England the jury system, with the 
 assistance of the judges of the court, has had won- 
 derful success. Justice is not delayed, the criminal 
 laws are enforced with admirable dispatch and the 
 results command the confidence of the nation. Of 
 course this has not always been so. Even in Eng- 
 land the administration of justice came to be laden 
 with abuses of delay and heavy costs so that when 
 Queen Victoria came to the throne one could not 
 speak, of the working of the English administra- 
 tion of justice in any such terms as I have used. 
 If one would see how deplorable was the condition 
 of the courts upon the accession of Victoria, he
 
 English Political Genius 13 
 
 should read Lord Bowen's description of the Im- 
 provement In the administration of justice during 
 the half centuiy celebrated In the Queen's Jubilee. 
 The reforms were effected by the leaders of the 
 bar and the judiciary, and now there is no system 
 of courts In the world so admirably conducted as 
 that we find In England. She continues to set a 
 model before the world In this regard. 
 
 One of the lessons that must be taught, however, 
 in respect to English liberty, English representa- 
 tive institutions, and English administration of jus- 
 tice, is that the success of them all must rest on the 
 political capacity of the individuals of the English 
 people to understand their institutions, to realize 
 their responsibility for the successful working of 
 them, and to feel that the Government under 
 which they are living Is their government and en- 
 tails upon them the duty of keeping It pure and 
 clean and effective. Those of us who are properly 
 enthusiastic and grateful for the Inestimable boon 
 of civil liberty of English origin that we enjoy are 
 apt to assume that It Is a benefit which can be con- 
 ferred upon any people and enjoyed by them to 
 their very great advantage, no matter what their 
 history, their education and their previous expe- 
 rience In government. This Is a fundamental er- 
 ror. Self-government is a boon which people must
 
 14 English Leadership 
 
 properly prepare themselves to carry on. As 
 President Wilson has said in his book on "Con- 
 stitutional Government," self-government is char- 
 acter and can only be acquired after hard experi- 
 ence in attempting it. Take the peculiar institu- 
 tion of English liberty — the petit jury. It is ex- 
 ceedingly hard to inject that into the judicial sys- 
 tem of a country brought up under Spanish ante- 
 cedents and traditions, and especially in a commu- 
 nity like the Philippines conducted as a Spanish 
 colony. Were intelligent Filipinos summoned to 
 a jury to sit in a case, they would doubtless under- 
 stand the evidence and possibly reach a sound con- 
 clusion as to the bearing of the evidence, but what 
 they would fail to bring into the jury box would 
 be the feeling of responsibility with which they 
 should approach the decision of the question. 
 They would not appreciate that the proceeding 
 was part of their government, that they were of 
 the government, and that the proper administra- 
 tion of justice was something for which they were 
 individually responsible. They would look upon 
 the government as something different from them- 
 selves, something antagonistic to themselves, some- 
 thing which must look out for itself In achieving 
 results in its administration. A law-breaker es- 
 caping In such a country would never be appre-
 
 English Political Genius 15 
 
 hended by the unofficial members of the commu- 
 nity. They would regard that as the business of 
 the sheriff or of a police officer. They could not 
 understand the obligation of the hue and cry for 
 the capture of an escaping thief or murderer. They 
 would loolc upon the contest with indifference. 
 Such an attitude toward government deeply in- 
 grained by its history and treatment of its people 
 must be overcome before the people may success- 
 fully take part in the administration of justice 
 through a jury system and before indeed they can 
 hope successfully to make a representative govern- 
 ment useful to the people. Therefore, when we 
 speak of a Republic in China or a Republic in 
 Russia, we must be patient with its faults, with its 
 deficiencies, with its failures, and must reahze that 
 only by the hardest kinds of knocks can a people 
 learn the character needed to make self-govern- 
 ment a success. This is not an argument against 
 their beginning. This is not an argument for the 
 maintenance of tyranny anywhere, but it is an ap- 
 peal to reason and common sense in our optimistic 
 expectations as to working of a popular represen- 
 tative government by a people who are utterly 
 ignorant of self-restraint and sense of responsibil- 
 ity. These the great body of a people must have
 
 i6 English Leadership 
 
 before the benefits of self-government can be really 
 manifested and enjoyed. 
 
 A characteristic of the growth of English lib- 
 erty and of free representative institutions was its 
 conservative character. When a reform was to be 
 brought about, when an evil presented Itself so 
 acutely that something had to be done to remedy 
 it, Englishmen did not break down the whole sys- 
 tem of their government and rebuild it. They 
 merely added something to the structure to supply 
 the need or repair the defect. That is the reason 
 why their statutes are nothing but patchwork. 
 That Is the reason why such written laws do not 
 commend themselves to any lawgiver trained un- 
 der the civil law system; but that Is also the reason 
 why they work. The changes have been based on 
 the existing structure and system and the variation 
 is as slight as the purpose of It requires. The re- 
 sulting edifice is like an old house added to as the 
 needs of the family require it, as the attacks of 
 the elements show its weaknesses, as modern neces- 
 sities develop its needed changes. The lines of 
 such a house do not satisfy the eye of the trained 
 architect, but for living purposes the association 
 between the past and the present strengthens the 
 affection of the owner for the house and gives to 
 his living therein the ineffable comfort and loyalty
 
 English Political Genius 17 
 
 of tradition and association. The House of Lords 
 has been an excrescence on the body democratic of 
 the English Government. It has at times furnished 
 what our written constitution interpreted by the 
 Supreme Courts gives to us. The House of Lords 
 has taken under its own control the maintenance 
 of the British constitution. Its hereditary and 
 Tory proclivities have made it a certain refuge 
 where popular storms have threatened a breach. 
 But by reason of its reactionary opposition to re- 
 form bills, to home rule, to the continued expres- 
 sion of popular will in House of Commons ma- 
 jorities, the people of England finally became con- 
 vinced that a change was necessary. Now in 
 France, or in other countries where popular 
 changes are possible, the House of Lords would 
 have been abolished — not so in England. In 191 1 
 a change was made, and possibly more radical 
 changes were foreshadowed. But the House of 
 Lords was retained. It must act upon money bills 
 within a month after their reception or they be- 
 come law, and If after two years and three sessions 
 of Parliament the Lords fail to pass a bill which 
 has passed the Commons three times, it becomes a 
 law upon the royal signature. The royal signa- 
 ture is another instance of the way in which old 
 forms are retained which have lost their substan-
 
 i8 English Leadership 
 
 tial significance. A bill which passes both Houses 
 of Parliament needs the royal signature to make 
 it law. It has not been withheld for 200 years, 
 although the letter of English law seems to give 
 the sovereign the right to sign or not as he chooses. 
 Should he fail to sign to-day, however, it would 
 deprive him of his throne. 
 
 The government of England was united with 
 that of Scotland and with that of Ireland into the 
 government of Great Britain. The union with 
 Scotland has been completely successful. Scotland 
 has retained her courts, her religion and her local 
 community governments, and has found it possible 
 to live contentedly under a Parliament in which it 
 has had its proportionate representation of mem- 
 bers. The relations between England and Ireland, 
 however, up to the last half century were one of 
 the great blots upon English history. The differ- 
 ence in race and the difference in religion united 
 to create a misgovernment of Ireland by England 
 down to recent times, so unlike England's treat- 
 ment of her colonies since the American Revolution 
 as to call down upon her statesmen the severest 
 criticism. The natural economic disadvantages of 
 Ireland were greatly increased by restrictive trade 
 legislation in favor of English manufactures and 
 agriculture impoverished the Irish tenant farmer
 
 English Political Genius 19 
 
 and limited Irish manufactures to such a degree 
 that the desertion of Ireland by all her people who 
 could migrate was the only logical result. In the 
 last half century, however, English statesmen have 
 sought to reverse this policy and to encourage 
 Irish agriculture and Irish industries by govern- 
 mental aid. In no country has such governmental 
 aid been as successful as it has been in Ireland, 
 and it is noteworthy that during this war, from an 
 economic standpoint, the Irish farmer is more 
 prosperous than the English farmer. But mean- 
 time, through the stubbornness and unreasonable 
 attitude of a comparatively small part of the Irish 
 people, the Home Rule and local self-government 
 which the Irish people have demanded, and which 
 the English people have been willing to grant, has 
 been halted, and even in this great war, which 
 should awaken in Irishmen the patriotic support 
 of the English and the world cause, a feeling of 
 bitterness has again grown up against the British 
 Government, which adds another grievous burden 
 to its already many burdens in fighting this war. 
 The Irish question has been like the shirt of 
 Nessus for England, and she is paying now in 
 the bitterest form the penalty for her injustice 
 of the past. 
 
 In her colonial governments, England stands
 
 20 English Leadership 
 
 unrivaled in her success in the world. They are 
 of two kinds. One is of those communities settled 
 by the British in Canada, in Australia, in New Zea- 
 land, South Africa — self-governing dominions that 
 have not severed their relation to the mother coun- 
 try and have enjoyed in the arrangement of their 
 own affairs an independence wisely granted by the 
 home government, so that as the tie between them 
 has grown lighter, the mutual affection has been 
 strengthened. No higher or better evidence could 
 be given of this than the wonderful sacrifices that 
 Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa 
 have made in this world war in defense of their 
 mother country. It is one of the most inspiring 
 features of the war to note how strong this bond 
 between England and her daughters has been, and 
 how nobly they have responded to their filial ob- 
 ligation. 
 
 England began her colonial enterprises with the 
 same spirit as that of other nations, for the pur- 
 pose of extending her trade and exploiting the 
 colonies, which she created either by conquest or 
 settlement. We of the United States may claim 
 to have taught England a wiser and a more al- 
 truistic policy in dealing with her dependencies. 
 When she attempted to circumscribe the activities, 
 energies and enterprise of her own children on this
 
 English Political Genius 21 
 
 continent, and sought to tax them, without a voice 
 in their government, she found the same stuff in 
 them of which her own people had given so many 
 evidences in times past. The colonies loved the 
 mother country, were really attached to it, and 
 only made their declaration of independence after 
 a year of revolt. The English people were them- 
 selves divided in respect to the wisdom of their 
 policy, and it is the truth to say that the Americans 
 were forced to revolution through the tyrannical 
 narrowness and blind obstinacy of George III, 
 who, exercising his control of Parliament by cor- 
 ruption and patronage, was able to carry this fatal 
 policy through to its logical conclusion. Chatham, 
 Fox and Burke and other far-sighted British states- 
 men saw the blunder, but could not avert it. There 
 has been a discussion as to whether England did 
 change her colonial policy as a result of the Amer- 
 ican Revolution. It seems to me that in this case 
 the argument post hoc procter hoc is a legitimate 
 one, and that no matter what the detailed study of 
 the local currents of politics may indicate, the les- 
 son in the severance of the United States from 
 Great Britain manifested itself in all the action of 
 England thereafter toward her colonies. Her con- 
 sideration for the French Canadians, her very lib- 
 eral treatment of Canada in its growth to its pres-
 
 22 English Leadership 
 
 ent national proportions, and her generous support 
 of the somewhat radical political development of 
 Australia and New Zealand, are illustrations. Her 
 not altogether consistent policy in South Africa 
 has finally flowered into one of wisdom and gen- 
 erosity after a grievous war in respect to which 
 her motives were misrepresented, and into which 
 she was plunged by the unjust and oppressive 
 policy of the Boer Government toward many of 
 her own subjects engaged in the development of 
 all that territory. A study of the British North 
 America Act, the Australian constitution, and the 
 act constituting the British South African Govern- 
 ment, and a comparison of these fundamental in- 
 struments with the Constitution of the United 
 States, is interesting to show the influence of the 
 British Constitution and of the Federal Constitu- 
 tion upon these young Republics, and to demon- 
 strate the wise absence on the part of the Home 
 British Government of any effort to restrain the 
 political proposals of a majority of the people in 
 each Dominion. The actual governmental con- 
 nection between these Dominions and the Home 
 Government has been diminished to small propor- 
 tions. The Home Government sends to each a 
 representative, who is the nominal chief executive, 
 and under whom the local Premier and Cabinet,
 
 English Political Genius 23 
 
 selected by the legislative body, actually administer 
 affairs. There is usually an appeal as of course 
 from the decision of the highest courts in the 
 Dominions to the Judicial Committee of the Privy 
 Council in England, but even this in some cases, 
 as in Australia, is left in an important class of 
 cases to the discretion of the court to be appealed 
 from. The Home Government retains, of course, 
 control in foreign affairs, but wherever the sep- 
 arate or local interests of the Dominion are af- 
 fected, the custom now has grown to be to give 
 representation in the negotiation to the Dominion 
 concerned, and rarely, if ever, to conclude negotia- 
 tions without the consent of that Dominion. The 
 dream of many British statesmen is Imperial Fed- 
 eration, which shall increase in Imperial matters 
 the direct participation of the Dominions. This 
 is in the process of formation, and the Dominions 
 have given such an earnest, by their great and pa- 
 triotic sacrifices in this war, of their interest in the 
 English Empire and their contribution to its 
 strength, that we may expect the settlement of the 
 war to be followed by some important changes — 
 changes which will give them a more direct voice 
 in the British Empire than they now have by statu- 
 tory or constitutional provision. In the construc- 
 tion of the government of these Dominions by the
 
 24 English Leadership 
 
 people themselves, with the consent of the home 
 country, the principles of free representative insti- 
 tutions and the guarantees of British civil liberty 
 have been made part of the web and woof of the 
 life of these subjects of the British King. And 
 even as in French Canada, where the civil law ob- 
 tained and such guarantees were unknown under 
 the French home government, they were fully ex- 
 tended under the aegis of the British constitution. 
 
 The French and Spanish and German colonies 
 were governed from the colonial office in Paris, 
 Madrid or Berlin, and have always been so, 
 though the French colonial policy, far more suc- 
 cessful than that of the others, has been liberalized 
 of late years greatly to the advantage of her col- 
 onies. 
 
 In addition to these great republican dominions 
 still acknowledging allegiance to Great Britain, she 
 has a large number of Crown colonies, of which 
 India is the greatest. In these colonies she is en- 
 gaged in the business of governing native and back- 
 ward peoples. The 300,000,000 of India, di- 
 vided among Mohammedan, Buddhist and other 
 eastern religions, have made a problem of govern- 
 ment most difficult of solution. When England 
 wrested control of India from France, in the Seven 
 Years' War, under Pitt, she found kingdoms and
 
 English Political Genius 25 
 
 peoples in a constant state of war. Under her 
 East India Company much wrong was done, and 
 much plundering in the name of that company. 
 Gradually she restored peace, gradually with the 
 transfer from the East India Company to the 
 Crown, the spirit of government in India im- 
 proved, and so, with a comparatively small mili- 
 tary force, England has maintained, for now 150 
 years, her power in India. The antagonisms be- 
 tween the followers of Mohammed and Buddha 
 have doubtless contributed to the solution of the 
 problem, because each prefers the rule of Christian 
 Great Britain to the rule of either. England has 
 been charged with exploiting India for her own 
 trade and benefit. That this was so in the past is 
 probably true, but that her policy for years past 
 has been one of great care of Indian interests, the 
 fair commentator must admit. England has main- 
 tained her power in India, and maintains it to-day 
 because of the confidence of those governed in her 
 administration of justice. The Oriental peoples 
 under her rule in India would not trust a system 
 of justice administered wholly by their own peo- 
 ple, but they have been taught by a century of ex- 
 perience that in an English court, and with an 
 English judge, justice is not a mere theory and an
 
 26 English Leadership 
 
 empty declaration, but a real purpose and a real 
 result. 
 
 The good that England has conferred on the 
 world by her government of India cannot be over- 
 estimated. The extending of civilized life and its 
 maintenance throughout that great empire Is 
 largely due to her and her statesmen. She has 
 successfully maintained there a League to Enforce 
 Peace. She has dealt liberally and tactfully with 
 the customs and prejudices and religions of the 
 people. Never until recently, however, have her 
 statesmen thought it wise to extend any measure 
 of self-government to the Indian people. They 
 have been slow to offer the means of education to 
 these hundreds of millions under them. Now they 
 are setting out on a different policy, slowly and 
 conservatively, as Englishmen move in political 
 matters, but with more wisdom perhaps in this re- 
 gard than we. 
 
 The effect of the American policy in the Philip- 
 pines has been marked In India and has had an 
 influence upon the liberal English Government In 
 that country. In the Philippines we took over the 
 Government with the avowed purpose of educat- 
 ing the Filipinos and fitting them for self-govern- 
 ment, and there was, in my judgment, every augury 
 of ultimate success, provided we did not force mat-
 
 English Political Genius 27 
 
 ters, provided we did not extend power to the 
 Filipino politician too rapidly, and provided we re- 
 tained in the government of the Philippines the 
 body of trained American civil servants than whom 
 there were no better anywhere. It is impossible to 
 train for complete self-government the genera- 
 tion of Filipinos which lived under and felt the in- 
 fluence of Spanish social and political views and 
 Spanish political methods. Time was needed to 
 teach the Filipinos the English language that they 
 might, through that as their speaking and reading 
 tongue, acquire from American literature and 
 newspapers a knowledge of free institutions. To 
 do this doubtless two generations would be re- 
 quired. But Ame-rica has given the Filipinos not 
 more than half a generation for this purpose, and 
 with the surrender of power it has, in my opinion, 
 parted forever with the opportunity to make suc- 
 cessful one of the most interesting experiments in 
 preparation of an Oriental people for self-govern- 
 ment that world history has ever presented. We 
 may be sure that the far-seeing statesmen of 
 Great Britain will profit by our blunder in this re- 
 gard, and that in their extension of self-govern- 
 ment to the East Indians they will go forward 
 slowly and with a due regard to the actual progress 
 of the people and their slowly growing capacity.
 
 28 English Leadership 
 
 Mr. Larned, while he admits the strong quali- 
 ties of the Teuton nature in the early English, 
 and attributes to these traits something of the won- 
 derful results, the causes of which he has been 
 tracing, is disposed to minimize their influence 
 upon the development of free representative in- 
 stitutions and civil liberty in England in compari- 
 son with the fortunate circumstances which he so 
 luminously arrays and describes. I don't know 
 that it is of any particular value or moment to 
 attempt an apportionment of credit for results in 
 a period of twelve centuries to human purpose and 
 character on the one side, and to fortuitous circum- 
 stances, on the other. Be that as it may, the orig- 
 inal rude strength of the Teutonic peoples, with 
 the environment of the English, has made them a 
 people leading the world in the cause of civil lib- 
 erty and popular institutions of government, and 
 these have in turn given to the English people a 
 strength of national character and a sense of 
 world responsibility which have prompted them 
 in two great crises in the world's history to take 
 over the burden of saving it from military tyranny 
 and all the ills that would follow. No one can 
 study the history of the French Revolution, the 
 permanent benefits of which every student of his- 
 tory must recognize, without realizing that the
 
 English Political Genius 29 
 
 rescue of the world from the military tyranny to 
 which its excess by reaction led on was ultimately 
 defeated by English pluck and English determina- 
 tion. The younger Pitt died in the dreadful 
 shadow of the battle of Austerlitz, when the sun 
 of that day seemed to crown the permanent glory 
 of a military dictatorship of the world. But Pitt's 
 purpose was taken up by his successors, by Can- 
 ning and others, and through the military skill and 
 sturdy high sense of duty of Nelson and Welling- 
 ton, the greatest military leader of the world was 
 brought to end his days in miserable captivity on 
 an isolated rock in the Atlantic. Not that Eng- 
 land did all this, but it was the constancy of Eng- 
 land's purpose, the willingness of the English peo- 
 ple to sacrifice men and treasure, and their intelli- 
 gent sense of responsibility that made the forma- 
 tion of the various alliances before whom Na- 
 poleon had ultimately to bow the knee, possible. 
 And so to-day, while every one admires the calm 
 courage and the inspiring gallantry with which the 
 French people have met the onslaught of the brutal 
 military autocracy of Germany in its quest for the 
 overlordship of the world, no one can justly deny 
 to Great Britain her great agency in gathering to- 
 gether the forces making for the defeat of Ger-
 
 30 English Leadership 
 
 many. The load she has had to carry can hardly 
 be overstated. She has not been subject to the 
 dreadful devastation of an important part of her 
 rich and industrial territory, as France has, 
 but she has, as France has, offered up the flower 
 of her youth in this war. With her great navy 
 she has put an insuperable obstacle to German am- 
 bitions. She was as unprepared for land war as 
 the United States was when it came into the strug- 
 gle, and she has in England and in Scotland raised 
 an army so large that if we in the United States 
 were to make equal effort, it would give us a mili- 
 tary force of 15,000,000 of men. She has carried 
 on this war with Ireland refusing its proportion- 
 ate support and requiring something of British 
 strength to restrain revolt. For nearly four years 
 she had to bear with the neutrality of the United 
 States, though realizing that she was fighting the 
 battles of that former daughter of hers. And she 
 has done these things with a modesty in respect to 
 her effort that is noteworthy. To France, to the 
 people of her dominions, to the people of the 
 United States, to the Navy of the United States, 
 to the soldiers of the United States, she accords 
 all praise; only once in a while, as in the wonder- 
 ful speech of her Premier, Lloyd George, of Au-
 
 English Political Genius 31 
 
 gust 7th, does she make clear in a moderate state- 
 ment what she has done. That brilliant leader set 
 out her sacrifices and her achievements without 
 boasting, but in such a way as to give a due sense 
 of proportion to the great and controlling part 
 that she is playing in the war. 
 
 It is true that we of the United States are to 
 win this war, but we are to win it only in the sense 
 that a great military reserve, withheld from the 
 battle and ultimately brough't in fresh and strong, 
 and unaffected by previous strain and loss, may 
 carry the enemy's defenses and put him to flight. 
 In the measure of credit for such a victory, he who 
 would ignore the debt of gratitude due to the 
 forces who during the heat and burden of the day 
 have maintained the battle and created the situa- 
 tion in which the reserves can win, would indeed 
 be an unjust historian. In view, therefore, of 
 what Britain has done and is doing for the world 
 in the cause of freedom and popular representa- 
 tive institutions, not only by making governments 
 which work and preserve a consistency between 
 efl^ciency and justice in government and the real 
 rule of the people, but also in striking hard 
 the blow needed to subdue abhorrent tyranny 
 prompted by the lust of universal power, Britain 
 has vindicated the beneficent influence of free in-
 
 32 English Leadership 
 
 stitutions upon the spirit and usefulness of her peo- 
 ple. But for them she could not and would not 
 have done for the world what she has done in the 
 cause of human civilization.
 
 ENGLISH LEADINGS IN MODERN 
 HISTORY 
 
 J. N. Earned
 
 ENGLISH LEADINGS IN MODERN 
 HISTORY 
 
 Conspicuously, before everything else, the 
 English have been leaders In the political civihza- 
 tion of the world. Every notable feature of dif- 
 ference between the modern and the ancient or- 
 ganizations and institutions of government bears 
 the stamp of an English origin or an English shap- 
 ing into its practicable form. All civilized nations, 
 to-day, have accepted or are accepting English 
 solutions of the problem of government by the 
 will or with the consent of the governed. Popu- 
 lar government by representation, deputized de- 
 mocracy, constitutionalized authority, — these are 
 almost universal in the social order of the present 
 day, because Englishmen found the way to success 
 in them and showed it to the rest of mankind. 
 Why have they been the people to do these things? 
 They are not of a distinct race. They hold no 
 gifts of faculty or power that are peculiar to their 
 blood. Their near kinsfolk, of the great Teutonic 
 family, are all around them in western Europe; 
 
 35
 
 36 English Leadership 
 
 they have shared the same historic life of me- 
 diaeval and modern times; and many of those kins- 
 folk were long before the English in turning from 
 predatory and barbarizing to industrious and civ- 
 ilizing pursuits. In the general Teutonic character 
 there are, without doubt, some faculties and some 
 moral qualities that account for the development 
 of our modern institutions of representative gov- 
 ernment somewhere within that family of peoples, 
 rather than in any other racial group. It furnished 
 the necessary stability of feeling and gravity of 
 thinking; it gave the requisite balance between 
 personal impulses and rational perceptions of so- 
 cial need. But, so far as can be known, this prep- 
 aration of character for a new political evolution 
 of society was originally just as ready in the tribes 
 of the Franks when they entered Gaul, and in the 
 tribes of the Alamanni when they settled on the 
 opposite side of the Rhine, as it was in the Angles 
 and the Saxons when their conquest of Britain was 
 made. More surely still, it must have been ready 
 among the Saxon tribes that stayed upon the Elbe, 
 not less than among those that went colonizing 
 across the North Sea. Why was it, then, that 
 representative institutions of government grew up, 
 from shire-moot to parliament, in the new home 
 and not in the old home of Saxons, Angles and
 
 English Leadings 37 
 
 Jutes ? Why in England and not in the kingdoms 
 of the Franks? Why did the "commons" of Eng- 
 land come into partnership with the lords of the 
 realm in the exercise of taxing and law-making 
 powers, while the corresponding third-estate of 
 continental western Europe was almost voiceless 
 and valueless in history till nearly eighteen cen- 
 turies of the Christian era were passed? I have 
 said that the explanation of this remarkable dis- 
 tinction of the English can be found as much in 
 the circumstances of their history as in capacities 
 or qualities peculiar to themselves; I shall try to 
 make that statement good. 
 
 Repeating words which I used once in another 
 place — "The fundamental circumstance, which 
 seems in itself to half explain English history, is, 
 of course, the insularity of the nation.^ . . . The 
 shelter of the island from foreign interference and 
 from surrounding perturbations was necessary to 
 the evolution of the representative system of gov- 
 ernment, with supremacy in Parliament, respon- 
 sibility in administration, security of just independ- 
 ence in courts; and not less necessary to a persist- 
 ing growth of the industries, the trade, and the 
 
 * For discussion of the geographic factor in English history, 
 see the essay on this subject by Donald E. Smith, in this vol- 
 ume. — Ed.
 
 38 English Leadership 
 
 resulting wealth, on which the empire of Great 
 Britain depends. In their 
 
 'fortress, built by Nature for herself, 
 Against infection and the hand of war 
 ... set in the silver sea, 
 Which serves it in the office of a wall, 
 Or as a moat defensive to a house, 
 Against the envy of less happier lands/ 
 
 the English have rejoiced in many and great ad- 
 vantages over every neighbor, and have used them 
 with a capability that has wasted none. Protec- 
 tion from invasion is not more than half the 
 blessed service their insulating sea has done them. 
 It has also put a happy curb on greedy ambitions 
 in their ministers and kings; kept them for nearly 
 five hundred years from aggressive continental 
 wars; moderated their share in the frictions, jeal- 
 ousies, neighborhood rivalries and dynastic en- 
 tanglements of European politics, and in conse- 
 quence has turned the energies of their ambition 
 more profitably to the remoter fields of commerce 
 and colonization. At the same time, by shutting 
 out many distractions, it has held their more care- 
 ful attention to domestic affairs. It has fostered 
 self-reliance in the national spirit, and unity of be- 
 lief in one another. If it has fostered, too, some 
 narrow self-sufficiency and unteachable content- 
 ment with English ways, even those may have had
 
 English Leadings 39 
 
 value to the nation in time past, though losing their 
 value now. By standing a little to one side of the 
 movements of thought and feeling in continental 
 Europe, the English have experienced a more in- 
 dependent development of mind and character, 
 tending sometimes toward narrowness, but oftener 
 to the broadening of lines." 
 
 A general and definite tracing, however, of 
 causes to account for the leading agency of the 
 English peoples in modern civilization, especially 
 on its political side, must begin at a time prior to 
 their entrance into the island of Great Britain, — 
 prior, indeed, to their emergence into history as 
 a people distinctly known; it must begin, rather, 
 among obscurely placed ancestral members of the 
 Teutonic family of tribes. 
 
 Among these Teutonic tribes as they were 
 known to Tacitus, in the first century after Christ, 
 there seem to have been germs of that remarkable 
 cooperative combination of democracy with aris- 
 tocracy, which the English have developed, in their 
 political constitution, to its present perfected state. 
 There was everywhere a recognized nobility of 
 birth, derived generally from the fathers of each 
 settlement, who had shared in the original par- 
 celing of homesteads, and in the original enjoy- 
 ment of communal rights to the use of lands and
 
 40 English Leadership 
 
 woods which were the property of the tribe as a 
 whole. The families of this social primacy, — the 
 "old famihes" of each community, — had become 
 an ennobled class, commanding the deference of 
 the simple "freemen" of the tribe, who repre- 
 sented, in their parentage or in themselves, the 
 later-comers, the parvenus, whose admission to 
 homesteads and common rights had been an act 
 of grace, so to speak, on the part of their prede- 
 cessors in each village or mark. But no political 
 superiority attached to this social rank; for free- 
 man and noble, in the tribal elections, cast equal 
 votes. Apparently the elective chieftainships, both 
 civil and military, went generally to men of rank, 
 but often enough otherwise to show that the offices 
 of magistracy and of leadership were all within 
 a freeman's reach. 
 
 [This primitive stage was not unique among the 
 Teutons, but one through which many peoples have 
 passed. A recent historian has given a vivid de- 
 scription of this condition among the early Greeks: 
 "By fraud, oppression, unjust seizure of lands, 
 union of families in marriage, and many other 
 influences, the strong man of ability and cleverness 
 was able to enlarge his lands. Thus there arose a 
 class of large landholders and men of wealth. . . . 
 Wealthy enough to buy costly weapons, with leis-
 
 English Leadings 41 
 
 lire for continual exercise in the use of arms, these 
 nobles became also the chief protection of the 
 state in time of war. . . . The country peasant 
 was obliged to divide the family lands with his 
 brothers. His fields were therefore small and 
 he was poor. He went about clad in a goatskin, 
 and his labors never ceased. Hence he had no 
 leisure to learn the use of arms, nor any way to 
 meet the expense of purchasing them. . . . When 
 he attended the Assembly of the people in the city, 
 he found but few of his fellows from the country- 
 side gathered there — a dingy group, clad in their 
 rough goatskins. The powerful Council in beauti- 
 ful oriental raiment was backed by the whole class 
 of wealthy nobles, all trained in war and splendid 
 in their glittering weapons. Intimidated by the 
 powerful nobles, the meager Assembly, which had 
 once been a muster of all the weapon-bearing men 
 of the tribe, became a feeble gathering of a few 
 peasants and lesser townsmen, who could gain no 
 greater recognition of their old-time right of self- 
 government than the poor privilege of voting to 
 concur in the actions already decided upon by the 
 king and the Council." ^] 
 
 * Quoted from Robinson and Breasted's Outlines of European 
 History, Vol. I, pp. 130-2. For explanation of the use of 
 brackets, see the Foreword. — Ed.
 
 42 English Leadership 
 
 Whether or not the Teutons of the time of 
 Tacitus had gone far enough in the practice of 
 popular election to arrive at some beginnings of 
 a representative system, the diligent Roman his- 
 torian did not find out. That great political in- 
 vention may have had a later origin, within the 
 long period after Tacitus that is dark in Teutonic 
 history, and especially dark In all that touches 
 the internal life of the race. It was a period of 
 tremendous revolutionary ferment and change. 
 Great movements of migration began, with the 
 massing of kindred tribes in powerful confedera- 
 tions, bringing into Teutonic history nation-like 
 names, of Franks, Saxons, Suevi (or Alamanni), 
 Goths, and other wandering hordes. Then came 
 the grand avalanches of more or less barbaric 
 invasion, which overwhelmed the empire of Rome 
 in the West. Of the catastrophes of the time we 
 know something, hardly more. The conditions 
 underneath, the forces at work, the processes of 
 the marvelous evolution of a new historic life, are 
 almost wholly hidden from us, and likely never 
 to be revealed. Till the new masters of Gaul, 
 Spain, and Britain had fairly finished their con- 
 quest, and had established for themselves a some- 
 what fixed and orderly settlement in their new 
 domain, there is, since the writings of Tacitus, next
 
 English Leadings 43 
 
 to nothing of record to denote, or even to suggest, 
 their political experiences. 
 
 When the light of recorded history began to 
 touch them again, the three tribes and parts of 
 tribes which had crossed the North Sea and be- 
 came Englishmen caught its earliest faint gleams 
 and were brought most distinctively into view. 
 Their "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" and some frag- 
 mentary relics of their folk-literature are found to 
 be the oldest Teutonic records that had been saved. 
 Of the political organization and of the social state 
 in general of the Anglo-Saxons more is known than 
 of any other division of the great Teutonic race. 
 The framework of their communities in England, 
 as first discoverable, shows divergence from that 
 which Tacitus described, but this divergence is 
 more in details than in substance and form. In the 
 transplantation of Teutonic society and institutions 
 the tokens of a natural evolution appear much 
 more traceable in England than in Italy or Gaul 
 or Spain. 
 
 In all cases the Teutonic conquest had given rise 
 to kingship, and kingship had generated new and 
 broader distinctions of rank. In all cases, too, 
 wealth had gained and was gaining power, and the 
 measure of wealth was the ownership of land. 
 Everywhere, in England as well as in Europe, the
 
 44 English Leadership 
 
 social tendencies were toward the uplifting of an 
 all-dominant landlord class, and the corresponding 
 depression of a great body of the people into land- 
 less and dependent folk. But in England, apparent- 
 ly, those tendencies were held most and longest in 
 check; and the strength of the resistance to them 
 was in the local organizations of society which the 
 English were enabled by good fortune to preserve. 
 Their tunscipes, or townships, their hundreds, or 
 wapentakes, and their shires, — offspring of the 
 ancient Teutonic mark-system, — were original and 
 lasting strongholds of democracy, strongholds 
 which time weakened but never quite broke down. 
 It was in these that the representative system 
 took form, in these that the political habit of 
 representation became fixed in the English mind. 
 The tunmoot — the old English town-meeting — 
 was not, in itself, a representative moot but an 
 assembly of all the freemen of the township; this 
 township, however, sent its reeve and "four best 
 men" to represent it in the moots of the hundred 
 and the shire. Thus far in the making and ad- 
 ministering of law, — for the moots did both, — the 
 people were represented. Here, however, the ap- 
 plication of the principle ceased; for the national 
 assembly — the witenagemot (assembly of "the 
 wise") — was not a representative body, but a
 
 English Leadings 45 
 
 council of the greater officials surrounding the 
 king, — assumed to be a royal selection of wise and 
 capable men. ^ At what period the inspired device 
 of representation for the people in the hundred 
 and shire moots had been conceived and adopted 
 cannot be known. Probably it antedates the mi- 
 gration to Britain, since representative political 
 assemblies found in existence early on the conti- 
 nent — though later than their known appearance 
 in England — are not likely to have sprung from 
 the borrowing of an English idea. No doubt they 
 were indigenous wherever found in mediaeval 
 times; but the origin of a representation of the 
 people in governmental assemblies must have been 
 somewhere within the Teutonic race. [Nor could 
 the principle have been copied from the Greeks 
 whose ancient institutions were unknown to the 
 early Teutons.] It is one of the priceless gifts 
 from that race to mankind; the gift of an invention 
 which answered to profounder needs of humanity 
 than any ever fashioned out of pistons and wheels. 
 That the English people became the special keepers 
 and perfecters of this great gift is accounted for 
 sufficiently, as I have said, by the circumstances 
 of their history, and cannot with reason be ascribed 
 
 *Cf. Haskins, The Normans in European History, p. 102, 
 for similar opinion. — Ed.
 
 46 English Leadership 
 
 to anything of character or genius that was pe- 
 culiar to themselves. It was the English, rather 
 than any of their kinsmen, who kept the sap of 
 democratic life in the whole primitive Teutonic 
 polity, because in Britain it was protected in a de- 
 gree from some of the destructive influences which 
 on the Continent had withered it, root and branch. 
 The tribes of the English conquest had experi- 
 enced no foreign disturbance of that primitive 
 polity before they went to Britain, and they sub- 
 mitted to no such disturbance of It there. No in- 
 fluence from the imperialized civilization of Rome 
 had ever touched them in their far-northern home 
 on the Continent, and whatever in Roman Britain 
 might have exercised such an influence upon them 
 was destroyed by their ruthless swords. In their 
 own social fabric they had the germ of a civiliza- 
 tion better than the Roman, but it was only in the 
 germ. They were barbaric, predatory, unsparingly 
 destructive in the warfare they waged. So far 
 as they subjugated and occupied the Romanized 
 island of Britain, they seem to have reduced it, 
 as nearly as might be, to the condition of the 
 country they had left. Its Romano-British popu- 
 lation was mostly driven out after stubborn re- 
 sistance, taking refuge in Brittany across the Chan- 
 nel, or in the mountains and moors of Scotland,
 
 English Leadings 47 
 
 Cornwall and Wales. The Roman cities were 
 destroyed or abandoned to decay. In their tribal- 
 minded ignorance and egotism, the conquerors 
 found little use for anything in the arts or ideals 
 or modes and manners of life that the Romans 
 had left behind. Since Christianity meant nothing 
 to them but an insulting hostility to the gods of 
 their own mythology, they trampled it out. Sub- 
 stantially, we may say, on taking possession of 
 their British dwelling place, they cleared it of its 
 former furnishings, scrubbed out all removable 
 traces of the tenants they had evicted, and settled 
 themselves to reproduce and continue, as identi- 
 cally as they could, the life they had lived in the 
 Danish peninsula and on the Elbe. 
 
 In the continental provinces of Rome the Teu- 
 tonic conquest was attended by no such sweeping 
 expulsion of former inhabitants and destruction of 
 Roman institutions and Roman work, — for this 
 reason: The invasions on the Continent were, 
 most of them, a gradual and peaceful occupation 
 of the soil by large numbers, for the most part 
 unresisted, consequently not provocative of a 
 savage temper in the invaders. ["There was no 
 sharp line^ of demarcation between the hetero- 
 
 * Cf. Robinson's essay, "The Fall of Rome," in his The New 
 History, pp. 175-194. — Ed.
 
 48 English Leadership 
 
 geneous inhabitants of the Roman Empire and the 
 Germans, or even the Huns. . . . They mingled 
 with the Roman citizens in the same manner that 
 ahens mingle to-day with our people, anxious to 
 be reckoned American citizens as speedily as pos- 
 sible. There was no lining up of Roman against 
 barbarian; the barbarian gladly fought for the 
 Roman against his own people and exhibited very 
 few traces of national feeling."] The attack upon 
 Britain was made by comparatively small inde- 
 pendent bands who won their several footings in 
 the land by sudden swift strokes, born of despera- 
 tion and fiercely resisted; such a conquest was sure 
 to be destructive in its methods and results. In 
 Gaul and Italy, again, and largely in Spain, the 
 conquest was accomplished or controlled in the 
 end by half-nationalized combinations of tribes 
 which had been near neighbors of the decaying 
 empire, or admitted to actual settlement within its 
 borders, for a century and more. Sometimes at 
 war with the provincial Romans and sometimes 
 employed to defend them, these Germans of the 
 Rhine and Danube frontier had been, for a num- 
 ber of generations, so much in contact with the 
 people whom they finally subjugated, and with the 
 arts and refinements of Roman life, that they had 
 acquired a certain measure of respect for both.
 
 English Leadings 49 
 
 The antagonizing strangeness of things and people 
 which provoked the Saxon and Angle invaders of 
 Britain could not have been felt by the Franks 
 and Goths. The latter were even professed 
 Christians before they entered the empire, and 
 the Franks became so while their Gallic kingdom 
 was in the making. 
 
 The differing influences which came from these 
 differing circumstances of the conquest produced a 
 wide divergence, necessarily, in social results. The 
 Franks, for example, were settled in the midst 
 of a people who must have outnumbered them con- 
 siderably, and whose superiority to themselves in 
 much useful and desirable knowledge they could 
 not ignore. By force of arms they had made 
 themselves the masters of these people, and had 
 reduced them, as a body, no doubt, to dependence 
 or servitude; but their subjects and servants be- 
 came their teachers, nevertheless, and influenced 
 them as teachers can. They underwent an im- 
 perializing education, which the English invaders 
 of Britain missed, and this circumstance prepared 
 the Teutons on the Continent for an easy abandon- 
 ment of the democratic birthrights of their race. 
 
 As I have said, the changes of social organiza- 
 tion, which occurred naturally in all the new settle-
 
 50 English Leadership 
 
 merits of the migrating tribes, tended everywhere 
 toward the creation of a dominant landlord class 
 and the consequent depression of the general body 
 of the people. This went with the rise of mon- 
 archy and the parceling of the conquered lands. 
 The same prestige and ascendency which raised 
 the leaders of the conquest to thrones gave them 
 also authority in the division of the territorial 
 spoil. The important warriors of each king's fol- 
 lowing would secure the lion's share; and, accord- 
 ing to the potency of his kingship, the king would 
 improve the opportunity for binding his chief fol- 
 lowers to himself, by attaching to his grants of 
 land obligations of homage and of service. They, 
 in their turn, might distribute favors in a subdi- 
 vision of these royal grants on similar terms. Ap- 
 parently it was thus that the mediaeval system of 
 land-tenure called feudal, with its tie of vassalage, 
 had its beginning; and it grew to perfection first 
 among the Franks, because the primitive Teutonic 
 instincts which resisted it democratically were, 
 without doubt, soonest lost among the Franks. 
 Originally a land-system, it developed a most mis- 
 chievous political system, planting a territorial 
 aristocracy whose growth in power very soon be- 
 came destructive alike to royal authority and to 
 popular freedom. Beginning as a system of tenure
 
 English Leadings SI 
 
 which affected only large portions of the new king- 
 doms, it brought a pressure of lordly power to 
 bear against all other land-owning, until little of 
 independent ownership remained. What there 
 was of protective and commanding power in the 
 turbulent society of the time was gathered rapidly 
 into the hands of the territorial lords, and vas- 
 salage became the price of the shelter it could 
 give and the grace it could accord. The lesser 
 landowners were driven, one by one, to surrender 
 their independent titles and become tenants and 
 vassals of powerful men, or of strong religious 
 bodies, which also acquired an important place in 
 the feudal scheme. 
 
 There appears to have been more or less work- 
 ing of these processes in all the regions of the 
 Teutonic conquest; but nowhere else to the per- 
 fection of feudalism that was realized by the 
 Franks. From their domination, more than from 
 local growths, came its ultimate prevalence in 
 Western Europe. By subjugation of the German 
 fatherland they carried it even there, imposing 
 it upon the Saxons of the continent while the 
 Saxons of England were still holding its growth 
 in check. 
 
 So far, a quite plain force of circumstances had 
 half saved the English from the feudalizing drift
 
 52 English Leadership 
 
 of the time. Centuries of contention for suprem- 
 acy between the small kingdoms which Jutes, 
 Saxons and Angles had seated separately in the 
 island afforded little gain of prestige to royalty 
 and not much growth of dependent lordships; but 
 quickly after the ending of those conditions they 
 were almost reversed. The West Saxon Egbert 
 and his successors, in the sovereignty of all Eng- 
 land, were raised to less importance in their po- 
 litical capacity than as the war-chiefs of a nation 
 that was fighting for its life. Early in the line of 
 these nationalized chieftains and kings came Al- 
 fred, the noblest of all crowned men in heroic 
 and kingly character. As a warrior he glorified 
 the crown he wore; as a Christian he sanctified 
 it; as a tireless toiler for the well-being and im- 
 provement of his people, he centered their affec- 
 tion upon it. Kingship, after Alfred had repre- 
 sented it, must have commanded new and larger 
 forces of influence in England, but they worked 
 in social developments that were far from wholly 
 good. 
 
 In the period which followed, the English were 
 carried more obviously than before in the feudal 
 direction. They were being carried toward much 
 the same results, but more slowly and by a some- 
 what different way. The relations of dependence
 
 English Leadings 53 
 
 among them were not exactly those which the 
 Franks had developed; the true vassalage of 
 Prankish feudalism may not have been introduced; 
 but their lesser landowners were becoming depend- 
 ent tenants of the greater ones, and landless men 
 who would have been freemen in the olden time 
 were becoming serfs. As yet, the folkmoot of 
 the townships and the representative moots of the 
 hundred and the shire lived on, keeping something 
 of their old function and force; but by the middle 
 of the eleventh century they seem to have been 
 reduced to a feeble state. If nothing had inter- 
 vened to interrupt and alter the processes that 
 were operating then, one cannot see why the evo- 
 lution of society in England, during the next half- 
 dozen centuries, should have differed essentially 
 from that of France. • 
 
 But there was an intervention of good fortune, 
 which came calamitously disguised. There seems 
 to be no doubting that the English were saved by 
 their national overthrow in the Norman conquest, 
 from a complete decay and extinction of those old 
 local folk-organisms which were the ultimate seat 
 of life for all that grew up in their government 
 of constitutional freedom and popular power. 
 This could not have been the result if the Norman 
 Duke William had been a conqueror of the com-
 
 54 English Leadership 
 
 mon sort, fashioning his stolen kingdom with noth- 
 ing of skill beyond the carving of the sword. Hap- 
 pily for England and for the world, he was a 
 statesman in brain, as well as an autocrat in will 
 and a soldier of daring and adventurous heart. 
 His ambitions were all selfish, but his selfishness 
 was shrewd, forethoughtful, profoundly wise. He 
 saw that the firm seating of himself on the throne 
 he had taken from the Saxon Harold depended 
 more on the future disposition of the English than 
 on the fealty and valor of his Norman support. 
 He saw that he must not lean on the latter, if 
 he would be a king in fact as well as in name. The 
 Norman barons who had followed him to England 
 with their retainers, and fought for him at Senlac, 
 were as keen in self-seeking amT)itions as himself. 
 "The greatest secular figure ^ in the Europe of his 
 day, he is also one of the greatest in the line of 
 English sovereigns, whether we judge him by 
 capacity for rule or by the results of his reign, and 
 none has had a more profound effect on the whole 
 current of English history."] The conquest of 
 England was a speculative undertaking on the part 
 of all who had to do with it, and the sharing of 
 
 * Cf. Haskins, The Normans in European History, pp. 11-15, 
 53. Cf. also E. A. Freeman, History of the Norman Conquest 
 (third edition), Vol. II, pp. 164-67. — Ed.
 
 English Leadings 55 
 
 profits and prizes was sure to be a matter of 
 jealous dispute. It would be necessarily a shar- 
 ing in the feudal mode. Neither William nor his 
 followers are likely to have been able to conceive 
 the possibility of anything else. At least, nothing 
 else can have been practicable in the situation with 
 which the Conqueror had to deal. 
 
 But, to feudalize England in the completeness 
 of the system which the Northmen of Normandy 
 had taken over from the Franks would be to give 
 the Conqueror a merely titular kingship, as empty 
 of real regality as that of the Capetians who wore 
 crowns at Paris in that day. Nobody could under- 
 stand this fact better than he. He had had ex- 
 perience in his feudal dukedom quite sufficient for 
 the instruction of a political mind like his. He 
 had fought down his turbulent feudatories there 
 and brought them to a respectful submissiveness; 
 but how could he plant the same baronage in a 
 conquered country, over a subjugated population, 
 duplicating its wealth and power, and still rule it, 
 on the feudal footing, as he meant to do? That 
 was the hard problem that he undertook to solve; 
 and he solved it, as few men could have done. To 
 his keen practical sense two things were clear: ( i ) 
 that the feudalism to be organized in England 
 must have as much as possible of the rebellious
 
 56 English Leadership 
 
 aptitudes and opportunities of its French constitu- 
 tion taken out of it; and (2) that the common 
 people of England must be reconciled to his pos- 
 session of the crown of their kingdom, so far as 
 to stand with him and his house, against the Nor- 
 man lords he should put over them, on issues that 
 were likely to arise between the latter and himself. 
 His rare soundness of judgment and resolute en- 
 ergy accomplished both. On one hand he pruned 
 down the feudalism that he laid on his new sub- 
 jects; on the other hand he kept life in their local 
 institutions and in their customary laws, which 
 meant to them infinitely more than anything re- 
 mote In the government of the land at large. 
 
 The feudal system that King William construct- 
 ed in England was a piece of political architecture 
 very different from that of the Carolingian realms. 
 Great fiefs and territorial jurisdictions which 
 crippled royal authority were in William's system 
 few and far between. Large estates were, in gen- 
 eral, a patchwork of pieces, scattered widely apart. 
 The functions and Importance of the judicial and 
 administrative oflicers of the crown were syste- 
 matically magnified in the whole organization of 
 government. Finally, all the landowners of sub- 
 stance in England, whosesover vassals they were, 
 were summoned before the king, to become "his
 
 English Leadings 57 
 
 men," swearing "oaths of allegiance that they 
 would be faithful to him against all others." Thus 
 the conqueror leveled up and leveled down the 
 whole gradation of feudal fealty, putting his sub- 
 jects, great and small, whatever their secondary 
 vassalage might be, on one plane of primary com- 
 mon vassalage and allegiance to himself. Thus 
 he defeudalized his regal office. Thus he prepared 
 the conditions for a more nationalized kingship 
 than any other people in western Europe would 
 know for centuries to come. 
 
 At the same time, his measures on the other line 
 of policy established him and his successors in 
 perfect legitimacy on the English throne. He 
 claimed it, not by right of conquest, but by legal 
 right. King Edward the Confessor, he averred, 
 had promised the succession to him, and Harold, 
 while Earl of Wessex, had sworn fealty to him 
 as Edward's heir. These pretensions had no 
 legality, but they had great popular effect; and 
 William shaped all his proceedings to consistency 
 with them. He secured a formal election to the 
 throne by what might pass for a witenagemot, 
 and a solemn coronation at Westminster by the 
 English Archbishop of York. In return William 
 swore to "hold fast to right law"; what is known 
 of the legislation and jurisprudence of his reign
 
 58 English Leadership 
 
 seems to show that he meant the old English law, 
 and that, in letter if not in spirit, his oath was 
 fairly kept. His son Henry, by a charter which 
 became the basis of the Magna Carta of the next 
 century, confirmed or reenacted the laws of 
 Edward the Confessor; and it is certain that the 
 Norman conquest caused very little change in the 
 substance of English law, though its administration 
 was greatly altered and improved. 
 
 No doubt the "right law" to which the Con- 
 queror had sworn to hold fast was painfully 
 strained by those cruel proceedings which trans- 
 ferred the great English estates from native to 
 Norman hands; but the whole spoliation was ac- 
 complished with a scrupulous respect for legal 
 forms. The rightful king, it was claimed, coming 
 to crown, had found himself resisted, and the 
 penalties of treason had been incurred by all who 
 failed to uphold his right. This was the theory 
 which gave its plausible warrant to what Pro- 
 fessor Freeman has described as "a system of legal 
 confiscations and legal grants, harsh no doubt and 
 unrighteous, but still carried out strictly according 
 to the letter of the law," whereby a "legal and 
 orderly transfer of lands and offices from natives 
 to strangers went on, step by step, during the whole 
 of William's reign." At the same time, many of
 
 English Leadings 59 
 
 the native English were permitted to redeem their 
 lands from forfeiture, or to receive them as a gra- 
 cious new grant from the king, and so became 
 tenants-in-chief of the crown. Very soon, if not 
 immediately, all tenants-in-chief, — holders of land, 
 that is, from no intermediate lord, but directly 
 from the king, — acquired a political status which 
 proved to be of extraordinary importance in the 
 constitutional development of the kingdom, as we 
 shall see later on. 
 
 Within a decade after his landing in England 
 the Conqueror had convinced the greater body of 
 the English people that they served their interests 
 best by upholding the royal authority which he 
 had established, against the baronage that desired 
 to break it down. "All the troubles of the king- 
 dom after A.D. 1075," says Bishop Stubbs, "pro- 
 ceeded from the insubordination of the Normans, 
 not from attempts of the English to dethrone the 
 king." It was by English support that his sons, 
 both William Rufus and Henry I, won and held 
 the crown, against their elder brother, Robert, 
 whom the Normans in England preferred. Be- 
 fore the death of Henry, the identification of the 
 English nation with its Norman royal dynasty was 
 complete, and the people were more unified in 
 national feeling than ever before. The vigorous,
 
 6o English Leadership 
 
 hard, ably selfish government of the first William 
 and the first Henry, oppressive though it was in 
 many ways, had been a tonic, a reviving stimulant, 
 to the English spirit. The very foreignness of its 
 central administration must have endeared the old 
 native institutions of local government anew in 
 English thought and feeling; must have reanimated 
 the participation of the people in the moots or 
 courts of the hundred and the shire, and reawak- 
 ened something of the democratic instincts of the 
 elder time. How else can we account for the rapid 
 and unique development in England of a represen- 
 tation for the people beyond those moots, and in 
 all public action, both great and small, which began 
 within less than a century after the Normans came 
 in? Certainly there is no sign of progress to that 
 end in the pre-Norman period. Nothing then 
 shows a promise of growth from the ancient roots 
 of the representative system, that would carry it 
 from the shire-moot to the witenagemot, and make 
 it dominant in the political constitution of the 
 realm. On the contrary, everything known of the 
 conditions existing before William of Normandy 
 took the kingdom in hand is indicative, as I have 
 said, of social processes that were working the 
 destruction of popular rights, more slowly, but just 
 as surely as the pure feudalism of the Franks.
 
 English Leadings 6i 
 
 The statesmanship of the Conqueror put a check 
 on these processes, — by his effective emasculation 
 of the feudal system which he himself introduced; 
 by his preservation and encouragement of the na- 
 tive local institutions of the kingdom; and by the 
 consequent reanimation of English political life. 
 
 But that was not all that William accomplished. 
 He brought to the English a new popular institu- 
 tion, which appears to have borne for their benefit 
 fruits which it never yielded elsewhere. This was 
 the proceeding of "inquest," thought to be trace- 
 able to Prankish origins. ^ When royal rights 
 were in question or royal interests concerned, the 
 Carolingian kings commissioned a certain number 
 of men to ascertain and declare the facts involved. 
 In France nothing came from this procedure of 
 inquest; it exercised a royal privilege and died out. 
 But in England it became the germ of the whole 
 system of inquisition and trial by jury. Continuing 
 the work of his Norman predecessors, Henry II 
 gave to English law a dignity, a force and a su- 
 premacy which it never lost, and seated it in courts 
 which have been models for the judicature of all 
 the world. Nor was this the sole significance of 
 
 * Supported by Haskins, "The Normans in History," pp. 109- 
 iio, and by Pollock and Maitland, "History of English Law," 
 Vol. I, p. 142. — Ed.
 
 62 English Leadership 
 
 the introduction of inquest. For the selection of 
 juries at the county courts prepared opinion and 
 made ready the procedure for political elections, 
 at the same place, to represent the minor land- 
 owners in the great council which became the Par- 
 liament of England. ["A bulwark^ of individual 
 liberty, the jury also holds an important place in 
 the establishment of representative government, 
 for it was through representative juries that the 
 voice of the countryside first asserted itself in the 
 local courts, for the assessment of taxes as well 
 as for the decision of cases, and it was in negotia- 
 tions of royal officers with the local juries that 
 we can trace the beginnings of the House of 
 Commons."] Why the simple institution that 
 withered and perished on one side of the Channel 
 became so magnificently fruitful on the other is 
 easy to understand. It was in harmony with the 
 popular constitution and spirit of the English local 
 courts; it fitted naturally into the ancient English 
 system, reenforcing it and being reenforced, while 
 in France nothing that could cooperate with it had 
 survived. ["But for the conquest- of England, it 
 
 *Cf. Haskins, "The Normans in European History," p. 113. 
 —Ed. 
 
 *Cf. Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law, Vol. I, 
 p. 141. — Ed.
 
 English Leadings 63 
 
 would have perished and long ago have become 
 a matter for the antiquary."] 
 
 What England owed to the Conqueror's emas- 
 culation of her feudal system became apparent 
 when Henry I died. The accession then of a weak, 
 king, whose right was disputed by a woman and 
 a child, let loose the inhering anarchy of the 
 system. This anarchy ran riot for nineteen years, 
 a period during which the system was given op- 
 portunity to exhibit the rapid spending of its mis- 
 chievous power. For a little time it afflicted the 
 country with deplorable ruin and suffering; but in 
 the end it had numbered its own days. Its strength 
 and spirit were broken by the strong master, 
 Henry II, who came next to the crown, and the 
 aristocracy of England was never again really 
 feudalistic in constitution or in disposition. It 
 never swaggered in the kingdom; never bullied 
 crown and commons with equal insolence, as the 
 feudal nobility of the Continent was to do for 
 several centuries to come. On the contrary, the 
 English system, in order to secure joint action in 
 withstanding the aggressive growth of royal 
 power, was constrained to seek respectful alliance 
 with the plain people; and that is one of the great- 
 est of the saving events in the English evolution 
 of government by the governed. The political
 
 64 English Leadership 
 
 union of lords and commons, in movements to 
 maintain the rights of each and both, and to define 
 the sovereignty of the crown, could have hap- 
 pened nowhere else in the world, either then, in 
 the thirteenth century, or at any later period with- 
 in the mediaeval range of time. For no other 
 monarchy in western Europe had overawed its 
 nobility, and no monarchy in the east was less than 
 absolute and despotic already; furthermore, no 
 country but England had yet, or would have for 
 ages, a rising commonalty of third estate, acquir- 
 ing any measure of political ability or weight, 
 outside of its thriving commercial and industrial 
 towns. The municipal liberations which began so 
 early in the city-republics of northern Italy and 
 the chartered towns of Spain, France, Germany 
 and the Netherlands, were not accompanied by any 
 coherent development of a rural third estate, like 
 that diffused through the counties of England, 
 where it embodied far more of the forces that were 
 working for a fully representative and constitu- 
 tional government than ever came into action from 
 the towns. 
 
 It was there, in the population of the broad 
 agricultural country, outside of city walls and apart 
 from merchant or trade-gilds, that a body of minor 
 landowners had grown up, near enough in social
 
 English Leadings 65 
 
 status to the nobility, important enough in weight 
 of property, considerable enough in numbers, and 
 trained to enough activity in local politics, to com- 
 mand some respect from the baronial order and 
 to have a recognizable footing in the body politic 
 of the kingdom. In these minor landowners lay the 
 substantial and efficient political strength of the 
 English commonalty, from the beginning of its 
 acquisition of influence in national affairs, con- 
 tinuously down to times that are within the mem- 
 ory of living men. They who came to be the 
 gentry and yeomanry of the counties were the first 
 to win representation in the national council; were 
 always in the lead of the burgesses of the towns; 
 were always foremost In those popular movements 
 that won success ; were always the unifying element 
 that gave solidarity, weight and strength to the 
 general mass; and this unifying element had exist- 
 ence nowhere else. 
 
 Without doubt this peculiar and most important 
 feature of English mediaeval society had its begin- 
 nings in Anglo-Saxon times; but it owed the vigor 
 of its development in part to the Norman Con- 
 queror's skillful hedging of feudalism and still 
 more to the casual and probably unforeseen effects 
 of the change he made in the constitution of the 
 great national council or court. That which had
 
 66 English Leadership 
 
 been a witenagemot, — the king's selection of politi- 
 cally wise men as found in the higher offices of state 
 and church, — became, after the Conquest, an as- 
 sembly of the tenants-in-chief of the crown, rough- 
 ly representative of the nation through its most 
 representative class. ^ By the time of Henry II, 
 if not before, it had come to be the recognized 
 right of every tenant-in-chief to attend the meet- 
 ings of the national council. The political status 
 thus given must have gone to many landowners 
 of comparatively small estate, thereby broadening 
 immensely the social basis of that accretion of 
 popular influence in public affairs which began in 
 these times. 
 
 And this was only half of the result that fol- 
 lowed the Conqueror's reconstitution of the great 
 council of the realm. Both lords and commons 
 were touched in another way, with extraordinary 
 effect. Though every tenant-in-chief had the right 
 to attend the meetings of the national council, the 
 greater barons, nevertheless, were honored in the 
 royal summons to such meetings by a distinguish- 
 ing form. The summons went to each of that rank 
 in personal letters from the king; whereas the 
 remaining body of tenants-in-chief received it as 
 a general proclamation, delivered through the 
 
 'Cf. Ogg, Governments of Europe, p. 7, for another view. — Ed.
 
 English Leadings 67 
 
 sheriff in each county or shire. It is not conceiv- 
 able that this courteous distinction was made at 
 the beginning with any political intent; but the 
 consequences were great and strange. Those who 
 received the personal summons came thereby to 
 be marked off by a very distinct line from those 
 who did not. They were marked, in the course 
 of time, as forming what we may call an official 
 order of nobles, — a body of "hereditary counsel- 
 ors of the Crown"; who acquired no nobility of 
 blood, and whose descendants did not form a noble 
 caste. ^ This nobility of a parliamentary office, 
 the peculiar nobility of the English "peerage," 
 descended consequently to one inheritor of each 
 generation in one main line of each baronial fam- 
 ily, and the branching families of younger sons 
 were thrown off from the stem of peerage-nobility, 
 to become mixed with the lesser landlord class, — 
 with the knights and gentlemen of English society, 
 — ^and to be reckoned with them as part of the 
 commons or third estate. This rescue of England 
 from the growth of a mean and mischievous 
 swarm of petty nobles, by the political merging of 
 its minor aristocracy in the mass of the commons, 
 
 ^ Cf. Freeman, The House of Lords and Other Upper Houses, 
 pp. I, 7, 13. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, Chap. 
 13, Sec. 159. — Author.
 
 68 English Leadership 
 
 resulting as it did from a mere procedure of court 
 etiquette which had no such intent, is one of the 
 many singular favors of circumstance with which 
 the political history of the English people is filled. 
 
 In the third estate of Continental countries 
 there was nothing, which related and tied them to 
 the aristocracy, unifying all that could act from 
 the people at large with political weight and force. 
 The localized, bourgeois third estate of the French 
 towns or commons, for example, acted on by no 
 mediating social influence, could not be organized 
 into a national oneness of interest and action, as 
 the English commons were. So long as the French 
 monarchy was weak and the feudal aristocracy 
 strong, the communes were natural partisans of 
 the crown, and gave it such help as they could in 
 the long struggle which made royalty supreme. 
 Ultimately they were placed at the mercy of the 
 triumphant kings, and lords and people sank to- 
 gether at the royal feet. Thus circumstances in 
 France forced the commons to an alliance which 
 brought despotism upon them, just as plainly as 
 other circumstances in England led the commons 
 to an alliance which had among its results a future 
 of political freedom. 
 
 By favor of circumstances, then, lords and com- 
 mons in England were brought to an effective
 
 English Leadings 69 
 
 union for checking the growth of royal power, and 
 by continued favor of circumstances their union 
 in that effort was crowned with success. No 
 other European monarch of his day held the power 
 which Henry II gathered into his hands. While 
 sovereign of England, more substantially than any 
 king before him, he was the feudal lord, likewise, ' 
 of half of France. As the King of England, Duke 
 of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Count of Anjou, 
 Count of Maine, Count of Poitou and Count of 
 Touraine, with claims to the lordship of Brittany 
 and Toulouse, he rivaled in rank and prestige, and 
 even exceeded in actual power, the emperor of the 
 Holy Roman Empire. Naturally his eminence as 
 a Continental prince contributed to the support of 
 his authority in England; but he happened to be 
 one of the few monarchs who magnify the powers 
 of their regal office by the strength in themselves. 
 Its domination in his hands was for good; he used 
 it, as has already been said, to establish order and 
 peace through the benignant operation of justice. 
 But there was danger in the dominance he had 
 given the crown. Had his sons, who succeeded 
 him, been as able as they were willing to be despots, 
 the ensuing combination of classes in the nation, 
 to limit and define the royal power, might have 
 had less success. But Richard Coeur de Lion
 
 70 English Leadership 
 
 was too hot-headed, and John too mean to be for- 
 midable in the encounter with a well-developed 
 will. Richard, an absentee king during all but 
 seven months of the ten years of his reign, atten- 
 tive to nothing in England but the extortion of 
 money for his crusading adventures and his wars 
 in France, prepared a feeling in the kingdom that 
 was easily worked into revolt by the baseness and 
 malignity of John. "Our evil king came at the 
 moment when an evil king was needed," says 
 Freeman; and that is a simple statement of fact. 
 Coming when he did. King John is to be counted 
 among the most notable of the many gifts of good 
 fortune to the English people. Everything in his 
 character and every circumstance of his reign, — 
 his forfeiture and final loss of Normandy, Anjou, 
 Maine and Touraine, [Brittany, Poitou and other 
 minor provinces], the suspicion of his murder of 
 Prince Arthur, his quarrel with the Church, the 
 defeat of his Continental allies at Bouvines, his 
 many notorious cruelties and crimes, — all com- 
 bined to unite his subjects against him and to strip 
 him of the power to resist their demands. To 
 these demands, voiced by a united people, the 
 King was forced to accede at Runnymede on June 
 15, 1215; the Great Charter signed on that mem- 
 orable day is a document which underlies in its
 
 English Leadings 71 
 
 principles and in its influence all that has been 
 most successful from that day to this in the en- 
 franchisement of the peoples of the world. ["The 
 Great Charter is the first great public act of the 
 nation, after it has realized its own identity.^ . . . 
 The whole of the constitutional history of Eng- 
 land is little more than a commentary on Magna 
 Carta." "Although it is not the foundation of 
 English liberty, it is the first, the clearest, the 
 most united, and historically the most important 
 of all the great enunciations of it." ^] 
 
 That the English won the Great Charter when 
 they did, — due largely though it was to a chain 
 of circumstances singularly favoring, — entitles 
 them to distinction as world-leaders in political 
 development; that they preserved it as they did 
 is their yet stronger claim to the grateful admira- 
 tion of the world. [In this connection it is inter- 
 esting to note the words of President Wilson 
 spoken at Mount Vernon on July 4, 191 8 : "From 
 this green hillside ^ we also ought to be able to 
 see with comprehending eyes the world that lies 
 around us and conceive anew the purpose that 
 must set men free. It is significant — significant 
 
 * Cf. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, Chap. XII, 
 sec. 155. — ^Ed. 
 
 'Cf. Stubbs, The Early Plantagenets, p. 158.— Ed. 
 "Quoted from the Ne'W York Times of July 5, 1918.— Ed.
 
 72 English Leadership 
 
 of their own character and purpose and of the in- 
 fluence they were setting afoot — that Washing- 
 ton and his associates, like the barons at Runny- 
 mede, spoke and acted, not for a single people 
 only, but for all mankind."] Throughout the next 
 two centuries they were seldom neglectful of any 
 opportunity to secure confirmation of the Charter 
 from successive kings, from many of them repeat- 
 edly, by attaching that condition to their fiscal 
 grants; thus before the end of the Middle Ages 
 it stood confirmed no less than thirty-eight times. * 
 Political principles evolved in England during this 
 period were the outcome of a constitutional free- 
 dom and a sense of popular right far in advance 
 of any national attainment in other parts of the 
 world. On the Continent, two-thirds of a cen- 
 tury later than Magna Carta, the cities of Ara- 
 gon, already represented in the Cortes of that 
 small kingdom, obtained their "Great Privilege," 
 which went even beyond Magna Carta in its af- 
 firmation of popular rights; but there was no 
 broadly nationalized, land-owning third estate to 
 support the burghers of the free towns; and this 
 exposed them in the end to an easy suppression 
 
 *This statement of Mr. Larned's is evidently based upon 
 Gneist, "History of the English Constitution," Vol. I, p. 311. 
 —Ed.
 
 English Leadings 73 
 
 of their political rights. Italy had produced its 
 city-republics, where premature and untrained de- 
 mocracy ran to factions which were already breed- 
 ing the despots of the following age. The free 
 German cities were rising to an independence 
 which helped to keep up the feudal repression of 
 nationality, and added still more to the political 
 confusions of Europe by concentrating on mere 
 objects of trade a powerful civic spirit and a rare 
 organizing capacity which in English towns had 
 been directed toward national unity. The com- 
 munes of France were struggling with their seig- 
 niorial neighbors and lending a hand to the up- 
 building of a monarchy whose absolutism would 
 ultimately crush them. The industrial towns of 
 Flanders were being intoxicated with riches, mak- 
 ing much display of a turbulent free spirit, but 
 planting nothing that would ripen fruits of free- 
 dom in time to come. Alone, of all peoples, the 
 English had attained a degree of social unity 
 without which no lasting political progress was 
 ever possible, and were enabled thereby to estab- 
 lish the government of their nation on a constitu- 
 tional basis, substantially fixed and importantly 
 defined. 
 
 Magna Carta was not a political constitution 
 according to the conception of the present day;
 
 74 English Leadership 
 
 nor was It a grant of liberties from king to sub- 
 jects. The texture of it came, with little color- 
 ing, from the polity of the Old-English, pre-Nor- 
 man time, for, while professedly and substantially 
 it was a confirmation of the charter of Henry I, 
 that in turn had been a confirmation and reenact- 
 ment of the laws of Edward the Confessor. In 
 Henry's charter there was only the voice of a 
 king who made promises to his subjects. In 
 Magna Carta, on the contrary, there was the stern 
 voice of a nation exacting the fulfillment of those 
 promises from all its kings. This is the distinc- 
 tion which has made Magna Carta fundamental 
 in the history of constitutional government. 
 
 Although not in its terms a political constitu- 
 tion, the Great Charter did, nevertheless, in its 
 effects, alter the nature of the national council. 
 In providing for the summoning of "archbishops, 
 bishops, earls, and greater barons," and of "all 
 tenants in capite," to meetings of the "Common 
 Council of the Nation," it declares that "the con- 
 sent of those present on the appointed day shall 
 bind those who, though summoned, shall not have 
 attended." This principle led inevitably to the 
 choosing of deputies for a representative attend- 
 ance by those who stayed at home; and it would 
 hardly be practicable to confine such an act of
 
 English Leadings 75 
 
 election to the king's tenants-In-chlef. For, as 
 Freeman says, "There can be no doubt that the 
 king's tenants-in-chief were a much larger body, 
 and took in men of much smaller estates, than 
 we might at first sight be inclined to think; still 
 they did not take in the whole body of freemen, 
 not even the whole body of men holding land by 
 free tenure. But, as soon as the election of defi- 
 nite representatives was fully established, since 
 those representatives could be chosen nowhere 
 but in the ancient county court, every freeholder, 
 at least, if not every freeman, won back his 
 right." 1 
 
 To maintain the Great Charter of the English 
 people, until time should give it the force of es- 
 tablished law, required as much unity and energy 
 of public spirit as had gone to the winning of it, 
 — required, in its turn, favoring circumstances 
 quite as much as before. Again a source of such 
 servlceableness to the upbuilding of constitutional 
 government was found in the character of John's 
 successor, Henry III, whose folly and personal 
 weakness made It possible to strip from him even 
 the unquestioned prerogatives of the crown he 
 wore. There were, however, thirty years of sorry 
 
 'Quoted from Freeman, History of the Norman Conquest, 
 Vol. V, p. 4/7-— Ed,
 
 76 English Leadership 
 
 submissiveness in the nation to plunder and mis- 
 government at the hands of a swarm of foreign 
 favorites of the king, while a powerful papal 
 court was permitted to practice such extortions 
 as the kingdom had never experienced before. 
 Suffering under these Intolerable conditions, the 
 nation waited only for a fit leader to organize Its 
 discontent. The man who proved equal to the 
 needs of the time was Simon de Montfort, a noble 
 of French birth, but with English blood in his 
 veins, and thoroughly in sympathy with the na- 
 tional feeling against king and court. On his pro- 
 posal the national council, — beginning now to be 
 called a "parliament," — summoned by the extrav- 
 agant king in 1258 to vote supplies, proceeded In- 
 stead boldly to take from the king's control many 
 functions of executive government. The first re- 
 sult was an organization of baronial power fully 
 as dangerous as royal absolutism; but Earl Simon, 
 nobly faithful to the popular polity of his adopted 
 country, took the lead In resistance to the feudal 
 uprising which resulted. 
 
 After Montfort's victory at Lewes which made 
 him, for a time, master of the situation, his clear 
 comprehension of the logical drift of political 
 conditions In England became evident. When he 
 dictated the call of a parliament to deal with the
 
 English Leadings 77 
 
 new state of affairs, he caused writs to be sent 
 out which required the election of four representa- 
 tive knights from each shire. When that parlia- 
 ment had subjected the king to control by a coun- 
 cil in which Earl Simon was chief, he caused an- 
 other to be assembled in the following year 
 (1265) by a summons which brought two repre- 
 sentatives from each city and borough, as well as 
 two from each shire. Thus was established by a 
 great earl a signal precedent for the representa- 
 tion of the English commons, first on the side of 
 the land-owning gentry of the counties, and then 
 on the side of the burghers of the towns. It was 
 a precedent too vital to be set aside by Mont- 
 fort's overthrow and death the following sum- 
 mer; but for the next thirty years the adhesion 
 to it was capricious and imperfect. Then came, 
 in 1295, the fixing of an accepted pattern for the 
 future, by the seating of two representatives from 
 each borough and each shire, in what is known as 
 the "Model Parliament" of Edward I. The 
 agency of that great king in establishing a con- 
 stitutional and representative government for 
 England was completed two years later, when he 
 reissued the Great Charter, restoring the original 
 provision forbidding taxation without parlia- 
 mentary consent, which Henry III, in his shifty
 
 78 English Leadership 
 
 confirmation of it, had been allowed to omit. 
 Thenceforward, this law of taxation, the potent 
 safeguard of liberty and popular rights, might 
 often be violated, but it stood indisputable as a 
 fundamental law of the land. 
 
 [Edward I holds a very prominent place in the 
 growth of English constitutional government, not 
 only as a great constitutional reformer, but also 
 as a great legislator, for his reign was distin- 
 guished by a series of laws which stand in the 
 forefront of English statutes. "Edward's task ^ 
 was to resume what Henry had begun; to preserve 
 what was best, and adapt it to new conditions; 
 to accept at the same time the most beneficial 
 and necessary of the reforms which had been 
 forced on the Crown; and to fuse the old and the 
 new into the structure of the Constitution. Al- 
 though he adapted and supplemented rather than 
 originated, he completed the ground plan of the 
 English government as it exists to-day. Those 
 who came after had only to complete the edifice 
 on the foundations which he had reared. . . . 
 Through the efforts of Edward the common man 
 was placed more securely than ever before under 
 the law of the land as against the feudal lord. 
 
 * Cf. A. L. Cross, History of England and Greater Britain, 
 pp. 167-8. — Ed,
 
 English Leadings 79 
 
 By the close of his reign the three common law 
 courts, the King's Bench, the Common Pleas, and 
 the Exchequer, had taken shape each with its dis- 
 tinct records, and they continued practically un- 
 changed till the close of the nineteenth century. 
 . . . All this and more was brought about largely 
 by a series of laws or statutes so comprehensive 
 and so superior in numbers and importance that 
 the reign of Edward can almost be said to mark 
 the beginning of English legislation."] Thus Eng- 
 land, at the close of the thirteenth century, had 
 become a fully organized constitutional monarchy, 
 with a powerful section of Its common people, — 
 an independent upper-middle class, — represented, 
 with nobles and clergy, in a national legislature, 
 — a legislature which held recognized authority 
 to control, by just constraints of law, not only the 
 actions of their sovereign but even the filling of 
 his purse. 
 
 The nearest approach elsewhere to this politi- 
 cal advancement of the people was In the transient 
 and uncertain representation of towns in the 
 Cortes of Castile and Aragon. A few years later, 
 France made her first experiment in the consulta- 
 tion of deputies from the people by their king, 
 v/hich might have led on to the evolution of a 
 representative legislature, If France had been less
 
 8o English Leadership 
 
 feudalized; but no such results could be hoped 
 for. It was tried in 1302, when Philip IV, quar- 
 reling with the Pope and trying to tax the clergy, 
 summoned deputies from the towns to meet with 
 the barons and prelates, in the hope that he might 
 thus secure the aid of the third estate. A second 
 meeting of the three estates was called in 13 14, 
 and a third forty-one years later, in 1355. From 
 that time until 16 14 occasional assemblies of what 
 came to be known as the States-General ^ were 
 convened, to meet exigencies that arose, but never 
 with any regularity or on any acknowledged prin- 
 ciple that could establish the constitutional exist- 
 ence of the assembly as the law-making body of 
 the government. After 161 4 the States-General 
 was suppressed for one hundred and seventy-five 
 years; it reappeared only to inaugurate the great 
 Revolution, in 1789. [The failure of the third es- 
 tate to secure permanent right of representation 
 is perhaps explained, in large measure, by the 
 great extent of France and the consequent widely 
 
 *In France, during and after the 13th century, the name 
 parliament was applied, not to royal councils or legislative 
 assemblies, but to certain great judicial bodies, in different 
 parts of the kingdom, twelve in all, of which the Parlement 
 of Paris was the superintending head. The king required 
 royal ordinances to be registered by the Parlement of Paris, 
 which sometimes remonstrated against them, and sometimes 
 refused registration, but rarely with success. — Author.
 
 English Leadings 8l 
 
 differing local interests; these encouraged section- 
 alism rather than unity, and thus enabled the 
 crown to play off one faction against another, — 
 a game which resulted in the ultimate subjection 
 of all classes to an overwhelming absolutism.] 
 
 Meanwhile, events in the fourteenth century 
 were productive both in England and on the Con- 
 tinent of an uncommon medley of social and po- 
 litical influences, more or less discordant, but tend- 
 ing on the whole toward the strengthening of 
 forces on the side of the common people. Under 
 them all ran the effects of the atrocious Hundred 
 Years' War opened by the claims of Edward III 
 to the crown of France. 
 
 The English successes in the early campaigns 
 of the war were intoxicating to national vain- 
 glory, making parliament deferential to royal 
 wishes and demands, and careless in the guarding 
 of popular rights. To the lords the war was 
 profitable, in enormous plunder, in personal dis- 
 tinctions and honors, and in gains of importance 
 to their order. Relatively the commons were 
 losers, for a time, from these effects. But geo- 
 graphic advantages, historic accident and time 
 were working in their favor; for, during this war, 
 a great increase in industrial and commercial pros- 
 perity was brought to many English towns through
 
 82 English Leadership 
 
 Edward's alliance with the Flemings and the con- 
 sequent general stimulation of seafaring enter- 
 prise; Flemish weavers and dyers came to Eng- 
 land, introducing improvements of process and 
 skill which enabled the English very soon to man- 
 ufacture cloth for themselves from their large 
 production of wool, hitherto exported in the fleece 
 and imported as cloth. Out of these conditions 
 there grew up an organization of English mer- 
 chants, under the name of Merchant Adventurers, 
 which, entering into competition with the Han- 
 seatic and other trade leagues of the Continent, 
 soon outstripped all its rivals, and laid the founda- 
 tion for that extraordinary commercial career 
 upon which England now entered. [Thus the 
 Hundred Years' War bore fruits for all time in 
 the impetus it gave to English commercial su- 
 premacy. But this is not its ultimate significance; 
 for the local rights granted by Edward III to the 
 rapidly growing towns, in return for their finan- 
 cial support, enabled them to become independent 
 of feudal control, and so laid the foundation for 
 that final overthrow of the feudal aristocracy 
 which was to come a century later in the Wars of 
 the Roses; this overthrow in turn was absolutely 
 necessary before there could be brought about a 
 permanent establishment of that popular constitu-
 
 English Leadings 83 
 
 tlonal government, In whose development the 
 Enghsh have been so continuously leaders,] 
 
 The Hundred Years' War was a strong Im- 
 petus toward the establishment of constitutional 
 government not only through the Increased free- 
 dom which It brought to the great middle class 
 of the English towns, but also through the quick- 
 ening which It undoubtedly gave to a remarkable 
 movement among the great mute lower classes 
 which formed the understratum of English so- 
 ciety, — a movement which brought about nothing 
 less than a social revolution. The political van- 
 tage ground which the English people were to 
 gain before the end of the thirteenth century 
 would not, within the next three hundred years, be 
 reached by any other people in the world. 
 Throughout this period their hold upon that 
 ground would not be sure or unbroken, but they 
 would succeed In keeping so strong a semblance 
 of possession that their rights would never be 
 lost. 
 
 Till near the end of the thirteenth century, the 
 mass of the agricultural laborers of England, as 
 of other countries, had been held In various forms 
 of bondage to the owners of the soil. Their loss 
 of freedom ranged from that of a few actual 
 slaves, who disappeared early, to that of the
 
 84 English Leadership 
 
 villeins, who, In one view, were tenants of the 
 lord they served, since they occupied and culti- 
 vated allotments of ground for their own benefit, 
 and their labor was divided between these and 
 the requirements of their manorial lord, but who, 
 in another view, were serfs, since the terms of 
 tenancy were not a matter of free arrangement 
 and could not be changed without the lord's con- 
 sent. Now, however, at the end of the thirteenth 
 century, the decay of feudal conditions began to 
 relax the rigors of villeinage, which in turn was 
 giving way to systems of hire for labor and of 
 money-rental for land. This great social revolu- 
 tion, far earlier in England than elsewhere, was 
 hastened, at about the middle of the fourteenth 
 century, by the effects of a frightful pestilence 
 called the "Black Death." From one-third to 
 one-half the population of the kingdom Is believed 
 to have been swept away, producing a scarcity of 
 labor which forced landowners to let their lands 
 to tenant-farmers, thus strengthening the middle 
 class, and preparing the way for the enfranchise- 
 ment of the lower classes. 
 
 Out of these social changes, helped, no doubt, 
 by other Influences, came an extraordinary propa- 
 gation of the extreme socialistic and democratic 
 Ideas of John Ball and other priests. Along with
 
 English Leadings 85 
 
 Wycliffe's religious wakening of the age, it first 
 grew into the Lollard movement, which ran its 
 course in the later years of the fourteenth century 
 and after. The underclasses in England were 
 never again stirred to so open and aggressive an 
 assertion of equality among men, till the French 
 Revolution drew some faint echoing from their 
 ranks. The influences which contributed to this 
 movement in the popular mind arose mainly, 
 without doubt, from various causes of disturb- 
 ance in religious belief. Throughout the century 
 the Papacy, in the English mind, was sinking low 
 and lower in authority and respect, because of 
 the national antagonism aroused by the removal 
 of its seat from Rome to Avignon, followed by the 
 election of a series of popes who were believed 
 to be under French control, and then by the forty 
 years of "the Great Schism," during which a suc- 
 cession of rival popes, or popes and antipopes, 
 thundered anathemas and excommunications at 
 one another from Avignon and Rome, dividing 
 the whole Christian Church into hostile camps. 
 [English antagonism to papal authority was still 
 further increased by the interference of the popes 
 in English ecclesiastical appointments, by the in- 
 creasing wealth of the higher clergy, and by the 
 growing idleness and decadence of the monastic
 
 86 English Leadership 
 
 orders,] Consequences of demoralization In the 
 religious orders, among the secular clergy, and 
 more or less throughout the hierarchy of the 
 Church, were very grave. 
 
 In themselves these causes of disturbance to 
 the religious attitude of the English mind might 
 not, directly, touch anything In close relation to 
 social or political ideas; but the loosening of es- 
 tablished habit in some one large arena of thought 
 and feeling, among the minds that are acting on 
 each other in an intimate mass. Is quite sure to 
 spread to other habit-formations In the same 
 minds, opening new views on other sides of exist- 
 ence, — giving escape to other ideas. That this 
 had now happened in England seems plain. Out 
 of the new stir of thought. In one direction, came 
 the wonderfully advanced doctrines of theological 
 and ecclesiastical reform, maintained with incred- 
 ible boldness by Wycllffe, between 1370 and 1382, 
 and made known to the common people by the 
 "poor priests" whom that great precursor of the 
 Protestant Reformation Inspired and trained for 
 this missionary work; In the other direction came 
 the socialistic agitation led by John Ball, with its 
 culmination In the Wat Tyler Insurrection of 
 1 38 1. That much of what went into the English 
 Reformation of nearly two centuries later grew
 
 English Leadings 87 
 
 from Wycliffe's seed-planting, — in his translation 
 of the Bible and in his arguments against the 
 doctrine of transubstantiation, the worship of 
 saints, the use of images, and the "Judaising" of 
 worship by splendors of accessory and elabora- 
 tions of ceremony, — may be surmised, though the 
 growth may not be traced. It can be said with 
 safety, however, that his rightful rank among the 
 chiefs who give glory to the history of the Eng- 
 lish peoples has never been awarded by the com- 
 mon acclaim it should have; for it was he who 
 first attempted to give to the mute millions of the 
 understratum that voice which was, five hundred 
 years later, to make itself heard in the reforms 
 of the nineteenth century. 
 
 Hitherto in this rapid survey of progress in 
 England toward a constitutional government un- 
 der representative institutions, we have been trac- 
 ing an almost unbroken succession of events and 
 circumstances strangely helpful, on the whole, to 
 such progress, sometimes even inviting the action 
 which secured it. We have come now to a period 
 whose most important event had the primary ef- 
 fect of confirming to Parliament the highest pre- 
 rogative it could yet think of exercising. When 
 Richard II was confronted by his banished cousin,
 
 88 English Leadership 
 
 Henry of Lancaster, at the head of a successful 
 rebeUion, Parliament assumed, for the first time, 
 the right to take the crown from a living sov- 
 ereign and place it on another head. The Eng- 
 lish kingship had always been theoretically elect- 
 ive with the choice limited, however, to members 
 of one royal house. As the fact is expressed by 
 Taswell-Langmead, "the Norman Conquest in- 
 troduced a new dynasty, and a more comprehen- 
 sive idea of royalty . . . but it effected no legal 
 change in the nature of the succession to the 
 Crown. Election by the National Assembly was 
 still necessary to confer an inchoate right to be- 
 come King," ^ The Norman Conqueror recog- 
 nized this, and obtained the election in due form. 
 His successors were invested with the regal office 
 by the same formal expression of a national 
 choice. But the transferring of the choice from 
 one who had already received it to another, who, 
 although not in the most direct line of descent, 
 was nevertheless deemed more worthy, was an 
 assumption by Parliament of an altogether new 
 prerogative, involving the complete custody of the 
 crown. [He (Henry of Lancaster) based his 
 
 * Quoted from Taswell-Langmead, English Constitutional His- 
 tory, p. 194. — Ed.
 
 English Leadings 89 
 
 claim * on two grounds, right of descent from 
 Henry III, and right of conquest. ... In any 
 event, Henry's claim of descent was merely a pre- 
 text. His second claim was the decisive one. 
 Parliament chose him because, as the ablest male 
 of the royal house, he had overcome a king who 
 had defied the laws and oppressed the subject. 
 The title of the new Lancastrian house was then 
 a parliamentary one. In the end it had to give 
 way to the older rival line which it had sup- 
 planted; but its accession was of the deepest con- 
 stitutional significance. It confirmed a precedent 
 that kings could be deposed for misrule and es- 
 tablished a new one that Parliament could choose 
 a successor not necessarily the next in blood. The 
 fact that, as elective kings, the Lancastrians made 
 a bargain to govern in accord with the will of 
 Parliament was also of the profoundest impor- 
 tance."] Thus was established the precedent for 
 what may be described as a recalled and trans- 
 ferred election. 
 
 The effect of the deposition of Richard II and 
 the election of Henry IV was to give the nation 
 a king who treated its representatives — his elect- 
 ors — with extreme respect, and the power of the 
 
 'Cf. A. L. Cross, History of England and Greater Britain, 
 pp. 240-246. — Ed.
 
 90 English Leadership 
 
 Commons rose high. [The powers and privileges 
 of parliament ^ recognized by Henry IV, — pow- 
 ers and privileges so momentous in the develop- 
 ment of English constitutional government, — 
 were chiefly these: (i) No new law could be 
 passed without the approval of parliament; (2) 
 Redress of grievances must precede supply of 
 funds, no taxes could be levied or collected with- 
 out the consent of parliament, and these taxes 
 could be voted only on the last day of the session, 
 after the petitions of the people had been granted; 
 (3) Parliament maintained its right to cut down 
 the king's expenditures, and audit his accounts, to 
 dismiss his ministers and force upon him its ad- 
 vice on the conduct of wars, on the drawing up 
 of treaties and on all other important measures 
 of government; (4) Members were free from ar- 
 rest while in attendance upon, or on their way 
 to, meetings, and were granted freedom of debate 
 with immunity from punishment for utterances 
 made in the meetings of the parliament. 
 
 Even though most of these powers and privi- 
 leges of parliament were not permanently estab- 
 
 ' Cf. Adams and Stephens, Select Documents of English Con- 
 stitutional History, nos. 103-115; H. D. Traill, Social England, 
 Vol. II, p. 279-282; A. L. Cross, History of England and Greater 
 Britain, pp. 246-247; Maitland, Constitutional History of Eng- 
 land, pp. 182-4. — Ed.
 
 English Leadings 91 
 
 lished until centuries afterward, some of them 
 not even yet, nevertheless, the fact that the jus- 
 tice of these claims was recognized and acknowl- 
 edged by the sovereign, and their value appre- 
 ciated by the representatives of the people, makes 
 them principles of fundamental importance in the 
 development of constitutional government. "Pre- 
 maturely ^ Richard had challenged the rights of 
 the nation, and the victory of the nation was pre- 
 mature. The royal position was founded on as- 
 sumptions that had not even prescription in their 
 favor; the victory of the house of Lancaster was 
 won by the maintenance of rights which were 
 claimed rather than established. The growth of 
 the commons, and of the parliament itself in that 
 constitution of which the commons were becoming 
 the strongest part, must not be estimated by the 
 rights which they had actually secured, but by 
 those which they were strong enough to claim, 
 and wise enough to appreciate. If the course of 
 history had run otherwise, England might pos- 
 sibly have been spared three centuries of political 
 difficulties; for the most superficial reading of his- 
 tory is sufficient to show that the series of events 
 which form the crises of the Great Rebellion and 
 the Revolution might link themselves on to the 
 
 'Cf. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, Vol. II, pp. 
 652-653. — Ed.
 
 92 English Leadership 
 
 theory of Richard II as readily as to that of 
 James I. . . . The failure of the house of Lan- 
 caster, the tyranny of the house of York, the 
 statecraft of Henry VII, the apparent extinction 
 of the constitution under the dictatorship of 
 Henry VIII, the political resurrection under 
 Elizabeth, were all needed to prepare and equip 
 England to cope successfully with the principles 
 of Richard II, masked under legal, religious, phil- 
 osophical embellishments in the theory of the 
 Stewarts."] "Never before and never again for 
 more than two hundred years," says Bishop 
 Stubbs, "were the Commons as strong as they 
 were under Henry IV." The resulting good will 
 of the nation at large upheld him on the throne 
 against repeated conspiracies and rebellions. His 
 son, Henry V, maintained himself in equal popu- 
 larity by renewing, with brilliant temporary suc- 
 cess, the Hundred Years' War with France. Then 
 came the lamentable situation produced by the 
 succession to the throne of a child who had no 
 manhood In him to be matured. Struggles for the 
 control of the nominal regality which attached to 
 the name and person of Henry VI were sure to 
 run, as they did, into strife for the possession of 
 the crown he wore. In the resulting civil wars, 
 constitutional government went early to wreck,
 
 English Leadings 93 
 
 — so nearly that only a few occasional forms of 
 an imitative parliamentary procedure were kept, 
 in evidence of suspended popular rights. At the 
 end of the Wars of the Roses nearly all of the 
 old nobility had perished in battle or on the scaf- 
 fold, or had gone to exile or suffered impoverish- 
 ment by the confiscation of estates. New families, 
 of less prestige and influence, and less capable of 
 putting restraints on the crown, had risen to the 
 higher ranks and supplied the peerage of the 
 realm. The commons, accustomed to act under 
 baronial leadership, were unprepared to take upon 
 themselves the responsible defense of public in- 
 terests and rights. 
 
 Thus there developed conditions which opened 
 the way to an arbitrary kingship, and the sov- 
 ereigns of the Tudor family were qualified to 
 make the most of them. For more than a hun- 
 dred years, from the accession of Henry VII to 
 the death of Queen Elizabeth, the monarchy be- 
 came, in practice, nearly as absolute as that of 
 France. But occasional parliaments, even though 
 pliant to the royal will, kept the theory of con- 
 stitutional government in force and the essential 
 spirit of a free people alive, even through the 
 brutal autocracy of Henry VIII. That spirit in 
 the nation, product of long culture under free in-
 
 94 English Leadership 
 
 stitutions, might be bullied into dumb stupor or 
 infatuated to foolish adoration, but it never lost 
 its potential energy. 
 
 ["With the transition ^ from mediaeval to mod- 
 ern history, the conditions were altered in Eng- 
 land's favor. The geographical expansion of 
 Europe made the outposts of the Old World the 
 entrepots for the New; the development of navi- 
 gation and sea-power changed the ocean from the 
 limit into the link of empires; and the growth of 
 industry and commerce revolutionized the social 
 and financial foundations of power. National 
 states were forming; the state which could best 
 adapt itself to these changed and changing condi- 
 tions would out-distance its rivals; and its capac- 
 ity to adapt itself to them would largely depend 
 on the strength and flexibility of its national or- 
 ganization. It was the achievement of the New 
 Monarchy [of the Tudois] to fashion this organ- 
 ization, and to rescue the country from an anarchy 
 which had already given other powers the start 
 in the race and promised little success for Eng- 
 land. 
 
 "Henry VII had to begin in a quiet, unostenta- 
 tious way with very scanty materials. . . . His 
 
 'The following excerpts are taken from A. F. Pollard's His- 
 tory of England, pp. 88-1 1 6. — Ed.
 
 English Leadings 95 
 
 reign is dull, because he gave peace and prosperity 
 at home without fighting a battle abroad. His 
 foreign policy was dictated by insular interests re- 
 gardless of personal glory; and the security of 
 his kingdom and the trade of his people were the 
 aims of all his treaties with other powers. At 
 home he carefully depressed the over-mighty sub- 
 jects who had made the Wars of the Roses; he 
 kept down their number with such success that he 
 left behind him only one English duke and one 
 English marquis; he limited their retainers, and 
 restrained by means of the Star Chamber their 
 habits of maintaining lawbreakers, packing juries, 
 and intimidating judges. By a careful distribu- 
 tion of fines and benevolences he filled his ex- 
 chequer without taxing the mass of his people; 
 and by giving oflSce to ecclesiastics and men of 
 humble origin he both secured cheaper and more 
 efficient administration, and established a check 
 upon feudal influence. ... He left his son, 
 Henry VIII, a stable throne and a united king- 
 dom. 
 
 "The first half of Henry VIII's reign left little 
 mark on English history. ... In 1529 Henry 
 began the process, completed in the acts of An- 
 nates, Appeals, and Supremacy, by which Eng- 
 land severed its connexion with Rome, and the
 
 96 English Leadership 
 
 king became head of an English church. It is ir- 
 rational to pretend that so durable an achieve- 
 ment was due to so transient a cause as Henry's 
 passion for Anne Boleyn or desire for a son; 
 vaster, older, and more deeply seated forces were 
 at work. In one sense the breach was simply the 
 ecclesiastical consummation of the forces which 
 had long been making for national independence, 
 and the religious complement of the changes 
 which had emancipated the English state, lan- 
 guage, and literature from foreign control. The 
 Catholic church naturally resisted its disintegra- 
 tion, and the severance was effected by the secular 
 arms of parliament and the crown. The national- 
 ism of the English church was the result rather 
 than the cause of the breach with Rome, and its 
 national characteristics . . . were all imposed by 
 parliament after, and not adopted by the church 
 before, the separation. 
 
 "Catholicity had broken down in the state with 
 the decline of the empire, and was fast breaking 
 down in the church; nationalism had triumphed 
 in the state, and was now to triumph in the church. 
 In this respect the Reformation was the greatest 
 achievement of the national state, which emerged 
 from the struggle with no rival for its omnicom- 
 petent authority. Its despotism was the predomi-
 
 English Leadings 97 
 
 nant characteristic of the century, for the national 
 state successfully rid itself of the checks imposed, 
 on the one hand by the Catholic church, and on 
 the other by the feudal franchises. But the su- 
 premacy was not exclusively royal; parliament 
 was the partner and accomplice of the crown. It 
 was the weapon which the Tudors employed to 
 pass Acts of Attainder against feudal magnates 
 and Acts of Supremacy against the church. . . . 
 
 "Henry VIII confined his sympathies to the re- 
 volt of the nation against Rome- and the revolt 
 of the laity against the priests. . . . His real 
 services were political, not religious. He taught 
 England a good deal of her insular confidence; 
 he proclaimed the indivisible and indisputable 
 sovereignty of the crown in parliament. . . . He 
 carried on the work of Henry II and Edward I, 
 and by subduing rival jurisdictions stamped a 
 final unity on the framework of the government. 
 
 "The advisers of Edward VI embarked on the 
 more difficult task of making this organization 
 Protestant; and the haste with which they, and 
 especially Northumberland, pressed on the change 
 provoked first rebellion in 1549 and then reaction 
 under Mary. . . . Capital amassed in trade was 
 applied to land, which began to be treated as a 
 source of money, not a source of men. . . .
 
 98 English Leadership 
 
 Small tenants were evicted, small holdings consol- 
 idated, commons enclosed, and arable land con- 
 verted to pasture. . . . But even this high- 
 handed expropriation of peasants by their land- 
 lords stimulated national development. It cre- 
 ated a vagrant mobile mass of labor, which 
 helped to meet the demands of new industrial 
 markets and to feed English oversea enterprise. 
 . . . Elizabeth was a sovereign more purely 
 British in blood than any other since the Norman 
 Conquest; and to her appropriately fell the task 
 of completing her country's national independ- 
 ence. ... 
 
 "The astonishing success of England amid the 
 novel conditions of national rivalry requires some 
 attempt at explanation. It seems to have been 
 due to the singular flexibility of the English char- 
 acter and national system, and to the consequent 
 ease with which they adapted themselves to chang- 
 ing environment. . . . Certainly England has 
 never suffered from that rigidity of social system 
 which has hampered in the past the adaptability 
 of its rivals. . . . On the Continent, however, 
 class feeling prevented the governing classes from 
 participating in the expansion of commerce. . . . 
 Hence foreign governments were, as a rule, less
 
 English Leadings 99 
 
 alive and less responsive to the commercial inter- 
 ests of their subjects. . . . 
 
 "There was no feeling of caste to obstruct the 
 efficiency of English administration. The nobil- 
 ity were separated from the nation by no fixed 
 line; there never was in England a nobility of 
 blood, for all the sons of a noble except the eldest 
 were commoners. And while they were con- 
 stantly sinking into the mass of the nation, com- 
 moners frequently rose to the rank of nobility. 
 . . . This social elasticity enabled the govern- 
 ment to avail itself of able men of all classes, and 
 the efficiency of Tudor administration was mainly 
 due to these recruits, whose genius would have 
 been elsewhere neglected. Further, it provided 
 the government with agents peculiarly fitted by 
 training and knowledge to deal with the com- 
 mercial problems which were beginning to fill so 
 large a sphere in politics; and, finally, it rendered 
 the government singularly responsive to the pub- 
 lic opinion of the classes upon whose welfare de- 
 pended the expansion of England. . . . 
 
 "So far Tudor monarchy had proved an ade- 
 quate exponent of English nationalism because 
 nationalism had been concerned mainly with the 
 external problems of defense against foreign 
 powers and jurisdictions. But with the defeat of
 
 100 English Leadership 
 
 the Spanish Armada, the urgency of those prob- 
 lems passed away; and during the last fifteen 
 years of Elizabeth's reign national feelings found 
 increasing expression in parliament and in popu- 
 lar literature. ... In domestic politics a rift ap- 
 peared between the monarchy and the nation. 
 For one thing the alliance, forged by Henry VIII 
 between the crown and parliament, against the 
 church, was being changed into an alliance be- 
 tween the crown and the church against the par- 
 liament, because parliament was beginning to give 
 expression to democratic ideas of government in 
 state and church which threatened the principle 
 of personal rule common to monarchy and to 
 episcopacy. . . . Popular acquiescence in strong 
 personal monarchy was beginning to waver now 
 that the need for it was disappearing with the 
 growing security of national independence. Peo- 
 ple could afford the luxuries of liberty and party 
 strife when their national existence was placed be- 
 yond the reach of danger; and a national demand 
 for a greater share of self-government, which was 
 to wreck the house of Stuart, was making itself 
 heard before, on March 24, 1603, the last sov- 
 ereign of the line which had made England a 
 really national state passed away." 
 
 The period of quasi-absolute monarchy in Eng-
 
 English Leadings loi 
 
 land ended practically when Queen Elizabeth 
 died, for the attempts of her immediate successors 
 to prolong it only hastened and perfected the res- 
 toration of constitutional law. If the crown had 
 passed to an English-born heir, acceptable to the 
 loyalty which Elizabeth had inspired, the arbi- 
 trary tenor of government probably would not 
 have had an early check; but here, again, we have 
 a singular concatenation of events, helpful to the 
 renewed investment of the people with controlling 
 political power. The king who came to the throne 
 was not only unwelcome, as a Scot, but personally 
 incapable of commanding reverence, affection, or 
 even respect. The twenty-two years of his reign 
 were a trial to English loyalty which left it very 
 weak. His son, the first Charles, had winning 
 personal qualities which might have restored the 
 prestige of the crown if he had not been so in- 
 tolerably arrogant, and if his tyrannical temper 
 had not been excited especially against the rising 
 Puritanism of the time. His was the one chal- 
 lenge to rebellion that could not fail to call it out; 
 and the doubling of the animus of revolt, by re- 
 ligious' and political provocations, insured its suc- 
 cess. The transiency of the ensuing overthrow 
 of the monarchy, and the restoration of the Stuart 
 kings with nothing of their old pretensions with-
 
 102 English Leadership 
 
 drawn, are facts of the least possible significance 
 in English constitutional history. They come by 
 accident, we may say, as an interruption between 
 the trial and execution of Charles I, in 1649, 
 and the throning of William and Mary by 
 act of parliament, in 1689. The revolution of 
 1689, with its Bill of Rights and its Act of Settle- 
 ment, were the outcome, the completion, of the 
 revolution of 1649; ^^^ ^^ both there was only a 
 slow execution of the doom that lay on absolutism 
 in England from the day that Queen Elizabeth 
 died. 
 
 The English people had now, at the end of the 
 seventeenth century, established, for all time and 
 beyond question, that their parliament could make 
 and unmake kings; that the real sovereignty re- 
 sided there; that the seat of its power was more 
 in the Commons than in the Lords; that nothing 
 could be law without parliamentary enactment, 
 that no law could be suspended in operation, no 
 money exacted from the nation, no army raised 
 or maintained, without due authority from parlia- 
 ment; that meetings of parliament must be fre- 
 quent, the election of its members free, and free- 
 dom of speech in its proceedings unquestioned 
 outside of itself. The fundamental conditions of 
 a government controlled representatively by the
 
 English Leadings 103 
 
 public will were thus completely fixed in princi- 
 ple ^ ; but the means of control were in legislation 
 only. The administration of government re- 
 mained still the prerogative of royalty, reached 
 only by defining enactments of law. Its practical 
 transfer to parliament, and to the Commons im 
 parliament, was yet to come. 
 
 How immeasurably, nevertheless, had the Eng- 
 lish, when they reached this point, advanced be- 
 yond all other peoples! France, under Louis 
 XIV and under a corrupt nobility that bore no 
 share of the crushing taxation which it helped 
 the "Grand Monarch" to devour, was at the low- 
 est depths of her political degradation and social 
 misery. The States-General of the kingdom, — 
 the old national council, — in which a very limited 
 third estate had been represented on a few occa- 
 sions in the distant past by delegates from towns, 
 had had no meeting since 1614. Some provincial 
 Estates had been permitted to meet in the inter- 
 val, but the king was now perfecting his autocracy 
 by suppressing them, one by one. "The prov- 
 inces," says Tocqueville, describing the conditions 
 
 *Cf. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, Vol. II, p. 
 653: "[Most of these] were claimed under Edward III; they 
 were won during the Rebellion, at the Restoration, or at the 
 Revolution." — Ed.
 
 104 English Leadership 
 
 that preceded the Revolution, "had lost their 
 franchises; the rights of the towns were reduced 
 to a shadow. No ten noblemen could meet to 
 deliberate together on any matter without the ex- 
 press permission of the king." " In the rural dis- 
 tricts none remained but such of the gentry as 
 their limited means compelled to stay there. . . . 
 Perhaps in no other part of the world had the 
 peasantry ever lived so entirely alone." * 
 
 Among German peoples there seem to have 
 been less visible signs of political life, outside the 
 petty courts of its innumerable princelings, than 
 there had been in the days of Luther and Charles 
 V. There was still an active commercial life 
 in the free imperial cities, but nothing of po- 
 litical life. The oHgarchical character of their 
 municipal freedom had become complete. In the 
 provinces of the Austrian dominion, including 
 most of Italy, and in Spain and the Spanish Neth- 
 erlands, despotism was still unrelieved. The gov- 
 ernment of the Dutch Netherlands, conducted with 
 singular liberality in many matters, was a govern- 
 ment, nevertheless, in which the people at large 
 had no voice. Popular elections there were as yet 
 unknown. The States-General of the so-called re- 
 
 * Quoted from Tocqueville, On the State of Society in France 
 before 1789, pp. 205, 223.— Ed.
 
 English Leadings 105 
 
 public, and the provincial assemblies, too, were 
 composed of members chosen by self-elected mag- 
 istrates of the cities; the stadtholderships had 
 been made hereditary in the house of Orange, 
 and the prerogatives of the office were superior 
 to those of the English king. In Sweden, the na- 
 tional Estates were so broken in spirit that, in 
 1693, they proclaimed King Charles XI as "an 
 absolute sovereign," "who had the power and 
 right to rule his kingdom as he pleased." In 
 Switzerland, outside of the three old Forest can- 
 tons where the confederacy had its birth, the peas- 
 antry — the bulk of the people — were struggling, 
 in frequent insurrections, to escape from condi- 
 tions which made them little better than serfs. 
 
 Nowhere, at the best, had other peoples won 
 a footing in the body politic as substantial and as 
 safely affirmed to them as that which had come 
 into the possession of the English about three cen- 
 turies before. In the passage of western Europe 
 from mediaeval to modern conditions of life, the 
 English had found openings for political improve- 
 ment which no other people could use. Says Toc- 
 queville, with his fine political discernment: "In 
 England the feudal system was substantially abol- 
 ished in the seventeenth century; all classes of so- 
 ciety began to intermingle, the pretensions of
 
 io6 English Leadership 
 
 birth were effaced, the aristocracy was thrown 
 open, wealth was becoming power, equality was 
 established before the law, public employments 
 were open to all, the press becam.e free, the de- 
 bates of parliament public; every one of them 
 new principles, unknown to the society of the mid- 
 dle ages. It is precisely these new elements, grad- 
 ually and skillfully incorporated with the ancient 
 constitution of England, which have revived with- 
 out endangering it, and filled it with new life and 
 vigor without endangering its ancient forms." ^ 
 Down to the close of the seventeenth century 
 and even into the early years of the eighteenth, 
 the political advance of the English had been 
 wholly toward the upbuilding of legislative inde- 
 pendence and authority in their parliament and of 
 judicial independence and authority in their courts. 
 But now there began a movement in the evolution 
 of popular self-government along new lines, — a 
 movement which led to the actual transfer of all 
 executive responsibility and power from crown to 
 parliament, reducing the monarchy to a fiction and 
 proving convenient in many practical ways. This 
 new departure in constitutional construction was 
 made without any deliberate planning or intent. 
 
 'Quoted from Tocqueville, On the State of Society in France 
 before ijSg, pp. 29-30. — Ed.
 
 English Leadings 107 
 
 ["It is* so much easier, in discussing the causes 
 and stages of a poHtical contest, to generalize 
 from the results than to trace the growth of the 
 principles maintained by the actors, that the his- 
 torian is in some danger of substituting his own 
 formulated conclusions for the programme of the 
 leaders, and of giving them credit for a far more 
 definite scheme and more conscious political sa- 
 gacity than they would ever have claimed for 
 themselves."] If we have warrant for saying that 
 circumstances, thus far in English history, had fa- 
 vored the political aggrandizement of the middle 
 classes of the people, we may now say, with equal 
 warrant, that circumstances became dictatorial 
 and compulsory to that end. They brought, first, 
 a woman to the throne, in the person of Queen 
 Anne, who lacked the force of character necessary 
 for independence in the exercise of her regal func- 
 tions, and then after Queen Anne, a foreign prince 
 who was hopelessly disabled by total ignorance of 
 the English language, by equally total ignorance 
 of England and its affairs, and by his dependence 
 on one supporting party against another which 
 denied his right to the crown. Queen Anne could 
 sit in council with her ministers, listen to their dis- 
 
 * Cf. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, Vol. II, pp. 
 537-5.38.— Ed,
 
 io8 English Leadership 
 
 cusslons, take some part in them, perhaps, and 
 possibly form opinions of her own. George I 
 could not. She deferred to her ministers, and 
 gave them a generally free hand; consequently, 
 during her reign of twelve years, royalty slipped 
 considerably into the background of English poli- 
 tics. In the thirteen years of her tongue-tied suc- 
 cessor, who was never anything but an alien and a 
 stranger to his nominal subjects, the royal figure 
 went quite into eclipse, behind the Prime Minis- 
 try and the cabinet which Walpole then organ- 
 ized. That cabinet ministry became the respon- 
 sible and real executive of the government, — re- 
 sponsible to parliament but not to the king. 
 [Macy and Gannaway summarizes the stages in 
 the evolution of cabinet government as follows : ^ 
 " ( I ) There was the inner circle of the Privy Coun- 
 cil and of the earlier Continual Council on whom 
 the king relied for advice in government. The 
 name Cabinet was applied to this group as early 
 as the reign of Charles I. (2) Charles II began 
 to substitute the inner circle in place of the Privy 
 Council. (3) William III and Anne identified 
 the Cabinet with party leaders. (4) George I ab- 
 
 * Cf. Macy and Gannaway, Comparative Free Government, 
 p. 433; cf. also A. L. Lowell, Government of England, Vol. I, 
 pp. 27-32. — Ed.
 
 English Leadings 109 
 
 sented himself from Cabinet meetings. (5) Rob- 
 ert Walpole created the office of Prime Minister 
 which served as an entering wedge in the transfer 
 of the exercise of royal prerogative from the King 
 to the Cabinet. (6) The Cabinet, supported by 
 the House of Commons, forced George II to give 
 Cabinet places to Pitt and Chesterfield. (7) After 
 George III had for twenty-five years tried to dis- 
 credit and destroy the Cabinet, its authority was 
 restored under the leadership of the younger Pitt 
 as head of the Tory party, thus committing both 
 parties to the system. ( 8 ) Finally, beginning with 
 the act of 1832, the nation is becoming enfran- 
 chised, the people are recognized as the source of 
 final authority, there are frequent changes in party 
 rule, and the people express their will by alternate 
 choice between two competing Cabinets. The 
 mechanism is such that the people retain the con- 
 tinuous services of both groups, one as actually 
 governing, the other as pointing out methods of 
 improvement."] 
 
 The evolution of parliamentary government 
 was now nearly complete, in form if not in spirit, 
 though the evolution of parliament itself was not. 
 For the crown there was no recovery of the exec- 
 utive authority that had slipped away from George 
 I. The influence of the first two Hanoverian
 
 no English Leadership 
 
 kings in the government of Great Britain was al- 
 most naught, except in so far as they strove with 
 some success to turn its foreign policy to the ad- 
 vantage of their German duchy. The strenuous 
 effort of George III to master the new ministerial 
 system produced some temporary disturbance and 
 some national misfortunes, but had no reactionary 
 effect. And even in that royal revolt there was no 
 revival of the pretensions of the Stuart kings. It 
 was little more than an attempt on the part of the 
 sovereign to secure pliant ministers, and to con- 
 trol parliament by his own use of the methods of 
 corrupting influence which recent ministries had 
 employed. Later, in 1834, William IV exercised 
 what had been, in former times, an undoubted pre- 
 rogative of the crown, by dismissing a ministry 
 which commanded the support of a majority in the 
 House of Commons. But his action was con- 
 demned as unconstitutional, — condemned so de- 
 cisively that no sovereign has essayed it since. 
 This was the last attempt on the part of the crown 
 to resist the supremacy of parliament, whether 
 practically or theoretically understood, in the ad- 
 ministration of government no less than in the 
 laying of taxes and the making of laws. Thus the 
 passing of executive functions from the king to a 
 ministry, responsible to parliament and practi-
 
 English Leadings iii 
 
 tally independent of the crown, has been made 
 final and complete* 
 
 ["The origins ^ of political parties in England 
 fall clearly within the seventeenth century. It was 
 the judgment of Macaulay that the earliest of 
 groups to which the designation of political parties 
 can be applied were the Cavalier and Roundhead 
 elements as aligned after the adoption of the 
 Grand Remonstrance by the Long Parliament in 
 1 641. The first groups, however, which may be 
 thought of as essentially analogous to the political 
 parties of the present day, possessing continuity, 
 fixity of principles, and some degree of compact- 
 ness of organization, were the Whigs and Tories 
 of the era of Charles II. Dividing in the first 
 instance upon the issue of the exclusion of James, 
 these two elements, with the passage of time, as- 
 sumed well-defined and fundamentally irreconcil- 
 able positions upon the essential public questions 
 of the day. Broadly, the Whigs stood for tolera- 
 tion in religion and for parliamentary supremacy 
 in government; the Tories for Anglicanism and 
 the prerogative. And long after the Stuart mon- 
 archy was a thing of the past these two great par- 
 ties kept up their struggles upon these and other 
 
 * Quoted from F. A. Ogg, Governments of Europe, pp. 38-39. 
 — EA
 
 112 English Leadership 
 
 issues. After an unsuccessful attempt to govern 
 with the cooperation of both parties, William III 
 . . . fell back definitely upon the support of the 
 Whigs. At the accession of Queen Anne, in 1702, 
 however, the Whigs were turned out of office and 
 the Tories (who already had had a taste of power 
 in 1 698-1 701) were put in control. They retained 
 office during the larger portion of Queen Anne's 
 reign, but at the accession of George I they were 
 compelled to give place to their rivals, and the 
 period 1714-1761 was one of unbroken Whig as- 
 cendency. This was, of course, the period of the 
 development of the cabinet system, and between 
 the rise of that system and the growth of govern- 
 ment by party there was an intimate and inevitable 
 connection. By the close of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury the rule had become inflexible that the cabinet 
 should be composed of men who were in sympathy 
 with the party at the time dominant in the House 
 of Commons, and that the returning by the nation 
 to the representative chamber of a majority ad- 
 verse to the ruling ministry should be followed by 
 the retirement of the ministry." 
 
 "The English Cabinet and party system ^ is es- 
 
 * Quoted from A. L. Cross, History of England and Greater 
 Britain, pp. 614-615; cf. also A. L. Lowell, Government of Eng- 
 land, pp. 449-461. — Ed.
 
 English Leadings 113 
 
 pecially notable from the fact that its machinery 
 is the most perfect which has yet been devised for 
 speedily and peacefully voicing the will of the peo- 
 ple and because it is the system which has been 
 adopted, with more or less variation, by the chief 
 European governments in recent times. It is es- 
 sentially a government by an executive committee 
 of Parliament whose members represent and are 
 responsible to the majority of the House of Com- 
 mons, which, in its turn, represents the qualified 
 voters of Great Britain. Just as soon as the ma- 
 jority withdraws its support the Ministry either 
 resigns, or dissolves Parliament, and submits to 
 the verdict of a general election."] 
 
 Meanwhile in the middle of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, a few thoughtful minds in continental Eu- 
 rope had begun to study the lessons in government 
 which England had been setting before them for 
 so long a time. In this movement Montesquieu 
 led the way in his "Spirit of the Laws," pointing 
 to England as the "one nation in the world that 
 has, for the direct end of its constitution, political 
 liberty," and proceeding from that statement to an 
 examination of the English constitution and its 
 embodiment of "the principles on which this lib- 
 erty is founded." It was a timely exposition and
 
 114 English Leadership 
 
 made a deep Impression, especially In France, 
 where It succeeded In arousing a feverish activity 
 in political thinking. But French political thought, 
 while taking a strong impulse from Montesquieu, 
 departed from his wise historical method of inves- 
 tigation. The most Influential of the political 
 writers, Rousseau, Diderot and his colleagues of 
 the "Encyclopedia," — were, as Tocqueville de- 
 scribed them, predisposed by their position to rel- 
 ish general and abstract theories upon the subject 
 of government, and to place in them the blindest 
 confidence. The almost Immeasurable distance In 
 which they lived from practical duties afforded 
 them no experience to moderate the ardor of their 
 character; nothing warned them of the obstacles 
 which the actual state of things might oppose to 
 reforms, however desirable. They had no Idea 
 of the perils which always accompany the most 
 needful revolutions; they had not even a presenti- 
 ment of them, for the complete absence of all po- 
 litical liberty had the effect of rendering the trans- 
 action of public affairs not only unknown to them, 
 but even Invisible. They were neither employed 
 in those affairs themselves, nor could they see 
 what those employed In them were doing. They 
 were consequently destitute of that superficial In- 
 struction which the sight of a free community.
 
 English Leadings 115 
 
 and the tumult of Its discussions, bestow even 
 upon those who are least mixed up with govern- 
 ment. Thus they became far more bold In inno- 
 vation, more fond of generalizing and of a sys- 
 tem, more disdainful of the wisdom of antiquity, 
 and still more confident in their individual reason 
 than is commonly to be seen in authors who write 
 speculative books on politics; and "the same state 
 of ignorance opened to them the ears and hearts 
 of the people." 
 
 And so it was that the desperate French peo- 
 ple, looking to England and to the English com- 
 munities in America, with longing for their free 
 institutions, but heedless of the time and the pa- 
 tience that went to the making of those institu- 
 tions, — blind to the slow training that prepared 
 Englishmen and English-Americans for the use of 
 them, — were led into the riot and wreck of their 
 terrible Revolution.^ In the end, however, when 
 the madness was spent, and when the reaction 
 from it was likewise spent, there came a school- 
 time for Europe, in which it took up the constitu- 
 tions of England and English-America and studied 
 them with good effect. 
 
 ^ For an eminently sane discussion of "The Principles of 
 1789," see J. H. Robinson's essay on this subject in The New 
 History, pp. 195-235. — Ed.
 
 Ii6 English Leadership 
 
 For a whole generation the excesses of the 
 French Revolution were deplorably prejudicial to 
 democratic doctrines of government; so much so, 
 even in England, as to check for that period the 
 further development of the national constitution 
 on popular lines. Otherwise the broadening of 
 the representation of the people in parliament 
 would have had an earlier beginning. From the 
 late thirteenth century to the early nineteenth, it is 
 proper enough to call the English government a 
 representative one, because the will of a very ef- 
 fective and important section of the people was 
 voiced in parliament; but the constituents of that 
 section were still far from being the commons of 
 England, In any right sense of that term. [For 
 those millions of the understratum of English so- 
 ciety, whose rights had been so vainly championed, 
 five hundred years before, by the "visionary" 
 Wycliffe, had not even yet been able to impress 
 their will upon the councils of the nation. But 
 again that strangely favoring combination of geo- 
 graphic influence and historic circumstance enabled 
 the English people to make yet further gains in 
 their struggle toward a more truly democratic 
 government. For it was this strangely favoring 
 combination that made possible the Industrial Rev-
 
 English Leadings 117 
 
 olution * ; and it was the Industrial Revolution, 
 which, In turn, made possible those social and po- 
 litical reforms of the nineteenth century in which 
 the English people have so markedly led the 
 world. 
 
 This spirit of reform was first manifested, at 
 the beginning of the nineteenth century, in the re- 
 constitution of the House of Commons.] This 
 branch of parliament embraced, in 1831, the 
 whole titled aristocracy of the kingdom below the 
 peerage, and the untitled but aristocratic "gentry," 
 along with a part of the well-to-do class; but none 
 of the landless population of the rural districts, 
 whether farmers or laborers, and few of the work- 
 ing class of the towns, had votes. Out of a total 
 population of 22,000,000 in the United Kingdom, 
 the voters numbered less than 450,000. ^ Most 
 of the boroughs and towns represented were not 
 the later growths of modern Industry and trade, 
 but the decayed country market-places and hamlets 
 of a long-past age. Fifty-six of these, with less 
 than 2,000 of total population, were electing iii 
 of the 658 members of the House of Commons, 
 
 ^ For discussion of this point, see, in this volume, the essay 
 on "The Geographic Factor in English History," by Donald E. 
 Smith.— Ed. 
 
 "Based upon W. Heaton, The Three Reforms of Parliw 
 ment, chap. i. — Ed.
 
 Ii8 English Leadership 
 
 and 30 others, having less, altogether, than 4,000 
 of population, were electing 60 more. ^ But that 
 was not the worst of the facts. Most of these 
 "rotten boroughs," as they were styled, were en- 
 veloped in the estates of the great land-owning 
 lords; the voters were their tenants, and a free 
 election in them was never known. Such cities 
 of modern origin and great importance as Man- 
 chester, Birmingham, and Leeds, had no repre- 
 sentation, and that of London itself was small. 
 What bore the name of the House of Commons 
 had Its representative commission, we can see, 
 from a small fraction of even the well-to-do mid- 
 dle class, and not at all from the toilers of the 
 commonalty. ^ 
 
 This dearth of democratic element In the Eng- 
 lish representative system was persistent until 
 1832, when an almost revolutionary excitement of 
 popular feeling compelled the adoption of the 
 first measure of parliamentary reform. This 
 went far enough to disfranchise the most rotten 
 
 * Based upon T. E. May, Constitutional History of England, 
 Vol. I, chap. 6. — Ed. 
 
 'For an account of the Industrial Revolution and its effects 
 upon problems of government, see E. P. Cheyney, Industrial and 
 Social History of England, pp. 199-276; F. W. Tickner, Social 
 and Industrial History of England, pp. 530-540; and F. S. 
 Chapin, Historical Introduction to Social Economy, pp. 147- 
 260. — Ed.
 
 English Leadings 119 
 
 of the boroughs and to give representation to 
 forty-two towns and metropolitan districts which 
 had had no voice in parhament before, ^ It low- 
 ered the property-owning or rate and rent-paying 
 qualifications for voting enough to popularize the 
 elections considerably, and to lessen materially the 
 aristocratic character and spirit of the House of 
 Commons; but the greater mass of the people 
 were left still without votes. For another third 
 of a century they remained unrepresented, but not 
 unconscious of their rights. Agitations to secure a 
 broader popular enfranchisement were soon start- 
 ed, taking form In what Is known as the Chartist 
 movement, which disquieted the country, more or 
 less, from 1838 to 1848. The demand made was 
 for the passage of an act, styled the People's 
 Charter, embodying constitutional changes on six 
 points, — universal manhood suffrage, equal elec- 
 toral districts, vote by ballot, annual parliaments, 
 no property qualification for parliament, and pay- 
 ment to members for parliamentary service. Of 
 these six demands two have since been fully satis- 
 fied by the Introduction of the ballot in 1872 and 
 by the removal of the property qualification for 
 a seat in parliament. Manhood suffrage was 
 
 * Supported by T. E. May, Constitutional History of England, 
 Vol. I, chap. 6. — Ed.
 
 120 • English Leadership 
 
 made nearly universal and electoral districts nearly 
 equal by the second and third Reform Bills, passed, 
 respectively, in 1867 and 1884-5. Service in Par- 
 liament has not yet been salaried, and the demand 
 for an annual election of parliaments is not likely 
 to be renewed. Otherwise, the Chartist agitators 
 were only a few years in advance of their time. 
 [The Chartist movement, far from losing strength 
 in the twentieth century, seems to be gaining in 
 vitality all the time. Obscured by the war, the 
 Electoral Reform Bill of 191 8 must, nevertheless, 
 take its place alongside the great Reform Bills of 
 the nineteenth century, for the sweeping away 
 of many of the disqualifications for the male fran- 
 chise, and the endowment of between five and six 
 million women with the right to vote is no in- 
 significant achievement. Another Chartist demand 
 recently satisfied is the payment of salaries to the 
 members of the House of Commons. Thus far 
 four points of Chartism have been adopted alto- 
 gether, and a fifth, advocating annual elections 
 of Parliament, has been approached somewhat In 
 the Parliament Act of 191 1, which reduces the 
 maximum duration of Parliament to five years. 
 Such legislation is a splendid justification of Car- 
 lyle's statement, made in 1839: "The matter of 
 Chartism is weighty, deep-rooted, far-extending,
 
 English Leadings I2l 
 
 did not begin yesterday; will by no means end this 
 day or to-morrow."] 
 
 [Ever since the Reform Bill of 1832, England 
 has been engaged in the refinement of those demo- 
 cratic institutions which she had evolved through 
 the centuries, proving to an admiring world that 
 such institutions are the best instruments for fur- 
 ther political progress. In 1835 was accomplished 
 the reform of town government, the abuses of 
 which had been as notorious as those of Parlia- 
 ment before 1832. The Municipal Corporations 
 Act of 1835 not only did away with the corruption 
 in the towns, but also established for the first time 
 the principle of local self-government within the 
 kingdom. Supplementing, but not completing the 
 work of this act, comes the County Councils Act 
 of 1888, which democratized the administration 
 of county governments. The last step in this di- 
 rection is the Parish Councils Act of 1894, which 
 extended the principle of local self-government to 
 smaller units of the nation than had been treated 
 in the two preceding acts. The system of local 
 government in England is now one of the best 
 examples of the democracy of English institutions. 
 In the first place, local government is close to 
 the daily life of Englishmen. The county divisions 
 in England are much smaller than those of our
 
 122 English Leadership 
 
 American states, and the spirit of community is 
 consequently stronger. Besides, in England there 
 is no tendency, as there is in other countries, either 
 purposely or from slipshod habits of political 
 thinking to confuse local with national issues. The 
 result is a cleaner, more responsible and more 
 intelligent system of local self-government than 
 any other state has evolved. It was quite natural, 
 in a century of reform of the machinery of gov- 
 ernment, that a coincident step should be the ap- 
 pointment to positions in the Civil Service on the 
 basis of standing in open competitive examinations. 
 The reform of the Civil Service in England gave 
 an impetus to a similar movement in America, 
 with the result that the Civil Service of the two 
 great English-speaking peoples is based on as 
 democratic a system of appointment as has yet 
 been devised. A third line of reform, leading to 
 simplification in the organization of the courts, is 
 indicated in the great Judicature Act of 1873, 
 which together with an Amending Act, consoli- 
 dated the higher courts of the realm into the Su- 
 preme Court of Judicature, whose two great 
 branches are the High Court of Justice and the 
 Court of Appeals. But the most far-reaching of 
 all, one that goes back to the constitution of par- 
 liament, something not so much a reform as a
 
 English Leadings 123 
 
 recapitulation of previous tendencies from the days 
 of Magna Carta, is the Parliament Act of 191 1. 
 The open intention of the Act is to render power- 
 less the present upper house, so that the substitu- 
 tion of a "Second Chamber constituted on a pop- 
 ular instead of hereditary basis," to quote the 
 Act itself, may be more easily obtained. Accord- 
 ing to the terms of this Act, money bills become 
 law within one month after passing the Commons, 
 with or without the concurrence of the Lords; all 
 other bills passed by the Commons in three suc- 
 cessive sessions, sent up to the Lords at least one 
 month before the end of each session and rejected 
 each time by the Lords, are to be presented for 
 the royal signature, provided that two years have 
 elapsed since their introduction into the Commons. 
 The spirit of this Act is the spirit of the English 
 people throughout their constitutional history, a 
 summing up of past progress, an intimation of 
 future progress, a milestone in the free expression 
 of English political thought.] 
 
 We have now traced the evolution of popular 
 self-government by the agency of elected repre- 
 sentatives, and find it to have been a process that 
 worked almost exclusively in the political experi- 
 ence of the English peoples, producing institutions 
 of constitutional monarchy in Great Britain which
 
 124 English Leadership 
 
 in the course of her expansion were to become 
 models for the democratizing and constitutionaliz- 
 ing of government in every other part of the world. 
 Without doubt, this pioneering and leading of all 
 civilized society into or toward the democratic 
 state has been the most important and distin- 
 guished function of the English peoples in history. 
 By getting the first training that self-government 
 gives to the self-governing multitude, they were 
 the first of Europeans who could make much, in a 
 substantial, lasting way, of the great opportunities 
 for expansive action, influence and power that, 
 three hundred years ago awaited the use of man. 
 The Old World was then entering on the third 
 of the three stages of civilization which Carl Rit- 
 ter, the geographer, defined as ( i ) the potamic, — 
 developed in extensive river valleys, such as those 
 of the Nile, the Tigris and Euphrates, and the 
 Ganges; (2) the thalassic, — nourished by the in- 
 fluences and commercial stimulations of a great 
 inland sea, like the Mediterranean; and, (3) the 
 oceanic, — which opened to Europe when explora- 
 tion of the broad Atlantic was launched from its 
 western coast. Egypt and Babylonia led the march 
 of civilization in its first stage; Phoenicia, Greece, 
 Rome and mediaeval Italy in the second; what 
 peoples would be in the van of the third? Nobody,
 
 English Leadings 125 
 
 at the beginning of the sixteenth century, could 
 have looked for that leadership to the inhabitants 
 of the British Isles. 
 
 When Europe discovered America, the South 
 Sea, and the ocean-way to the Indies, and found 
 the earth to be really a globe, the English had 
 less apparent preparation than most of their neigh- 
 bors for exploiting these discoveries and becoming 
 workers in a new construction of the general cir- 
 cumstances of human life. Islanders though they 
 were, and of Saxon and Norman blood, their sea- 
 going activities were slight. They took a minor 
 part in the commerce of the time. Their trade 
 with the Continent was conducted mostly by the 
 Hanseatic and other leagues organized by enter- 
 prising merchants of the German towns. English 
 character showed singularly little of the spirit of 
 adventure. After a long series of French and 
 civil wars, they seemed to be settling down to a 
 rather unambitious career, — busied in the main 
 with their sheep pastures and their farms. 
 
 A sense of free individuality, however, a con- 
 sciousness of responsibility, and capable habits of 
 associated action, acquired, through many genera- 
 tions, in their parish vestries, their courts and 
 their parliament, had fitted these industrious 
 farmers and burghers, as nothing else could, for
 
 126 English Leadership 
 
 that prosperous transplantation of themselves 
 which has rooted young nations of English stock. 
 in all quarters of the earth. In their schools 
 of self-government they acquired many superior 
 qualities which were to overcome France in 
 America and supplant the Dutch in South Africa, 
 found this great federal republic of the United 
 States, dominate India and Egypt, and give a lead 
 to English influence in history such as no other 
 race is likely ever to over-ride or even to over- 
 take. 
 
 At the opening of the modern era, the Portu- 
 guese and Spaniards were in the forefront of the 
 colonial movement, both in achievement and in 
 opportunity. That they did not make the most of 
 their primacy, and maintained it but a little time, 
 was consequent, no doubt, on more than one cause. 
 The tropical regions to which they were led for 
 their colonial undertakings could hardly, under 
 any circumstances, have nourished communities of 
 European vigor and pith. Moreover, the success 
 of the Spaniards in finding precious metals might 
 have spoiled the constitution and the character of 
 any young colony of that age. Furthermore, in los- 
 ing all experience of political freedom, the Span- 
 iards had also lost the power to generate the least 
 degree of organic self-activity and self-nourished
 
 English Leadings 127 
 
 vitality in their colonial society. It had to be a 
 piece of political mechanism, officially constructed 
 and officially worked, from the central source of 
 all power, at Madrid. By this fact alone it was 
 made impossible for the Spanish settlements in 
 America to become self-dependent political or- 
 ganisms such as the English settlements there and 
 elsewhere became at a later day. 
 
 The wars of the Elizabethan age with Spain 
 started the English on a maritime career; but the 
 ultimate expansion of their little kingdom into 
 the world-wide empire of a world-spread race 
 grew from nothing in the half-piratical exploits of 
 Hawkins and Drake. Nor can it be said to have 
 grown from the undertakings of Raleigh, the one 
 Englishman of the sixteenth century who, with the 
 sagacity of a statesman, the imagination of a poet, 
 and the spirit of an adventurer, looked abroad 
 and divined the future of the New World. Even 
 the first attempt of the Virginia Company to plant 
 a settlement at Jamestown was too near failure 
 to be taken for the true beginning of English 
 achievement in colonization. ["English piracy in 
 the Channel was notorious in the fifteenth century, 
 and in the sixteenth it attained patriotic propor- 
 tions. Henry VII had encouraged Cabot's voyage 
 to Newfoundland, but the papal partition of new-
 
 128 English Leadership 
 
 found lands between Spain and Portugal barred 
 to England the door of legitimate, peaceful ex- 
 pansion; and there can be little doubt that this 
 prohibition made many converts to Protestantism 
 among English seafaring folk. Even Mary could 
 not prevent her subjects from preying on Spanish 
 and Portuguese commerce and colonies; and with 
 Elizabeth's accession preying grew into a national 
 pastime. Hawkins broke into Spanish monopoly 
 in the West Indies, Drake burst into their Pacific 
 preserves, and circumvented their defenses; and 
 a host of followers plundered nearly every Spanish 
 and Portuguese colony. . . . National unity and 
 the fertile mingling of classes had generated this 
 expansive energy, for the explorers included earls 
 as well as humble mariners and traders; and all 
 ranks, from the queen downwards, took shares in 
 their 'adventures.' They had thus acquired a body 
 of knowledge and experience which makes it mis- 
 leading to speak of their blundering into empire. 
 They soon learnt to concentrate their energies upon 
 those quarters of the globe in which expansion was 
 easiest and most profitable." ^] 
 
 Here, again, as in the shaping of the English 
 polity within England itself, helpful and guiding 
 
 * Quoted from A. F. Pollard, History of England, pp. io8- 
 109, 150. — Ed.
 
 English Leadings 129 
 
 circumstances arose, strangely effective and op- 
 portune, — circumstances which carried Englishmen 
 of the freest spirit, of the strongest character, of 
 the best political training, out from their old be- 
 loved homes, to inhospitable wildernesses, across a 
 forbidding sea, not for gold-seeking or for con- 
 quest, but for the resolute making of new homes, 
 a new country and a new citizenship for themselves 
 and their posterity. The circumstances which con- 
 tributed to this great end were those that brought 
 the English government into contention with re- 
 ligious beliefs among the people, as well as into 
 assaults upon their political rights. In successive 
 movements, first of the Pilgrim Independents to 
 Plymouth, then of Puritans to Massachusetts Bay, 
 of Catholics to Maryland, and of Quakers to Penn- 
 sylvania, this contention exiled four bodies, well 
 picked from the best of English folk, such as could 
 not have been won in any other way for the pio- 
 neering task which they took upon themselves. It 
 is inconceivable that a settlement of the uninviting 
 region of New England, by people of so sterling 
 a class, could ever have been brought about by any 
 other influence than this ; or that an equal develop- 
 ment of that region by people of any class could 
 have been accomplished otherwise within the next 
 hundred years. Then, again, by a different turn of
 
 130 English Leadership 
 
 the same circumstances, when large numbers of 
 the beaten royalists of the Civil War left their 
 English homes, another rare selection from the 
 best bred manhood of England was sent over to 
 the struggling colonies of Virginia and Maryland, 
 to leaven them with new spirit and new strength. 
 [The thought that Mr. Earned evidently had in 
 mind was that these beaten royalists were from the 
 governing class in England, — men trained, by ex- 
 perience that was in turn backed by centuries of 
 family tradition, to be leaders of the commoners. 
 This characteristic of the Virginia settlers, coupled 
 with the development of a representative, county 
 type of government necessitated by their widely 
 scattered plantations, doubtless explains to a large 
 extent the marked leadership shown by Virginia 
 in the events leading to the framing of the Ameri- 
 can Constitution.^] 
 
 These favors of circumstances were the most 
 extraordinary that ever attended the pioneering of 
 colonization; but let us not forget how entirely 
 their operation depended on the moderation of 
 temper which even an oppressive government in 
 
 ^ Facts in support of such a view can be gathered from 
 Turner's The Rise of the Ne<w West, Farrand's The Framing 
 of the Constitution, and Beard's Economic Interpretation of the 
 Constitution. Cf. A. F. Pollard, History of England, pp. 151- 
 152. — Ed.
 
 English Leadings 131 
 
 England was compelled to preserve. From re- 
 ligious persecution in Spain and France there was 
 no such escape. Spanish America offered no 
 refuge from the Inquisition to heretic Christians 
 or to Moriscos or Jews; and the Huguenots were 
 shut out from New France. Thus England alone, 
 by virtue of the liberalizing influences in her po- 
 litical system, could limit her own oppression by 
 opening her colonies to the oppressed, and could 
 obtain therefrom so powerful and so determining 
 an impetus to the fulfillment of her destiny. 
 
 "If France," says Parkman, "instead of exclud- 
 ing Huguenots, had given them an asylum in the 
 west, and left them there to work out their own 
 destinies, Canada would never have been a British 
 province, and the United States would have shared 
 their vast domain with a vigorous population of 
 self-governing Frenchmen." But in the govern- 
 ment of France, there was more than despotic 
 intolerance to make it ruinous to colonial under- 
 takings. As in the case of Spain, the centralized 
 absolutism of France, robbing the people of all 
 freedom and capacity for self-action, made suc- 
 cessful colonization from that country impossible. 
 French settlements in America were trading sta- 
 tions, religious missions, military posts, — every- 
 thing except the social and political "plantations"
 
 132 English Leadership 
 
 of the English. There was nothing spontaneous 
 about them, nothing organic and vital, nothing 
 growing in a natural way. "Root, stem and 
 branch," to quote Parkman again. New France 
 "was the nursling of authority." The colony in all 
 its parts and in all its workings, was an official, 
 artificial structure. In the main, its white inhabi- 
 tants were officially collected in France and shipped 
 out on official requisitions from Quebec; and when 
 these recruited colonists wanted wives, they, too, 
 were officially recruited and shipped. Of course, 
 colonists of that make-up could not be the founders 
 of such communities as the English were planting 
 farther south. 
 
 Even the Dutch, with all their apparent liberty 
 of spirit and action, were disabled by their political 
 constitution from prosperous rivalry with the Eng- 
 lish in colonization. There was an absolutism, in 
 their case not royal, but commercial, which blighted 
 their colonial plantings. Dominated in their gov- 
 ernment at home by the manufactures of the towns 
 in their outer settlements, they were still more 
 under subjection to the great corporations which 
 monopolized trade. All their claims and holdings 
 in America were controlled by the Dutch West 
 India Company, which had almost unlimited pow- 
 ers of government, as well as exclusive commer-
 
 English Leadings 133 
 
 cial rights; and the colony, in turn, was ruled 
 autocratically by governors whom the company 
 appointed and who acted under orders from its 
 directorate at Amsterdam. This autocracy ex- 
 plains the readiness with which the Dutch colonists 
 soon surrendered to the more liberal domination 
 of the English. 
 
 When France and England, in the eighteenth 
 century, began their struggle for the possession of 
 the great interior valleys of North America, 
 active enterprise and formal procedure had given 
 the French a much superior position on the conti- 
 nent. They had explored the country, overrun it 
 with their traders and missionaries, opened friend- 
 ly relations with the natives, and established many 
 well-planned military posts. Logically they had 
 much the better claim to the great prize of do- 
 minion for which the two nations fought, — within 
 the disputed ground, the whole strength of position 
 and preparation for the contest was on their side. 
 But they were very far from France, and they 
 had to fight, not only a far-away England, but a 
 transplanted section of England, entrenched in the 
 long line of colonies on the ocean coast, and as 
 vigorous and self-inspired as England herself. 
 Their own New France was but a name ; not much 
 of France had been brought to it, except the com-
 
 134 English Leadership 
 
 missions and mandates of the French king and 
 court. This, principally, was the cause of their 
 defeat. 
 
 In the meantime, while the English of England, 
 from the reign of the first Stuart to that of George 
 V, had been slowly perfecting their monarchical 
 constitution of representative government, the 
 emigrant English in American settlements had 
 been molding the same elements, — of tradition, 
 common law, historical habit, and the free spirit 
 of their race, — from the same primitive Teutonic 
 sources into other constitutions of government of 
 a purely republican form. Making new homes 
 for themselves and a new structure of society in 
 a strange land, as their Anglo-Saxon ancestors had 
 done twelve centuries before, and organizing their 
 communities under conditions much the same, the 
 early English settlers in America reverted most 
 naturally to the same type of structure, wherever 
 they could act with independence and spontaneity. 
 To the colonists of New England as to no other, 
 fortune had given such independence, and the new 
 fabric of English society grew there as it had 
 originally in Britain, from the town or township 
 as Its political base; the beginnings of govern- 
 mental action were thus put at the very doors 
 of the people, and the old Anglo-Saxon system 
 
 J
 
 English Leadings 135 
 
 of political education by local training in self- 
 government, revived and modernized, was once 
 more set to work in a new land. Forms of gov- 
 ernment in other colonies than New England were 
 dictated by royal or proprietary authority; they, 
 consequently, had a less perfect early schooling in 
 popular government; but the teaching reached 
 them all In the end, and when they broke their colo- 
 nial relation to the mother country, assuming polit- 
 ical independence, in States which grouped them as 
 they had been colonlally grouped, but in a nation- 
 alized federation of their States, they offered, to 
 the observation of the world, another very differ- 
 ent and very striking example of constitutional and 
 representative government. The English model 
 was now republlcanlzed and popularized to a de- 
 gree far beyond its original; far beyond any trial 
 of representative democracy then known outside 
 of the three Forest Cantons of the Swiss. 
 
 The development of the idea of systematic 
 constitution-making had been strangely tardy and 
 slow. As we see In English history,, the most defi- 
 nite constitution of government that existed any- 
 where, before the seventeenth century, was but a 
 crude accumulation of royal concessions and par- 
 liamentary and judicial precedents, out of which 
 certain fundamental principles of representative
 
 136 English Leadership 
 
 government were extracted and became established 
 in the English practice of such government; but 
 what we speak of as the English or British consti- 
 tution was and is simply a legal and historical 
 abstraction of the mind. Only in outline have its 
 principles ever been systematically defined. 
 
 Down to the seventeenth century there had been 
 no conception of a constitution of government de- 
 rived otherwise than by grants and concessions 
 from some royal or ducal sovereignty above the 
 governed people. The first communities in mod- 
 ern times to constitute a system of government 
 for themselves by written agreement were those 
 of the English colonists in America. If the simple 
 Mayflower compact of the Plymouth Pilgrims 
 could be called a political constitution, it would 
 be the first; but the "Fundamental Orders" and 
 "Fundamental Agreement" of the Connecticut 
 settlers are nearer to the idea. In England, a 
 few years later, two attempts at the framing of 
 a written constitution were made, under the Crom- 
 wellian Protectorate; but the operation of each 
 was short-lived. Then, for more than a century, 
 there seems to have been no more writing of sys- 
 tematic constitutions, excepting John Locke's for 
 the Carolinas and William Penn's for Pennsyl- 
 vania, and excepting, also, the important additions
 
 English Leadings 137 
 
 made to the old English constitutional documents, 
 In the Habeas Corpus Act and the Bill of Rights. 
 
 The era of constitution-making consequently 
 cannot be said to have opened until the Declaration 
 of Independence was drawn up in 1776, Between 
 that year and 1783 each one of the thirteen newly 
 independent United States discarded its former 
 character of government and framed a constitution 
 for itself. In 1787-88, by the framing and adop- 
 tion of the Federal Constitution of the United 
 States, the greatest of such models of political art 
 was exhibited to the world.^ 
 
 Here in this republic of English America, for 
 the first time in world history, the adaptation of 
 popular government in representative form to a 
 large structure of federal nationality was tried and 
 proved. The Greek federations had been unions 
 of represented states, not of represented peoples; 
 the Swiss confederation was yet to be made a 
 really nationalizing union; and in all preceding 
 instances the federal structure of a political system 
 had been attempted in but small ways. Now, the 
 scale was large, the result impressive and the suc- 
 cess in many aspects complete. This constitution 
 crowned the work of the English peoples as the 
 
 *For a detailed account of the framing of the Constitution, 
 see Max Farrand, The Framing of the Constitution.— EA.
 
 138 English Leadership 
 
 political teachers and leaders of the world. Let 
 us see, then, how far and how successfully its 
 lead has been followed. 
 
 Up to this time Europe had not half learned 
 nor half understood the lessons of English political 
 teaching. On the contrary the French Revolution, 
 partly the outgrowth of earlier English influence, 
 had discredited all democratic doctrine, though the 
 idea of systematic constitution-making had fairly 
 lodged itself in the European mind, and could not 
 be long inactive. With the exception of the Span- 
 ish American countries and Sweden, the political 
 constitutions originating throughout western Eu- 
 rope in the half-century after the rise of Napoleon, 
 were all of the old charter type, not derived from 
 the people, but granted to them from a sovereignty 
 above. Still, they were constitutions, which in 
 many cases served as the bases for their liberalized 
 constitutions of to-day. When at last, following 
 the revolutions of 1848, a resolute and general 
 demand for liberalized and constitutional govern- 
 ment was made throughout Western Europe, suc- 
 cess was so great that the seeming failure of the 
 revolutions promised to be temporary. For, in 
 1 86 1, the constitution of Sardinia was extended to 
 the Kingdom of Italy; in 1867, the dual monarchy 
 of Austria-Hungary was created, with a separate
 
 English Leadings 139 
 
 constitution for each of its national parts; in 1871, 
 the German Empire was organized under a written 
 constitution; and in 1875, the Third French Re- 
 public was established, with a definite constitution 
 adopted by an assembly representative of the na- 
 tional will. From Europe the movement spread 
 eastward. Even the Sultan of Turkey was forced 
 to capitulate, and conceded to his subjects in 1876 
 a short-lived constitution, which was revived by 
 the Young Turk Revolution In 1908. Among 
 Oriental peoples the Japanese were the first to 
 receive a written constitution, proclaimed by their 
 ruler In 1889. The Persians were likewise favored 
 by their Shah In 1907, and have confirmed his 
 action by the revolution of 1909. ^ 
 
 And now let us see how much of the precise 
 architecture of the English and the Anglo-Amer- 
 ican constitution of popular government has been 
 adopted by these nations, whose conceptions of 
 constitutional and representative government were 
 all derived from the political experience of the 
 English race. 
 
 There are three essential features of the system 
 of popular government developed among the Eng- 
 
 * Since this essay was written, China, too, has joined the 
 ranks of constitutional government through the revolution of 
 J911-12. — Ed.
 
 140 English Leadership 
 
 lish peoples: (i) a real representation of the 
 people In the legislative department of their gov- 
 ernment, secured by a broadly general suffrage 
 and by directness in the election of representatives; 
 
 (2) control of public revenue and expenditure by 
 the representative branch of the legislatures; 
 
 (3) a real responsibility of the executive de- 
 partment of government to the people, secured 
 either indirectly by the ministerial agency of the 
 British system, or directly by election to the execu- 
 tive office, as in the United States. 
 
 Originally, as we have seen, the English elective 
 franchise was limited strictly to the owners of 
 property in land, and that rule prevailed till the 
 last century, when the suffrage was extended by 
 successive acts to tenants, householders, rate-pay- 
 ers and finally to lodgers, coming to be exercised 
 at present in Great Britain by nearly the whole 
 body of male citizens, as well as by women for 
 many purposes of election, though not for parlia- 
 mentary representation. Still, however, the con- 
 ditioning or qualifying of the elective franchise, 
 by some required ownership of property, some tax- 
 paying, or some hire of a residence, to indicate a 
 substantial footing in the community, even if slight, 
 is a principle maintained in the United Kingdom, 
 and in many of the colonies of the British Empire,
 
 English Leadings 141 
 
 [By the franchise law of 191 8 the British parlia- 
 ment has abolished the remaining limitations based 
 on property and on sex, and thus again placed 
 England in the vanguard of democratic liberal- 
 ism.] 
 
 The same principle was adhered to for some 
 time in the thirteen British colonies which assumed 
 independence and formed the republic of the 
 United States. It was not until new States began 
 to arise in the West that property qualifications 
 of the suffrage were first dropped. The original 
 States then followed the example of the new com- 
 monwealths, some quickly, some slowly, until adult 
 male citizens of the United States (criminals, 
 paupers, the insane and the idiotic excepted) had 
 received generally the right to vote. A few States 
 require ability to read as a qualification, a few 
 exact the payment of a small poll-tax, and a few 
 have extended the right to women, in whole or in 
 part. [Since 19 12 those few have been joined by 
 several others, raising the total number of full 
 and partial suffrage states to 21.] 
 
 Outside of the political communities which the 
 English peoples have formed, representative insti- 
 tutions have been constructed most frequently upon 
 the basis maintained in Great Britain, namely that 
 of a more or less limited franchise. Either a
 
 142 English Leadership 
 
 property-owning or a tax-paying qualification is 
 prescribed in Prussia, and the great majority of 
 the secondary states of the German Empire; in 
 Spain, Italy, Holland, Hungary, Servia, Roumania 
 and Japan. But in Prussia the franchise is nar- 
 rowed still more in effect by a classification of the 
 tax-payers in such a way as to secure political 
 ascendency to the wealthy class. The indirect 
 mode of election is practiced likewise, to some 
 extent, in Italy, Baden, Bavaria, and some other 
 states. Spain has made provision for a representa- 
 tion of minorities. And so one might continue 
 indefinitely to cite examples of constitutional gains 
 in the franchise. It is obvious enough, however, 
 that the general tendency in Europe, on the whole, 
 is plainly toward universal suffrage. 
 
 But in every instance of such constitutional gains, 
 the nations have been largely following in the 
 footsteps of England and America. [France, it 
 is true, at the time of the Revolution, was the 
 first to conceive the idea of universal manhood 
 suffrage. But it was the English-speaking peoples 
 who first put the principle into practice and per- 
 fected the instruments for its application.] In 
 nothing else have the lessons of English example 
 and experience impressed the world so forcibly 
 and so effectually as in teaching that the people
 
 English Leadings 143 
 
 can safeguard their liberties only by securing con- 
 trol of the public purse. Generally, in the modern 
 constitutions, this has been provided for with 
 especial care. 
 
 Responsibility of the Executive is secured ac- 
 cording to the British mode in all the British 
 colonies and in most of the constitutional govern- 
 ments of Europe. That is to say, the immediate 
 administration of those governments is entrusted 
 to a cabinet of ministers whose tenure of office 
 depends upon the approval of their measures by 
 the representatives of the people. If they lose 
 the confidence of a majority in the popular branch 
 of the legislature, as shown by an adverse vote, 
 they must either resign or obtain a dissolution of 
 the legislature, thus appealing to the judgment of 
 the people in a fresh election of representatives. 
 
 Executive responsibility is secured in the United 
 States by centering it in an elected President, to 
 whom all executive authority is given. The Amer- 
 ican republics in general have adopted this, which 
 seems to be the natural republican mode; but the 
 French, in their republic, have preferred to endow 
 their President with httle of personal responsi- 
 bility, and to have him chosen in the National 
 Assembly, instead of by popular election, making 
 his functions and his place in the government much
 
 144 English Leadership 
 
 like those of the Enghsh king. In the Swiss Con- 
 federation "supreme direction and executive au- 
 thority" are exercised by a Federal Council of 
 seven members, elected once in three years by the 
 Federal Assembly, which also elects one from the 
 membership of the Council to be the President of 
 the Confederation. But this produces more divi- 
 sion and more indirectness of responsibility than 
 either the British or the American scheme. 
 
 Many, also, of the monarchical constitutions of 
 Europe contain formal declarations that the King's 
 "ministers are responsible," which means, simply, 
 that they are not sheltered by the irresponsible 
 authority of the sovereigns but are subject to im- 
 peachment and trial for wrongful acts. This, 
 however, does not touch the real executive power 
 with which the King, who appoints and dismisses 
 ministers, is clothed, and is therefore something 
 very different from the responsibility of an English 
 minister or an elected President of the United 
 States. 
 
 From this review we learn that one or the other 
 of the two types of representative popular govern- 
 ment developed by the English peoples, in Great 
 Britain and the United States respectively, have 
 been copied approximately, if not exactly, in large 
 parts of the civilized world. In the old monarchies
 
 English Leadings 145 
 
 there is still much resistance to the concession of 
 a really responsible executive; but all kings and 
 princes will have to yield it in the end, as the 
 English kings have done, and content themselves 
 with ceremonial functions, or else make way 
 for elected chiefs of state, as America has done. 
 Nothing in prospective history is more plainly cer- 
 tain than the final constitution of all civilized gov- 
 ernments, in essential features, on English lines. 
 
 [In our survey of English leadings, thus far, we 
 have considered only one field of political experi- 
 ence, — the internal constitution of government; 
 and in this unquestionably the experience of the 
 English peoples has been the forcing-house in 
 which practically all the great principles of democ- 
 racy and republicanism have been generated and 
 nourished, and from which they have later been 
 transplanted to nearly every nation of the civilized 
 world. There remains one other field of political 
 experience, — the imperial ; and in this, too, English 
 experience has generated still other great principles 
 of government, — principles which will go far 
 toward solving the perplexing problems of inter- 
 national association and interdependence which the 
 world is now facing.] 
 
 In colonial expansion, as in discovery, explora- 
 tion and settlement, it was not promptitude of
 
 146 English Leadership 
 
 enterprise that seated English folk so imperially. 
 Neither in America nor in any other of their far- 
 flung dominions were they the first to grasp op- 
 portunities of trade or empire, or dominating ad- 
 vantage of any sort in the world. Always 
 deliberate, always slow, always behind some race 
 of more alertness, they have been late-comers in 
 every field of foreign enterprise, commercial or 
 political; but once arrived, and their places se- 
 cured, they, more than any other people, have 
 been able to make effective use of it. And they 
 have always had a strange help of fortune in find- 
 ing some vantage-ground awaiting them in the 
 field. It is by the force of that remarkable com- 
 bination, — of favoring circumstances with rare 
 capability and rare training for the best use of 
 it, — that English folk, instead of Spanish or Portu- 
 guese or Dutch or French, are in possession of 
 the North American continent, are dominant in 
 Australasia, are masters of the best parts of 
 Africa, rulers of India, administrators of Egypt, — 
 the only people who exercise what can truly be 
 called a world-power. 
 
 Apart from America, it was in India that Eng- 
 lish colonial claims first came into conflict with 
 those of other nations. For there the French too 
 had entered as traders, organized in similar com-
 
 English Leadings 147 
 
 panics, but acting in that incorporated, private 
 capacity, under authorizations from their govern- 
 ment which involved some ultimate support. The 
 English East India Company and its agents in 
 India could act with greater freedom, however, 
 than was permitted to the French, and could or- 
 ganize action more efficiently by their own initia- 
 tive and within themselves. This resulted neces- 
 sarily from the less prescriptive and dictatorial 
 spirit of English government, and from the more 
 independent action in which the Englishmen had 
 been trained. 
 
 In India, as in America, the French, at the out- 
 set of their rivalry with the English, were much the 
 more alert in securing advantages of position and 
 of circumstance. They were the first to take sides 
 in the native wars, making themselves important 
 as allies, and winning prestige and influence in 
 southern India, while the English, by comparison, 
 were considerably despised. "England," says one 
 of her own historians of British India, "owes the 
 idea of an Indian empire to the French," who 
 likewise showed her how it could be won. But 
 when the English of the East India Company took 
 the idea, and saw that they must do as the French 
 were doing, or lose all that they had come to 
 India for, they soon outdid their teachers in the
 
 148 English Leadership 
 
 application of the arts and energy by which native 
 rulers were superseded, or made subservient to 
 European control. 
 
 The Anglo-French conflict of colonial ambitions 
 came practically to an end in both India and Amer- 
 ica, in 1760, the year of the accession of George 
 III to the English throne. England was then at 
 the height of her supremacy among the European 
 nations, and fully entered on her imperial career. 
 Between 1764 and 1779, with what seemed to be 
 a new conception of her destiny, she commissioned 
 a series of oiBcial expeditions to explore the Pacific 
 Ocean, resulting in a vast enlargement of her terri- 
 torial claims in that part of the world. The 
 greatest harvest of territory was gathered by Cap- 
 tain Cook, whose official instructions were to take 
 possession, "with the consent of the natives, in 
 the name of the king of Great Britain, of con- 
 venient situations in such countries as you may 
 discover that have not been discovered or visited 
 by any other European power." It was Cook's 
 exploration that enabled the English to establish 
 permanent claim to Australia, and later to New 
 Zealand. It was his explorations, more than any 
 other, which led the way for that wider establish- 
 ment of English dominion which has taken place 
 during the past two centuries.
 
 English Leadings 149 
 
 In the exercise of their sovereignty over these 
 wide dominions, it may be said with fairness that, 
 on the whole and in the long run, the English, 
 more often than otherwise, have been leaders in 
 the modern culture of those altruistic feelings 
 which check oppressive uses of power. The Euro- 
 pean enterprises of territorial acquisition and of 
 colonization that were set on foot in the sixteenth 
 century by the discovery of the western hemi- 
 sphere, were all purely commercial in motive, and 
 were ruled for about three centuries by narrow, 
 unenlightened commercial ideas. These were ideas 
 which tended, as Professor Seeley has shown in 
 his lectures on "The Expansion of England," to 
 put both colonies and conquered dependencies on 
 the footing of so much national property, to be 
 worked as estates for the pecuniary profit of the 
 proprietary nation. Tracing the extension of that 
 theory from captured possessions to colonies, he 
 writes: "In the sixteenth century there was no 
 scruple in applying it to conquered dependencies, 
 and, since the colonies of Spain were in a certain 
 sense conquered dependencies, we can understand 
 that unconsciously, unintentionally, the barbaric 
 principle crept into her colonial system, and that it 
 lurked there and poisoned it in later times. We 
 can understand, too, how the example of Spain
 
 150 English Leadership 
 
 and the precedents set by her influenced the other 
 European states, Holland, France and England, 
 which entered upon the career of colonization a 
 century later. In the case of some of these states, 
 for example, France, the result of this theory was 
 that the mother country exercised an iron authority 
 over her colonies." ^ 
 
 Politically the barbaric Spanish theory could not 
 be put into practice in English colonies, because 
 of the more liberal political institutions under 
 which English colonists had been bred, and be- 
 cause of its repugnance to all English experience 
 and thought; but it could be applied commercially, 
 and it was. Hence the old colonial system of 
 England, — the system that was broken down by 
 the revolt of her American colonies, — "gave un- 
 bounded liberty except in one department, namely 
 trade, and in that department it interfered to fine 
 the colonists for the benefit of the home traders." 
 "Thus," says Seeley, "this old system was an ir- 
 rational jumble of two opposite conceptions. It 
 claimed to rule the colonists because they were 
 Englishmen and brothers, and yet it ruled them 
 as if they were conquered Indians. And, again, 
 while it treated them as conquered people, it gave 
 
 * Quoted from J. R. Seeley, The Expansion of England, pp. 
 78-79. — Ed.
 
 English Leadings 151 
 
 them so much liberty that they could easily rebel." * 
 When the old system had been wrecked by the 
 discordancy of its commercial with its political 
 principles, and England constructed her colonial 
 policy anew, she honestly yielded her mind to the 
 conviction that freedom is a universal good, — the 
 condition of all prosperity, — and that the more 
 perfectly the terms of freedom could be brought 
 into her relations with her colonies, the more 
 beneficial in all ways those relations would be- 
 come, equally to herself and to them. So the 
 theory of colonial expansion was civilized in her 
 hands, during the last century, and she introduced 
 new precedents and examples to supersede those 
 of Spain. [There is, however, according to Pol- 
 lard, still a "distinction between colonies used for 
 exploitation and colonies used for settlement" 
 which "has led to important constitutional varia- 
 tions in the empire. Only those colonies in which 
 large white communities are settled have received 
 self-government; those in which a few whites 
 exploit a large colored population remain subject 
 to the control of the home government." ^] 
 Even a hundred years ago the temper of men 
 
 * Quoted from J. R. Seeley, The Expansion of England, pp. 
 80-81.— Ed. 
 *See A. F. Pollard, History of England, p. 152. — Ed.
 
 152 English Leadership 
 
 was harder than it Is now, and the breach of 
 sympathy between higher and lower races in the 
 scales of culture and capacity was far more difficult 
 to overcome. In the whole movement which has 
 covered the later-found parts of the world with 
 European masters, selfish motives have remained, 
 no doubt, just the same in force and in quality 
 from the early years of the sixteenth century, when 
 the Spaniards took possession of Mexico and Peru, 
 down to the last years of the nineteenth, when 
 Africa was divided up and the Americans laid 
 their hands on the Philippine Islands; but the 
 temper in them has been greatly softened. It has 
 been softened, too, in some of the dominating 
 races more than in others, and most of all, seem- 
 ingly, in the peoples of English stock. 
 
 Down to the last century, however, the English 
 had quite as much heartlessness to answer for in 
 their treatment of some, at least, among their 
 alien subjects, as can be charged to the account 
 of any other western European race. True, there 
 have been instances, in earlier English rule, of a 
 sordid, callous selfishness and a cold religious 
 bigotry that are almost without a parallel; but so, 
 too, without a parallel, have been the later penitent 
 efforts toward reparation. That India had small 
 experience of anything but rapacity in its govern-
 
 English Leadings 153 
 
 ment, during a long period of Its subjection to an 
 English mercantile corporation, is beyond dispute ; 
 though recent historical studies have taken some- 
 thing from the blackness of the pictures that were 
 drawn by Burke. [It Is of Interest here to note 
 the modern tendency to emphasize the fact that 
 the maladministration of India took place only 
 during the unrestricted rule of the East India Com- 
 pany, and that, with the growth of the influence 
 of the home government, the management of 
 affairs became more ethical, and material con- 
 ditions began to improve. On the other hand, 
 as Earned says, it must not be supposed that the 
 administration of India under the company was 
 altogether reprehensible. There is no doubt that 
 the actions of men like Warren Hastings were 
 prompted almost entirely by a desire to preserve 
 India for England; and that the misdeeds of their 
 terms of office caused men to forget many of their 
 beneficial public measures, ^] But the later British' 
 rule has been, certainly, as irreproachable as any 
 government by right of conquest, without consent 
 of the governed, can be. [Seeley's comment on 
 
 *For further discussion on this side of the question, see the 
 article on Warren Hastings, in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 
 nth edition; Stephen, Story of Nuncomar; Strachey, Hastings 
 and the Rohilla War; and Cross, A History of England and 
 Greater Britain. — Ed.
 
 154 English Leadership 
 
 this subject is pertinent. He claims that England 
 did not conquer India in the generally accepted 
 sense, and then goes on to say: "And thus the 
 mystic halo of marvel and miracle which has 
 gathered around this Empire disappears before a 
 fixed scrutiny. ^ It disappears when we perceiye 
 that, though we are foreign rulers in India, we 
 are not conquerors resting on superior force, when 
 we recognize that it is a mere European prejudice 
 to assume that since we do not rule by the will of 
 the people of India, we must needs rule against 
 their will."] Much that the British have done 
 has been from pure intentions of good to the 
 country and the people. Even though there has 
 always been an unconfessed check, on such inten- 
 tions, proceeding from the demand of British in- 
 dustries and trade to have their interests consid- 
 ered before all else, even though this has dis- 
 couraged the economic development of India in 
 industries that would lessen the market for British 
 goods, nevertheless, in nearly all conditions of 
 peace, order, and even-handed justice between in- 
 dividuals, — in organized systems of education and 
 benevolence, and in public agencies of every de- 
 scription, for trade, travel, and communication, — 
 the country and its people have been immeasurably 
 
 * See J. R. Seeley, Expansion of England, p. 264. — Ed.
 
 English Leadings 155 
 
 benefited in recent times by their British masters. 
 Possibly the taint of self-profiting and self-aggran- 
 dizement may be removed in time, by the moral 
 processes that have diminished it so much as they 
 have. [A step toward the democratic government 
 of India is indicated by an article in the American 
 Review of Reviews of August, 191 8. The article 
 says, in part: "It would be far from true to 
 assert that England looks forward to a future of 
 selfish exploitations in the great Asiatic empire 
 over which the British crown holds sway. . . . 
 Mr. Montagu, Secretary for India in the Lloyd 
 George ministry, has recently spent six months in 
 India, studying all the problems of that vast coun- 
 try. He has returned to London with a report 
 which proposes the beginnings of a very consider- 
 able system of native home rule. It is not expected 
 to go as fast in India as we Americans have gone 
 in the Philippines, but the plans proposed consti- 
 tute a good beginning, and India can go forward 
 towards full self-government on the Canadian plan 
 by the simple process of making wide use of the 
 Initial powers conferred upon her."] 
 
 [Hopes for the realization of this ideal are 
 justified by England's treatment of her depend- 
 encies in another quarter of the world. When 
 the South African problem arose through the out-
 
 156 English Leadership 
 
 break of the Boer War, the fundamental Issue was 
 not one of financial gain, but rather of racial equal- 
 ity against racial ascendency. In such an Issue 
 Britain's traditions made Inevitable her alignment 
 on the side of racial equality. But that Britain's 
 great self-governing colonies should take a volun- 
 tary part In helping her to establish this Ideal, Is 
 Indication of the fact that there was developing 
 In the British Empire a unity of sentiment and of 
 aim which had never before been realized. 
 
 In this concerted action of England and her 
 colonies In the Boer war, the growth of the Idea 
 of Imperial federation Is discernible. The Im- 
 perial Federation Society had been founded In 
 1878; but it was not until the Boer war that the 
 colonies, which had once been regarded as "mill- 
 stones around England's neck" came to be recog- 
 nized as having a vital part In the British Imperial 
 organism. In the two Jubilee celebrations of 1887 
 and 1897, there may have been "a suggestion of 
 blatancy and of mere pride in dominion." But 
 the events which followed the Boer war have 
 proved that this was only a temporary manifesta- 
 tion quite out of accord with the deeper and more 
 permanent conception of imperial responsibility. 
 No surer proof can be found of this new attitude 
 than the note of profound sincerity which is
 
 English Leadings 157 
 
 sounded again and again through all of Kipling's 
 poetry, and the acclaim with which that poetry 
 was received among all English-speaking peoples 
 was indication of their growing realization of that 
 responsibility. 
 
 This eminently English conception of empire 
 is embodied in the common councils between Eng- 
 lish statesmen and colonial prime ministers, in 
 which the great problems of imperial policy and 
 administration are discussed with new frankness 
 and a new spirit of cooperation. Coincident with 
 this tendency toward a greater unity on the part 
 of the members of the British Empire has been 
 the development of a more marked national spirit 
 among the peoples of the self-governing colonies, 
 a development which does not, however, as many 
 may have feared, endanger the growth of imperial 
 unity. On the contrary, the sense of nationality 
 is an essential element in the fullest achievement 
 of empire. It is only when each individual organ 
 performs its own particular function that there 
 can be attained the highest efficiency in concerted 
 action toward common ends. As Ramsay Muir 
 has so well said, "The essence of the British sys- 
 tem is the free development of natural tendencies, 
 and the encouragement of variety of types; and 
 the future towards which the Empire seems to be
 
 158 English Leadership 
 
 tending is not that of a highly centralised and 
 unified state, but that of a brotherhood of free 
 nations, united by community of ideas and institu- 
 tions, cooperating for many common ends, and 
 above all for the common defense in case of need, 
 but each freely following the natural trend of its 
 own dev^elopment." ^] 
 
 If there is anywhere a promise of realization 
 of such an empire it is in the governments that 
 are conducted by the English and their kin; for 
 whatever may have been the former fact, they 
 hold the lead now on all lines of progress that 
 tend away from oppression, toward freedom and 
 toward that just law which is its surest guarantee. 
 No claim of the English people is less disputable 
 than that they, more than others, yield an un- 
 reserved allegiance to law. Law, in itself, as the 
 interdiction of license and disorder, apart from all 
 its sanctions and all the forces of authority behind 
 it, commands them more generally than it com- 
 mands other peoples. Some influence in their past 
 has planted and cultivated in their minds the lofti- 
 est conception, yet attained among men, of the 
 social purpose for which human ordinances of 
 government are framed. When Hooker said of 
 
 * Quoted from Ramsay Muir, The Expansion of Europe, p. 
 189.— Ed,
 
 English Leadings 159 
 
 Law that "her seat is the bosom of God, her voice 
 the harmony of the world," he did not exaggerate 
 the impassioned reverence of enlightened feeling 
 which he expressed for his fellow-countrymen. 
 English literature, unlike any other, contains many 
 similar exaltations of the thought and spirit of 
 Law. 
 
 As we traced the main incidents of the long, 
 slow evolution of democratic institutions of gov- 
 ernment in England, we could see how often and 
 how much It depended on reaffirmation and vindi- 
 cations of law, with some broadening and exten- 
 sion, always, of its previous scope, — some deepen- 
 ing of its effect on personal securities and rights. 
 The Norman conqueror found It prudent to base 
 the government of his new subjects, with no greatly 
 disturbing change, on their old cherished law. His 
 son, Henry I, won their loyalty to himself by a 
 charter which confirmed the laws of Edward the 
 Confessor; this, In turn, became the basis of the 
 Great Charter, In which a definitely constitutional 
 structure of law began to take form. Confirma- 
 tion after confirmation of Magna Carta established 
 the foundation for the grand edifice which suc- 
 cessive generations of Englishmen, working some- 
 times by shrewd uses of opportunity, and some- 
 times by bold strokes of revolution, have been able
 
 i6o English Leadership 
 
 to erect. It seems plain, then, that the evolution 
 of the English system of free government in- 
 volved a training of the people to be vigilant 
 wardens of the law, with an enlightened apprecia- 
 tion of its import, such as no other people have 
 received. 
 
 ["This amazing political structure, ^ which re- 
 fuses to fall within any of the categories of political 
 science, which is an empire and yet not an empire, 
 a state and yet not a state, a supernation incor- 
 porating in itself an incredible variety of peoples 
 and races, is not a structure which has been de- 
 signed by the ingenuity of man, or created by the 
 purposive action of a government; it is a natural 
 growth, the product of the spontaneous activity 
 of innumerable individuals and groups springing 
 from among peoples whose history has made lib- 
 erty and the tolerance of differences their most 
 fundamental instincts; it is the product of a series 
 of accidents, unforeseen, but turned to advantage 
 by the unfailing and ever-new resourcefulness of 
 men habituated to self-government. . . . Almost 
 every form of social organization and of govern- 
 ment known to man is represented in its complex 
 and many-hued fabric. It embodies five of the 
 
 ' Quoted from Ramsay Muir, The Expansion of Europe, p. 
 232-234. — Ed.
 
 English Leadings i6i 
 
 most completely self-governing communities which 
 the world has known, and four of these control 
 the future of the great empty spaces that remain 
 for the settlement of white men. It finds place 
 for the highly organized caste system by which 
 the teeming millions of India are held together. It 
 preserves the simple tribal organization of the 
 African clans. To different elements among its 
 subjects this empire appears in different aspects. 
 To the self-governing Dominions it is a brother- 
 hood of free nations, cooperating for the defense 
 and diffusion of common ideas and of common 
 institutions. To the ancient civilization of India 
 or of Egypt it is a power which, in spite of all 
 its mistakes and limitations, has brought peace 
 instead of turmoil, law instead of arbitrary might, 
 unity instead of chaos, justice instead of oppres- 
 sion, freedom for the development of the capac- 
 ities and characteristic ideas of their peoples, and 
 the prospect of a steady growth of national unity 
 and political responsibility. To the backward races 
 it has meant the suppression of unending slaughter, 
 the disappearance of slavery, the protection of the 
 rights and usages of primitive and simple folk 
 against reckless exploitation, and the chance of 
 gradual improvement and emancipation from bar- 
 barism. But to all alike, to one quarter of the
 
 i62 English Leadership 
 
 inhabitants of the world, it has meant the estab- 
 lishment of the Reign of Law, and of the Liberty 
 which can only exist under its shelter. In some 
 degree, though imperfectly as yet, it has realized 
 within its own body all the three great political 
 ideas of the modern world. It has fostered the 
 rise of a sense of nationhood in the young com- 
 munities of the new lands, and in the old and de- 
 caying civilizations of the most ancient historic 
 countries. It has given a freedom of development 
 to self-government such as history has never be- 
 fore known. And by linking together so many 
 diverse and contrasted peoples in a common peace, 
 it has already realized, for a quarter of the globe, 
 the ideal of internationalism on a scale undreamt 
 of by the most sanguine prophets of Europe."]
 
 THE GEOGRAPHIC FACTOR IN 
 ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 Donald E. Smith
 
 I
 
 THE GEOGRAPHIC FACTOR IN 
 ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 The Serbians have a motto: "One travels the 
 world over, to return to Serbia," which applies, 
 obviously, as most nationalistic mottoes do, in the 
 case of every country on the face of the globe. 
 The English version of it, though not crystallized 
 into epigram, is none the less deeply felt by Eng- 
 lishmen of all time, with what justification the 
 traveler in Great Britain can easily recognize. 
 Viewed externally, England has a simple, well-bred 
 beauty, never flagrant nor extravagant, yet rich 
 and colorful, revealing on all sides the touch of 
 an art that does not distort nature. The rural 
 districts suggest a vast park, with their hedgerows, 
 their fresh woods and gardens, their abundant sun- 
 shine and innumerable narrow streams whose 
 placid surfaces little betray the depth of the waters 
 beneath. The rough but low-lying mountains of 
 Wales, northern England and Scotland supply the 
 bold note in the landscape of Great Britain, wild 
 
 165
 
 i66 English Leadership 
 
 yet nowhere savage, strong yet nowhere gigantic 
 or Alpine. 
 
 To get back to less striking details of geography, 
 — the island of Britain is separated from the 
 northwestern coast of Europe by narrow seas 
 which have served sometimes as a barrier, at other 
 times as a link, between the Continent and Eng- 
 land. The subsidence of her coast ages ago has 
 made its outline very irregular, and converted the 
 mouths of the rivers into estuaries of great value 
 as harbors. The eastern shore, the edge of a 
 plain, lies low and flat; the other shores are high, 
 steep banks, difficult of access, except at the deep 
 indentations of the rivers. Rising ghost-like out 
 of the sea, the chalk cliffs of the southern coast of 
 England give no suggestion of the character of 
 the land that lies beyond their pale edge. In the 
 olden time, that beyond was a mass of virgin for- 
 est, dark, forbidding, and as uninhabitable as the 
 vast fens that stretched for miles around at the 
 mouths of the rivers, interspersed with a few open- 
 ings that permitted cultivation. The progress of 
 settlement in time has cleared the forest land and 
 reclaimed the swamps, till England stands to-day 
 revealed as a country of rolling hills, smooth 
 plains, and low mountains, a country level and 
 green, immensely varied in activity and resources.
 
 The Geographic Factor 167 
 
 The well-watered downs and valleys of south- 
 eastern England, favored by an equable climate, 
 are utilized both for sheep-pastures and for agri- 
 culture. Beyond these lies the midland region, or 
 the great Central plain, as it is more often called. 
 This, next to London, is the center of English 
 wealth, population and industry, the scene of a 
 wide variety of human activity, — mining, manu- 
 facturing, dairying, grazing, — all knit together in 
 a network of railroads, rivers and canals, and 
 opened to the outside world through Its two great 
 seaports, London to the southeast on the estuary 
 of the Thames, Liverpool to the northwest at 
 the mouth of the Mersey. 
 
 Back of this great Central plain rises the ir- 
 regular mass of hill and mountain which forms the 
 western rim of Britain, an almost continuous wall 
 from Land's End to the Hebrides, — nowhere vast 
 and massive, everywhere rough and difficult of ac- 
 cess except through its three natural gateways, 
 Bristol Channel, the Mersey, and Solway Firth. 
 The extreme southwestern section, cut off by Bris- 
 tol, springs precipitously from the stormy Atlantic, 
 the far-jutting, rockbound promontory of Corn- 
 wall, whose rich mines of tin and copper first at- 
 tracted to Britain the trading ships of ancient 
 Phoenicia. Between Bristol Channel and the Mer-
 
 i68 English Leadership 
 
 sey lie the low, rugged peaks and ridges of Wales, 
 often veiled in mists from the moisture-laden winds 
 of the west, a land of many flocks and numerous 
 small villages, but richly endowed with a variety 
 of mineral resources. To the north of the Mersey, 
 the western wall rises again in the long, straggling 
 ridges of the Pennines, behind which lies hidden 
 one of the most beautiful spots in all Britain, — 
 the wooded and picturesque mountains of Cumber- 
 land, silent, secluded, mirrored in numerous lakes, 
 — the only region in England which has escaped 
 the transforming hand of man. This, the cele- 
 brated Lake District, so securely cut off from the 
 rest of Britain, seemed destined by nature to be 
 the home of English romantic poetry. Still farther 
 to the north the mountain rim, broken by Solway 
 Firth and the Firth of Clyde, rises abruptly to 
 the Scottish Highlands, covering the whole north- 
 ern end of the island, — a massive wall of peaks 
 and crags deeply trenched by glen and fiord, — 
 Britain's bulwark against the winds and waves of 
 Northern seas. 
 
 Back of the larger island of Britain, and cut 
 off from easy communication with Europe, lies 
 Ireland, — brilliantly green and attractive, but 
 lonely and poor in natural resources, — encircled 
 by its rim of low-lying mountains, beaten by cold,
 
 The Geographic Factor 169 
 
 angry seas, and drenched by continuous rains which 
 render the greater part of its flat central plain an 
 untillable bog, barrier alike to internal communi- 
 cation and to the agriculture and industry from 
 which alone the necessities of life might be secured. 
 Small wonder that the Irish are an emigrating 
 people I 
 
 These two large Islands, with a number of small 
 and dependent ones, constituting the British Isles, 
 may be regarded as the predestined home of a 
 great people. Surely, few regions of the earth's 
 surface, of equal area, are so favored by natural 
 conditions for the home of so vigorous and pro- 
 gressive a nation. Lacking though they may be in 
 the bland climate and the sheer physical beauty 
 of the most favored Mediterranean lands, the gen- 
 eral aspect of nature Is here altogether conducive 
 to the highest human development. While it is 
 true that the great scientific observer, Humboldt, 
 regarded France as the most highly endowed of all 
 European lands, from a point of view of natural 
 advantages, we must dissent from his too sweeping 
 generalization. Probably no portion of the earth's 
 surface of equal area possesses such a profusion 
 and variety of sources of wealth. Greater fertility 
 of soil and greater facilities of purely agricultural 
 wealth can be found in many historic river valleys
 
 170 English Leadership 
 
 such as the Nile, the Tigris-Euphrates and the 
 Mississippi; and yet the English have been the 
 teachers of the modern world in scientific agricul- 
 ture. Certain arid mountain regions in Chile, 
 Mexico and Peru, and in Colorado possess untold 
 mineral wealth, but square mile for square mile 
 the coal measures, and the iron, copper and lead 
 mines found in one-half of the area of Great 
 Britain surpass any one of these regions in eco- 
 nomic value. Moreover, there can be found no- 
 where else, another condition markedly peculiar 
 to Britain, — the juxtaposition, within a very limit- 
 ed area, of vast and varied mineral deposits, rich 
 agricultural land, excellent forests, and well-nigh 
 perfect interior water communications, combined 
 with a climate which permits the white man to 
 work under most favorable conditions. 
 
 Even if all these natural advantages were not 
 apparent in the earliest historical times, yet the 
 British Isles were attractive to the simple bar- 
 barians of the neighboring lands on the Continent, 
 particularly those of what is now the Netherlands 
 and northern Germany. These, before dikes had 
 been built, were bleak regions of alternate forest 
 and marsh, flanked by waste stretches of sandy 
 shore, subject to constant inundations. There 
 were no minerals, like the tin of Cornwall, to
 
 The Geographic Factor 171 
 
 encourage commerce, while the level, exposed 
 plains were swept by warring tribes in one deso- 
 lating invasion after another. 
 
 Strange as it may seem to the traveler from 
 America or from Mediterranean lands, the climate 
 of England has been a natural endowment which 
 encouraged immigration in times long past as it 
 does industry in the present. As the geographer 
 Kirchhoff has observed, the winds which sweep 
 over this region from the North Atlantic are 
 heavily charged with ozone so that the sea-air 
 is felt over the whole archipelago, while the abun- 
 dant moisture which they carry sustains the water 
 supply of the rivers and the brilliant verdure of 
 the landscape at nearly every season of the year. 
 Besides giving essential aid to British agriculture, 
 the high humidity of this region of mists and 
 fogs, combined with Its hilly character and abun- 
 dant water power, has provided in the western 
 part of the island all the conditions essential to 
 the remarkable development of the Lancashire 
 textile industry. Likewise the cyclonic storms of 
 these latitudes have helped to rear a race of skill- 
 ful, hardy mariners who have been disciplined in 
 the severest school of navigation. There is, how- 
 ever, none of the terrific extremes of rainfall and 
 .tempest which have oppr.e.sse.d and discouraged
 
 172 English Leadership 
 
 men in the tropics, nor has the climate of these 
 islands permitted the stunting of man's growth 
 as has occurred in wide areas of the same latitudes 
 in Asia and North America. Moreover, British 
 climate has had a peculiar effect upon the relative 
 importance of the neighboring islands of Ireland 
 and Great Britain. The rainfall of Ireland is 
 excessive when considered in connection with the 
 drainage system. Consequently agriculture in Ire- 
 land is severely limited through the inability to 
 grow cereals, while central England is in part 
 protected from excessive precipitation by the wall 
 of Welsh mountains in the west. 
 
 It is, of course, impossible to state precisely 
 just what motives actuated the Germanic tribes 
 of Angles, Saxons, and Jutes to begin their in- 
 vasions of Romanized Britain in the fifth century 
 of our era. Probably it was a combination of 
 desire for adventure and conquest for its own sake 
 with the pressure of hunger and dangerous neigh- 
 bors in their home on the Continent. Suffice it 
 to say that once embarked upon their low, dark 
 ships they found the new land of southern and 
 eastern England more attractive than their old 
 homes, and the work of conquest not too difficult. 
 As every school boy knows, these Teutonic bar- 
 barians easily established themselves at various
 
 The Geographic Factor 173 
 
 points on the coast and afterwards pushed up the 
 rivers into the interior and gradually mastered the 
 country as far west as Wales and as far north as 
 the Tyne. To what degree these Anglo-Saxons 
 exterminated or assimilated the original inhabi- 
 tants is not known. We do know, however, that 
 in some cases they used both methods, depending 
 in large measure upon the obstinacy of the re- 
 sistance. The result was undoubtedly a mixed 
 people, made up of uncertain proportions of Celtic 
 Britons, Romans, and Teutons, whom we, for lack 
 of a better name, call Anglo-Saxons. 
 
 Just what the historical bearings of this ethnic 
 fusion have been, it is impossible to say. Pro- 
 fessor Haskins in his "The Normans in European 
 History," is not disposed to attach too much im- 
 portance to it. "Only a formal and mechanical 
 view of history," he says, "seeks to ticket off par- 
 ticular races against particular regions as the sole 
 sources of population and power; only false na- 
 tional pride conceives of any people as continually 
 in the vanguard of civilization. Races are mixed 
 things, institutions and civilization are still more 
 complex, and no people can claim to be a unique 
 and permanent source of light and strength." 
 Professor Goldwin Smith concurs in this view: 
 "The further we go in these inquiries the more
 
 174 English Leadership 
 
 reason there seems to be for believing that the 
 peculiarities of races are not congenital, but im- 
 pressed by primeval circumstance. Not only the 
 same moral and intellectual nature, but the same 
 primitive institutions, are found in all the races 
 that come under our view; they appear alike in 
 Teuton, Celt and Semite. That which is not con- 
 genital is probably not indelible, so that the less 
 favoured races, placed under happier circum- 
 stances, may in time be brought to the level of 
 the more favored, and nothing warrants inhuman 
 pride of race. But it is surely absurd to deny 
 that peculiarities of race, when formed, are im- 
 portant factors in history." 
 
 In Green's "Short History of the English Peo- 
 ple," the "fair-haired Saxon" was held in great 
 admiration and it has become almost traditional, 
 at least until very recent years, to attribute to the 
 early Teutonic conquerors of England most of the 
 admirable, distinctive qualities of the modern 
 Englishman. Mr. Earned was inclined to refer 
 back to the primitive Teuton the germs of many 
 English institutions. Without attempting to de- 
 cide between the respective claims of the Anglo- 
 Saxon and Norman schools of historians, it is easy 
 to see that the position of Great Britain was the 
 principal determinant of what the eventual racial
 
 The Geographic Factor 175 
 
 amalgam was to be. If England had been as re- 
 mote as Iceland, It certainly would now have a 
 far greater ethnic unity and in all probability 
 would never have undergone the Norman con- 
 quest. As a result of what actually happened the 
 English were conquered without being destroyed 5 
 the Norman invasion meant the infusion of a new 
 element without the total supplanting of the orig- 
 inal population. "Outside of Normandy," ac- 
 cording to Professor Haskins, "the Normans were 
 but a small folk, and sooner or later they in- 
 evitably lost their identity. They did their work 
 preeminently not as a people apart, but as a group 
 of leaders and energizers, the little leaven that 
 leaveneth the whole lump. Wherever they went 
 they showed a marvelous power of initiative and 
 of assimilation; . . . The penalty for such activ- 
 ity is rapid loss of identity; the reward is a large 
 share in the general development of civilization. 
 If the Normans paid the penalty, they also reaped 
 the reward, and they were never more Norman 
 rthan in adopting the statesmanlike policy of tol- 
 leration and assimilation which led to their ulti- 
 mate extinction." 
 
 After the completion of the Norman conquest 
 the racial Identity of the population of the British 
 Jsles was finally determined. Henceforth, In their
 
 176 English Leadership 
 
 island home they were to work out their historic 
 destiny undisturbed by any further violent intru- 
 sion of the foreigner. The process of the modifi- 
 cation of nature by man was to continue. In the 
 succeeding centuries, steady encroachments upon 
 the forests and the drainage of the fens were 
 to bring larger and larger areas under cultivation, 
 but there were to be no such striking transforma- 
 tions In the aspect of the land as resulted from 
 the deforestation of many historic regions in 
 North Africa and the Near East or such extensive 
 reclamation as has taken place recently in Egypt 
 and in the western part of the United States. The 
 principal conditions of habitat were now fixed, and 
 in this island home the English people were des- 
 tined to work out the problems of their arduous 
 but glorious future. 
 
 The path of one who would trace the influence 
 of the geographical factors in English history is 
 by no means smooth. The influence of physical 
 environment on human affairs, or the reciprocal 
 action of man and nature, has been discussed ever 
 since the days of the Greek philosophers. Per- 
 haps the first adequate statement of the problem 
 was made by the French thinker Bodin in the last 
 quarter of the sixteenth century. In recent years, 
 the controversy has waxed warm over the ques-
 
 The Geographic Factor 177 
 
 tlon as to whether man or his homeland, nature 
 or nurture, race or habitat, heredity or environ- 
 ment has been the prevailing influence in the life 
 of the individual and society. 
 
 Before considering the specific geographical 
 factors which have played so large a part in the 
 history of England and the British Empire, it is 
 only fair to admit that there is great disagreement 
 among historians as to the general nature and 
 direction of geographic influence. Some would 
 even deny any important influence of habitat on 
 historical development and assert that race is the 
 great fundamental fact of history. In other 
 words, an Englishman remains an Englishman 
 wherever he makes his home, in whatever climate 
 and under whatever physical conditions he chances 
 to live. Carlyle went even further in proclaiming 
 the Great Man theory of history and denied to 
 either race or physical environment any power 
 'to modify essentially the course of human history. 
 To him, the individual genius of a few contributes 
 all that is noteworthy in the progress of mankind; 
 and Emerson in his "Representative Men" sup- 
 ports Carlyle in this view. 
 
 Quite opposed to all this are the theories of 
 the naturalistic or materialistic school of geog- 
 raphers and historians. This philosophy of his-
 
 178 English Leadership 
 
 tory with more or less Important modifications has 
 been defended and popularized more recently by 
 such writers as Lecky and Bryce in England, and 
 by Professor Shaler and Miss Ellen Churchill Sem- 
 ple in America. Through their writings the modern 
 view of the philosophy of history has been modi- 
 fied imperceptibly but completely, so that it is well- 
 nigh impossible for us to conceive the course of 
 English history, which is now under our consider- 
 ation, apart from its relation to the broad geo- 
 graphic facts which have indelibly impressed their 
 influence upon it. 
 
 Assuming then, as a working hypothesis, that 
 "history is the modification of man by nature and 
 of nature by man," acting through the influence 
 of climate, food, soil, and the general aspect of 
 nature, we will be able to observe some of these 
 effects in the history of England. 
 
 If we can agree with Lord Bryce in attribut- 
 ing to physiography and the conditions affecting 
 human industry a marked influence in the shaping 
 of a people's history we will find no more striking 
 exemplification of the workings of these factors 
 than in the British Isles. It is true that these in- 
 fluences are here not always the most obvious, 
 nor as simple in their discernible effects as may 
 sometimes be seen in the life of a nomad commu-
 
 The Geographic Factor 179 
 
 nity living in the desert, or in the case of a moun- 
 taineer folk like the Swiss and Scotch highlanders, 
 but the geographical factor will, nevertheless, be- 
 come apparent on the slightest analysis. A study of 
 the physiography of the British Isles will explain 
 not only the backwardness of Ireland, and the 
 marked characteristics of the people of Wales 
 and the Scottish Highlands but will also enable 
 us to understand the course of the migrations and 
 conquests and consequent racial distribution of 
 the inhabitants of these islands, past aad present. 
 Whether man is now more dependent upon the 
 natural conditions which surround him than he 
 was in the past need not enter into the discus- 
 sion. But the distribution of the forests, fens, 
 rivers, and mountains has always affected the den- 
 sity of population and the conditions of life. It 
 is physiography, not the accidents of history, which 
 has dictated that the English must be not a na- 
 tion of nomadic shepherds, nor of mountaineers, 
 nor indeed an exclusively agricultural people, but 
 rather a society with a complex industrial and 
 commercial life. 
 
 The question of the influence of the geographi- 
 cal environment upon the ethnic composition and 
 character of the English people has not escaped 
 much learned discussion. Speaking of the influ-
 
 i8o English Leadership 
 
 ence of the configuration of the land upon its in- 
 habitants, Professor Hinsdale has said, "Nothing 
 can be more evident than that these facts almost 
 wholly controlled the early movement of races, 
 such as migration, and that they powerfully affect 
 military operations, the character and extent of 
 conquests, the size and the boundaries of states, 
 the location and character of cities, and the direc- 
 tion, kind, and abundance of facilities for travel 
 and transportation." The situation of England 
 as it fronts the shores of north central Europe 
 was an invitation to the nearest Teutonic people 
 to come over and occupy the land. Even in the 
 days of primitive seamanship the distance from 
 the mouths of the Rhine and the Scheldt to the 
 estuary of the Thames was very short, while less 
 than thirty miles separates the Dover cliffs from 
 the mainland opposite It was a more serious 
 matter for a large body of people to cross the 
 North Sea from Scandinavia, but the difficulty 
 was partially obviated by the much shorter dis- 
 tance from the Norwegian fiords to the coast of 
 Scotland. Natural harbors were to be found in 
 the estuaries of the English rivers and the North- 
 men found easy access to the interior of the coun- 
 try simply by following the river courses. There 
 is no difficulty, then, in realizing how readily the
 
 The Geographic Factor i8i 
 
 Island of Great Britain became a meeting place 
 of all races of northwestern Europe. Whether 
 it is true or not, as some biologists assert, that 
 such an amalgamation of different racial stocks 
 produces a more vigorous people, need not con- 
 cern us here. The patent fact is before us that 
 British geography brought upon the original Cel- 
 tic inhabitants wave after wave of the more dar- 
 ing, adventurous, and energetic peoples of Eu- 
 rope, — Romans, Teutons, Danes, and Normans, 
 — which have in unknown proportions been fused 
 into what is called the Anglo-Saxon race. Britain, 
 by her island position, selected her own inhab- 
 itants; the resulting interaction between these in- 
 habitants and their environment has determined 
 the course of English history. 
 
 What can be asserted, in general, of the re- 
 sult of insular life upon a people? Having in 
 mind such islands as that ancient seat of JEgcRn 
 civilization, Crete, or the island of Sicily, that 
 meeting place of three great historical peoples, 
 the Phoenicians, the Greeks and the Romans, what 
 general inferences may be drawn regarding the 
 characteristics of islanders? Miss Semple, in her 
 "Influences of Geographic Environment," points 
 out that island life tends to develop marked na- 
 tional individuality which is developed by isola-
 
 1 82 English Leadership 
 
 tion and accompanied often by a precocious civ- 
 ilization. This marked individuality of island 
 folk is regularly seen "in combination with the 
 opposite fact of the imminent possibility of an ex- 
 pansive unfolding, a brilliant efflorescence fol- 
 lowed by a wide dispersal of its seeds of culture 
 and empire." After remarking that these island 
 peoples rarely originate the elements of civiliza- 
 tion, Miss Semple adds, "For that their area is 
 too small. But whatever seed ripens in the wide 
 fields of the continents the islands transplant to 
 their own forcing-houses; there they transform 
 and perfect the flower. Japan borrowed freely 
 from China and Korea, as England did from con- 
 tinental Europe; but these two island realms have 
 brought Asiatic and European civilization to their 
 highest stage of development. Now the borrow- 
 ers are making return with generous hand. The 
 islands are reacting on the continents. Japanese 
 ideals are leavening the whole Orient from Man- 
 churia to Ceylon. English civilization is the 
 standard of Europe. 'The Russian in his snows 
 is aiming to be English,' says Emerson. 'England 
 has inoculated all nations with her civilization, 
 intelligence and tastes.' " 
 
 The British Isles, as Kirchhoff has said, are 
 especially suited to be the home of a hardy, re-
 
 The Geographic Factor 183 
 
 sourceful people. This is in agreement with the 
 view held by the English writer, Goldwin Smith, 
 who maintains that islands are more likely than 
 continental areas to be settled by a bold and en- 
 terprising race. Migration by land has more 
 often been the result of some outer compulsion 
 such as the pressure of hostile neighbors, or sim- 
 ply the consequence of the wandering habit, and 
 need not necessarily betoken any particular activ- 
 ity or enterprise. On the other hand, the migra- 
 tion of peoples by sea in ancient times was not 
 only a hazardous enterprise but one likely to weed 
 out the timorous and the inefficient. History has 
 no record of a people endowed with more mag- 
 nificent daring than the Norsemen. The Greeks 
 and the Phoenicians were timid navigators, by com- 
 parison, and regularly hugged the shore in their 
 fear of what Homer called the "unfruitful" sea. 
 As Goldwin Smith says, "The Northman evidently 
 felt perfectly at home on the ocean, and rode 
 joyously, like a seabird, on the vast Atlantic 
 waves." The population of the island of Great 
 Britain is made up almost entirely of a highly se- 
 lected race, — daring, resourceful, adventurous 
 seekers after freedom, yet willing and loyal foU 
 lowers of a proved and acknowledged leader. 
 Readers of Wordsworth are familiar with the
 
 184 English Leadership 
 
 ode in which he associates human freedom with 
 the mountains and the sea. The mountaineers 
 of Wales and Scotland have sustained the Celtic 
 tradition of liberty; the Anglo-Saxons brought 
 with them a similar spirit. But this spirit of lib- 
 erty, in itself a product of historical evolution, 
 must be securely protected during the early stages 
 of its growth. Such a protection the sea affords 
 to an island population. The most easily recog- 
 nized advantage of an insular position is freedom 
 from Invasion. No country can be absolutely 
 secure without being utterly remote from the re- 
 gions of civilization, but remoteness is a relative 
 matter. England Is remote enough behind her 
 sea barriers to render Invasion exceedingly diffi- 
 cult, — her lands have not been harried by a for- 
 eign Invader for seven hundred years. This ad- 
 vantage, moreover, is not merely one of immunity 
 from foreign conquest. It has also contributed 
 to the political liberty and prosperity of the coun- 
 try by reducing the need of a standing army and 
 militaristic institutions. In addition, the orderly 
 development of national life had not been ar- 
 rested by having forced upon It an alien civlllza- 
 tion. 
 
 The Insularity of England has of course re- 
 sulted also in a certain cultural Isolation. This
 
 The Geographic Factor 185 
 
 has tended to foster the self-sufficiency and the pe- 
 cuHarities of the EngHshman and has prevented 
 the ready influx of foreign ideas. But England 
 is nevertheless essentially a part of Europe, while 
 standing somewhat aloof and exercising a mod- 
 erating influence upon the affairs of the Conti- 
 nent. She has been "the asylum of vanquished 
 ideas and parties." Spanish and Portuguese Jews 
 fleeing from the Inquisition, French Huguenots, 
 after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and 
 Netherland fugitives from Spanish tyranny have 
 in turn taken refuge in England and given their 
 talents to the common store of English national 
 life. Thus English insularity has been tempered 
 by the very nearness of the island to the Conti- 
 nent. England has been spared, by its situation, 
 the extreme isolation of Iceland or that of Nor- 
 way and Ireland. Foreign ideas can penetrate 
 by the slow process of infiltration; they cannot 
 overwhelm with a sudden rush. 
 
 Nor can it be denied that the actual area or 
 -extent of the British Isles has in itself had a pe- 
 culiar influence. It has always been recognized 
 that the mere fact of the greater size and nat- 
 ural wealth of Great Britain as compared with 
 Ireland have determined very largely the relations 
 of the two. The larger island, more fortunately
 
 i86 English Leadership 
 
 situated in regard to the rest of Europe, was 
 bound to be the dominant partner. Ireland was 
 too near to escape the orbit of British influence 
 and too small and poor to resist successfully. 
 Likewise, the superior size and resources of Eng- 
 land pointed unmistakably to her ultimate triumph 
 over both Wales and Scotland. The division of 
 Scotland into highlands and lowlands, unfortunate 
 from the point of view of Scotch independence; 
 and the poverty of the Welsh in their remote 
 mountain home all contributed to the unavoid- 
 able predominance of the English. Furthermore, 
 the area of these islands must have had curious 
 negative effects. It is unthinkable that the course 
 of English history could have run as It has, if 
 the total area of the Islands had been no more 
 than that of. Crete, or, on the other hand. If it 
 had been as great as that of Australia. In the 
 former case, England must have remained a mere 
 dependency of one of Its powerful continental 
 neighbors, another Corsica, or at best Sicily; 
 while if the Island had been very much larger 
 we must imagine it seeking to dominate its con- 
 tinental neighbors much more successfully and, 
 in a sense, more ruinously than has actually oc- 
 curred. It Is quite possible, also, that if England 
 had been as small as the Island of Crete It might
 
 The Geographic Factor 187 
 
 have had a brilliant history as a purely maritime 
 state, a kind of Tyre or Athens, but without 
 the solid backing of a large agricultural popula- 
 tion, the only source of a man-power adequate 
 to play a great role as an empire-builder. A 
 greater area, on the other hand, must have de- 
 stroyed the balance between the agricultural and 
 the maritime population as it has actually existed; 
 and the close articulation of the sea and land 
 which is more marked in Great Britain than in 
 any other similar area in Europe could not be so 
 dominant a characteristic of the country. Under 
 these circumstances, the national life might have 
 approximated more nearly that of France or Ger- 
 many, while the greater mass of such an enlarged 
 England would probably have rendered a Norman 
 conquest utterly impossible. 
 
 Perhaps the most obvious geographic fact about 
 a country is its situation with reference to other 
 lands. The position of the British Isles has long 
 been recognized as peculiarly advantageous to her 
 power and prosperity. Although these islands 
 are on the extreme verge of the Continent they 
 are not a mere outpost or frontier station. Lying, 
 as they do, close to the principal countries of cen- 
 tral and western Europe and athwart the mouths 
 of the great rivers which constitute the natural
 
 i88 English Leadership 
 
 highways of commerce, England is rather the gate- 
 way of Europe than a detached and isolated por- 
 tion of it. The present war has emphasized the 
 tremendous importance of those islands in their 
 commanding position to close the northern shores 
 of central Europe to the trade of the world; ships 
 from the Baltic ports, Scandinavia, Hamburg, 
 Rotterdam, and Antwerp can find egress from the 
 North Sea only by passing under the guns of the 
 British fleet and shore batteries. English seaports 
 have been natural entrepots of commerce for the 
 greater part of Europe ever since the opening in 
 the sixteenth century of the new trade-routes to 
 America and the Far East. It has not been 
 merely the innate mercantile superiority of Eng- 
 lishmen that has made the greatness of Liverpool 
 and London. The avenues of sea-born trade for 
 the northern hemisphere have their natural focus 
 in the British Isles — a fact which has not been 
 altered by the opening of the Suez Canal and the 
 consequent restoration of the Mediterranean to 
 something like its former commercial importance. 
 It has often been remarked that the British 
 Isles have a highly favorable location on the 
 earth's surface, not only because of their imme- 
 diate situation near the European continent but 
 .also because of their relation to the great land
 
 The Geographic Factor 189 
 
 and water masses of the globe. If New Zealand 
 lies near the center of the water hemisphere, so 
 Great Britain lies in the center of that hemisphere 
 which contains the largest extent of land. If a 
 spectator could be raised above London to a suffi- 
 cient height to see half the globe beneath him, 
 his view would embrace all Europe, Asia, Africa, 
 North America and the greater part of South 
 America; only Australia, New Zealand and a 
 small part of South America, would lie beyond the 
 horizon. This central strategic position, while 
 it has, of course, a geographic basis, is also 
 largely a historical product. In classical times 
 Britannia and Hibernia lay upon the uttermost 
 fringe of the known world. Their isolation from 
 the great currents of early historical times was 
 greater than that of New Zealand in the present. 
 Even as late as "the spacious days of good Queen 
 Bess" England was, in a sense, an out-of-the-way 
 land not unlike the Far West of fifty years ago. 
 "It would be difficult to find in all history a more 
 convincing proof of the influence of the geographi- 
 cal position of a country on the fate of its in- 
 habitants than is that of Britain. Englishmen of 
 the prediscovery days formed, in spite of the 
 genius and valor displayed by their race on the 
 fields of war, of poetry and science, but a small
 
 190 English Leadership 
 
 population of comparatively little influence on the 
 march of universal history. The discoveries of 
 the great navigators of Latin blood enlarged our 
 knowledge of the globe, revealed the central posi- 
 tion of Britain on the land hemisphere, and led 
 unexpectedly to the expansion of this little king- 
 dom into the world-wide British Empire." ^ 
 
 Nor is the effect of geography less marked in 
 the internal development of England. The island 
 of Great Britain, unlike the schoolboy's Gaul, is 
 divided into five parts, determined by the con- 
 formation of its mountains and hills, reenforced 
 by the trend of its principal rivers. Wales and the 
 highlands of Scotland stand apart as two independ- 
 ent regions strongly marked by their rugged moun- 
 tain character and relative inaccessibility. Of the 
 remaining three sections, by far the larger and 
 most important part of the island, the northern- 
 most is the Scottish Lowlands, separated from 
 England by the Cheviot Hills and Solway Firth. 
 England, proper, is in turn divided into two equal 
 areas by the valleys of the Trent and the Severn — 
 the land lying to the north and west of these 
 rivers being higher, more wild and picturesque, 
 and more turbulent in its history, while to the 
 south and east of this line are the fertile agricul- 
 
 *Kirchhoff, "Man and Earth," p. 147.
 
 The Geographic Factor 191 
 
 tural lands, the old commercial cities and earliest 
 centers of wealth and culture. Nearer to the 
 mainland, southeastern England was always first 
 exposed to those civilizing influences that spread 
 from the Mediterranean world to the outer edge 
 of the Continent. European culture therefore 
 took root in southern England and afterward 
 spread northward, so that It Is here that we find 
 London and Westminster, Canterbury and Win- 
 chester, Oxford and Cambridge. 
 
 Taking then as a line of cleavage between south- 
 eastern and northwestern England the diagonal 
 drawn from the mouth of the Severn on the Bristol 
 Channel to the mouth of the Trent on the Hum- 
 ber, it will be found that the differing geographi- 
 cal features of the two regions have had a potent 
 influence on English history. Even though this 
 line is not hard and fast nor marked by any dis- 
 tinct or Impassable barrier, It separates two re- 
 gions as opposed In their historical development 
 as the North and the South In the United States 
 of America. In the beginning. Invaders from 
 across the Channel and the North Sea, landing 
 in the southeast, pushed the earlier Inhabitants 
 toward the northwest. Hence the Romans, then 
 the Angles and Saxons, and finally the Normans 
 made the lands south of the Humber more com-
 
 192 English Leadership 
 
 pletely their own and left Wales and Scotland al- 
 most untouched. The Celtic tribes in the remote 
 west and north were consequently not exterminated 
 but have survived to contribute to the population 
 of Great Britain an element not alien but differ- 
 ent. 
 
 Furthermore, the richer agricultural region of 
 the southeast with its commercial towns and more 
 direct communication with the outside world was 
 quicker to emancipate itself from the economic 
 and social conditions of the Middle Ages. The 
 Peasants' Revolt of the fourteenth century scarcely 
 touched the rude, undeveloped peoples of the 
 north. The southland, populous, wealthy and 
 progressive, was until the eighteenth century the 
 home of English radicalism, while the feudal 
 northwest, dominated by the nobles and clergy, 
 stood faithfully by the king and the established 
 order. London was the sheet-anchor of the Par- 
 liamentary party in the struggle against the crown 
 in the days of Cromwell. The south, too, had 
 been the first to feel the new ideas of the Renais- 
 sance and Reformation. Here republicanism and 
 Puritanism throve, while the landed aristocracy of 
 the pastoral north remained staunchly conserva- 
 tive in politics and religion. 
 
 But a curious inversion of these respective roles
 
 The Geographic Factor 193 
 
 has been effected by geographical factors unreair 
 ized before the Industrial Revolution. Before; 
 the eighteenth century, when England was a com- 
 mercial and agricultural country, geography fa- 
 vored the economic superiority of the southern 
 portion of the island; but when the new processes 
 and inventions of Hargreaves, Arkwright and 
 Watt made possible the extraordinary develop- 
 ment of English manufactures, the industrial cen- 
 ter of gravity shifted to the northwest. The vital 
 part played by iron and coal in modern industry 
 gave new value to the mines in the neighborhood 
 of Newcastle, Sheffield and Birmingham. Fac- 
 tories and population began to cluster around the 
 northern coal measures. The infertility of the 
 soil in the northern part of England, in South 
 Wales and in Scotland was not an impediment to 
 the growth of factory towns and a great urban 
 population; in the rising seaports of Liverpool 
 and Glasgow new industrial regions found gate- 
 ways for their incoming raw materials and for 
 outgoing finished products. 
 
 These economic changes were likewise reflected 
 in the political life of the country. English lib- 
 eralism gravitated with the mass of the population 
 toward factory cities like Manchester and Birm- 
 ingham; the great Reform Bill of 1832 was in
 
 194 English Leadership 
 
 part a response to changes in social conditions 
 which had in turn resulted from the rise of the 
 new industrialism based on the natural resources 
 of the northwest. London and the southeast, 
 which as late as the Glorious Revolution of 1688 
 had been the progressive commercial district, was 
 soon outdistanced by these rapidly growing indus- 
 trial cities of the north, and finally has come to 
 be the center of English conservatism. A closely 
 packed population of artisans in factory towns 
 forms an ideal substructure for the building-up of 
 a liberal party with a radical wing. It need not 
 surprise us, therefore, that Manchester, three gen- 
 erations ago, should have given its name to a new 
 school of political and economic thought, or that 
 the northwest, later, should produce Gladstone, 
 Bright, Chamberlain and Lloyd-George. 
 
 Geography, as we have seen, has been a potent 
 factor in determining English political affairs; it 
 has been even more potent in the upbuilding of 
 England's maritime supremacy. In the first 
 known theater of maritime activity, the Inhabit- 
 ants of the JEgea.n Islands, notably the Cretans, 
 were the great seafaring people. Some time later 
 this primacy passed to the Phoenicians and their 
 great colony at Carthage; but the Greeks had al- 
 ready emerged as a rival power in trade and col-
 
 The Geographic Factor 195 
 
 onlzatlon. Under Roman rule the Mediterranean 
 was a highway of peaceful commerce. It was not 
 until after the barbarian invasions that warfare 
 on the sea was resumed and we read of the preda- 
 tory Vandals establishing a temporary supremacy 
 over the western Mediterranean basin. During 
 the mediaeval period the northernmost wing of 
 the Teutonic race, by their oversea expeditions, 
 laid the foundations of England, while later still 
 the maritime communities in and about northern 
 Italy dominated the trade-routes of the Mediter- 
 ranean. But of all the peoples who have used the 
 sea in peace and war none have so identified them- 
 selves with it or utilized it so successfully as the 
 English. 
 
 The two factors, race and geography, are fun- 
 damental in explaining the expansion of England. 
 However, it is well in this connection to speak a 
 word of caution. As Professor Seeley has so 
 clearly pointed out, the primacy of England 
 among the maritime nations was not established 
 until comparatively recent times. The fact that 
 the world has become so accustomed to acknowl- 
 edging the superiority of the British islanders in 
 all activities relating to the sea, has led to the 
 general belief that this was always so and that 
 from the nature of the English people it could
 
 196 English Leadership 
 
 never have been otherwise. There is great danger 
 in thus taking for granted the innate racial su- 
 periority of the Anglo-Saxons in this as in other 
 fields of human endeavor, and in ascribing to in- 
 herent necessity that to which we have become 
 accustomed. It may seem clear to us that the 
 Anglo-Saxons, descended from sea-rovers and 
 Vikings, are by nature's degree foreordained to 
 follow the highways of the sea to subdue and 
 replenish the earth. As a matter of fact it is 
 impossible to speak of England as a maritime 
 power until long after the discovery of America. 
 "Our insular position," says Professor Seeley, 
 "and the fact that our island toward the West 
 and North looks right out on the Atlantic ocean, 
 may lead us to fancy that the nation must always 
 have been maritime by the necessity of the case. 
 . . . But after all England is not a Norway; it 
 is not a country which has only narrow strips of 
 cultivable land, and therefore forces its popula- 
 tion to look to the sea for their subsistence. Eng- 
 land In the time of the Plantagenets, was no 
 mistress of the seas; in fact she was scarcely a 
 maritime state at all. Occasionally In wartime 
 we find mediaeval England in possession of a 
 considerable navy. But as soon as peace arrived 
 the navy dwindled away again. The constant com-
 
 The Geographic Factor 197 
 
 plaints of piracy in the Channel show how little 
 control England was able to exercise even over 
 her own seas." Under the Plantagenets the Eng- 
 lish were more warlike than at any later time, but 
 they exercised their fighting spirit in campaigns in 
 France. "The glories of the English army of 
 those days greatly eclipsed those of the English 
 navy; we remember the victories of Crecy and 
 Poitiers, but we have forgotten that of Sluys." 
 
 In spite of the latent capabilities of maritime 
 adventure which lay deep in Anglo-Saxon nature, 
 geography dictated that these powers must lie 
 dormant until the more modern world should open 
 up a new field of opportunity. As late as the 
 fifteenth century the English were narrowly cir- 
 cumscribed on the frontier of Europe while the 
 cities of the Hanseatic League and the northern 
 shores of the Mediterranean were more advan- 
 tageously placed nearer the centers of the world's 
 commerce. The trading activities growing out of 
 the Crusades had deeply stirred many localities on 
 the Continent but it only barely touched the re- 
 mote British Isles. It was not till the middle of 
 the seventeenth century that the amphibious Blake, 
 once a general, later an admiral, led an English 
 fleet into the Mediterranean. When in the six- 
 teenth century the changed commercial interests
 
 198 English Leadership 
 
 of Europe shifted the business center of gravity 
 from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic coast, it 
 was Cadiz and Lisbon, not the English seaports, 
 that took the places of Venice, Genoa and Barce- 
 lona. It is not to be assumed, of course, that all 
 maritime life must wait upon and be regarded as 
 Identical with colonization and empire. Even In 
 the sixteenth century, life in the British Isles was 
 more maritime, more closely connected with the 
 sea than was that of Spain. The waters which 
 wash the British shores abounded in fish, and the 
 English as well as the Dutch were rearing a hardy 
 population of fishermen and sailors engaged in 
 the local coasting trade, while English ships plied 
 actively on the narrow waters between England 
 and France and the Low Countries. All this was 
 natural enough, but what seems strange to us 
 was the postponement of England's participation 
 In the epic of discovery and exploration. But the 
 early preeminence of the Italians, Portuguese, and 
 Spaniards must not drive us to the other extreme 
 of being too apologetic of the English. In spite 
 of Professor Seeley's modest claims for his coun- 
 trymen, the English were not long behind-hand in 
 the race for dominion over-seas. And If they were 
 belated, they were In good company. The French 
 and the Dutch were likewise late in feeling the
 
 The Geographic Factor 199 
 
 new impulse, while the great merchant seamen 
 in the Hansa sphere of influence were hopelessly 
 sluggish in realizing the new opportunities. More- 
 over, we can now see how the English were be- 
 coming fairly launched upon their Atlantic period 
 of history even in the Tudor period, although 
 they could make no pretension of taking the lead 
 in the unrivaled explorations of the fifteenth and 
 sixteenth centuries. It was a ship from Bristol 
 which anticipated Columbus in actually reaching 
 the American continent, and before the sixteenth 
 century was over the Elizabethan sailors were 
 playing a conspicuous part in opening up the New 
 World. Nor was the defeat of the Armada a 
 mere flash in the pan, an accidental victory, due 
 to the genius of an individual commander. It 
 was primarily a victory of seamanship, of men 
 bred to the life of the sea, of professionals over 
 amateurs. That England did not immediately 
 thereafter become a great naval power in a tech- 
 nical, military sense was due to a new tendency 
 in national policy rather than to any incapacity. 
 Conditions of insular life had been at work long 
 enough to endow the English with all the poten- 
 tialities of maritime supremacy and time only was 
 needed to exhibit them on a magnificent scale. 
 There is no need to dwell upon the individual
 
 200 English Leadership 
 
 achievements of English navigators and admirals 
 in subsequent times. We are not concerned with 
 personal talent but rather with the genius of a 
 race as conditioned by its geographical environ- 
 ment. Even an indelible predilection for trade 
 and travel might have been stifled during the ages 
 by unfavorable conditions of habitat. The Swiss 
 are scarcely more inhibited from maritime de- 
 velopment than an island population denied access 
 to the sea by an unfavorable articulation of land 
 and water. But in this regard the geographical 
 factor was altogether favorable to the English. A 
 profusion of natural harbors, almost perfectly dis- 
 tributed around the whole circumference of the 
 island, with rivers leading back from them, was 
 only one element. The land was abundantly sup- 
 plied with ship timber and skilled artisans to uti- 
 lize it, while the population was large enough and 
 rich enough to feel those commercial needs which 
 impelled them to trade with their neighbors. Per- 
 haps all this might not have been sufficient to give 
 the United Kingdom over two-thirds of the ocean- 
 going tonnage of the world. Less than a century 
 ago, when a general progress in the mechanic arts 
 led to a revolution in ship-building, the English 
 took every advantage of the changed conditions. 
 The Industrial Revolution had given them what
 
 The Geographic Factor 201 
 
 was nearly a monopoly in the building of steam 
 machinery so that the transition from the age of 
 sailing ships to steam navigation only confirmed 
 their superiority. The change from wooden to 
 iron and steel ships, which came still later, could 
 only help that nation which led the world in iron 
 and steel production. Nature again conferred an 
 inestimable boon upon England's shipping interests 
 when she gave her the Welsh coal fields. Coal suit- 
 able for fuel on steamships is distributed very spar- 
 ingly around the world, so that the presence of ex- 
 cellent bunker coal in South Wales, near tide- 
 water, has been a benefit beyond all calculation to 
 English shipping interests. 
 
 It would be unprofitable in this connection to 
 enumerate further the advantages which this island 
 people have derived from the situation, physi- 
 ography and natural products of their island home. 
 But there is another consideration which now 
 forces itself upon our attention. Mr. Earned in 
 his essay refers to the peculiarities of English emi- 
 gration and colonization. Industries connected 
 with the sea and even extensive trade relation with 
 distant countries need not necessarily lead a nation 
 to found a colonial empire, as witness Norway. 
 But we can now with our historical perspective 
 perceive how certain geographical considerations
 
 202 JEnglish Leadership 
 
 led to the foundation of a Greater Britain. The 
 fascinating subject of the political organization of 
 the British Empire is already preempted by Mr. 
 Larned, but the geographical substructure upon 
 which that imposing edifice is reared deserves some 
 discussion in this essay. 
 
 It is a well-known fact that one-fifth of the land 
 surface of the globe and something like one-fourth 
 of the earth's population are in the British Empire. 
 Its various shores are washed by the Seven Seas 
 and it enjoys or endures every variety of climate 
 and every degree of fertility and aridity from the 
 polar regions to the tropics. The component parts 
 of the empire are nearly equally divided between 
 the northern and the southern hemispheres and 
 among the various continents so that there is a 
 complete diversification of industry. The settle- 
 ments of the English-speaking people not only com- 
 pletely encircle the globe but they have taken pos- 
 session of the choicest land from the point of 
 view of productivity as well as suitability for the 
 homes of white men. It is a mere truism to say 
 that the British Empire is based upon the sea- 
 power of England and that its highways of com- 
 munication are the sea. That this empire has 
 an economic foundation and is knit together by 
 a multiplicity of commercial interests rather than
 
 The Geographic Factor 203 
 
 held down by brute force goes without saying. 
 Our question is, then, what geographical factors 
 have entered into the production of this imperial 
 fabric? 
 
 This question can not be answered by reference 
 solely to the maritime instincts of the English peo- 
 ple, together with their insular position and ac- 
 cessibility to the sea. In a general sense all Europe 
 with its peninsular lands and its large and intel- 
 ligent population is peculiarly fitted to expand its 
 commerce, civilization, and political rule over the 
 rest of the earth. This is just what has been hap- 
 pening during the last four centuries and the Eng- 
 lish have only been in the lead and forefront of 
 this movement. Some one has said that ancient 
 Hellas was "the most European of European 
 lands." If this is literally true the British Isles 
 stand next to ancient Greece in the possession of 
 especially European attributes with the further im- 
 portant advantage of possessing extraordinary 
 natural resources. It may be said then that Eng- 
 land is Europe only more so, and differs from 
 its continental neighbors only in possessing the 
 European character In a higher degree. If the 
 geographical advantages possessed by the English 
 people in combination with their own good fortune 
 and the ill-luck of some of their principal rivals
 
 204 English Leadership 
 
 have somehow given them a unique position in 
 the world to-day, this can only be understood in 
 the light of the actual facts of the evolution of 
 the empire. 
 
 The first step in the territorial evolution of the 
 British Empire was the unification of all the British 
 Isles under one political sovereignty. This in it- 
 self was a long, slow process and could not be 
 undertaken until the period of foreign invasions 
 was over. We cannot think of the present im- 
 perial domain as based upon England alone. Eng- 
 lish invasion into extra-European lands could only 
 be safely begun after the solution of the Welsh, 
 Scotch, and Irish question. At the same time it 
 is more than likely that the preservation of dis- 
 tinctive qualities among these junior members of 
 the British family has contributed to the richness 
 as well as variety of the resultant civilization. We 
 now all agree with Matthew Arnold in appraising 
 highly the Celtic element in the British population. 
 Vexatious as these domestic problems have been 
 to English policy they have probably helped to 
 save the life of these islands from a monotonous 
 uniformity. The evils of disunity were substan- 
 tially overcome before the young empire was 
 forced to meet the great external dangers personi- 
 fied in Louis XIV and Napoleon. Nature had
 
 The Geographic Factor 205 
 
 placed the several British Isles too near together 
 to become eventually anything but one family, but 
 they were divided by the sea and the mountains 
 sufficiently to perpetuate interesting and extremely 
 valuable individual characteristics. 
 
 Confronting successive foreign enemies at the 
 threshold of her entry into the imperial estate, 
 geography selected for England not only her 
 friends but her enemies and profoundly influenced 
 her foreign policy. Leaving to one side the futile 
 struggle of the Hundred Years' War at the close 
 of the mediasval period, we can see how the loca- 
 tion of England projected her into a conflict with 
 any great military power controlling the Low 
 Countries. Even before the Tudors the French 
 overlordship of Flanders brought them into con- 
 flict with the English kings. In the sixteenth cen- 
 tury the inclusion of the Netherlands In the Span- 
 ish dominion, rather than the differences between 
 the Protestants and Catholics, precipitated the 
 struggle between Philip II and Elizabeth. The 
 buccaneering exuberance of England's young sea- 
 power furnished added complications and later ex- 
 perience made the control of the narrow seas be- 
 tween England and the Continent a settled feature 
 of English policy. So consistently have the English 
 followed this national policy that It now seems
 
 2o6 English Leadership 
 
 inevitable that they should become involved in in- 
 ternational difficulties if not actual war with any 
 great military power that seeks to dominate Hol- 
 land or Belgium. After the war with Spain in 
 the time of Philip II, the ambition of Louis XIV 
 to secure the Low Countries brought England into 
 the conflict, and a similar situation arose a century 
 later with Revolutionary France and Napoleon. 
 There is, therefore, ample precedent for the Brit- 
 ish defense of Belgium against Germany in the 
 present war. 
 
 Mr. Mackinder has remarked that England was 
 "of Europe but not in Europe" and this is true 
 enough to explain a certain aloofness of the Eng- 
 lish from ordinary European rivalries and her de- 
 votion to the principle of the balance of power. 
 The progress of military science and the formation 
 of powerful centralized states in western Europe 
 discouraged active participation by the English in 
 continental wars and steadily diverted them to a 
 more thorough pursuit of commercial interests. 
 England's steadily growing strength was hence- 
 forth to be thrown more exclusively against any 
 nation that appeared in the lists as a commercial 
 rival. The growing importance of the mercantile 
 class likewise deflected England from militaristic 
 adventures, and with enlightened selfishness made
 
 The Geographic Factor 207 
 
 their country's foreign policy conform to its eco- 
 nomic interests. To be sure individual initiative 
 and enterprise has usually preceded government 
 aid, or even protection, in the carving out of new 
 territory for the British Empire. But seldom have 
 the pioneers in trade and colonial enterprise failed 
 to win a sympathetic backing from the govern- 
 ment. This has been illustrated repeatedly in 
 India, Africa and Australasia, where foothold has 
 been secured by private persons engaged in busi- 
 ness to be followed up later by active governmental 
 protection and participation, until finally a new 
 colony was founded or a new territory conquered. 
 This apparently planless and happy-go-lucky 
 up-building of the English dominion beyond the 
 seas has excited the wrathful scorn of the Germans. 
 They have pointed out repeatedly that the English 
 have succeeded only by the most undeserved good 
 luck, combined with occasional flashes of intelli- 
 gent brutality. It must be conceded that good 
 fortune has often attended on English ventures 
 in imperialism. It was no merit of the English 
 but the most fortunate circumstance of their isola- 
 tion which spared them the desolation which the 
 Thirty Years' War brought upon Germany, and 
 this is only one example of the sort of affliction 
 which was visited upon the peoples of the Euro-
 
 2o8 English Leadership 
 
 pean continent. English military prowess, even 
 though it helped, was not the principal cause of 
 the decline of Spain in the seventeenth century nor 
 the squandering of the resources of France in the 
 later dynastic wars. Geography not only helped 
 England directly in countless ways, but it indirectly 
 promoted British interests by helping to destroy 
 her enemies. Wars not only crippled rival in- 
 dustry on the Continent but drove to England thou- 
 sands of skilled artisans who became an integral 
 part of English industry. At a time when France 
 was England's principal rival, the illiberal treat- 
 ment by France of her Huguenot population in- 
 jured French manufactures and sent these talented 
 exiles to seek an asylum in England; while a similar 
 illiberality of the English government toward its 
 religious nonconformists sent admirable colonists 
 to become empire-builders in the New World. 
 
 Good luck and geography combined often facili- 
 tated British progress toward world dominion in 
 most curious ways. By intrinsic merit and heroic 
 endeavor the Portuguese deserved to be a formid- 
 able rival. However, they lacked the population 
 and natural resources to give them, in Europe, the 
 broad basis of a colonial empire. Their ultimate 
 failure, moreover, was assured by their being ex- 
 posed without natural frontiers to the military
 
 The Geographic Factor 209 
 
 power of Spain. The sixty years' "Babylonian 
 Captivity" as a conquered Spanish province was 
 not only a check to the country's development but 
 made Portugal thereafter dependent upon foreign 
 support to maintain her independence. Thus Por- 
 tugal became a client state of England's instead of 
 a serious opponent. Indeed, by a curious turn 
 of fortune, Bombay passed from the hands of 
 the Portuguese to the British as a dowry of the 
 Portuguese wife of an English king. This was 
 soon to strengthen the position of the English in 
 India and proportionately injure their rivals. 
 Again it was good luck rather than intelligent 
 policy that secured Gibraltar and so led the way 
 to England's becoming a great Mediterranean 
 power. A fortunate combination of circumstances 
 rather than foresight took the English to Malta 
 and to Egypt; but enough has surely been said to 
 illustrate this point. Geography, which often 
 made the mistakes and misfortune of England's 
 rivals fatal, often rendered her own innocuous. A 
 temporary weakness of the government of Eng- 
 land, due to the incapacity of the king or a civil 
 war, did not immediately lay the island open to 
 easy conquest. Her rapidly growing population 
 nourished by the productivity of the soil and the 
 varied facilities of industry furnished a reservoir
 
 210 English Leadership 
 
 from which to stock her colonial possessions. Thus 
 she could make full use of whatever opportunity 
 chance or manifest destiny brought to her. 
 
 In no part of the world has the work of Eng- 
 land as a colonizer and empire builder been more 
 strikingly exemplified than in North America. The 
 late start which the English made in the actual 
 establishment of colonies, might under different 
 circumstances have proved fatal to their ultimate 
 success. For over one hundred years after the 
 discovery of America the Spanish and the Portu- 
 guese were permitted to select the sites of their 
 colonies and occupy as much of the land of the 
 new continent as they desired, undisturbed by any 
 interference of the English or French. Fortu- 
 nately for the future Anglo-Saxon supremacy in 
 North America, the Portuguese directed their 
 efforts to South America, Africa, and southeastern 
 Asia. The Spaniards followed in a general way 
 the tracks of Columbus and concentrated their 
 efforts upon the West Indies, and Central and 
 South America. The initial impulse which was 
 given to exploration and settlement in this region 
 was reenforced by the finding of precious metals in 
 Mexico and Peru. F'or generations afterwards, 
 the energies of Spain were concentrated here, leav- 
 ing the northern part of the American continent
 
 The Geographic Factor 211 
 
 to others. This was largely accident, although the 
 winds and ocean currents had been the chief factors 
 In taking Columbus over the course which he sailed 
 and bringing him to the particular portion of the 
 newly discovered lands which he actually reached. 
 
 Similarly, the claims in the New World which 
 were staked out by the English, French, and Dutch 
 were determined in the first instance mainly by 
 geographical considerations. The North Atlantic 
 is relatively narrow between Newfoundland on 
 the one side and Ireland and Brittany on the 
 other. Knowledge that the Spaniards had already 
 preempted the lands for the south also directed 
 the later arrivals to the more northern portion of 
 North America. All these influences combined to 
 apportion in a rough way the newly discovered 
 lands among the maritime powers. 
 
 The new conditions of life which the English 
 and French found awaiting them were arduous 
 enough to discourage the timid and weed out the 
 unfit, without absolutely discouraging immigration 
 from Europe. The climate of our Atlantic sea- 
 board is more rigorous than that of France and the 
 British Isles but it is a white man's country and 
 makes no impossible demands upon a European's 
 powers of adaptation. South of Chesapeake Bay 
 many districts suffered from malaria which, com-
 
 212 English Leadership 
 
 bined with the hot summers, put a premium upon 
 negro slavery. On the northern end of the habit- 
 able area, in the St. Lawrence region, agriculture 
 was made difficult by severe winters and a thin 
 soil. Physiography and climate, therefore, dis- 
 couraged the growth of a dense population in what 
 is now lower Canada and hampered the growth 
 of the French settlements there, despite the profits 
 in the fur trade. 
 
 The main outlines of the growth of the English 
 colonies were also fixed fairly early by these same 
 natural features. The climate, the configuration 
 of the land, the presence or absence of natural 
 harbors, the fertility of the soil, and the fauna 
 and flora directed industry into this or that chan- 
 nel. The mountain wall of the Appalachians 
 flanked by dense forest growths opposed a mighty 
 barrier to westward migration, while the warlike 
 aborigines assisted the mountains and forests in 
 hemming in the English colonists close to the At- 
 lantic shore-land. 
 
 The struggle was not decided by these natural 
 features alone, but they contributed mightily to 
 the victory of the English. Mr. Earned has 
 pointed out how the policies of the home govern- 
 ment of France and England affected the conflict 
 in America and we will not labor the point further.
 
 The Geographic Factor 213 
 
 The English colonial institutions were worked out 
 principally in connection with the growth of the 
 American colonies and this experience has been 
 utiHzed wisely in the governance of similar settle- 
 ments in other parts of the world. 
 
 The geographical advantages enjoyed by the 
 British Empire in the Great War are hard to 
 exaggerate. The fervent loyalty of the Dominions 
 is a tribute to English political achievement, but 
 the direct bearing on the struggle of British sea- 
 power is closely correlated with her strategic posi- 
 tion astride all the chief lines of water communi- 
 cation. Reference has been made before to the 
 many advantages of the location of the British 
 Isles relative to the neighboring coast of Europe. 
 But the possession of such key-positions as Gibral- 
 tar, Malta, the Suez Canal, Aden, Ceylon, Singa- 
 pore, and Hong-Kong — not to mention a multi- 
 tude of coaling-stations and naval bases in every 
 part of the world — enormously facilitates the oper- 
 ations of the Allied fleets. The instinct for mari- 
 time exploration and discovery which led Drake, 
 Cook, and Vancouver into distant seas not only 
 gave England title to the richest portions of the 
 earth for colonization but also secured to her 
 the best natural harbors and military and com- 
 mercial positions. Two places of supreme im-
 
 214 English Leadership 
 
 portance for ocean transportation which the Eng- 
 lish barely missed acquiring have fallen to their 
 American kinsmen, so that Hawaii and the 
 Panama Canal now perfectly supplement the pre- 
 viously won British possessions In the working out 
 of Allied naval strategy. 
 
 Perhaps it is not too much to claim that the 
 hope of the world now rests in the continued con- 
 trol of the sea by the Anglo-Saxon, at least until 
 a new world-order shall have brought about its 
 internationalization. The uninterrupted flow of 
 men and supplies to Europe from America and the 
 British Dominions is surely a condition precedent 
 for the success of the Allied arms. If the natural 
 advantages of the British Isles in the selection 
 of their inhabitants in the beginning, plus the later 
 triumphs in trade and colonization, have aroused 
 the fear and envy of modern Germany, it is but 
 the irony of history that this island people by 
 their spirit of high maritime adventure should 
 break the power of the land despotism. A hun- 
 dred years ago, men talked of England as the 
 modern Carthage and they spoke of "perfidious 
 Albion" as the equivalent of "Punic faith." Even 
 now Prussian militarism can see only weakness in 
 an empire held together chiefly by commercial in- 
 terests and a spirit of voluntary association. But
 
 The Geographic Factor 215 
 
 when the day came, England kept her faith with 
 Belgium and with France; and the Dominions — 
 the "Lion's Whelps" of Kipling — needed neither 
 compulsion nor exhortation. 
 
 Geography and an historical evolution continu- 
 ously influenced by the geographical factors of the 
 sea and Insular life have made Great Britain the 
 heart of a mighty empire, bound together by a 
 community of Interests and Ideas. Political liberty 
 of the Individual citizen and of the several self- 
 governing dependencies Is fundamental to Its pros- 
 perity and permanence. Imperial federation, with 
 its unity based upon the common heritage of demo- 
 cratic institutions and the unrestricted use of the 
 ocean highways, gives us the pattern of a newer 
 and better ordering of the relations of all the peo- 
 ples of the earth. The Englishman, Tennyson, has 
 expressed It perfectly In the "Parliament of Man, 
 the Federation of the World."
 
 ENGLISH CONTRIBUTIONS TO 
 SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT 
 
 Grace F. Caldwell
 
 ENGLISH CONTRIBUTIONS TO 
 SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT 
 
 The English mind, we are often told, has two 
 pet aversions, — a joke and a work of art. What- 
 ever may be their shortcomings, however, in wit 
 and humor, or in the arts, the English certainly 
 hold no inconsiderable place in the evolution of 
 scientific thought, particularly of that practical and 
 altruistic thought which looks toward social bet- 
 terment. Nothing could be more characteristic 
 of the English attitude toward science than the 
 words spoken by Sir Humphry Davy, that never 
 wearying champion of the "cause of humanity," — 
 words spoken nearly a hundred years ago, when, 
 at a meeting of the Royal Society for the Advance- 
 ment of Science, he presented the Copley medal 
 to the French physicist, Frangois Arago, in honor 
 of his discovery of the property possessed by 
 bodies in general to be affected by magnetism: 
 "As one of our Fellows, his discoveries have the 
 same interest for us that they have for his brethren 
 of the Royal Academy of Sciences. We, I trust, 
 
 219
 
 220 English Leadership 
 
 shall nev^er be behind them in dignity and noble- 
 ness of sentiment; far be from us that narrow 
 policy which would contract the minds of indi- 
 viduals and injure the interest of nations, by cold 
 and exclusive selfishness; which would raise the 
 greatness of one people by lowering the standard 
 of that of another. As in commerce, so in science, 
 no country can become worthily preeminent except 
 in profiting by the wants, resources and wealth 
 of its neighbors. Every new discovery may be 
 considered as a new species of manufacture, awak- 
 ening novel industry and sagacity, and employing, 
 as it were, new capital of mind. When Newton 
 developed the system of the universe, and estab- 
 lished his own glory and that of his country on 
 imperishable foundations he might be regarded 
 as giving a boon to the civilized world for which 
 no adequate compensation could ever be made; 
 yet even in this the most difl^cult and sublime field 
 of discovery Britain has been paid, if not fully, 
 yet fairly, by the labors of Euler, La Grange, and 
 above all, Laplace; perfecting the theory of the 
 lunar motions and planetary perturbations, and 
 affording data of infinite importance in the theory 
 and practice of navigation. Fortunately science, 
 like that nature to which it belongs, is limited 
 neither by time nor by space. It belongs to the
 
 English Scientific Thought 221 
 
 world and Is of no country and no age. The 
 more we know, the more we feel our Ignorance 
 and the more we feel how much remains unknown; 
 In philosophy, the sentiment of the Macedonian 
 hero can never apply, — there are always new 
 worlds to conquer." 
 
 Such a conception of science has been character- 
 istic of the English-speaking peoples throughout 
 their history. They have given out to the world 
 discoveries and Inventions which have changed the 
 whole face of the earth. They have covered Its 
 seas with ships, and its land with a network of 
 railways and trolleys, telegraphs and telephones. 
 They have brought together products from re- 
 motest parts of the earth, and built factories filled 
 with machinery for transforming these raw ma- 
 terials Into manufactured articles which Increase 
 man's comfort, add to his leisure, multiply his 
 powers, and so provide almost unlimited oppor- 
 tunity for world-wide social betterment. But all 
 these things the English-speaking peoples could 
 never have done, had they not always been eager 
 searchers after truth and willing benefactors of 
 mankind, — had they not been, as have no other 
 people, the great "melting-pot" of culture, in which 
 has been blended, fused and clarified all that is
 
 222 English Leadership 
 
 of permanent value in human experience, from 
 that of primitive man to the present. 
 
 In the assimilation of these cultural elements, 
 the geography of England and later of America 
 has been in large measure a determining influence. 
 In ancient times, when the center of civilization 
 was in the Mediterranean world, England was off 
 on the outermost rim of the civilized area, — a 
 remote island cut off from the Continent and com- 
 pletely out of the current of civilized thought, an 
 island in which the rest of the world was interested 
 only because of its mines of tin and copper. These 
 it was which first attracted civilization to British 
 shores. Visited by the Phoenicians, then by the 
 Greeks, and finally conquered and occupied by the 
 Romans, England was first introduced to Medi- 
 terranean culture and so promised to become the 
 inheritor of all that man had learned in ages 
 past. But for nearly twelve centuries the promise 
 was not fulfilled. During that time England re- 
 mained almost stagnant so far as material and 
 intellectual progress was concerned. She, like the 
 rest of the world, was awaiting some great im- 
 pulse which would rouse her to intellectual activity. 
 
 Here again Britain's geography stood her in 
 good stead. Had she been far removed from 
 Europe she would not have been swept into the
 
 English Scientific Thought 223 
 
 current of European interests and consequently of 
 European culture. As it was, however, England 
 was, in the first place, near enough to France 
 to invite the Norman conquest with all that it 
 signified, — the introduction not only of more ad- 
 vanced forms of government, literature and art, 
 but also mediaeval Christian learning. In the sec- 
 ond place England was near enough to Spain to be 
 brought in touch, through trade and travel, with 
 the highly developed Arabic culture which was 
 being fostered by the Moors in the powerful king- 
 dom of Granada. It was England's nearness to 
 France and to Spain which made possible the 
 first commingling of these two currents of thought, 
 the Christian and the Mohammedan, at the Uni- 
 versity of Oxford, then in its infancy. It was this 
 contact with European culture which, from the 
 thirteenth century to the sixteenth, poured into 
 the English melting-pot all that humanity had 
 learned in the ages that had gone before. It 
 was this knowledge, confused and fragmentary, 
 which in the thirteenth century stimulated Roger 
 Bacon to see "the Vision of the world and all 
 the Wonder that would be" ; it was this knowledge, 
 fused and clarified, which from the sixteenth cen- 
 tury on enabled Francis Bacon and his successors
 
 224 English Leadership 
 
 to realize that vision and to work out the wonders 
 of modern science. 
 
 It was thus England's geography which brought 
 to her the Impulse necessary to waken her dor- 
 mant Intellectual powers. As one looks back over 
 human history such great impulses to Intellectual 
 progress seem to come only at rare Intervals. 
 Imagine what a sense of power must have thrilled 
 the hairy, almost brute ancestor of ours who first 
 learned to use a club ! Thousands of centuries 
 later, when some man first thought of replacing 
 his wooden club by a weapon made of stone, what 
 must have been the awe and admiration Inspired 
 in his fellows ! For such another Impulse to 
 progress we look In vain through several hundreds 
 of centuries until one day, not more than six 
 thousand years ago, some ancient Egyptian, wan- 
 dering in the neighborhood of Sinai (to use Mr. 
 Breasted's illustration), happened to bank his fire 
 with stones containing copper-ore, and next morn- 
 ing discovered in the ashes a brilliant globule of 
 pure metal : "Without knowing it, this man stood 
 at the dawning of a new era, the Age of Metal, 
 and the little bead of shining copper which he 
 drew from the ashes. If this Egyptian wanderer 
 could have seen It, might have reflected to him 
 a vision of steel buildings, Brooklyn bridges, huge
 
 English Scientific Thought 225 
 
 factories and vast stretches of steel roads. For 
 these things of our modern world and all they 
 signify would never have come to pass but for 
 the little bead of metal which the wandering 
 Egyptian held In his hand for the first time on 
 that eventful day," six thousand years ago. Such 
 an impulse to constructive thinking made possible 
 the development of that material civilization with- 
 out which any great intellectual growth is impos- 
 sible. From the glittering surface of the copper 
 globule there might have been reflected not only 
 the image of a material civilization, but also a 
 vision of all the brilliant discoveries in science and 
 invention, made possible by the use of metal, which 
 have so immeasurably bettered man's estate, added 
 to his intellectual enjoyment and opened to him 
 new vistas of conscious progress toward an un- 
 limited perfectibility. 
 
 During the five thousand years, however, which 
 elapsed between the Egyptian wanderer and the 
 English Roger Bacon, — between the beginning of 
 the Age of Metal and that next great impulse 
 to intellectual activity, the Renaissance, — the 
 human race had only begun to accumulate its 
 present vast store of knowledge; only a few seeds 
 of pure science were gleaned by the ancient world, 
 and even these, painfully and almost secretly
 
 226 English Leadership 
 
 raised by a few isolated Greek thinkers, remained 
 practically unknown to the people as a whole. 
 They were even lost to the world altogether for 
 nearly a thousand years following the Germanic 
 invasions which in the fourth century disrupted 
 the whole Roman Empire. But it was these very 
 seeds of pure science — some unearthed from the 
 ruins of ancient libraries or from mediaeval mon- 
 asteries, others carefully treasured and handed 
 down from generation to generation of learned 
 Arabs, — it was these very seeds which, dissemi- 
 nated over Europe during the Renaissance or 
 Revival of Learning from the thirteenth to the 
 sixteenth century, were finally to bear fruit in the 
 almost incredible achievements of modern science. 
 In the meantime, however, up to the Renais- 
 sance, there existed in England only the four 
 pseudo-sciences popularly known to the ancient 
 world, — the mystical astrology, magic, and al- 
 chemy and a practical but crude geometry, which 
 was nothing more than the simple rule o' thumb 
 methods of measurement and computation worked 
 out by the ancient Egyptians. If we would ap- 
 preciate fully the greatness of the English con- 
 tribution to scientific thought, we must not forget 
 that there is a radical difference between what, 
 on the one hand, we moderns call science, — that
 
 English Scientific Thought 227 
 
 Is, definitely systematized knowledge of natural 
 or social phenomena and of the relations between 
 them, — and what, on the other hand, the ancients 
 understood by the term. To them It was the cloak 
 which covered a multitude of Ideas rooted for the 
 most part in myth and legend, superstition, magic 
 and religious observances. "No study of Nature 
 for her own sake," as Professor Botsford has 
 phrased it, "but only for practical ends or from 
 religious motives — this was the vital weakness of 
 ancient science." All primitive thinking, as Pro- 
 fessor Robinson would have us remember, is either 
 practical, or mystical and romantic. Mankind, 
 surrounded by forces and phenomena which he 
 could neither control nor even understand, sought 
 to explain them by attributing them to the action 
 of beings higher than himself, beings whom he 
 must therefore propitiate If he would live In peace 
 and harmony. 
 
 In modern times man In large measure controls 
 the external world by turning to his own uses the 
 laws of nature revealed by science; but the me- 
 diaeval Englishman, like ancient man, in the ab- 
 sence of scientific knowledge, resorted tz magic, 
 the attempt to influence by wonder-working the 
 forces which controlled his fate. By charms and 
 incantations, accompanied by the use of amulets,
 
 228 English Leadership 
 
 potions, symbolic herbs and all sorts of fetishes 
 from a lock of hair to a toe-nail, he sought to 
 propitiate the good and to ward off the evil spirits 
 or to avert an unpleasant fate, particularly disease 
 or death. Some, on the other hand, like Faust, 
 sought to court the favor of the Evil One by direct 
 invocation, a practice which rarely failed to ac- 
 complish its purpose. One can understand why 
 the mediaeval Englishman who wore a piece of 
 chrysolite in his right ear in order to acquire wis- 
 dom, would be very slow to realize that the charm 
 was ineffectual; but oftentimes either by sug- 
 gestion or by hitting upon the right herb or drug 
 the charm worked. By discarding the futile and 
 retaining the useful, there had been gradually 
 built up a number of recipes and "prescriptions" 
 which, developed by the ancient Greeks and 
 brought to England by Arab and Jewish physi- 
 cians, later formed the nucleus of the modern 
 science of medicine. But along with the practice 
 of magic there had also grown up, through experi- 
 ment and observation, and through concrete in- 
 vestigation into properties, a considerable body of 
 knowledge r^f natural phenomena which had given 
 birth to other pseudo-sciences, particularly astrol- 
 ogy and alchemy, the twin daughters of magic. 
 In his struggle with external forces ancient man
 
 English Scientific Thought 229 
 
 had soon learned that to be forewarned is fore- 
 armed. Consequently by omens, auguries, and 
 divinations, he sought to learn the will of the 
 gods, so that he might regulate his actions ac- 
 cordingly. Out of this belief had grown the 
 practice of astrology, or the forecasting of the 
 future of human beings from indications given by 
 the relative positions and movements of the stars, 
 the planets, and the moon, — a pseudo-science des- 
 tined In its turn to become the mother of astrono- 
 my. The fixed stars, grouped in constellations, 
 formed a belt about the earth called the zodiac, 
 which was divided into twelve parts or "signs." 
 To each sign was attached a certain significance, 
 favorable or unfavorable, that just rising at the 
 time of birth being the dominant one. The benef- 
 icent or maleficent influence of the planets, includ- 
 ing the sun and moon, was modified by the par- 
 ticular sign in which they happened to be at the 
 date of birth. A mediaeval book called the "Se- 
 creta Secretorum" describes the brilliant career 
 of a weaver's son, who, chancing to be born when 
 Venus and Mars were in their most propitious 
 signs promising wisdom, beauty and love, rose ac- 
 cordingly, in spite of most adverse circumstances, 
 to be vizier to his king. The astrologer was also 
 consulted for advice as to the proper time for
 
 230 English Leadership 
 
 doing any important business, be it a bargain or 
 marriage or both. In consequence he not only 
 carried on a very profitable business but incident- 
 ally acquired no inconsiderable amount of real as- 
 tronomical knowledge. This practice, originated 
 by the Babylonians, adopted and elaborated by 
 Greek and Roman, Christian and Mohammedan, 
 had been passed on to England, where in the thir- 
 teenth century it was flourishing in full force, im- 
 plicitly believed in by all classes, — by the learned 
 as well as the ignorant, by a Roger Bacon no less 
 than by the humblest peasant. But its importance 
 in the history of English science lies in the fact 
 that it aroused an interest in astronomical phe- 
 nomena which prepared the way for the truly sci- 
 entific achievements of a Newton or a Herschel. 
 In addition to his eagerness to know and to 
 control his future, man has another very marked 
 desire, that of transmuting into gold or silver 
 whatever comes into his possession, be it a "Tin 
 Lizzie" or a leaden Russian bond. On the basis 
 of this universal trait, there grew up among the 
 ancients the practice of alchemy, — in its narrower 
 sense, the art of making gold or silver from the 
 baser metals. More broadly, it signified among 
 the Greeks, at least, the theory of the composi- 
 tion of all matter. By the study of all sorts of
 
 English Scientific Thought 231 
 
 substances, and by the combination of various 
 chemical elements, the mediaeval alchemist sought 
 to produce genuine gold and silver coins. When 
 he finally became convinced that this was impos- 
 sible, he, like the modern druggist, tried the ar- 
 gument that his was "just as good or even bet- 
 ter," Finally when people refused to be any 
 longer imposed upon, the practice was forbidden, 
 but in the meantime much well-founded knowledge 
 of chemical substances had been evolved from the 
 alchemist's experiments, — a knowledge which was 
 later to develop into the modern science of chem- 
 istry. 
 
 Such then was the so-called science which ex- 
 isted in England before the Renaissance, — magic, 
 astrology, alchemy, and simple rules of measure- 
 ment and computation. Only by keeping clearly 
 in mind the utter formlessness and chaos of early 
 English knowledge, its enslavement to all sorts of 
 superstition, prejudice and ignorance, and the ob- 
 stacles thus placed in the way of true science, only 
 by keeping all this clearly in mind can we appre- 
 ciate the full significance of English achievement 
 in scientific thought. For those masses of con- 
 fused and unsystematized knowledge, either de- 
 voted to the merely practical on the one hand, or 
 involved in mystical and fantastic notions on the
 
 232 English Leadership 
 
 other, lacked the vital principle of abstract think- 
 ing, the broad observation, and orderly arrange- 
 ment which alone could transform them into true 
 science. No such result could be hoped for so 
 long as knowledge was passed down from old to 
 young on bases of superstition and miracle, tra- 
 dition and authority. 
 
 Some new impulse was needed to stir the Eng- 
 lish mind to a truly intellectual activity. That 
 impulse came just before the dawn of the thir- 
 teenth century, when England was swept into the 
 religious wars or Crusades waged by the Christian 
 West against the Mohammedan East. As a re- 
 sult' of the Third Crusade, led by King Richard 
 the Lion-Hearted, there was introduced into Eng- 
 land through Jewish translators, all the wealth of 
 Arabic learning, from Spain and from the East, 
 bringing in its train those seeds of pure science 
 which had been produced by the ancient Greeks 
 and treasured by the Arabs for nearly a thousand 
 years. Most important among these were the 
 teachings of Aristotle on natural science, much dis- 
 torted, however, by the many translations, Syriac, 
 Persian, Arabic and Hebrew, through which they 
 had passed. The first effect of the introduction 
 of these new ideas was a feverish desire to recon- 
 cile them to the teachings of Christianity, for Aris-
 
 English Scientific Thought 233 
 
 totle was of course a pagan. In consequence the 
 translations into Latin were still further distorted 
 by the numerous omissions and interpolations of 
 overzealous copyists. But the scholastics of the 
 thirteenth century were so impressed by the 
 breadth of his knowledge and so overpowered by 
 his logic, "so fully convinced," as Professor Rob- 
 inson phrases it, "that it had pleased God to per- 
 mit Aristotle to say the last word upon each and 
 every branch of knowledge, that they humbly ac- 
 cepted him, along with the Bible, the Church fa- 
 thers, and the Canon and Roman law, as one of the 
 unquestioned authorities which together formed a 
 complete guide for humanity in conduct and in 
 every branch of science." 
 
 Among the first to protest against the fondness 
 for scholastic logic and the supreme respect for 
 Aristotle, was that first of English scientists, Roger 
 Bacon, a Franciscan monk of the early thirteenth 
 century. "If I could have my way," he wrote, "I 
 would have every book of Aristotle's burned (the 
 Latin translations, that is), because the study of 
 these is only a waste of time, a cause of error and 
 an increase of ignorance." It was this same first 
 English man of science who perceived the funda- 
 mental weakness of Greek scientific thought, — the 
 fact that it was based upon mere reason rather
 
 234 English Leadership 
 
 than upon reasoned observation and experimenta- 
 tion. Instead of poring over bad translations of 
 Aristotle, instead of relying upon authority and 
 tradition, Roger Bacon with true English inde- 
 pendence advised men to observe the common 
 things of nature round about them, to make ex- 
 periments, and to draw their conclusions from 
 these. Even though Aristotle was very wise, Ba- 
 con contended, he had but planted the tree of 
 knowledge and it had "not as yet put forth all its 
 branches nor produced all its fruits." With pro- 
 phetic vision this mediaeval Englishman claimed 
 that science could do more for man than all the 
 magic of the ages, that some day it would enable 
 men to fly, to construct horseless carriages, propel 
 ships without oars, and build bridges without piers. 
 But this John the Baptist of modern English 
 science, keen and systematic thinker though he was, 
 was destined to remain only the voice of one crying 
 in the wilderness of barren scholastic logic. For 
 more than three hundred years longer the blind 
 subservience of learning to classical authority and 
 to mediaeval theology, was to continue almost un- 
 broken. Even Roger himself, though he was one 
 of the first to break away from authority, never- 
 theless still believed that the chief service which 
 learning could render was as handmaid to theol-
 
 English Scientific Thought 235 
 
 ogy. It remained for his more famous namesake, 
 Francis Bacon, living in a more favorable age, to 
 further the emancipation of learning by elaborat- 
 ing, broadening and popularizing the ideas which. 
 Roger had formulated. 
 
 The time was now ripe for such populariza- 
 tion; for conditions in the early seventeenth cen- 
 tury were radically different from those of the 
 thirteenth. During those four hundred years 
 there had occurred momentous events in world 
 history, which had infinitely broadened the Eng- 
 lishman's intellectual horizon and in many ways 
 completely changed his point of view. During 
 these four hundred years Englishmen had estab- 
 lished on English soil the principles of individual 
 liberty, of representative government, and of the 
 sovereignty of parliament over the crown; they 
 had experienced the decay of feudahsm and the 
 abolition of serfdom, the growth of a free rural 
 population and of wealthy commercial cities. At 
 the same time they had watched the gradual fail- 
 ure of the Holy Wars of Christian against Mo- 
 hammedan with all that such failure signified, — 
 the downfall of the policy of theocratic govern- 
 ment, the overthrow of other-worldliness and the 
 passing of the temporal power of the Papacy; they 
 had watched, too, with ever-increasing enthusiasm
 
 236 English Leadership 
 
 the spread of the great intellectual awakening re- 
 sulting from the confronting and commingling of 
 Eastern with Western civilization, — an awaken- 
 ing due not so much to the actual exchanges made 
 as to the severance of bonds of fixity, intolerance 
 and conservatism, the resulting liberation of 
 thought and the stimulus to new ways, new ideas, 
 new points of view. In consequence of the intro- 
 duction of paper in place of parchment and of 
 printing instead of laborious copying by hand, these 
 Englishmen, chiefly through the efforts of scholars 
 such as More and Colet, Grocyn and Linacre, had 
 by the end of the sixteenth century very generally 
 possessed themselves of the riches of Greek and 
 Roman literature. Not only had they thus re- 
 covered what little of science the ancients had 
 thought out before the Christian era, but they had 
 acquired, also, many new instruments, — the mar- 
 iner's compass and the lens, Arabic numerals, al- 
 gebra and Euclidian geometry, — which were to 
 guide them into realms of scientific thought which 
 even their heretofore ignored Roger Bacon had 
 never dreamt of. 
 
 Meanwhile these Englishmen had heard with 
 breathless wonder of the great New World that 
 lay beyond the western seas; thrilled by the dis- 
 coveries of Columbus, Balboa, and Magellan, they
 
 English Scientific Thought 237 
 
 had sent out their own Cabots, Drake, Hawkins, 
 and Sir Walter Raleigh, and by the defeat of the 
 Spanish Armada had established supremacy over 
 the seas. In the midst of all this intellectual fer- 
 ment had come the Reformation with its revolt 
 from papal authority, the matching of faith against 
 faith, of sect against sect, of one form of intoler- 
 ance against another, and the consequent bewilder- 
 ment, questioning and shaking of all faith, the 
 breaking away from traditional moorings and the 
 challenge to independent thinking. Such had been 
 the events of the period from the thirteenth cen- 
 tury to the seventeenth. Only such an age could 
 have produced a Francis Bacon. Only such an 
 age could have listened to his message, and prof- 
 ited by his teaching. Only such an age could have 
 given to English thought that confidence, independ- 
 ence, and toleration, that impulse toward practi- 
 cality and altruism, which constitutes the lasting 
 glory of English achievement in science. 
 
 Thus at the beginning of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, the time was Indeed ripe for the ushering 
 in of a new age, the beginning of the age of mod- 
 ern science. Through discovery and exploration 
 of the external world of nature, through travel 
 and communication with the outside world of men, 
 England had come to realize that there were many
 
 238 English Leadership 
 
 things altogether unknown to the ancients, many 
 things In which they had even been In grossest 
 error. Consequently, In science as in all other 
 realms of thought, Englishmen were ready now, 
 as they had not been in the days of Roger Bacon, 
 to break away from classical and ecclesiastical au- 
 thority and to rely upon their own observation 
 and experience. 
 
 It was this new attitude which found eloquent 
 expression In Francis Bacon's "Advancement of 
 Learning" in 1605, and again in his "Novum Or- 
 ganum," published singularly In 1620, the year 
 in which the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth. 
 Like his predecessor, Roger, he warned his coun- 
 trymen against the dangers of submission to au- 
 thority, particularly that of Aristotle and the 
 schoolmen. Like his predecessor, too, he foresaw 
 the infinite possibilities of social betterment to be 
 attained through the accumulation of knowledge 
 about man and nature by means of direct obser- 
 vation, experimentation and research. Only 
 through his indispensable preliminary work could 
 man arrive at any sound conclusion as to the laws 
 of the universe and his relation to them. Only so 
 could man regain his power over nature. "Man, 
 the servant and interpreter of nature," Bacon says, 
 "can do and understand so much, and so much
 
 English Scientific Thought 239 
 
 only, as he has observed In fact or in thought of 
 the course of nature." "First of all, we must pre- 
 pare a natural and experimental history, sufficient 
 and good; and this is the foundation of all." But 
 in his study of nature. Bacon reiterates, man must 
 rely solely upon observation and experience as the 
 only means of keeping his mind free from preju- 
 dice, error and preconceived notions, "for God 
 forbid that we should give out a dream of our 
 own imagination for a pattern to the world." 
 
 Man's guiding thread out of the labyrinth of 
 natural phenomena was to be found in the method, 
 originated by Bacon, of reasoning from a group of 
 arranged facts, or observation through a series of 
 eliminations, to an abstract or generalized truth. 
 'This, the famous "inductive method," was, how- 
 ever, more brilliant than useful; for neither Bacon 
 himself nor any scientist since has ever arrived at 
 :any great discovery through its use. On the con- 
 trary the "natural method" of first forming an 
 hypothesis or supposition and then testing it by ap- 
 plication to observed facts is that universally fol- 
 lowed. But Bacon's efforts to establish his method 
 of reasoning were not entirely futile, for it is only 
 by inductively taking into account facts already 
 observed or experienced, that the scientific imagi- 
 nation can construct its hypothesis, from which to
 
 240 English Leadership 
 
 work back to experience. The significance of Lord 
 Bacon's work lies not in the application of his 
 method of reasoning, but rather in his insistence 
 upon experimentation and observation of nature, 
 instead of blind reliance upon a perverted logic 
 and an unsubstantiated authority. 
 
 This insistence upon the experimental method 
 is one of the two great characteristics of Bacon 
 which entitle him to recognition as England's great 
 leader in modern scientific thought. The other is 
 his keen perception of the importance, the inter- 
 dependence, and the social aim of all scientific en- 
 deavor. For he, too, has his dream of an ideal 
 commonwealth, the New Atlantis, which, could he 
 have his way, would be organized under the di- 
 rection of an Academy of Sciences, his famous 
 House of Solomon, or what we would call to-day 
 a university of research endowed by the state for 
 the promotion of social progress. With masterly 
 skill Bacon shows up the obstacles that lie in the 
 path of human progress, — the ignorance and prej- 
 udice, traditional views and blind worship of au- 
 thority which hold man slave to nature. He would 
 have man put aside all these, and cease making 
 knowledge a servant of theology, which, to avoid 
 trouble, he relegates to the realm of faith; nor 
 would he have man make knowledge an idealistic
 
 English Scientific Thought 241 
 
 end In Itself, but rather a practical means to the 
 end of social betterment. The great object of all 
 science Is to recover man's sovereignty over nature, 
 "to endow the condition and life of man with new 
 powers or works," "to extend more widely the lim- 
 its of the power and greatness of man." "Is there 
 any such happiness as for a man's mind to be 
 raised above the confusion of things, where he may 
 have the prospect of the order of nature and er- 
 ror of man? But Is this a view of delight only 
 and not of discovery? of contentment and not of 
 benefit? Shall he not as well discern the riches 
 of nature's warehouse as the beauty of her shop? 
 Is truth ever barren? Shall he not be able thereby 
 to produce worthy effects, and to endow the life 
 of man with Infinite commodities?" The whole 
 spirit of Bacon's attitude toward science and phi- 
 losophy is this bent toward the practical, the al- 
 truistic, the democratic, and in this It Is typically 
 English. For In spite of Bacon's nominal support 
 of absolute monarchy and aristocracy, his ideas 
 were essentially democratic; he believed that not 
 only he himself, but each and every man, was 
 "born to be of some advantage to mankind," and 
 that, on the other hand, mankind must work 
 unitedly toward the betterment of each and every 
 man's estate.
 
 242 English Leadership 
 
 It Is this attitude which gives to Francis Bacon 
 his unique position In the history of science, — he 
 Is the first to formulate the Idea of modern prog- 
 ress through man's conscious adjustment to and 
 scientific control over the natural forces of the uni- 
 verse. "To him," as Professor Robinson has said, 
 "knowledge was above all dynamic and progres- 
 sive; In his works our modern Idea of human prog- 
 ress first appears In unmistakable form." It Is 
 true that Bacon did not himself make any real con- 
 tribution to scientific knowledge and that his fear 
 of accepting unproved hypotheses led him to re- 
 ject the Copernlcan theory of the solar system, — 
 led him also to underestimate and even disregard 
 the work which was being done by some of his 
 contemporaries, among them William Gilbert's de- 
 scription of the fundamental principles of magnet- 
 ism, and Harvey's discovery of the circulation of 
 the blood; "nevertheless," to quote Professor Rob- 
 inson again, Bacon and his Imitator, Descartes, 
 "scotched authority, although they had not the 
 heart to kill it, and the unprecedented Intellectual 
 clarification, accompanied by an unprecedented ac- 
 cumulation of facts in regard to man and his en- 
 vironment, which succeeding centuries have wit- 
 nessed, Is largely due to the attitude of mind which 
 Bacon and Descartes encouraged."
 
 English Scientific Thought 243 
 
 That this influence of Francis Bacon on modern 
 scientific and philosophic thought was both imme- 
 diate and lasting is attested over and over again 
 by acknowledgment on the part of later scientists, 
 French, Italian and German, as well as English. 
 His insistence upon observation and collection of 
 facts directly from nature made a strong appeal 
 to the Frenchman, Descartes, who in this delib- 
 erately adopted Bacon's suggestion; in a letter 
 written in 1632 Descartes expressed the wish that 
 "some one would undertake to give a history of 
 celestial phenomena after the method of Bacon, 
 and describe the sky exactly as it appears at pres- 
 ent, without introducing a single hypothesis." 
 Another French philosopher, Condillac, living one 
 hundred and fifty years later than Bacon, is said 
 to have remarked, "No one knows better than he 
 the cause of our mistakes." Voltaire and the 
 French Encyclopaedists regarded Bacon as "the 
 Father of experimental philosophy," and d'Alem- 
 bert refers to him as "the greatest, the most uni- 
 versal and the most eloquent of philosophers." 
 
 But great as was Bacon's influence on Conti- 
 nental thought, his greatest service was rather to 
 his own countrymen, and through them to the rest 
 of the world, both in philosophy and in natural 
 science. Bacon, as he himself remarked, "rang
 
 244 English Leadership 
 
 the bell which called the wits together." The fact 
 that the fundamental principle of Locke's "Essay 
 Concerning Human Understanding," — that all our 
 ideas are the result of sensation and reflection, — 
 is found briefly stated in the "Novum Organum," 
 entitles Bacon to distinction as a precursor of Eng- 
 lish psychological speculation. In ethics, too. Ba- 
 con may be regarded as the forerunner of all those 
 systems, particularly utilitarianism, as we shall 
 have occasion to note later on, which are based up- 
 on the application to conduct of the method of di- 
 rect observation of human consciousness and of the 
 results of actions. Baconian principles have thus 
 undoubtedly exercised a powerful influence upon 
 the whole trend of English thought in mental, 
 moral and political philosophy. 
 
 But perhaps the most significant effect of Ba- 
 con's influence upon the progress of natural sci- 
 ence, an effect due not to any contribution of his 
 own, nor yet to his inductive method, but rather 
 to the spirit of his work, was the impetus given 
 by his "New Atlantis" to the organization of the 
 Royal Society of London for the Advancement of 
 Science, which took place in 1662, — less than forty 
 years after his death; for this society, in its rela- 
 tion to the individual on the one hand and in its 
 service to the state on the other, is, to some degree
 
 English Scientific Thought 245 
 
 at least, a realization of Bacon's dream of an 
 Academy of Sciences. 
 
 However great may have been the failure, po- 
 litically, of the Puritan Revolution, which ran its 
 course between the death of Bacon and the found- 
 ing of the Royal Society, one permanent gain of 
 supreme importance had been made, — the Eng- 
 lish people as a whole had come not only to realize 
 but to demand their right to freedom of thought, 
 and to the acquisition of that knowledge upon 
 which alone rational thought can be based. True 
 political freedom can only follow upon, not pre- 
 cede, intellectual and spiritual freedom. "Give me 
 liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely ac- 
 cording to conscience, above all other liberties," 
 Milton had cried in 1643. It was this spirit of 
 Bacon and of Milton, this spirit of free inquiry, 
 which characterized certain meetings held in Lon- 
 don during the next twenty years, of "divers 
 worthy persons, inquisitive into natural philosophy 
 and other parts of human learning, and particu- 
 larly of what hath been called the 'New Philos- 
 ophy' or 'Experimental Philosophy' " ; and it was 
 these meetings which, largely through the efforts of 
 Robert Boyle, a devoted though unconfessed fol- 
 lower of Bacon, finally resulted, in 1662, in the
 
 246 English Leadership 
 
 organization of the Royal Society of London for 
 the Adv^ancement of Science. 
 
 In striving to realize the aim of Its founders, 
 an aim which has since grown to be five-fold, this 
 society has performed an inestimable service for 
 English science. At its inception it sought to ad- 
 vance scientific thought by means of experiments 
 performed before the members at the meetings of 
 the society. Later there grew up a library and 
 museum for the preservation of manuscripts and 
 scientific correspondence, and for instruments and 
 models of historical interest. The Royal Society 
 furthermore seeks especially to promote scientific 
 research by the encouragement of all worthy In- 
 dividual investigators, rich or poor, of noble rank 
 or lowly, English or foreign, not only through 
 channels of sympathy, recognition of merit and in- 
 telligent cooperation, but oftentimes through finan- 
 cial assistance as well. It has taken the lead in di- 
 rection of attention to, and active support of the 
 government in, many scientific undertakings of na- 
 tional importance, such as the equipment of the 
 Royal Observatory at Greenwich, the ventilation 
 of prisons, protection of buildings and ships from 
 lightning, investigation of earthquakes and vol- 
 canic eruptions, upper atmosphere and deep-sea 
 research, expeditions for scientific exploration In
 
 English Scientific Thought 247 
 
 geography, geology and allied subjects, — these are 
 only a few of Its vast and varied activities all car- 
 ried on In cooperation with the government. 
 Lastly, what Is perhaps more significant for the 
 future than any other of Its alms, the Royal So- 
 ciety has undertaken the promotion of Interna- 
 tional cooperation In scientific Investigation, not 
 only through Its correspondence, Its recognition of 
 foreign merit, and Its election of foreigners to 
 membership, but also, of late years, by taking a 
 leading part in activities connected with the Inter- 
 national Catalogue of Scientific Literature and 
 with the International Association of Academies 
 for the Advancement of Science. 
 
 Such then is the framework of the Royal So- 
 ciety, the nearest approach which England has yet 
 made toward the realization of Bacon's ideal 
 House of Solomon. Though in Its organization 
 it does not, except in the most general way, ac- 
 cord with Bacon's scheme for an Academy of Sci- 
 ences, nevertheless In its spirit and In Its functions 
 It has laid the foundation upon which that House 
 may be erected In the coming day when man will 
 put to practical use, for his own conscious prog- 
 ress, all the knowledge of natural and social phe- 
 nomena which is awaiting acquisition, and on the
 
 248 English Leadership 
 
 organization and application of which that prog- 
 ress depends. 
 
 Up to very recent years, however, the Royal 
 Society has in many respects failed to realize its 
 opportunity. Though it has fostered some of 
 England's greatest scientific achievement, it has not 
 performed as great a service for England as the 
 French Academy has for France, or the universi- 
 ties for Germany, in bringing about concerted ac- 
 tion and scientific cooperation. Bacon's scheme 
 has been more nearly realized in foreign acad- 
 emies; scientific discoveries and inventions of great 
 importance, such as Adams' determination of the 
 orbit of a hitherto unknown planet, or Babage's 
 invention of the calculating engine, were for years 
 left in neglect by Englishmen; Newton's astronom- 
 ical discoveries were made known to the world 
 through the Frenchman, Voltaire; Locke's school 
 was founded in France; Dalton's theories of chem- 
 istry, Faraday's discoveries in electricity, and Dar- 
 win's theory of evolution have supplied the ideas 
 for German university courses; English and Amer- 
 ican inventors, through the new machinery and 
 processes which they have given out to the world, 
 have unconsciously paved the way for German in- 
 dustrialism; and through the invention of modern 
 artillery, aeroplane, and submarine, they have all
 
 English Scientific Thought 24^ 
 
 unwittingly placed in German hands the tools of 
 militarism. Facts, such as these, have at last 
 brought to the English-speaking peoples a realiza- 
 tion of their great mistake, — their failure to carry- 
 out Bacon's idea, to establish a real House of Sol- 
 omon, some central organization for the collection 
 and correlation of the work of individual investi- 
 gators in widely scattered fields. Only now are 
 we realizing the consequences of that lack of the 
 historical and encyclopaedic spirit, shown by con- 
 tinental nations, which must accompany and sup- 
 plement individual genius, if the fullest benefit of 
 thoroughness of research and completeness of co- 
 operation are to be attained. 
 
 On the contrary, in spite of Lord Bacon's scheme 
 for organization, English science has remained, 
 from his day to this, a series of brilliant individual 
 achievements rather than a corporate effort. But 
 in this very fact, as we shall see, lies the peculiar 
 distinction of the English contribution to scientific 
 thought; and in this fact, too, lies the explanation 
 of its greatness. English scientists have not yet 
 realized Lord Bacon's dream of cooperation; but 
 they did adopt and follow out, each in his own in- 
 dividual way, that experimental method which, as 
 we have seen, was first suggested to a dormant 
 .world by an Englishman, Roger Bacon, in the thir-
 
 250 JEnglish Leadership 
 
 teenth century, and four hundred years later was 
 presented in its full significance by another Eng- 
 lishman, Francis Bacon, to a world aroused, ready 
 to listen, and eager to seize upon this means of 
 broadening their intellectual horizon. 
 
 Even the most casual glance over the three cen- 
 turies of modern science which have elapsed since 
 Bacon's time is sufficient to reveal to us three well- 
 defined periods In the application of this experi- 
 mental method. The first, approximately from 
 1600 to 1750, was distinctly a period of great gen- 
 eralizations during which natural laws of funda- 
 mental importance were worked out, particularly 
 in the natural sciences of astronomy, physics and 
 chemistry. 
 
 The earliest of the epoch-making discoveries 
 of this first period was a treatise on magnetism, 
 published in 1600, by William Gilbert, court- 
 physician to Queen Elizabeth. Gilbert's work, the 
 first to be characterized by a strict adherence to 
 the experimental method, was likewise the first 
 to describe accurately the phenomena of magnets, 
 magnetized bodies, and electrical attractions; it 
 constitutes not merely the first but also the most 
 important single contribution ever made to the sci- 
 ence of magnetism, — that science so vital to Eng- 
 lish navigation, commerce, and empire. It was
 
 English Scientific Thought 251 
 
 Gilbert, too, who invented the word "electricity" ; 
 and it was his observations and speculations on 
 this subject, supplemented by those of Boyle, New- 
 ton, and Watson, which guided Benjamin Frank- 
 lin in 1752 to his memorable identification of 
 lightning with electricity, and all the revolutioniz- 
 ing discoveries and inventions which have followed 
 in its wake. 
 
 In 1 61 6, the year of Shakespeare's death, and 
 only eleven years after the appearance of Bacon's 
 "Advancement of Learning," another physician, 
 William Harvey, brought forward his discovery 
 of the circulation of the blood, and followed it 
 up a few years later by the announcement of his 
 theory that the formation of the embryo takes 
 place by the successive addition of parts instead 
 of by the unfolding of a miniature complete from 
 the beginning. By these two discoveries, together 
 with others of lesser importance. Dr. Harvey not 
 only worked a revolution in the whole theory of 
 medicine, but also won the distinction of being the 
 founder of the sciences of anatomy and physiology, 
 for the development of which the world had to 
 wait, however, for nearly two hundred years 
 longer. In that same memorable year, 1616, John 
 Napier gave to the world his system of logarithms, 
 a short method of multiplication and division for
 
 252 English Leadership 
 
 large numbers, which has ever since remained one 
 of the foundation stones in higher mathematics. 
 Within another fifteen years, Thomas Harriot, the 
 tutor of Sir Walter Raleigh, gave more complete 
 form to the outlines of modern algebra. These 
 two great achievements, the logarithms of Napier 
 and the algebra of Harriot, made possible thirty 
 years later the working out of differential calculus 
 and of complicated astronomical problems by Sir 
 Isaac Newton. 
 
 The mention of Newton recalls to us one of 
 the most illustrious names in the history of sci- 
 ence. Visitors to Westminster Abbey never fail 
 to seek out a certain monument which bears this 
 inscription : 
 
 Here lies 
 
 SIR ISAAC NEWTON, KNIGHT, 
 
 Who by vigor of mind, almost supernatural. 
 
 First demonstrated 
 
 The motions and figures of the Planets, 
 
 The Paths of the Comets, and the 
 
 Tides of the Ocean. 
 
 He diligently investigated 
 
 The different refrangibilities of the Rays of Light, 
 
 And the properties of the Colors to which they 
 
 give rise.
 
 English Scientific Thought 253 
 
 An Assiduous, Sagacious and Faithful Interpreter 
 
 of Nature, 
 
 Antiquity, and the Holy Scriptures, 
 
 He asserted in his Philosophy the Majesty of God, 
 
 and exhibited in his Conduct the simplicity 
 
 of the Gospel. 
 
 Let mortals rejoice that there has existed 
 
 Such and so great 
 
 AN ORNAMENT OF THE HUMAN RACE. 
 
 Born 25th Dec, 1642; Died 20th March, 1727. 
 
 Such was the estimate placed upon the impor- 
 tance of Newton's discoveries by Englishmen of 
 his own day. But during the years, nearly three 
 hundred now, which have marked the advance of 
 science since his time, the world has come to real- 
 ize that the significance of Newton's work lies not 
 merely in the specific discoveries he made in 
 physics, astronomy and mathematics, but more in 
 the entirely new trend which he gave the whole 
 course of modern thought. 
 
 The way had been well prepared for Newton 
 not only by the labors of his earlier countrymen, 
 Bacon, Napier and Harriot, but also by those of 
 three continental philosophers, Galileo, Kepler, 
 ^nd Descartes. Even while Francis Bacon was for-
 
 254 English Leadership 
 
 mulatlng his deductive method, based upon experi- 
 mental research, even while he was dreaming, too, 
 of a living astronomy by which the physical laws 
 of terrestrial relations should be extended to the 
 realm of heavenly bodies, even then that first of 
 great Italian thinkers, Galileo Galilei (1564- 
 1642), was already opening up a new era in the 
 history of descriptive astronomy by his invention 
 of the telescope. This great event occurred in the 
 year 1609, — the same year in which that intrepid 
 English sailor, Henry Hudson, first entered New 
 York Bay and discovered the river which bears 
 his name. And just as Hudson's memorable voy- 
 age was followed by many another destined to es- 
 tablish an English civilization upon American 
 shores, so Galileo's invention of the telescope was 
 followed in bewildering rapidity by one discovery 
 after another in the realm of science, — discoveries 
 which filled men's minds with amazement and 
 swept aside, as worse than groundless, fables and 
 conjectures which for ages past had been accumu- 
 lated regarding the appearance and the movements 
 of stars and planets. The mediaeval scholastics 
 were now confronted, in the system of Jupiter and 
 its satellites, by a visible example in miniature of 
 the truth of the theory set forth in 1543 by the 
 Polish astronomer, Copernicus, — the theory that
 
 English Scientific Thought 255 
 
 the earth and all the other planets revolve about 
 the sun as the center of our universe. Such an 
 example, more convincing than all the tomes of 
 mediaeval logic, marks the downfall of scholasti- 
 cism, the severance of bonds of perverted Aris- 
 totelianism, and the overturning of mediaeval cos- 
 mogony, Galileo's telescope was destined not only 
 to bring within the range of man's vision planets 
 and stars never before dreamed of, but also to 
 reveal to the eager gaze of later scientists a whole 
 new world of scientific and philosophic thought. 
 
 In that same epochal year, 1609, Johann Kep- 
 ler, imperial astronomer and astrologer of Ru- 
 dolph II of Germany, completed his "great Mar- 
 tian labor," as he himself phrased it, "of leading 
 the captive planet to the foot of the imperial 
 throne," through the publication of a work on the 
 orbit of the planet Mars. In this and later 
 treatises Kepler established his three great laws of 
 planetary motion: that each planet revolves in an 
 elliptical orbit round the sun, whose center occu- 
 pies one of the foci of the orbit; that the radius 
 vector of each planet, drawn from the sun, de- 
 scribes equal areas in equal times; and that the 
 squares of the periodic times of the planets are in 
 the same proportion as the cubes of their mean 
 distances from the sun.
 
 256 English Leadership 
 
 By these three laws of planetary motion, Kep- 
 ler had blazed out the trail which, toward the 
 close of the century, was to guide Newton on into 
 still greater regions of undiscovered truth. But 
 before this could be accomplished, it was necessary 
 that a bridge should be built from ancient to mod- 
 ern mathematics, more especially geometry and 
 algebra. That bridge was begun by Napier 
 who, as we have seen, contributed a system of 
 logarithms; the bridge was extended still farther 
 by Harriot's theories and methods in algebra. 
 The main body, however, was built by the French- 
 man Descartes who in 1637 published his "Geom- 
 etry," a work which for the first time correlated 
 geometry with algebra, established the principles 
 of analytical geometry and made It possible for 
 Newton himself to complete the mathematical 
 bridge by his own invention of differential cal- 
 culus. Thus had the way been prepared for New- 
 ton's transcendent discovery that the law of gravi- 
 tation is applicable throughout the known universe. 
 
 Some vague conception of the existence of gravi- 
 tation or the force by which bodies on or near the 
 earth's surface are attracted toward the center, 
 was present in the minds of the ancients. Some 
 speculations had also been made in mediasval times 
 as to why things fall toward the earth. But the
 
 English Scientific Thought 257 
 
 first Important step toward the investigation of this 
 mysterious force was taken only when Galileo set 
 himself to discover not why but how things fall. 
 He had observed that a ball, starting from rest, 
 falls toward the earth's surface with uniformly in- 
 creasing speed. By experiment with such freely 
 falling bodies, and also with balls rolling down 
 an inclined plane, he proved mathematically that 
 if the speed of falling is proportional to the time 
 from the moment of starting, the space traversed 
 must be proportional to the square of the time of 
 falling. He discovered also that a ball, having 
 acquired a certain speed by rolling down an in- 
 clined plane, will roll to the top of another plane 
 of the same height, regardless of its inclination, 
 provided that friction be slight. The logical con- 
 clusion to be drawn from this fact is that if the 
 second plane be level, the ball will keep on rolling 
 forever, provided there be no external interfer- 
 ence. These observations of Galileo were first put 
 into definite words by Newton and constitute what 
 is known as the first law of motion, — that a body 
 to which motion has once been imparted will con- 
 tinue to move in a straight line at the same speed, 
 forever, unless stopped by some external force. 
 Since this law now serves as the foundation of the 
 whole science of dynamics, Newton may justly be
 
 258 English Leadership 
 
 regarded as the founder of this branch of modern 
 physics. 
 
 Nor was this all. Philosophers had hereto- 
 fore believed that the motion of the planets could 
 be accounted for only by the application of some 
 external force; in this idea originated the theory 
 of vortices, which had been roughly drafted by 
 Kepler and later (1644) set forth in detail by 
 Descartes. According to this Cartesian theory, 
 as summarized by William Wallace, the universe 
 is infinite and infinitely full of matter of uniform 
 character. This matter is divided into an infinite 
 variety of forms, set in motion by God. The 
 movement of any one particle in this closely packed 
 universe is possible only when all the other par- 
 ticles move simultaneously. There will then in- 
 evitably result throughout the universe an innu- 
 merable host of more or less circular movements, 
 and of vortices or whirlpools of material particles 
 varying in size and velocity. In consequence of 
 the circular movement, the particles will have their 
 corners pared off by rubbing against each other. 
 The finer matter thus formed, collecting in the cen- 
 ter of the vortex, makes up the sun or star. The 
 spherical particles continue their circulatory mo- 
 tion with a tendency to fly off from the center; 
 these make up the atmosphere which envelops and
 
 English Scientific Thought 259 
 
 revolves around the central accumulation. A star 
 may be caught in a neighboring vortex. If its ve- 
 locity Is greater than that of the vortex, It escapes 
 and, partially broken up, becomes a comet. If, on 
 the other hand, the velocity of the star is less than 
 that of the vortex which catches It up, the star is 
 held by the vortex and becomes a planet, revolving 
 about the central mass. 
 
 Such was the famous theory of vortices ad- 
 vanced by Descartes. As Wallace says, It Is un- 
 doubtedly "one of the grandest hypotheses which 
 ever have been formed to account by mechanical 
 processes for the movements of the universe." It 
 ended the old Aristotelian theory, and "banished 
 the spirits and genii to which even Kepler had as- 
 signed the guardianship of the planetary move- 
 ments." "The Cartesian theory, like the later 
 speculations of Kant and Laplace, proposes to give 
 a hypothetical explanation of the circumstances 
 and motions which in the normal course of things 
 led to the state of things required by the law of 
 attraction." But in many ways the theory was In- 
 adequate to explain known facts. The true foun- 
 dation of a mechanical theory of the universe was 
 laid not by Descartes but by Kepler's three laws 
 and by Galileo's dynamics. The Cartesian theory
 
 26o English Leadership 
 
 of vortices, however, unquestionably prepared the 
 way for a more rational mechanical theory. 
 
 Its weaknesses were soon perceived by Newton 
 who, by the formulation of the first law of motion, 
 proved the supposition of vortices false. It now 
 became apparent that it was not the continuous 
 motion of the planet, but the deflection of its mo- 
 tion from a straight line, which required explana- 
 tion. This was the problem which Newton now 
 set himself. Its solution occupied him for twenty 
 years. As early as 1666, the year of the Great 
 Fire in London, it had occurred to him that the 
 motion of the moon about the earth might be de- 
 termined by the same law which governed the fall 
 of an apple. Applying the law of falling bodies 
 which he had previously worked out, to the mo- 
 tion of the moon, he computed the amount of de- 
 flection which would be caused by the force of 
 gravitation or the attraction exerted on the moon 
 by the earth. He found that his results did not 
 entirely accord with observed facts, and with great 
 disappointment laid his calculations aside. A few 
 years later, a new determination of the size of the 
 earth by Picard gave him new data for his prob- 
 lem. With feverish eagerness he applied himself 
 again to the solution, and in almost uncontrollable 
 excitement found that the force which determines
 
 English Scientific Thought 261 
 
 the fall of an apple Is the self-same force which 
 holds the moon to its orbit. His discovery was 
 announced to the world by the publication, in 1 686, 
 of his famous "Principia." This discovery meant 
 that the moon, having a motion of its own which, 
 if unaffected by any external force, would make it 
 move in a straight line, must be deflected from a 
 straight-line to a curvilinear orbit by the force of 
 gravitation acting from the earth. And if this 
 theory could explain the motion of the moon about 
 the earth, the same theory could explain the move- 
 ment of the earth about the sun and the move- 
 ments of all the other planets. The force of this 
 attraction of gravitation Newton stated mathe- 
 matically to vary directly as the mass of the bodies 
 and inversely as the square of the distance between 
 them. 
 
 Newton was not alone In perceiving the possi- 
 bility of such a solution. It had been foreshad- 
 owed in the third law of Kepler; it had also been 
 conceived independently by three English friends 
 of Newton's, — Sir Christopher Wren, the archi- 
 tect of St. Paul's Cathedral; Robert Hooke, who 
 first suggested that the motion of heavenly bodies 
 could be stated in terms of mathematics, and Ed- 
 mund Halley, who first calculated the orbit of the 
 1682 comet which now bears his name. Far from
 
 262 English Leadership 
 
 detracting from Newton's fame, however, these 
 facts, on the contrary, add luster to the brilliance 
 of his achievement, for he alone had been able not 
 only to recognize the law, but also to demonstrate 
 its validity. 
 
 "Every particle of matter in the universe," we 
 can hear Newton saying again and again, "attracts 
 every other particle with a force varying inversely 
 as the square of their mutual distances, and di- 
 rectly as the mass of the attracting particles." 
 From this law he determined also the orbit of the 
 moon and of comets; from it he deduced the fact 
 that the earth is flattened at the poles; from it he 
 explained the precession of the equinoxes, the 
 tides, the ratio between the mass of the moon and 
 that of the earth, between that of the sun and of 
 the earth. He also demonstrated that a spherical 
 body exerts the same attraction on an external 
 planet as if its mass were concentrated at the cen- 
 ter; and from his time since in all astronomical 
 calculations, planets, stars, etc., have been re- 
 garded as points in space. Newton thus reduced 
 the phenomena of the solar system to a mathe- 
 matical basis of known dynamic principles. 
 
 By thus stating conclusively in terms of mathe- 
 matics, not why but how the force of gravitation 
 acts as the sole influence in governing the move-
 
 English Scientific Thought 263 
 
 ments of planets and satellites, Newton estab- 
 lished the science of gravitational astronomy, and 
 demonstrated, to a world amazed, the possibility 
 of a mechanical theory of the universe. The why 
 of it all, however, the mechanism by means of 
 which the force of gravitation is exerted, continued 
 to remain a mystery which neither Newton nor 
 any other scientist since his day has been able to 
 elucidate. Nevertheless, the discovery that all the 
 movements of the heavenly bodies can be described 
 by one and the same simple formula, marks the 
 greatest, the most significant, achievement in the 
 history of science. 
 
 The extension of Newton's formula to explam 
 the origin of the solar system was accomplished 
 a hundred years later by the astronomer Laplace 
 ( 1 749-1 827), "the Newton of France," who 
 prophesied for Newton's "Principia" a lasting pre- 
 eminence over all productions of the human in- 
 tellect. 
 
 Laplace's "Nebular Hypothesis," though em- 
 phatically only a speculation, is to-day perhaps the 
 most widely accepted theory as to the origin of 
 the solar system. This theory, based on Newton's 
 laws, presupposes a nebulous mass originally ex- 
 tending throughout the space now occupied by our 
 solar system. This cloud of gaseous matter is
 
 264 English Leadership 
 
 further presupposed to be rotating upon its axis. 
 In cooling it would contract toward its center, thus 
 accelerating the rate of rotation and forming by 
 increased pressure a solid mass at its center called 
 the sun. As contraction continued and speed of 
 rotation increased, a series of successive rings of 
 matter were cast off by the shrinking nebula. Each 
 of these rings, continuing its movement of revolu- 
 tion about the central mass, would develop a cen- 
 ter of attraction of its own around which all the 
 particles of matter that made up the ring would 
 gradually accumulate in rotational movement. 
 Thus from each ring would be formed a solid 
 mass or planet having a movement of revolution 
 about the sun and one of rotation about its own 
 axis. 
 
 Such in barest outline is the Nebular hypothesis 
 built up by Laplace upon the Newtonian law of 
 gravitation. Unlike the Cartesian theory of vor- 
 tices which it has displaced, the Nebular theory 
 has not thus far been proved inconsistent with any 
 observed fact. But as Simon Newcomb has said, 
 "Should any one be skeptical as to the sufficiency 
 of these laws to account for the present state of 
 things, science can furnish no evidence strong 
 enough to overthrow his doubts until the sun shall 
 be found growing smaller by actual measurement,
 
 English Scientific Thought 265 
 
 or the nebuls be actually seen to condense into 
 stars and systems." 
 
 Newton's name then stands as the greatest in 
 the history of science. The importance of his 
 work, though realized in a narrow way by his con- 
 temporaries, was not recognized in any broad 
 sense till nearly one hundred years later, when a 
 new period of activity in pure science was ushered 
 in. The immediate effects of Newton's philosophy, 
 as we shall see, were felt not so much in the field 
 of natural science, as in the realm of more gen- 
 eral philosophic thought. 
 
 Here, too, revolutionary changes were being 
 wrought, chiefly through the labors of Newton's 
 illustrious contemporary, John Locke (1632- 
 1704), perhaps the greatest of philosophic ex- 
 ponents of civil and religious liberty, founder of 
 the first continuous school of English philosophy, 
 and herald of modern psychology, the science of 
 individual experience. 
 
 This last quarter of the seventeenth century was 
 an age peculiarly fortunate for the growth of a 
 typically English school of philosophy. The air 
 was rife with religious and political discussion. 
 Catholic was striving against Protestant, mon- 
 archy against democracy, Divine Right against a 
 stern Responsibility to Society. Bacon and Des-
 
 266 English Leadership 
 
 cartes had already "scotched authority," and 
 others were eagerly waiting to strike the death 
 blow. Following Bacon, but independently of him, 
 Thomas Hobbes, In his "Leviathan" ( 165 i ) , had 
 already conceived the idea of applying the new 
 "mechanical philosophy" to the whole constitution 
 of society In such a way as to bring social phe- 
 nomena within the same principles of scientific ex- 
 planation as were found to apply in the case of 
 natural phenomena. By his rational analysis of 
 the moral nature of man as actuated by motives 
 of self-interest tending continually to clash one with 
 another, Hobbes had given the first great Impulse 
 to that utilitarian school of ethical speculation 
 which was foreshadowed In Francis Bacon and 
 which has ever since been so marked a character- 
 istic of English social science; furthermore, 
 Hobbes had commanded the respect of even his 
 most violent opponents by insisting that the whole 
 political system of a nation should be based upon 
 a rational regard for the common weal. While he 
 fearlessly attacked the Divine Right of Kings, he 
 failed, on the other hand, to realize the need of 
 religious toleration. His work on the whole rep- 
 resents a long step in the advance of English 
 thought toward well-organized social science. 
 Hobbes' preparation of the way for John Locke,
 
 English Scientific Thought 267 
 
 however, was not that of path finding, — Locke was 
 not a follower of Hobbes, — but rather that of 
 map making; Hobbes charted out the lay of the 
 land, over which Locke within the next fifty years 
 was to hew his own path. 
 
 Other Influences, too, were at work, preparing 
 the way for a new philosophy. Gilbert had 
 founded the science of terrestrial magnetism ; Har- 
 vey had established the beginnings of anatomy, 
 physiology and medicine. Napier, Harriot, Des- 
 cartes and Newton had evolved a system of higher 
 mathematics. Robert Boyle had formulated the 
 law of gases and done much to transform alchemy 
 Into chemistry. Furthermore, Nehemiah Grew, 
 the earliest vegetable anatomist and physiologist, 
 through the study of seed germination in his 
 "Anatomy of Plants" (1682), was working out 
 the beginnings of botany. In the same year John 
 Ray's "Methodus Plantarum Nova" earned for 
 him the title of Father of modern zoology. Hal- 
 ley was soon to make the first calculation ever at- 
 tempted of the orbit of a comet. And Galileo, 
 Kepler, Descartes and Newton had created not 
 only a new astronomy but also a whole new me- 
 chanical theory of the universe. 
 
 In the meantime the Royal Society had been 
 founded and experiment in physics had become the
 
 268 English Leadership 
 
 fashion. Scientific knowledge was being rapidly 
 diffused through a new custom of popular lectures. 
 Aristotelianism had been dethroned and mediccval 
 scholasticism at last put to rout. Freedom of the 
 press was being gradually obtained and freedom 
 of thought being demanded more and more insist- 
 ently. And finally the Glorious Revolution had 
 established the sovereignty of parliament over the 
 crown, marked the triumph of the Commons over 
 the Lords, and saw the ancient rights and liberties 
 of Englishmen guaranteed by the passage of the 
 Bill of Rights. 
 
 Under conditions such as these it was inevitable 
 that a school of philosophy typically English 
 should arise. It is inconceivable, too, that an Eng- 
 lish thinker living in such stirring times could ab- 
 stract himself from the social, political and re- 
 ligious problems of his time. It was only to be 
 expected then that John Locke would set himself 
 in truly English fashion to work out practical so- 
 lutions for the problems immediately before him. 
 The two which appealed to him as most pressing 
 were, on the one hand, the question of civil and 
 religious liberty, and, on the other, the question of 
 the origin of mental phenomena and their rela- 
 tion to the validity of knowledge. To the solu- 
 tion of these two problems he devoted his whole
 
 English Scientific Thought 269 
 
 life. The results of his labors are embodied for 
 the most part in his "Letters on Toleration" and 
 in his "Essay Concerning Human Understanding." 
 
 Locke's early Inclination toward politics had 
 won for him the position of confidential secretary 
 to the first Earl of Shaftesbury; between these two 
 there developed an Inspiring and lasting friend- 
 ship based upon their common desire to advance 
 the cause of liberty, — civil, religious and philo- 
 sophical. Even In the earliest of Locke's essays, 
 the bent of his mind Is clearly apparent; for in 
 these he set forth objections to the sacerdotal con- 
 ception of Christianity, and made short work of 
 ecclesiastical claims to Infallibility In the interpre- 
 tation of the Scriptures. In one of these earlier 
 essays he also formulated a system of utilitarian 
 ethics much more comprehensive than that of 
 Hobbes. According to Locke's teaching, the dis- 
 tinction between right and wrong was dependent 
 upon the results of actions In bringing about hap- 
 piness or unhappiness. On these grounds later on 
 he defended the principles of democracy and of 
 constitutional law. His whole system of ethics, 
 founded thus upon experience, is another milestone 
 in the development of English rationalism. 
 
 The culmination of Locke's thought, however, 
 on the value of experience is to be found in his
 
 270 English Leadership 
 
 "Essay Concerning Human Understanding." The 
 importance of the "Essay" in English philosophic 
 thought is due not to any valuable contribution 
 made by Locke himself, but rather to the fact that 
 it formed the starting point from which all later 
 thought developed. It is this fact which marks 
 John Locke as the founder of the first continuous 
 school of English philosophy. It was left for his 
 successors, particularly Bishop Berkeley and 
 David Hume, to work out the details of the sys- 
 tem. 
 
 Whatever may be the world's estimate as to the 
 value of the English school of philosophy, there 
 can be no question that the "Essay" constitutes 
 one of England's greatest contributions to purely 
 scientific thought, for in it are laid the founda- 
 tions of modern psychology. Descartes a few 
 years before had announced a theory of "innate 
 ideas," that is, that the mind is in possession of 
 certain principles of knowledge prior to experi- 
 ence; but, as William Wallace has said, "Des- 
 cartes's dubious phraseology anent innate ideas, 
 found a witty executioner in Locke." According 
 to Locke's theory the mind acquires knowledge 
 only through experience, or, in other words, 
 through sense-impressions received from the ex- 
 ternal world, and through the internal process of
 
 English Scientific Thought 271 
 
 reflection. Each individual's knowledge conse- 
 quently is limited and determined by his experi- 
 ences. Since the experiences of no two people are 
 exactly the same, it becomes evident that no two 
 people will see the outside world from exactly the 
 same point of view. Out of this belief grew 
 Locke's theory of tolerance. In this conception 
 of experience as the sole source of knowledge, 
 Locke prepared the way for psychology, the sci- 
 ence of individual experience. 
 
 Without going into a discussion involving highly 
 technical phraseology, it is easily evident that this 
 new theory of Locke's as to the origin of knowl- 
 edge would lead inevitably to his theory of toler- 
 ance. While his "Letters on Toleration" are pri- 
 marily pamphlets in support of free religious as- 
 sociations outside of the established church, there 
 can nevertheless be deduced from them a thor- 
 oughgoing argument for intellectual freedom in 
 general. Locke's theory of knowledge on the one 
 hand and his theory of tolerance on the other are 
 striking illustrations of the growing tendency to 
 exalt reason at the expense of authority. The su- 
 premacy of reason and experience over faith and 
 authority was so firmly established by Locke, that 
 through all the theological warfare that followed 
 between church and state, between science and re-
 
 272 English Leadership 
 
 liglon, the theologians themselves relied upon rea- 
 son rather than upon revelation. They, too, were 
 becoming convinced of the truth of Locke's terse 
 statement: "He that takes away reason to make 
 room for revelation puts out the light of both ; and 
 does much the same as If he would persuade a 
 man to put out his eyes, the better to receive the 
 remote light of an invisible star by a telescope." 
 
 In the words of Alexander Fraser, Locke's 
 "repugnance to believe blindly what rested on ar- 
 bitrary authority, as distinguished from what was 
 seen to be sustained by self-evident reason, or by 
 demonstration, or by good probable evidence, runs 
 through his life. He Is typically English in his 
 reverence for facts, whether facts of sense or of 
 living consciousness. In his aversion from abstract 
 speculation and verbal reasoning. In his suspicion 
 of mysticism, in his calm reasonableness, and In 
 his ready submission to truth. . . . Locke is apt 
 to be forgotten now, because in his own generation 
 he so well discharged the Intellectual mission of 
 initiating criticism of human knowledge, and of dif- 
 fusing the spirit of free Inquiry and universal tol- 
 eration which has since profoundly affected the 
 civilized world. He has not bequeathed an im- 
 posing system, hardly even a striking discovery in 
 metaphysics, but he is a signal example, In the
 
 English Scientific Thought 273 
 
 Anglo-Saxon world, of the love of attainable truth 
 for the sake of truth and goodness. 'If Locke 
 made few discoveries, Socrates made none.' But 
 both are memorable in the record of human prog- 
 
 ress." 
 
 Only a few years after Locke's death in 1704, 
 George Berkeley, later Bishop of Cloyne, took up 
 the work which his master had left, and developed 
 his famous theory of vision which even now stands 
 the test of rigid investigation, leaving him still 
 the great discoverer in the psychology of vision. 
 From psychological preliminaries, Berkeley went 
 on to develop his metaphysical doctrine of Ideal- 
 ism and so established on a permanent basis the 
 distinctly English school of philosophy founded by 
 Locke. This school, as we shall see, was to come 
 into much greater prominence in the nineteenth 
 century warfare between science and religion. 
 
 It was in France, however, rather than in Eng- 
 land, that the ideas of Newton and of Locke were 
 first made the basis of definite schools of thought. 
 Voltaire, during his famous sojourn in England 
 from 1726 to 1729, had been very deeply im- 
 pressed by the broad tolerance which characterized 
 English thought and by the great achievements of 
 the English in science and philosophy. Voltaire's 
 return to France marks the introduction of both
 
 274 English Leadership 
 
 Newton and Locke to continental schools of 
 thought. Newtonian physics soon after displaced 
 Cartesian philosophy and became, as we have seen, 
 the basis upon which Laplace built his Nebular 
 hypothesis; Locke's speculations on mental phe- 
 nomena were elaborated and erected into the sci- 
 ence of psychology by Condillac (1715-1780) and 
 his followers, whence it later found its way back 
 to England. 
 
 Thus the marvelous advance of pure science in 
 England during the seventeenth century was al- 
 ready, in the early years of the eighteenth, making 
 a most profound impression upon all European 
 thought, social, religious, and philosophical. Per- 
 haps the most striking effect of all was the impetus 
 given by Newtonian physics to the development 
 of the school of English Deists, which had been 
 founded by Herbert of Cherbury as early as 1645. 
 They sought to do away with all revealed religion 
 with all its dogma and its ritual, to establish a 
 rationalistic criticism of biblical documents, and to 
 worship God as the manifestation of immutable 
 law. The Deist movement soon died out, but not 
 until it had produced Voltaire and Rousseau, and 
 wrought far-reaching changes in the views of the 
 French Encyclopaedists and in German biblical 
 criticism.
 
 English Scientific Thought 275 
 
 The achievements of Newton, Locke and their 
 immediate followers mark the close of the first 
 great period in the development of English scien- 
 tific thought. It was, as we have seen, a period of 
 beginnings during which through an amazing series 
 of brilliant individual achievements, a few great 
 English thinkers had laid the foundations of mod- 
 ern astronomy, physics, and higher mathematics, 
 botany and zoology, anatomy, physiology and med- 
 icine, psychology, and ethics. All this had been 
 accomplished in a period of less than one hundred 
 fifty years since Bacon's "Advancement of Learn- 
 ing." This sudden and immense enlargement of 
 man's intellectual horizon had been brought about 
 through the application of Bacon's experimental 
 method, — a minute observation of natural phe- 
 nomena aided by suitable instruments and verified 
 by experimentation. In all the ages of past civ- 
 ilization nothing had been accomplished in any 
 way comparable to the advance of this first period 
 of English science. 
 
 There has been a general notion, even among 
 the best informed people, that the Greeks had en- 
 gaged in practically all the forms of intellectual 
 activity with which we are now familiar; that they 
 had forecast nearly all of our fundamental dis- 
 coveries in science; that their achievements of the
 
 276 English Leadership 
 
 intellect were equal, if not superior, to anything 
 which man has since accomplished. But telescopes, 
 microscopes, and all the other instruments of the 
 modern scientist were unknown to the ancient 
 Greeks. Their knowledge at the best was only a 
 crude and haphazard observation unsupported by 
 experimentation. By the middle of the eighteenth 
 century our knowledge in all the branches of mod- 
 ern science, as Professor Robinson says, "greatly 
 transcended, in its extent and precis^ion, anything 
 known to the Greeks and Romans. The diabolical 
 superstitions associated with witchcraft . . . finally 
 gave way, and the new spirit of unfettered criti- 
 cism and the confidence in experimental science and 
 its applications which it had begotten — which were 
 ever reenforcing the conception of progress and 
 were ever weakening the authority of the past — 
 furnished the necessaiy preliminaries for a new 
 series of achievements." 
 
 The second period, a comparatively short one, 
 in the history of English thought was, by the very 
 nature of its extent from the middle of the eight- 
 eenth century to the early years of the nineteenth, 
 characterized by an entirely different type of scien- 
 tific activity. The advance of pure science, depen- 
 dent as it is upon unfettered criticism and freedom 
 of thought, had now to await further steps in the
 
 English Scientific Thought 277 
 
 general trend of English experience before it could 
 enter upon another great period of generalization. 
 For the next half century the English intellect was 
 occupied, not by the formulation of new theories 
 of natural science, but rather with the application 
 to practical life of those already formulated. It 
 constituted, therefore, the middle or transitional 
 period in the growth of English scientific thought. 
 But this does not mean that It is any less significant. 
 The least active is often the most vital; the least 
 sensational, often the most dramatic. So It was 
 with this half century of transition. 
 
 At the beginning of the period. In the early 
 years of the eighteenth century, England was on 
 the verge of momentous changes in her social, in- 
 dustrial and economic life, — changes that were 
 destined to transfigure completely the face of all 
 later civilization. On the one hand they were to 
 lead, through the practical application of scien- 
 tific principles, to a series of epoch-making in- 
 ventions which would revolutionize industry; on 
 the other hand they were to bring forth the first 
 great formulation of the principles of economic 
 science. 
 
 In consequence of the greater liberty of Indi- 
 vidual action and broader tolerance of belief, 
 which had been achieved through the Glorious
 
 278 English Leadership 
 
 Revolution of 1688-89, England had become the 
 asylum of oppressed peoples of the Continent, 
 where freedom was as yet a thing unknown. Par- 
 ticularly was this true of France. In 1685, *^he 
 Edict of Nantes, which had guaranteed protec- 
 tion to French Protestants, had been revoked, and 
 thousands of Huguenots, mainly silk weavers, 
 took refuge in Protestant England. This great 
 tide of immigration had a profound effect on 
 English industry. The stimulus to the silk trade 
 was immediate and lasting. Slowly but surely 
 trade secrets leaked out and English workmen 
 learned to copy French methods. But the Eng- 
 lish artisan could not equal the French artist, and 
 the fashion for French goods remained, so much 
 so that materials not bearing the label, "French 
 made," were sold with difficulty. This new stimu- 
 lus to industry was felt, too, not only in silk weav- 
 ing but in all the other industries brought over 
 by the immigrants, — weaving of linen and of sail 
 cloth, printing of calico and other cotton goods, 
 making of hats, paper, glass and pottery, tapestry 
 and furniture. The new trades took root very 
 quickly and grew with astonishing rapidity, until 
 England became a veritable beehive of domestic 
 industry. 
 
 This tremendous increase in industrial activity
 
 English Scientific Thought 279 
 
 was, of course, in answer to a corresponding in- 
 crease in demand, to be explained partly by the 
 greater skill and taste of the newcomers, but much 
 more by the fact that this period of immigration 
 was coincident with a period of increased com- 
 munication with the Continent, due mainly to po- 
 litical causes, which brought in its train a new 
 fashion for things continental. If the French- 
 man of the eighteenth century followed the Eng- 
 lish lead in science and philosophy, the English- 
 man on the other hand, followed the French in 
 customs and manners, dress, art and literature. 
 This, it must be remembered, was the age of 
 Queen Anne, and of the Georges, the age of the 
 coffee house, the essay and the beginnings of pe- 
 riodical literature, the age of Pope and of John- 
 son, the age when form and ceremony, dress and 
 outward adornment, luxury and ease, were the 
 highest ideals of a very considerable portion of 
 a wealthy and prosperous population. Small won- 
 der that English industry advanced by leaps and 
 bounds, and that her products, protected by rigid 
 navigation laws, soon found their way to all parts 
 of the civilized world, — carried to England's rap- 
 idly growing colonial empire, carried moreover 
 in English ships manned by English sailors, and 
 controlled by English merchants, whose profits
 
 28o English Leadership 
 
 fast came to constitute the greatest source of the 
 nation's wealth. 
 
 But before attempting to seek out the economic 
 causes underlying this tremendous increase in 
 manufacture and domestic industry, more espe- 
 cially in cloth making, we must be careful to re- 
 mind ourselves that these words did not mean in 
 those days what they mean to us to-day. "Manu- 
 facture" was still used by the eighteenth-century 
 Englishman exactly as it had been by the ancient 
 Roman, in its literal sense, "made by hand." The 
 old spinning-wheel, which could produce but a sin- 
 gle thread, the simple hand-loom, and all the tools 
 used were of the same primitive type as those 
 which had done service fifteen centuries before in 
 Roman Britain. "Domestic industry" meant not 
 that within the boundaries of a nation, but liter- 
 ally a trade carried on within the home. Each 
 weaver's cottage was a separate and self-sufficing 
 unit where the women and children of the family 
 did the spinning, while the men were occupied in 
 weaving and in tilling the little plot of ground, 
 whose products supplied the family with food. 
 These cottages, it must also be remembered, were 
 for the most part rural, not urban. The ancient 
 craft-guilds which all through mediaeval times had 
 practically controlled the various trades, were at-
 
 English Scientific Thought 281 
 
 tempting to maintain their old-time monopoly by 
 a rigid policy of exclusion, which prevented any 
 considerable development of these new industries 
 in the towns, within whose boundaries their juris- 
 diction was protected by royal charter. Fortu- 
 nately under the primitive system then prevailing 
 the new trades could be carried on as easily in 
 rural districts as in urban, for the processes of 
 manufacture were of the simplest, involving no 
 use of costly machines, necessitating no interde- 
 pendence of labor beyond that which the family 
 itself could supply. 
 
 Methods of exchange were equally undeveloped. 
 The northern districts, which during the eight- 
 eenth century were still largely pastoral, pro- 
 duced by far the greater part of raw wool; and 
 here relations between the wool-raiser and the 
 weaver were of the simplest, — the weaver bought 
 the raw wool direct from the producer and sold 
 the cloth he made directly to the consumer. In 
 the southern districts, where materials were im- 
 ported, the supply was controlled by "merchant 
 manufacturers," who, instead of selling the raw 
 material to the weaver, merely intrusted it to him 
 for making into cloth which when finished was re- 
 turned to the merchant. Such a system of manu- 
 facture and exchange undoubtedly had its advan-
 
 282 English Leadership 
 
 tages; but there was fast approaching a time when 
 it could no longer supply the demand. It is only 
 by keeping in mind, however, this primitive char- 
 acter of English industry during the eighteenth 
 century that we can appreciate fully the revolu- 
 tion wrought by the introduction of machinery and 
 of modern industrial processes. 
 
 This tremendous social and economic change, 
 the earliest stages of which we now call the In- 
 dustrial Revolution, took place in the last quar- 
 ter of the eighteenth century. Its causes and the 
 reasons why it came first in England rather than 
 on the Continent are many, varied, and highly 
 complex. There were, however, as Professor 
 Ogg has pointed out, several obviously favoring 
 conditions, — the greater abundance in England 
 both of skilled labor and of capital, the gradual 
 passing of the control of domestic industry into 
 the hands of merchant-manufacturers, and the 
 early and rapid progress of mechanical inven- 
 tion. In England many favouring circumstances, 
 both geographic and historical, had opened the 
 door to wider opportunities and greater rewards 
 than in any other nation of Europe. England's 
 early overthrow of the feudal system, the growth 
 of enclosures, and her extraordinary accessibility 
 to the sea had already brought the woolen indus-
 
 English Scientific Thought 283 
 
 try largely under the control of merchant-manu- 
 facturers, particularly in southwestern England. 
 
 But English industry could not come into its 
 own till the domestic system could be replaced by 
 the factory, when all the materials could be kept 
 under one roof, and all the laborers work together 
 in one place. Only so could specialization of la- 
 bor develop, only so could efficiency be realized. 
 To bring about this result, one more factor was 
 obviously necessary, — the improvement and in- 
 creased utilization of machinery. It was just here 
 that English science came to the rescue of English 
 industry. 
 
 Of all the processes in cloth making, that of 
 spinning had always been the slowest; anywhere 
 from five to ten spinners were required to keep 
 one weaver busy. This disproportion became 
 still more perplexing when in 1738, John Kay of 
 Lancashire invented the "flying shuttle," which en- 
 abled one man to do the work of two and at the 
 same time double the productive capacity of the 
 loom. The demand on the spinner, which now 
 became greater than ever, finally in 1761 led the 
 Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts and 
 Manufactures to offer two prizes for the in- 
 vention of a spinning machine which could pro- 
 duce more than one thread at a time,
 
 284 English Leadership 
 
 English practicality came at once to the fore 
 in a wonder-working series of improvements. 
 The earliest of these was the "spinning-jenny," 
 invented in 1764 by a Lancashire weaver, James 
 Hargreaves. This machine, which could be oper- 
 ated by a child, at first produced eight and later 
 eighty threads, but these threads, lacking firm- 
 ness, could be used only for woof. Seven years 
 later Richard Arkwright, a peddler, put together 
 his "water-frame," whose firm thread, substi- 
 tuted for the linen formerly used as warp, now 
 enabled weavers for the first time to produce all- 
 cotton cloth. This fact alone would mark it as 
 an epoch-making invention; but its importance is 
 still further increased by the fact that its cum- 
 brous mechanism and dependence upon water 
 power, making its use in the domestic system im- 
 possible, gave a powerful impetus to the growth 
 of the factory system. A few years later Sam- 
 uel Crompton, also of Lancashire, combined the 
 merits of the "jenny" and the "water-frame" in 
 a machine called the "mule," which has served as 
 the basis for all modern weaving machinery. 
 Crompton's "mule" made possible the spinning 
 of a very fine soft thread, and thus led to the es- 
 tablishment in England of the manufacture of 
 muslin. By his invention the productivity of the
 
 English Scientific Thought 285 
 
 spinners was so increased that the burden of de- 
 mand shifted now to the producers of raw cotton. 
 
 Up to this time cotton fiber had been sepa- 
 rated from the seeds by hand; but in 1792 Eli 
 Whitney's cotton gin, which enabled one man to 
 do the work of ten, opened to the English spin- 
 ners all the great resources of the American cot- 
 ton fields. This in turn shifted the demand to 
 the shoulders of the weavers. In 1784 Cart- 
 wright, a clergyman of Kent, had conceived the 
 idea of a power-loom; but due to the unsatisfac- 
 tory conditions of water power the machine did 
 not come into general use until the early years of 
 the nineteenth century, when the difficulty was re- 
 moved by the application of steam power. Thus, 
 by a series of three great inventions, the cotton 
 gin, the spinning machine and the loom, the tex- 
 tile industry was carried from the cottage to the 
 factory; cloth was no longer man-made, but ma- 
 chine-made. Thus in a brief period of fifty years 
 had England introduced and established the first 
 great principle of modern industrialism, the use 
 of machinery. 
 
 The second great element in industrialism is 
 that of power. Ever since the time of the an- 
 cients, the expansive power of steam had been 
 known, but this knowledge had not been put to
 
 286 English Leadership 
 
 practical use until 1705 when the need of some 
 means of pumping water from mines led the Eng- 
 lishman Newcomen, through the introduction of 
 the principle of the piston and cylinder, to the 
 invention of a crude steam engine. But New- 
 comen's engine which made use of steam only at 
 one end of the piston was of very low efficiency; 
 it remained for another Englishman, James 
 Watt, sixty years later, to make the engine of 
 practical use in industry by closing the cylinder 
 and applying steam at both ends to increase ef- 
 ficiency; by introducing a separate condenser to 
 avoid cooling the cylinder; a "governor" of re- 
 volving balls to secure regularity of motion; and 
 a rod and crank arrangement which made pos- 
 sible the use of a belt to drive other machinery. 
 It was these improvements made by Watt which 
 first made possible the use of the steam-engine in 
 the operation of machinery. From 1785 when 
 it was first used to run a spinning machine, it was 
 rapidly introduced wherever factories sprang up 
 in all the newly born industrial centers of north- 
 ern England. Watt's engine, therefore, marks 
 the establishment of the second great principle 
 of modern industrialism, the use of mechanical 
 power to economize man power. 
 
 But in order that these two great principles of
 
 English Scientific Thought 287 
 
 the Industrial Revolution, the invention of ma- 
 chinery for the multiplication of human efficiency 
 and the perfecting of engines for the application 
 of steam power, might be worked out, two other 
 fundamental elements were necessary, — an abun- 
 dant supply of material for the manufacture of 
 machinery and an equally abundant supply of fuel 
 for the generation of power. Machinery can- 
 not be made without metal nor can steam be pro- 
 duced without fuel. Fortunately large areas in 
 northern, central and western England are under- 
 laid with invaluable deposits of coal and iron ore; 
 but It was not until the middle of the eighteenth 
 century that proper methods of utilizing these re- 
 sources were discovered. 
 
 In ancient and mediaeval times ore had been 
 melted by the use of charcoal, but this was a very 
 expensive process, in the first place because by 
 this means the full amount of pure iron could not 
 be obtained from the ore; and in the second place 
 because great quantities of charcoal were required 
 for every ton of iron. Under such circum- 
 stances it was only natural that sooner or later 
 measures would be taken to prevent the deforesta- 
 tion of England and in the end seriously cripple 
 her Iron trade. By 1750, in fact, export had 
 practically ceased and Swedish pig iron was being
 
 288 English Leadership 
 
 imported in ever increasing quantities. It was 
 necessary that some new method of smelting be 
 evolved. Early in the seventeenth century at- 
 tempts had been made to utilize coal for this pur- 
 pose; but not till the middle of the century was 
 any degree of success attained. Through experi- 
 ments made by Dud Dudley and Abraham Darby 
 a process of smelting by coke was developed, but 
 the product obtained did not possess the desired 
 malleability. Shortly afterward Smeaton in- 
 vented his cylinder-blowing apparatus, which sup- 
 planted the crude bellows in supplying the neces- 
 sary blast. But the most important discovery 
 was made by Cort in 1784; this was the process 
 called "puddling," by which for the first time it 
 became possible to make malleable iron by the 
 use of coal instead of charcoal. This discovery, 
 the essential element of which is the purification 
 of raw iron by means of oxygen, was supple- 
 mented by another also made by Gort, that of the 
 substitution of grooved rollers in place of the 
 hammer in making bars or plates. A few years 
 later Cort's process came into general use through 
 the annulment of his patent, and resulted in a 
 marvelous increase in the production of iron 
 through the kingdom, particularly in those re- 
 gions of northwestern England where coal and
 
 English Scientific Thought 289 
 
 iron are found in close proximity. By the end of 
 the Napoleonic era England, instead of import- 
 ing iron, was exporting it at the rate of 91,000 
 tons a year. The significance of this fact for us, 
 however, lies not so much in the increase of Eng- 
 land's export trade as in the fact that from this 
 time on an adequate supply of machinery was as- 
 sured. This development of the iron industry 
 had also produced a corresponding stimulus to 
 coal mining, which placed at the command of fac- 
 tory owners a seemingly inexhaustible supply of 
 coal. Thus had England's natural resources 
 made possible the permanent establishment of her 
 industrial supremacy, — a supremacy which could 
 not have been achieved, however, had not Eng- 
 lishmen In true Baconian fashion turned to prac- 
 tical use that knowledge of natural phenomena 
 which her scientists had already placed at their 
 disposal. 
 
 Thus was brought to pass that remarkable in- 
 dustrial transformation by which the agricultural 
 England of the early eighteenth century became 
 the leader in all those great social, industrial and 
 economic movements, which have so distinctly 
 characterized the last one hundred years. As 
 Frederick Ogg, in his "Social Progress in Con- 
 temporary Europe," has pointed out: "There
 
 290 English Leadership 
 
 has been no small amount of speculation as to why 
 England should have produced the unrivaled gal- 
 axy of Inventors — Kay, Hargreaves, Arkwrlght, 
 Crompton, Cartwrlght, Radcliff, Horrocks, New- 
 comen, Watt, Cort, and a host of others — by 
 whom In the eighteenth and earlier nineteenth cen- 
 turies the Industrial leadership of the kingdom 
 was so firmly established. It was not because 
 the need of Improved mechanical appliances was 
 more keenly felt than in France, Germany, 
 Switzerland, and other countries. It was not be- 
 cause England was a leader In pure science. It 
 seems to have been primarily because of two 
 things, — first the fact that the need was as keenly 
 felt as elsewhere, and second, the pronounced 
 tendency of English genius, at any rate in the pe- 
 riod mentioned. In the direction of practical, ap- 
 plied science, rather than in that of pure science. 
 While continental savants prosecuted their re- 
 searches In light, electricity, and chemical reac- 
 tions. Englishmen of scientific Interests busied 
 themselves with the application of knowledge al- 
 ready available. With but an exception or two, 
 the English Inventors were men of very ordinary 
 education, and several of them were but tinkers 
 and jacks-of-all-trades. Through an infinite 
 amount of patient experimentation they contrived
 
 English Scientific Thought 291 
 
 to bring to bear upon the problems of everyday 
 industry the discoveries of their more brilliant con- 
 tinental contemporaries. Watt, for example, 
 made practical use of the expansive power of 
 heat, and the result was the steam-engine; but the 
 idea that such a thing could be done seems to have 
 originated with the physicist of Marburg. The 
 steam-engine came in response to a very definite 
 need — the need, that is, of pumps of greater 
 power in mines which were reaching levels where 
 the old hand-power or horse-power pumps could 
 not be made to serve. Here and in scores of 
 other cases the principle that necessity precedes 
 invention was abundantly illustrated, even though 
 continental experience demonstrated that neces- 
 sity does not always produce invention." 
 
 This marvelous series of mechanical inventions 
 and of industrial processes, which England, 
 through the application of science, had brought 
 forth during the last years of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury was the culmination of one of the two main 
 lines of development, which marked the second 
 great period in English science. But its effects 
 did not stop here. From England the Indus- 
 trial Revolution spread to France, from there to 
 Germany and other European nations, whence its 
 influence has been felt throughout the whole civ-
 
 292 English Leadership 
 
 ilized world. Meanwhile the marked inventive 
 genius of the English-speaking peoples was^ find- 
 ing expression in other ways. Their invention 
 and development of the ocean steamer and of the 
 locomotive, of the automobile and the aeroplane 
 supplied the great means of communication and 
 transportation which have brought together the 
 uttermost parts of the earth. Their perfecting 
 of the press has placed the newspaper in prac- 
 tically every home, while the telegraph and tele- 
 phone have carried the mind of man to the re- 
 motest regions of the world. Their Invention 
 of the reaper and the sewing machine, together 
 with a host of similar labor-saving devices, has 
 not only lightened the burden of labor and mul- 
 tiplied man's power and efficiency in industry; 
 these in themselves are achievements of no mean 
 importance, but their full significance becomes ap- 
 parent only when we realize that such relief from 
 labor means also that leisure for self-improve- 
 ment and for appreciation of the finer things of 
 life which are destined more and more to deter- 
 mine the course of social progress. 
 
 These achievements, as Professor Robinson 
 has said, "serve to explain the world in which 
 we live, with its busy cities, its gigantic factories 
 filled with complicated machinery. Its commerce
 
 English Scientific Thought 293 
 
 and vast fortunes, its trade unions and labor par- 
 ties, i^s bewildering variety of plans for better- 
 ing the lot of the great mass of the people." It 
 was the Industrial Revolution which brought 
 about the great Reform Bill of 1832, and those 
 which followed it with all their ramifications in 
 English political history, a series by which the 
 spirit of democracy was for all time established 
 on English soil. It was that same Industrial 
 Revolution, the problems of which served to 
 waken and rouse men's minds to grapple with 
 those great social, industrial and economic ques- 
 tions upon the solution of which our future civ- 
 ilization depends. 
 
 While the tendency to occupy the social point 
 of view was greatly increased by the Industrial 
 Revolution, and our general view of the world 
 very materially affected by new ways of spinning 
 and weaving, this tendency is nevertheless only 
 a continuation of that decidedly ethical, utilitarian 
 and economic bent, which has characterized all 
 modern English thinking from Francis Bacon 
 down through the centuries to Sir Francis Gal- 
 ton on the one hand, or to E. R. A. Seligman on 
 the other. It was the attempt made by Adam 
 Smith, late In the eighteenth century, to furnish 
 a rational analysis of such problems, which led
 
 294 English Leadership 
 
 to that other great achievement which marked 
 the second period of English scientific thought, — 
 the foundation of the science of economics. 
 
 Up to the middle of the eighteenth century- 
 economic ideas had not been formulated into any 
 definite body which could be called a science; they 
 had instead been included within other bodies of 
 doctrine, such as ethics or jurisprudence; to 
 found a separate science of economics it was nec- 
 essary to isolate these scattered ideas and bring 
 them together in a definite and independent sys- 
 tem of thought. Adam Smith was not the first 
 of English thinkers who had attempted to for- 
 mulate a definite body of economic laws. All 
 through the seventeenth century there had been a 
 steadily increasing number of pamphlets on this 
 subject; but most of them had been written in 
 consequence of some specific situation, — in de- 
 fense of or in attack upon some monopoly or 
 privilege or some particular legislation. Each 
 one had his own ax to grind; but out of it all, 
 nevertheless, had come a most profitable realiza- 
 tion of the importance of the navy, of shipping, 
 and of colonial development, for it was the theory 
 of the Mercantilists, whose ideas had up to this 
 time dominated the economic affairs of the na- 
 tion, that the chief source of wealth lay in com-
 
 English Scientific Thought 295 
 
 merce, and in the actual supply of gold and sil- 
 ver coin. It was only natural that such a system 
 as this with its narrow emphasis on foreign trade, 
 should have found its greatest support in the 
 maritime England of the sixteenth and seven- 
 teenth centuries. It can hardly be called a spec- 
 ulative doctrine; it was rather, as some one has 
 said, a spontaneous growth resulting from the 
 reaction of social conditions on minds not trained 
 to scientific habits. 
 
 Of all writers of the period, however, the 
 only one who can deservedly be called a fore- 
 runner of Adam Smith was Nicholas Barbon 
 ( 1 640-1 689), for he, putting personal interests, 
 entirely aside, honestly tried to define those fun- 
 damental principles, the existence of which was. 
 either ignored or taken for granted by the 
 pamphleteers. Barbon's work was the first real 
 protest against the English Mercantilist policy, 
 which had already outlived its usefulness. His 
 ideas were the natural outcome of the agricul- 
 tural improvement which took place in England 
 during the late seventeenth century and which 
 was to convince Englishmen of the profitableness 
 of farming on a larger scale with greater capital 
 and with the scientific application of the princi- 
 ple of crop-rotation. It was Barbon's protest
 
 296 English Leadership 
 
 against the Mercantilist theory which gave im- 
 petus to the emphasis placed by French econo- 
 mists upon the importance of agriculture. It is 
 a matter worthy of note, too, that as early as 
 1685 this English thinker had already hit upon 
 a fundamental assumption of modern political 
 economy, which we find expressed in his own sim- 
 ple words: "To be well fed, well clothed, and 
 well lodged, without labor of either body or mind, 
 is the true definition of a rich man." Further- 
 more, his insistence upon the fact that "prohibi- 
 tion of any foreign commodity doth hinder the 
 making of so much of the native" is a striking 
 anticipation of the modern free-trade doctrine 
 that any check on imports acts as a check on ex- 
 ports; but in no case did the seventeenth century 
 pamphleteers touch in any illuminating fashion 
 upon the question of the distribution of wealth 
 now so universally regarded as the most impor- 
 tant branch of economics. For them the great 
 question was not distribution but production, or, 
 in other words, the increase of the total national 
 wealth. Barbon's ideas, on the other hand, were 
 the natural expression not only of the agricultural 
 changes being wrought in England during his day, 
 but also of the general philosophical conceptions, 
 the trend of which, as we have already seen, was
 
 English Scientific Thought 297 
 
 being determined by his more famous contem- 
 poraries, Newton and Locke. 
 
 The significance of the whole school of Eng- 
 lish natural philosophy, — the philosophy of New- 
 ton and of Locke, of Barbon, and of Berkeley 
 and Hume, — lies in their common belief that the 
 conduct of men in society is subject to natural law 
 in the same way that the equilibrium of nature 
 is maintained by physical law. This mechanical 
 conception of the universe, like everything else 
 English, is very intimately bound up with the 
 theory of utilitarianism, a system of ethical doc- 
 trine which asserts that conduct is morally good 
 in proportion as it promotes the greatest happi- 
 ness of the greatest number. Though the word 
 "utilitarianism" was not coined until the nine- 
 teenth century, the first hint of the theory had 
 been given by Lord Bacon, and his idea had re- 
 appeared in Hobbes' declaration that since man's 
 natural state is one of warring self-interest, the 
 function of government should be the further- 
 ance of the common weal. A little later John 
 Locke's strong assertion of individualism had 
 done much to popularize the theory. It crept 
 into eighteenth-century theology in the guise of 
 the doctrine that all the movements of the uni- 
 verse were guided and controlled by divine wis-
 
 298 English Leadership 
 
 dom and benevolence in such a way as to produce 
 the greatest possible sum of human happiness. 
 This dogma In turn was carried over into the 
 realm of philosophy by Berkeley and Hume, the 
 English successors of Locke, who developed it 
 into the conception of a jus naturae; this "law of 
 nature" they represented as a harmonious and 
 beneficial code Inherent in nature and antecedent 
 to human institutions, whose laws are human and 
 whose arrangements are the Imperfect ones of 
 existing governments. That nation was best gov- 
 erned, therefore, whose laws and institutions came 
 nearest to expressing the constitution of the nat- 
 ural order. Such was the political philosophy 
 of David Hume, whose ideas in particular acted 
 as a subtle leaven to French thought, especially 
 in his influence over Turgot and Rousseau. 
 
 Influenced by this English school of philosophy 
 so markedly utilitarian in spirit, there arose in 
 France about 1750 a group of thinkers, chiefly 
 economists, known as the Physiocrats, one of 
 whose leaders was Turgot, the friend of Hume. 
 Following their English guides, Barbon, Locke, 
 and Hume, they extended the mechanical theory 
 into the economic world and conceived the produc- 
 tion and distribution of goods as carried on ac- 
 cording to fixed laws of nature. These, they as-
 
 English Scientific Thought 299 
 
 serted, must be sought out and strictly observed 
 if men are to realize their highest social welfare. 
 They preferred to call themselves the "Econo- 
 mists," because, taking the tillage of the soil as a 
 starting point, they based their reasoning upon 
 the conception of natural liberty, and "like our 
 Locke," attached a new significance to the individ- 
 ual and his rights. Society, according to their 
 view, is composed of Individuals all of whom have 
 the same natural rights; and even though all 
 might not have the same capacities, nevertheless 
 each individual, understanding his own interests 
 best, would be more likely to act In accordance 
 with the laws of nature than would the govern- 
 ment. Whence their maxim, laissez faire, "let 
 things alone." The state or community is only a 
 contract between individuals, the object of which 
 is to limit the natural liberty of each only as far 
 as is necessary to secure the rights of others. The 
 function of government, therefore, Is not to ex- 
 tend control over the Individual, but solely to pro- 
 tect his life, liberty and property. Since the ideas 
 of liberty and of property inherent In the very na- 
 ture of man are essential to his individualism, the 
 chief function of human law should be to recog- 
 nize, formulate and maintain these rights. 
 
 This economij: theory of the French Physio-
 
 300 English Leadership 
 
 crats with its emphasis upon land and upon in- 
 dividualism followed the Englishman Barbon in 
 protest against the Mercantilist theory that com- 
 merce was the measure of a nation's wealth. The 
 Physiocrats held, on the contrary, that wealth 
 came from nature; thus they placed the emphasis 
 not upon commerce, but rather upon agriculture. 
 The Mercantilist doctrine of trade regulation 
 gave way before the laissez faire of the Physio- 
 crat, One of their most important tenets was 
 their emphasis upon the value of land and its 
 surplus or produit net; — in other words the 
 theory that only that labor is truly productive 
 which adds to the quantity of raw materials, agri- 
 cultural and mineral, thereby made available for 
 use by man; the annual addition to the wealth of 
 the community is measured by the excess of the 
 mass of such products over the cost of produc- 
 tion; and upon the amount of this excess, or pro- 
 duit net, depends the well-being of the state and 
 its progress in civilization. In order to secure 
 at the same time the maximum economic gain and 
 the maximum individual liberty, they believed not 
 only in the possession of private property but also 
 in the greatest possible freedom for the individual 
 in the disposition of his property; in other words 
 there must be entire freedom of exchange, there
 
 English Scientific Thought 301 
 
 must be unrestricted competition, there must be 
 no control exercised through monopolies or spe- 
 cial privilege. 
 
 The service of the Physiocrats on the whole 
 was on the one hand largely negative In conse- 
 quence of Its Insistence upon greater freedom 
 from restraining regulations and burdensome tax- 
 ation. On the other hand their Idea of distribu- 
 tion was the source of many succeeding attempts 
 to trace the round of production and exchange, 
 distribution and consumption. But more than 
 anything else their service to economic thought lies 
 In the fact that their attempt, under English In- 
 fluence, to formulate a body of exact principles 
 apart from morals, politics, and jurisprudence 
 resulted in the founding of economics as a dis- 
 tinct and independent science. 
 
 But before this body of economic thought could 
 receive permanent recognition as a science, it re- 
 mained, still, for the great English thinker, Adam 
 Smith, to modify, broaden and organize these 
 fundamental principles into a unified and coherent 
 system. This he did through the publication of 
 his "Wealth of Nations," which appeared In 
 1776, the year of the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence. The same forces which had produced the 
 American Revolution had also produced the
 
 302 English Leadership 
 
 "Wealth of Nations," for Smith's insistence upon 
 the economic freedom of the individual and upon 
 the restriction of government control over pro- 
 duction and distribution were but the inevitable 
 outcome and expression of that general unrest 
 and assertion of individualism which was, during 
 this period, a marked characteristic of all thought, 
 religious and philosophical as well as political and 
 economic. Smith's "Theory of Moral Senti- 
 ments" shows how clearly he perceived the inter- 
 dependence between the economic and all the oth- 
 er phases of social phenomena; in this work, as 
 he says, he intends to give "an account of the gen- 
 eral principles of law and government, and of 
 the different revolutions they have undergone in 
 the different ages and periods of society, not only 
 in what concerns police, revenue and arms but 
 whatever else is the subject of law." These 
 words, as some one has pointed out, are "an an- 
 ticipation, wonderful for his period, of general 
 sociology." 
 
 The degree to which he was successful In the 
 achievement of his purpose is a matter of con- 
 siderable difference of opinion. But none can 
 question his broad, keen, and discriminating ob- 
 servation of social phenomena and his markedly 
 English tendency to draw from these their full
 
 English Scientific Thought 303 
 
 significance, rather than to derive his conclusions 
 by deductive processes of logic from previously 
 postulated abstract principles. That he did, how- 
 ever, in some degree fall a victim to certain warp- 
 ing postulates must be admitted. His general ac- 
 ceptance of the tenets of the English school of 
 philosophical utilitarianism represented by David 
 Hume led him to a more or less optimistic con- 
 ception of a system of economics based upon an 
 enlightened self-interest. But on the other hand 
 he sought at the same time to analyze and inter- 
 pret existing institutions as results of social phe- 
 nomena which had been actually observed in oper- 
 ation. His more or less mechanical interpreta- 
 tion of economic questions, together with a lean- 
 ing toward materialism, have laid him open to 
 severe criticism from an opposing school of 
 thought which asserts that he failed to regard 
 wealth as a means to the higher aims of life, 
 failed likewise to keep in view the moral destina- 
 .tion of the race. 
 
 It cannot be denied, however, that in the years 
 'following the publication of his "Wealth of Na- 
 ■tions," Smith's ideas exercised a far-reaching in- 
 'fluence in the assertion of personal freedom and 
 '"natural rights." It discredited completely the 
 Mercantilist policy of the past, and gave a power-
 
 304 English Leadership 
 
 ful impetus to the overthrow of institutions no 
 longer suited to modern conditions of social life. 
 It is a matter of interest to Darwinians, too, that 
 both Turgot and Adam Smith mentioned the ef- 
 fects of the increase of population upon the wages 
 of the laboring classes, and so pointed the way 
 twenty-two years later for Malthus' memorable 
 "Essay on the Principle of Population" (1798) ; 
 for it was the attempt made in this essay toward 
 the discovery and scientific treatment of laws gov- 
 erning such increase that guided Charles Darwin 
 to his theory of natural selection. This is only 
 one instance of the widely diverging currents of 
 thought set going by Smith's "Wealth of Na- 
 tions." 
 
 Whatever may be the present opinion of 
 Smith's theories as a guide to future social recon- 
 struction, he is nevertheless universally acknowl- 
 edged as the Father of all modern political econ- 
 omy. Professor Haney, in his "History of 
 Economic thought," has pointed out the merits 
 which, according to his view, entitle Adam Smith 
 to this distinction: "Building upon the thought of 
 English predecessors and the Physiocrats, and in- 
 fluenced by a different environment, he turned 
 from 'nature' or agriculture as the source of 
 wealth, and gave to labor that position. While,
 
 English Scientific Thought 305 
 
 on the whole, a believer in free trade and laissez 
 faire, he was more of an opportunist, and was 
 less rigid and absolute in applying his doctrines. 
 ■Smith's work was fuller and more comprehensive 
 than that of Quesnay or Turgot, and the firm es- 
 tablishment of political economy may justly be 
 dated from the 'Wealth of Nations' (1776). 
 Smith took the sole emphasis away from produc- 
 tion, putting the consumer more to the front, and 
 in doing so prepared the way for a broader treat- 
 ment of economics. He also presented a more 
 comprehensive discussion of value and the shares 
 in distribution than any predecessor. Although 
 some of his followers wrote more accurately and 
 confidently than he, Adam Smith excels the great 
 majority of them in breadth of view, and there 
 came a time when many economists turned back 
 to the Father of Political Economy rather than 
 to his immediate successors." 
 
 One of the most notable instances, perhaps, of 
 the effects of this utilitarian view of political 
 economy upon the broader but closely related 
 lines of political and philosophical theory, is to 
 be seen in the teachings of Jeremy Bentham 
 ( 1 748-1 832), whose far-reaching influence on 
 English legislation has been pointed out by Mr. 
 Earned in an unpublished part of his essay on
 
 3o6 English Leadership 
 
 "English Leadings in Modern History." "In the 
 home government of England," Mr. Earned 
 writes, "this progress toward just law and large 
 individual freedom received a remarkable quick- 
 ening, within some early decades of the last cen- 
 tury, from the influence of the teachings of Jeremy 
 Bentham and the numerous disciples who took in- 
 spiration from him. The working of this in- 
 fluence on English legislation, between about 1825 
 and 1865, is traced with clearness by Mr. A. V. 
 Dicey in his interesting Harvard lectures on 'The 
 Relation between Law and Public Opinion in 
 England.' Starting from the conception that all 
 right objects in life are summed up in the promo- 
 tion of 'the greatest happiness of the greatest 
 number,' Bentham's doctrines, urged with tire- 
 less ardor and energy by him throughout a long 
 life, acted slowly but powerfully and variously on 
 English thought and feeling. They involved a 
 philosophical belief in the utilitarian theory of 
 morals, and a practical belief in the laissez faire 
 or 'let alone' theory of legislation, grounded on 
 the assumption that every person, as a general 
 rule, is the best judge of his own happiness, and 
 should be restricted in free action no farther than 
 is necessary for securing equal freedom among his
 
 English Scientific Thought 307 
 
 neighbors. All the springs of humanitarian feel- 
 ing were fed by both these beliefs. 
 
 "Generally, within the range of European or 
 western civilization, many Influences had been 
 working always and increasingly in these direc- 
 tions; influences which received a great stimula- 
 tion In the latter half of the eighteenth century, 
 and then were checked by the reaction which fol- 
 lowed the French Revolution. All such genial 
 and generous forces in modern civilization had 
 come into activity again at the time referred to, 
 and were universally felt; but the Bentham gospel 
 of greatest happiness for the greatest number did 
 undoubtedly bring a special stimulation of them 
 to English feeling, and give a powerful impulse 
 to rapid moral advances in politics and law. It 
 had not a little to do with the transfer of the con- 
 trol of government from the land-owning oli- 
 garchy to the middle class in English society, by 
 the parliamentary Reform Bill of 1832. It has 
 even more, perhaps, to do with the compensated 
 emancipation of slaves in British colonies, under 
 the Act of 1833, and with the energetic activity 
 of England against the African slave-trade, which 
 she pursued with little help from other Powers 
 until that infamy no longer shamed mankind. It 
 must have been, moreover, among the reenforce-
 
 3o8 English Leadership 
 
 ments which came at this time to the doctrines of 
 Adam Smith's 'Wealth of Nations,' contribut- 
 ing to the break-down of the English 'corn-laws,' 
 and ultimately to the overthrow of the whole sys- 
 tem of governmental 'protection' to prices and 
 profits for a few at the expense of all. 
 
 "These are merely conspicuous among many 
 results that come partly or wholly from the gen- 
 eral movement of reform in legislation for which 
 Bentham labored, to harmonize it with philo- 
 sophical principles of humanity and right. Within 
 the forty years which Mr. Dicey calls 'the period 
 of Benthamism or individualism' the whole tem- 
 per of the criminal law was changed; Its penalties 
 were mitigated; capital punishment was reserved 
 for murder alone; imprisonment for debt was 
 brought nearly to an end; important beginnings 
 were made in legislation for regulating the hours 
 and conditions of labor in factories, especially in 
 the interest of women and children; cruelty to 
 dumb animals began to be dealt with by law; and 
 the right of workmen to combine in trade unions, 
 denied formerly, was conceded to a limited ex- 
 
 tent." 
 
 The work of Bentham is a typical illustration 
 of the growth and outspreading of that English 
 political utilitarianism which we have seen fore-
 
 English Scientific Thought 309 
 
 shadowed in Hobbes two hundred years before. 
 Though not confined to political and legislative 
 fields, Bentham's activities were not particularly 
 concerned, however, with the more strictly 
 economic phase of English thought. A truer rep- 
 resentative of the work of Adam Smith and of 
 the ever widening circles of his influence, is to be 
 found in that most ardent pupil of Bentham's, — 
 John Stuart Mill (i 806-1 873), who set out to do 
 for his own generation what Smith had done for 
 the late eighteenth century. The monument to 
 his attempt is his "Principles of Political Econ- 
 omy" (1848), for a time the most widely influen- 
 tial of all modern works upon that subject. 
 Though his conception of the field of economics 
 was less narrow and formal than that of Ricardo, 
 who had been Smith's immediate successor, never- 
 theless Mill did not by any means achieve the 
 ideal which he had set for himself. He never 
 grew to the stature of a "modern Adam Smith," 
 — he succeeded only in becoming an elegantly 
 lucid and overgrown Ricardo, with an acquired 
 Malthusian complexion. Strenuous believer in 
 rationalism though he was, he nevertheless was 
 often inconsistent, uncertain and superficial, and 
 his work in economics failed to stand the acid test 
 of scientific criticism.
 
 310 English Leadership 
 
 But while his actual contribution to the body 
 of English economic science was neither great nor 
 permanent, he nevertheless performed a most 
 significant service for English philosophic thought 
 in general and for ethics in particular. The sys- 
 tem of thought which Mill set himself to expound 
 was in the main the utilitarianism of his father 
 and of Bentham. In philosophy John Stuart Mill 
 is the final exponent of that empirical school 
 whose foundations were laid in Newtonian 
 physics, whose chief tenets were outlined by John 
 Locke and later elaborated by Berkeley and 
 Hume. The chief characteristic of this "typically 
 English" school has continuously been the empha- 
 sis laid upon human reason, — an insistence, that 
 is, upon the duty of every philosopher to investi- 
 gate truth for himself, rather than accept the 
 authority of another. In other words, knowledge 
 must be rooted in experience. It is this individ- 
 ualism together with an increasing tendency to 
 give first place to psychological problems which 
 marks the school as so characteristically English, 
 
 But Mill's greatest service lies in the fact that 
 he, more strongly than any of his predecessors, 
 has emphasized the humanist element. His 
 thought was for his fellow-men about him rather 
 than for Man in the abstract. He early realized
 
 English Scientific Thought 311 
 
 on the one hand the need of a broad and demo- 
 cratic education for the people as a whole, and 
 on the other the need of greater harmony among 
 philosophers in order that humanitarian reforms 
 might be given that same basis of fundamental 
 agreement which characterizes all other scientific 
 advance. Though the general color of his thought 
 may be in some respects quite justly called a "ma- 
 terialistic political utilitarianism," Mill is never- 
 theless an admirable example of the steadily In- 
 creasing idealistic and humanitarian tendencies of 
 the middle and later nineteenth century, — ten- 
 dencies which were given their first great impulse 
 in those conditions which had arisen out of the 
 Industrial Revolution with its consequent develop- 
 ment of the spirit of democracy. Mill's earnest 
 plea for the abolition of slavery, the enfranchise- 
 ment of women, and the alleviation of poverty, 
 his belief, too, that the cultivation of altruistic 
 feelings would offset the old "natural order" of 
 innate self-interest, and his insistence upon the 
 necessity of a well-safeguarded social order and 
 security compatible with a complete intellectual 
 liberty, and a broad toleration of individual ac- 
 tion, — all these mark John Stuart Mill as one of 
 England's most conspicuous leaders of thought in 
 an age whose- most remarkable feature was the
 
 312 English Leadership 
 
 development of humanitarian sentiment. Social 
 sympathy was to him the mainspring of obliga- 
 tion and the sanction of morality; for "morality," 
 he says, "consists in conscientious shrinking from 
 the violation of moral rules; and the basis of this 
 conscientious sentiment is the social feelings of 
 mankind; the desire to be in unity with our fellow 
 creatures, which is already a powerful principle 
 in human nature, and happily one of those which 
 tend to become stronger from the Influence of 
 alvanclng civilization." 
 
 But Mill's altruistic ideals did not lead him to 
 the present conception of sociology as a science, 
 probably because the early establishment of po- 
 litical economy in England as an independent 
 science had concentrated attention upon practical 
 problems of legislation and administration con- 
 nected with the subject, to the virtual neglect and 
 exclusion of other social questions, the impor- 
 tance of which has not until recent years been 
 recognized. As Merz has suggested, "the ex- 
 isting political Order in this country with its 
 enviable constitution, — considered by many for- 
 eign philosophers as a model of political or- 
 ganization to be initiated by the aspiring peo- 
 ples of the Continent, — relieved English thinkers 
 from dealing with fundamentals or answering the
 
 English Scientific Thought 313 
 
 abstract question of what society is or ought to 
 be." But Mill was far from any smug satisfac- 
 tion with the intellectual conservatism of the mid- 
 Victorian period. "Where there is," he says in 
 his essay "On Liberty," "a tacit convention that 
 principles are not to be disputed, where the dis- 
 cussion of the greatest questions which can occupy 
 humanity is considered to be closed, we cannot 
 hope to find that generally high scale of mental 
 activity which has made some periods of history 
 so remarkable. . . . These periods [the Refor- 
 mation, the French Revolution, and die Auf- 
 klarung] differed widely In the particular opinions 
 which they developed; but they were alike in this, 
 that during all three the yoke of authority was 
 broken. In each an old mental despotism had 
 been thrown off, and no new one had yet taken its 
 place. . . . Appearances have for some time In- 
 dicated that all three Impulses are well-nigh spent; 
 and we can expect no fresh start until we again 
 assert our mental freedom." Mill's whole life, de- 
 voted as it was to the furtherance of political 
 freedom and to the amelioration of the oppressed 
 lower classes, is In Itself the greatest monument 
 ito his belief In Intellectual freedom and a con- 
 :scious social progress, a belief in the practicability 
 tof Bacon's vision that in the application of scien-
 
 314 English Leadership 
 
 tific knowledge lies the great hope for the better- 
 ment of man's estate. 
 
 The significance of the work of John Stuart 
 Mill is seen not so much in the actual contribution 
 which he made to scientific or to philosophic 
 thought, but rather in the impulse which he gave 
 to this idea that all humanitarian thought should 
 be based upon scientific knowledge. His work is the 
 culmination of one phase of that great movement 
 toward industrial democracy, which began when 
 English genius first turned science to account in 
 the invention of machinery. Out of that move- 
 ment there has come a new respect for the com- 
 mon man, a new appreciation of his individual 
 worth, which in turn have led to a new solicitude 
 for his welfare. It is this recognition of the 
 rights of the common man that has recast our 
 constitutions and remade our institutions. It is 
 that same social sentiment, so vividly set forth 
 by English utilitarians, from Locke to Adam 
 Smith and Bentham, so amplified and vitalized 
 by Mill, whose finer idealism and more spiritual 
 humanitarianism gave to the world a new concep- 
 tion of the common dignity of man, — it is that 
 same social sentiment which has found expression 
 in the rapid formulation of all the social sciences; 
 the same social sentiment. which has brought with
 
 English Scientific Thought 315 
 
 it a new "vision of all the wonder that would be," 
 when science should be harnessed to the chariot 
 of a conscious social progress. But before that 
 mighty movement could come to full fruition in 
 twentieth-century advance, It had to wait upon an- 
 other great achievement In English scientific 
 thought, another great step In the liberation of 
 man's spirit from the chains of authority, ignor- 
 ance and blind superstition. That new step, that 
 great achievement, was to be the establishment of 
 the evolutionary or dynamic view of human life 
 and of the universe. 
 
 In the meantime English thinkers were prepar- 
 ing the way for such a view through that long 
 series of brilliant generalizations and discoveries 
 in pure science which characterizes the third great 
 period in the history of English thought. This 
 new period did not begin until the close of the 
 Napoleonic wars. During that protracted strug- 
 gle the whole strength of the nation had been 
 expended on the work of self-preservation; and 
 even after the war itself was over, England had 
 to fight her way through the desperately strait- 
 ened financial conditions, which the long conflict 
 had Involved. Practically the whole first quarter 
 of the nineteenth century had passed before Eng- 
 land entered upon the new and extraordinary
 
 3i6 English Leadership 
 
 career of scientific development extending through 
 the last hundred years, which has so vastly ex- 
 tended man's powers of observation and research, 
 and so immensely broadened his intellectual 
 horizon. 
 
 Any attempt to enumerate all the achievements 
 which make up this new series of discoveries and 
 generalizations would require not merely pages, 
 but many volumes. The briefest mention is suffi- 
 cient to recall to us some of the greatest. Through 
 the work, of Priestley, Cavendish and Dalton, the 
 science of chemistry experienced a rebirth in the 
 promulgation of the atomic theory of multiple 
 proportions. At the same time, a new field was 
 added to experimental chemistry through a series 
 of brilliant electro-chemical researches begun by 
 Sir Humphry Davy in the early years of the nine- 
 teenth century, — a series which prepared the way 
 for the triumphs of Michael Faraday in the in- 
 vestigation of electrical phenomena, a series, too, 
 which went far toward the establishment of the 
 mechanical theory of heat. It was Davy's em- 
 phasis, moreover, upon the vital relation of science 
 to industry which inspired some of his finest work; 
 it was this practical application of science which 
 made his lectures on agricultural chemistry the 
 basis of England's leadership in the science oi
 
 English Scientific Thought 317 
 
 agriculture; and his invention of the safety lamp, 
 another instance of his Baconian practicality 
 which made possible another great advance in 
 mining industries. On the foundations laid by 
 Priestley, Dalton and Davy, later generations 
 were to build the chemistry which we know to-day. 
 Meanwhile, Sir Charles Bell had announced his 
 discovery of the specialization of functions in the 
 brain, an event in the realm of physiology which 
 had not been matched in its importance since the 
 days of Harvey's discovery of the circulation of 
 the blood. In astronomy, too, the English mind 
 was by no means Idle; Herschel had already, in 
 178 1, made his memorable discovery of Uranus, 
 the first new planet to be added to the ancient list 
 of seven, the calculation of whose orbit was found 
 to conform completely to those laws of planetary 
 motion which Kepler and Newton one hundred 
 years before had formulated. During the first 
 third of the nineteenth century, the expansion of 
 the British Empire in the southern hemisphere 
 was accompanied by the English conquest of the 
 southern heavens through the building of observa- 
 tories at the Cape of Good Hope and elsewhere. 
 But of far more significance was the computation 
 by John Couch Adams In 1841, simultaneously 
 with Leverrler In France, of the exact location of
 
 3i8 English Leadership 
 
 another new planet, Neptune, hitherto unob- 
 served. In 1837, that year so memorable in Eng- 
 lish history, the year of the accession of Queen 
 Victoria, the year of the invention of the electric 
 telegraph by the American, Samuel F. B. Morse, 
 there had occurred another great discovery In 
 science, — the law of the "Conservation of En- 
 ergy," a law which by the importance of Its revela- 
 tion that energy Is in the same degree indestruct- 
 ible and uncreatable as matter has entitled its dis- 
 coverer, James Prescott Joule, to be ranked side 
 by side with Newton in the history of physical 
 science. Greater still, however, was the work of 
 Michael Faraday, whose name stands among the 
 most illustrious of the century; for it was his dis- 
 coveries in the field of electricity and magnetism 
 which did more than anything else to place at 
 man's disposal all those practical applications of 
 electrical power which are so rapidly transform- 
 ing human Industry, communication and transpor- 
 tation. Faraday's discovery of electro-magnetic 
 Induction made possible the dynamo which runs 
 so much of our machinery; and his investigation 
 of the laws which govern electrolytic action pro- 
 vided us with the most accurate of methods for 
 measuring the strength of an electric current. The 
 great significance of these events, however, is not
 
 English Scientific Thought 319 
 
 merely In the added power which these new 
 achievements placed at man's disposal; their ulti- 
 mate value can be fully appreciated only when we 
 realize that each of these discoveries means a new 
 extension of the frontier line of scientific knowl- 
 edge over that vast wilderness of ignorance and 
 prejudice, superstition and "infallible authority," 
 the conquest of which was necessary before the 
 human mind could think its way clear to that great- 
 est of all achievements of nineteenth-century 
 science, the formulation of the theory of evolution 
 as a scientific hypothesis capable of demonstration 
 on a basis of observed facts. 
 
 An event so great in the history of science, so 
 vital to the philosophy of social progress, could 
 not occur unheralded. The way had been pre- 
 pared through centuries of thought, groping slow- 
 ly but surely through the maze of phenomena, re- 
 ceiving new light with each discovery of science, 
 and new opportunity for observation with each 
 advance of civilization. Some vague conception 
 of the theory of evolution, or the gradual unfold- 
 ing of the universe of matter and of the forms of 
 life which it contains, had been held by the ancient 
 Greeks. But upon a subject so vast In its sweep, 
 so endless In its ramifications, so bewildering in 
 the variety of phenomena involved, — upon such
 
 320 English Leadership 
 
 a subject it is inconceivable that any scientific 
 hypothesis could be formed and demonstrated 
 until all the other great branches of science had 
 been sufficiently developed to be able to contrib- 
 ute, each its due share, to the great body of ob- 
 served facts which alone could form a sound basis 
 for so sweeping an hypothesis. That stage in the 
 advance of scientific thought was not reached until 
 the middle of the nineteenth century. 
 
 The idea of evolution, however, as suggested 
 by the Greeks first reappeared upon the scene of 
 modern scientific thought about the middle of the 
 eighteenth century. Up to that time not only the 
 great mass of the people, but scientists and phil- 
 osophers as well, had accepted the ancient Hebrew 
 account of a special and divine creation. The 
 date of this event which had been variously esti- 
 mated by the great church fathers, had, in the 
 days of Cromwell, been fixed "with laudable pre- 
 cision," by Archbishop Usher, who assigned it to 
 Friday, October 28, 4004, B. C. The matter was 
 accordingly regarded — by the theologians at least 
 — as finally settled; It is only within the last half 
 century that coercion of belief on this point, from 
 ecclesiastical authority, has been rendered fruit- 
 less by the advance of scientific knowledge. 
 
 The first serious attempt to establish a new con-
 
 English Scientific Thought 321 
 
 ception of the formation of the earth had been 
 made by a Frenchman, Buffon, in 1749; but he 
 had been most summarily compelled to retract his 
 hypothesis and affirm that he believed implicitly 
 in the Biblical account. Later, at the beginning 
 of the nineteenth century, another Frenchman, 
 Laplace, as we have seen, put forth his Nebular 
 hypothesis, which in its turn was also denounced 
 by theologians; nevertheless by the profound im- 
 pression which it made upon scientific thought in 
 emphasizing the idea of a gradual evolution or 
 development of the physical universe, it prepared 
 the way for a similar conception of evolution in 
 the realm of living forms. 
 
 Meanwhile the attack upon the Scriptural ac- 
 count of creation developed from another quite 
 unexpected quarter. In consequence of the deeper 
 mining made possible by the use of steam pumps 
 in the latter part of the eighteenth century there 
 had been much speculation as to the origin of the 
 various types of rock observed. The earliest 
 theory — that of the Frenchman, Cuvier — at- 
 tempted to explain stratification and fossil re- 
 mains by imagining a series of catastrophes of 
 fire or water, each of which had been fatal to all 
 living creatures and had been followed by a new 
 exercise of creative force, the last of which sup-
 
 322 English Leadership 
 
 posedly was the one described in Genesis. This 
 theory served for a time to save the belief In di- 
 vine intervention through a series of special crea- 
 tions, a series of processes alien, however, to 
 those of every-day experience. It was but natural 
 that such an explanation would not appeal to the 
 English mind, the doubting Thomas of science, 
 which demanded some theory which could be ex- 
 plained on the basis of the ordinary processes 
 which could still be seen In operation. Such an 
 explanation, now known as the "unlformitarlan 
 theory," was put forth by James Hutton In the 
 late eighteenth century; but It was not until the 
 publication In 1815 of William Smith's "Map of 
 the Strata of England and Wales," that there was 
 established a basis of observed fact sufficiently, 
 broad and sound to justify acceptance of the Hut- 
 tonian theory. This theory, expounded by Sir 
 Charles Lyell In his "Principles of Geology" 
 (1830), attributed stratification to the deposition 
 of material by the action of seas and rivers and 
 other natural agencies acting through long periods 
 of time. By comparison of the fossil remains of 
 plants and animals found in different layers of 
 rock, geologists were then able to classify the 
 rocks and determine their chronological sequence. 
 From these facts in turn it became evident that the
 
 English Scientific Thought 323 
 
 gradual formation of the rocks had been accom- 
 panied by an ascending series of plant and animal 
 types; and furthermore, that the period of time 
 required for these transformations was infinitely 
 greater than had ever been conjectured. In con- 
 sequence of Lyell's exposition of this "uniformi- 
 tarian" theory of Hutton's, the whole science of 
 geology, with its amazing revelations of the great 
 age of the earth, was brought into being. Thus 
 had been established by the English mind, during 
 the first third of the nineteenth century, that 
 science which, apart from biology, was to do more 
 than any other toward overturning false concep- 
 tions of chronology and opening up new vistas in 
 the history of the formation of the earth and of 
 the development of living forms upon that earth. 
 But before an adequate working hypothesis 
 could be formulated in explanation of that de- 
 velopment of life, another step was necessary, — 
 the transformation of the "natural history" hobby 
 of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries into 
 the biological sciences of the nineteenth. We have 
 already noted the work done by Nehemiah Grew 
 and by John Ray, late in the seventeenth century, 
 in laying the foundation of botany and zoology. 
 The greatest of the naturalists, however, the man 
 whose work marks the transition from mere ac-
 
 324 English Leadership 
 
 cumulated information to the beginnings of a sys- 
 tematic and organized knowledge of the phenom- 
 ena of life, was the Swedish scientist, Carl Lin- 
 naeus, whom Huxley characterized as "the su- 
 preme law-giver of living nature." But though 
 Linnaeus was not an Englishman, his work, never- 
 theless, was based upon that of the Englishman, 
 Ray. About the middle of the eighteenth century, 
 Linnaeus had announced his famous classification 
 of plants and animals, in which he assigned man to 
 the highest place in an ascending series of plant 
 and animal species, — to the natural order, class 
 mammalia, order of primates, genus homo. The 
 work of Linnaeus was followed half a century 
 later by that of Baron Cuvier of France, whose 
 "Animal Kingdom" (181 8), basing classification 
 upon internal as well as external resemblances, 
 formed the point of departure for all subsequent 
 zoological speculation. Both Linnaeus and Cu- 
 vier had noted the close resemblances between vari- 
 ous species, and their classifications reveal an as- 
 cending series, but neither of them had any theory 
 to offer, other than that of innumerable special 
 creations, which would account for the origin of 
 species. That work remained for Charles Dar- 
 win. 
 
 By the middle of the nineteenth century, the
 
 English Scientific Thought 325 
 
 time was ripe for the appearance of such a theory. 
 The idea of evolution, as has been said before, 
 was not a new one. But in the form suggested by 
 the Greeks, and reappearing occasionally down 
 through the Middle Ages it signified merely a 
 gradual process In the formation of the universe 
 and in the development of the forms of life. In 
 this same sense the word "evolution" first ap- 
 peared in the scientific world during the eighteenth 
 century, as a term to denote the gradual unfold- 
 ment of an organism from a miniature embryo, 
 complete from the beginning in all its parts. This 
 application of the idea of evolution had been 
 made by the opponents of William Harvey's 
 theory of "epigenesis," — the theory that the 
 growth of the organism takes place by the suc- 
 cessive addition of parts. In the resulting con- 
 troversy, "epigenesis" won out over "evolution"; 
 but the word "evolution" was still retained in its 
 more general sense to signify as before the grad- 
 ual unfolding of the universe rather than a six-day 
 act of special creation. By the middle of the nine- 
 teenth century, the idea of evolution had already 
 become practically established in all the physical 
 sciences, partly as a result of Laplace's Nebular 
 hypothesis, partly through the work of Stokes in 
 spectrum analysis, but more conclusively through
 
 326 English Leadership 
 
 the work of James Hutton, William Smith and 
 Charles Lyell, in the development of the "uniform- 
 Itarian" theory of the structure of the earth. In 
 the field of biological thought, too, the French- 
 man Lamarck had in 1809 advanced his theory 
 of evolution as based upon the adaptation of the 
 organism to its environment, and of the trans- 
 mission of acquired characteristics. But it re- 
 mained for Charles Darwin to fix the meaning 
 of the word ''evolution" as we understand it to- 
 day, "the transmutation of species," as opposed 
 to a series of innumerable "special creations" for 
 each and every organism. 
 
 Darwin's great achievement, therefore, was not 
 the mere suggestion of the idea of evolution. His 
 work, rather, was the formulation of the theory 
 as a scientific hypothesis capable of demonstration 
 on a basis of observed fact. For some twenty 
 years he wrestled with the problem, summoning 
 for its solution an amazing range of facts, drawn 
 from every conceivable source, from a comparison 
 of fossil remains to a study of the whole range of 
 living forms; from the simplest rules of deliberate 
 selection followed by the farmer in breeding do- 
 mestic animals, to the unconscious natural selec- 
 tion which was suggested to him by a chance read- 
 ing of Malthus' observations upon the tendency
 
 English Scientific Thought 327 
 
 of population to Increase at a rate much more 
 rapid than that of the means of subsistence. 
 Throughout all this Immense accumulation of ob- 
 served fact, Darwin was the first to see a single 
 principle continuously acting. Having observed 
 that throughout all nature the number of young 
 born was far In excess of the number which could 
 subsist upon the available food supply, he ac- 
 counted for the origin of species by assuming 
 that, through a slow process of natural selection, 
 there would survive In the struggle for existence 
 only those Individuals of a species which were best 
 adapted to their environment through some fa- 
 vorable variation of structure or of function. 
 Through the advantage gained by the occurrence 
 of a useful variation a series of organisms would 
 then, through the course of ages, develop per- 
 manent modifications, and thus exhibit the variety 
 of characteristics which distinguish the surviving 
 species. This Is Darwin's theory of evolution as 
 substantiated by the principle of natural selection 
 upon which he placed so strong an emphasis. By 
 his establishment of this principle, he laid the 
 foundation for a new and vastly broader study of 
 organic structure, making it possible to account 
 for more complex organisms as the result of a 
 series of useful variations, and of simpler organ-
 
 328 English Leadership 
 
 isms as survivals of those earlier forms which con- 
 stitute the common ancestry of both. But not only 
 did he set forth an explanation of that continuous 
 process of evolution through which the highest 
 forms of life have been developed from formless 
 protoplasm, the simplest living matter, — that in 
 itself was an achievement great enough to win for 
 him a willing recognition as the greatest scientific 
 thinker of the nineteenth century, — not only did 
 his work place the science of biology upon a new 
 and permanent foundation, but it also wrought a 
 revolution in the whole course of scientific thought, 
 the effects of which are altogether beyond our 
 calculation. The application of his theory has 
 raised innumerable questions and problems; the 
 nature and causes of variation, the question of 
 heredity and of educability, of transmission of 
 instincts and acquired characteristics, the question 
 of hybridization and mendelism, of pangenesis 
 and eugenics, — these are but a few of the many 
 problems, storm-centers of controversy still, grow- 
 ing out of one phase or another of the theory 
 advanced by Darwin. Some of these investiga- 
 tions are even tending, in themselves, to be classed 
 as separate sciences within the general field of 
 biological research. But apart from any dis- 
 cussion of these problems, which would lead too
 
 English Scientific Thought 329 
 
 far afield, there can be no question of Darwin's 
 supreme position as leader of the ever-increasing 
 host of earnest investigators who are extending 
 the realm of biology as a science over regions 
 which before had been shrouded in the fogs of 
 superstition and of mysticism. 
 
 That such a theory of the development of life, 
 with all its implications, would result in nothing 
 less than a complete revolution in modern thought 
 is inevitable. That it would meet with fierce ob- 
 jection was a matter of course. But as John 
 Tyndall has pointed out, Darwin's "vast resources 
 enable him to cope with objections started by him- 
 self and others, so as to leave the final impression 
 upon the reader's mind that, if they be not com- 
 pletely answered, they certainly are not fatal. 
 Their negative force being thus destroyed, you 
 are free to be influenced by the vast positive mass 
 of evidence he is able to bring before you. This 
 largeness of knowledge and readiness of resource 
 render Mr. Darwin the most terrible of antago- 
 nists. Accomplished naturalists have leveled heavy 
 and sustained criticism against him — not always 
 with the view of fairly weighing his theory, but 
 with the express intention of exposing its weak 
 points only. This does not irritate him. He 
 treats every objection with a soberness and thor-
 
 330 English Leadersfiip 
 
 oughness which even Bishop Butler might be 
 proud to imitate, surrounding each fact with its 
 appropriate detail, placing it in its proper rela- 
 tions, and usually giving it a significance which, 
 as long as it was kept isolated, failed to appear. 
 This is done without a trace of ill-temper. He 
 moves over the subject with the passionless 
 strength of a glacier; and the grinding of the 
 rocks is not always without a counterpart in the 
 logical pulverization of the objector. But though 
 in handling this mighty theme all passion has been 
 stilled, there is an emotion of the intellect incident 
 to the discernment of new truth which often colors 
 and warms the pages of Mr. Darwin. His success 
 has been great; and this implies not only the 
 solidity of his work, but the preparedness of the 
 public mind for such a revelation." 
 
 The most immediate effect of Darwin's thought 
 is seen in his influence upon the philosophy of his 
 contemporary, Herbert Spencer, who was already 
 formulating his evolutionary theory of knowledge, 
 when Darwin's work came to his attention. What 
 Darwin had done for the physical world, Spencer 
 had set himself to do for the world of mental 
 phenomena. What, he asked himself, is the prin- 
 ciple of growth of that power which has cul- 
 minated in Reason? How may the various or-
 
 English Scientific Thought 331 
 
 ders of mind be accounted for? Accepting the 
 work of the physicist and of the physiologist, 
 Spencer sought to build, upon these as a founda- 
 tion, a system of psychology. He recognized two 
 obvious factors in the problem, the organism and 
 its environment; between these he saw going on a 
 continuous Interaction which led him to define life 
 as "a continuous adjustment of Internal relations 
 to external relations." From a vaguely diffused 
 sensitiveness of tissue In the lowest organism there 
 has been a gradual development of the five senses, 
 which in turn modify the conduct of the organism 
 in its adjustment to Its environment, both through 
 extent in space and through extent in time. There 
 is also a corresponding Increase In complexity of 
 sensation and of conduct as development Is traced 
 through the orders of brute life up to the human 
 mind. In the life of the individual, sense Impres- 
 sions constituting Its experience of the external 
 world are stamped upon the brain, thus forming 
 states of consciousness and determining all the 
 mental processes of perception, memory, and so 
 on. Repeated sensations producing the same re- 
 peated reaction, combined with hereditary trans- 
 mission, lead to the formation of instincts. Two 
 or more phenomena occurring invariably together 
 are stamped to equal depths and result in ideas in-
 
 332 English Leadership 
 
 dissolubly connected, thus determining the "law 
 of inseparable association." Just here Spencer de- 
 parts from the view of John Stuart Mill, who 
 would recognize only the registered experiences 
 of the individual. Spencer's view maintains that 
 there exists in the human brain at birth a power 
 of organizing race experience previous to its in- 
 dividual experience; in other words the human 
 brain, he says, is the "organized register of in- 
 finitely numerous experiences received during the 
 evolution of life, or rather during the evolution 
 of that series of organisms through which the 
 human organism has been reached. The effects 
 of the most uniform and frequent of these expe- 
 riences have been successfully bequeathed, prin- 
 cipal and interest, and have slowly mounted to 
 that high intelligence which lies latent in the brain 
 of the infant. Thus It happens that the European 
 inherits from twenty to thirty cubic inches more 
 of brain than the Papuan. Thus it happens that 
 faculties, as of music, which scarcely exist In some 
 Inferior races, become congenital in superior ones. 
 Thus it happens that out of savages unable to 
 count up to the number of their fingers, and speak- 
 ing a language containing only nouns and verbs, 
 arise at length our Newtons and our Shake- 
 speares."
 
 English Scientific Thought 333 
 
 Neither Darwin nor Spencer had any theory 
 to offer as to the origination of Hfe. Nor did 
 they attempt to explain the nature of the external 
 world, from which all our sensations are received; 
 that, in the words of J. S. Mill, is "the great 
 battleground of metaphysics." Spencer does not, 
 as Berkeley would, deny Its existence, but main- 
 tains rather that it is an outside entity, the real 
 nature of which we can never know. "In fact," 
 as Tyndall says, "the whole process of evolution 
 is the manifestation of a Power absolutely inscrut- 
 able to the intellect of man. As little in our day 
 as in the days of Job can man, by searching, find 
 this Power out. Considered fundamentally, it is 
 by the operation of an insoluble mystery that life 
 is evolved, species differentiated, and mind un- 
 folded from their prepotent elements in the im- 
 measurable past." 
 
 It was inevitable that such a theory of life would 
 turn the whole course of modern science, philos- 
 ophy and religion into entirely new channels. 
 While the discoveries of Davy and of Faraday, of 
 Morse and Stephenson and Bell, were working 
 a complete transformation in the outward aspect 
 of the world, Darwin's theory and philosophy 
 were working a similar transformation in the in- 
 ner life of man. Every phase of modern thought,
 
 334 English Leadership 
 
 — from biology, psychology, and anthropology, 
 through all the present array of nascent sciences 
 on the one hand, to history and literature, philos- 
 ophy and religion on the other, — every phase of 
 modern thought has felt the impulse given by the 
 "Origin of Species"; for it supplied that dynamic 
 element in our modern evolutionary theory which 
 has made possible for us to-day a new and vastly 
 greater conception of the possibility of human 
 progress than that inherent in the old idea of the 
 "perfectibility of man." As Professor Dewey in 
 his "Influence of Darwin on Philosophy" has 
 pointed out, the very title, "Origin of Species," is 
 a declaration of the modern intellectual revolt 
 against traditional assumptions of an age already 
 long past, — "the assumption of the superiority of 
 the fixed and final." The whole superstructure of 
 all classical philosophy based upon the idea of 
 fixity, and of the old theological dogma based 
 upon a series of "special creations," — all this has 
 gone down in the general demolition wrought by 
 the introduction of the evolutionary view of life. 
 Shorn of the old philosophies and dogmas, 
 feeling the old foundations crumbling, doubting 
 the efficacy of the new philosophy, the Pragmatism 
 of William James, or the Creative Evolution of 
 Henri Bergson, humanity is asking over and over
 
 English Scientific Thought 335 
 
 again the old, old question, "Is there a God? 
 What is God?" The question is being asked not 
 only by the "intellectuals," but also and far more 
 poignantly by the great masses of the people, who, 
 untrained in philosophical subtleties, feel the need 
 of some practical working faith to replace their 
 broken images. And many and varied are the 
 answers given to that insistent cry of a bewildered, 
 struggle-torn humanity. From one extreme comes 
 the grim reply of Friedrich Nietzsche, with his 
 supreme contempt for the Christian conception of 
 an atoning, self-sacrificing God; with his violent 
 assertion of an uncompromising naturalism, his 
 doctrine of self-realization and of a brutal indi- 
 vidualism gone mad; but Nietzschism is a symp- 
 tom rather than a solution. From the opposite 
 direction comes the answer to Leo Tolstoy with 
 his visionary theory, his almost pathetic reliance 
 upon a God of passive non-resistance. From 
 another quarter still are heard the assurances of 
 theosophists, offering to a haste-driven world the 
 calm and peace of an Oriental faith. 
 
 But one of the most characteristic of modern 
 religious reactions "against the despotism of fact" 
 imposed by natural science, perhaps the most sig- 
 nificant in its emphasis on the idea of universal 
 brotherhood, and in its power to stem the tide of
 
 33^ English Leadership 
 
 pessimism by galvanizing flagging human energy 
 into positive action, is the rise of Christian Sci- 
 ence, which its founder, Mary Baker Eddy, de- 
 fined as "the law of God, the law of Good, inter- 
 preting and demonstrating the divine Principle 
 and rule of universal harmony." God, according 
 to the Christian Science doctrine, is "incorporeal, 
 divine, supreme, infinite. Mind, Spirit, Soul, Prin- 
 ciple, Life, Truth, Love. All causation is Mind, 
 and every effect a mental phenomenon." "It re- 
 sults from this definition," says one of its ex- 
 pounders, William Denison McCrackan, "that 
 the basis of Christian Science, the Principle of its 
 healing is wholly metaphysical, i.e., beyond the 
 realm of physical sense perception; that this Prin- 
 ciple has no material form or body, is the highest 
 possible authority, and is boundless in power and 
 existence. Truth defines God as an established 
 fixed reality; Love sums up within itself every 
 quality of good, such as tenderness, purity and 
 justice, and this final synonym proclaims that God 
 attracts and rules on the basis of the immutable 
 law of mercy. It teaches first of all the absolute 
 goodness of God and as a consequence the essen- 
 tial goodness of man made in God's image 
 and likeness. . . . The immediate consequences, 
 therefore, of the acceptance of the teachings of
 
 English Scientific Thought 337 
 
 Christian Science, is to establish a hopeful outlook 
 upon life, to found the expectation of good upon 
 definite facts capable of proof by all mankind. A 
 further effect is to lessen fear, apprehension of the 
 future, and worry, to dissipate the mystery and 
 mysticism generally associated with spiritual mat- 
 ters and to bring them into every-day affairs as 
 available and regenerative; to transform religion 
 from a matter principally of preaching or cere- 
 monial into a matter principally of practice and 
 regeneration with its proof and rewards made ap- 
 parent now instead of in a future state of exist- 
 ence only. It is the supreme merit of Christian 
 Science," its expounder continues, "that it clarifies 
 the true position of God in human consciousness 
 and dignifies the essential nature of man with the 
 glory of his sonship with God, The necessary 
 consequence of this scientific understanding is to 
 produce healing In its fullest and broadest sense, 
 both mental, moral and physical; to bring about 
 the transformation of the body through the renew- 
 ing of the mind." 
 
 There can be no doubt that the Christian Sci- 
 ence movement has in one generation enormously 
 increased the number of followers of Christian 
 teachings. Its power has been especially marked 
 in English-speaking countries and is as rapidly
 
 338 English Leadership 
 
 spreading throughout the world. Whatever may 
 be the judgment passed upon It by human experi- 
 ence in generations yet to come, the movement is 
 nevertheless most significant as an illustration of 
 the growing social consciousness of universal 
 brotherhood, and of the essential unity of man 
 on the plane of his higher life. 
 
 This conception, expressed by "the brotherhood 
 of man," has already played a great role in the 
 cultural advancement of man. Hitherto the 
 force it has had, as Professor Ritter points out, 
 "has been almost wholly in its appeal to the emo- 
 tional side of man's nature and very little in its 
 appeal to the rational side. Hitherto 'the golden 
 rule' has had little or no positive unqualified sup- 
 port from the side of reason and science. It has 
 indeed been too widely assumed both by men of 
 science and men of religion and ethics, that these 
 great conceptions are the exclusive province of 
 religion. Such a view seems to be the chief 
 ground on which Tolstoy, Brunetlere, and other 
 intense lovers of mankind have based their indict- 
 ment of modern science as having proved Its in- 
 ability to contribute anything essential to human 
 welfare and happiness. The province of human 
 biology is to take the very widely observed phe- 
 nomenon of fellow-feeling as it takes any other
 
 English Scientific Thought 339 
 
 fact pertaining to man, and see what can be made 
 of it. Such a study discovers, for one thing, that 
 fellow-feeling is the extreme term of the integra- 
 tive series of human evolution. We must recog- 
 nize that to the affectional elements in human 
 brotherhood, mighty in power but often fitful in 
 action, there is added a rational element which, 
 though less applicable to the rank and file of men 
 and less intense in action, is more solid and trust- 
 worthy and enduring. . . . On its integrative 
 side, progress in human culture consists in pre- 
 serving a balance between the affective and 
 rational elements of the brotherhood of man. 
 From the standpoint of biological evolution, 
 progress in civilization may be characterized as 
 the differentiation and intensification of love and 
 intellect, and of the intellectualizing of love and 
 the affectionizing of intellect. What we need is 
 less a city of Brotherly Love than a Land of 
 Brotherly Wisdom, a Sophodelphia. The world's 
 prayer at this time should be for an understanding 
 of head and heart. Therethrough alone runs the 
 road to any sort of human brotherhood and love, 
 for which strong, active men can care. Such a 
 course would fill millions of persons with an en- 
 thusiasm that would be irresistible and permanent 
 because sustained by reason as well as by emotion.
 
 340 English Leadership 
 
 It is this same idealism, this same consciousness 
 of social ends, which has been so marked a char- 
 acteristic of the course of English scientific 
 thought. It is in order to achieve those ends 
 that it has struggled so determinedly to be free. 
 It was that same idealism that Huxley had in 
 mind when he declared that "science prospers ex- 
 actly in proportion as it is religious." It is that 
 same passion for serving social ends through in- 
 tellectual freedom which inspired Tyndall's mem- 
 orable address at Belfast; his words on that occa- 
 sion are peculiarly characteristic of the high 
 seriousness of English scientific thought: "Mr. 
 Buckle sought to detach intellectual achievement 
 from moral force. He gravely erred; for with- 
 out moral force to whip it into action, the achieve- 
 ments of the intellect would be poor indeed. . . . 
 I would set forth equally the inexorable advance 
 of man's understanding in the path of knowledge, 
 and the unquenchable claims of his emotional na- 
 ture which the understanding can never satisfy. 
 The world embraces not only a Newton, but a 
 Shakespeare; not only a Boyle, but a Raphael; not 
 only a Kant, but a Beethoven; not only a Darwin, 
 but a Carlyle. Not in each of these, but in all, 
 is human nature whole. They are not opposed, 
 but supplementary; not mutually exclusive, but
 
 English Scientific Thought 341 
 
 reconcilable. And if, still unsatisfied, the human 
 mind, with the yearning of a pilgrim for his 
 distant home, will turn to the mystery from which 
 it has emerged, seeking so to fashion it as to give 
 unity to thought and faith — so long as this is 
 done, not only without intolerance or bigotry of 
 any kind, but with the enlightened recognition that 
 ultimate fixity of conception is here unattainable, 
 and that each succeeding age must be held free to 
 fashion the mystery in accordance with its own 
 needs, then, in opposition to all the restrictions of 
 Materialism, I would affirm this to be a field 
 for the noblest exercise of what, in contrast with 
 the knowing faculties, may be called the creative 
 faculties of man. Here, however, I must quit a 
 theme too great for me to handle, but which 
 will be handled by the loftiest minds ages after 
 you and I, like streaks of morning cloud, shall 
 have melted into the infinite azure of the past." 
 Such then is the ideal of a conscious social prog- 
 ress set before the world by men of science among 
 English-speaking peoples. Never before in the 
 history of civilization has there been so marked 
 a tendency to synthetize the knowledge gained 
 from all fields of scientific thought into one grand 
 science of human welfare, whose supreme object
 
 342 JSnglish Leadership 
 
 will be not merely the joy derived from discovery 
 of yet greater fields of knowledge but also, and 
 far more potently, the satisfaction of man's high- 
 est aspirations through the application of scien- 
 tific knowledge to the perplexing problems of 
 social readjustment. Such was the vision of that 
 first of English men of science, Roger Bacon. 
 Such was the ideal set by his greater namesake, 
 Francis Bacon. Such is the possibility latent in 
 the evolutionary view of a continuous advance 
 toward ever greater heights of human achieve- 
 ment. Such, too, is the hope held out by men 
 of science in all lines of earnest research, — a hope 
 the promise of whose fulfilment may be seen in 
 the work of organizations like the Smithsonian 
 Institute, founded on American soil by a man of 
 English birth for the enlightenment of all man- 
 kind. In order that we may attain that intel- 
 lectual liberty upon which all social progress ulti- 
 mately depends, science must be free to burst the 
 bonds of prejudice and ignorance and set new 
 standards for the race. Not only must science be 
 unfettered. If she would accomplish for man- 
 kind that social readjustment which her men of 
 vision promise, she must find cooperation and sup- 
 port from the emotional impulses of man. There
 
 English Scientific Thought 343 
 
 must be no further warfare between science and 
 religion. Both must work together toward a 
 common social end — the betterment of man's 
 estate.
 
 THE ENGLISH GIFT TO WORLD 
 LITERATURE 
 
 Grace F. Caldwell
 
 THE ENGLISH GIFT TO WORLD 
 LITERATURE 
 
 On the Fourth of July, 191 8, there was held 
 in London a meeting most significant in the course 
 of human freedom, — a meeting similar in import 
 to that of the Barons at Runnymede, or the Conti- 
 nental Congress in Independence Hall, the sign- 
 ing of the Federal Constitution, or the taking of 
 the Tennis Court Oath. It was the meeting of 
 the Anglo-Saxon Fellowship, called to celebrate, 
 for the first time on English soil, the 142nd anni- 
 versary of the Declaration of American Indepen- 
 dence. On that day all the English-speaking 
 peoples of the earth joined hearts and hopes in 
 commemoration of an event which no longer 
 savored of hostility and defiance on the one side, 
 nor of grief and regret on the other, but rather 
 had come to symbolize a common heritage of free- 
 dom, a mutual pledge of affection and cooperation 
 toward a common ideal. 
 
 The world will longer remember the words 
 spoken on that occasion by Mr. Winston Church- 
 
 347
 
 348 English Leadership 
 
 ill: "The Declaration of Independence is not only 
 an American document. It follows on the Magna 
 Carta and the Bill of Rights as the third great 
 title-deed on which the liberties of the English- 
 speaking peoples are founded. By it we lost an 
 empire, but by it we also preserved an Empire. By 
 applying its principles and learning its lesson we 
 have maintained our communion with the power- 
 ful Commonwealths which our children have es- 
 tablished beyond the seas. . . . Deep in the 
 hearts of the people of these islands lay the de- 
 sire to be truly reconciled before all men and all 
 history with their kindred across the Atlantic 
 Ocean, to blot out the reproaches and redeem the 
 blunders of a bygone age, to dwell once more in 
 spirit with them, to stand once more in battle at 
 their side, to create once more a union of hearts, to 
 write once more a history in common. That was 
 our heart's desire. It seemed utterly unattain- 
 able, but it has come to pass. ... So let us cele- 
 brate to-day not only the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence; let us proclaim the true comradeship 
 of Britain and America, to stand together till the 
 work is done, in all perils, in all difficulties, and 
 at all costs. . , . That is the Declaration of 
 July, 191 8; and, to quote words that are on all 
 American lips to-day, 'for the support of this
 
 English Gift to World Literature 349 
 
 declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection 
 of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each 
 other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred 
 honor.' " 
 
 These were the words of a world-renowned 
 Englishman, spoken on time-honored English soil. 
 Almost at the same hour President Wilson was 
 voicing the same sentiments from the sacred slopes 
 of Mount Vernon: "What we seek is the reign 
 of law, based upon the consent of the governed 
 and sustained by the organized opinion of man- 
 kind. These great ends cannot be achieved by 
 debating and seeking to reconcile and accommo- 
 date what statesmen may wish with their projects 
 for balance of power and national opportunity. 
 They can be realized only by the determination 
 of what the thinking people of the world desire, 
 with their longing hope for social freedom and 
 opportunity. I can fancy that the air of this place 
 carries the accents of such principles with a 
 peculiar kindness. Here were started forces 
 which the great nation against which they were 
 primarily directed at first regarded as a revolt 
 against its rightful authority, but which it has long 
 since seen to have been a step in the liberation of 
 its own people as well as of the people of the 
 United States; and I stand here now to speak — >
 
 350 English Leadership 
 
 speak proudly and with confident hope — of the 
 spread of this revolt, this liberation, to the great 
 stage of the world itself!" 
 
 This revolt, this liberation, — an aim which is 
 nothing other than the spreading of the spirit of 
 democracy, — this is the mission for whose fulfil- 
 ment the English-speaking peoples of the world, 
 on July 4, 191 8, mutually pledged in enduring 
 brotherhood their lives, their fortunes, and their 
 sacred honor. But what is this spirit of de- 
 mocracy, and how may it be fostered? What 
 ends may it be made to serve? That is a prob- 
 lem to the solution of which the English people 
 set themselves many centuries ago. How far 
 they have succeeded in the fulfilment of their self- 
 imposed task can be judged only by their national 
 experience. And that national experience is re- 
 corded nowhere more adequately and forcefully 
 than in their literature. We see in English sci- 
 ence, law and government its rationalized and ab- 
 stract record. But in English literature we find 
 a far more vital, because emotionalized and per- 
 sonal, expression of the spirit of the nation, — that 
 great complex of elemental feelings which have 
 played so large a part In determining its career. 
 "Let me make the ballads of a nation and who will 
 may make its laws," If we would know the spirit
 
 English Gift to World Literature 351 
 
 of the English people, we must search its litera- 
 ture; and English literature from "Beowulf" to 
 Walt Whitman is nothing at all if not a magnifi- 
 cent chorus whose voices echo, through the halls of 
 time, the strains of a national anthem whose theme 
 is the spirit of democracy. That anthem is the 
 English gift to world literature. 
 
 The first strains of that anthem were heard, 
 long before the Magna Carta, far back in those 
 grim dark years when the Anglo-Saxon first set 
 foot on British shores. Deep-chested and huge- 
 limbed, with dauntless courage and fierce resolu- 
 tion, these ancestors of the modern English had 
 braved the fierce storms of the Baltic and of the 
 North Sea In order to find a new home more at- 
 tractive than the old. They had come from the 
 dismal wastes of Northern Europe with its dull 
 gray blanket of chilling fog, and its tangled forests 
 dripping with rain, — a land swept by fierce storms 
 which lashed the neighboring sea Into mountainous 
 waves and drove them In pitiless fury over the 
 marshy and sunken coasts. In such a land there 
 was no place for the weakling or the coward; 
 life was one continuous struggle against over- 
 whelming odds; only those could live at all who 
 lived nobly and masterfully. Coarse, cruel and 
 pitiless though men living under such circum-
 
 352 English Leadership 
 
 stances must inevitably have been, they were 
 nevertheless fit men to found a new nation; for 
 under their brutality lay immense stores of un- 
 wasted energy, and an altogether undeveloped 
 capacity for thought, feeling and action, which 
 was to make them not merely warriors, but heroes 
 and conquerors, founders of nations and builders 
 of empire. It was men such as these, farmers 
 and sailors, who, settling in Britain, laid the foun- 
 dation of the England that we know to-day. It 
 was men such as these whose life and ideals we see 
 reflected in that first great English epic, "Beo- 
 wulf," brought by our Anglo-Saxon forefathers 
 from their continental home. 
 
 The spirit of the whole poem is that of war, — 
 not the clash of armies nor yet the struggle of 
 man against man, but far more significantly the 
 single-handed combat between a great hero, Beo- 
 wulf, and three successive incarnations of the 
 monstrous powers of evil. The first of these con- 
 flicts takes place in Jutland. Hrothgar, king of 
 the Danes, had built a magnificent mead-hall, 
 Heorot, where he and his warriors feasted and 
 slept. One night, however, the sounds of min- 
 strelsy reach the ears of a fiendish monster, Gren- 
 del, who lurks in the marsh near by. In jealous 
 rage he enters the hall and devours thirty of the
 
 English Gift to World Literature 353 
 
 sleeping warriors. Night after night the fiend 
 continues his raids, till finally the splendid hall is 
 abandoned. This story comes to the attention of 
 the young Swedish prince, Beowulf, already re- 
 nowned for his wisdom and his many deeds of 
 valor. Coming with his followers to Hrothgar, 
 he offers his services to free the land of this hide- 
 ous monster. His offer is accepted, and that night 
 they occupy the hall. Beowulf alone is keeping 
 watch when Grendel enters. In the deadly strug- 
 gle which ensues the champion, using no weapon 
 but trusting solely in his own great strength, in- 
 flicts on the monster a mortal wound. Finally 
 Grendel, with the loss of an arm, wrenches him- 
 self free and escapes to the marshes to die. Great 
 are the sounds of rejoicing next day when the 
 Danes are gathered to celebrate Beowulf's vic- 
 tory, — a victory, it must be remembered, of sheer 
 human strength over supernatural forces of evil. 
 But the next night joy is turned into panic by 
 the appearance of Grendel's mother, a hideous 
 water-fiend, who, breaking into the hall to avenge 
 the death of her son, carries off one of the Danish 
 warriors. Again Beowulf offers his services. 
 Tracking the fiend through foul marshes and 
 moors, he comes to a stagnant pool livid with 
 flame. Plunging into its filthy waters, he fights
 
 354 English Leadership 
 
 the fiend in her den, trusting again in his own 
 mighty strength. "So it behooves a man to act 
 when he thinks to attain enduring praise, — he will 
 not be caring for his life." But the fiend is too 
 strong, and Beowulf falls. Close to his hand, 
 however, he sees a pile of weapons. Snatching a 
 giant-forged sword, he slays the monster, thus 
 winning his second great victory over the forces 
 of evil. 
 
 After these exploits, Beowulf, laden with gifts 
 from the grateful Danes, returns to Sweden, his 
 native land, where he ultimately becomes king. 
 After he has ruled the land In all wisdom for some 
 fifty years, his kingdom Is threatened with devas- 
 tation by a terrible fire-breathing dragon, who 
 hoards up treasure in a dark cave near the sea. 
 The old king, once more "trusting in the strength 
 of his single manhood," goes out to do battle 
 with this new Incarnation of evil. He wins In the 
 combat, but is himself mortally wounded. About 
 to die, he calls his warriors about him, and feast- 
 ing his eyes on the treasure speaks his last words: 
 "I have held this people fifty years; there was 
 not any king of my neighbors who dared to greet 
 me with warriors, to oppress me with terror . . . 
 I held mine own well; I sought not treacherous 
 malice, nor swore unjustly many oaths; on account
 
 English Gift to World Literature 355 
 
 of all this, I, sick with mortal wounds, may have 
 joy. . . . Now, I have purchased with my death 
 a hoard of treasures; it will be yet of advantage at 
 the need of my people. ... I give thanks that 
 I might before my dying day obtain such for my 
 people . . . longer may I not here be." So the 
 great hero dies. His followers erect in his honor, 
 on a cliff near the sea, a great mound which sailors 
 can see from far out on the deep, and so keep in 
 mind the memory of their King. The poem ends 
 in a simple requiem : 
 
 "Lamented thus 
 
 The loyal Goths 
 
 Their chieftain's fall, 
 
 Hearth-fellows true; 
 
 They said he was, 
 
 Of all kings in the world, 
 
 Mildest to his men 
 
 And most friendly, 
 
 To his lieges benignest, 
 
 And most bent upon glory." 
 
 Such in barest outline is the framework of the 
 poem, — crude and weird, trivial and almost ab- 
 surd, if we think only of the Incidents told. Such 
 tales of combats with monster and dragons are, 
 of course, by no means peculiar to the English. 
 In that they are like all other primitive peoples.
 
 35^ English Leadership 
 
 But that which distinguishes this poem from other 
 hero tales is its high seriousness, its profound 
 earnestness, and its simple intensity. In its un- 
 compromising honesty, in its quiet but determined 
 facing of what were to those early English the 
 grim realities of life, it strikes the keynote of 
 that tragic mood which characterizes so much of 
 what is best in English literature. Its signifi- 
 cance for the spirit of democracy, too, lies not in 
 the events related but in the character of its hero. 
 Primitive peoples, in the absence of an organized 
 government, turn instinctively to men of superior 
 worth to deliver them from crime and oppression, 
 from natural and social evils with which on every 
 side they see themselves beset. Beowulf, the em- 
 bodiment of all those qualities which the English 
 most admired, stands before us in heroic propor- 
 tions, — a man of unfailing courtesy and kindness, 
 of unflinching courage and of calm self-reliance, 
 not dependent as were the Greek heroes, upon 
 the aid or intervention of some supernatural 
 agency, but relying solely upon "the strength of 
 his single manhood," ready to employ all his en- 
 ergies, even to give his life if need be, for the 
 welfare of others. Pagan though he is, this 
 Anglo-Saxon hero typifies, none the less, one of 
 the most vital elements in our modern spirit of
 
 English Gift to World Literature 357 
 
 democracy; for he has gathered from his experi- 
 ence of life a deep realization of the moral truth 
 that the highest satisfaction for the individual life 
 can be found only in the voluntary dedication of 
 whatever strength and wisdom he possesses to the 
 deliverance of his fellowman from evil and op- 
 pression. "He who has the chance should work 
 mighty deeds before he die; that is for a mighty 
 man the best memorial." Nothing could be more 
 significant for democracy than this vivid sense of 
 the obligation of leadership, the necessity laid 
 upon the man of superior merit to employ his 
 talent in the cause of human freedom, in the fur- 
 therance of social progress. That is the spirit 
 which dominated Pitt and Franklin, Gladstone 
 and -Lincoln. That is the spirit, too, which has 
 guided English men of science like Francis Bacon 
 and Sir Isaac Newton, Samuel F. B. Morse and 
 Thomas Edison. Such, too, is the spirit which 
 inspired Wycliffe and Milton, Wordsworth, 
 Lowell and Rudyard Kipling. That high concep- 
 tion of the obligation of leadership is the very 
 breath of that which is most distinctively English 
 in literature. 
 
 But along with that conception, English litera- 
 ture has given to the world another vital aspect of 
 the ideal of leadership, without which even the
 
 358 English Leadership 
 
 highest sense of obligation would be rendered In- 
 effectual. That other aspect is the recognition of 
 leadership. Though the feats of Beowulf, in 
 characteristically English fashion, were accom- 
 plished by relying solely upon his own magnificent 
 strength, that strength was in turn made doubly 
 powerful through the loyal support of his devoted 
 followers. If there is among these early English 
 any trait more remarkable than their indomitable 
 individualism it is their matchless loyalty to leader- 
 ship. It is that spirit which prompts the cry of 
 one of Beowulf's men, when they see their chief In 
 mortal peril: "Well do I mind when we drank 
 mead in the hall, how we promised our lord who 
 gave us these rings that we would repay him his 
 war-gifts, If ever the need should arise. Us he 
 picked from the host for this venture, and heart- 
 ened with hope of glory; he gave us these gifts 
 because he thought us good fighters, gallant 
 wearers of helmets; though all the while our lord 
 meant to do this deed alone and unaided, shepherd 
 of his people, who of all men is foremost in glori- 
 ous deeds of daring. Now Is the day come that 
 our chief needs the strength of good spearmen. 
 Up ! let us go to him now, help our hero while 
 the heat sore tries him. As for me I would 
 rather that the ruthless flame should wrap my
 
 English Gift to World Literature 359 
 
 body together with his : 'tis not meet, methinks, 
 for us to bring home our shields before we have 
 felled the foe, saved the life of the lord of the 
 Weder-people." 
 
 This was the spirit that made Beowulf's chief- 
 tainship possible — voluntary submission to ac- 
 knowledged superiority, unflinching loyalty to 
 leadership. What could be more inspiring than 
 that same devotion to a leader which thrills 
 through every strain of the old English war chant, 
 the "Song of the Fight at Maldon"? In that 
 furious battle against Danish invaders, not only 
 does English honor scorn to take vantage ground 
 of the foe, but man after man rushes forward, 
 keeping the sacred pledge of loyalty to avenge the 
 death of his leader, crying that not one inch of 
 English earth must be yielded to the foot of a 
 foreign invader. That was the spirit of English 
 devotion, of English recognition of leadership 
 which at the battle of Hastings, piled high the 
 mound of bodies about the fallen Harold. That 
 is the clarion call that echoes through English 
 verse from the "Fight at Maldon" to "The 
 Charge of the Light Brigade," from old English 
 and Scottish ballads, through Campbell and Scott 
 to Lowell and Kipling. It is this exaltation of the 
 ideal of leadership which in Elizabethan times
 
 360 English Leadership 
 
 finds expression in English historical drama with 
 its apotheosis of patriotism. 
 
 But perhaps its most significant development is 
 seen in the literature of Puritan democracy. Beo- 
 wulf, in the struggle for the liberation of his peo- 
 ple from the dragon of oppression, had given up 
 his life. In a similar struggle a thousand years 
 later, John Milton, devoted champion of Puritan 
 idealism, suffered the lost of his sight. The spirit 
 of "Beowulf" and the "Battle of Maldon," of 
 English balladry and Elizabethan drama, speaks 
 once more in the lines of Milton in reference to 
 his blindness : 
 
 "Yet I argue not 
 Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot 
 Of heart or hope, but still bear up and steer 
 Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask ? 
 The conscience, friend, to have lost them overplied 
 In liberty's defense, my noble task. 
 Of which all Europe rings from side to side." 
 
 In that premature struggle of English democracy 
 against the forces of absolute monarchy and irre- 
 sponsible authority, Milton saw no hope for Eng- 
 land save in the triumph of its stern and unyield- 
 ing leader, Oliver Cromwell. In him Milton 
 recognized
 
 English Gift to World Literature 361 
 
 "Our chief of men, who through a cloud 
 Not of war only, but detractions rude, 
 Guided by faith and matchless fortitude, 
 To peace and truth thy glorious way hast ploughed." 
 
 But Milton saw, too, and none more clearly than 
 he, that much remained 
 
 "To conquer still ; Peace hath her victories 
 No less renowned than War: new foes arise, 
 Threatening to bind our souls with secular chains, 
 Help us to save free conscience from the paw 
 Of hireling wolves, whose Gospel is their maw." 
 
 But the day of a free republicanism was not 
 yet come. With a despair that grew ever deeper 
 and sterner, the blind poet and statesman watched 
 the ideal he had cherished, the cause he had so 
 unflinchingly supported, go down to defeat in the 
 hands of a leader whose narrowing and hardening 
 policy tended farther and farther from the liberal 
 ideal of the earlier Puritanism. In the failure of 
 Puritan democracy, the forces of reaction tri- 
 umphed. Disillusioned and blind, almost solitary 
 in his grim resolution to hold fast the old faith, 
 Milton took refuge in poetry. 
 
 The old Anglo-Saxon consciousness of the sa- 
 cred obligation of leadership had inspired the 
 first great epic in English literature. It is no
 
 362 English Leadership 
 
 mere coincidence but rather the inevitable out- 
 working of the English spirit which made the vio- 
 lation of that sacred obligation the theme of the 
 other great epic which the English spirit has con- 
 tributed to the literature of the world. Great 
 works of art are in one sense created in those 
 upper regions of human thought and feeling which 
 are independent of time and place. But magnifi- 
 cent as "Paradise Lost" unquestionably is as an 
 expression of universal emotions, it is inconceiv- 
 able that it could have been produced at any other 
 period of English history, even at any earlier 
 period of Milton's own life. For into its fabric 
 are wrought not only those tremendous ethical 
 forces which had produced the England of 
 Milton's day, but also all those experiences of 
 Milton's own life which had made possible for 
 him such sublime reaches of thought and emotion. 
 One of the deepest of his convictions was that of 
 the sacred responsibility of leadership. It was 
 against the abuse of ecclesiastical power that 
 Milton had flung out his protest in "Lycidas," — 
 against pretending shepherds 
 
 "that scarce themselves know how to hold 
 A sheep-hook, or have learned aught else the least 
 That to the faithful herdsman's art belongs! . . . 
 The hungry sheep look up and are not fed."
 
 English Gift to World Literature 363 
 
 He had watched the irresponsible exercise of au- 
 thority by Charles I plunging the nation Into Civil 
 War. And he had watched that same nation, — 
 saved as he had thought by Puritan democracy, — 
 subjected again to servile dependence upon the 
 win of a dissolute sovereign, — a nation betrayed, 
 as Milton despairingly realized, by the tragic mis- 
 direction of energy, the fatal misconception of 
 power on the part of those very same Puritan 
 leaders in whom Milton had anchored his hopes 
 for the nation. Small wonder, then, that these 
 experiences should color all his later worlc, that 
 all through "Paradise Lost," "Paradise Re- 
 gained," and "Samson Agonistes" should run an 
 uncompromising rebuke of the misuse of power 
 and a stern condemnation of all human weakness. 
 
 ". . . If weakness may excuse, 
 What murderer, what traitor, parricide, 
 Incestuous, sacrilegious, but may plead it? 
 All wickedness is weakness; that plea, therefore, 
 With God or man will gain thee no remission." 
 
 In "Paradise Lost" It was not so much the 
 story 
 
 "Of Man's first disobedience and the fruit 
 Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste 
 Brought death into the world, and all our woe," —
 
 364 English Leadership 
 
 nor was It so much the desire to "justify the ways 
 of God to men," that inspired Milton to such in- 
 comparable majesty of verse; his real purpose was 
 rather to set forth, In all its unspeakable baseness 
 and in all Its tragic consequence, Satan the Arch 
 Fiend's abuse of that most sacred of trusts, the 
 capacity for leadership. 
 
 "He it was, whose guile, 
 Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived 
 The mother of mankind ; what time his pride 
 Had cast him out from heaven, with all his host 
 Of rebel angels ; by whose aid, aspiring 
 To set himself in glory above his peers, 
 He trusted to have equaled the Most High, 
 If he opposed ; and, with ambitious aim 
 Against the throne and monarchy of God, 
 Raised impious war in heaven, and battle proud. 
 With vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power 
 Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky. 
 With hideous ruin and combustion, down 
 To bottomless perdition ; there to dwell 
 In adamantine chains and penal fire, 
 Who durst defy the Omnipotent to arms." 
 
 But Satan was too determined a foe to be thus 
 easily disposed of. Rising from the fiery lake, he 
 gathered his followers together for counsel.
 
 English Gift to World Literature 365 
 
 "After short silence then, 
 And summons read, the great consult began. 
 High on a throne of royal state, which far 
 Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind, . . . 
 Satan exalted sat, by merit raised 
 To that bad eminence." 
 
 After discussing various plans for revenging 
 themselves against the Almighty, they at last de- 
 cide to frustrate the whole plan of creation by 
 causing the fall of Adam and Eve. But each of 
 his followers fears to undertake so hazardous a 
 task and Satan decides himself to carry out the 
 project. 
 
 "But I should ill become this throne, O peers, 
 
 And this imperial sovereignty, adorned 
 
 With splendor armed with power, if aught proposed 
 
 And judged of public moment, in the shape 
 
 Of difficulty or danger, could deter 
 
 Me from attempting. Wherefore do I assume 
 
 These royalties, and not refuse to reign, 
 
 Refusing to accept as great a share 
 
 Of hazard as of honor, due alike 
 
 To him who reigns, and so much to him due 
 
 Of hazard more, as he above the rest 
 
 High honored sits?" 
 
 His followers humbly accept his proffered service;
 
 366 English Leadership 
 
 "toward him they bow 
 With awful reverence prone ; and as a God 
 Extol him equal to the Highest in heaven, 
 Nor failed the}' to express how much they praised 
 That for the general safety he despised 
 His own ; for neither do the spirits damned 
 Lose all their virtue." 
 
 The remainder of the poem describes the forging, 
 link by link, of the chain of tragic consequence 
 that ultimately bound Satan and his host and all 
 mankind in slavery to sin. 
 
 Whatever may be our point of view with regard 
 to Milton's theology, Satan stands before us here, 
 as heroic in proportion as Beowulf; but it is borne 
 in upon us that while the one did all in his power 
 to debase mankind, the other gave of his strength 
 toward its upbuilding and ennoblement. At times 
 Milton seems to be overpowered by his own crea- 
 tion. Here and there we catch glimpses of Satan 
 almost, as it were, the personification of that spirit 
 of republicanism which had for so long been 
 Milton's ideal. But the more attractive the at- 
 tributes that Satan displays, the more tragic the 
 figure becomes. The Arch-Fiend has all the great 
 qualities of leadership, except that one most es- 
 sential of all, the high ethical purpose that keeps 
 man true to. the, Eternal Verities. It was Satan's
 
 English Gift to World Literature 367 
 
 rebellion against universal law, his setting up of 
 his own will, his own aims, in opposition to those 
 of the whole moral order, which plunged not only 
 himself but all of his followers with him "down 
 to bottomless perdition." "Paradise Lost" is 
 the tragedy of power misdirected, of leadership 
 misconceived. English literature has given to the 
 world many such tragic figures, but none so colos- 
 sal as this of Satan, "the arch-enemy of all man- 
 kind." 
 
 Both Beowulf and Satan, however, were of 
 stature too heroic to be humanly possible. They 
 typify perfectly the English conception of leader- 
 ship, one in its positive, the other in its negative 
 aspect, but on an enormously exaggerated scale. 
 For a more truly human ideal of the English hero, 
 we must pass over the hundred years that inter- 
 vened between the Restoration and the dawn of 
 the Age of Revolutions. The eighteenth century 
 was a period of cynicism and artificiality, of 
 "freezing reason" and "common sense," a period 
 when the English spirit was cramped into foreign 
 molds and forced to find expression under nar- 
 rowly aristocratic and classical disguises. But 
 that spirit was too strongly ethical and emotional 
 to remain long buried under the ashes of a burnt- 
 out formalism. The democratic ideal was too
 
 368 English Leadership 
 
 vitally Inherent in the English mind to be alto- 
 gether quenched. To stir the smoldering embers 
 into flame, however, England needed some new 
 and poignant national experience, some new na- 
 tional crisis to fire once more into fresh and vigor- 
 ous expression the old Anglo-Saxon ideals of 
 leadership. That crisis came when the American 
 Revolution broke out across the seas, when 
 Napoleonism loomed across the Channel, threat- 
 ening the very life of the English nation. Only 
 then were England's dormant energies roused to 
 protect the empire she had founded; only then did 
 her patriotism rise to save the civilization she had 
 bullded; only then did she call forth a Burke, a 
 Nelson and a Wellington to battle once more, like 
 Beowulf of old, In the cause of human freedom 
 But how different the spirit now, and yet how 
 like. In "Beowulf" the conflict had been one of 
 sheer physical strength, and the loyalty he inspired 
 had been personal devotion to a chosen personal 
 leader. In Milton's poem, the struggle was a 
 moral one, based largely on religious principles, 
 while the recognition that Satan won was merely 
 the awed worship felt for a leader of manifestly 
 superior qualities. But In the days of Burke, of 
 Nelson and of Wellington, the English conception 
 of leadership was lifted to a higher plane. The
 
 English Gift to World Literature 369 
 
 issue now was not merely that of Burke against 
 George III, or of Nelson against Napoleon, but of 
 the English spirit of free government against the 
 tyranny that would overthrow it. Every Ameri- 
 can minute-man fought not for Washington, but 
 with him. Every English sailor on board the 
 "Victory" fought, not for Nelson but with Nelson, 
 for England and all that England stood for. The 
 ideal of leadership, with its obligations on the one 
 side and its recognition on the other, had become 
 a bond of mutual cooperation toward a common 
 end. To this voluntary recognition of an innately 
 superior leader had been added another element 
 in the modern spirit of democracy, — that of a 
 mutual cooperation on the part of the whole com- 
 munity toward a common social welfare, in other 
 words a new sense of social equality. This new 
 conception once attained, the foundations of a 
 truly democratic government at last were laid. 
 
 This new experience in the history of the Eng- 
 lish-speaking peoples, this new ideal of leadership, 
 found expression in their literature in the two 
 characteristically differing reactions it produced, 
 on the one hand the individually conservative, on 
 the other the socially democratic. In Words- 
 worth, the spiritual conception of the dedication 
 of the Individual life to a great ideal finds ex-
 
 370 English Leadership 
 
 pression In his "Character of the Happy War- 
 
 rior" 
 
 "Who doomed to go in company with Pain, 
 
 And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train! 
 
 Turns his necessity to glorious gain ; 
 
 In face of those doth exercise a power 
 
 Which is our human nature's highest dower; 
 
 Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves, 
 
 Of their bad influence, and their good receives ; 
 
 . . 'Tis he whose law is reason ; . . . 
 Who, if he rise to station of command. 
 Rises by open means ; . . . 
 Who comprehends his trust, and to the same 
 Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim ; . . . 
 Whose powers shed round him in the common strife, 
 Or mild concerns of ordinary life, 
 A constant influence, a peculiar grace; 
 But who, if he be called upon to face 
 Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined 
 Great issues, good or bad for human kind, . . . 
 Through the heat of conflict keeps the law 
 In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw; . . . 
 Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth 
 For ever, and to noble deeds give birth, 
 Or he must fall to sleep without his fame, 
 And leave a dead unprofitable name. 
 Finds comfort in himself and in his cause." 
 
 Tn this portrait of the Ideal leader, we see the 
 features of all that line of noble Anglo-Saxon an-
 
 English Gift to World Literature 371 
 
 cestors, who yielded up their lives in answer to 
 the call of Duty, "stern Daughter of the Voice 
 of God." But this is the ideal of the Words- 
 worth of later years, the "lost leader" who de- 
 serted the ranks of the fiery revolutionists, 
 Shelley, Keats and Byron, to view the human 
 struggle from apart, to take refuge in that tradi- 
 tional English conservatism which saw in Duty as 
 dictated by Reason the power that "calm'st the 
 weary strife of frail humanity." Steadfast in the 
 assurance of the eternal rightness of this inner 
 voice, Wordsworth would have his ideal hero 
 draw his last breath "in confidence of Heaven's 
 applause." Whether he was accepted of men or 
 not, was of no essential consequence. 
 
 Carlyle's "Heroes and Hero Worship" carries 
 this idea to its culmination in the very apotheosis 
 of solitary individualism. In his opinion, it is 
 solely the consecrated work of heroes "sent by 
 God," which makes a nation's history. The few, 
 the best and strongest, should command; to these 
 the many, ignorant and weak, must yield obedi- 
 ence, forced if necessary. "Liberty? The true 
 liberty of a man," Carlyle says, "consists in his 
 finding out, or being forced to find out, the right 
 path, and to walk thereon. Whatsoever forwards 
 him in that, let it come to him even in the shape of
 
 372 English Leadership 
 
 blows and spurnings, is liberty." "Democracy, 
 the chase of Liberty in that direction shall go its 
 full course. The Toiling Millions of Mankind, 
 in most vital need and passionate instinctive de- 
 sire of Guidance, shall cast away False-Guidance; 
 and hope, for an hour, that No-Guidance will 
 suffice them. But oppression by your Mock- 
 Superiors well shaken off, the grand problem yet 
 remains to solve: That of finding government by 
 your Real-Superiors !" "Democracy, which means 
 despair of finding any Heroes to govern you, and 
 contented putting-up with the want of them, — 
 he who discovers no God whatever, how shall 
 he discover Heroes, the visible Temples of 
 God?" 
 
 How strange such doctrine sounds to modern 
 ears! Can it be in any sense a voicing of the 
 English spirit? In its sublime protest against a 
 growing materialism and in its clarion call to high 
 spiritual endeavor on the part of the wise, the 
 strong and the fit to bear the burdens of the weak, 
 yes. In its setting up of an aristocracy of indi- 
 vidual worth, yes. In its emphasis upon the su- 
 preme importance of ethical principles in the shap- 
 ing of human conduct, he is even more distinctly 
 English. In his stern unbending Puritanism, he 
 is nothing less than a direct lineal descendant of
 
 English Gift to World Literature 373 
 
 the Oliver Cromwell whose biography he so sym- 
 pathetically set forth. But in his blind worship 
 of the hero, Carlyle is anything but English. The 
 Englishman doesn't worship his heroes. He will- 
 ingly entrusts them with authority and then sternly 
 holds them to account, — the English hero is not 
 above the law. He must be, too, a hero per se, 
 neither by divine right nor by heredity, nor yet by 
 his ability to lead — Satan could lead. In English 
 eyes the hero is a hero only by his own innate 
 ability to prove himself a benefactor to the race. 
 Carlyle's hero is a "divine right" being, whose 
 strength to achieve is his own justification for be- 
 ing. That conception fastened itself upon Carlyle 
 in consequence of his over-fond devotion to Ger- 
 man philosophy. Such a conception of a hero 
 above the law leads inevitably to that paternalism, 
 that autocracy which to-day is wasting the land 
 of its birth. The English hero is not a Bismarck 
 but a Gladstone, not a Kaiser but a Lincoln. Car- 
 lyle, with his hero worship gone mad, stands in 
 solitary negation of that vital principle of de- 
 mocracy that is so essentially English, so pre- 
 eminently American, that intense democratic ideal- 
 ism that glows through Emerson's "Representa- 
 tive Men." To English-speaking peoples, heroes 
 are not beings to be worshiped, but, as Emerson
 
 374 English Leadership 
 
 so aptly quotes from Sterling, 
 
 "Our nobler brothers, though one in blood." 
 
 This is the very quintessence of the English ideal 
 of leadership, — a universal brotherhood of men 
 in which the wiser, the more experienced lends a 
 hand to cheer and guide his fellows along the path 
 where each and all, together, must 
 
 "Strive upward, working out the beast." 
 
 It is this, the democratic, ideal of leadership 
 which is revealed in Emerson and in Tom Paine, 
 in Whittier and in Curtis, in Walt Whitman's 
 "Pioneers," and, most emphatically of all, in 
 Lowell's portrait of Lincoln : 
 
 "Nature, they say, doth dote, 
 And cannot make a man 
 Save on some worn-out plan, 
 Repeating us by rote: 
 
 For him her Old World moulds aside she threw, 
 And choosing sweet clay from the breast 
 
 Of the unexhausted West, 
 With stuff untainted shaped a hero new, 
 Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true. 
 
 How beautiful to see 
 Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed, 
 Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead ; 
 One whose meek flock the people joyed to be, 
 
 Not lured by any cheat of birth, 
 
 But by his clear-grained human worth,
 
 English Gift to World Literature 375 
 
 And brave old wisdom of sincerity! 
 
 They knew that outward grace is dust; 
 
 They could not choose but trust 
 In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill, 
 
 And supple-tempered will 
 That bent like perfect steel to spring again and 
 
 thrust. 
 
 * ■ • • • • • «• 
 
 Great captains, with their guns and drums, 
 Disturb our judgment for the hour. 
 But at last silence comes; 
 These all are gone and standing like a tower, 
 Our children shall behold his fame, 
 The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man. 
 Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame. 
 New birth of our new soil, the first American." 
 
 It is this Anglo-American democratic ideal 
 which has sounded the note of social progress 
 through all our modern literature during the last 
 one hundred years. But that high-souled concep- 
 tion would never have been possible had it not 
 been for the firm establishment, by the beginning 
 of the nineteenth century, of that other great ele- 
 ment which the English spirit has contributed to 
 our modern democracy. That element is the idea 
 of social equality. It was, Indeed, a plant of slow 
 growth, but a very sturdy one, withal. 
 
 In primitive Anglo-Saxon days, there had been
 
 376 English Leadership 
 
 but little social inequality. There was a rude 
 nobility, but one based for the most part upon the 
 idea of individual worth, a genuine aristocracy, 
 the rule of the best and most worthy. Such is the 
 social world portrayed in "Beowulf." These 
 early English had their ceremony of royalty, 
 "their dignities an' a' that," but there is nowhere 
 any hint of social condescension, nowhere any sug- 
 gestion of hard and fixed class distinctions. The 
 old Anglo-Saxon society was a free field for the 
 demonstration of individual worth. 
 
 With the coming of the Normans, however, all 
 was changed. Upon the ground work of early 
 English institutions a new regime was built. A 
 new nobility was created, based upon distinction 
 of birth. The Anglo-Saxon thegn was made 
 vassal to a Norman overlord; the English free- 
 man became a serf. Class distinction between 
 Lords and Commons never grew hard and fast as 
 on the Continent, but this did not apply to the 
 lowest class, the great substratum of toilers upon 
 whom rested the burden of production. For 
 these the Magna Carta made no provision; for 
 these there was no redress of grievance through 
 representation in parliament. For more than 
 three centuries they labored on, — patient, mute, 
 but not unfeeling, accepting the appointed order
 
 English Gift to World Literature 377 
 
 as fixed and Inevitable. Then In the fourteenth 
 century came the wars with France and the result- 
 ing Black Death. Half the population died of 
 the plague, fields were left untilled, crops ungar- 
 nered and granaries empty. Many that had es- 
 caped the pestilence died of famine. The cry of 
 the poor went up In vain over the land. But at 
 last their sufferings found effective utterance In 
 the words of John Ball, the "mad priest of Kent." 
 It was in his preaching that English men first 
 listened to a declaration of social equality and 
 the natural rights of man. "Things will never 
 be well in England," the historian Green repre- 
 sents him as saying, "so long as goods be not in 
 common, and so long as there be villeins and gen- 
 tlemen. By what right are they whom we call 
 lords greater folk than we? On what grounds 
 have they deserved It? Why do they hold us In 
 serfage? If we all came of the same father and 
 mother, of Adam and Eve, how can they say or 
 prove that they are better than we. If It be not 
 that they make us gain for them by our toil what 
 they spend in their pride? They are clothed In 
 velvet and warm In their furs and their ermines, 
 while we are covered with rags. They have wine 
 and spices and fair bread; and we oat-cake and 
 straw, and water to drink. They have leisure and
 
 378 English Leadership 
 
 fine houses; we have pain and labor, the rain and 
 the wind in the fields. And yet it is of us and of 
 our toil that these men hold their states." Ball's 
 leveling doctrine epitomized in the popular 
 rhyme, 
 
 "When Adam delved and Eve span, 
 Who was then the gentleman ?" 
 
 became the watchword of that great mass of rest- 
 less, starving toilers in whose behalf Wycliffe 
 labored with such devotion. 
 
 In literature their grievances found expression 
 through a poem of William Langland's, the 
 "Complaint of Piers the Ploughman," which 
 reveals to us with terrible fidelity the life 
 of that great substratum, — its misery, its moral 
 and religious questioning, its social revolt against 
 the selfishness and corruption of the rich with 
 which it contrasts so strongly. Nothing could be 
 greater than the gulf between this world of the 
 struggling masses and that other world of wealth 
 and beauty, ease and luxury which we see reflected 
 in the work of Chaucer. Langland's world is 
 the world of toil and hunger, of narrowness, 
 misery and dull monotony, whose grim earnestness 
 is made only the more intense by the coarse
 
 English Gift to World Literature 379 
 
 laughter and rude revelry of the unlettered peas- 
 ant. 
 
 "I was very forwandered," says the poet, 
 "and went me to rest under a broad bank by a 
 burn side, and as I lay and leaned and looked in 
 the water I slumbered in a sleeping, it sweyved 
 (sounded) so merry." Sleeping thus, the poet 
 sees in a dream the world of his every-day life 
 going on pilgrimage, not to Canterbury but to 
 Truth. In the crowd are traders and chafferers, 
 hermits and beggars, minstrels and jinglers, 
 ploughmen, weavers and laborers, lawyers who 
 plead only for large sums of gold, bishops given 
 to overmuch haunting of courts, pardoners from 
 Rome driving good bargains with conscience-smit- 
 ten peasants and "parting the silver" with the vil- 
 lage priest. As a guide on their pilgrimage in 
 search of Truth, they desire neither clerk nor 
 priest, but Piers the Ploughman whom they find at 
 -work in his field. He bids them to wait till he's 
 finished his half-acre. Piers' philosophy is of the 
 simplest and most practical sort. He bids the 
 knight to cease cheating the poor man: "Though 
 lie be thine underling here, well mayhap in heaven 
 that he be worthier set and with more bliss than 
 thou." Two doctrines he preaches with homeliest 
 ■wisdom, — the gospel of quality and the gospel of
 
 380 English Leadership 
 
 labor. Piers' chief aim in life is to work; his 
 chief duty, he believes, is to make the rest of the 
 world work with him. Hunger, he says, is God's 
 whip in driving the idler to toil. On the eve of 
 the struggle between capital and labor, Langland 
 thus strives to be fair to both; but pervading the 
 whole poem is a sense of pathos, loneliness and, 
 terrible despair, for it is only in a dream that 
 the world will repent at the preaching of Reason. 
 The poem closes with the prophecy of a religious 
 revolution, when man's inherent right to think and 
 judge for himself would be established. Thus 
 two centuries before the Reformation there was 
 foreshadowed, in the "Vision of Piers Plough- 
 man," that spirit of free inquiry, that right of "the 
 masses" to decide for themselves, which was later 
 to result not only in a religious reformation, but 
 far more significantly in a great social revolution 
 in which all artificial distinctions of rank and class 
 would be gradually swept away and the principle 
 of social equality be established on a firm and 
 enduring basis. But that time was yet five cen- 
 turies and more away. In the meantime the cry 
 of the people was heard in their literature, voiced 
 sometimes by plowman or tinker, sometimes by 
 priest or noble, but more often by members of the 
 great middle class, a noble band of poets, drama-
 
 English Gift to World Literature 381 
 
 tists and novelists, essayists and orators, self- 
 consecrated champions of the down-trodden and 
 the oppressed, the "nobler brothers" of the poor, 
 who reach out the helping hand of understanding 
 sympathy to cheer and guide their lowlier fellows 
 on to ultimate attainment of their own long- 
 fought-for freedom. That element in English 
 literature, as contrasted with the courtly verse and 
 prose of the Renaissance and of the classical age, 
 that element which voiced the thoughts and feel- 
 ings of the lower classes, the humanitarian ele- 
 ment, is a distinctly English contribution to world 
 literature. 
 
 Of the presence in the ranks of the people them- 
 selves of the power to achieve that freedom, there 
 can be no doubt. All through the pages of litera- 
 ture are pictured in ever-increasing numbers scenes 
 which portray the spirit of the masses, — their 
 native roughness and energy, their traditional 
 Anglo-Saxon courage, assertiveness and dignity, 
 their unfailing Celtic optimism, resourcefulness 
 and versatility, their characteristically English 
 delight in fair play which scorned all treachery, 
 cowardice and baseness. The combination of all 
 these qualities gave them that essential sanity of 
 outlook which expressed itself on the one hand in 
 a quick response to sincere and intelligent leader-
 
 382 English Leadership 
 
 ship, on the other to a prompt repudiation of all 
 artificial restraints, conventions and distinctions. 
 They felt, too, a profound reverence for law, — 
 not the man-made laws of the statute books, but 
 those fundamental principles of moral law and 
 order which had been wrought out through cen- 
 turies of human experience In living. 
 
 These traits that make for democracy are re- 
 flected nowhere more vividly and forcefully than 
 in the ballads of Robin Hood, that popular hero 
 of the Middle Ages, beloved from end to end of 
 Merrle England. Bold and dauntless yeoman, he 
 embodies the spirit of the free out-of-doors in all 
 its vivid objectiveness, its fresh adventure and 
 constant activity. If we would seek his counter- 
 part in modern life, we should find it, more than 
 anywhere else, in the fast vanishing cowboy life 
 of the American West. 
 
 "I'm a rowdy cowboy just ofF the stormy plains, 
 
 My trade is girting saddles and pulling bridle reins, 
 
 Oh, I can tip the lasso, it is with graceful ease; 
 
 I rope a streak of lightning, and ride it where I please." 
 
 But Robin as a mediaeval hero was more signifi- 
 cant than the cowboy of to-day; for he was, as 
 Professor Lawrence says, the very "incarnation of 
 democratic revolt; born not of human parents, but
 
 English Gift to World Literature 383 
 
 of the imagination of the English peasantry; a 
 bold outlaw, created to typify resistance to abuses 
 of the law, he typifies above all else the protest 
 of the English people against social injustice." 
 The popular songs and ballads that have gathered 
 about his name are many and varied; but the cen- 
 tral theme of them all is that of Robin as a 
 champion of the rights of the common people 
 against the oppression of nobles and clergy. Per- 
 haps the most typical ballad is the "Gest," which 
 opens with a description of Robin, clad in Lincoln 
 green with his trusty bow at his side, telling his 
 men that he cannot feel any appetite for dinner 
 till he has brought in some wealthy evil-doer to 
 share the meal and pay right roundly for it after- 
 wards. But Robin is no ordinary outlaw — he 
 has his code which he is careful to impress upon 
 his doughty follower, Little John. 
 
 "Maistar," than sayde Lytil Johnn, 
 "And we our horde shal sprede, 
 
 Tel us wheder that we shal go, 
 And what life that we shal lede." 
 
 "Thereof no force," than sayde Robyn; 
 
 "We shall do well inowe ; 
 But loke ye do no husbonde harme, 
 
 That tilleth with his ploughe.
 
 384 English Leadership 
 
 "No more ye shall no gode yeman 
 That walketh by grene-wode shawe; 
 
 Ne no knyght ne no squyer 
 That wol be a gode felawe. 
 
 "These bisshopes and these arche-bisshopes, 
 
 Ye shall them bete and bynde ; 
 The hye sherif of Notyingham, 
 
 Hym holde ye in your mynde." 
 
 "This worde shal be holde," sayde Lytell Johnn, 
 
 "And this lesson we shall lere; 
 It is fer dayes ; God send us a gest, 
 
 That we were at oure dynere!" 
 
 Soon a knight comes riding by; after treating him 
 to a hearty meal, they find that he has but ten 
 shillings in his purse. He tells them that his 
 estate is mortgaged to a wealthy abbot, who 
 threatens to take it from him, Robin lends him 
 money to pay his debts, and goes out to make good 
 his own loss by robbing the abbot's treasurer of 
 the required amount; when the knight finally re- 
 turns to repay the borrowed money, Robin not 
 only refuses to accept it, but gives the knight 
 enough to start life over again. When the knight 
 attempts to express his gratitude Robin assures 
 him there is no need, — he has already been paid, 
 as is fit, from the abbot's treasury. 
 
 Such, then, was the English popular hero, Robin
 
 English Gift to World Literature 385 
 
 Hood, champion of the needy and the oppressed, 
 enemy of the rich and unprincipled, dispenser of 
 justice among the people in a day when courts 
 were the tools of personal power rather than the 
 instruments of an impartial justice. A people 
 whose Imagination could produce a hero so bluff 
 and wholesome, so fair in fight, so generous of 
 heart, could well be trusted to attain its rightful 
 place in the social order; and having achieved that 
 aim. It could be trusted, also, to embody its ideal 
 in a democracy whose fundamental principles 
 would be safe and sane leadership, true social 
 equality and generous humanitarianism. It was 
 the people visloned forth in "Piers Ploughman" 
 and In the Robin Hood ballads, people with a 
 strongly ethical bent and with a hearty appreciation 
 of a good story truthfully told, who laid the foun- 
 dation for the development of the English drama; 
 It was these people who made up the larger part of 
 Shakespeare's audience, these people for whom 
 he wrote, these people from whom he drew such 
 unforgettable figures as Falstaff. It was the ex- 
 periences of a virtuous serving maid from the 
 lowly walks of life, which form the plot of that 
 earliest of English novels, Richardson's "Pamela." 
 It was the homely life of a village parson with 
 all his guilelessness, his charity and unworld-
 
 386 English Leadership 
 
 liness "more skilled to raise the wretched than to 
 rise," which appeals to us still in "The Vicar of 
 Wakefield." It is that same village life with all 
 its host of characters from the common walks of 
 life, its Silas Marner and its Tess of the d'Urber- 
 villes, its chastened Hester of the Scarlet Letter 
 no less than its irrepressible Tom Sawyer and 
 Huckleberry Finn; it is that same village life de- 
 scribed by Goldsmith which forms the setting of 
 so much of English poetry and fiction: 
 
 "Sweet Auburn ! loveliest village of the plain ; 
 Where health and plenty cheered the laboring swain, 
 Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid, 
 And parting summer's lingering blooms delayed: 
 Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease. 
 Seats of my youth, when every sport could please, 
 How often have I lingered o'er thy green, 
 Where humble happiness endeared each scene!" 
 
 It was these same people of the great lower classes 
 whose cause at the close of the eighteenth century 
 was pleaded by Gray and Burns, as well as by 
 Goldsmith: 
 
 "And thou, sweet Poetry, loveliest maid, . . . 
 Still let thy voice, prevailing over time, . . . 
 Aid slighted truth with thy persuasive strain; 
 Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain ;
 
 English Gift to World Literature 387 
 
 Teach him that states of native strength possest, 
 Though very poor, may still be very blest; 
 That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay, 
 As ocean sweeps the labored mole away ; 
 While self-dependent power can time defy, 
 As rocks resist the billows and the sky," 
 
 It was these people of the village and the country- 
 side whose interests were so vitally at stake in 
 the great Industrial Revolution which so trans- 
 formed the whole face of English life in the clos- 
 ing years of the eighteenth century. It was these 
 people whose insistent demands accomplished the 
 establishment of social equality, and the conse- 
 quent up-building of the greatest democracy which 
 the world has yet seen, a democracy based upon a 
 combination, for the first time in history, of those 
 two vital elements, leadership and social equality, 
 both of which had been wrought out of English 
 experience through centuries of struggle. 
 
 The spirit of this new democracy found expres- 
 sion in literature in the spread of the Romantic 
 movement, the "Renaissance of Wonder." "If 
 I were to make one characteristic of this move- 
 ment the essential or most prominent one," Curtis 
 Hidden Page has said, "I should choose an aspect 
 which I think has not even been mentioned before, 
 namely, that it is the beginning of democracy in
 
 388 English Leadership 
 
 literature, of the expression in literature of the 
 life of every man and of all the people; that it 
 at last transformed the Aristocracy of Letters, 
 which had been made even more aristocratic than 
 ever by the Renaissance and by the Classical Rule, 
 into a true Republic of Letters; and prepared the 
 way for the democratic, the ail-inclusively realistic, 
 and even the social, literature of the future." 
 Gradually that popular revolt "against rational- 
 ism, convention, artifice, dullness, narrowness, 
 formality, and rules of all kinds" had become 
 "revolution, emancipation, and the complete crea- 
 tion of a new society. Freedom is its war-cry, 
 individual feeling its basis of citizenship in the 
 new Republic of Letters. The liberty of the indi- 
 vidual, and the right to expression in Literature 
 of each individual's inmost and most peculiar 
 feelings, whether typical or not, whether rational 
 or not, whether social or anti-social, — in short, the 
 rights of the individual ego to complete indepen- 
 dence and self-expression, — that is what the 
 Romantic movement first of all stands for." 
 
 The literature of the "classes" in England had 
 all too often been molded and almost disguised by 
 foreign moods and forms; but the spirit of the 
 people themselves, the truly English spirit, with its 
 love of freedom and its reverence for law, its
 
 English Gift to World Literature 389 
 
 insistence upon social equality and its willing sub- 
 mission to worthy leadership, was making itself 
 heard down through the centuries; it was that 
 spirit which, in the last hundred years, has come 
 into its own. That intense English individualism, 
 almost anti-social, led Shellev and Keats and 
 Byron to fling to the world their magnificent chal- 
 lenge, — ^the right to think and act as their inmost 
 highest impulse prompted. But that same Eng- 
 lish love of social justice which had forced a world 
 to recognize the rights of the individual was the 
 power that sooner or later was bound to force 
 the individual to recogn'ze the rights of the world, 
 the rights of humanity. And so the Romantic 
 movement found its corrective in the Realism 
 which dominates our modern novel and our social 
 drama. English individualism, given social op- 
 portunity, is the trait which prompts to conse- 
 crated leadership. Love of justice, reverence for 
 law, this is the trait which inevitably finds expres- 
 sion in social equality. These two ideals, leader- 
 ship and social equality, have been wrought out 
 for us to-day through centuries of English experi- 
 ence. Those strains are heard again and again, 
 throbbing through all that is truly English in 
 literature. Harmonized by English genius, we
 
 390 English Leadership 
 
 hear them to-day blended into that great anthem 
 whose theme Is the spirit of democracy. 
 
 What end may that spirit of democracy serve? 
 The world has already, we hope, been made safe 
 for democracy; it remains now to make democracy 
 safe for the world. It was the English-speaking 
 peoples who gave to a world oppressed that 
 ideal of individual freedom under social law 
 which we call democracy. It is that ideal for the 
 preservation of which they have mutually pledged 
 in enduring brotherhood their lives, their fortunes 
 and their sacred honor. If that ideal is to be 
 preserved, it must be on the basis of those two 
 great elements which English experience has 
 wrought out through the centuries. On the one 
 hand there must be a broad social equality which 
 levels all those artificial restraints and distinctions 
 which classes have erected in the past; all men 
 must be equal before the law; there must be equal- 
 ity of opportunity for all; each man must have his 
 fair chance to make the most of whatever ability 
 he has; humanity has need of it every whit. If 
 we would make democracy safe for the world, we 
 must see to it that "government of the people, by 
 the people, for the people shall not perish from 
 the earth." But on the other hand, if there is to 
 be any progress at all, the good must always give
 
 English Gift to World Literature 391 
 
 way to the best; humanity must be ready, in truly 
 English spirit, to submit itself willingly, loyally, 
 to the leadership of its best. The great hope for 
 democracy is that it is founded on that biologic 
 law that leadership is instinctively recognized. 
 If we would, then, attain the heights of a new 
 world freedom, we must not disregard the helping 
 hand of "our nobler brothers, one in blood," with 
 whom we are struggling upward along that steep 
 and rock-strewn path of a conscious social prog- 
 ress, the story of which 
 
 "Continues yet the old, old legend of our race, 
 The loftiest of life upheld by death." 
 
 If we would make our democracy safe for the 
 world, we must heed the warning of that most 
 earnest of earnest Englishmen, Rudyard Kipling: 
 
 "Keep ye the Law — be swift in all obedience. 
 Clear the land of evil, drive the road and bridge the ford. 
 Make ye sure to each his own 
 That he reap what he hath sown ; 
 
 By the peace among Our peoples let men know we 
 serve the Lord." 
 
 And if we would keep our course true to the star 
 of the new democracy, we must not forget that 
 we sail for the port of Universal Social Welfare,
 
 392 English Leadership 
 
 bearing with us, as Walt Whitman, that venerable 
 prophet of the New Democracy, reminds us, the 
 precious freight of all the past experience of the 
 race : 
 
 "Sail, sail thy best, ship of Democracy; 
 
 Of value is thy freight; 'tis not the Present only, 
 
 The Past is also stored in thee. 
 
 Thou holdest not the venture of thyself alone, not of the 
 
 Western continent alone; 
 Earth's resume entire floats on thy keel, O ship, is steadied 
 
 by thy spars. 
 With thee Time voyages in trust, the antecedent nations 
 
 sink or swim with thee; 
 With all their ancient struggles, martyrs, heroes, epics, 
 
 wars, thou bear'st the other continents ; 
 Theirs, theirs, as much as thine, the destination-port 
 
 triumphant. 
 Steer then with good strong hand and wary eye, O 
 
 helmsman, thou earnest great companions; 
 Venerable priestly Asia sails this day with thee, 
 And royal feudal Europe sails with thee."
 
 INDEX 
 
 Adams, John Couch, 2+8, 317 
 "Advancement of Learning," 
 
 238, 251, 275 
 Africa, 20, 22, 126, 146, 152, 
 
 155. 156, 161 
 Agriculture, 171, 172, 192, 295- 
 
 298 
 Alamanni, 36, 42 
 Alchemy, 226, 230, 231, 267 
 Alfred, 52 
 
 America, North, 115, 125, 133 
 American Revolution, 20, 21, 
 
 150, 301, 368 
 Anatomy, 251 
 Ancients, Science among, 225, 
 
 226, 227, 228, 231, 238 
 Angles, see Anglo-Saxons 
 "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," 43 
 Anglo-Saxon Fellowship, 347, 
 
 348 
 Anglo-Saxons, 3, 28, 36, 37, 
 42, 43. 49-52, 65, 74, 134, 
 172, 173, 181, 351-359, 361, 
 
 375. 376 
 
 Anne, Queen of England, 107, 
 108, 112, 279 
 
 Arabic Culture, 223, 226, 232 
 
 Aragon, 72, 79 
 
 Area, Influence of, 185, 187 
 
 Aristocracy, 39, 40, 41, 50, 63, 
 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 74, 78, 79, 
 81, 93. 95. 98. 106, 117, 119, 
 
 376, 388 
 
 Aristotle, 232, 233, 234, 238, 
 
 255, 268 
 Army, 102 
 Astronomy, 230, 250, 252-263, 
 
 267, 275 
 
 Astrology, 226, 228, 229, 230, 
 
 231 
 Austerlitz, 29 
 Australia, 20, 22, 23, 148 
 Austria-Hungary, 138 
 
 Bacon, Francis, 223, 224, 235, 
 237. 238-245, 247, 248, 249, 
 250, 251, 253, 266, 293, 297, 
 
 342, 357 
 Bacon, Roger, 223, 225, 233, 
 
 234. 235, 238, 249, 342 
 Ball, John, 84, 86, 377, 378 
 Balladry, Popular, 382-385 
 Barbon, Nicholas, 295-296, 297, 
 
 298 
 Barons, see Aristocracy 
 Bentham, Jeremy, 305-309 
 "Beowulf," 351-356, 366, 367, 
 
 368 
 Berkeley, George, 273 
 Bill of Rights, 7, 9, II, 102, 
 
 137, 268 
 Birmingham, 118 
 Black Death, 84, 377 
 Blood, Circulation of, 242, 251, 
 
 317 
 Boer War, 156 
 Botany, 267, 323 
 Boyle, Robert, 245, 251, 267 
 Brotherhood, Universal, 335, 
 
 338-339, 389-392 
 
 British Empire, 18, 21-26, 29, 
 31, 38, 140, 145-158, 160-162, 
 195-215 
 
 British Isles, Effects of loca- 
 tion upon, 188-190 
 
 393
 
 394 
 
 index 
 
 British Isles, Geography of, 
 
 165-195 
 British Isles, Unification of, 
 
 204-205 
 Brittany, 46 
 
 Burke, Edmund, 21, 368, 369 
 Byron, Lord, 371, 389 
 
 Cabinet Government, see Min- 
 isterial system 
 
 Canada, 20, 21, 22, 24, 131 
 
 Capetians, 55 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas, 371-373 
 
 Carolingians, 56 
 
 Cartesian theory, 258-260, 264 
 
 Cavaliers, in 
 
 Celts, 173, 181, 204, 381 
 
 Charles I, King of England, 
 loi, 102, 108 
 
 Charles II, King of England, 
 108, III 
 
 Chartist movement, 119, 120 
 
 Chaucer, Geoffrey, 378 
 
 Chemistry, 248, 250, 267, 316 
 
 Cherbury, Herbert of, 274 
 
 China, 15 
 
 Christian Science, 335-338 
 
 Churchill, Winston, quoted, 
 
 347-348 
 
 Church of England, 95, 96, 9/. 
 100 
 
 Church of Rome, 70, 76, 80, 85, 
 86, 87, 95, 96, 97, 129 
 
 Civil Service, 122 
 
 Cleavage, Line of, in England, 
 191, 194 
 
 Clergy, 74, 79, 80, 85, 86 
 
 Climate, Influence of, 171, 172 
 
 Coal, 287-289 
 
 Colonial policy, see Coloniza- 
 tion 
 
 Colonies, Dutch, 132, 133 
 
 Colonies, English, 125, 126, 
 127, 128, 129, 133, 134, 135, 
 136, 137, 150, 151. 210, 
 213 
 
 Colonies, French, 132, 133 
 
 Colonization, 38, 125, 126, 127, 
 128, 129, 130, 131, 145, 146, 
 147. 148. H9i 150, 151, 152, 
 153, 154. 155, 156, 201-213 
 
 Commerce, 38, 81, 82, 94, 95, 
 98, 99, 104, 125, 146, 149, 
 150, 153, 154. 155, 295-298 
 
 Commoners, 37, 63, 64, 66, 67, 
 68, 77, 81, 91, 93, 99, 1 16, 
 117, 118, 130 
 
 Common Pleas, Court of, 79 
 
 Commons, House of, 6, 17, 62, 
 77. 90, 103, 109, no, 112, 
 117, 118, 119, 120, 123 
 
 Congress, of United States, 5, 
 6, 9, 10 
 
 Conservatism, English, 16, 26, 
 192, 371 
 
 Constitution, of United States, 
 see Federalism 
 
 Cook, Captain, 148 
 
 Copernicus, 242, 254 
 
 Cornwall, 47 
 
 Courts in England, 61, 62, 78, 
 79, 95, 106, 122, 125 
 
 Creation, 320, 321, 325, 326, 
 
 334 
 Cromwell, Oliver, 360, 361, 
 
 362 
 Crusades, 232, 235 
 Cuvier, Baron, 321, 324 
 
 Dalton, John, 248, 316, 317 
 Darwin, Charles, 248, 304, 324, 
 
 326-330 
 Davy, Sir Humphry, 219, 316, 
 
 317 
 Deists, English, 274 
 Democracy, 44, 50, 84, 100, 
 
 116, 1x8, 121, 122, 123, 124, 
 
 137, 138, 139, 141, 155, 158, 
 159, 160, 220, 241, 269, 293, 
 350, 351, 356-357, 360-363, 
 367-368, 369, 371-375, 382- 
 385, 387-392 
 Descartes, Rene, 242, 243, 258, 
 259, 267, 270
 
 Index 
 
 395 
 
 Diderot, 114 
 
 Drake, Sir Francis, 127, 128 
 Drama, Modern, 389 
 Dynamics, science of, 256, 257, 
 259 
 
 Economics, science of, 277, 294- 
 
 315 
 Eddy, Mary Baker, 336 
 Edward the Confessor, 57, 58, 
 
 74. 159 
 Edward I, King of England, 
 
 77. 78, 97 
 Edward III, King of England, 
 
 81, 82 
 Edward VI, King of England, 
 
 97 
 
 Egbert, 52 
 
 Electricity, 248, 250, 251, 318 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen of England, 
 92, 93, 98, 100, lox, 102, 127, 
 128 
 
 Emerson, R. W., 373-374 
 
 Emigration, 201 
 
 Enclosures, 98, 282 
 
 English Character, 28, 29, 35, 
 
 36, 45, 46, 98. 123, 125, 126, 
 
 129, 145-146. 152. 156, 158, 
 
 272, 358, 372, 373, 381-382, 
 
 389 
 "Essay Concerning Human 
 
 Understanding," 244, 269- 
 
 272 
 Ethnic fusion, in British Isles, 
 
 173-175, 181 
 Evolution, Theory of, 248, 315, 
 
 319-333 
 Exchequer, 79, 95 
 Executive function, 5, 6, 9, 106, 
 
 109-110, 140, 143, 144 
 Expansion of England, 99, 
 
 126-130, 145, 147, 149-158, 
 
 160-162, 195-215 
 Experimental Method, 240, 
 
 250, 275, 276 
 Exploration, Period of, 124- 
 
 126, 145, 148, 236-237 
 
 Factory system, 283-291 
 Faraday, Michael, 248, 318 
 Federalism, 5, 9, 22, 130, 131, 
 
 134-137, 141, 143 
 Feudalism, 50-68, 73, 76, 78, 
 
 82, 84, 93, 95, 97, 105 
 Flanders, 73, 82 
 Folk-moot, see Government, 
 
 Local 
 Fox, Charles James, 21 
 France, 28-30, 61, 62, 64, 68- 
 
 69, 73, 77, 79-81, 85, 93, 103, 
 
 114-115, 125, 131-133, 139, 
 
 142-143, 146-150, 278 
 Franchise, 117-119, 140-142 
 Franklin, Benjamin, 251 
 Franks, 36-37, 42, 49-51, 53,60 
 Freedom of debate, 90, 102 
 Freeman, E. A., quoted, 58, 75 
 French Revolution, 28, 80, 85, 
 
 H4-116, 138 
 
 Galileo, 253-255, 257, 267 
 
 Gaul, 42 
 
 Geographic factor. Theories 
 
 of, 176-178 
 Geography, Influence of, 28, 
 
 37, 51, 81, 116, 124, 126, 129, 
 
 165-215, 222-224 
 Geology, 320-323 
 George I, King of England, 
 
 107-109, 279 
 George II, King of England, 
 
 109, 279 
 George III, King of England, 
 
 21, 109-110, 279 
 George V, King of England, 
 
 134 
 Germany, 3, 29, 30, 64, 73, 104, 
 
 125, 139, 142 
 Gilbert, William, 242, 250, 267 
 Glorious Revolution, 11, 91, 
 
 102, 268, 277 
 Goldsmith, Oliver, 386, 387 
 Goths, 42 
 Government, Colonial, 19-27; 
 
 see also Colonization
 
 396 
 
 Index 
 
 Government, Constitutional, 5, 
 9, 17, 22, 58-59, 6s, 70, 72-79, 
 82-83, 87-92, 100-103, 106- 
 
 112, II5-124, 130-143, 269 
 
 Government, Local, 40, 44, 53, 
 60, 64, 65, 82, 121, 122, 135 
 
 Government, Popular, 3-7, 13- 
 16, 19-28, 31, 35, 37, 100, 106, 
 121, 124, 126, 131, 135-139. 
 150, 151, 155, 160, 161 
 
 Government, Representative, 
 42, 44, 45, 62, 64, 65, 74-79, 
 87, 89, 91, ICO, 102, 110-112, 
 116-120, 130, 134, 135-137, 
 139, 141, 143, 144, 159-162 
 
 Grand Remonstrance, iii 
 
 Gravitation, Law of, 260, 261- 
 263 
 
 Gray, Thomas, 387 
 
 Great Britain, Island of, 39, 
 42, 45-47, 165-195 
 
 Great Charter, see Magna 
 Carta 
 
 Great Rebellion, 91, loi, 102, 
 130, 360-363, 366 
 
 Great Schism, 85 
 
 Great War, The, 3, 20, 30, 31, 
 213-215 
 
 Greeks, 40, 225, 226, 233, 275, 
 319 
 
 Grew, Nehemiah, 267, 323 
 
 Habeas Corpus Acts, 7, 8, 137 
 Halley, Edmund, 261, 267 
 Haney, Professor, quoted, 304- 
 
 305 
 Hanseatic League, 82, 125 
 Harold, King of England, 54, 
 
 57 
 Harriot, Thomas, 252, 253, 256, 
 
 267 
 Harvey, William, 242, 251, 
 
 317, 325 
 Haskins, Charles, quoted, 54, 
 
 173 
 Hastings, Warren, 153 
 Hawkins, John, 127-128 
 
 Henry I, King of England, 58- 
 
 60, 63, 74, 159 
 
 Henry H, King of England, 
 
 61, 63, 66, 69, 78, 97 
 Henry HI, King of England, 
 
 75, 77, 89 
 Henry IV, King of England, 
 
 87-92 
 Henry V, King of England, 92 
 Henry VI, King of England, 
 
 92 
 Henry VII, King of England, 
 
 92-95 
 Henry VIII, King of England, 
 
 92-97, 100 
 Hobbes, Thomas, 266, 267, 269, 
 
 297 
 Holy Roman Empire, 69 
 House of Solomon, 240, 245, 
 
 247, 248, 249 
 Huguenots, 131, 278 
 Humanitarianism, 305-315, 381 
 Hume, David, 297-298, 303 
 Hundred, see Government, Lo- 
 cal 
 Hundred Years' War, 81-83, 
 
 92 
 Hutton, James, 322-323, 326 
 
 Imperialism, 145, 158, 160-161 
 Imperial Federation, 23, 156- 
 
 158 
 Independence, Declaration of, 
 
 137, 301, 347, 348 
 India, 24, 26, 126, 146-148, 152- 
 
 155, 161 
 Individualism, 249, 275, 297- 
 
 301, 371-373, 387-389 
 Inductive Method, 239 
 Industrial Revolution, 116, 117, 
 
 193, 194, 200, 287-293, 311 
 Industry, 94, 277-293 
 Inquest, 61, 62 
 Inquisition, 131 
 Insularity, Influence of, 37, 38, 
 
 181-185, 207 
 Invention, 221, 248, 277
 
 Index 
 
 397 
 
 Ireland, 17-19, 30, 168-169, 172, 
 
 185, 186 
 Iron, 287-289 
 Italy, 73, 104, 138, 142 
 
 James I, King of England, 92, 
 
 101, 134 
 James II, King of England, 
 
 III 
 Jamestown, 127 
 Japan, 139 
 Jews, 131 
 
 John, King of England, 69, 70 
 Jubilee, Queen's, 13 
 Judicial function, 5, 7, 11, 12, 
 
 13, 106 
 Jury, 8, 12, 13, 15, 25, 61, 62; 
 
 see also Courts; Law 
 Jutes, see Anglo-Saxons 
 
 Keats, John, 371, 389 
 
 Kepler, Johann, 253, 255, 256, 
 258, 259 
 
 King's Bench, Court of, 79 
 
 Kingship, 17, 18, 43, 50, 52, 55- 
 59, 63, 64, 68, 69, 75, 76, 78, 
 81, 87-93, 96-97. 100-103, 106, 
 
 108, no, 111 
 
 Kipling, Rudyard, 215, 357, 
 392 
 
 Laissez faire, 298-299, 306-307 
 Lamarck, 326 
 Lancaster, House of, 87-92 
 Langland, William, 378-380 
 Laplace, 220, 263-265, 321, 325 
 Law, English, 7-11, 14, i6, 57, 
 
 58, 61, 75, 78, 90, 102, 106, 
 
 158-160 
 Leadership, English ideal of, 
 
 356-375. 387-392 
 Leeds, 118 
 Legislative function, 9, 37, 78, 
 
 79, 106, 109, no, 140 
 Liberty, Civil, 3-10, 13, 16, 23, 
 
 28, 31, 62, 71-73. 83, 100, 
 
 114, 160-162, 269 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, 373, 374- 
 
 375 
 Linnaeus, Carl, 324 
 Literature, English spirit in, 
 
 347-392 
 Locke, John, 136, 244, 248, 265, 
 
 266, 268-273, 275, 297, 298, 
 299 
 
 Logarithms, 251 
 
 Lollard Movement, 85 
 
 London, 118 
 
 Lords, House of, 17, 102, 123 
 
 Louis XIV, King of France, 
 
 103 
 Lowell, James Russell, 357, 
 
 374-375 
 Luther, Martin, 104 
 Lyell, Charles, 322-323, 326 
 
 Macaulay, Thomas, 111 
 
 Machinery, 283 
 
 Macy and Gannaway, quoted, 
 
 108-109 
 Magic, 226-228, 231 
 Magna Carta, 7, 9, 58, 70-77, 
 
 123, 1.59. 376 
 
 Magnetism, 250 
 
 Maldon, Battle of, 359, 360 
 
 Malthus, "Essay on Popula- 
 tion," 303, 309, 326 
 
 Manchester, 118 
 
 Manufacturing, 280 
 
 Mary, Queen of England, 97, 
 128 
 
 Maryland, 129 
 
 Massachusetts, 129 
 
 Mathematics, 251, 252, 256 
 
 Mayflower Compact, 136 
 
 Mechanical theory, 259, 265, 
 
 267, 297-8 
 Medicine, 228, 251 
 Mercantilist theory, 295-296, 
 
 300, 303 
 Merchant Adventurers, 82 
 Metal, Age of, 224, 225 
 Mill, John Stuart, 309-315,332, 
 
 333
 
 398 
 
 Index 
 
 Milton, John, 245, 357, 360-367 
 Mining Industry, 287-289 
 Ministerial system, 5, 6, 107- 
 
 iio, 112, 143, 144 
 Model Parliament, 77 
 Monastic Orders, 85, 86 
 Montesquieu, 5, 114 
 Montfort, Simon de, 76 
 Morse, Samuel F. B., 318 
 Muir, Ramsay, quoted, 157- 
 
 158, 160-162 
 
 Napier, John, 251, 253, 267 
 Napoleonic Wars, 28, 29, 315, 
 
 368 
 National Council, see Witen- 
 
 agemot; Parliament 
 Natural Selection, 327 
 Nebular Hypothesis, 263-265, 
 
 321, 325 
 Nelson, Lord, 29, 368, 369 
 Netherlands, 64, 104, 105, 126, 
 
 132, 146 
 "New Atlantis," 240, 244 
 Newton, Sir Isaac, 220, 248, 
 
 251, 252-265, 267, 275, 357 
 New Zealand, 20, 22, 148 
 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 335 
 Nobility, see Aristocracy 
 Normans, 53-56, 62, 66, 69-70, 
 
 98, 174, 175, 181, 187, 376 
 Novel, Modern, 385-386 
 "Novum Organum," 238, 244 
 
 Ogg, Frederick A., quoted, iii, 
 
 289-291 
 "Origin of Species," 327, 334 
 
 Page, Curtis Hidden, quoted, 
 
 387-388 
 Papacy, see Church of Rome 
 "Paradise Lost," 362-367 
 Parkman, Francis, quoted, 131, 
 
 132 
 Parliament, 5, 6, 9, 17, 18, 21, 
 
 62, 65, 66, 74, 77, 87-91, 93, 
 
 96, 97, loo, 102, 103, 106, 
 
 109-112, 117, 120, 122, 125, 
 
 141 
 Parliament Act of 191 1, 120, 
 
 123 
 Party Government, 109, iii, 
 
 112 
 Peasants' Revolt, 86 
 Peerage, see also Aristocracy, 
 
 67, 93, "7 
 Penn, William, 136 
 Persia, 139 
 Petition of Right, 7 
 Philippine Islands, 14, 26, 152, 
 
 155 
 Philosophy, English, 265-273, 
 
 274, 297-298 
 Physics, 250, 253-263, 275 
 Physiocrats, 298-301 
 Physiology, 251 
 "Piers Ploughman," 378-380 
 Pilgrim Independents, 129 
 Pitt, William, the Elder, 24 
 Pitt, William, the Younger, 29, 
 
 109 
 Planetary Motion, 255, 256, 
 
 258-265 
 Plymouth, Mass., 129 
 Pollard, A. F., quoted 94-99. 
 
 151 
 Portugal, 126, 128, 146 
 Press, Freedom of, 106, 245, 
 
 268 
 Progress, 240-242, 276, 315, 
 
 319, 342, 375. 390-391 
 Psychology, 244, 270-274, 330- 
 
 332 
 Puritanism, loi, 129 
 
 Ray, John, 267, 323, 324 
 
 Realism, 388 
 
 Reformation, Protestant, 86, 
 
 87. 95. 96. 97. 128, 237 
 Reform Bills, 117, 118, 120, 
 
 121, 293, 307-308 
 Religion, Conflict with science, 
 
 269-273. 334. 335. 341. 342 
 Renaissance, 231, 235, 236
 
 Index 
 
 399 
 
 Representative system, see 
 Government, Representative 
 
 Republicanism, see Federalism 
 
 Restoration, 367 
 
 Revolutions of 1848, 138 
 
 Richard I, King of England, 
 69, 70 
 
 Richard II, King of England, 
 87-92 
 
 Ritter, Carl, 124 
 
 Ritter, Professor, quoted, 338- 
 
 339 
 
 Robert of Normandy, 59 
 
 Robin Hood, 382-385 
 
 Robinson, J. H., quoted, 47-48, 
 242, 276, 292-293 
 
 Robinson and Breasted, quot- 
 ed, 41 
 
 Roman Empire, 42, 46, 47, 
 124 
 
 Romans, 172, 173, 181, 276 
 
 Romanticism, 387-389 
 
 "Rotten Boroughs," 118, 119 
 
 Roundheads, iii 
 
 Rousseau, 114, 274 
 
 Royal Observatory, 246 
 
 Royal Society for the Ad- 
 vancement of Science, 219, 
 244-249, 267 
 
 Runnymede, 70, 72 
 
 Russia, 15 
 
 Sardinia, 138 
 
 Saxons, see Anglo-Saxons 
 
 Scholasticism, 233, 254, 255, 
 
 268 
 Scientific Achievement, Eng- 
 lish, 219-343 
 Scotland, 18, 47, 101, 165, 168, 
 
 186 
 Sea-power, 94, 127, 147, 151- 
 
 158, 195-215 
 Seeley, J. R., quoted, 149-150 
 Settlement, Act of, 102 
 Serfdom, 83-85, 87, 105 
 Shelley, Perc\' B., 371, 389 
 Shire, see Government, Local 
 
 Smith, Adam, 293, 294, 301-5, 
 
 308, 309, 314 
 Smith, William, 322, 326 
 Social Science, 266, 312 
 Social Equality, 375-380, 386- 
 
 387 
 Socialism, 84, 85, 87, 377, 378 
 Solar System, 263-265 
 Spain, 42, 64, 72, 79, 100, 104, 
 
 126-128, 131, 142, 146, 149- 
 
 152 
 Spanish Armada, 100 
 Spencer, Herbert, 330-333 
 Star Chamber, Court of, 95 
 Steam power, 285-293 
 Spinning Machines, 283-291 
 Stephen, King of England, 
 
 63 
 Stuart, House of, 8, 11, 92, loo- 
 
 102, 108, no. III 
 Stubbs, Bishop, quoted, 59, 71, 
 
 91, 92, 103, 107 
 Supreme Court, of United 
 
 States, 9 
 Sweden, 105 
 Switzerland, 105, 137, 144 
 
 Tacitus, 39, 42, 43 
 Taswell-Langmead, quoted, 88 
 Taxation, 77, 90, 95, 102, 103, 
 
 no, 123, 140 
 Telescope, 254, 255, 276 
 Tenants-in-chief, see Feudal- 
 ism 
 Tennyson, Alfred, n, 215 
 Teutons, 3, 28, 36, 39, 40, 42, 
 
 43, 45-47. 49, 5°, 172-174 
 Textile Industry, 82, 171, 278- 
 
 285 
 Theosophists, 335 
 Third Estate, 37, 63, 64, 67, 
 
 68, 72, 77, 80, 81, 103 
 Tocqueville, quoted, 103, 105, 
 
 "4 
 Toleration, 266, 268-273, 277 
 Tolstoy, Leo, 335 
 Tory Party, 109, in, 112
 
 400 
 
 Index 
 
 Towns, 44, 64, 65, 68, 72, 73, 
 
 81-83, 104 
 Trade-gilds, 64 
 Trade, see Commerce 
 Tudor, House of, 92-94, 96-99 
 Turkey, 139 
 Tyler, Wat, 86 
 Tyndail, John, quoted, 329-330, 
 
 333, 340-341 
 
 Usher, Archbishop, 320 
 Uniformitarian Theory, 322- 
 
 323, 326 
 United States, 20, 21, 30, 130, 
 
 131. 137 . 
 Utilitarianism, 244, 269, 297, 
 
 298, 303, 305-315 
 
 Vassalage, see Feudalism 
 Victoria, Queen of England, 
 
 12, 13 
 Villeins, see Serfdom 
 Virginia, 130 
 Virginia Company, 127 
 Voltaire, 243, 248, 273, 274 
 
 Washington, George, 72, 369 
 "Wealth of Nations," 301, 302- 
 
 305. 
 Weaving machinery, 283-291 
 Wellington, Duke of, 29, 368 
 Whig Party, in, 112 
 Whitman, Walt, 374, 392 
 William the Conqueror, King 
 
 of England, 53-59, 61, 63, 65, 
 
 66, 68, 159 
 William II, King of England, 
 
 59. 60 
 William III, and Mary, Sov- 
 ereigns of England, 102, 108, 
 
 112 
 William IV, King of England, 
 
 no 
 Wilson, Woodrow, quoted, 71, 
 
 349-350 
 Witenagemot, 44, 45, 57, 60, 
 
 65, 66 
 Wordsworth, William, 357, 
 
 370-371 
 Wren, Sir Christopher, 261 
 
 Wycliffe, John, 85-87, ii6, 357 
 York, House of, 92 
 
 Wales, 47, 165, 168, 173, 186 
 
 Walpole, Horace, 108 
 
 Wars of the Roses, 82, 93, 95 Zoology, 267, 323
 
 Other Works of Enduring Interest and Value 
 
 HOW THE WORLD VOTES 
 
 THE STORY OF DEMOCRATIC DEVELOPMENT IN 
 
 ELECTIONS 
 
 By CHARLES SEYMOUR, Professor of European 
 History in Yale University, and DONALD PAIGE 
 FRARY, Instructor in History in Yale University. 
 
 Here is the most comprehensive work of its kind in existence, 
 thoroughly up-to-date, including the changes in electoral systems 
 effected by the World War. It is an intensely interesting narrative, 
 embracing all the romance and the thrills of man's quest for democ- 
 racy. It carries the reader through the amazing systems of election 
 since the early days of Athens to the present time. Every nation 
 contributes an absorbing story — every age furnishes its phases of 
 the eternal conflict between autocracy and democracy. "How the 
 World Votes" embodies the most appealing characteristics of ro- 
 mance, history and biography. It is a work from which every 
 intelligent man and woman can derive constant pleasure, enlighten- 
 ment and inspiration. Generously illustrated with reproductions 
 of famous cartoons and portraits. 
 
 2 volumes. Large i2mo. $6.jo net per set. 
 
 C. A. NICHOLS COMPANY, Publishers 
 
 SPRINGFIELD, MASS.
 
 Other Works of Enduring Interest and Value 
 
 SEVENTY CENTURIES 
 
 OF THE LIFE OF MANKIND 
 
 By J. N. LARNED, Author of "English Leadership" etc. 
 
 A clear disclosure of the main movements of events in the world's 
 history from the earliest recorded incidents through all stages of 
 civilization down to the present times. Divided into six well-defined 
 Epochs in the drama of the world's history, with sketches of the 
 chief characters of each epoch. Two volumes, 8vo., with individual 
 indexes and bibliographies. Profusely illustrated in color and 
 black and white. Cloth, $5.00 per set. Russia Red half morocco, 
 $6.00 per set. 
 
 "GET THE LARNED HABIT" 
 
 HISTORY FOR 
 READY REFERENCE 
 
 Edited by J. N. LARNED 
 
 Embodies in one work the combined historical knowledge and 
 research of all ages and all writers presented in the actual words 
 of the greatest historians. In eight volumes, with numerous maps 
 and drawings. Price on application. 
 
 C. A. NICHOLS COMPANY, Publishers 
 SPRINGFIELD, MASS,
 
 ^5 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 Santa Barbara 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW. 
 
 Series 9482
 
 (V 
 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A A 000 263 336