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ALMA MATER

Photogravure of the Statue by Daniel 0. French

Tlie colossal ligiire of Freiicli's Alma Mater adorns ilie fine suite of stone steps
leading up to tlie picturesque library building of Cohnnbia University. It is a
bronze statue, gilded with pure gold. Tiie female figure typifying " Alma Mater "
is represented as sitting in a chair of classic shape, her ell>o\vs resting on the arms
of the chair. Botii iiands are raised. Tiie right hand iiolds and is supported by a
sceptre. On her head is a classic wreath, and on lier lap lies an open book, from
whicli her eyes seem to have just been raised in meditation. Drapery falls in semi-
classic folds from her neciv to her sandalleil feet, only the arms and neck being left
bare.

Every University man cherishes a kindly feeling for his Alma Mater, and the
famous American .sculptor, Daniel C French, has been most successful in his artistic
creation of the "Fostering Mother" spiritualized — the familiar ideal of the mother
of minds trained to thouglU and consecrated to intellectual service.

I'1

Jnternational '^■

University Lectures

Delivered by the Most Distinguished

Representatives of the Greatest

Universities of the World

At the Congress of Arts and Science

Universal Exposition, Saint Louis

VOLUME I.

NEW YORK

UNIVERSITY ALLIANCE, Inc.
1909

University alliance, Inc.

ORGANIZATION OF THE CONGRESS

PRESIDENT OF THE EXPOSITION:

HON. DAVID R. FRANCIS, A.M., LL.D.

DIBECTOE OF CONGRESSES:

HOWARD J. ROGERS, A.M., LL.D.
Universal Exposition, 1904.

ADMINISTRATIVE BOARD

NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER, Ph.D., LL.D.
President of Columbia University, Chairman.

WILLIAM R. HARPER, Ph.D., LL.D.
President of the University of Chicago.

R. H. JESSE, Ph.D., LL.D.

President of the University of Missouri.

HENRY S. PRITCHETT, PhD., LL.D.
President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

HERBERT PUTNAM, Litt.D., LL.D.
Librarian of Congress.

FREDERICK J. V. SKIFF, A.M.
Director of the Field Columbian Museum.

OFFICERS OF THE CONGRESS

president:
SIMON NEWCOMB, PhD., LL.D.
Retired Professor U. 8. N.

vice-presidents :

HUGO MUNSTERBERG, Ph.D., LL.D.

Professor of Psychology in Harvard University.

ALBION W. SMALL, Ph.D., LL.D.
Professor of Sociology in the University of Chicago.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

VOIATME I.

Puhlisher's Preface.

PAGE

History of the Congress xi

Ey Howard J. Rogers.

iNTRODrcTOKY ADDRESS, Evolution of the Scientific Investigator . . 1
By Simon Newcomb, President cf the Congress.

HISTORY.

Variety and Unity of History 21

By Woodeow Wji.son, President of Princeton University.

Science of History in the Nineteenth Century 4&

By WiLLiAJi MiLLiGAN Sloane, Profcssor of History,
Columbia University.

Expansion of Greek History 75

By John Pentland Mahaffy. Professor cf Ancient His-
tory, University of Dublin.

Problems in Roman History 95

By Ettore Pais, Professor of Ancient History, University
of Naples.

A Survey of the History of Asia 121

By Henri Cordier, Professor of Oriental Languages, Uni-
versity of Paris.

Eistoriccl Development of the Science of History (Medieval) 157

By Karl Gotthakt Lamprecht, Professor of History, Uni-
versity cf Lejpsic.

CONTENTS— Continued.

PACK

Modern History of Europe 177

By John B. Bl by. Professor of Modern History, Cambridge
University.

History of America 195

Bt Er)W.\Ki) Gayi.ord Boi r\e. Professor of History, Yala
University.

BrBLiOGRAPur: Department of History 215

LANGUAGE.

History of Languages 227

By Tno.\i.\s R.vy.vksford Lounsbi.by, Professor of Englisli,
Yale University.

Indo-Iranian Languages (Sanskrit) 267

By Sii.vAfx T.f.vr, Professor of Sanskrit, College of France.

Latin Language 285

Bt Edward Adolf So.vnexschki.x, Professor of Latin and
Greek, University of Birmingham.

FULL PAGE PHOTOGRAVURE PLATES

VOLUME I.

Illuminated Symbolic Fkontispiece.

PAGE

WooDROw Wilson, President of Princeton University 48

University of Paris in the 13th Century 121

Pioneers op American History 212

SCOPE AND PURPOSE OF THESE INTERNA-
TIONAL LECTURES.

Education, in its broadest purpose, was never so pow-
erfully, substantially and concretely promoted as by the
plan which recently culminated in an International Congress
of Arts and Science. Every civilized nation has adopted a
method of public instruction, and while there is a marked
dissimilarity, sometimes offering contrasts, each has an ele-
ment of good, and the effects are wholesome. The Interna-
tional Congress of Arts and Science was therefore proposed
with the view to the bringing together representatives of the
various schools, thereby assimilating, in a measure, the
experience and results, the theories and practices of the
several methods in use. Another purpose, equally promi-
nent, was to present by lectures, to be delivered by the most
distinguished educators, investigators, and scientists, the de-
terminations, discoveries and inquiries in the fields of re-
search calculated to advance and exalt the spirit of highest
civilization.

Never before in history has such a beneficent purpose
been so well accomplished, or such a gathering of the
world's greatest savants been seen, as distinguished this
famous Congress, an assemblage which was possible only
through the active aid given by the rulers of participating
governments, and the expenditure of a vast sum of money.

The series of lectures delivered at this epochal Congress
embrace, in a distinctly authoritative way, practically every
subject with which both the scientific enquirer and the
masses are most concerned. The arrangement also com-
mends them to every class of readers, since the lectures
are introduced in the order of natural development of edu-

cation and civilization so as to most clearly describe the
progress of man : Thus, beginning with History, the
foundation of enquiry, the subjects follow in sequence:
Language, Religion, Education, Law, Literature, Art, the
Sciences — Geology, Geography, Palaeontology (plants and
animals in a fossil state), Archceology (antiquities), Eth-
nology (races of mankind). Embryology (the beginning
of life), Biology (the science of life), Origin of Species,
Evolution (the processes of life development). Sociology —
government, national, state, municipal; Technology, espe-
cially Engineering; Mathematics, Medicine, Anti-Toxin
Treatment, Surgery, Astronomy, Architecture, Painting,
Sculpture, ]\Iusic, the Drama, etc. There are also lectures
on Commerce, Finance, Transportation, Insurance, Labor,
Industrial Problems, Administration, Diplomacy, Farming,
Great Social Problems, etc. In brief, the subjects herein
treated embrace a variety that covers the field of human
study, and in each case the lecturer, representing some one
of the most famous universities of the world, has achieved
distinction in the particular branch of know^ledge upon
which he was invited to speak.

This imperfect resume of the contents of the series in-
dicates the extraordinary value of the collection, valuable
not only to the professional man, but equally so to the
masses, for the lectures impart instruction, which is
nowhere else obtainable in such compact form, on the up-
growth of the race in all pursuits. In its entirety, therefore,
the work is a school for children, a college for youth, a
university for the graduand, and a text-book for every m^i,
woman, girl, and boy who appreciates the benefit and mas-
tery which education gives.

The University Alliance, Inc.

THE HISTORY OF THE CONGRESS

BY HOWARD J. ROGERS A.M., LL,.D.

The forces which bring to a common point the thousand-
fold energies of a universal exposition can best promote
an international congress of ideas. Under national pat-
ronage and under the spur of international competition
the best products and the latest inventions of man in
science, in literature, and in art are grouped together in
orderly classification. Whether the motive underlying the
exhibits be the promotion of commerce and trade, or
whether it be individual ambition, or whether it be national
pride and loyalty, the resultant is the same. The space
within the boundaries of the exposition is a forum of the
nations where equal rights are guaranteed to every rep-
resentative from any quarter of the globe, and where the
sovereignty of each nation is recognized whenever its flag
floats over a national pavilion or an exhibit area. The
productive genius of every governed people contends in
peaceful rivalry for world recognition, and the exposition
becomes an international clearing-house for practical ideas.

For the demonstration of the value of these products
men thoroughly skilled in their development and use are
sent by the various exhibitors. The exposition by the
logic of its creation thus gathers to itself the expert rep-
resentatives of every art and industry. For at least two
months in the exposition period there are present the mem-
bers of the international jury of awards, selected specially
by the different governments for their thorough knowledge,
theoretical and practical, of the departments to which they

XII THE HISTORY OF THE CONGRESS

are assigned, and selected further for their ability to im-
press upon others the correctness of their views. The
renown of a universal exposition brings, as visitors, stu-
dents and investigators bent upon the solution of problems
and anxious to know the latest contributions to the facts
and the theories which underlie every phase of the world's
development.

The material therefore is ready at hand with which to
construct the framework of a conference of parts, or a
congress of the whole of any subject. It was a natural and
logical step to accompany the study of the exhibits with a
debate on their excellence, an analysis of their growth, and
an argument for their future. Hence the congress. The
exposition and the congress are correlative terms. The
former concentres the visible products of the brain and
hand of man ; the congress is the literary embodiment of its
activities.

Yet it was not till the Paris Exposition of 18S9 that the
idea of a series of congresses, international in membership
and universal in scope, was fully developed. The three
preceding expositions, Paris, 1878, Philadelphia, 1876, and
Vienna, 1873, had held under their auspices many con-
ferences and congresses, and indeed the germ of the con-
gress idea may be said to have been the establishment of
the International Scientific Commission in connection with
the Paris Exposition of 1867; but all of these meetings
were unrelated and sometimes almost accidental in their
organization, although many were of great scientific
interest and value.

The success of the series of seventy congresses in Paris
in 1889 led the authorities of the World's Columbian
Exposition in 1893 to establish the World's Congress
.Auxiliary, designed "to supplement the exhibit of material
progress by the Exposition, by a portrayal of the wonderful

THE HISTORY OF THE CONGRESS xiii

achievements of the new age in science, literature, educa-
tion, government, jurisprudence, morals, charity, religion,
and other departments of human activity, as the most effect-
ive means of increasing the fraternity, progress, prosperity,
and peace of mankind." The widespread interest in this
series of meetings is a matter easily within recollection,
but they were in no wise interrelated to each other, nor
more than ordinarily comprehensive in their scope.

It remained for the Paris Expositon of 1900 to bring
to a perfect organization this type of congress develop-
ment. By ministerial decree issued two years prior to the
exposition the conduct of the department was set forth to
the minutest detail. One hundred twenty-five congresses,
each with its separate secretary and organizing committee,
were authorized and grouped under twelve sections cor-
responding closely to the exhibit classification. The prin-
cipal delegate, M. Gariel, reported to a special commission,
which was directly responsible to the government. The
department was admirably conducted and reached as high
a degree of success as a highly diversified, ably admin-
istered, but unrelated system of international conferences
could. And yet the attendance on a majority of these
congresses was disappointing, and in many there was
scarcely any one present outside the immediate circle of
those concerned in its development. If this condition could
prevail in Paris, the home of arts and letters, in the im-
mediate centre of the great constituency of the University
and of many scientific circles and learned societies, and
within easy traveling distance of other European university
and literary centres, it was fair to presume that the useful-
ness of this class of congress was decreasing. It certainly
was safe to assume, on the part of the authorities of the
St. Louis Exposition of 1904, that such a series could not
be a success in that city, owing to its geographical position

XIV THE HISTORY OF THE CONGRESS

and the limited number of university and scientific circles
within a reasonable traveling distance. Something more
than a repetition of the stereotyped form of conference was
admitted to be necessary in order to arouse interest among
scholars and to bring credit to the Exposition.

This was the serious problem which confronted the
Exposition of St, Louis. No exposition was ever better
fitted to serve as the ground-work of a congress of ideas
than that of St. Louis. The ideal of the Exposition, which
was created in time and fixed in place to commemorate a
great historic event, was its educational influence. Its
appeal to the citizens of the United States for support, to
the Federal Congress for appropriations, and to foreign
governments for cooperation, v*^as made purely on this
basis. For the first time in the history of expositions the
educational influence was made the dominant factor and
the classification and installation of exhibits made con-
tributory to that principle. The main purpose of the
Exposition w^as to place within reach of the investigator
the objective thought of the world, so classified as to show
its relations to all similar phases of human endeavor, and
so arranged as to be practically available for reference
and study. As a part of the organic scheme a congress
plan was contemplated which should be correlative with
the exhibit features of the Exposition, and whose pub-
lished proceedings should stand as a monument to the
breadth and enterprise of the Exposition long after its
buildings had disappeared and its commercial achievements
grown dim in the minds of men.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONGRESS.

The Department of Congresses, to which was to be in-
trusted this difficult task, was not established until the latter
part of 1902, although the question was for a year previous

THE HISTORY OF THE CONGRESS xv

the subject of many discussions and conferences between
the President of the Exposition, Mr. Francis ; the Director
of Exhibits, Mr. SkifT; the Chief of the Department of
Education, Mr. Rogers; President Nicholas Murray Butler
of Columbia University, and President William R. Harper
of Chicago University. To the disinterested and valuable
advice of the two last-named gentlemen during the entire
history of the Congress the Exposition is under heavy
obligations. During this period proposals had been made
to two men of international reputation to give all their
time for two years to the organization of a plan of con-
gresses which should accomplish the ultimate purpose of
the Exposition authorities. Neither one, however, could
arrange to be relieved of the pressure of his regular duties,
and the entire scheme of supervision was consequently
changed. The plan adopted was based upon the idea of
an advisory board composed of men of high literary and
scientific standing who should consider and recommend the
kind of congress most worthy of promotion, and the details
of its development.

In November, 1902, Howard J. Rogers, LL.D., was
appointed Director of Congresses, and the members of the
Advisory (afterwards termed Administrative) Board se-
lected as follows : —

Chairman: Nichoi^as Murray Butler, Ph.D.,
LL.D., President Columbia University.

William R. Harper, Ph.D., LL.D., President Uni-
versity of Chicago.

Honorable Frederick W. Holls, A.M., LL.B., New
York.

R. H. Jesse, Ph.D., LL.D., President University of
Missouri.

Henry S. Pritchett, Ph.D., LL.D., President Massa-
chusetts Institute of Technology.

XVI THE HISTORY OF THE CONGRESS

Herbert Putnam, Litt.D. LL.D. Librarian of Con-
gress.

Frederick J. V. Skife, A.M., Director of Field Colum-
bian Museum.

The action of the Executive Committee of the Exposi-
tion, approved by the President, was as follows : —

There shall be appointed by the President of the Exposition Com-
pany a Director of Congresses who shall report to the President of
the Exposition Company.

There shall be appointed by the President of the Exposition Com-
pany an Advisory Board of seven persons, the chairman to be named
by the President, who shall meet at the call of the Director of
Congresses, or the Chairman of the Advisory Board.

The expenses of the members of the Advisory Board while on
business of the Exposition shall be a charge against the funds of
the Exposition Company.

The duties of the said Advisory Board shall be: to consider and
make recommendations to the Director of Congresses on all matters
submitted to them; to determine the number and the extent of the
congresses; the emphasis to be placed upon special features; the
prominent men to be invited to participate; the character of the
programmes; and the methods for successfully carrying out the
enterprise.

There shall be set aside from the Exposition funds for the main-
tenance of the congresses the sum of two hundred thousand dollars
($200,000).

The Standing Committee on Congresses from the Expo-
sition board of directors was shortly afterwards appointed
and was composed of five of the most prominent men in
St. Louis : —

Chairman: Hon. Frederick W. Lehmann, Attorney
at Law.

Breckenridge Jones, Ranker.

Charles W. Knapp, Editor of The St. Louis Republic.

John Schroers, Manager of the Westliche Post.

A. F. ShaplEich, Merchant.

To this committee were referred for consideration by
the President all matters of policy submitted by the Di-

THE HISTORY OF THE CONGRESS xvii

rector of Congresses. This committee had jurisdiction over
all congress matters, including not only the Congress of
Arts and Science, but also the many miscellaneous con-
gresses and conventions, and a great part of the success
of the congresses is due to their broad-minded and liberal
determination of the questions laid before them.

IDEA OF THE CONGRESS OE ARTS AND SCIENCE

It is impossible to ascribe the original idea of the Con-
gress of Arts and Science to any one person. It v^as a
matter of slow growth from the many conferences which
had been held for a year by men of many occupations,
and as finally worked out bore little resemblance to the
original plans under discussion. The germ of the idea
may fairly be said to have been contained in Director
Skiff's insistence to the Executive Committee of the Expo-
sition that the congress work stand for something more
than an unrelated series of independent gatherings, and
that some project be authorized which would at once be
distinctive and of real scientific worth. To support this
view Director Skiff brought the Executive Committee to
the view of expending $200,000, if need be, to insure the
project. Starting from this suggestion many plans were
brought forward, but one which seems to belong of right
to the late Honorable Frederick W. Holls, of New York
City, contained perhaps the next recognizable step in ad-
vance. This thought was, briefly, that a series of lectures
on scientific and literary topics by men prominent in their
respective fields be delivered at the Exposition and that
the Exposition pay the speakers for their services. This
point was thoroughly discussed by Mr. Holls and Presi-
dent Butler, and the next step in the evolution of the
Congress was the idea of bringing these lecturers together
at the Exposition at about the same time or all during one

xviii THE HISTORY OF THE CONGRESS

month. At this stage Professor Hugo Miinsterberg, who
was the guest of Mr. Holls and an invited participant in
the conference, made the important suggestion that such
a series of unrelated lectures, even though given by most
eminent men, would have little or no scientific value, but
that if some relation, or underlying thought, could be intro-
duced into the addresses, then the best work could be done,
which would be of real value to the scientific world. He
further stated that only in this case would scientific leaders
be likely to favor the plan of a St. Louis congress, as they
would feel attracted not so much through the honorariums
to be given for their services as through the valuable op-
portunity of developing such a contribution to scientific
thought. Subsequently Professor Miinsterberg was asked
by Mr. Holls to formulate his ideas in a manner to be
submitted to the Exposition authorities. This was done
in a communication under date of October 20, 1902, which
contained logically presented the foundation of the plan
afterwards worked out in detail. At this juncture the
Department of Congresses was organized, as has been
stated, the Director named, and the Administrative Board
appointed, and on December 27, 1902, the first meeting of
the Director with the Administrative Board took place in
New York City.

A thorough canvass of the subject was made at this
meeting and as a result the following recommendations
were made to the Exposition authorities : —

(1) That the sessions of this Congress be held within
a period of four weeks, beginning September 15, 1904.

(2) That the various groups of learned men who may
come together be asked to discuss their several sciences
or professions with reference to some theme of universal
human interest, in order that thereby a certain unity of
interest and of action may be had. Under such a plan

THE HISTORY OF THE CONGRESS xix

the groups of men who come together would thus form
sections of a single Congress rather than separate con-
gresses.

(3) As a subject which has universal significance; and
one likely to serve as a connecting thread for all of the
discussions of the Congress, the theme " The Progress of
Man since the Louisiana Purchase " was considered by
the Administrative Board fit and suggestive. It is be-
lieved that discussions by leaders of thought in the various
branches of pure and applied science, in philosophy, in
politics, and in religion, from the standpoint of man's
progress in the century which has elapsed, would be fruit-
ful, not only in clearing the thoughts of men not trained
in science and in government, but also in preparing the
way for new advances.

(4) The Administrative Board further recommends
that the Congress be made up from men of thought and
of action, whose work would probably fall under the fol-
lowing general heads : —

a. The Natural Sciences (such as Astronomy, Biology,
Mathematics, etc.).

h. The Historical, Sociological, and Economic group of
studies (History, Political Economy, etc.).

c. Philosophy and Religion.

d. Medicine and Surgery.

e. Law, Politics, and Government (including develop-
ment and history of the colonies, their government, revenue
and prosperity, arbitration, etc.).

/. Applied Science (including the various branches of
engineering).

(5) The Administrative Board recommends further
referring to a special committee of seven the problem of
indicating in detail the method in which this plan can best

XX THE HISTORY OF THE CONGRESS

be carried out. To this committee is assigned the duty
of choosing the general divisions of the Congress, the
various branches of science and of study in these divisions,
and of recommending to the Administrative Board a de-
tailed plan of the sections in which, in their judgment,
those who come to the Congress may be most effectively
grouped, with a view not only to bring out the central
theme, but also to represent in a helpful way and in a
suggestive manner the present boundary of knowledge in
the various lines of study and investigation which the com-
mittee may think wise to accept.

These recommendations were transmitted by the Di-
rector of Congresses to the Committee on Congresses,
approved by them, and afterwards approved by the Ex-
ecutive Committee and the President. The first four
recommendations were of a preliminary character, but the
fifth contained a distinct advance in the formation of a
Committee on Plan and Scope which should be composed
of eminent scientists capable of developing the fundamental
idea into a plan which should harmonize with the scientific
work in every field. The committee selected were as
follows : —

Dr. Simon Newcomb, Ph.D., LL.D., Retired Professor
of Mathematics, U. S. Navy.

Prof. Hugo Munsterberg, Ph.D., LL.D., Professor
of Psychology, Harvard University.

Prof. John Bassett Moore, LL.D., ex-assistant Sec-
retary of State, and Professor of International Law and
Diplomacy, Columbia University.

Prof. Albion W. Small, Ph.D., Professor of So-
ciology, University of Chicago.

Dr. William H. Welch, M.D., LL.D., Professor of
Pathology. Johns Hopkins University.

THE HISTORY OF THE CONGRESS xxi

Hon, Euhu Thompson, Consulting Engineer General
Electric Company.

Prop. George E. Moore, D.D., LL.D., Professor of
Comparative Religion, Harvard University.

In response to a letter from President Butler, Chairman
of the Administrative Board, giving a complete resume of
the growth of the idea of the Congress to that time, all
of the members of the committee, with the exception of
Mr. Thompson, met at the Hotel Manhattan on January
10, 1903, for a preliminary discussion. The entire field
was canvassed, using the recommendations of the Admin-
istrative Board and the aforementioned letter of Professor
Miinsterberg's to Mr. Holls as a basis, and an adjourn-
ment taken until January 17 for the preparation of detailed
recommendations.

The Committee on Plan and Scope again met, all mem-
bers being present, at the Hotel Manhattan on January 17,
and arrived at definite conclusions, which were embodied
in the report to the Administrative Board, a meeting of
which had been called at the Hotel Manhattan for January
19, 1903.

Plans of the Congress

As a basis of discussion two plans were drawn up by members of
the Committee and submitted to it. The one, by Professor Miins-
terberg, started from a comprehensive classification and review of
human achievement in advancing knowledge, the other, by Professor
Small, from an equally comprehensive reriew of the great public
questions involved in human progress.

Professor Miinsterberg proposed a congress having the definite
task of bringing out the unity of knowledge with a view of correlat-
ing the scattered theoretical and practical scientific work of our
day. This plan proposed that the congress should continue through
one week. The first day was to be devoted to the discussion of the
most general problem of knowledge in one comprehensive discussion
and four general divisions. On the second day the congress was to
divide into several groups and on the remaining days into yet more
specialized groups, as set forth in detail in the plan.

XXII THE HISTORY OF THE CONGRESS

The plan by Professor Small proposed a congress which would ex-
hibit not merely the scholar's interpretation of progress in scholar-
ship, but rather the scholar's interpretation of progress in civiliza-
tion in general. The proposal was based on a division of human
interests into six great groups: —

I. The Promotion of Health.

II. The Production of Wealth.

III. The Harmonizing of Human Relations.

IV. Discovery and Spread of Knowledge.
V. Progress in the Fine Arts.

VI. Progress in Religion.

The plan agreed with the other in beginning with a general dis-
cussion and then subdividing the congress into divisions and groups.

As a third plan the Chairman of the Committee suggested the idea
of a congress of publicists and representative men of all nations
and of all civilized peoples, which should discuss relations of each
to all the others and throw light on the question of promoting the
unity and progress of the race.

After due consideration of these plans the Committee reached the
conclusion that the ends aimed at in the second and third plans
could be attained by taking the first plan as a basis, and including
in its subdivisions, so far as was deemed advisable, the subjects
proposed in the second and third plans. They accordingly adopted
a resolution that "Mr. Miinsterberg's plan be adopted as setting forth
the general object of the Congress and defining the scope of its
work, and that Mr. Small's plan be communicated to the General
Committee as containing suggestions as to details, but without
recommending its adoption as a whole."

D.\TE OF THE CONGEESS

Your Committee is of opinion that, in view of the climatic con-
ditions at St. Louis during the summer and early autumn, it is
desirable that the meeting of this general Congress be held during
the six days beginning on Monday, September 19, 1904, and con-
tinuing until the Saturday following. Special associations choosing
St. Louis as their meeting-place may then convene at such other
dates as may be deemed fit; but it is suggested that learned societies
whose field is connected with that of the Congress should meet
during the week beginning September 26.

The sectional discussions of the Congress will then be continued
by these societies, the whole forming a continuous discussion of
human progress during the last century.

THE HISTORY OF THE CONGRESS xxiii

Plan of Addresses

The Committee believe that in order to carry out the proposed
plan in the most effective way it is necessary that the addresses be
prepared by the highest living authorities in each and every branch.
In the last subdivisions, each section embraces two papers; one on
the history of the subject during the last one hundred years and
the other on the problems of to-day.

The programme of papers suggested by the Committee as em-
braced in Professor Miinsterberg's plan may be summarized as
follows: —

On the first day four papers will be read on the general subject,
and four on each of the four large divisions, twenty in all. On
the second day those four divisions will be divided into twenty
groups, or departments, each of which will have four papers refer-
ring to the divisions and relations of the sciences, eighty in all. On
the last four days, two papers in each of the 120 sections, 240 in
all, thuB making a total of 340 papers.

In view of the fact that the men who will make the addresses
should not be expected to bear all the expense of their attendance
at the Congress, it seems advisable that the authorities of the Fair
should provide for the expenses necessarily incurred in the journey,
as well as pay a small honorarium for the addresses. The Com-
mittee suggest, therefore, that each American invited be offered
$100 for his traveling expenses and each European $400. In addition
to this that each receive $150 as an honorarium. Assuming that
one-half of those invited to deliver addresses will be Americans and
one half Europeans, this arrangement will involve the expenditure
of $136,000. This estimate will be reduced if the same person
prepares more than one address. It will also be reduced if more
than half of the speakers are Americans, and increased in the
opposite case.

As the Committee is not advised of the amount which the manage-
ment of the Exposition may appropriate for the purpose of the Con-
gress, it cannot, at present, enter further into details of adjustment,
but it records its opinion that the sum suggested is the least by
which the ends sought to be attained by the Congress can be accom-
plished. To this must be added the expenses of administration and
publication.

All addresses paid for by the Congress should be regarded as its
property, and be printed and published together, thus constituting
a comprehensive work exhibiting the unity, progress, and present
state of knowledge.

This plan does not preclude the delivery of more than one address
by a single scholar. The directors of the Exposition may sometimes

XXIV THE HISTORY OF THE CONGRESS

find it advisable to ask the same scholar to deliver two addresses,
possibly even three.

The Committee recommends that full liberty be allowed to each
section of the Congress in arranging the general character and
programme of its discussions within the field proposed.

As an example of how the plan will work in the case of any one
section, the Committee take the case of a neurologist desiring to
profit by those discussions which relate to his branch of medicine.
This falls under C of the four main divisions as related to the
physical sciences. His interest on the first day will therefore be
centered in Division C, where he may hear the general discussion of
the physical sciences and the relations to the other sciences. On
the second day he will hear four papers in Group 18 on the subjects
embraced in the general science of anthropology; one on its funda-
mental conceptions; one on its methods and two on the relation of
anthropology to the sciences most closely connected with it. Dur-
ing the remaining four days he will meet with the representatives of
medicine and its related subjects, who will divide into sections, and
listen to four papers in each section. One paper will consider the
progress of that section in the last one hundred years, one paper
will be devoted to the problems of to-day, leaving room for such
contributions and discussions as may seem appropriate during the
remainder of the day.

Cooperation of Learned Societies Invoked.

In presenting this general plan, your Committee wishes to point
out the difficulty of deciding in advance what subjects should be
included in every section. Therefore, the Committee deems it of the
utmost importance to secure the advice and assistance of learned
Hocioties in this country in perfecting the details of the proposed
plan, especially the selection of speakers and the programme of
work in each spction. It will facilitate the latter purpose if such
societies be invited and encouraged to hold meetings at St. Louis
during the week immediately preceding, or, preferably, the week
following the General Congress. The selection of speakers should
be made as soon as possible, and, in any case, before the end of the
present academic year, in order that formal invitations may be
issueJ and final arrangements made with the speakers a year in
advance of the Congress.

CoNCLiDiNc; Suggestions

With the view of securing the cooperation of the governments and
leading scholars of the principal countries of Western and Central
Europe in the proposed Congress, it seems advisable to send two

THE HISTORY OF THE CONGRESS xxv

commissioners to these countries for this ourpose. It seems un-
necessary to extend the operations of this commission outside the
European continent or to other than the leading countries. In other
cases arrangements can be made by correspondence.

It is the opinion of the Committee that an American of world-wide
reputation as a scholar should be selected to preside over the Con-
gress.
All which is respectfully submitted.

(Signed) Simon Newcomb,

Chairman;
Geobge F. Moore,
John B. Mooke,
Hugo Munsterbeeg,
Albion W. Small,
William H. Welch,
EUHU Thomson,

Committee.

The Administrative Board met on January 19 to receive
the report of the Committee on Plan and Scope which was
presented by Dr. Newcomb. Professor Miinsterberg and
Professor John Bassett Moore were also present by invi-
tation to discuss the details of the scheme. In the after-
noon the Board went into executive session, and the
following recommendations were adopted and transmitted
by the Director of Congresses to the Committee on
Congresses of the Exposition and to the President and
Executive Committee, who duly approved them.

To the Director of Congresses: —

The Administrative Board have the honor to make the following
recommendations in reference to the Department of Congresses: —

(1) That there be held in connection with the Universal Expo-
sition of St. Louis in 1904, an International Congress of Arts and
Science.

(2) That the plan recommended by the Committee on Plan and
Scope for a general congress of Arts and Science, to be held during
the six days beginning on Monday, September 19, 1904, be approved
and adopted, subject to such revision in point of detail as may be
advisable, preserving its fundamental principles.

(3) That Simon Newcomb, LL.D., of Washington, D. C, be named

xx\T THE HISTORY OF THE CONGRESS

for President of the International Congress of Arts and Science,
provided for In the foregoing resolution.

(4) That Professor Miinsterberg, of Harvard University, and
I*rofessor Albion W. Small, of the University of Chicago, be Invited
to act as Vice-Presidents of the Congress.

(5) That the Directors of the World's Fair be requested to change
the name of this Board from the "Advisory Board" to the "Admin-
istrative Board of the International Congress of Arts and Science."

(6) That the detailed arrangements for the Congress be intrusted
to a committee consisting of the President and two Vice-Presidents
already named, subject to the general oversight and control of the
Administrative Board, and that the Directors of the Exposition be
requested to make appropriate provision for their compensation
and necessary expenses.

(7) That it be recommended to the Directors of the World's Fair
that appropriate provision should be made in the office of the De-
partment of Congresses for an executive secretary and such clerical
assistance as may be needed.

(8) That the following payment be recommended to those scholars
who accept invitations to participate and do a specified piece of
work, or submit a specified contribution in the International Con-
gress of Arts and Science: For traveling expenses for a European
scholar, $500. For traveling expenses for an American scholar, $150.

(9) That provision be made for the publication of the proceedings
of the Congress in suitable form to constitute a permanent memo-
rial work of the World's Fair for the promotion of science and art,
under competent editorial supervision.

(10) That an appropriation of $200,000 be made to cover expenses
of the Department of Congresses, of which sum $130,000 be specific-
ally appropriated for an International Congress of Arts and Science,
and the remainder to cover all expenses connected with the publica-
tion of the proceedings of said International Congress of Arts and
Science, and the expenses for promotion of all other congresses.

In addition to the foregoing recommendations, Professor
Miinsterberg was requested at his earhest convenience to
furnish each member with a revised plan of his classifica-
tion, which would reduce as far as possible the number of
sections into which the Congress was finally to be divided.

With the adjournment of the board on January 19 the
Congress may be fairly said to have been launched upon
its definite course, and such changes as were thereafter

THE HISTORY OF THE CONGRESS xxvii

made in the programme did not in any wise affect the
principle upon which the Congress was based, but were
due to the demands of time, of expediency, and in some
cases to the accidents attending the participation. The
organization of the Congress and the personnel of its
officers from this time on remained unchanged, and the
history of the meeting is one of steady and progressive
development. The Committee on Plan and Scope were
discharged of their duties, with a vote of thanks for the
laborious and painstaking work which they had accom-
plished and the thoroughly scientific and novel plan for
an international congress which they had recommended.

PARTICIPATION AND SUPPORT

The general plan of the Congress having been de-
termined and the programme practically perfected by May
1, 1903, two most important questions demanded the at-
tention of the Administrative Board: first, the participa-
tion in the Congress, both foreign and domestic; second,
the support of the scientific public. At a meeting of the
Board held in New York City April 11, 1903, these points
were orjven full consideration. It was determined that the

list of speakers both foreign and domestic should be made
upon the advice of men of letters and of scientific thought
in this country, and accordingly there was sent to the offi-
cers of the various scientific societies in the United States,
to heads of university departments and to every prominent
exponent of science and art in this country, a printed an-
nouncement and tentative programme of the Congress, and
a letter asking advice as to the scientists best fitted in view
of the object of the Congress to prepare an address. From
the hundreds of replies received in response to this appeal
were made up the original lists of invited speakers, and
only those were placed thereon who were the choice of a

XXVIII THE HISTORY OF THE CONGRESS

fair majority of the representatives of the particular science
under selection. The Administrative Board resen-ed to
itself the full right to reject any of these names or to
change them so as to promote the best interests of the
Congress, but in nearly every instance it would be safe to
say that the person selected was highly satisfactory to the
great majority of his fellow scientists in this country.
Many changes were unavoidably made at the last moment
to meet the situation caused by withdrawals and declina-
tions, but the list of second choices was so complete, and
in many cases there was such a delicate balance between
the first and second choice, that there was no difficulty in
keeping the standard of the programme to its original high
plane.

It was early determined that the seven Division speakers
and the forty-eight Department speakers, which occupied
the first two days of the programme, should be Americans,
and that these Division and Department addresses should
be a contribution of American scholarship to the general
scientific thought of the world. This decision commended
itself to the scientific public both at home and abroad, and
it was so carried out. It was further determined that the
Division and Department speakers and the foreign speak-
ers should be selected during the summer of 1903, and the
American participation in the Section addresses should be
determined after it was definitely known what the foreign
participation would be. In view of the importance of the
Congress, it was deemed inadvisable to attempt to interest
foreign scientific circles by correspondence, and it was
further decided to pay a special compliment to each invited
speaker by sending an invitation at the hands of special
delegates. Arrangements were therefore made for Dr.
Newcomb and Professors MiJnsterberg and Small to pro-
ceed to Europe during the summer of 1903, and to present

THE HISTORY OF THE CONGRESS xxix

in person to the scientific circles of Europe and to the
scientists specially desired to deliver addresses the com-
plete plan and scope of the Congress and an invitation to
particinate.

INVITATIONS TO FOREIGN SPEAKERS

The members of the Organizing Committee, armed with
very strong credentials from the State Department to the
diplomatic service abroad, sailed in the early summer of
1903 to present the invitation of the Exposition to the
selected scientists. Dr. Newcomb sailed May 6, Professor
Miinsterberg May 30, and Professor Small June 6. A
general interest in the project had at this time become
aroused, and there was assured a respectful hearing. Both
the President of the United States and the Emperor of
Germany expressed their warm interest in the plan, and
the State Department at Washington gave to the Congress
both on this occasion and on succeeding occasions its effect-
ive aid. The Director of Congresses wishes to express his
obligations both to the late Secretary Hay and to Assist-
ant-Secretary Loomis for their valuable suggestions and
courteous cooperation in all matters relating to the foreign
participation. Strong support was also given the Com-
mittee and the plan of the Congress by Commissioner-
General Lewald of Germany, and Commissioner-General
Lagrave of France. Throughout the entire Congress
period, both of these energetic Commissioners-General
placed themselves actively at the disposition of the Depart-
ment in promoting the attendance of scientists from their
respective countries.

Geographically the division between the three members
of the Organizing Committee gave to Dr. Newcomb,
France; to Professor Miinsterberg, Germany, Austria, and
Switzerland ; and to Professor Small, England, Russia,

XXX THE HISTORY OF THE CONGRESS

Italy, and a part of Austria. It was also agreed that Dr.
Newcomb should have special oversight of the depart-
ments of ]Mathematics, Physics, Astronomy, Biology, and
Technology; Professor Miinsterberg, special charge of
Philosophy, Philology, Art, Education, Psychology, and
Medicine; and that Professor Small should look after
Politics, Law, Economics, Theology, Sociology, and Re-
ligion. The Committee worked independently of each
other, but met once during the summer at ISIunich to
compare results and to determine their closing movements.

The public and even the Exposition authorities have
probably never realized the delicacy and the extremely
careful adjustment exercised by the Organizing Committee
in their summer's campaign. Scientists are as a class sen-
sitive, jealous of their reputations, and loath to undertake
long journeys to a distant country for congress purposes.
The amount of labor devolving upon the Committee to find
the scientists scattered over all Europe; the careful and
pains-taking presentation to each of the plan of the Con-
gress ; the appeal to their scientific pride ; the hearing of
a thousand objections, and the answering of each; the
disappointments incurred ; the substitutions made neces-
sary at the last moment ; — all sum up a task of the greatest
difficulty and of enormous labor. The remarkable success
with which the mission was crowned stands out the more
prominently in view of these conditions. When the Com-
mittee returned in the latter part of September, they had
visited every important country of Europe, delixered more
than one hundred fifty personal invitations, and for the
one hundred twenty-eight sections had secured one hundred
seventeen acceptances.

At a meeting of the Administrative Board, which met
with the Organizing Committee on October 13, 1903, a
full report of the European trip was received and ways

THE HISTORY OF THE CONGRESS xxxi

and means considered for insuring the attendance from
abroad. A list of the foreign acceptances was ordered
printed at once for general distribution, and the Chairman
of the Administrative Board was requested to address a
letter to each of the foreign scientists confirming the action
of the special delegates and giving additional information
as to the length of addresses, and rules and details govern-
ing the administration of the Congress.

ASSEMBLY HALLS

The highly diversified nature of the Congress and the
holding of one hundred twenty-eight section meetings in
four days' time rendered necessary a large number of
meeting-places centrally located. The Exposition was
fortunate in having the use of the new plant of the Wash-
ington University, nine large buildings of which had been
erected. IMany of these buildings contained lecture halls
and assembly rooms, seating from one hundred fifty to
fifteen hundred people. Sixteen halls were necessary to
accommodate the full number of sections running at any
one time, and of this number twelve were available in the
group of University Buildings; the other four were found
in the lecture halls of the Education Building, Mines and
Metallurgy Building, Agriculture Building, and the Trans-
portation Building. The opening exercises, at which the
entire Congress was assembled, was held in Festival Hall,
capable of seating three thousand people. In the assign-
ment of halls care was taken so far as possible to assign
the larger halls to the more popular subjects, but it often
happened that a great speaker was of necessity assigned to
a smaller hall. Two of the halls also proved bad for speak-
ing owing to the traffic of the Intramural Railway, and
there was lacking in nearly all of the halls that academic
peace and quiet which usually surrounds gatherings of a

XXXII THK HISTORY OF THE CONGRESS

scientific nature. This, however, was to be expected in
an exposition atmosphere, and was readily acquiesced in
by the speakers themselves, and very little objection was
heard to the halls as assigned. Every one seemed to
recognize the fact that the immediate value of the meeting
lay in the commingling and fellowship, and that the ad-
dresses, of which one could hear at most only one in six-
teen, could not be judged in the proper light until their
publication.

OPENING OF THE CONGRESS

The assembling of the Congress on the afternoon of
September 19, in the magnificent auditorium of Festival
Hall which crowned Cascade Hill and the Terrace of
States, was marked with simple ceremonies and impressive
dignity. The great organ pealed the national hymns of
the countries participating and closed with the national
anthem of the United States. In the audience were the
members of the Congress representing the selected talent
of the world in their field of scientific endeavor, and about
them were grouped an audience drawn from every part
of the United States to promote by their presence the suc-
cess of the Congress and to do honor to the noted person-
ages who were the guests of the Exposition and of the
Nation.

In conclusion, the editor wishes to express his obliga-
tions to the many speakers and officers of the Congress,
who have evinced great interest in the publication and
assisted by valuable suggestions and advice. In particular,
he acknowledges the help of President Butler of Columbia
University, Professor Miinsterberg of Harvard University,
and Professor Small, of the University of Chicago. Ac-
knowledgements are with justice and pleasure made to the
Committee on Congresses of the Exposition, and the able

THE HISTORY OF THE CONGRESS xxxiii

chairman, Hon. Frederick W. Lehmann, for their un-
wavering and prompt support on all matters of policy and
detail, without which the full measure of success could
not have been achieved. To the efiicient secretary of the
Department of Congresses, Mr. James Green Cotchett, an
expression of obligation is due for his indefatigable labors
during the Congress period, and for his able and pains-
taking work in compiling the detailed records of this pub-
lication.

At a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Expo-
sition on January 3, 1905, there was unanimously voted
the following resolution, recommended by the Admin-
istrative Board and approved by the Committee on Con-
gresses : —

Moved: that a vote of thanks and an expression of
deepest obligation be tendered to Dr. Simon Newcomb,
President of the Congress, Prof. Hugo Miinsterberg, vice-
president of the Congress, and Prof. Albion W. Small,
vice-president of the Congress, for their efficient, thorough,
and comprehensive work in connection w^ith the programme
of the Congress, the selection and invitation of speakers,
and the attention to detail in its execution. That, in view
of the enormous amount of labor devolving upon these
three gentlemen for the past eighteen months, to the ex-
clusion of all opportunities for literary and other work out-
side their college departments, an honorarium of twenty-
five hundred dollars be tendered to each of them.

At a subsequent meeting the following resolution was
also passed : —

Moved: that the Directors of the Louisiana Purchase
Exposition Company place upon the record an expression
of their appreciation of the invaluable aid so freely given
by the Administrative Board of the Congress of Arts and
Science. In organization, guidance, and results the Con-

XXXIV THE HISTORY OF THE CONGRESS

gress was the most notable of its kind in history. For
the important part performed wisely and zealously by the
Administrative Board the Exposition Management extends
this acknowledgement.

Summary of Expenses of the Congress.

Office expenses $7,025 82

Travel 3,847 24

Exploitation, Organizing Committee abroad 8,663 16
Traveling expenses, American Speakers . . 31,350
Traveling expenses, Foreign Speakers . . 49,000

Honorariums 7,500

Banquet 3,500

Expenses for editing proceedings .... 5,875

Estimated cost of printing proceedings . . 22,000 $138,761 22

INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS

DELIVERED AT THE OPENING EXERCISES AT FESTIVAL HALL

BY PROFESSOR SIMON NEWCOMB, PRESIDENT

OF THE CONGRESS

THE EVOLUTION OF THE SCIENTIFIC
INVESTIGATOR

As we look at the assemblage gathered in this hall, com-
prising so many names of widest renown in every branch
of learning, — we might almost say in every field of human
endeavor, — the first inquiry suggested must be after the
object of our meeting. The answer is, that our purpose
corresponds to the eminence of the assemblage. We aim
at nothing less than a survey of the realm of knowledge,
as comprehensive as is permitted by the limitations of time
and space. The organizers of our Congress have honored
me with the charge of presenting such preliminary view
of its field as may make clear the spirit of our undertaking.

Certain tendencies characteristic of the science of our
day clearly suggest the direction of our thoughts most ap-
propriate to the occasion. Among the strongest of these
is one toward laying greater stress on questions of the
beginning of things, and regarding a knowledge of the
laws of development of any object of study as necessary
to the understanding of its present form. It may be con-
ceded that the principle here involved is as applicable in
the broad field before us as in a special research into the
properties of the minutest organism. It therefore seems
meet that we should begin by inquiring what agency has
brought about the remarkable development of science to

2 INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS

which the world of to-day bears witness. This view is
recognized in the i)lan of our proceedings, by providing
for each great department of knowledge a review of its
progress during the century that has elapsed since the great
event commemorated by the scenes outside this hall. But
such reviews do not make up that general survey of science
at large which is necessary to the development of our
theme, and which must include the action of causes that
had their origin long before our time. The movement
which culminated in making the nineteenth century ever
memorable in history is the outcome of a long series of
causes, acting through many centuries, which are worthy
of especial attention on such an occasion as this. In setting
them forth we should avoid laying stress on those visible
manifestations which, striking the eye of every beholder,
are in no danger of being overlooked, and search rather
for those agencies whose activities underlie the whole
visible scene, but w^hich are liable to be blotted out of sight
by the very brilliancy of the results to which they have
given rise. It is easy to draw attention to the wonderful
qualities of the oak; but from that very fact, it may be
needful to point out that the real wonder lies concealed
in the acorn from which it grew.

Our inquiry into the logical order of the causes which
have made our civilization what it is to-day will be facili-
tated by bringing to mind certain elementary considera-
tions — ideas so familiar that setting them forth may seem
like citing a body of truisms — and yet so frefjuently over-
looked, not only individually, but in their relation to each
other, that the conclusion to which they lead may be lost
to sight. One of these propositions is that psychical rather
than material causes are those which we should regard as
fundamental in directing the development of the social
organism. The human intellect is the really active agent

THE SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATOR 3

in every branch of endeavor, — the primiim mobile of
civihzation, — and all those material manifestations to
which our attention is so often directed are to be regarded
as secondary to this first agency. If it be true that " in
the world is nothing great but man ; in man is nothing
great but mind," then should the keynote of our discourse
be the recognition of this first and greatest of powers.

Another well-known fact is that those applications of
the forces of nature to the promotion of human welfare
which have made our age what it is, are of such compara-
tively recent origin that we need go back only a single
century to antedate their most important features, and
scarcely more than four centuries to find their beginning.
It follows that the subject of our inquiry should be the
commencement, not many centuries ago, of a certain new
form of intellectual activity.

Having gained this point of view, our next inquiry will
be into the nature of that activity, and its relation to the
stages of progress which preceded and followed its begin-
ning. The superficial observer, who sees the oak but for-
gets the acorn, might tell us that the special qualities which
have brought out such great results are expert scientific
knowledge and rare ingenuity, directed to the application
of the powers of steam and electricity. From this point
of view the great inventors and the great captains of in-
dustry were the first agents in bringing about the modern
era. But the more careful inquirer will see that the work
of these men was possible only through a knowledge of
the laws of nature, which had been gained by men whose
work took precedence of theirs in logical order, and that
success in invention has been measured by completeness
in such knowledge. WLile giving all due honor to the
great inventors, let us remember that the first place is that
of the great investigators, whose forceful intellects opened

4 INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS

tlie way to secrets previously hidden from men. Let it be
an honor and not a reproach to these men, that they were
not actuated by the love of gain, and did not keep utilita-
rian ends in view in the pursuit of their researches. If it
seems that in neglecting such ends they were leaving un-
done the most important part of their work, let us remem-
ber that nature turns a forbidding face to those who pay
her court with the hope of gain, and is responsive only to
those suitors whose love for her is pure and undefiled. Not
only is the special genius required in the investigator not
that generally best adapted to applying the discoveries
which he makes, but the result of his having sordid ends
in view would be to narrow the field of his efforts, and
exercise a depressing effect upon his activities. The true
man of science has no such expression in his vocabulary as
" useful knowledge." His domain is as wide as nature
itself, and he best fulfills his mission when he leaves to
others the task of applying the knowledge he gives to the
world.

We have here the explanation of the well-known fact
that the functions of the investigator of the laws of nature,
and of the inventor who applies these laws to utilitarian
purposes, are rarely united in the same person. If the one
conspicuous exception which the past century presents to
this rule is not unique, we should probably have to go back
to Watt to find another.

From this viewpoint it is clear that the primary agent
in the movement which has elevated man to the masterful
position he now occupies, is the scientific investigator. He
it is whose work has deprived plague and pestilence of
their terrors, alleviated human suffering, girdled the earth
with the electric wire, bound the continent with the iron
way. and made neighbors of the most distant nations. As
the first agent which has made possible this meeting of

THE SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATOR 6

his representatives, let his evolution be this day our worthy
theme. As we follow the evolution of an organism by
studying the stages of its growth, so we have to show how
the work of the scientific investigator is related to the
ineffectual efforts of his predecessors.

In our time we think of the process of development in
nature as one going continuously forward through the com-
bination of the opposite processes of evolution and dissolu-
tion. The tendency of our thought has been in the direc-
tion of banishing cataclysms to the theological limbo, and
viewing nature as a sleepless plodder, endowed with infinite
patience, waiting through long ages for results. I do not
contest the truth of the principle of continuity on which
^this view is based. But it fails to make known to us the
whole truth. The building of a ship from the time that
her keel is laid until she is making her way across the ocean
is a slow and gradual process; yet there is a cataclysmic
epoch opening up a new era in her history. It is the
moment when, after lying for months or years a dead,
inert, immovable mass, she is suddenly endowed with the
power of motion, and, as if imbued with life, glides into
the stream, eager to begin the career for which she was
designed.

I think it is thus in the development of humanity. Long
ages may pass during which a race, to all external observa-
tion, appears to be making no real progress. Additions
may be made to learning, and the records of history may
constantly grow, but there is nothing in its sphere of
thought, or in the features of its life, that can be called
essentially new. Yet, nature may have been all along
slowly working in a way which evades our scrutiny until
the result of her operations suddenly appears in a new and
revolutionary movement, carrying the race to a higher
plane of civilization.

6 INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS

It is not difficult to point out such epochs in human
progress. The greatest of all, because it was the first, is
one of which we find no record either in written or geo-
logical history. It was the epoch when our progenitors
first took conscious thought of the morrow, first used the
crude weapons which nature had placed within their reach
to kill their prey, first built a fire to warm their bodies and
cook their food. I love to fancy that there was some one
first man, the Adam of evolution, who did all this, and who
used the power thus acquired to show his fellows how they
might profit by his example. When the members of the
tribe or community which he gathered around him began
to conceive of life as a whole, — to include yesterday, to-
day, and to-morrow in the same mental grasp — to think
how they might apply the gifts of nature to their own
uses, — a movement was begun which should ultimately
lead to civilization.

Long indeed must have been the ages required for the
development of this rudest primitive community into the
civilization revealed to us by the most ancient tablets of
Egypt and Assyria. After spoken language was developed,
and after the rude representation of ideas by visible marks
drawn to resemble them had long been practiced, some
Cadmus must have invented an alphabet. When the use
of written language was thus introduced, the word of com-
mand ceased to be confined to the range of the human
voice, and it became possible for master minds to extend
their influence as far as a written message could be carried.
Then were communities gathered into provinces; provinces
into kingdoms ; kingdoms into the great empires of an-
tiquity. Then arose a stage of civilization which we find
pictured in the most ancient records. — a stage in which
men were governed by laws that were perhaps as wisely
adapted to their conditions as our laws are to ours, — in

THE SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATOR 7

which tlic phenomena of nature were rudely observed, and
striking occurrences in the earth or in tlie heavens recorded
in the annals of the nation.

Vast was the progress of knowledge during the interval
between these empires and the century in which modern
science began. Yet, if I am right in making a distinction
between the slow and regular steps of progress, each grow-
ing naturally out of that which preceded it, and the en-
trance of the mind at some fairly definite epoch into an
entirely new sphere of activity, it would appear that there
was only one such epoch during the entire interval. This
was when abstract geometrical reasoning commenced, and
astronomical observations aiming at precision were re-
corded, compared, and discussed. Closely associated with
it must have been the construction of the forms of logic.
The radical difference between the demonstration of a
theorem of geometry and the reasoning of every-day life
which the masses of men must have practiced from the
beginning, and w^hich few even to-day ever get beyond,
is so evident at a glance that I need not dwell upon it.
The principal feature of this advance is that, by one of
those antinomies of the human intellect of which examples
are not wanting even in our own time, the development of
abstract ideas preceded the concrete knowledge of natural
phenomena. When we reflect that in the geometry of
Euclid the science of space was brought to such logical
perfection that even to-day its teachers are not agreed as
to the practicability of any great improvement upon it, we
cannot avoid the feeling that a very slight change in the
direction of the intellectual activity of the Greeks would
have led to the beginning of natural science. But it would
seem that the very purity and perfection which was aimed
at in their system of geometry stood in the way of any
extension or application of its methods and spirit to the

INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS

field of nature. One example of this is worthy of atten-
tion. In modern teaching the idea of magnitude as gen-
erated by motion is freely introduced. A line is described
by a moving point; a plane by a moving line; a solid by
a moving plane. It may, at first sight, seem singular that
this conception finds no place in the Euclidian system.
But we may regard the omission as a mark of logical
purity and rigor. Had the real or supposed advantages
of introducing motion into geometrical conceptions been
suggested to Euclid, we may suppose him to have replied
that the theorems of space are independent of time; that
the idea of motion necessarily implies time, and that, in
consequence, to avail ourselves of it would be to introduce
an extraneous element into geometry.

It is quite possible that the contempt of the ancient phil-
osophers for the practical application of their science,
which has continued in some form to our own time, and
which is not altogether unwholsome, was a powerful factor
in the same direction. The result was that, in keeping
geometry pure from ideas which did not belong to it, it
failed to form what might otherwise have been the basis
of physical science. Its founders missed the discovery that
methods similar to those of geometric demonstration could
be extended into other and wider fields than that of space.
Thus not only the development of applied geometry, but
the reduction of other conceptions to a rigorous mathe-
matical form was indefinitely postponed.

Astronomy is necessarily a science of observation pure
and simple, in which experiment can have no place except
as an auxiliary. The vague accounts of striking celestial
phenomena handed down by the priests and astrologers
of antiquity were followed in the time of the Greeks by
observations having, in form at least, a rude approach to
precision, though nothing like the degree of precision that

THE SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATOR 9

the astronomers of to-day would reach with the naked eye,
aided by such instruments as he could fashion from the
tools at the command of the ancients.

The rude observations commenced by the Babylonians
were continued with gradually improving instruments, —
first by the Greeks and afterward by the Arabs, — but the
results failed to afford any insight into the true relation
of the earth to the heavens. What was most remarkable
in this failure is that, to take a first step forward which
would have led on to success, no more was necessary than
a course of abstract thinking vastly easier than that re-
quired for working out the problems of geometry. That
space is infinite is an unexpressed axiom, tacitly assumed
by Euclid and his successors. Combining this with the
most elementary consideration of the properties of the
triangle, it would be seen that a body of any given size
could be placed at such a distance in space as to appear
to us like a point. Hence a body as large as our earth,
which was known to be a globe from the time that the
ancient Phoenicians navigated the Mediterranean, if placed
in the heavens at a sufficient distance, would look like a
star. The obvious conclusion that the stars might be bodies
like our globe, shining either by their own light or by
that of the sun, would have been a first step to the under-
standing of the true system of the world.

There is historic evidence that this deduction did not
wholly escape the Greek thinkers. It is true that the critical
student will assign little weight to the current belief that
the vague theory of Pythagoras — that fire was at the center
of all things — implies a conception of the heliocentric
theory of the solar system. But the testimony of Archi-
medes, confused though it is in form, leaves no serious
doubt that Aristarchus of Samos not only propounded the
view that the earth revolves both on its own axis and

10 INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS

around the sun. but that he correctly removed the great
stumbHng-block in the way of this theory by adding that
the distance of the fixed stars was infinitely greater than
the dimensions of the earth's orbit. Even the world of
philosophy was not yet ready for this conception, and, so
far from seeing the reasonableness of the explanation, we
find Ptolemy arguing against the rotation of the earth on
grounds which careful observations of the phenomena
around him would have shown to be ill-founded.

Physical science, if we can apply that term to an un-
coordinated body of facts, was successfully cultivated from
the earliest times. Something must have been known of
the properties of metals, and the art of extracting them
from their ores must have been practiced, from the time
that coins and medals were first stamped. The properties
of the most common compounds were discovered by al-
chemists in their vain search for the philosopher's stone,
but no actual progress worthy of the name rewarded the
practitioners of the black art.

Perhaps the first approach to a correct method was that
of Archimedes, who by much thinking worked out the law
of the lever, reached the conception of the centre of gravity,
and demonstrated the first principles of hydrostatics. It
is remarkable that he did not extend his researches into
the phenomena of motion, whether spontaneous or pro-
duced by force. The stationary condition of the human
intellect is most strikingly illustrated by the fact that not
imtil the time of Leonardo was any substantial advance
made on his discovery. To sum up in one sentence the
most characteristic feature of ancient and medieval science,
we see a notable contrast between the precision of thought
implied in the construction and demonstration of geo-
metrical theorems and the vague indefinite character of
the ideas of natural phenomena generally, a contrast which

THE SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATOR 11

did not disappear until the foundations of modern science
began to be laid.

We should miss the most essential i)oint of the differ-
ence between medieval and modern learning if we looked
upon it as mainly a difference either in the precision or
the amount of knowledge. The development of both of
these qualities would, under any circumstances, have been
slow and gradual, but sure. We can hardly suppose that
any one generation, or even any one century, would have
seen the complete substitution of exact for inexact ideas.
Slowness of growth is as inevitable in the case of knowl-
edge as in that of a growing organism. The most essential
point of difference is one of those seemingly slight ones,
the importance of which we are too apt to overlook. It
was like the drop of blood in the wrong place, which some
one has told us makes all the difference between a phil-
osopher and a maniac. It was all the difference betw^een
a living tree and a dead one, between an inert mass and
a growing organism. The transition of knowledge from
the dead to the living form must, in any complete review
of the subject, be looked upon as the really great event of
modern times. Before this event the intellect was bound
down by a scholasticism which regarded knowledge as a
rounded whole, the parts of which w^ere written in books
and carried in the minds of learned men. The student was
taught from the beginning of his work to look upon author-
ity as the foundation of his beliefs. The older the authority
the greater the weight it carried. So effective was this
teaching that it seems never to have occurred to individual
men that they had all the opportunities ever enjoyed by
Aristotle of discovering truth, with the added advantage
of all his knowledge to begin with. Advanced as was the
development of formal logic, that practical logic was want-
ing which could see that the last of a series of authorities,

12 IXTRODUCTORY ADDRESS

every one of which rested on those which preceded it, could
never form a surer foundation for any doctrine than that
supplied by its original propounder.

The result of this view of knowledge was that, although
during the fifteen centuries following the death of the
geometer of Syracuse great universities were founded at
which generations of professors expounded all the learning
of their time, neither professor nor student ever suspecting
what latent possibilities of good were concealed in the most
familiar operations of nature. Every one felt the wind
blow, saw water boil, and heard the thunder crash, but
never thought of investigating the forces here at play. Up
to the middle of the fifteenth century the most acute ob-
server could scarcely have seen the dawn of a new era.

In view of this state of things, it must be regarded as
one of the most remarkable facts in evolutionary history
that four or five men, whose mental constitution was either
typical of the new order of things or who were powerful
agents in bringing it about, were all born during the
fifteenth century, four of them at least at so nearly the
same time as to be contemporaries.

Leonardo da Vinci, whose artistic genius has charmed
succeeding generations, was also the first practical engineer
of his time, and the first man after Archimedes to make a
substantial advance in developing the laws of motion. That
the world was not prepared to make use of his scientific
discoveries does not detract from the significance which
must attach to the period of his birth.

Shortly after him was born the great navigator whose
bold spirit was to make known a new world, thus giving
to commercial enterprise that impetus which was so power-
ful an agent in bringing about a revolution in the thoughts
of men.

The birth of Columbus was soon followed by that of

THE SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATOR 13

Copernicus, the first after Aristarchus to demonstrate the
true system of the world. In him more than in any of his
contemporaries do we see the struggle between the old
forms of thought and the new. It seems almost pathetic
and is certainly most suggestive of the general view of
knowledge taken at that time that, instead of claiming
credit for bringing to light great truths before unknown,
he made a labored attempt to show that, after all, there
was nothing really new in his system, which he claimed
to date from Pythagoras and Philolaus. In this connec-
tion it is curious that he makes no mention of Aristarchus,
who I think will be regarded by conservative historians as
his only demonstrated predecessor. To the hold of the
older ideas upon his mind we must attribute the fact that
in constructing his system he took great pains to make as
little change as possible in ancient conceptions.

Luther, the greatest thought-stirrer of them all, prac-
tically of the same generation with Copernicus, Leonardo,
and Columbus, does not come in as a scientific investigator,
but as the great loosener of chains which had so fettered
the intellect of men that they dared not think otherwise
than as the authorities thought.

Almost coeval with the advent of these intellects was the
invention of printing with movable type. Gutenberg was
born during the first decade of the century, and his asso-
ciates and others credited with the invention not many
years afterward. If we accept the principle on which I
am basing my argument, that we should assign the first
place to the birth of those psychic agencies which started
men on new lines of thought, then surely was the fifteenth
the wonderful century.

Let us not forget that, in assigning the actors then born
to their places, we are not narrating history, but studying
a special phase of evolution. It matters not for us that

14 INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS

no university invited Leonardo to its halls, and that his
science was valued by his contemporaries only as an ad-
junct to the art of engineering. The great fact still is that
he was the first of mankind to propound laws of motion.
It is not for anything in Luther's doctrines that he finds
a place in our scheme. No matter for us whether they
were sound or not. What he did toward the evolution of
the scientific investigator was to show by his example that
a man might question the best-established and most vener-
able authority and still live — still preserve his intellectual
integrity — still command a hearing from nations and their
rulers. It matters not for us whether Columbus ever knew
that he had discovered a new continent. His work was
to teach that neither hydra, chimera, nor abyss — neither
divine injunction nor infernal machination — was in the
way of men visiting every part of the globe, and that the
problem of conquering the world reduced itself to one of
sails and rigging, hull and compass. The better part of
Copernicus was to direct man to a viewpoint whence he
should see that the heavens were of like matter with the
earth. All this done, the acorn was planted from which
the oak of our civilization should spring. The mad quest
for gold which followed the discovery of Columbus, the
questionings, which absorbed the attention of the learned,
the indignation excited by the seeming vagaries of a Para-
celsus, the fear and trembling lest the strange doctrine of
Copernicus should undermine the faith of centuries, were
all helps to the germination of the seed — stimuli to thought
which urged it on to explore the new fields opening up to
its occupation. This given, all that has since followed came
out in regular order of development, and need be here con-
sidered only in those phases having a special relation to the
purpose of our present meeting.

So slow was the growth at first that the sixteenth cen-

THE SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATOR 15

tury may scarcely have recognized the inauguration of a
new era. Torricelli and Benedetti were of the third genera-
tion after Leonardo, and GaHleo, the first to make a sub-
stantial advance upon his theory, was born more than a
century after him. Only two or three men appeared in a
generation who, working alone, could make real progress
in discovery, and even these could do little in leavening
the minds of their fellow men with the new ideas.

Up to the middle of the seventeenth century an agent
which all experience since that time shows to be necessary
to the most productive intellectual activity was wanting.
This was the attraction of like minds, making suggestions
to each other, criticising, comparing, and reasoning. This
element was introduced by the organization of the Royal
Society of London and the Academy of Sciences of Paris.

The members of these two bodies seem like ingenious
youth suddenly thrown into a new world of interesting
objects, the purposes and relations of which they had to
discover. The novelty of the situation is strikingly shown
in the questions which occupied the minds of the incipient
investigator. One natural result of British maritime enter-
prise was that the aspirations of the Fellows of the Royal
Society were not confined to any continent or hemisphere.
Inquiries were sent all the way to Batavia to know
"whether there be a hill in Sumatra which burneth con-
tinually, and a fountain which runneth pure balsam " The
astronomical precision with which it seemed possible that
physiological operations might go on was evinced by the
inquiry whether the Indians can so prepare that stupefying
herb Datura that " they make it lie several days, months,
years, according as they will, in a man's body without
doing him any harm, and at the end kill him without
missing an hour's time." Of this continent one of the
inquiries was whether there be a tree in Mexico that

l(i INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS

yields water, wine, vinegar, milk, honey, wax, thread, and
needles.

Among the problems before the Paris Academy of
Sciences those of physiology and biology took a prominent
place. The distillation of compounds had long been prac-
ticed, and the fact that the more spirituous elements of
certain substances were thus separated naturally led to the
question whether the essential essences of life might not
be discoverable in the same way. In order that all might
participate in the experiments, they were conducted in open
session of the Academy, thus guarding against the danger
of any one member obtaining for his exclusive personal use
a possible elixir of life. A wide range of the animal and
vegetable kingdom, including cats, dogs, and birds of
various species, were thus analyzed. The practice of dis-
section was introduced on a large scale. That of the
cadaver of an elephant occupied several sessions, and was
of such interest that the monarch himself was a spectator.

To the same epoch with the formation and first work
of these two bodies belongs the invention of a mathematical
method which in its importance to the advance of exact
science may be classed with the invention of the alphabet
in its relation to the progress of society at large. The use
of algebraic symbols to represent quantities had its origin
before the commencement of the new era, and gradually
grew into a highly developed form during the first two
centuries of that era. But this method could represent
quantities only as fixed. It is true that the elasticity in-
herent in the use of such symbols permitted of their being
applied to any and every quantity; yet, in any one applica-
tion, the quantity was considered as fixed and definite. But
most of the magnitudes of nature are in a state of con-
tinual variation ; indeed, since all motion is variation, the
latter is a universal characteristic of all phenomena. No

THE SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATOR 17

serious advance could be made in the application of alge-
braic language to the expression of physical phenomena
until it could be so extended as to express variation in
quantities, as well as the quantities themselves. This ex-
tension, worked out independently by Newton and Leib-
nitz, may be classed as the most fruitful of conceptions
in exact science. With it the way was opened for the
unimpeded and continually accelerated progress of the last
two centuries.

The feature of this period which has the closest relation
to the purpose of our coming together is the seemingly
unending subdivision of knowledge into specialties, many
of which are becoming so minute and so isolated that they
seem to have no interest for any but their few pursuers.
Happily science itself has afforded a corrective for its own
tendency in this direction. The careful thinker will see
that in these seemingly diverging branches common ele-
ments and common principles are coming more and more
to light. There is an increasing recognition of methods
of research, and of deduction, which are common to large
branches, or to the whole of science. We are more and
more recognizing the principle that progress in knowledge
implies its reduction to more exact forms, and the ex-
pression of its ideas in language more or less mathematical.
The problem before the organizers of this Congress was,
therefore, to bring the sciences together, and seek for the
unity which we believe underlies their infinite diversity.

The assembling of such a body as now fills this hall was
scarcely possible in any preceding generation, and is made
possible now only through the agency of science itself.
It differs from all preceding international meetings by the
universality of its scope, which aims to include the whole
of knowledge. It is also unique in that none but leaders
have been sought out as members. It is unique in that so

18 INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS

manv lands have delegated their choicest intellects to carry
on its work. They come from the country to which our
republic is indebted for a third of its territory, including
the ground on which we stand; from the land which has
taught us that the most scholarly devotion to the languages
and learning of the cloistered past is compatible with leader-
ship in the practical application of modern science to the
arts of life; from the island whose language and literature
have found a new field and a vigorous growth in this
religion ; from the last seat of the holy Roman Empire ;
from the country which, remembering a monarch who
made an astronomical observation at the Greenwich Ob-
servatory, has enthroned science in one of the highest
places in its government ; from the peninsula so learned
that we have invited one of its scholars to come and tell
us of our own language; from the land which gave birth
to Leonardo, Galileo, Torricelli, Columbus, Volta — what
an array of immortal names ! — from the little republic of
glorious history which, breeding men rugged as its eternal
snowpeaks, has yet been the seat of scientific investigation
since the day of the Bernoullis ; from the land whose heroic
dwellers did not hesitate to use the ocean itself to protect
it against invaders, and which now makes us marvel at the
amount of erudition compressed within its little area; from
the nation across the Pacific, which, by half a century of
unequaled progress in the arts of life, has made an
important contribution to evolutionary science through
demonstrating the falsity of the theory that the most
ancient races are doomed to be left in the rear of the
advancing age — in a word, from every great centre of
intellectual activity on the globe I see before me eminent
representatives of that world advance in knowledge which
we have met to celebrate. May we not confidently hope
that the discussions of such an assemblage will prove preg-

THE SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATOR 19

nant of a future for science which shall outshine even its
brilliant past?

Gentlemen and scholars all ! You do not visit our shores
to find great collections in which centuries of humanity
have given expression on canvas and in marble to their
hopes, fears, and aspirations. Nor do you expect institu-
tions and buildings hoary with age. But as you feel the
vigor latent in the fresh air of these expansive prairies,
which has collected the products of human genius by which
we are here surrounded^ and, I may add, brought us
together; as you study the institutions which we have
founded for the benefit, not only of our own people, but
of humanity at large; as you meet the men wdio, in the
short space of one century, have transformed this valley
from a savage w^ilderness into what it is to-day — then may
you find compensation for the want of a past like yours
by seeing with prophetic eye a future world-power of
which this region shall be the seat. If such is to be the
outcome of the institutions which we are now building up,
then may your present visit be a blessing both to your
posterity and ours by making that pow-er one for good to
all mankind. Your deliberations will help to demonstrate
to us and to the w^orld at large that the reign of law must
supplant that of brute force in the relations of the nations,
just as it has supplanted it in the relations of individuals.
You will help to show that the war which science is now
waging against the sources of diseases, pain, and misery
offers an even nobler field for the exercise of heroic quali-
ties than can that of battle. We hope that when, after
your all too fleeting sojourn in our midst, you return to
your own shores, you will long feel the influence of the
new air you have breathed in an infusion of increased
vigor in pursuing your varied labors. And if a new im-
petus is thus given to the great intellectual movement of

20 IXTRODUCTORV ADDRESS

the past century, resulting: not only in promoting- the unifi-
cation of knowledge, but in widening its field through new
combinations of effort on the part of its votaries, the pro-
jectors, organizers, and supporters of this Congress of Arts
and Science will be justified of their labors.

THE VARIETY AND UNITY OF HISTORY

BY WOODROW WILSON

[WooDROW WrrsoN, President of Princeton University, b. Staunton,
Virginia, December 28, 1856. A.B. Princeton University, 1879;
A.M. 1882. Pli.D. Johns Hopkins, 1886. Litt.D. Yale, 1901. LL.D.
Wake Forest College, 1887; Tulane University, 1897; Johns Hop-
kins, 1901; Rutgers College, 1902; University of Pennsylvania,
1903; Brown University, 1903. Post-graduate, University of Vir-
ginia and Johns Hopkins University. Associate Professor History
and Political Economy, Bryn Mawr College, 1885-88. Professor
History and Political Economy, Wesleyan University, 1888-90.
Professor Jurisprudence and Politics, Princeton University, since
1890. Member American Institute of Arts and Letters, American
Historical Association, American Economic Association, Ameri-
can Academy Political and Social Science, American Philosophi-
cal Society, Southern History Association. Corresponding Mem-
ber Massachusetts Historical Society. Author of Congressional
Government; An Old Master and Other Essays; George Washing-
ton; A History of the American People.]

We have seen the dawn and the early morning hours
of a new age in the writing of history, and the morning is
now broadening about us into day. When the day is full
we shall see that minute research and broad synthesis are
not hostile but friendly methods, cooperating toward a
common end which neither can reach alone. No piece
of history is true when set apart to itself, divorced and
isolated. It is part of an intricately various whole, and
must needs be put in its place in the netted scheme of events
to receive its true color and estimation; and yet it must be
itself individually studied and contrived if the whole is not
to be weakened by its imperfection. Whole and part are
of one warp and woof. I think that we are in a temper
to realize this now, and to come to happy terms of harmony
with regard to the principles and the objects which we
shall hold most dear in the pursuit of our several tasks.

I know that in some quarters there is still a fundamental
difference of opinion as to the aim and object of historical

22 HISTORICAL SCIENCE

wriiing. Some regard history as a mere record of expe-
rience, a huge memorandum of events, of the things done,
attempted, or neglected in bringing tlie world to the present
stage and posture of its affairs, — a book of precedents to
which to turn for instruction, correction, and reproof.
Others regard it as a book of interpretation, rather, in
which to study motive and the methods of the human spirit,
the ideals that elevate and the ideals that debase; from
which we are to derive assistance, not so much in action
as in thought; a record of evolution, in which we are not
likely to find repetitions, and in reading wdiich our inquiry
should be of processes, not of precedents. The two views
are not. upon analysis, so far apart as they at first appear
to be. I think that we shall all agree, upon reflection and
after a little explanation of the terms we use, that what we
seek in history is the manifestation and development of
the human spirit, whether we seek it in precedents or in
processes.

All of the many ways of writing history may be reduced
to two. There are those who write history, as there are
those who read it, only for the sake of the story. Their
study is of plot, their narrative goes by ordered sequence
and seeks the dramatic order of events ; men appear, in
their view, always in organized society, under leaders and
subject to common forces making this way or that ; details
are for the intensification of the impression made by the
main movement in mass ; there is the unity and the epic
progress of The Decline and fall, or the crowded but
always ordered composition of one of Macaulay's can-
vases ; cause and effect move obvious and majestic upon
the page, and the story is of the large force of nations.
This is history embodied in "events," centering in the large
transactions of epochs or of peoples. It is history in one
kind, upon which there are many variants. History in the

VARIETY AND UNITY OF HISTORY 23

other kind devotes itself to analysis, to interpretation, to
the illumination of the transactions of which it treats by
lights let in from every side. It has its own standard of
measurement in reckoning transactions great and small,
bases its assessments, not upon the numbers involved or
the noise and reputation of the day itself in which they
occurred, so much as upon their intrinsic significance, seen
now in after days, as an index of what the obscure men of
the mass thought and endured, indications of the forces
making and to be made, the intimate biography of daily
thought. Here interest centres, not so much in what hap-
pened as in what underlay the happening; not so much in
the tides as in the silent forces that lifted them. Economic
history is of this quality, and the history of religious be-
lief, and the history of literature, where it traces the map
of opinion, whether in an age of certainty or in an age
of doubt and change.

The interest of history in both kinds is essentially the
same. Each in its kind is a record of the human spirit.
In one sort we seek that spirit manifested in action, where
effort is organized upon the great scale and leadership
displayed. It stirs our pulses to be made aware of the
mighty forces, whether of exaltation or of passion, that
play through what men have done. In the other sort of
history we seek the spirit of man manifested in conception,
in the quiet tides of thought and emotion making up the
minor bays and inlets of our various life of complex cir-
cumstance, in the private accumulation of events which lie
far away from the sound of drum or trumpet and constitute
no part of the pomp of great affairs. The interest of
human history is that it is human. It is a tale that moves
and quickens us. We do not approach it as we approach
the story of nature. The records of geology, stupendous
and venerable as they are, written large and small, with

24 HISTORICAL SCIENCE

infinite variety, upon the faces of great mountains and of
shadowed canons or in the fine shale of the valley, buried
deep in the frame of the globe or lying upon the surface,
do not hold us to the same vivid attention. Human history
has no such muniment towers, no such deep and ancient
secrets, no such mighty successions of events as those which
the geologist explores; but the geologist does not stir us
as the narrator of even the most humble dealings of our
fellow men can stir us. And it is so with the rest of the
history of nature. Even the development of animal life,
though we deem its evolution part of ours, seems remote,
impersonal, no part of any affair that we can touch with
controlling impulse or fashion to our pleasure. It is the
things which we determine which most deeply concern us,
our voluntary life and action, the release of our spirits in
thought and act. If the philosophers were to convince us
that there is in fact no will of our own in any matter, our
interest in the history of mankind would slacken and utterly
change its face. The ordered sequences of nature are out-
side of us, foreign to our wills, but these things of our
own touch us nearly.

It is the honorable distinction of historical writing in
our day that it has become more broadly and intimately
human. The instinct of the time is social rather than
political. We would know not merely how law and gov-
ernment proceed but also how society breeds its forces, how
these play upon the individual, and how the individual
affects them. Law and government are but one expression
of the life of society. They are regulative rather than
generative, and historians of our day have felt that in
writing political and legal history they were upon the sur-
face only, not at the heart of affairs. The minute studies
of the specialist have been brought about, not merely by
the natural exigencies of the German seminar method of

VARIETY AND UNITY OF HISTORY 25

instruction, not merely by the fact that the rising tide of
doctors' theses has driven would-be candidates for degrees
to the high and dry places, after all the rich lowland had
been covered, but also by a very profound and genuine
change of view on the part of the masters of history them-
selves with regard to what should be the distinctive ma-
terial of their study. Before our modern day of specializa-
tion there was virtually no history of religion, or of law,
or of literature, or of language, or of art. Fragments of
these things were, of course, caught in the web of the old
narratives, but the great writers of the older order looked
at them with attention only when they emerged, gross and
obvious, upon the surface of affairs. Law was part of the
movement of politics or of the patent economic forces that
lay near the interests of government. Religion was not
individual belief, but as it were the politics of an institu-
tion, of the church, which was but the state itself in another
guise. Literature concerned them only as it became the
wind of opinion beating upon the laboring ship of state,
or when some sudden burst of song gave a touch of im-
aginative glory to the domestic annals of the nation which
was their theme. Art came within their view only when
it was part of the public work of some Pericles or became
itself part of the intricate web of politics, as in the Italian
states of the Renaissance. Language concerned them not
at all, except as its phrases once and again spoke the tem-
per of an epoch or its greater variations betokened the birth
of new nations.

And all this because their interest was in affairs of state,
in the organized and coordinated efforts of the body politic,
in opinions and influences which moved men in the mass
and governed the actions of kings and their ministers of
state at home and abroad. In brief, their interest was in
" events." It is curious and instructive to examine what

26 HISTORICAL SCIENCE

we mean by that much-used word. \\q mean always, I
take it, some occurrence of large circumstance, — no private
affair transacted in a corner, but something observed and
open to the public view, noticeable and known, — and not
fortuitous, either, but planned, concerted. There can,
properly speaking, be no " event " without organized ef-
fort : it is not a thing of the individual. Literature is
excluded, by definition, and art, and language, and much
of religion that is grounded in unobserved belief, and all
the obscure pressure of economic want. A history of
" events " cannot be a history of the people ; it can only
be a history of the life of the body politic, of the things
which statesmen observe and act upon.

The specialist has taught us that the deepest things are
often those which never spring to light in events, and that
the breeding-ground of events themselves lies where the
historian of the state seldom extends his explorations. It
is not true that a community is merely the aggregate of
those who compose it. The parts are so disposed among
us that the minority governs more often than the majority.
But influence and mastery are subtle things. They pro-
ceed from forces which come to the individual out of the
very air he breathes: his life is compounded as the lives
of those about him are. Their lives play upon his, he
knows not how, and the opinion he enforces upon them is
already more than half their own. And so the analysis
of the life of the many becomes part of the analysis of the
power of the few — an indispensable part. It is this that
the specialist sees. He sees more. He sees that individual
effort as well as aggregate must be studied, the force that
is in the man as well as the air that is in the community.
The men who give voice to their age are witnesses to more
things than they wot of.

Mr. Ruskin, in the preface to the little volume on Vene-

VARIETY AND UNITY OF HISTORY 27

tian art, to which he has given the name St. Mark's Rest,
propounds a theory which will illuminate my meaning.
" Great nations," he says, " write their autobiographies in
three manuscripts, — the book of their deeds, the book of
their words, and the book of their art. Not one of these
books can be understood unless we read the two others ;
but of the three the only quite trustworthy one is the last.
The acts of a nation may be triumphant by its good for-
tune; and its words mighty by the genius of a few of its
children; but its art only by the general gifts and common
sympathies of the race. Again, the policy of a nation may
be compelled, and, therefore, not indicative of its true
character. Its words may be false, while yet the race re-
mains unconscious of their falsehood ; and no historian
can assuredly detect the hypocrisy. But art is always in-
stinctive ; and the honesty or pretense of it are therefore
open to the day. The Delphic oracle may or may not have
been spoken by an honest priestess, — we cannot tell by the
words of it ; a liar may rationally believe them a lie. such
as he would himself have spoken ; and a true man, with
equal reason, may believe them spoken in truth. But there
is no question possible in art: at a glance (when we have
learned to read), we know the religion of Angelico to be
sincere, and of Titian, assumed."

Whether we agree with all the dicta of this interesting
passage or not, the main truth of it is plain. It is to be
doubted whether tlic " genius of a few of its children "
suffices to gi\-e a nation place in the great annals of litera-
ture, and literary critics would doubtless maintain that the
book of a nation's words is as naif and instinctive as the
book of its art. Here, too, the sincere and natural is easily
to be distinguished ("when we have learned to read")
from the sophisticated and the artificial. Plainly the auto-
biography of Benjamin Franklin is separated by a long

28 HISTORICAL SCIENCE

age from the autobiography of Benvenuto CelHni, and the
one is as perfect a mirror of the faith of the man and the
manner of the age as the other. But these questions are
not of the present point. Undoubtedly the book of a
nation's art and the book of its words must be read along
with the book of its deeds if its life and character are to
be comprehended as a whole ; and another book, besides, —
the book of its material life, its foods, its fashions, its
manufactures, its temperatures and seasons. In each of
these great books the historian looks for the same thing :
the life of the day, the impulses that underlie government
and all achievement, all art and all literature, as well as all
statesmanship.

I do not say that the specialists who have so magnified
their office m our day have been conscious of this ultimate
synthesis. Few of them have cared for it or believe in it.
They have diligently spent their intensive labor upon a few
acres of ground, with an exemplary singleness of mind,
and have displayed, the while, very naively, the provincial
spirit of small farmers. But a nation is as rich as its sub-
jects, and this intensive farming has accumulated a vast
store of excellent food-stuffs. No doubt the work would
have been better done if it had been done in a more
catholic spirit, with wider sympathies, amidst horizons.
The broader the comprehension the more intelligent the
insight. But we must not ask for all things in a genera-
tion or expect our own perfection by any other way than
the familiar processes of development.

Perhaps we are near enough the time of synthesis and
coordination to see at least the organic order and relation-
ship of the several special branches of historical inquiry
which have been grouped in this Division of our Congress.
All history has society as its subject-matter; what we
jx)nder and explore is, not the history of men, but the his-

VARIETY AND UNITY OF HISTORY 29

tory of man. And yet our themes do not all lie equally
close to the organic processes of society. Those processes
are, of course, most prominent in political and economic
history, least prominent, perhaps, in the history of lan-
guage. I venture to suggest that the organic order is :
Politics, economics, religion, law, literature, art, language.
So far as the question affects religion and law, I must
admit that I am not clear which of the two ought to take
precedence, — in modern history, certainly law ; but most
history is not modern, and in that greater part which is not
modern clearly religion overcrows law in the organic, social
process.

I know that the word religion, in this connection as in
most others, is of vague and mixed significance, covering
a multitude of sins ; but so far as my present point is con-
cerned, it is easy of clarification. Religion, as the historian
handles it, involves both a history of institutions, of the
church, and a history of opinion. As a history of opinion
it perhaps lies no nearer the organic processes of society
than does the history of literature; but from the beginning
of recorded events until at any rate the breaking up of
foundations which accompanied and followed the French
Revolution, it concerns the church as an institution as
definitely as the history of politics, with its various records
of shifting opinion, concerns the state, and the organic life
of the body politic. In such a view, religion must take
precedence of law in the organic order of our topics.
From the remotest times of classical history, when church
and state, priest and judge, were hardly distinguishable,
through the confused Middle Age, in which popes were
oftentimes of more authority than kings and emperors,
down to the modern days, when priests and primates were,
by very virtue of their oi^ce, chief politicians in the plot
of public policy, the church has unquestionably played a

30 HISTORICAL SCIENCE

part second only to the state itself in the organization and
government of society, in the framing of the public life.

Law occupies a place singular and apart. Its character
is without parallel in our list. It has no life of its own
apart from the life of the state, as religion has, or litera-
ture, or art. or language. Looked at as the lawyer looks
at it. it is merely the voice of the state, the body of regula-
tions set by government to give order to the competiti\e
play of individual and social forces. Looked at from the
historian's point of view, it consists of that part of the
social thought and habit which has definitely formed itself,
which has gained universal acquiescence and recognition,
and which has been given sanction and backing of the state
itself, a final formulation in command. In either case,
whatever its origin, whether in the arbitrary will of the law-
maker or in the gradually disclosed and accepted conven-
ience of society, it comes, not independently and of itself,
but through the mouth of governors and judges and is itself
a product of the state. But not of politics, unless we speak
of public law, the smaller part, not of private, the greater.
The forces which created it are chiefly economic, or else
social, bred amidst ideas of class and privilege. It springs
from a thousand fountains. Statutes do not contain all
of it; and statutes are themselves, when soundly conceived,
but generalizations of experience. The truth is that, while
law gets its formulation and its compulsive sanction from
the political governors of the state, its real life and source
lie hidden amidst all of the various phenomena which his-
torians are called upon to explore. It belongs high in the
list I have made, because it so definitely takes its form
from the chief organ of society.

To put literature before art in the organic order I have
suggested, is not to deny Mr. Ruskin's dictum, that art
more than literature comes " by the general gifts and com-

VARIETY AND UNITY OF HISTORY 31

mon sympathies of the race," by instinct rather than by
deliberation ; it is only to say that more of what is passing
through a nation's tliought is expressed in its literature
than in its art. As a nation thinks so it is ; and the his-
torian must give to the word literature a wider significance
than the critic would vouchsafe, tie must think not merely
of that part of a nation's book of words upon which its
authors have left the touch of genius, the part that has
been made immortal by the transfiguring magic of art,
but also of the cruder parts which have served their pur-
pose and now lie dead upon the page, — the fugitive and
ephemeral pamphlets, the forgotten controversies, the dull,
thin prose of arguments long ago concluded, old letters,
futile and neglected pleas, — whatever may seem to have
played through the thought of older days.

Of the history of language I speak with a great deal of
diffidence. My own study of it was of narrow scope and
antedated all modern methods. But I know what interest
it has for the historian of life and opinion ; I know how
indispensable its help is in deciphering race origins and
race mixtures ; I know what insight it affords into the
processes of intellectual development; I know what subtle
force it has had not only in moulding men's thoughts, but
also their acts and their aspirations after the better things
of hope and purpose. I know how it mirrors national as
well as individual genius. And I know that all of these
data of organic life, whether he take them at first hand
or at second, throw a clarifying light upon many an
obscure page of the piled records that lie upon the his-
torian's table. I fancy that the historian who intimately
uses the language of the race and people of w4iich he writes
somehow gets intimation of its origin and history into his
ear and thought whether he be a deliberate student of its
development or not; but be that as it may, the historian

32 HISTORICAL SCIEx\CE

of language stands at his elbow, if he will but turn to him,
with many an enlightening fact and suggestion which he
can ill afford to dispense withal. It is significant, as it is
interesting, that the students of language have here been
definitely called into the company of historians. May the
alliance be permanent and mutually profitable!

My moral upon the whole list is, that, separated though
we may be by many formal lines of separation, sometimes
insisted on with much pedantic punctilio, we are all part-
ners in a common undertaking, the illumination of the
thoughts and actions of men as associated in society, the
life of the human spirit in this familiar theatre of co-
operative effort in which we play, so changed from age to
age and yet so much the same throughout the hurrying
centuries. Some of the subjects here grouped may stand
high in the list of organic processes, others affect them less
vigorously and directly; but all are branches and parts of
the life of society. In one of the great topics we deal with
there is, I know, another element which sets it quite apart
to a character of its own. The history of religion is not
merely the history of social forces, not merely the history
of institutions and of opinions. It is also the history of
something which transcends our divination, escapes our
analysis, — the power of God in the life of men. God does,
indeed, deal with men in society and through social forces,
but he deals with him also individually, as a single soul,
not lost in society or impoverished of his individual will
and responsibility by his connection with the lives of other
men, but himself sovereign and lonely in the choice of his
destiny. This singleness of the human soul, this several
right and bounden duty of individual faith and choice, to
be exercised oftentimes in contempt and defiance of society,
is a thing no man is likely to overlook who has noted the
genesis of our modern liberty or assessed the forces of

VARIETY AND UNITY OF HISTORY 33

reform and regeneration which have lifted us to our present
enhghtenment ; and it introduces into the history of re-
ligion, at any rate since the day of Christ, the master of
free souls, an element which plays upon society like an
independent force, like no native energy of its own. This,
nevertheless, like all things else that we handle, comes
into the sum of our common reckoning when we would
analyze the life of men as manifested in the book of their
deeds, in the book of their words, in the book of their art,
or in the book of their material arts, consumption, needs,
desires; and the product is still organic. Men play upon
one another whether as individual souls or as political and
economic partners.

What the specialist has discovered for us, whether he
has always discovered it for himself or not, is, that this
social product which we call history, though produced by
the interplay of forces, is not always produced by definite
organs or by deliberation: that, though a joint product,
it is not always the result of concerted action. He has
laid bare to our view particular, minor, confluent but not
conjoint influences, which, if not individual, are yet not
deliberately cooperative, but the unstudied, ungeneraled,
scattered, unassembled, it may be even single and individ-
ual expression of motives, conceptions, impulses, needs,
desires, which have no place within the ordered, corporated
ranks of such things as go by legislation or the edicts of
courts, by resolutions of synods or centred mandates of
opinion, but spring of their own spontaneous vigor out of
the unhusbanded soil of unfenced gardens, the crops no
man had looked for or made ready to reap. Though all
soils from which human products suck their sustenance
must no doubt lie within the general sovereignty of society,
and no man is masterless in our feudal moral system, these
things which have come to light by the labor of those who

34 HISTORICAL SCIENCE

have scrutinized the detail of our Hves for things neglected
have not been produced within the immediate demesnes of
the crown. Historians who ponder public policy only, and
only the acts of those who make and administer law and
determine the relationships of nations, like those who fol-
low only tiie main roads of literature and study none but
the greater works of art, have therefore passed them by
unheeded, and so, undoubtedly, have missed some of the
most interesting secrets of the very matters they had set
themselves to fathom. Individuals, things happening
obscure and in a corner, matters that look like incidents,
accidents, and lie outside the observed movements of af-
fairs, are as often as not of the very gist of controlling
circumstances and will be found when fully taken to pieces
to lie at the very kernel of our fruit of memory.

I do not mean to imply that the work of the specialist
is now near enough to being accomplished, his discoveries
enough completed, enough advertised, enough explained,
his researches brought to a sufficient point of perfection.
I daresay he is but beginning to come into his kingdom :
is just beginning to realize that it is a kingdom, and not
merely a congeries of little plots of ground, unrelated, un-
neighborly even; and that as the years go by and such
studies are more and more clarified, more and more wisely
conceived, this minute and particular examination of the
records of the human spirit will yield a yet more illuminat-
ing body of circumstances and serve more and more di-
rectly and copiously for the rectification of all history.
What I do mean, and what, I daresay, I am put here to pro-
claim, is, that the day for synthesis has come ; that no one of
us can safely go forward without it ; that labor in all kinds
must henceforth depend upon it, the labor of the specialists
no less than the labor of the general historian who attempts
the broader generalizations of comment and narrative.

VARIETY AND UNITY OF HISTORY 35

In the English-speaking world we have very recently
witnessed two interesting and important attempts at syn-
thesis by cooperation in Mr. H. D. Traill's Social England
and Lord Acton's Cambridge Modern History, the one
now complete, the other still in course of publication. We
have had plans and proposals for a somewhat similarly
constructed history of the United States. Mr. Justin
Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of America hardly
furnishes an example of the sort of work attempted in the
other series of which I have spoken. Aside from its lists
and critical estimates of authorities, it is only history along
the ordinary lines done in monographs, covering topics
every historian of America has tried to cover. Mr. Traill's
volumes, as their general title bears evidence, run upon a
wider field, whose boundaries include art, literature, lan-
guage, and religion, as well as law and politics. They are
broader, at any rate in their formal plan, than Lord Acton's
series, if we may judge by the three volumes of the Cam-
bridge Modern History already published. The chapter-
headings in the Cambridge volumes smack much more
often of politics and public affairs than of the more covert
things of private impulse and endeavor. Their authors
write generally, however, with a very broad horizon about
them and examine things usually left unnoted by historians
of an earlier age. The volumes may fairly be taken, there-
fore, to represent an attempt at a comprehensive synthesis
of modern historical studies.

Both Mr. Traill's volumes and the Cambridge Modern
History are constructed upon essentially the same general
plan. The sections of the one and the chapters of the
other are monographs pieced together to make a tessellated
whole. The hope of the editors has been to obtain, by
means of carefully formulated instructions and suggestions
issued beforehand to their corps of associates, a series of

36 HISTORICAL SCIENCE

sections conceived antl executed, in some general sen'^e,
upon a common model and suitable to be worked in to-
gether as parts of an intelligible and consistent pattern;
and, so uniform has been our training in historical re-
search and composition in recent years, that a most sur-
prising degree of success has attended the effort after
homogeneous texture in the narrative and critical essays
which have resulted ; a degree of success which I call sur-
prising, not because I think it very nearly complete, but
because I am astonished that, in the circumstances, it
should have been success at all and not utter failure.

It is far from being utter failure; and yet how far it is
also from being satisfactory success! Allow me to take,
as an example of the way in which these works are con-
structed, my own experience in writing a chapter for the
volume of the Cambridge Modern History which is de-
voted to the United States. In doing so I am far from
meaning even to imply any criticism upon the editors of
that admirable series, to whom w^e are all so much in-
debted. I do not see how, without incredible labor, they
could have managed the delicate and difficult business in-
trusted to them in any other way; and I am adducing my
experience in their service only for the sake of illustrating
what must, no doubt, inevitably be the limitations and
drawbacks of work in this peculiar kind. I can think
of no other way so definite of assessing the quality and
serviceability of this sort of synthesis. I was asked by
Lord Acton to write for his volume on the United States
the chapter which treats of the very painful and important
decade 1850-1860, and I undertook the commission with
a good deal of willingness. There are several things con-
cerning that critical period which I like to have an oppor-
tunity to say. But I had hardly embarked upon the inter-
esting enterprise, which I was bidden compass within thirty

VARIETY AND UNITY OF HISTORY 37

of the ample pages of the Cambridge royal octavos, before
I was beset by embarrassments with regard to the manner
and scope of treatment. The years 1850-18()0 do not, of
course, either in our own history or in any other, constitute
a decade severed from its fellows. The rootages of all
the critical matters which then began to bear their bitter
/ruitage are many and complex and run far, very far, back
into soil which I knew very well other writers were farm-
ing. I did not know what they would say or leave unsaid,
explain or leave doubtful. I could take nothing for
granted ; for every man's point of view needs its special
elucidation, and he can depend upon no other man to light
his path for him. I therefore wrote a narrative essay, in
my best philosophical vein, on the events of the decade
assigned me, in which I gave myself a very free hand and
took care to allow my eye a wide and sweeping view upon
every side. I spoke of any matter I pleased, harked back
to any transaction that concerned me, recking nothing of
how long before the limiting date 1850 it might have
occurred, and so flung myself very freely, — should I say
very insolently? — through many a reach of country that
clearly and of my own certain knowledge belonged to
others, by recorded Cambridge title. How was I to avoid
it? My co-laborers were not at my elbow in my study.
Some of them were on the other side of the sea. The
editors themselves could not tell me what these gentlemen
were to say, for they did not know. The other essays
intended for the volume were on the stocks being put
together, as mine was.

I must conjecture that the other writers for that volume
fared as I did, and took the law into their own hands as
I did ; and their experience and mine is the moral of my
criticism. No sort of cunning joinery could fit their sev-
eral pieces of workmanship together into a single and con-

38 HISTORICAL SCIENCE

sistent whole. Xo amount of uniform type and sound
binding can metamorphose a series of individual essays
into a book. I may be allowed to express my surprise, in
passing, that some individual historians should have tried
to compound and edit themselves in the same way, by
l)inding together essays which were conceived and ex-
ecuted as separate wholes. The late Mr. Edward Eggleston
furnished us with a distinguished example of this in his
Beginners of a Nation, whose chapters are topical and run
back and forth through time and circumstance without
integration or organic relation to one another, treating
again and again of the same things turned about to be
looked at from a different angle. And if a man of capital
gifts cannot fuse his own essays, or even beat and com-
press them into solid and coherent amalgam, how shall
editors be blamed who find the essays of a score of minds
equally intractable? No doubt the Cambridge volumes
are meant for scholars more than for untrained readers,
though Mr. Traill's, I believe, are not; but even the docile
scholar, accustomed of necessity to contrast and variety in
what he pores upon and by habit very patient in reconciling
inconsistencies, plodding through repetitions, noting varia-
tions and personal w^himsies, must often wonder why he
should thus digest pieces of other men's minds and eat a
mixture of secondary authorities. The fact is, that this
is not synthesis, but mere juxtaposition. It is not even
a compounding of views and narrati\cs. It is comjjilation.
There is no whole cloth, no close texture, anywhere in it.
The collected pieces overlap and are sometimes not even
stitched together. Events — even events of critical conse-
fjuence — are sometimes incontinently overlooked, dropped
utterly from the narrative, because no one of the writers
felt any particular responsibility for them, and one and
another took it for granted that some one else had

VARIETY AND UNITY OF HISTORY 39

treated of them, finding their incKision germane and con-
venient.

But if we reject this sort of cooperation as unsatis-
factory, what are we to do? Obviously some sort of
cooperation is necessary in this various and almost bound-
less domain of ours; and if not the sort Mr. Traill and
Ivord Acton planned, what sort is possible? The question
is radical. It involves a great deal more than the mere
determination of a method. It involves nothing less than
an examination of the essential character and object of
history, — I mean of that part of man's book of words
which is written as a deliberate record of his social ex-
perience. What are our ideals ? What, in the last analysis,
do we conceive our task to be? Are we mere keepers and
transcribers of records, or do we write our own thoughts
and judgments into our narratives and interpret what we
record? The question may be simply enough asked, but
it cannot be simply answered. The matter requires elab-
oration.

Let us ask ourselves, by way of preliminary test, what
we should be disposed to require of the ideal historian,
what qualities, what powers, what aptitudes, what pur-
poses? Put the query in another form, more concrete,
more convenient to handle: how would you critically dis-
tinguish Mommsen's History from a doctor's thesis? By
its scope, of course ; but its scope would be ridiculous if it
were not for its insight, its power to reconceive forgotten
states of society, to put antique conceptions into life and
motion again, build scattered hints into systems, and see a
long national history singly and as a whole. Its masterly
qualities it gets from the perceiving eye, the conceiving
mind of its great author, his divination rather than his
learning. The narrative impresses you as if written by
one who has seen records no other man ever deciphered.

40 HISTORICAL SCIENCE

I do not think Mommsen an ideal historian. His habit as
a lawyer was too strong upon him : he wrote history too
much as if it were an argument. His curiosity as an anti-
quarian was too keen : things very ancient and obscure were
more interesting to him than the more commonplace things,
which nevertheless constitute the bulk of the human story.
But his genius for interpretation was his patent of nobility
in the peerage of historians ; he would not be great without
it ; and without it would not illustrate my present thesis.

That thesis is, that, in whatever form, upon whatever
scale you take it, the writing of history as distinguished
from the clerical keeping of records is a process of interpre-
tation. No historical writer, how small soever his plot
of time and circumstance, ever records all the facts that
fall under his eye. He picks and chooses for his narrative,
determines which he will dwell upon as significant, which
put by as of no consequence. And that is a process of
judgment, an estimation of values, an interpretation of the
matter he handles. The smaller the plot of time he writes
of, the more secluded from the general view the matters
he deals with, the more liable is he to error in his interpreta-
tion; for this little part of the human story is but a part;
its significance lies in its relation to the whole. It requires
nicer skill, longer training, better art and craft to fit it to
its little place than would be required to adjust more bulky
matters, matters more obviously involved in the general
structure, to their right position and connections. The
man with only common skill and eyesight is safer at the
larger, cruder sort of work. Among little facts it requires
an exceeding nice judgment to pick the greater and the
less, prefer the significant and throw away only the neg-
ligible. The specialist must needs be overseen and cor-
rected with much more vigilance and misgiving than the
national historian or the historian of epochs.

VARIETY AND UNITY OF HISTORY 41

Here, then, is the fundamental weakness of the cooper-
ative histories of which I have spoken by example. They
have no wholeness, singleness, or integrity of conception.
If the several authors who wrote their section or chapters
had written their several parts only for the eye of one man
chosen guide and chief among them, and he, pondering
them all, making his own verifications, and drawing from
them not only, but also from many another source and
chiefly from his own lifelong studies, had constructed the
whole, the narrative had been everywhere richer, more
complete, more vital, a living whole. But such a scheme
as that is beyond human nature, in its present jealous con-
stitution, to execute, and is a mere pleasing fancy, — if any
one be pleased with it. Such things are sometimes done
in university seminars, where masters have been known to
use, at their manifest peril, the work of their pupils in
making up their published writings ; but they ought not to
have been done there, and they are not likely to be done
anywhere else. At least this may be said, that, if master
workmen w^ere thus to use and interpret other men's ma-
terials, one great and indispensable gain would be made:
history would be coherently conceived and consistently
explained. The reader would not himself have to com-
pound and reconcile the divergent views of his authors.

I daresay it seems a very radical judgment to say that
synthesis in our studies must come by means of literary
art and the conceiving imagination; but I do not see how
otherwise it is to come. By literary art, because interpreta-
tion cannot come by crude terms and unstudied phrases in
WTiting any more than pictorial interpretation can come by
a crude, unpracticed, ignorant use of the brush in painting.
By the conceiving imagination, because the historian is not
a clerk but a seer : he must see the thing first before he can
judge of it. Not the inventing imagination, but the con-

42 HISTORICAL SCIENCE

cciving imagination, — not all historians have been careful
to draw the distinction in their practice. It is imagination
that is needed, is it not, to conceive past generations of
men truly in their habit and manner as they lived? If not,
it is some power of the same kind which you prefer to call
by another name : the name is not what we shall stop to
discuss. I will use the word under correction. Nothing
but imagination can put the mind back into the past ex-
periences not its own, or make it the contemporary of
institutions long since passed away or modified beyond
recognition. And yet the historian must be in thought and
comprehension the contemporary of the men and afifairs he
writes of. He must also, it is true, be something more:
if he would have the full power to interpret, he must have
the ofifing that will give him perspective, the knowledge
of subsequent events which will furnish him with multi-
plied standards of judgment: he should write among
records amplified, verified, complete, withdrawn from the
mist of contemporary opinion. But he will be but a poor
interpreter if he have alien sympathies, the temperament
of one age when writing of another, it may be contrasted
with his own in every point of preference and belief. He
needs something more than sympathy, for sympathy may
be condescending, pitying, contemptuous. Few things are
more benighting than the condescension of one age for
another, and the historian who shares this blinding senti-
ment is of course unfitted for his office, which is not that
of censor but that of interpreter. Sympathy there must
be, and very catholic sympathy, but it must be the sympathy
of the man who stands in the midst and sees, like one
within, not like one without, like a native, not like an
alien. He must not sit like a judge exercising exterritorial
jurisdiction.

It is through the imagination that this delicate adjust-

VARIETY AND UNITY OF HISTORY 43

meiit of view is effected, — a power not of the understand-
ing- nor yet a mere faculty of sympathetic appreciation, or
even compounded of the two, but mixed of these with a
magical gift of insight added, which makes it a thing mere
study, mere open-mindedness, mere coolness and candor of
judgment cannot attain. Its work cannot be done by editor-
ship or even by the fusing of the products of different
minds under the heat of a single genius ; its insight is with-
out rule, and is exercised in singleness and independence.
It is in its nature a thing individual and incommunicable.

Since literary art and this distinctive, inborn genius of
interpretation are needed for the elucidation of the human
story and must be married to real scholarship if they are
to be exercised with truth and precision, the work of
making successful synthesis of the several parts of our
labors for each epoch and nation must be the achievement
of individual minds, and it might seem that we must await
the slow maturing of gifts Shakespearean to accomplish
it. But, happily, the case is not so desperate. The genius
required for this task has nothing of the universal scope,
variety, or intensity of the Shakespearean mind about it.
It is of a much more humble sort and is, we have reason
to believe, conferred upon men of every generation. There
would be good cause to despair of the advance of historical
knowledge if it were not bestowed with some liberality.
It is needed for the best sort of analysis and specialization
of study as well as for successful synthesis, for the par-
ticular as well as for the general task. Moreover, a certain
very large amount of cooperation is not only possible but
quite feasible. It depends, after all, on the specialists
whether there shall be successful synthesis or not. If they
wish it, if it be their ideal, if they construct their parts with
regard to the whole and for the sake of the whole, syn-
thesis will follow naturally and with an easy approach to

44 HISTORICAL SCIENCE

perfection; but if tlie specialists are hostile, if their en-
thusiasm is not that of those who have a large aim and
view, if they continue to insist on detail for detail's sake
and suspect all generalization of falseness, if they cannot
be weaned from the provincial spirit of petty farmers, the
outlook is bad enough, synthesis is indefinitely postponed.
Synthesis is not possible without specialization. The special
student must always garner, sift, verify. ]\Iinute circum-
stance must be examined along with great circumstance,
all the background as w^ell as the foreground of the picture
studied, every part of human endeavor held separately
under scrutiny until its individual qualities and particular
relations with the rest of the human story stand clearly
revealed ; and this is, of necessity, the w'ork of hundreds of
minds, not of one mind. There is labor enough and honor
enough to go around, and the specialist w^ho puts first-rate
gifts into his task, though he be less read, will not in the
long estimate of literature earn less distinction than the
general historian. It is a question of the division and
cooperation of labor: but it is more; it is also a question
of the spirit in which the labor is done, the public spirit
that animates it, the general aim and conception that under-
lies and inspires it.

As a university teacher I cannot help thinking that the
government of the matter is largely in the hands of the
professors of history in our schools of higher training.
The modern crop of specialists is theirs : they can plant and
reap after a different kind if they choose. I am convinced
that the errors and narrownesses of specialization are
chiefly due to vicious methods and mistaken objects in
the training of advanced students of history in the uni-
versities. In the first place, if I may speak from the ex-
perience of our American universities, students are put to
asks of special investigation before they are sufficiently

VARIETY AND UNITY OF HISTORY 45

grounded in oeneral history and in the larger aspects of
the history of the age or nation of whicli they are set to
elaborate a part. They discover too many things that are
already known and too many things which are not true, —
at any rate, in the crude and distorted shape in which they
advance them. Other universities may be happier than
ours in their material, in the previous training of the men
of whom they try to make investigators; but even when
the earlier instruction of their pupils has been more nearly
adequate and better suited to what is to follow, the training
they add is not, I take the liberty of saying, that which is
likely to produce history, but only that which is likely to
produce doctors' theses. The students in their seminars
are encouraged, if they are not taught, to prefer the part
to the whole, the detail to the spirit, like chemists who
should prefer the individual reactions of their experiments
to the laws which they illustrate.

I should think the mischievous mistake easy enough of
correction. It is quite possible to habituate students to a
point of view, and to do so is often, I daresay, the best
part of their preparation. When they come to the ad-
vanced stage of their training, at which they are to be set
to learn methods of investigation, they should not be set
first of all to the discovery of elaboration of facts, to the
filling in of the hiatuses easily and everywhere to be dis-
cerned, by their preceptors at any rate, in the previous
study of detail. They should, rather, be set to learn a
very different process, the process of synthesis : to establish
the relations of circumstances already known to the general
history of the day in which they occured. These circum-
stances should not all be political or economic or legal ;
they should as often concern religion, literature, art, or the
development of language, so that the student should at
once become accustomed to view the life of men in society

46 HISTORICAL SCIENCE

as a whole. Heaven knows there is enough original work
waiting to be done in this kind to keep many generations
of youngsters profitably employed. Look where you will
in the field of modern monographs, and it is easy to find
unassociated facts piled high as the roofs of libraries.
There is not a little fame as well as much deep instruction
to be got out of classifying them and bringing them into
their vital relations with the life of which they form a
part. It were mere humanity to relieve them of their
loneliness. After they had been schooled in this work,
which, believe me, some one must do, and that right
promptly, our advanced students of history and of his-
torical method would be ready to go on, if it were only
after graduation, after the fateful doctor's degree, to the
further task of making new collections of fact, which they
would then instinctively view in their connection with the
known circumstances of the age in which they happened.
Thus, perhaps thus only, will the spirit and the practice
of synthesis be bred.

If this change should be successfully brought about,
there would no longer be any painful question of hierarchy
among historians : the specialist would have the same spirit
as the national historian, would use the same power, display
the same art, and pass from the ranks of artisans to the
ranks of artists, making cameos as much to be prized as
great canvases or heroic statues. Until this happens his-
tory will cease to be a part of literature, and that is but
another way of saying that it will lose its influence in the
world, its monographs prove about as vital as the speci-
mens in a museum. It is not only the delightful pre-
rogative of our studies to view man as a whole, as a living,
breathing spirit, it is also their certain fate that if they do
not view him so, no living, breathing spirit will heed them.
We have used the wrong words in speaking of our art and

VARIETY AND UNITY OF HISTORY 47

craft. History must be revealed, not recorded, conceived
before it is written, and we must all in our several degrees
be seers, not clerks. It is a high calling and should not
be belittled. Statesmen are guided and formed by what
we write, patriots stimulated, tyrants checked. Reform and
progress, charity, and freedom of belief, the dreams of
artists and the fancies of poets, have at once their record
and their source with us. We must not suffer ourselves
to fall dull and pedantic, must not lose our visions or cease
to speak the large words of inspiration and guidance. It
were a shame upon us to drop from the ranks of those
who walk at the van and sink into the ranks of those who
only follow after, to pick up the scattered traces of the
marching host as things merely to pore upon and keep.
We cannot do this. We will return to our traditions and
compel our fellow historians of literature to write of us
as of those who were masters of a great art.

WOOBliOW WILSON. Ph.D., LLD.
Prenident of Princeton Unioersity

THE SCIENCE OF HISTORY IN THE NINE-
TEENTH CENTURY.

BY WILLIAM MILLIGAN SLOANE

[William Milligan Sloane, 3eth Low Professor of History. Colum-
bia University, since 1896. b. November 12, 1850, Richmond,
Ohio. A.B. Columbia, 1868; Ph.D. Leipsic, 1876; L.H.D. Colum-
bia, 1885; LL.D. Rutgers, 1900; Princeton, 1903. Post-graduate,
University of Berlin, 1872-75; University of Leipsic, 1875-76.
Classical Master Newell Institute, 1868-72. Professor of Latin,
Princeton, 1877-82; History, 1882-96. Member Academy of Po-
litical Science, American Historical Association, National Insti-
tute of Arts and Letters. Author of The French War and the
Revolution; Napoleon Bonaparte; The French Revolution and
Religious Reform; and editor of The American Historical Re-
view.]

The scientific study of history seeks to find in the past
the means of determining both the evokition occurring
under our eyes and the probabihties of the future. No
preconception may distort the facts ; but, the facts once
determined, they may not be considered except in the Hght
of reason. This by the rhetorical figure of " anticipation "
we call, the Science of History. There is no claim that as
yet this is other than an empirical science: we hope that
one day it may become fairly complete; exact, within cer-
tain limits. Freeman, Morley, Acton, Comte, Renan,
Taine; Waitz, Ranke, Mommsen, — these are some of the
men who during the century just past have labored to make
history scientific. One and all they ridiculed the wild ex-
aggeration of mere reason as the final arbiter, apart from
the affections, the imagination, and the moral sense; one
and all they distrusted the " vague and sterile philan-
thropy," which is so often a plague to normal social con-
ditions. Freethinkers as were most of them, yet, liberal
and orthodox alike, they believed in the merits and bene-

50 POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

factions of the Christian Church as a vital factor in their
science. In their cathoHc spirit they were truly scientific.

It is assumed that the scientific study of history has
entirely displaced history as literature; or literary history,
as many style it. There have, indeed, been many men
of light and learning, whose style and trained imagination
have transmuted history into literature: there have been
others who sought, even in the study of texts and in the
interpretations of philology, to secure the material of
novels, tales, or poetry, to find examples for the inspira-
tion and consolation of contemporary life. For such works
the public has a passion, and no wonder; with the delight
of literature we seem to combine learning and education.
We savor and love the mixture of fact, philosophy, and
poetry; the invention, the charm, the power. Yet this is
not and never was history; something perhaps higher, but
not history. There may even be literary science; but for
all that science is not literature nor literature science. These
twain cannot be made one flesh. Each may modify the
other, but there is no transmutation.

For the scientific study of history we must have minds
subtle, conscientious, and accurate — minds with a power
and aptitude for minutiae, with a patience and endurance
which know no bounds, honest minds incapable of even
self-deception, and in particular with the linguistic gift that
makes no language impossible of acquisition or foreign
to the learner's aptitudes. Only for the mind thus equipped
can history and philology be scientific. The generations
of men endowed with the imaginative faculty have seen
and will ever see, in the labors of such minds, the most
splendid form of applied art, the highest known form of
prose literature possibly, but certainly the nearest approach
to scientific history that can be made.

In ours as in other disciplines there is trouble; and the

HISTORY OF NINETEENTH CENTURY 51

trouble, as elsewhere, arises among the men who are desti-
tute, or nearly so, of the imaginative power which is so
well designated as the scientific imagination. Honest men
of this sort, proud of their devotion and accuracy, become
pedantic, claim infallibility, and despise all others: in the
presence of the most august of all terrestrial things, — the
origins, rise, and evolution of a state, the supreme social
unit, — the mere investigator secures no large view but
becomes a stern, contemptuous materialist. Only worse
than these are the ignorant and impatient, who disdain
the accuracy of truth, and are indifferent to the orderly
arrangement of facts: the chain of causation in human
affairs they can neither understand nor appreciate, being
dazzled by speculation, imagery, and rhetoric. Shallow
and inaccurate, they prate about history as literature, and
deny the possibility of a science of history.

In the closing years of the nineteenth century there was
much strife about the question as to whether or not there
could be science in history. The question now is : How
much science and of what kind is there in history? As
some help toward a reply, we are forced to an historical
retrospect of the efforts to secure and apply a method.

The eighteenth century is by many regarded as the period
when history was born anew into the realm of science.
The reason given is that it coincided with the final over-
throw of ecclesiasticism, and the chief names adduced in
proof are these of Vico (1G68-1744), Gibbon (1737-94),
Voltaire (1G94-1778), and Burke (1729-97). It was felt
that humanity was, if not its own first cause, at least its
own demiurge, and men were determined to discover, if
possible, what were the processes by which mankind had
formed itself and made its home. Without a doubt there
was for this reason a passionate study of nature, and it
may have been a necessary complement that both the statics

52 POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

and dynamics of social phenomena were examined with a
new purpose and from a new angle. But in spite of all
eft'orts to establish this contention and to trace an historical
continuity in the science of " histories " from then until
now, there lie athwart the argument difficulties so porten-
tous and so serious as almost if not entirely to vitiate its
conclusions.

It is true that Vico was the first to ask why, if there be
a science of nature, we have no science of history? It is
consequently true that he was the first historical evolution-
ist. To him the story of a nation was the record of an
ever completer realization in fact of certain remnants of a
pre-natal revelation, of the primitive concrete notions of
justice, goodness, beauty, and truth : the development, as
he phrased it, of this poetic wisdom into the occult wisdom
of law and government, into the realization of abstract
and impersonal justice, was for him the subject-matter of
history. This was a sublime idea, pregnant with great
possibilities. But its author could not see the conclusions.
Conceiving of three stages — divine, heroic, and human —
he announced three corresponding civilizations, ending in
an unstable democracy, whence society abandoned to license
always relapses into barbarism, only to emerge once more
by a law of cycles into a renewal of the process. This, of
course, is a flat denial of progress. Moreo\-er Vico never
had a glimpse, much less a vision, of scientific order in his-
tory beyond the record of a single folk, and never conceived
of general history in a scientific aspect. For these reasons
he was a prophet without honor, either contemporaneous
or posthumous, and left no influence behind to mould either
his own or succeeding ages.

The method which Voltaire announced was alike more
simple and more scientific. It was based on the theory that
most details of history are mere baggage, and that when

HISTORY OF NINETEENTH CENTURY 53

the lumber of the antiquary, as Bolingbroke called it, is
disengaged from capital events, you may study in these last
the vital human power and its workings. Wars, diplomacy,
and the personal minutiae of the political hierarchy, he
relegated to the garret of the chronicler and collector : laws,
arts, and manners, he conceived to be the essentials of his-
tory. Equipped with this doctrine, he turned to account
such portions of his time as he could spare from literature,
politics, and attacks on ecclesiasticism to the composition
of philosophical history. By the sheer force of historic
doubt he destroyed many a myth, by the seductions of a
graceful style and the stings of a biting sarcasm he rele-
gated the millinery of human life to the rummage chambers
where it belongs, and finally in his great essay on manners
he drew the plan and established the proportions for a con-
cept of unity in history which in another land and age was
destined to revolutionize the pursuit.

Either he never knew or he had forgotten a vital point.
Jejune and embryonic as Aristotle's Politics appear when
applied to our problems, his experience having been con-
fined to the petty states of Greece, he nevertheless found
and set forth the vital principle of society as an organism.
On this were based the ancient concepts of economics. The
embryo of modern economics was begotten by Jean Bodin
(1580), a lawyer of the sixteenth century, who formulated
the ideas of progress, law, and causation in history. Had
he combined with his own thoughts (Methodus ad facilcm
Historiarum Cognifioncm) the one great thought of Aris-
totle, he would have been even more famous than he is,
he would have been the father of scientific history as well
as of scientific economics. His objective, external attitude
toward history was that of all the great, down to the nine-
teenth century; it was the basic concept and starting-point
of Bossuet, of Vico, of Bodin, and even of Montesquieu.

54 POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

It was likewise the radical vice of Voltaire, as in a still
higher degree it was that of Gibbon. The foundations of
the social union may not be studied in collection of his-
torical, legal, or even social facts, nor in brilliant general-
izations therefrom, like those which cause the pages of
Montesquieu to flash and scintillate. The true science of
history shows us not merely the operations, what has been
called the " play and function " of the social organs, it
exhibits under the scalpel the organs themselves. Negative
criticism has its rights, no doubt, but it is scanty fare for
the hungry soul, and the idea of constructive, productive
criticism was far better dexeloped in Thucydides than in
Voltaire ; the most that can be said of the latter is that he
saw in a glass darkly the concept, not of the unity of
history, but of European history as a totality.

What then of Gibbon ; has he too been weighed in the
balances and found w^anting? His erudition was immense,
his pen facile and powerful, his grasp gigantic and his
method sound. Let us apply the supreme test. Do scholars
read him? or, if they read him, is it for any other motive
than a learned curiosity? They copiously correct and an-
notate him, and freely explore the mazes of his thought:
they conspire with publishers to issue new editions of his
books, and the public buys edition after edition ; but so like-
wise do they buy edition after edition of Rollin's Universal
History! The sets look well on the shelves, but the man
who reads either is hard pressed to kill time. There is
more light thrown on the Decline and Fall by the short
treatise of Fustel than by all the ponderous and erudite
rhetoric of Gibbon. We have gleaned, not a few, but many
facts, which Gibbon had not, even though the truth of
fact is on all his pages; his method struggles to combine
the ideas of evolution and of organism, but his logic is
after all felt to be futile and his conclusions antiquated.

HISTORY OF NINETEENTH CENTURY 55

Like the other historians of his epoch, though the move-
ment of his style is Hke that of the Roman triumph, he has
not left to the world a " possession forever." Scholars can
find all his information elsewhere, the use he makes of it
they neither admire nor approve. Readers of discrimina-
tion have better use for their time than to peruse the pages
of an unsympathetic formalist, the eulogist of heathen
effeminacy, an apologist for pagan morality.

In truth, the eighteenth century is very remote from the
nineteenth. The same facts no longer wear the same faces,
and another method has gradually supplanted that which,
though respectable, was nevertheless outworn. A restless
evolution renews during every few generations all history
in all its aspects, and never halts in the process. It is the
fiat that history must be rewritten as knowledge grows, as
epoch succeeds epoch. This is because readers have lived;
have lived themselves into a world that is new scientifically
and psychologically, and which has perspectives of which
the past knew nothing. Viewed from the heights of our
modern achievements in learning, the vaunted historical
science of the eighteenth century, method and all, seems
little better than a dangerous pseudo-science like phrenology
or astrology.

The first reaction against what was after all a phantom,
stately though it were, sprang rather from feeling than
from knowledge; it was a rebound of logic and not of
reason. This premature revolt is probably best illustrated
in the case of Niebuhr. Though powerful, the mind of the
great Danish diplomat was dry and disdainful: contempt-
uous of the practical and judicial. In his field of ancient
history he substituted for painstaking research and for con-
crete reasoning a method based on gratuitous assumptions,
a method which destroyed traditional reality, to erect in its
place a baseless fabric of credulous negations. It has been

56 POLITICAL AND ECOxNOMIC HISTORY

the task of his successors, beginning with Mommsen and
ending with Taine's fine treatise on Livy, to dissipate his
airy structure of so-called analytic criticism. Considerate
as they have been, they have left upright only a very few
of his original contentions, and these the least important,
wherewith to uphold, for shame's sake, the vanishing re-
nown of his name. The indications of archaeological dis-
covery at this hour all point to the ultimate annihilation of
every principle and position which he enunciated. Could
his shade be seen strolling to-day across the excavated
Roman Forum, and its crowding reflections be recorded for
our benefit, the muttered syllables of its vanitas vanitatum
would instruct our generation how superior is even the
older notion of history as a compound of poetry and phil-
osophy to the substitute, which merely dissects and com-
pares abstractions, which begets negations and brings forth
only specious presumptions.

It will appear, I think, on dispassionate examination,
that the beginning of fruitfully scientific study in history,
the initiation of the modern method, is to be found in
Heeren. Unlike Niebuhr, he builded with new materials.
Beginning as a philosopher, he applied in ancient history
the Socratic method, and discovered that the states of
antiquity could be understood only in the light of their
institutions and their politics. Entering on a profound in-
vestigation of these, he found them so interlaced with their
foreign relations that he examined under compulsion both
Greece and Rome in their connection alike with Egypt and
with Carthage. Even with the imperfect information of
the time, he brought to light the momentous principle of
mutation as dependent not merely on outward form but on
internal structure (morphology). His is the vital notion
of comparing contemporary histories in short periods, as
opposed to the elucidation of single ones in long succeeding

HISTORY OF NINETEENTH CENTURY 57

cycles of time. For this is essential to our later doctrine
of the unity of history, without which no true science of
the same, however rudimentary, is at all possible. With
a consciousness of this grand truth as probably applicable
to every period of history, he essayed it in following epochs
and evolved the concept which revolutionary then, is now
the corner stone of modern history, that of the state-system
of Europe, the basis upon which Macaulay erected the great
reputation which he deserves. It may be asserted of Heeren
now, as was hinted by a French critic in his lifetime, that
he avoided every pitfall into which cumbrous thoroughness
throws its German votaries, and escaped every trap which
over-confident logic sets for its acrobatic French disciples.
The fine sense of limit and proportion exhibited by
Heeren were in glaring contrast to the shoreless ocean of
speculation on which both Herder and Hegel were sailing
almost simultaneously. Alike they taught that the earthly
realization of reason in history is a necessity, that whether
by men, or in spite of man, all obstacles are leveled until
humanity, freed from every hindrance, realizes the divine
ideal. Alike therefore they landed on the quicksands of
what may be to some a buoyant, but is to most a very
gloomy fatalism, as the only basis for progress, being alike
unmindful of Kant's almost self-evident but nevertheless
glorious declaration that progress is a moral product
purely. From the position of these transcendentalists the
thought which has dominated the latter years of the nine-
teenth century, that of the ]>ure evolutionists, does not
essentially budge one jot; both are fatalistic. The latter,
it is true, have a concept of progress antipodal to that of
their predecessors. They likewise assume, somewhat rashly
it seems in the present state of physics, that the laws of
science are fixed and immutable; in particular, the taproot
of the system, the doctrine of the conservation of energy,

58 POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

seems to sit uneasily on crumbling and refractory shale
instead of burrowing- ever deeper into fertile soil.

It is in the application of this very doctrine that their
theory of history emerges. To them it appears that energy
being constant and indestructible in the social as in the
physical order, every dynamic element works necessarily to
associate itself with others, forming under internal influence,
by integration, an organism ever more and more complex.
Simultaneously and subsequently goes on the process
of disintegration, each element dissociating itself from
others under external influence, and forming again with
other and like busy elements new composites, which in turn
inaugurate the next stage of evolution and devolution, of
progress and decadence. While these philosophers fail to
find the secret of purpose and procedure, yet they never
entirely abandoned teleology, and some at least have lately
returned to it as essential to their thought, for advance
seems to them stronger than retreat, constructive stronger
than destructive force.

The history of philosophy show^s that every cycle of
thought ends in some phase of materialism. There is at
this hour such a school of Augustuluses, and they have
been fairly influential in high places. They have unraveled
evolutionary logic into what is an absurdity and are loosing
the slight hold they have had for a time. Theirs is not
the agnosticism which is a state of suspended judgment,
but the firm conviction of the obscurantist, denying the
right of generalization as to fact or principle, scorning the
notion of ethical values in history. They reunite the vicious
circle, joining hands with Froude and scofling at the idea
of science in history, even of an empirical science. For
them history is but a mosaic of details, without design or
outline, like some cathedral windows in England ; patched
and assembled from the shreds to which iconoclasts re-

HISTORY OF NINETEENTH CENTURY 59

duced the glorious and glowing paintings which, by color
and orderly arrangement, once conveyed noble and exalting
thought. These are the haughty disciples of the mono-
graph, the apostles of the " unprinted," the missionaries
of chaos. In the wilderness they seek to create, their
voice is heard but not heeded. Generous youth has a fine
instinct in the matter of barren nonsense. There is science
in the sections of the biologist and in the preparation of
them, but neither the one nor the other is the science of
biology. We are grateful to these painstaking antiquarians
for their materials, but we cannot accept the materials in
place of the finished edifice.

Fortunately there has been a saner evolution than this.
On Bacon's great principle have stood those who guide and
advance it; the principle, namely, that it is the honor and
the glory of history to trace causes and their combination
with effects. The most commanding characters of history,
like men of common mould, suffer the compulsion of cir-
cumstances which they cannot control. It must be admitted
and duly emphasized that there is a mystery, a nature of
things, which runs with and athwart human purpose; that
there is a cosmic order, pregnant with a train of events
that are inevitable; there are relation, proportions and links
in affairs and in men, which are predetermined. This,
when disengaged from the documents, is what has been
designated the weft or texture of history. Thereon is
drawn and embroidered by man the enduring picture wdiich
is the historical record. This is the view of history which
lays emphasis neither on collective nor on individual man,
but on the personal and race conscience alike and in equal
proportion. The law of moral progress has always im-
posed itself on societies, and always will, just in proportion
as individuals zvill that it shall, and labor without cease tor
the purpose.

60 POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

It was a great saying which Kant uttered when he said :
By struggle and effort ought all human faculties to perfect
themsehes ; moral progress is antecedent to all other forms
and the source of them ; besides, the conquests of each
generation are the capital of the next, so that the sole
condition of human perfectibility is the establishment of a
civil society founded on justice. The determination to
realize existence more completely, to struggle for the ideal,
to aspire higher — the larger the number in every society
who so feel it, and so behave, the more completely will be
overcome the apparently insuperable obstacles to advance,
the bondage of the past over the present, the restriction of
each people by its contemporaries, the powerful solidarity
of habit, of creed, and of inertia among men.

This is the view of historical science which, whether
right or wrong, was characteristic of the nineteenth cen-
tury in all its best and most fruitful work : the recognition
of the evolutionary movement, the exhibition of the uses
to which men put it ; the display of its organic integration,
the proof of its external disintegration by moral forces ;
the sloughing of refuse, the renewal of vital powers. This
doctrine may not pretend to the high scientific quality of
some others, but somehow it satisfies the master workmen
and gratifies the aspirations, instincts, and convictions of
readers far better than any other. It is the view which
still controls the spiritual and intellectual activities of the
best men in the highest civilizations. Neglecting the phil-
osophical " impasse " of liberty and necessity, it satisfies
the requirements of an imperious demand; that for the
tangible results f»f human experience.

The fruits of science being both a means of enjoyment
and a guide to conduct, our attention has naturally been
monopolized by the marvelous achievements of physical
science. This is incorrect and unjust; the advance and the

HISTORY OF NINETEENTH CENTl'RV <;i

results of the humanistic sciences have [)een equally re-
markable. The polymath of the eighteenth century, with
his unorganized masses of uncouth learning, would to-day
be a deformed monstrosity, so far has erudition spread its
field and so profound are the investigations of scholars.
The comparative method, without which modern science
of any sort would be impossible, is itself an invention of
the humanists. And I have heard the greatest devotees of
pure science in our time yearn for a comparative historian
of their disciplines. The entire success of scientific history
is due to the achievements of the ancillary sciences ; as
revolutionary in method and results as either physics,
chemistry, or biology. In particular, history is the hope-
less and grateful debtor of comparative sociology, phil-
ology, and mythology, of comparative religions, folk-lore
and ethnology; and above all of comparative archaeology.
One winter spent on the Nile examining the unbroken and
unfalsified record of 10,000 years in human evolution under
external influences is worth to the student all the meta-
physics of history, even when indited by the genius of a
Hegel.

By this vast erudition the work of the historian has
become such that a division of labor is essential. There
must be specialists in each and all of these ancillary sciences,
and the historian must use their results as his matter. It
has become the categorical imperative of scientific history
that it should avail itself of its own wherever found. In
this way we have reached what would otherwise ha^'e been
inaccessible, viz., certain definitions of the task. We have
defined the limits, we have fixed the basis, we have as was
shown in another connection proved the unity, and we
have consequently found the scientific method of history.
This is neither the time nor the place further to discuss
these, but they are realities. Without these definitions the

62 POLITICAL AXD ECONOMIC HISTORY

advance of the nineteenth century would have been as
futile as that of the eighteenth.

Let us turn and illustrate these contentions in consider-
ing four great names of our epoch : perhaps not the great-
est, but types at least of the best in four great lands. The
names are those of Macaulay, Ranke. Taine, and Bancroft.
Once and for all let us say of each and every one of them
that he was a man of immense erudition ; of perfect good
faith; of enormous, tireless, patient industry; of trained
and chastened intellect; fully aware of the canons of his-
torical science and determined to use them in his work.
Each of them, moreover, marks a stage and a quality of
advance, which are not merely noteworthy, but essential
to our purpose.

The greatest German and the greatest French historians
have paid homage to Macaulay as certainly the foremost
English historian, as possibly the greatest of all historians
since Thucydides, who, of course, in other respects the
peer of the modern, far surpasses him in philosophic in-
sight. It is this weakness of Macauby which is his
strength. He is distinctly, avowedly, a man of his time
and place; British of the British, and more than that a
Victorian Englishman, an admirer of wealth and rank,
proud of his country as the best on earth. It is the pleasant
England of his day which interests him, as it interested
alike his own countrymen and the contemporary world.
Setting out to explain this joyous land, he found and his
readers found that the fascinating riddle of its existence
could be read clearest in the light of the Whig movements
then continuing, of the policies of which he himself was
an eminent supporter. Not in any sense a philosopher, the
truth as he saw it was not an analyzed and dissected truth,
not an abstraction, but a cognizable reality, to be known and
judged by the exercise of wholesome common sense.

HISTORY OF NINETEENTH CENTURY G3

Heeren, as we said earlier, had set forth the characters
of the scientific history which reckons with the peoples, the
colonies, the economics, the commerce of the world. This
had a very direct bearing on the state of the British
Empire. Macaulay likewise knew that, to be complete,
history must take account of the whole earth within the
limits of its period. These conceptions the English his-
torian with magisterial power incorporated in his work —
the opening chapters are masterpieces of historical gen-
eralization. But his genuis went further, it took scientific
history from the university into the home; for the lan-
guage, the illustrations, were so clear and so interwoven
with the tale that plain men felt as if they had a vision
of grandeur not vouchsafed hitherto to them or to their
predecessors.

For years the volumes of Macaulay sold in England as
no other book sold, and in America the numbers of copies
distributed were second in number only to those of the
Bible. There was not an important language of the Con-
tinent into which the glowing pages were not translated,
and in many there were several rival translations. The
truth was made so clear and was so manifestly the truth
that the reading world felt a firm foundation beneath its
feet. That the author was avowedly utilitarian, openly a
British patriot, and intensely a Whig partisan only served
to create the effective chiaroscuro in which all his work
was done. He had been so unwearied a student of folk-
song and folk-lore that he made himself what is now called
in art " a primitive " in his conception and understanding
of the commonplace, in his admiration of the homely.

It is doubtful whether the relativity of knowledge, either
the phrase or the notion, was known to Macaulay. For
him the plain truth was the truth. In addition, the state
was for him no god, mysterious and omnipotent; it was

64 POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

a secular association existing only to assure the equality
of citizens before the law, to protect life, liberty, and prop-
erty. In the enjoyment of political liberty all other liber-
ties are assured, and Macaulay is proud of that possession
because he sees in it the honor of man and of men. He is
a patriot because he has inherited this honor from an
ancestry which suffered for it. Taine, who gives solid
reasons for his opinion, thinks Macaulay proved all he said
as forcibly and directly as he stated it, thus giving the
simple, every-day man an unshakable confidence. He not
only takes testimony, he weighs the veracity and intelli-
gence of his witnesses for the public judgment. Having
erected on this foundation a set of plain principles, he draws
self-evident conclusions and in his generalization he shows
every rung of the ladder as he climbs. His style and dis-
cussion are direct and cumulative; the current carries him
and his reader right onward in a straight line, gathering
ever greater force until the flood is as impetuous as the
Amazon and like it, too, as broad as the sea. Facts, ideas,
explanations, the enormous mass of scientific material, all
are clad in a style which, though harking back to Thucy-
dides, Plautus, and Livy, to Petrach, Dante, and Milton,
contains an elusive something which is born from none
of these, such is its sweeping passion, its irresistible
eloquence.

This was not inspiration, it was art : the result of infinite
painstaking and a set purpose. On a first rough draft he
interlined, erased, corrected, inverted, restored, elaborated,
until, as in Balzac's proof, the original was overlaid with
a mass of words illegible to all except the author, who then
at his leisure wrote his printer's copy in a fine, bold, con-
fident hand. Prescott saw a few of these original foolscap
sheets and says no one could form any conception of the
amount of labor that one of them represents. With the

HISTORY OF NINETEENTH CENTURY 65

serenity of a great soul, with a religious faith in the power
of truth; confident, like Cervantes, that history was sacred
because where truth is, there is God, he carried his own
conviction into the millions of readers who were fascinated
by his art. This art was impersonal, precise, even cold,
because it was based on accuracy, on the personal knowl-
edge of contemporaries, and not evolved like that of Carlyle
and Froude from the depths of his own consciousness.

Macaulay's contribution to the science of history was
twofold: the knowledge, the insight, and the sympathy,
such as were not possible in the revolutionary epoch pre-
ceding iiis, an epoch when, as his predecessors said, " hearts
rejoice or bleed " as contemporary events illume the past
with a light " from the flames of Tophet " in Carlyle's
lurid phrase, — this, and secondly, the ripened fruit for
present use, progress along the lines of tradition, the way
to preserve and improve what the fathers had won.

The second of our great names is that of a man who
was still more remote from emotional influence, for he was
not a man of affairs, not a statesman, not an acolyte of the
social hierarchy, not even an artist, but a scholar, an in-
vestigator, and a teacher. Leopold von Ranke revived the
past in a spirit which was largely that of an erudite lawyer
without a case. His intimate friend was Savigny, and as
for him it is the totality of law which had to be studied
before further advance could be made, so for Ranke it is
the totality of history, carefully studied in the light of laws
and institutions, and in the proportions of each part, that
determines the relative values of scenes and events, that
fixes the style and structural concepts of historical descrip-
tion and reconstruction. When Froude's wild theory as
to Henry VIII's extraordinary matrimonial conduct was
questioned by the critics, he replied in these very words:
" The precipitancy with which Henry acted is to me a proof

66 POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

that he looked on matrimony as an indifferent official act
which his duty required at the moment, and if this be
thought a novel interpretation of his motives I have merely
to say that I liml it in the statute book!" Ranke had quite
another notion of how official documents were to be used,
and with their use his name is associated, as is the name
of scarcely another.

Macaulay's ultimate criterion was not found in the edicts
and statutes of rulers, not in the correspondence of princes
seeking to deceive each other and to falsify the record; but
in the consonance of facts with the great events which,
linked one with the other and known by the common sense
of mankind, form the chain of history. Though he made
a judicious use of documents he had not the blind faith in
them which makes their devotees ridiculous. Nor had
Ranke, though above all else he was a student of diplomatic
correspondence. It was he who brought the archives of
foreign offices into the vogue they have since enjoyed
among historians, his success being due, of course, to his
critical faculties and his sanity : for sane lie was, moderate,
modest, and disciplined in the highest degree. Ranke's
great renown was firmly founded on his use of a remark-
able series of papers, the hitherto unconsidered series of
reports addressed to the Council of Ten by the ambassadors
of the Venetian Republic. He might easily have been
dazzled by so unique a find and have exaggerated its im-
portance out of all proportion ; but he knew thoroughly the
times antecedent and the times consequent to those he was
making his own, and he fell into no errors. The papers
in hand fixed dates, places, and circumstances, unerringly:
they exhibited the quality, language, and character of the
public business so as to permit important deductions; they
illuminated their age in the contemporary judgments of
very shrewd observers. But Ranke never dreamed that

HISTORY OF NINETEENTH CENTURY G7

they revealed motives, except by induction : nor that tliey
determined the great central channel of events. With the
plodding industry of an antiquary he felt, groped, peered
around and in the obscure corners of his material and
brought forth little particles of fact which, when properly
assembled with the great facts, made possible the tracing
of sequence and the revelation of design.

Philosophically Ranke was inclined to Hegelianism. To
the relations of a people with its habitat he paid less atten-
tion than his famous contemporary Curtius; the work of
Buckle and the physical side of history were indifferent
to him. It was the cosmic process with which he was
mainly concerned, the working of a universal spirit as
revealed by outward manifestations. Of this he strove to
be a dispassionate, intelligent onlooker and an accurate,
sympathetic observer; a faithful recorder, whether the rec-
ord lends itself to literature or not, and in his hands for
the most part it did not. Nowhere in his voluminous writ-
ings is there any passage which rises to the heights reached
by Mommsen in his description of Caesar. Profound as
was the scholarship of the latter, he was an avowed adr
vocate of imperialism, the cause for which he spent his life,
and so at times his passion lifted him to sublimity : the
sober Ranke trod the solid earth. His was not merely the
science of detail like that of Mommsen, it was an orderly
array both of thoughts and of thoughts about thoughts,
as well as a marshaling of facts. For this reason his
attempts at a universal history bear the stamp of creative
art. It is as an historical architect that he becomes ap-
proximately an artist; not in rhetoric, imagination, or
enthusiasm. Neither an interpreter nor a critic, his style
is clear, his characters forcibly modeled, his definition
exact. He is bold, but not too bold, for prudence is his
forte and his foible. It is thus that he raises the spirit of

ijS POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

each successive age and reveals, one by one, the hidden
springs of action. His philosophical dogma cannot always
restrain him, and there are pages of his which are master-
pieces, not only in historical reconstruction, but in historical
divination.

Extremes meet in the w'orld of history as elsewliere.
This is seen when Taine avows himself a disciple of
Macaulay, as he virtually does in print and frequently did
in private conversation. Antipodal in every respect to the
Englishman, the Frenchman yet admired Macaulay as the
representative of everything which France and Taine were
not. The great French historian was an embodied con-
tradiction, having been justly styled a poet-logician and
considered to possess a philosophic imagination. What
he openly admired in England were its social stratification,
its sturdy Protestant common sense, its passion for liberty
and for the traditions of its history, its boisterous, proud,
and energetic spirit. For Latin, Celtic, ecclesiastical,
Roman England he had a contemptuous disdain : it was
the England of Macaulay which was the country of his
soul. But he could not there abide, so pitiless and merciless
was his logic. His philosophical career began in Hegel,
passed by way of Spinoza, and ended in a positivism com-
pared with which Comtism was a weak decoction. His
earliest important paper was the outline of a system
whereby the methods of the exact sciences could be applied
to history — and from the effort to do so there was no sur-
cease until he died. Alone of the pure materialism, who
make emotion dependent on the bodily organism and on
the nervous system, he carried his conviction, amounting
almost to bravado, into the realm of practice. Others have
sketched systems, he dared to apply that which he evolved.
He was the physiological psychologist in the laboratory of
the world. It goes without saying that he struggled to

HISTORY OF NINETEENTH CENTURY 69

the ridge of the universe of man only to fall over it into
a gulf of complete helplessness. Avowedly not a pessimist,
certainly not an optimist, his studied attitude of impar-
tiality turned into a feeling of utter hopelessness and resig-
nation which he could not conceal and which seemed to
give him no contentment ; not even that of having achieved.

Yet, as he marched, he incidentally, like Julius Caesar,
besieged and took certain flanking citadels in operations
which have made the course of scientific history much safer
and surer. His fierce logic minimized the idea of common
sense as the norm of reference; his notion of rulers and
their dispatches rendered him almost contemptous of state
papers. His favorite sources were contemporary memoirs,
and these he used in great abundance and with consum-
mate skill. What distinguishes him above others is his
careful regard for physical elements in history and the
penetrating glimpses he gets into its motives by the study
of national psychology, clearly mirrored for him in national
art and national literature. His famous doctrine of pre-
dominant power {faciiltc maitressc) set forth in his splen-
did essay on Livy, shows that individuals in a nation are
begotten and controlled by primordial forces imposing on
all certain common methods of thought and phases of feel-
ing. Given the island home a Germanic race, with its
peculiar climate and the rude plenty which nature supplies,
he boldly sketches step by step the course of English
thought and conduct as delineated in her art, her letters,
and her institutions. The race, the home, the period —
these, if understood, make history almost an exact science
in the descriptive sense: and in that only, for prediction
is carefully to be avoided ; it is not the function of history.

This judgment is based on a passion for the Exact, and
is rooted in the philosophy of sensation to which Taine was
addicted. As we know nothing except by sensation, so

70 POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

we know nothing but phenomena. The only faculties we
possess, therefore, are those of analysis and generalization.
Given the French people, its environment, and the succes-
sion of its states, we can note every phenomenon, explain
it, and connect it with its causes and its effects. But we
cannot predict; because, although we note the links we
cannot know them nor see how they are produced :
about them we may learn infinitely almost, but what they
are and how they work we may never know. In the sense
of prediction there can never be a science of history,
because for man there is not and can never be any meta-
physic whatsoever. It has been wittily said that in Taine's
efforts to follow the mathematical curves of his science,
he generally found himself off at a tangent making delight-
ful excursions in the open spaces of fancy and of art.
Certain it is that his fancy adorns his logic, that in a sys-
tem intended to strangle imagination, imagination takes
extensive flights ; and, hovering everywhere, induces on the
stiffest pages a highly artistic treatment and an attractive
style. Taine's very axioms are paradoxes : in the French
Revolution the orgasms of liberty beget a despotism fiercer
than that of the former days; the fear of centralization
getting on the national nerve created in the republic an
organism more unitary than that of the displaced mon-
archy; the classical spirit was the sire of that abstract
idealism which underlies all the maladies of modern French
life. To this sort of inverted deduction he is perfectly
resigned. He is quite as hopeless in the sphere of the in-
dividual man. It is the human beast which still controls
and turns the man into the " carnivorous, lascivious " brute
we see about us in such overwhelming numbers ; or, at the
other pole, into the foolish dreamer with a " diseased mind
and disordered body." His detestation for what is loose
and disorderly explains what is perhaps the most famous

HISTORY OF NINETEENTH CENTURY 71

of his paradoxes, when he declared that in art he thought
the sonata was as beautiful as a syllogism.

These three historians all agree that, admitting what one
of them would have called the necessitarian, the others the
providential forces of history, — that yet, upon the tissue
which they weave, the pattern is formed by the will of
man in the exercise of the choice which is offered to him
and in accordance with his nature. Even so extreme a
freethinker as John Morley admits this. Discoursing of
Burke's analysis of historic forces, he says : " History has
strictly only to do with individual men as the originals, the
furtherers, the opponents, or the representatives of some
of those thousand diverse forces which, uniting in one vast
sweep, bear along the successive generations of men, as
upon the broad wings of seA winds, to new and more fertile
shores." To originate, to further, to oppose, to represent,
an historic force, is quite a sufficient moral responsibility
wherewith to burden even the greatest men.

So far, what we seem to recognize as the basic considera-
tions of these men in regard to scientific history are the
following: The field must be considered as a unit; the
human factors are no longer heroes, kings, warriors, or
diplomats, merely and alone, but the people as well, in all
their activities; in and from such complexity of persons
and operations it appears possible to disengage not relative
but absolute truths and by a suitable system of reasoning
to elucidate principles of action which are the ripe fruit
amid the leafy perplexity of the boughs; the material of
history proves thus to be the results of comparative study
of politics above all, but likewise of law. institutions, lan-
guage, beliefs, race, and geography. The historian must
proceed with impartial mind, as far as his human limits
permit, to consider and use both the matter and manner
of his science, regarding society as an organism growing

72 POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

from within under external influences, which act some-
times as checks, sometimes as a stimulus.

I venture to think that whatever be our judgment of his
practical success, the validity of this procedure was even
better and earlier perceived by an American pupil of
Heeren than by any of the triad of uncommon men we
have been considering. And to all that they possessed he
added another element, the profound conviction of God
working in history; his reading of "philosophy working
by examples " was " God working by examples." This
was George Bancroft. Contemporary with Macaulay,
Ranke, and Taine, he was their peer as scholar, philosopher,
or statesman. He had not perhaps the imagination of one,
nor the style of another, nor the dispassionate judgment
of another. But he had the insight and sympathy to catch
the spirit of his age as Macaulay did — the amazing circu-
lation of his volumes in all lands proved it. Utopian and
poetic he is, yet his pages neither flash nor dazzle; they
commend themselves by sobriety of argument and solidity
of research. His use of state papers was as extensive as
Ranke's, his appreciation of contemporary memoirs was
as keen as Taine's. But he was neither indifferent nor
agnostic. The son of a pious Unitarian clergyman, he kept
the Puritan spirit untarnished to the end. His instinct for
immediacy, for direct touch with the springs of action,
made him a philosopher from his youth upward. These
are his peculiar qualities and permeate all his work. With
the discussion goes the lesson : m all history, truth and
justice reign supreme. The writer of history, therefore,
must observe two maxims: (1) Distinguish between
original authority and historical memorials or aids ; by the
former we get a fact recorded at first hand, by the second,
a decision of principle or authority; (2) represent every
man from his own standpoint, judge him from your own.

HISTORY OF NINETEENTH CENTURY 73

These acute and far-reaching principles were enough in
themselves, when conscientiously applied, to mark his work
as original.

His philosophy, however, was quite as original. His
book may be considered as a treatise on the evolution of
liberty along the central axis : this axis is the land desig-
nated by Providence as fitted not for freedom's relative
but for its absolute development. Its heterogeneous popu-
lation brought and brings from all other lands the elements
of national character, and by this compulsion of origins
the environment, though eliminating all that cannot be
assimilated, retains all useful elements, incorporating them
into an intricate but orderly whole. Hence Bancroft's
studies in universal history, interjected from time to time
as tributaries to the main narrative, were written with a
xonsummate skill and a thorough knowledge, which found
him readers in every important tongue and all over the
civilized world. As an exhibit of the divine order, he
further holds, history is an organic unity, inspired by con-
stant forces. Only within such an organization does the
individual secure liberty, since there alone his faculties of
will, reason, and emotion find their development in opera-
'' tion, with and against the consubstantial faculties of other
like individuals. Collective man determines the standards
of knowledge and of conduct, and it is therefore only in
a democracy that the possibility of human perfectibility
may be realized. This attitude of Bancroft's mind may be
considered as typically American, and as the capstone of
the system used and approved by the nineteenth century in
writing history. Either a confidence in the moral order of
the universe and in God as its author is the motive power of
our rulers, the greatest contemporary history-makers ; or we
who profess it and elect them to office are vile hypocrites
with a portion among the deceits and mirages of history.

74 POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

The conclusions here presented will stand the test of the
minutest examination bestowed on the best work by typical
inasters other than those we have named. Further, a fair
analysis of their theory, procedure, and art, will, I believe,
compel the admission that if the age has won anything it
has won everything. Grounded in the concept of organic
evolution, receptive of all ancillary learning, jealous of its
own field and methods, alert for typical movements and
truly great men, aiming at a kind of representation which
is possibly but not necessarily that of the fine arts, history
as now written is scientific, not as a philosophy of social
evolution nor as an exact science of nature, human or
otherwise, but as a practical form of human biography
drawn and modeled in correct proportion and outline.
There is boundless room for advance in supplement, com-
pletion, illustration, but the plan has been sketched and
the basis laid. Some portions of the great advance have
even been completely shown to move in perspective and in
color. Either this achievement is all, or it is nothing; and
our descendants must raze everything in order to begin
anew the weary search for truth among the ruins of the
past.

THE EXPANSION OF GREEK HISTORY.

BY JOHN PENTLAND MAIIAFFY

[John Pentlakd Mahaffy, Professor of Ancient History, University
of Dublin, since 1871. b. Chaponnaire, on Lake Geneva, Switzer-
land, 1839. Trinity College, Dublin, B. A. 1859; M.A. 1863;
Fellow, ibid. 18G4; D.D. ibid. 1886; Mus.D. ibid. 1891. Author
OF Commentary to Kant's Critique; Social Life in Greece from
Homer to Menander; Rambles and Studies in Greece; A History
of Classical Greek Literature; The Story of Alexander's Empire;
The Greek World under Roman Sway; Problems in Greek His-
tory; The Empire of the Ptolemies.]

Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen. — I feel it no small
honor to be selected for the prominent duty of delivering
an opening address on this momentous occasion. For we
may call it a great intellectual marriage of Europe with
America, to which all the sciences, both historical and posi-
tive, are invited with equal hospitality. And thus while
some are sending their inquiries across vast realms of space,
others like ourselves are reaching back across millenniums
of time; while some are probing the constitution of the
minutest atoms of matter, others like ourselves are explor-
ing the rudiments of human society. Both studies are
essential to the progress of this our twentieth century.
For if the civilized man differs broadly from the savage, in
that he is in process of understanding and controlling the
forces of nature, he differs more essentially perhaps in this,
that he strives with eager interest to comprehend the annals
of the past — the long struggles, the successes, the failures
of our forerunners to emerge from a condition a little
higher than the brute into a condition a little lower than
the angels. This vast study is of necessity to be prosecuted
in compartments, if for no other reason because our race
has been fertile in devising languages, wherever human
society began its organization. Their number is enormous.

76 HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME AND ASIA

The best judges. Terrien de la Couperie. Archibald Sayce,
•have told me that there are not less than eight hundred
known, not to speak of the hundreds that may have dis-
appeared. And without knowledge of his speech, we can
gain but a superficial knowledge of the speaker. Our
happy lot in this Section is to be concerned with Greek —
not only the most perfect of all the organs of communica-
tion ever devised by man, but one in which our knowledge
has in this generation attained an enormous expansion, in-
somuch that our investigation of that people and its civiliza-
tion has been as progressive as any study that could be
named. The number of new texts discovered is such that
no living man can know them all. Each one of us that has
explored has added scores of new words to the Greek Lexi-
con, dozens of new facts to our knowledge of the Greeks;
and so we may say with truth, that while the literature of
the other great classical language, Latin, has stood still,
or gained but trifling increment, Greek is growing by leaps
and bounds, giving the lie to the narrow scientist, who
would thrust it from its high place in our education, because
it has been branded in the false jargon of his crowd as a
dead language. My duty here is to show you the relations
which have grown up between Greek political history and
the sister studies in our day; how fruitful researches and
explorations have told upon our knowledge of Greek his-
tory, and more especially how the centuries that went before
and those that followed after the golden age of Greek cul-
ture are emerging both from the gray dawn of obscure
origins and the lurid twilight of confused decadence^ into
the order and proper sequence of rational history. In at-
tempting this huge task I hope I may gain your earnest
attention. I know you will vouchsafe me your generous
indulgence. I may also forewarn you that, for obvious
reasons, Professor Pais, my colleague in the matter, has

EXPANSION OF GREEK HISTORY 77

agreed with me that each of us will prosecute that brancli
of the subject which he has made the special study of his
life.

When I was a boy and first plunged into Greek history,
the beginning of our knowledge was the Iliad of Homer.
We were taught by Niebuhr, and still more explicity by
Grote, that all the legends of the Greeks concerning their
earlier settlements and expansion were the mere play of
fancy, quite possibly pure inventions, in any case only
admissible into history as a picture of the national mind in a
certain stage, at a certain epoch. Even the facts narrated
by Homer were within the range of fiction; the society
which he painted was only real in so far as the poet reflected
his own times and the life of men around him. And no
doubt Grote and his school were perfectly right that the un-
corroborated statements of legend by a poet, nay, even the
early genealogies which commence with the gods, are but
the wreck which the stream of time leaves about some
chance obstacle that succeeds in staying its course. Thus
we arrived at the skepticism of Sir George Cox and Sir
George Lewis, in my youth very active volcanoes, but now
happily extinct, that no Greek history is credible till after
the middle of the seventh century, b. c; and I myself have
contributed my share in showing that the early Olympic
Register was not the contemporary and continuous record
of early facts, but the fabrication of a learned theorist.
And this destructive criticism of mine, bowed aside as a
paradox when it appeared, is accepted by the recent his-
torians as a pretty obvious deduction from our facts, either
with or without the mention of the critic who first ventured
to declare it.

But have we now no corroboration of our body of early
Greek legends, and if we have, from whence did we obtain
it ? The man, Schliemann, who opens the last epoch of re-

78 HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME AND ASIA

search into early Greek history, was not a scholar, or a man
of literary habits, but a man of enthusiasm for Homer, and
of boundless energy in carrying- out his mind. He had
shown his ability by making a large fortune early in life
out of nothing but his brains, and when I tell you that he
made most of it in this country, and as a stranger, you have
at least one measure of his talent which you will easily
appreciate. He had the singularity to devote half of that
fortune to exploring the Homeric sites, and thus proving
the historic value of the Iliad and Odyssey. And he went
to work with the spade, at first ignorantly, for he dug holes,
which is the most destructive form of inquiry known, in-
stead of taking off layers or strata of earth, as he learned to
do in his later years. He found less than he expected or
believed, so far as he hoped to find and thought he had
found the actual tombs of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra,
or any direct evidence of the Homeric story. But when
Homer speaks of the fortified Tiryns, the much golden
Mykenas, the sacred Ilion, Schliemann found far more than
he had ever divined ; for he disclosed to the astonished
Hellenists of his day a whole rich primitive civilization,
which subsequent exploration found to be not peculiar to
Argolis, but spread over most of Greece, being carried by
trade oversea across the ^gean, and recurring even in dis-
tant Egypt. This Mykenccan civilization, as we now call
it, is known by its handicrafts and arts, above all by its
pottery, its gold and silver ornaments, its beehive tombs,
its elaborate palaces. And so wide were its ranges in
transmarine commerce, that we have found not only Egyp-
tian scarabs, but ostrich eggs from inner Africa, and Baltic
amber among its treasures. Three questions were immedi-
ately raised concerning this large discovery : first, how old
was it? secondly, was it identical with Homer's civilization,
or not? And if not, was it indeed Greek? Its great age

EXPANSION OF GREEK HISTORY 79

was settled not merely by the archaic character of its art,
and its very small use of iron, but still more clearly by the
occurrence of early Eg^yptian articles, dating from about
1400-1200 B. c, and showing that intercourse of Egypt
with Greece was far older than the Homeric age. There
was also this negative evidence, which I alone had pressed
on Schliemann before he commenced his work. I inferred
from the total ignoring of Mykense by ^schylus, whose
tragedies ought to have been enacted there, that in his day
the practical knowledge of the city was gone, and that it
had already then been long destroyed. I forewarned him
that he would find there no Greek coins or inscriptions. He
found no writing of any sort whatever. But as we now
know that in the old Cretan remains the inscriptions were
on clay tablets, which are easily destroyed by exposure to
rain, I think it possible that he may have overlooked some
such documents.^

As regards the correspondence of the remains with
Homeric pictures, the contrasts seem to me rather greater
than the likenesses. The armor was undoubtedly the model
of the Homeric weapons ; the tombs have some Greek feat-
ures ; but on the whole, the question whether the epoch was
one of purely primitive culture, or of something earlier
passing into early Greek culture, was left very doubtful.
A better knowledge of the Troy that Schliemann has ex-
cavated, and of the remains of Cnosos in Crete, now in the
act of being recovered for us by the zeal and skill of Mr.
Arthur Evans, have thrown much light upon these in-
cunabula of Greek history. The most interesting point
regarding the Trojan work recovered by Schliemann was
its great rudeness, when compared with that of Tiryns and
Mykenae. For the Homeric poems had led us to believe
that the culture of Troy was fully as advanced as that of

1 That is Mr. Arthur Evans's opinion also.

so HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME AND ASIA

the invading Greeks. We owe to Dr. Dorpfeld the further
discovery that the Ihos of SchHemann was not the sister
in time of •Mykense, but an older and deeper stratum, and
proDably one thousand years earlier. The Mykenaean
stratum, through which Schliemann had pierced without
recognizing it^ w-as found on a higher level all around
Schhemann's excavations, and was found also in every way
to correspond to the Greek work of the Mykenaean period.
This proved that an enormously old culture had taken pos-
session of the shores of the Mediterranean, and that even
the Mykenaean inherited from a long series of spiritual an-
cestors the culture which seems to us so archaic.^ The dis-
coveries of Mr. Evans not only tended (as usual) to cor-
roborate the general features of the Greek legends about
King Minos, for example, his sea power, shown by his un-
fortified palace near the seaboard, but proved that at this
early stage two hitherto unsuspected forms of writing, one
in rude pictures, the other in linear script, were in use in
Crete, and doubtless therefore throughout the coasts of the
eastern Mediterranean. If these texts, scratched or im-
pressed upon clay tablets, and certainly, I think, not Greek,
are ever deciphered, we shall know more clearly the char-
acter and the provenance of the race that inhabited these
coasts and islands during the second millenium before the
Christian era. In my opinion that race will prove to be
non-Hellenic, and even non-Aryan, so that the boast of the
Athenians and other Greeks that they were an indigenous
race wn'll be once more refuted.^

' Under the lava of a prehistoric eruption from that great submarine and still
active volcano, of which Santorin and Therasia (the ancient Thera) form the
outward slopes, there were found thirty years ago the remains of what wae
aptly called by the French a prehistoric Pompeii — human bones within rude
houses, with remains of rude pottery, and even gold ornaments.

" But I must warn you that excellent authorities, Rohde, Reisch, think dlf'
ferently, and think the Mykenfpan builders the direct ancestors of the Homerli:
Greeks. On the other hand Mr. Ridgeway, in his most rmarkable unfinished
book, The Early Age of Oreece, while he maintains that the earlier race dif'
fered materially from the Achteans of Homer, — he calls them Pelasgians, — yet
regards them as Aryan.

EXPANSION OF GREEK HISTORY 81

But here the historian has recourse not to artistic remains,
to pottery, or to building, but to the evidence of the sister
sciences of anthropology, and still more of linguistics. The
former science has yielded but poor results. The variety
of the physical types of skulls is such that we can only infer
a great mixture of races in Greece, without the prodomi-
nance of either Aryan or pre-Aryan types. Such at least is
the conclusion of Paul Kretschmer, whose work on primi-
tive Greece embodies most of the latest knowledge.^ The
results of linguistic inquiry are far more important. Start-
ing from the fact that there are elements, in the old Greek
that we know, still inexplicable, that there are formations
of place-names which have all the air of being non-Aryan,
Kretschmer has compared the relics we have of the lan-
guages of Asia Minor, excluding those of the Aryan type.
His conclusion is that inter-related languages of a non-
Aryan type were spread all over the seaboard of Asia
Minor, and that the features of these languages which re-
main are also to be found in Hellenic place-names.^ Hence
the science of language warrants us in assuming that Aryan
invaders found all over Greece and Asia Minor an earlier
population with, if not unity, at least kinship, in the gram-
matical structure of their speech, and therefore probably
not primitive or savage, but provided with some degree
of civilization. Hence the earliest Greek culture, even
if Cretan and Mykensean work were Greek, may be re-
garded as a composite civilization, and the fascinating task
of future inquirers will be to assign to the different layers
of population their respective shares in the great result.
In such investigations all the sister sciences must lend a
hand to the historian — linguistics, anthropolog)', archaeo-
logy, and above all he must possess that highest quality in

^ Einleit. in die Oesch. der griech. Sprache (GSttingen, 1896), cap. n.
"Op. at. p. 292.

82 HISTORY OF GREECE. ROME AND ASIA

any scientific man, the imagination which combines facts,
which strikes out theories, which makes research methodical
by bringing- it under fixed and leading ideas, which turns
the valley of dry bones into the habitation of living men.
The ancient times of Greek history are therefore a pro-
gressive study, in the truest sense of the word. Grote dis-
carded the myths as evidence, he even ignored the living
testimony of the everlasting hills and the many voices of
the ever-intruding sea, and wrote his great work in a Lon-
don study. E. Curtius, a generation later, equipped himself
by long residence and travel in the glens and fiords of
Greece, and if in political understanding he was far inferior
to the English statesman, in picturesqueness, and in his
feeling for the real life behind the myths, he made a long
step in advance. Another generation passes b}^ and we
have, among many able books, the newest and best in the
history of Mr. Bury. His opening chapters seem centur-
ies ahead of Grote, generations ahead of Curtius. For in
the last twenty years exca\'ations in many parts of Greece
have added masses of new evidence. Egyptology and gen-
eral linguistics have contributed their share, and as the force
of genius in the individual brings up from the darkness of
the sub-conscious self the long-forgotten lessons of the past,
so the power of Minos, the long succession of human homes
on the hill of Ilion, the builders of the great fort of Tiryns,
are rising from prehistoric night into the morning of Greek
history.

Let us now return from our odyssey into Cimmerian
darkness, and from visiting the shadows of departed heroes,
to the shores of historic Greece, and inquire whether mod-
ern genius and modern industry have not added something
to that more precise knowledge which we owe to the liter-
ature of the classical epoch. And here, too, we shall find
that the gain is momentous, and the promise of future in-

EXPANSION OF GREEK HISTORY 83

crenient fair beyond our hopes. But that is so because our
whole method of investigation has been enlarged, and be-
cause we have developed the relations of Greek philology
and history to many kindred researches. We do not in-
deed grow weary of analyzing and commenting on our
Greek historians, though that process has been likened to
the squeezing of the last drops of juice frum the exhausted
lemon. But since we learned from our early travelers,
notably from Colonel Leake, that Greek histor}' must be
studied in Greece; since the French government, more than
half a century ago, took the lead in founding an archaeo-
logical school at Athens, the spade and the measuring-rod
have been applied to verify and correct the narratives of
Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon. A crowd of in-
scriptions have been extracted from the soil, or from medie-
val walls into which they were built. The modern writer
dare not put his pen to paper without searching the great
collections of these inscriptions, to which the learned jour-
nals are perpetually adding fresh material. For in imita-
tion of the French, the Germans and the Greeks have en-
dowed their archaeological schools, and produce their Trans-
actions in Athens. The English and the Americans have
followed suit with private enterprise, and so a large body
of experts has been let loose upon the country, and has
added to the capital enterprise of Schliemann at Mykenae
and Argos many careful investigations at Athens, Olympia,
Delphi, Delos, Megalopolis, the Argive Heraeum, and a
dozen other sites. All these have yielded us topographical,
historical, and social evidence Our difficulty now is not
only to find, but to compass the evidence which is accruing,
and which is scattered through a number of learned journals,
such as the French Bulletin de correspondence hellenique,
the German Mittheilungen des archeologischen Instituts,
the English Journal of Hellenic Studies, to mention but

84 HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME AND ASIA

three out of many. The men who have by universal con-
sent done most for the better understanding of Greek his-
tory are not llie Greek professors at home, but the brilHant
directors of the French and the German schools, v.ho have
been able to indulge their genius with ample appointments
and with the experience of many years of splendid industry.
It is of course imix)ssible for me in this general discourse
to turn aside to the particular inc[uiries which have thrown
light on particular points of Greek history. The excellence
of these studies consists in their minute and accurate detail.
I need only quote, as specimens, the masterly analysis of
the Greek theatre derived from a comparative study of
divers extant remains by Dr. Dorpfeld ; the same author's
rehandling of the famous topographical chapter in Thucy-
dides concerning the surroundings of the Athenian Acropx-
olis, the demonstration by Mr. Grundy that Thucydides
could be as fallible as any ordinary writer in his account
of the bay of Pylos, of the siege of Plataea, or in his copy
of a now extant inscription.

If you want to estimate the results in an easy and obvious
way, compare any guide-book to Greece of ten years old
with the newest editions of the same work. Nothing now
gets antiquated so quickly. But if you want larger and
more splendid e\idence of what recent research has done
for our knowledge of Greece, read Mr. Frazer's monu-
mental edition of Pausanias. Twenty years ago, nay, even
ten years ago. such a work would have been impossible. Nor
could it have been done at any other time ever since the
decadence of the Roman Empire, But now Mr, Frazer has
been able to go over the cities and monuments described by
the old tourist and antiquary of the second century, and
gives us, in most cases, if not in all, verifications and illus-
trations from the excavations of our own day.

It might be imagined that these discoveries affect almost

EXPANSION OF GREEK HISTORY 85

exclusively our knowledge of the art side of Greek life.
That is not so. The many recovered inscriptions tell us of
wars and of treaties, of laws and of rites, and of the social
life of the people which we can restore in the ruins of their
temples, their theatres, and their homes. And let not the
title of this Department, Political and Economic History,
blind you to the fact that without the social life and the art
of a people history will ever be dull and lifeless. The
Hermes of Praxiteles, the bronze charioteer of Delphi, the
great tomb of Sidon — all these are as important in under-
standing Greek history as are the constitution of Athens or
the currency of Rhodes. We live, therefore, in an era of
expansion even of the golden age of Greece, an expansion
in depth, or in quality of knowledge, even more than in the
multiplication of facts, such as Europe has not seen since
the Renaissance, and such as may never again recur, when
the present still untouched sites have been disclosed and the
testimony of statues and of stelae has been exhausted. But
of this limit there is no prospect in our generation, or i>er-
haps for half a century to come.

I have not yet said one word concerning our gains of the
last decade in the matter of Greek literature, which is, after
all, the department of human culture in which, most of all,
the modern world owes great and everlasting obligations to
Hellas. The types of the epic, of the lyric poem, of the
drama, of the prose dialogue, of the oration, have been
fixed by the Greeks forever, and shown to us in specimens
of a perfection seldom equaled, never excelled. If I have
set down our gains in this literature last, it is not that their
importance is not paramount, but because the manner of
their recovery leads us to the third part of my discourse —
the extension of Greek history into later times and other
societies than those of the golden age; for the consideration
of our gains will naturally lead us to the manner and

86 HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME AND ASIA

method by which these gains were made. And in the first
place, what have we acquired ? In actual texts complete,
or partially complete, we now have the ]Mimes of Herondas,
dramatic sketches of low or vulgar life, such as the Dutch
Teniers has given us with his brush. We have most of
the Constitution of Athens, a tract ascribed to Aristotle and
often quoted as such by Plutarch. We have some of the
Odes of Bacchylides, the lesser contemporary of Pindar,
and, what is far more valuable, among them specimens of
the dithyramb, a form of poetry much cited by the ancients,
but never understood till this discovery. We have the
Persians of Timotheus, another to us novel form of poem
composed for an elaborate musical illustration, somewhat
like the Italian opera, and rivaling the texts of that opera in
its tenth-rate quality. But when music is fitted to verse, it
is but seldom the setting of perfect music unto noble words,
of which the poet dreams. One partner becomes predomi-
nant. Let us hope for the sake of Timotheus, for the sake
of the public of whom he was the idol, that in this case, as
in that of Richard Wagner, the music was the real attrac-
tion. But I must refrain from criticism. The works just
named are all incoiuplete or shattered in some part, for the
exterior of the papyrus rolls on which they were written
could hardl}' fail to have been affected by long centuries of
burial or by the hands of ignorant finders. But they give
us enough to judge both the works and their authors. Of
lesser fragments, stray pages, single scenes of plays, or even
of n,usic-hall farces, elegant extracts, epigrams, we have a
whole library. Almost every known Greek author, and a
great number of unknown, are represented in these newly
acquired texts.

It is of course known to you all that this treasure comes
from Egypt, not Greece, and was preserved by the Greek-
speaking population of that important branch of Hellenism,

EXPANSION OF GREEK HISTORY 87

from Ptolemaic to late Roman days. The life of these
Greek settlements in Eg>-pt, with their language, their
books, their traditions all from Greece, are now a vital chai>-
ter even in the political and economic history of the nation.
Among the literary remains are innumerable business docu-
ments, official orders, every-day correspondence, copies of
wills and of contracts — all Hellenic in language and origin,
and pointing back to the classical culture of the mother
country. Here indeed we have a perfectly unexpected and
notable specimen of what the conquests of Alexander prcn
duced in foreign lands — of that Hellenism which is at last
commanding the attention of classical scholars. For there
is every reason to think that these Greek settlements, in the
midst of a native population, were not exceptional, but
typical of what Alexander projected and his followers
effected all over the East. Not only on the shores of the
Euxine, where there were long since Hellenic cities, which
communicated with Greece by sea, but all through the body
of Asia Minor, notably in Syria and Palestine, in Mesopo-
tamia along the Tigris and Euphrates, nay, even on the
OxiiS, and within range of the Turanian steppes, there were
established settlements of Greek soldiers and traders, with
privileges to attract them there, but also with the duty of
guarding the new Greek civilization of the East from moun-
tain robbers and from national revolts. I know not what
the possibilities are of successful excavations in Syria — on
the site of Antioch ruined by so many earthquakes, of
Apamea, of Baalbec, of Gerasa. in the Decapolis of Judaea.
But of this I feel sure, in that crowd of settlements made
under the Seleucid house, both of IMacedonians and of
Greeks, the evidences we should find would be of the same
character as those of the Fayum. We should find that the
Graeco-Macedonian settlers, including the Persians, who
were distinctly admitted to the ruling caste, lived in the

88 HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME AND ASIA

midst of the aborigines, trading with them, intermarrying
with them, quarreHng with them, while they were protected
from absorption by their Hellenistic speech, and by special
courts conducted according to Hellenistic law. The dis-
coveries of the last fifteen years, inaugurated, I am proud to
say, by the two volumes of Petrie Papyri which it was my
unique good fortune to lay before the world, have mani-
fested to us an aspect of the Hellenic mind of which we
knew but little in former days. True it was that these
outlying settlements, living as the Hungarians do among
the Slovaks, or the Germans among the Poles, kept up their
aristocracy of intellect, as well as of race, by the constant
reading of the old Greek masterpieces. It is through the
fragments recovered from them that we now know what
the texts of Homer, and Pindar, and Euripides, and Plato,
and Demosthenes were like in the second and third centur-
ies before Christ; and let me add that if there is ample
evidence of the considerable rehandling and reediting of
the Homeric text in the second century b. c. which tradition
long since ascribed to the great Alexandrian critics, we have
also indisputable proof that in the rest our medieval copies
represent with excellent fidelity the great masters as they
were read in these early books. It is not, however, the
establishing of our old faith in the great classics against the
suspicions of tampering and of corruptionwhich concerns me
here. It is rather the new and interesting fact in this fresh
appendix (if I may so call it) to our Greek histories, that
of these people we have not only the classical books they
read, we have the papers of everyday life. We now know
how they made their marriage settlements and their wills,
their loans and their contracts, their reports and their com-
plaints; we have now an insight into their official systems
of taxation and administration, their banking and their gen-
eral finance. These are commonplace matters. These let-

EXPANSION OF GREEK HISTORY 89

ters and reports cannot be called literature. But they are
?iistory, and an expansion of Greek history of the highest
interest. There were no doubt Egyptian features, as there
were Persian features and Syrian features elsewhere in this
civilization, but the whole of it bears the impress of the one
great nationality which stamped it upon the world. It has
been well shown by more than one modern historian^ that
even the oriental reactions against the West, even the Indian
and Parthian monarchies that repudiated Hellenism, owed a
great part of their strength to the new life which Alexander
brought into the disorganized systems of the East; it is
perhaps more remarkable that a Prussian government
official, examining the bureaus and the red tape of the Greek
papyri, can tell us that all the official life of our own day,
with the exception perhaps of the transmission of checks
through private hands, can be found among the Greeks of
two thousand years ago.^ It is an inheritance from them
through the Roman Empire, which few of us had suspected.
Not till we unearthed the clay figurines from Tanegra did
we learn how the ordinary Greek lady dressed, in contrast
to our knowledge from many ideal statues by great artists
how the Greek goddess — undressed. There is as great a
contrast between the stately periods of the studied orator
and the curt indorsements of the overworked official. I
heard not long ago a great English banker,'' with the self-
complacency of his race, attribute the invention of banking
to his earliest predecessors in London. He might have
learned from the very name "Lombard Street" that he was
w^rong; he may now learn from a whole literature on the
money and corn banks of Egypt, that there were many
"brave men before Agamemnon."*

1 Niese, Gesch. des hellenist, Zeitalters ; Bevan, The House of Seleucus.

2 Preisigke, "Griech. Pap. Urkunden u. Bureaudienst im griech. rom. aegyp-
ten," Archiv 'fiir Post u. Telegrnphie, 1904.

3 Sir John Lubbock (now Lord Avebury).

* Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona. Horace, Od. iv, 9, 25.

90 HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME AND ASIA

When we consider the effect of all these studies and dis-
coveries upon the general influence which Hellenic civiliza-
tion has had, or will have, on the culture of the twentieth
century, we must be prepared to meet the objection more
widely felt than formulated, that all this study of lesser and
later Greek history is likely to dilute the strong impression
which the noblest and best epoch made upon our fathers.
There was then a strict selection of what was pure ; all that
was supposed degenerate and second-rate was neglected,
and this is why Greek culture has maintained its supremacy
till the present day. Why study Polybius or Diodorus
when we have Thucydides and Herodotus? Why study
Callimachus when we have Pindar? Are not a few ac-
knowledged masters sufficient to maintain the Greek influ-
ence on modern culture? These objections are true, indeed,
but only true from a special standpoint. For the education
of the young in any literature, we are bound, by natural
selection, to choose first the great masterpieces. That is a
universal rule in this our mortal life, where our powers of
comprehension are very limited. If we carry it to its ex-
treme limit we arrive at the word of Scripture, or of the
Koran : "Seek first the kingdom of Heaven, and its right-
eousness, and all other things shall be added unto you." But
if our education is to comprehend not merely the perfect
form of Greek literature, but the realities of Greek life; if
the complete history of that people, whose world-influence
waxed rapidly according as the perfection of its artistic life
began to wane, be our object, then the view of the school-
master and the grammarian must make way for larger con-
siderations. Nay, more, this narrow view has misled the
world upon the very issues raised by the pedants. What is
decadence, and what is inferiority? We will all concede
that there is an inimitable grace in the dialogue of Aristo-
phanes, which even Menander could not equal, but are there

EXPANSION OF GREEK HISTORY 91

not other perfections in Greek life? The two masterpieces,
for example, that stand out in the Greek sculpture of the
Louvre in Paris are the great Nike of Samothrace, and the
exquisite Venus of Melos. They both come from the post-
classical age. The marble sarcophagus from Sidon, which
commemorates some companion of Alexander (probably
that Philokles who was Sidonian King, and High Admiral
to the first Ptolemy), is the most splendid and perfect speci-
men of that kind of art we have yet recovered. That, too,
is post-classical. The purest schools had banished from
their course, as a writer of decadent Greek, the immortal
Plutarch, whom even Shakespeare thought worthy of trans-
lation to his stage, with hardly a word of alteration. And
when these people conceded to us Theocritus, the great
father of the pastoral idyl, as a master, probably because of
his difficult Doric dialect rather than his novel subject, why
did they conceal from us the exquisite Euboeic adventure
(his seventh discourse) of Dion Chrysostom, or the late
barn, but not the less precious, Daphnis and Chloc, whose
very author is a mystery?^ It is through widely different
circumstances that the narratives of the Synoptic Gospels,
documents of the highest moral quality, have maintained
their fame, yet let none of you imagine that their literary
excellence did not contribute largely to this permanent in-
fluence.

But I need not rest my argument for the expansion of
our study of Hellenic into Hellenistic times on these literary
grounds, nor is it a mere protest against ignoring great
works of literature and of art under the bonds of a narrow
and false theory. The political lessons of this later age of
Greece have only recently risen into the appreciation of
men. When Grote comes to record complimentary votes

1 These matters are set forth in my Silver Age of Greece, in which I have
sought to rescue from oblivion these forgotten masterpieces.

92 HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME AND ASIA

passed at Athens to a Macedonian ruler or his officer, he
thinks it high time for the historian of Greece to lay down
his pen in disgust, and bring his labors to a close. And yet
since then Freeman has given us an admirable and instruc-
tive volume on Greek Federations; the fourth volume of
Hohn's History, and the monumental work of Droysen are
on the same epoch. It is not in a mere address, but by the
studies of many years, that I have shown my own personal
interest in this once neglected period. Freeman, utilizing
his Polybius as no one had done before, was the first to
show how the idea of federation, long obscure and almost
dormant in the Greek mind, came into vogue when the little
city states of Greece found great kingdoms rising up around
them. To remain isolated after the old Greek fashion
meant ruin; some form of combination, some accumulated
strength, was necessary to preserve not only the political
but the economic existence of small states. This fruitful
idea, first carried out on a considerable scale by the leagues
of ^tolia and Ach?ea, then with great effect by Rhodes,
failed on the whole, and failed on account of the ingrained
conviction of the Greeks that every state which voluntarily
entered a confederation was entitled to secede from it at
any subsequent moment. If it could not be brought back by
argument, had the rest any right to bring it back by force?
Need I say one word more in this place to enforce the world-
importance of this problem? Seeing that the Greek senti-
ment, as might be expected from small separate cities, with
long traditions of independence, and perpetual jealousies of
their neighbors, was always in favor of secession, there
remained no other alternative than to combine under a
foreign monarchy. For this, while it granted local liberties,
from indifference or from policy, defended its subject states
by a superior military force, and prohibited those local wars,
which were the bane of the Greek world.

EXPANSION OF GREEK HISTORY 93

If the history of the rise of federations has at last re-
ceived due attention, that is not the case with the resurgence
of the idea of monarchy, not merely enforced upon the
Greeks by their Macedonian conqueror, but defended in
many books and tracts from Xenophon's Cyrus down to the
tracts of philosophers about royalty (ire/n fiamXei'a^) of
which many fragments and notices remain. This once
hateful form of government was not therefore thrust upon
a democratic world against its will, but recognized on trial
to be the practical solution of difificulties which were bring-
ing political ruin upon the Greek world. How far this
great change of ideas prevailed appears from the readiness
with which even skeptical democracies lavished not only
royal titles but divine honors upon the new king. Never
was the Divine right of hereditary monarchy so quickly and
readily adopted. It was, in fact, far safer to have a distant
king, who theoretically could do no wrong, than a present
tyranny of pauper fellow citizens, wnth irresponsible power
to do practical mischief at every assembly they chose to hold.
It was far better for the herald's office to invent a divine
pedigree for an adventurer, than to have the Divine right of
kings questioned and the novel virtue of loyalty to the
reigning house chilled by skepticism. For thus only could
even temporary peace, even local liberties, be maintained in
that seething and tumultuous age. A new Cadmus had
sown the dragon's teeth, and the Greek w^orld was red w:th
the warring harvest. The anodyne which that world
adopted gave the framew^ork of the ideas to Augustus Caesar
on which he built up the Roman Empire, and established
the Roman Peace.

Here I pause, out of breath with the effort to compass so
vast a subject, to cover so long a course.

In conclusion: There are three great requisites for the
further development of this branch of human learniilg.
First, the diligent prosecution of the ordering and criticis-

94 HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME AND ASIA

ing existing materials by a number of specialists, each to his
own department. Of this first we may feel quite assured.
For our age is indeed a diligent age, and has learned how
to collate and to edit. Secondly, more ample endowment
for making special and costly researches on famous historic
sites. What new material might not accrue to us if we had
leave and means to explore Sybaris and Cyrene, Antioch
and Alexandria? And here too we may have good hopes,
for our age is indeed a generous age, and the princely
donors of thousands for modern science may yet be per-
suaded that with hundreds devoted to historic research, they
will add not less to human knowledge, and ten times more
to the gratitude of men.^ For human culture must have
many sides, and it will be an evil day when the knowledge
of positive science leaves no place for the knowledge of
human society. But let no man persuade you that ardent
diligence and ample endowment are enough without the last
and greatest postulate which I shall make. — the encourage-
ment of a bold, constructive imagination, which carries on
its inquiries not at haphazard, but in order to verify or to
refute some large theory of what things ought to have been,
or what men ought to have done. It is this quality which
makes the difference between the mere scientific drudge and
the great scientific thinker; it marks the greatness of a
Champollion and a Hincks, no less than of a Newton and
a Laplace. And if it cannot be the inheritance of every
student, being indeed the exceptional and precious gift of
the gods, remember that it cannot only be encouraged and
nurtured, but discouraged and starved by the education of
men. Through it. and through it alone, can you under-
stand the real meaning of the pregnant apothegm : Priidens
interrogatio dimidium scicntiae.

' If. for example, the classical public, who are rot millionaires, would sup-
port the Grseco-Roman branch of the Egypt Exploration Fund with numerous
subscriptions, the momentous and epoch-making wo'-k of >t"ssrs. Grenfell and
Hunt might assume larger proportions, and many texts would be saved by them
from the lamentable fate of being dug out and lacerated by ignorant natives,
and sold in scraps to equally ignorant travelers.

PROBLEMS IN ROMAN HISTORY

BY ETTORE PAIS

[Ettore Pais, Professor of Ancient History, University of Naples,
Italy, b. Borgo S. Dalmazzo, Piedmont, Italy, July 27, 1856.
Ph.D. Florence, 1878; Post-graduate, Berlin, 1881-83; LL.D.
Chicago; Chevalier. Legion d'Honneur de France; Commander
of the Prussian Crown; Director of Royal Museum, Sassari,
1879-81; Cagliari, 1883-86; Naples, 1901-04; Professor of Ancient
History, University of Palermo, 1886-88; Pisa, 1888-99; Naples,
1900; Madison, Wis., 1905. Member Academy of Lincei, Rome;
Academy of Sciences, Munich; Imperial German Archaeology In-
stitute, Berlin; Societe d'histoire diplomatique, Paris; Royal His-
torical Society, Piedmont; ibid. Romagna; ibid. Marche Venice,
etc. Author of History of Siciliy and Great Greece; History of
Sardinia; History of Rome; and other noted M'orlvs in history.]

Any one who will follow the development of the ancient
political history of Greece and Rome, and closely observe
what were our conditions from the Renaissance to the close
of the eighteenth century, will easily recognize that the
nineteenth century, so glorious in the renewing of philo-
sophical, natural, and social studies, has not been less great
in this conspicuous branch of human knowledge. Thanks
to the methodic study of the literary texts, of the genesis
of sources, and to the laborious collection of infinite series
of monuments; thanks to the works of Boechk, Grote,
Niebuhr, Droysen, Mommsen, and of the great number of
their followers, the political knowledge of the ancient classi-
cal world has advanced so far as to give us an almost com-
plete view of that civilization. We have precise narratives,
which ought to be of the greatest utility, not only to the
professional scholar but also to any cultured man. And
close to these narratives, inspired, as in the case of Momm-
sen, even by the cult of form, we have a long succession of
deep works on all the branches pertaining to kindred
sciences; from chronology to numismatics, from public law
to the history of art and of philosophical opinions. Any

96 HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME AND ASIA

one, ill fact, who with optimistic views will examine the
enormous scientific publications made in Germany, France,
England, and America, may almost be drawn to conclude,
at first impression, that little is left to be done, and that
man's mind, always seeking new problems, may find little
to reap in a field so completely cleared. This impression
is perhaps less strongly received from the study of Greek
political history than from the study of the Roman, where
the wonderful energy of a single man appears to have left
almost nothing for his fellow workers and future genera-
tions to gather. You will understand my allusion to
Theodor IMommsen, the man who for half a century has
held undisputed the sceptre among all cultivators of history
and classical law, the man who has not passed over in
silence any of the arguments regarding life of the Roman
people.

Mommsen, in fact, after having silenced the voices of his
opponents, has seen his triumphal chariot followed by the
best energies of two generations of learned men. But it
looks as if it were an inevitable historical necessity that to
the works of learned men should be reserved a fate quite
different from that which is decreed to the works of artists.
The greatest perfection reached by a poet or a painter has
not as its immediate effect the disdaining of his predecessors'
work. Human curiosity is, in this case, rather urged to
examine and to appreciate the less mature and perfect work
which marks a salient point in the artistic development. On
the contrary, it is quite rare not to see those same laurels
gathered by the greatest scientists, rapidly fade and drop.
And the history of science, keeping firmly to the vital ideas
and criteria which make the works of the most eminent
authors of the greatest importance, gives only a flying
glance to the older works, which have spread in their times
the ideas which had to produce the new germs.

PROBLEMS IN ROMAN HISTORY 97

The direct efficacy of August Boechk has been now trans-
mitted in a great measure to other writers, and though the
impression left by Mommsen, who, following close upon
Boechk, filled with him all the nineteenth century, is still
lasting, it is clear that also through the ideas and infinite
researches which emanated from his great mind, we are on
the eve of a new and great intellectual movement, a move-
ment which is alimented and increased by the new material
which is being discovered in every part of the ancient classi-
cal world.

In these last years we are coming into possession of new
Greek histories, which are destined to make the world for-
get the ones written by Grote and Curtius; and new ideas
and problems are already fermenting in the human brain,
which will necessarily lead to new histories of the Republic
and of the Roman Empire, quite different from those of
Mommsen and Gibbon.

The opinion generally accepted that the material of the
classical world is now altogether determined and closed, and
that the study of historians should be limited to penetrating
literary examination, discussed word by word, and to the
observing of the old materials under new points of view,
has been altogether destroyed by the fortunate discovery of
papyri which, thanks, especially, to English diligence and
learning, are coming to us from the very bowels of ancient
Egypt. And to the papyri which illustrate every part of
the public and private life of the ancient world are added
the results given by the excavations which illustrate both
the mature ages and the first origins of civilization among
the classic peoples.

One of the most salient characteristics of the nineteenth
century has been, in fact, the patient research of the em-
bryonic forms of all cosmic life. It was quite natural that
from this universal tendency the study of classic history

98 HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME AND ASIA

should not have been exempt ; a study which, also for the
past, has been constantly determined in its genesis and in its
ulterior development by the prevailing currents in all the
remaining sciences, and by the changing of political and
philosophical ideas. The study of classical antiquity from
the end of the sixteenth century through the eighteenth, es-
pecially in Protestant countries, has been the substratum of
political and civil education. When the triumph of liberal
ideas was obtained in Europe, the science of antiquity did
not become the object of mere erudite curiosity, but was
taken as the foundation and the ideal of literary and moral
education. And it is in this blind and exclusive admiration
of the life of the Greeks and Romans that one must trace
the reason why their civilization was considered quite dif-
ferent from the Eastern, v^hile the Greek one was supposed
autochthonous, sprung by its ow^n virtue, like Athena com-
pletely armed from the head of Jove. Thus the declara-
tions of the ancients were considered erroneous ; though, far
from feeling any shame of this contact with the oriental
world, they insisted particularly on it. And the same insist-
ence and w-armth, which would be urged to prove the con-
stant purity of blood in the lineage of an aristocratic family,
was used in attributing a purely Hellenic origin to the myth
of Herakles, and to deny the Phoenician descendance of
Thales. The merit of having overthrown the theories
which have had for so many years the preponderance in the
field of European science is undoubtedly due to the various
scientific European and American missions, and to many
learned Englishmen. And without letting ourselves be
blinded by the exaggerations to which every reaction leads,
we must follow with great love the discoveries made in
Egypt, Crete, Greece, and Sicily, revealing the existence of
civilization of the Mykenaean type, which demonstrates to
us, with increasing strength, the truth of the aphorism that

PROBLEMS IN ROMAN HISTORY 99

in the world nothing is isolated, but everything is in rela-
tionship with preceding or with parallel phenomena. Scien-
tists are to-day better disposed to listen to the demonstra-
tions of Ginzel on the astronomical discoveries of the people
of Babylon, and on their efficacy over the posterior doctrines
of Hipparchus and Ptolomaeus, just as they have no more
difficulty in recognizing the possibility of ancient political
relations between Greece, Asia Minor, and Egypt. And it
is to be hoped that new discoveries may not only benefit the
development of material civilization, but may one day be of
great advantage in illustrating the genesis of the Greek con-
science, which is still substantially dominating the modern
world.

The great and luminous discoveries which to-day have
thrown light upon the relations between Egypt, Asia Minor,
and the countries inhabited by the Hellenes, were to have a
necessary rebounding action in the researches regarding the
origins of civilization and Italian history.

The most recent scientific criticism had refused the mystic
narrative of the Pelasgians. It is then clearly understood
how some scholars came to defend such traditions. How-
ever, it must be added at once that to this day these attempts
have not been very fortunte. The excavations at Norba in
the territory of the Volscians, with the hope on the part of
some to attribute to the Pelasgians the ancient Italic walls,
have only served to sustain the position of those critics who
assigned those same walls to a much more recent age. And
the same results have been obtained from the explorations
in Etruscan Volterra. The discoveries of material of the
Mykenaean type in Sicily and also at Tarentum are in rela-
tion with the commercial diffusion of products, which, in
the third Mediterranean basin, reached the first dawn of
Greek colonization, that is the beginning of the eighth
century. Likewise all attempts to set back, by many cen-

100 HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME AND ASIA

turies before the eighth, the most ancient historical forms
of Italy have completely failed.

No wise critic can seriously consider the attempt made by
a learned Swede to establish a chronology^ which goes back
two thousand years before Christ, by means of various
types of bronzes and vases, which lasted in an irregular
manner according to the various countries, more or less
accessible to new commercial influences, more or less slow
on their way to civilization. A few years ago people took
into consideration such theories wdiich, basing themselves on
the study of ^milian palisades, caused the Italic founders
of Rome to come from the north of Italy. The recent dis-
coveries in Greece, in the ^gean Islands on the coast of
southern Italy, are instead tending to prove that such
archaeological discoveries can contribute to establish the his-
tory of the commercial relations, but that they have nothing
to do with the ethnography of the most ancient Italic races.
I do not stop to examine theories already accepted as cer-
tain, — of palisades pitched even on dry land for mere reason
of rite, and of Ligurians recognized in various parts of
Italy merely from the crouching position of the corpses, etc.
Common sense knows wdiat value to put on such aberrations.
Archaeological excavations tend rather to prove that the
Italian civilization, born on the coast of southern Italy, grad-
ually spread as far as the plains of northern Italy and quite
to the base of the Alps, w^here the less frequent contact with
the East, the continuous emigration and imposition of bar-
barous elements coming from the north, were maintaining
stationary forms of civilization, which had already dis-
appeared from the south.

Among all the excavations of Italy, those which have been
so zealously carried out in the Roman Forum by Giacomo
Boni are to be especially mentioned. These excavations
have been, for some, the revealing elements of a civilization

PROBLEMS IN ROMAN HISTORY 101

anterior to Romulus himself. But they proved, after all,
nothing of the kind. We are lacking all data to establish
whether those bronzes and vases should be of the tenth and
ninth, rather than the eighth, seventh, or even sixth cen-
tury, B. c. Other excavations would seem to prove that the
typical forms of the so-called Numa vases lasted till the
Empire. The only result altogether certain is the first con-
firmation of the ancient texts, which said that at the out-
skirts of the Forum there was a Sepulcretum. And from
this, even before the excavations, I had obtained the proof,
solemnly confirmed to-day, that the Forum was added to the
city long after the age of the seven kings.

I do not think it is now the moment to speak of the
famous Archaic Latin inscription found under the Niger
Lapis. All the attempts wdiich have been made to interpret
it have been fruitless. Considered from the palseographical
side it may belong either to the sixth or fifth century, or
even fourth century, while from the external form and for
the disposition of the writing it recalls the Capuan monu-
ments of the end of the second or more probably at the be-
ginning of the first century, b. c. No reasoning of any
critic can possibly demonstrate that the rex remembered
there is the political rex of the royal age rather than the
rex sacrormn of the Republic. As regards history, prop-
erly said, the inscription teaches us nothing. The excava-
tions of the Forum have, however, demonstrated what I had
already affirmed, namely, that the arched eloaca maxima is
not a work belonging to the royal age, but rather to the
Republic.

In order to solve the most ancient problems of the history
of Italian civilization, some people have turned to the in-
vestigation of linguistics and anthropolog}' rather than of
archaeology. It has been easy for an able German linguist
to criticise the weak point of the theories founded on cranio-

102 HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME AND ASIA

logical ami somatological elements. However, it has been
easy to a great Italian linguist to find traces of ancient
ethnology in the phonetic persistences among the dwellers
of various Italian regions ; and the anatomic examination in
the structure of the different races in the Peninsula will cer-
tainly lead one day to brilliant results. The j>ersistency of ,
the Celtic reveals the expansion of this people ; and among '
the mountains of the Garfagnana the Ligurian race, which
before the Etruscan dominion occupied such large part of
the Italian, Gallic, and Iberian regions, still holds compact
in its somatological integrity. Thus, on the slopes of the
Apennines, surrounding Campania, just where the Sarno
takes its start, one finds in the same compact condition an
indigenous race unmodified by the successive superimpo-
sitions of the Samnitcs and Romans. And I willingly agree
with Professor Julian when he says that a corpus of the
toponomastic of the ancient world would lead to most bril-
liant results.

Naturally these studies are not yet perfect, and hurried
conclusions may lead to bitter delusions. Certainly a great
delusion must have been felt by certain learned men who,
after having spoken with all certainty of the immigration
of people coming from Asia, basing their affirmations on the
presence of jade-axes, were suddenly informed by a min-
eralogist that the same rock was to be found in the Alps.
Bitter delusions will come to those whom the Etruscan
sphinx devours daily; and my opinion is that people insisted
with too great facility on the non-Aryan character of the
Ligurians, since I have already brought to observation that
the etymolog)' of the indigenous name Genoa (knee), as
Ancona (the arm). Eryx-Verrucca (the hill), shows the
premature character of these conclusions.

These delusions must not, however, prove discouraging,
since there is no science which has not improved through

PROBLEMS IN ROMAN HISTORY 103

infinite uncertainties and errors. We must, however, admit
that regarding the problem of Itahc origin which has at-
tracted and still attracts such a great number of studious
people, we have not yet reached any series of sure and com-
plex results, partly from lack of data, and partly from faulty
methods.

Many people who busy themselves with the primitive
strata which precede the true and real political life ignore
classical culture, which is a fundamental guide, and those
who represent it are not always in a condition to appreciate
the anthropological and social problems.

Regarding the archaeological part, researches have not
been directed to just aims. The great majority of learned
Europeans and Americans, always running after new and
more ancient material, turn to the excavating of Samos,
Miletus, Crete, and Lycia, whilst Italy is still quite far from
being all explored. And yet on the very boundaries of
Latium and Campania, where the ancients placed the mythi-
cal seat of Circe, and the tombstone of Elpenor, notable
ruins exist neglected even from the times of Polybius.
There, just as on the little hill standing above the ruins of
the Roman Minturnge, are preserved the traces of what is,
perhaps, the most ancient stratum of Greek colonization in
Italy.

The problems relating to the most ancient Greek and
Italic civilization are waiting for light from the spade of the
excavator; on the other hand, those regarding the most
ancient social and political structure wait their light from
the comparative study of public law and economy. But
even in this respect what a difference there is between the
history of ancient Greece and that of ancient Rome! The
marbles of the ancient Acropolis permitted Boechk and his
followers to reconstruct the financial history and the mari-
time hegemony of Athens, the texts of the comedians and

104 HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME AND ASIA

of the orators have permitted Belok, Poehlman, Francotte,
and others to treat the most difficult questions relating to
financial and social organizations. Paul Girard has suc-
ceeded in writing a good book on the ancient land property
in Greece. The material lately illustrated by Wilken proves
that new researches may still be made. In the Roman field,
instead, there is nothing that can be in any way compared
to this. No history whatever on land property during the
Republic is to be had, and if we want to be sincere, we must
admit we do not possess even a good guide for the more
ancient social and political institutions. We have, it is
true, ancient and diffused narratives on political struggles,
which are the foundation of a long series of modern manuals
on law and history. But such narratives are based on
spurious material, and even the treaties on Roman political
law written by Mommsen (for the period from the age of
the kings to the beginning of the Punic wars) is based upon
falsified material. I do not insist on this point, as I would
find myself obliged to repeat demonstrations already given
by me elsewhere. I hope at any rate to be able soon to
publish my researches on the value of chronology, on the
Fasti and on the public law of the most ancient Roman
people, in the only way in which it can be really obtained,
namely, through integrations and comparisons. I say in-
tegrations and comparisons, since the study of public law
and of the social conditions of a nation cannot be made now,
as in the past, through the simple knowledge of the material
relating to that single people, no matter how minute and
deep. If there is a matter which should be deeply known
by the student of ancient civilization, it is the comparative
history of the law of all peoples beginning from the cus-
toms in the savage state, to the true and proper law of most
civilized people. Under this aspect Sumner ]Maine's re-
searches, though incomplete, have brought a greater advan-

PROBLEMS IN ROMAN HISTORY 105

tage to studies, than the pretentious works of many scholars
of Roman Law. And only by such comparison, to which
must be added a good knowledge of the classical material,
shall we, some day, be the possessors of a treatise on Greek
public law, which is generally desired. And the study of
law and comparative sociology will evidently give us the
history of the ethic development of the classical world,
which we lack, and which is the surest foundation in order
to understand the reasons of political events.

Fortunately for those who will apply themselves to the
history of law and of Greek and Roman social institutions,
the Egyptian papyri and the discovery of new inscriptions,
which explain intimate connections between the two great
phases of ancient civilization, will bring new and wished-
for materials. Every one knows that an institution like
that of auriim coronarkim, of the colonat, and of the frumen-
tationcs, finds its precedents in the history of Samos, Miletus,
and Alexandria; and the original studies of Mitteis have
shown what quantity of material for deep researches there
is in the comparison of Roman with Hellenic laws.

It looks as if the discovery of the papyri were destined to
give results in the Roman and Greek fields. But if the
philologists have rejoiced in the discovery of the texts of
Aristotle, Bachylides, and Timotheus, the Latinists must be
satisfied with a long series of contracts, leases of rustic
farms, constitution of dowry, contracts of loans and emphy-
teuses. There is no hope of finding a book of Polybius or
of some other historian, precious for us, but less cared for
by the ancients on account of the style in which it was writ-
ten. We have this discouraging outlook also from the
examination of the archaeological excavations made in the
ancient world.

The soil of ancient Italy is certainly not exhausted, but
nothing makes one hope for discoveries similar to those of

106 HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME AND ASIA

Greece and Asia Minor; and the interest of the studious now
turned to the oriental world does not find it worth while to
explore the adult forms of the Grzeco-Roman civilization
which alone is offered by the Peninsula. We deduce from
this that the study of Italian history at the time of the free
republic does not present anything new for investigation, i
while all the periods of Greek history have been, one might
say, transformed, and the history of Hellenism, thanks to
the works of ]\Iahaffy, Belocph, Niese, Strack, Bouche-
Leclercq, and many others, has been rebuilt from the very
beginning. Let us guard ourselves, however, from draw-
ing too pessimistic conclusions.

The study of social and political life in the Roman Repub-
lic has not presented any material for new treatises nor any
original proceedings, for the reason that the problems which
contain the conclusion of the subsequent caroUaria had not
been well solved. The life of the Roman people, far from
constituting a characteristic phenomenon, as it was con-
ceived for centuries, and in part was understood by Momm-
sen himself, is but the last and quite mature phase of that
civilization which continued and transformed the preceding
activity of the East. Laying aside the Roman annals which
offer a premature originality obtained through falsification,
there remains only a late civilization which grafts itself on
the developed Greek world.

In Roman civilization there does not exist a political in-
stitution or situation where there has not been repercussion
or modification of the anterior civilization of Sicily or
Magna Graeca, and later of Greece itself and of \\vt Hellen-
istic states. Only the full and perfect knowledge of the
Greek world permits a clear understanding of the Roman
one. Thus it is clearly understood how a Roman history
can be properly related only when the great problems of
Greek and Hellenistic history will be solved. If, however,

PROBLEMS IN ROMAN HISTORY 107

in the half-centur}- which has succeeded to the first appear-
ance of Momnisen's book, there have been pubhshed at rare
intervals some works which have enlarged the field of our
knowledge, this is not due to a lack of material adapted to
problems, but to the want of preparation to solve them.
\\'e lack a good history relating to the period of the Gracchi,
as well as one on the Social Wars; we have quite incom-
plete expositions on the civil wars or on the conditions of
the Roman provinces during the Republic,

But I do not think I am too much of an optimist when I
maintain that the new view that we already have of the
Greek world, and of the improved comparison of law and of
the institutions of other people, will have the effect of giv-
ing us in the near future a new and quite original history of
the Roman Republic.

The examination of those problems w-hich are treated in
the history of the Empire is leading us apparently to en-
tirely different results.

The wonderful energy of Mommsen, the great compila-
tion of Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, the activity of a
great number of learned men belonging to all nations who
accepted Mommsen's fundamental criteria, seems to have
directed the problem of the Empire to a definite solution.
To the conception which, on the general progress of the
Empire, was given by that prominent scholar, is to be
added that of those writers who treated the history of the
single provinces.

In regard to the technical side, the researches on the ad-
ministrative, financial, and military organizations, and on
public cult, made under the guidance of Marquardt and
Hirschfeld, lead to precise reconstructions which are perfect
in many respects.

It is true that the Roman w^orld has not yet completed the
bringing to light of the epigraphic material hidden in the

lOS HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME AND ASIA

bowels of the earth or dispersed over lands not yet explored
by the historian. It is also true that though papyri have in-
creased in a great measure the knowledge of private law, it
may from one moment to another give us new and important
information also on public law. However, so far as we can
see, the general lines of Roman administration will not be
much modified.

Nevertheless, all these previsions do not lead us to con-
sider as solved the problems concerning the political and
social reorganization of the Empire. Among modern writ-
ers, and especially among those who have followed the
ideas of Mommsen, the general tendency has been to glorify
the happiness and welfare of the Roman world. They have
based themselves on the existence of the colossal ruins scat-
tered in all the provinces, on the regularity and perfection
of administrative and military organizations, on the ex-
tension of commerce, and on the enormous development of
riches, rather than on literary texts which do not seem
always to help their thesis.

The discordant voices of ancient authors are interpreted
as interested protests and outbursts of political parties.
The happiness of the Roman Peace and of the Imperial gov-
ernment contrasts, they say, with the hardness and rapacity
of republican oligarchy; and the folly and cruelty of princes
is compensated by the upright provincial administration.
In all this there is evidently some exaggeration, and a new
verification of the problem imposes itself. The grandeur
and the diffusion of temples, basilicas, baths, theatres, and
aqueducts in all the colonies and municipalities of the vast
Empire is not sufficient to prove that the general happiness
and welfare were greater there than in the capital, which
under the flifferent bad or good emperors continued con-
stantly to enrich itself with new edifices. Thus from the
wealth and elegance of the Roman churches of the sixteenth

PROBLEMS IN ROMAN HISTORY lui»

to the eighteenth centuries nobody certainly would dare
draw proofs in favor of the moral power of the Papacy dur-
ing that age, and of the general happiness and dignity of the
citizens of that state. And just as it is proved by monu-
ments, inscriptions, edifices, and institutions, that the life
of the capital was reproduced in a smaller way in the prov-
inces, so it is quite natural to think thai also the moral and
civil condition should have been reflected there.

The plcbs in the capital lived on alms, at the expense of
the provinces, and there a municipal nobility composed of a
small number of families uses to its advantage the resources
of the community. This municipal nobility will enrich the
city with monuments because it will find for itself a way of
consuming at its leisure the municipal income. In Rome, as
in the provinces, they endeavor to repair the loss of the
free citizenship by alimentary institutions; but there can
never be found a spirit of charity for the poor and the
oppressed ; something is lacking to recall even the hospitals
which were attached to the cult of Greek ^sculapius. The
sportulae handed to the numerous and hungry clients under
the show of power, by the disdainful and wealthy patronus,
makes one naturally think of the alms wdiich till the latter
part of the past century were justifying before the plehs the
riches and idleness of the friars in the Italian convents.
And when one thinks that Vespasian, certainly one of the
best Roman emperors, found nothing better than to redouble
the taxes on the provinces, and imprudently to sell absolu-
tions, either for the culprit, or for the innocent, in order
to restore the finances of the state ; and that he chose as ad-
ministrators of the provinces magistrates from whom he
would draw, as from sponges, the ill-acquired riches, one
may well ask what was the nature of this general welfare.
At any rate Hirschfeld's researches have put in evidence
how little w^as done during the first three centuries of the

no HISTORY OF GREECE. ROME AND ASIA

Empire to secure life and property in Italy and in the prov-
inces. Tacitus has made us hear the voice of protest of the
Roman families only. During the Cesarean despotism all
free speech was silenced ; but if the voice of the provincials
had reached us, we could know how many base deeds and
adulations determined the raising of statues to the good
Roman governors. A\'e have not as many honorary inscrip-
tions for good emperors as for the wicked Caracalla.

In reality, under the Republic as under the Empire the
provinces are but the pracdia populi Romani. The Roman
provinces and municipalities are only a vast field which a
clever administration makes use of to enrich imperial
functionaries, and the classes directing the community. To
derive from these indications a general happiness would
be equivalent to affirming that the remuneration of the
workers is great where the shareholders have a large divi-
dend, or if. in regarding the economical side, we turn to
the noble spheres of letters, of arts and sciences, we see
everywhere the signs of a great and rapid decadence. The
age which according to general opinion receives its light
from Augustus, and which according to the poet's song
marks a new century, is but the beginning of the last phase
of a great civilization which, already developed with the
Greeks in the eighth century, dies with Diocletian and
Constantine. Notwithstanding what has been said to the
contrary, the traces of decadence are visible not after the
Antonines, but with Augustus himself, and with the in-
capacity officially and wisely recognized by him of con-
quering Britain, restraining the Germans, and taming the
Parthians. Such decadence is after a few generations quite
visible in art. No great poet succeeds Virgil. Tacitus
marks the end of the great Roman historiograph. Art
reproduces in large and pompus manner crystallized forms,
and the cold and artificial religion of state suffocates and

PROBLEMS IN ROMAN HISTORY ill

dries any frank and noble aspiration in tlie human soul.
Free speech is silent everywhere; cold rhetoric and dec-
lamation succeed to eloquence. And in sciences, with the
exception of the development of great public edifices which,
as the history of Apollodorus demonstrates, is always
under the high inspiration of Greek doctrine, all is trans-
formed in a pure empiricism drying the germs of theoretical
speculation. Geometry has become surveying, and medi-
cine, judged unworthy of being studied by a Roman citizen,
is left to the Greeks. Ethics and philosophy are trans-
formed into law and regulation, which obliges all to obey
the will of the legislator, who is clever in law, but more so
in handling the sword. And the greatest pleasure of the
Roman society is not to hear, as in the fine Athenian times,
the pricking playfulness of Aristophanes or divine verse of
Euripides, but rather to assist at the games of the Circus,
where the blood of the dying gladiators and that of the
wild beasts stir up voluptuousness and a desire for struggle.
There still remains military glory. But patriotism is already
changing the career of arms ; Italians are despoiled of their
weapons, and the legion, according to an ancient inscrip-
tion from Aquileia, becomes barbara. In the Roman
society there is no place for the unwealthy, and it is quite
natural that the humble and afflicted should rapidly con-
tribute to render vigorous the incipient Christian society
which, having later become powerful, conquers and then
associates itself to the decaying Empire.

The love of war and glory still lasting through centuries
in Europe, the greatness of the monumental remains, and
the inheritance of Roman political organizations also ac-
cepted by the Church, the Roman laws which absorbed
all the legislative work of the ancient world, the cares for
the defense of the Rhine, Danube, and of Asia Minor, the
song of Virgil, the prose of Cicero and Livy, are such

112 HISTORY OF GREECE. ROME AND ASIA

great events that they could not be entirely forgotten, not
even by the rough Ivliddle Ages. The comparison be-
tween Romanity and the subsequent barbarism of Europe
is enough to explain the reverent admiration which also
in these last centuries has existed for the great merits of
Roman civilization. But an exact comparison of the origin
of all ancient civilization and the ties that the Latin world
has had with the Greek naturally leads to a better under-
stood and measured admiration. When studying the light
we must not neglect the shadows. But still recognizing all
the merits of Roman civilization, we must keep in mind
all that was done by the preceding nations. Rome civilized
the coast of Northern Africa, but we must not forget, as
some critic has done, the preparatory work of the Car-
thaginians from whom Rome learned for the first time the
arts of agriculture. It is Rome that has the merit of
having civilized the Gauls, but we must not pass over in
silence the extended and beneficial preparatory work of
the Greek Massilia, which for its civil institutions and its
commerce was once quite superior to Rome, and even
during the Empire was justly chosen by Romans as a seat
for the moral education of her sons. An exact balance
of all that has been produced by the Roman civilization
has not yet been struck. This examination will, certainly
in many instances, prove of honor to the Italian people, to
whom the West owes the transmission of light on the
old Hellenic civilization. Many statistics and comparative ,
works that are still needed, for instance, for the Iberian
Peninsula, have not been written. And such researches
will have to consider density of the population, the true
condition and transformation of slavery, the diffusion of
the Eastern cults, and finally of the first Christian society.
But among all the problems which have not yet been solved,
the most difficult and the most complex is always the one

PROBLEMS IN ROMAN HISTORY 113

on the value of the political work of the Emperors them-
selves.

Mommsen rightly observed that legend is found just as
much in the life of Fabricius as in the ancedote of the
Emperor Gains ; and as Willrich has recently demonstrated,
many data of Imperial traditions deserve a new revision.
But in order to resolve the problem of authenticity in the
ancient tales, it is not enough to establish researches, even
diligent ones, on the discordance and on the presumable
value of the historical sources. Such complex problems
can be solved only by the examination of other historical
periods. The critic who studies the Empire is immediately
impressed by the ferociousness of the degenerate princes.
But in the end the cruelty of Tiberius is not greater than
that of Sylla, and the intrigues of the courts of the Se-
leucids and Ptolemies are useful in making one understand
the plotting of the Palatine Imperial Palaces. And without
having recourse to the easy but unhealthy remedy of fixed
formulas taken from premature treatises on the historical
development of all societies, it is clear that in the study of
the ancient Germanic races or of the oriental monarchies
one will often find material adapted to clear up problems
of the ancient classic world. Such study, for instance, can
be useful to the solution of the controverted problem of
the Script ores Historiae Angnstae, much more than the
infinite series of proceedings which will be expounded by
the philologist, and more than an analytic dictionary of
those texts.

At any rate, the history of the Empire contains problems
which can be referred also in great part to posterior his-
tory. The modern historian lives in an epoch when war
is generally considered as an evil to be avoided ; the scholar
who is not accustomed to arms spends his time between
the documents of the archives and the ruins of the exca-

114 HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME AND ASIA

vations. He does not feel the necessity of connecting mili-
tary events which he is not in a condition to understand.
If necessary he turns to the opinion of some military person
more or less used to interpret and to understand military
texts. Anyhow modern age is tending to solve problems
of social character, and critics, generally, if only for the
love of novelty, ascertain and follow the tastes of their
contemporaries. And more than to the problem of moral
conscience, which determines the function of the highest
human energies, they try to transport, in the ancient world,
those facts which are tormenting modern societies, without
sufficiently taking into consideration different conditions in
culture and faith, in density of population and in social
organisms.

An historian of the first order, Polybius, in finding fault
with historians given only to the study of books, praised
Ephorus for his being in condition to describe a land bat-
tle or a naval operation, just as Gibbon's conteinporaries
appreciated his military knowledge. Polybius himself,
quite an expert in arms as in political management, was
not wrong. To narrate the destines of the world, de-
termined by the result of military events, without being
in a condition to interpret them, is like writing a history
of literature and sciences, giving only the names of the
authors and the titles of the works, without examining the
contents. To speak of Alexander and Hannibal without
considering the merits of their strategy and tactical move-
ments, means to give up a good part of their work, and
not to understand the nature of the military states in
which those same events happened, and for w^hich they
were written. And this fact holds more for the Roman
world which lived always in arms than for the Greek
civilization.. Certainly the modern historian must not limit
himself to narrate that which, according to the ancients.

PROBLEMS IN ROMAN HISTORY iir,

formed the essence of their history. He has, after all, the
duty to retrace those elements of which they had not a full
kn()wledge, and which are useful in explaining the complex
de\elopment of humanity. But in such a case, besides the
study of economic forms, it is necessary to turn one's
attention to the development of religious and moral opinion
and to the history of arts and sciences. And the investiga-
tion of the reasons which determine the reciprocal action
of all these elements and the preponderance of one over
the other according to the different ages and places, con-
stitutes the most complex problem which the historian of
the ancient world is called upon to solve.

The method of making chapters in literar3% artistic,
philosophical history, from the narrative which in sub-
stance is constituted of external facts, is now out of date.
The history of a people, just as the history of an individual,
is subject to transformations which modify its activity. If
the history of the Roman people has remained essentially
military and political, that of the Greek races presents
instead the phenomenon of different elements combining
with one another. The literary and artistic history of the
Athens of the fifth century balances that more strictly
political, but the development of criticism and of sciences
constitutes certainly one of the most important character-
istics of the age of the Diadochi. Thus for the period of
the Spanish preponderance, the Italian nations will very
rarely give occasion to speak of arms, but will offer, in-
stead, material for art, for the study of the works of Galileo
and of Bruno.

Politics, military art, law, economy, fine art, science,
from the historical point of view, form a complex whole
before the history of the ancient and modern world. And
since the unlimited increase of knowledge in the branches
of learnintf makes this task more and more difficult, it is

116 HISTORY OF GREECE. ROME AND ASIA

evident that our education, freed from useless teachings
and old prejudices, must be strengthened by the study of
the sciences. But it will not be enough to reform the
organization of our colleges, we shall have still to break
the barriers of our faculties ; because if it is true that no
science can improve without long and detailed technical
researches, it is also true that the studies of specialists con-
tain rarely important results, unless they are guided by
large conceptions and are coordinated with various and
kindred sciences.

And among the sciences which are destined to make
future historiography improve, politics comes first. This
recommendation may at first seem ingenuous or altogether
useless, unless one consider how, after having naturally
exempted some famous works, nearly all the modern pro-
duction in the field of classic antiquity is due to the activ-
ity of the philologist. The necessity of investigating the
literary texts, of long and detailed researches on the reci-
procal dependence of the sources, of interpreting epigraphic
texts, and now more than formerly, also the papyri, render
the help of philological training precious and indispensible.

But it is also just to recognize that in nearly all the
historical production, due to the philological school, the
political sense is nearly always missing.

It is then necessary to see to it that those who will be
called upon to solve the future problems, though dedicat-
ing themselves to all the sciences which constitute the his-
torical organism, should take part in political life, avoiding,
however, becoming victims of those prejudices which guide
the parties that are the natural product of the political
atmosphere. And of all these preconceptions one of the
most damaging is that born of blind patriotism. Few
among the human sentiments have contributed so much as
patriotism to keep alive the remembrance of historical

PROBLEMS IN ROMAN HISTORY i]7

facts, and to promote the increment of researches in the
past. But it is not less true that tliis sentiment has brought
the greatest disadvantage to historical trutli.

It is superfluous to recall examples of the first cases;
it is much more useful instead to observe in how many
instances the objective history of a people has been usefully
told by strangers and even by rival nations. If Polybius
was able to expose a narrative of Roman events, as no
other Italian historian could, this did not arise only from
his political culture and clear-sightedness, but also from
the fact that, belonging to a conquered nation, he was not
blinded by national pride. This greater objectivity dis-
tinguished also the political work of Trogus Pompeius
from the annals of the Paduan Livy. The horizon of the
eloquent Livy did not extend beyond the Urbs and Pa-
tavium, while Trogus Pompeius saw the Roman deeds
from the point of view of universal history, and therefore
gave to them a better proportioned part in the history of
the world. If the histories of Theopompus or other
authors known to Plutarch had come to us, we should
certainly have quite a different history of the Persian wars
from that of Herodotus, inspired by the glorification of
Athens. Germany, with Ranke's and Von Sybel's, has
given the best histories of the Catholic counter-reform and
of the French Revolution. And we do not need to men-
tion to you the value of Prescott's and Irving's studies on
the most brilliant periods of the Spanish domination. The
patriotic historian is bound by a thousand prejudices of
education, and is not always in condition to judge with
perfect clearness the events of his country. Even if he be
free from preconceptions, he feels tightly bound by many
considerations, and if he says all the truth he exposes him-
self to censure. Still the treating of the same agruments
with stereotyped views does not lead to any scientific re-

lis HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME AND ASIA

suits. \\*hat is of advantage to the progress of sciences
and arts is freshness of impressions and new energies
which substitute themselves for the old ones. And since
you Americans, with a new and unfailing impulse of youth,
open your universities to the study of all the problems of
old Europe, let us hope that with your work a more perfect
knowledge of the ancient world may be reached. Like all
young and robust organisms, you are naturally inclined
to break down the tendency toward routine which too often
binds the work of European scholars. From the contact
of old with new theories, there will certainly come out
sparks which will be destined to throw new light on the
infinite problems of the classical world. The study of the
early belief and social forms of America has contributed
to explain questions of ancient mythology and classical
anthropology which remained inexplicable mysteries for
generations of learned men. In turn the political study of
old Europe, and especially of the classical world, will make
more clearly understood the destinies to which the United
States of America are called.

In fact, the conception that political history should be
studied by itself, with no other aim but mere curiosity,
must be rejected, as well as the idea that any other science
is not destined to have a practical application in life. The
purpose of this great Congress, to which you have called
all sciences to be represented, pure and experimental, the-
oretical and practical, is the best guarantee that the scien-
tific, American society will not be lost either among the
fogs of abstractions or the vulgarity of empiricism. If
among the decadent nations or those about to decay, men
who are without ideality and who ignore art or science
are put at the helm, in the countries which are destined
to a prosperous future public interests are instrusted to
those who best understand the history, and therefore the
hopes, of their country.

PROBLEMS IN ROMAN HISTORY 119

It is not strange that nearly all Roman historians should
have been statesmen; and statesmen were Machiavelli, Ma-
caiilay, and Bancroft. Without knowing the biological
precedents the cure of an invalid is not possible, just as
without a long experience of the past it is not possible to
provide for the future of nations.

The study of old Europe, its glories, and its errors, is
a sacred patrimony which she divides with the United
States, which have the task of forming a new and great
civilized society. The Roman and Greek civilization is a
great part of this patrimony, and is worthy of your cares,
because it contains the best part of institutions and tra-
ditons which you are called upon to study and partly to
follow.

The immense space of sea which separates you from
Europe and from Eastern Asia, the lack of danger of an
invasion from the north, and even less so from the south,
seem at first glance to place the United States in a situation
quite different from that of the old European civilization.
But the speed which will be attained by steamers in the
near future will render these distances proportionately
smaller than the Ionian and the Tyrrhene seas were once
for the Athenians navigating toward Syracuse, and for
the Romans fighting against Carthage.

Greece and Rome had in the Mediterranean a position
which recalls, in part, the interoceanic situation of the
United States. They transmitted successively to the West
the civilization received from the East, and the United
States are already called to take great part in the trans-
formation of the yellow races.

The economic and social foundation of the Romans was
based on slavery: you, instead, have freed the negro from
bondage. But the complete participation of the latter in
your political counsels constitutes one of the greatest prob-

120 HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME AND ASIA

lems which you are called to solve. And it will be all your
glory if you shall find a better solution than the ancient
world. The immense development of your finances, which
seems fabulous to us old races, reminds one of the similar
enormous development during the Empire. You have the
daring and practical mind of the Romans, the greatness
of their works, and the firmness of their character. But
the love for sciences and arts protects you from the danger
which threatens the plutocratic societies. This love for
science and art, which causes you to multiply your uni-
versities, libraries, and museums, takes, however, its first
and more vital inspiration from that brilliant Greek civiliza-
tion which transfused itself into the Italian Renaissance.
And while in so many parts of Europe old forms of social
organizations are still living, you are, on the contrary,
destined to maintain brighter than ever the most luminous
fiame of the old Greek and Latin civilization.

The cult of that freedom which you placed as a glorious
symbol just where the Atlantic touches your shores is an
omen of unhampered enterprise and active life for all
those who, coming to you from distant countries, have the
aspiration to share your community.

The glorious history of your independence shines
through the greatness of Washington and Lincoln. You
are worthy of continuing the cult of Pericles, Timoleon,
and Scipio ; and permit me, to whom you have given the
great honor of speaking about the ancient civilization of
the land of Columbus, Amerigo, and Cabot, to recall here
my fellow citizen, Carlo Botta; only a few years after your
war of independence, the Piedmontese Carlo Botta was the
first among Italians to relate your history, glorifying the
virtues of Washington, and through your example endeav-
oring to stamp a seal of infamy on the tyranny then reign-
ing in Europe, and to spur the soul of his citizens to the
cult of freedom.

THE UmVERSITT OF PARIS IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

Iland-painted Photogravure from a Painting by Otto Knille. Reproduced from

a Photograph, of the Painting by permission of the

Berlin Photograph Co.

Tliis famous painting is now in tlie University of Berlin. Thomas Amiinas, one
of liie greatest of tlie scliolasiic pliilo>iopliers, surnanied the "Angelic Doctor.'" is
leliverinw a learned discourse before King Louis IX. To the right of the King
-lands Joinville, the French clironioler. The Dominican monk with his hand
to his face is Guiilaume de Saint Amour, and Vincent de Beauvais and another
Dominican are seated with their backs to the platform desk from which Thomas
Aquinas is making liis animated address. Tiie picnire is thoroughly characteristic
of a University disputation at the close of the Middle Ages.

A GENERAL SURVEY OF THE HISTORY OF

ASIA, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO

CHINA AND THE FAR EAST.

BY HENRI CORDIER

[Henri Coediee, Professor of I'Ecole des Langues Orientales
Vivantes, 1881, Paris, b. August 8, 1849, New Orleans, Louisiana.
A.B. University of Paris; Litt.D. University of Cape Good Hope;
Chinese Mandarin of the third class, with decoration of "Precious
Star," third degree; Professor at Ecole Libre des Sciences
Politiques, 1886-95; Secretary of the Chinese Educational Mission,
1877-81; President of the Council Societe de Geographie, 1904;
Member of the Scientific Committee of the Ministry of Public
Instruction; Honorary Member Royal Asiatic Society; Hon. Cor-
responding Member of the Royal Geographical Society; Vice-
President of the Societe des Traditions Populaires; Socio della
R. Deputazione Veneta di Storia Patria, etc. At^thor of Histoire
des Relations de la Chine avec les Puissances Occidentales ; Atlas
Sino Corcen; Bibliotheca Sinica; Marco Polo. Editor and founder
of the Revue de VExtrdme Orient and of the T'oung-pas.]

In attempting to draw in less than an hour a sketch of
the history of Asia, I am fully aware of the difficulty as
well as of the grandeur of the task which has been intrusted
to me. It cannot be expected that in the short space of
time allotted to the lecturer, a complete idea of this vast
subject can be given. I can only sum up the main points
and designate the landmarks of the unbroken chain of facts
which from our days goes back to the most ancient period
of the history of mankind. When we search into the
remotest past of Asia, the geologist, not the historian,
presents a very surprising spectacle to our view : two lands
stand opposite; one, to the north, shaping a long arch round
what is to-day Irkutsk; the other, to the south, constitutes
a portion of the future peninsula of Hindustan ; a large
mediterranean sea, to which M. Suess has given the name
of Tethys, separates the two continents; this ocean, in

121

122 HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME AND ASIA

gradually drying up, has by its folds given rise to the
Pamirs, the Himalayas, the high Tibetan Tableland, — and
its total disappearance and the union of the two, northern
and southern, lands gave birth to Asia.

If we seek into this vast continent for the territory hav-
ing: an authentic record of the oldest times, we find it in
the lands of biblical tradition, Chaldea and Elam, where
Asia tells again the story of its past with the most irre-
fragable evidence in the inscriptions registered on stones
which, lying buried for centuries, have withstood the wear
and tear of ages; thus has been revealed to us the oldest
code of the world, the Law of Hammurabi, discovered at
Susa by M. J. de Morgan, and described by the Dominican
Father v. Scheil, both Frenchmen. However, if Elam
carries us back to a period further than four thousand
years before Christ, other countries of Asia, including
those which are supposed to possess the most ancient civil-
ization, are far from giving the material proof of the high
antiquity to which their books and their legends lay an
unfounded claim.

India cannot boast of a single monument which for age
is to be compared with those of Nineveh and of Egypt,
and before the eighth century b. c, no solid basis to the
history of China is to be found. The perishable quality
of the materials used in rearing the edifices of this last
country cannot allow us to hope that the zeal of mod-
ern archaeologists will unearth the secret of monuments
vanished long ago.

In the actual state of science, theories only can be im-
agined to account for the genesis of Asiatic nations, and
a common origin exists but in the fancy of a few learned
men. It was very natural to look for the first migrations
and the first civilizations about Elam and Chaldea, and
from this authentic and venerable source let flow the great

HISTORY OF ASIA— GENERAL SURVEY 123

streams to the various extremities of Asia; it has been
possible from isolated facts to build ingenious theories like
that of Terrien de Lacouperie, but at the present time noth-
ing definite gives us a right to broach an opinion with
regard to the primitive inhabitants of Oriental Asia and
their cradle.

When I was honored with an invitation to come and
speak here, I believed it to be expected that I should not
delay too much in treating of the ancient times of the
history of Asia, and in dealing with facts which are im-
portant in themselves, but are nevertheless secondary in
their results. What I am expected to give is a general
view, an ensemble. I shall try to show the chief influences
which gave life to the immense Asiatic Continent and to
mark out the place it occupies in the general history of the
world, making large allowance for Central Asia and the
Far East, which have been the object of my special study.

During a long time Europe remained in complete ignor-
ance of the steady though irregular movements of the
po[)u]ations of Asia, which was really a volcano in erup-
tion, the terrible effects of which were felt afar. When
the Roman Empire crumbling to pieces was threatened
westwards by the barbarians of Germanic race, — Teutonic.
Gothic, or Scandinavian, — these, pressed in their turn l)y
the wild hordes from Asia, like a rolling wave invaded the
Empire, and crushed in by the new-comers founded as far
as Spain more or less flourishing kingdoms at the expense
of the domain of the Caesars. Tlie march of the Huns
from the heart of Asia is in great part the cause of these
migrations of people; menacing the Chinese territory, driv-
ing away the Yue-chi, a branch of the Eastern Tartars,
who, after several halts of which we shall speak further
on, carved for themselves an empire on the banks of the
Indus at the cost of the occupiers of the valley of this river.

124 HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME AND ASIA

The invading Huns, like a huge wave, gained gradually on
from horde to horde, from tribe to tribe, from people to
people, till they reached Europe, which, when struck by
the Scourge of God, could not discern whence the blow
was first dealt.

During the course of the fifth century, the Huns under
Attila had not only subdued all the Tartar nations of Cen-
tral Asia, but had also brought under the yoke the whole
of the German tribes between the Volga and the Rhine.
The defeat of the great chief by the allied armies of the
Franks, the Visigoths, and the Romans at the battle of the
Catalaunic Fields (451), his death two years later, stopped
the tide of the Eastern invaders ; as the victory of Charles
Martel at Poitiers (732), three centuries later, set bounds
to the throng of Arabs, who, after having torn the north
of Africa from the Roman Empire, had crossed the sea,
destroying the power of the Visigoths, who, after a long
migratory period throughout Europe, had apparently found
a permanent home in the Iberian Peninsula.

The invasion of the barbarians, who flocked together to
sliare the spoils of the agonizing Roman Empire in the
fifth century, will continue later on with the Mongol raids
and till 1453, the year of the capture of Constantinople by
the Turkish Osmanlis, which we may consider to mark
the climax of the Asiatic encroachments.

We shall see the counterpart of these great movements
when the Western nations, after doubling the Cape of
Good Hope, shall resume the route of India in the course
of the sixteenth century.

Buddhism, the doctrine of the disciples of Shakyamuni,
has no doubt been one of the principal means of facilitating
the intercourse of the nations throughout Asia ; it has been
the sun at which the civilization of many have lit their
torch ; indeed a writer could say — not without some good

HISTORY OF ASIA— GENERAL SURVEY 125

reason — thit the history of Buddhism is in itself the history
of Eastern Asia.

The spread of Buddhism and its wider diffusion from
India to the remainder of Asia was greatly increased
by the support received from some princes and by the
peregrinations of its devotees.

After the death of Alexander the Great, whose cam-
paign against Porus brought India into contact with the
great Hellenic civilization, one of the lieutenants of the
great conqueror, Seleucus, took as his share of the in-
heritance the eastern part of the Empire, but as early as
304 he was obliged to surrender the satrapy of India to a
man of low condition called Chandragupta by the Buddh-
ists and Sandracottos by the Greeks. Chandragupta was
the founder in Magadha of a dynasty of princes ; his grand-
son Asoka, surnamed Piyadasi (died 240 b. c), in estab-
lishing a board of foreign missions, DJiarma Mahamatra,
gave a considerable extension to Buddhism, not only in
his own dominions, but also in the surrounding countries
as far as Deccan.

On the other hand, the tribes of Eastern Tartars known
to the Chinese as the Yue-chi, driven by force to the west
by the Hiung-nu (Huns), divided themselves into two
branches ; the Little Yue-chi who settled in Tibet, and the
Great Yue-chi who advanced to the banks of the Hi, and
in 163 B. c. occupied, in the place of the Sakas, the country
south of the Tien-shan where Yarkand and Kashgar now
stand. Some years later the Yue-chi, pressed in their turn
by the Wu-sun, once more drove the Sakas out of Sog-
diana, beyond the Oxus, to the country watered by the
Cabul River. About 35 b. c. the leader of these Yue-chi
subdued Cabul, Kashmir, and Penjal. The conversion to
Buddhism of one of his successors, Kanichka, the greatest
chief of the Yue-chi or Indo-Scyths, gave a fresh impulse

126 HISTORY OF GREECE. ROME AXD ASIA

to the zeal of the followers of Shakyamuni ; from 15 b. c.
to 45 A. D. was held in Kashmir the great oecumenic council
which finally revised the canon accepted in the north but
rejected by the Church of Ceylon.

We may be asked at what time Buddhism reached China.
We cannot answer with any degree of certainty. Some
savants give 221 and 219 b. c. as the date of the intro-
duction of Buddhism into China ; there is nothing really
authoritative to support their assertion. We may fairly
suppose that the warlike expeditions against the Hiung-nu
conveyed to China some knowledge of Buddhist worship.
The new doctrine was introduced into China by the way
of Central Asia ; one thing is certain, that in the year 2
B. c. an embassy was sent by the Chinese Emperor Ngai
to the Ta Yue-chi and that its chief got some oral informa-
tion about the new religion. Buddhism was recognized
ofiBcially in China by the Han Dynasty ; the dynasty of the
Later Han (24-220 a. d.) had dominated in Central Asia,
and, though weakened for years, their rule had been main-
tained with still more force by Wu Ti, of the Western
Tsin (265-290). To this period (269) belong the docu-
ments, so interesting for the administration as well as for
the religion of this region, discovered during recent years
by Dr. M. A. Stein, of the Indian Educational Service,
at Uzun Tati, between Khotan and Niya, in the desert of
Takkla Makkan, explored by Sven Hedin. Of that time
also are the documents dug from the sand-buried town of
,,Lau-lan near the Lob-nor, by Sven Hedin himself. The
* Hindu civilization which borders on the desert of Gobi,
from Khotan to the Lob-nor, to Hami and to Turfan,
vanished rapidly after Wu Ti ; under the great T'ang
Dynasty, during the second half of the eighth century,
the Tibetans threatened the authority of llie Chinese in
the country of the Four Garrisons (Kucha, Khotan, Kara-

HISTORY OF ASIA— GENERAL SURVEY 127

shahr, and Kashgar), namely. Eastern Turkestan. From
791 onwards the Tibetans, masters of Turfan and the sur-
rounding countries, had completely ousted the Chinese,
whose mandarins had been recalled in 784 by the Imperial
Government on account of the hopeless situation in the
region.

The Chinese Buddhist pilgrims, eager to get the good
word from the source itself, were drawn along the road
of High Asia to the valley of the Sacred Ganges in quest
of the books giving the Key to the Holy Doctrine; since
the fourth century large bodies of pilgrims, while accom-
plishing their pious journey, have done at the same time
considerable geographical work: Hiuen Tsang, to name
the most famous among them, not only takes a place in
China with the most revered personages of his church, but
stands in the foremost ranks of the great Asiatic travelers,
by the side of the illustrious Venetian Marco Polo. How-
ever, it was not until 1410, under the Aling Dynasty, that
the Chinese obtained at last possession of the full canon
of Buddhist Books which serves to millions of adherents
in the Far East as a guide for their conduct.

From Central Asia, Buddhism spread to China; from
China, as early as 372, it entered Korea, and thence in
552 passed on to Japan. In the mean time it had been
introduced in 407 to Tibet, where after being severely
persecuted, it has achieved its greatest triumphs, the King
of Tibet, Srongtsan Gampo, hnving been converted to the
new faith by his Chinese and Nepalese wives (640). With
its doctrine Buddhism carried along everywhere this subtle
art which had felt the influence of the ancient Greeks,
brought to the banks of the Indus by the companions of
Alexander the Great. From the fourth to the eleventh
century, that is to say, between the beginning of the in-
roads of the Indo-Scyths and the Mohammedan Conquest

128 HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME AND ASIA

of India, during the Buddhist ^Middle Ages, the Graeco-
Buddhist art was in a highly flourishing state and its
influence spread to the Far East.

However, in paying a just tribute to this delicate and
charming art which played so important a part in the
artistic development of the Far East, it would be unfair
not to mention that the Chinese, previously to its intro-
duction in their empire, had a national art, not despicable
in the least degree — witness this fourth century picture of
Ku K'ai-che, described by Chinese historians, happily dis-
covered and rescued at Pe-king during the events of 1900,
and now kept safely in the British Museum, forever we
hope.^

Buddhism, now one of the three state religions in China,
after suffering persecutions in Japan from the hands of
Nobunaga in the course of the sixteenth century, somewhat
somnolent for many years, is at present in a period of
magnificent renaissance in the Empire of the Rising Sun,
where the labors of Bunyiu Nanjio and of Takakusu se-
cure for it an important place. Many Japanese scholars,
fascinated by the doctrines of evolution, think these are
to be found in Buddhism.

Christianity spread at first in Central Asia under the
form of Manicheism and of Nestorianism ; only recently
the Mo-ni, lost among the numerous religious sects men-
tioned by Chinese historians, have been with some degree
of certainty identified with the disciples of Manichee, who
played but a small part compared with that of the Nes-
torians arrived in China in the seventh century, as the cele-
brated inscription of 781 discovered in 1625 at Si-ngan-fu,
capital of the Shen-si Province, testifies. Under the Mon-
gol Dynasty of Chinguiz Khan, in the course of the thir-
teenth century, Nestorians through Tangut and Central

* Of. Burlington Magazine, January, 1904 ; T'oung-pas, 1904.

HISTORY OF ASIA— GENERAL SURVEY 129

Asia, from Khanbaliq (Pe-king) to Bagdad, held an un-
broken line of archbishops and bishops; the innumerable
stones which cover their graves, especially in the province
of Samiriethie, bear witness to the number and importance
of these Nestorians.

From the time of St. Louis and the meeting of a Council
at Lyons, we trace the great progress of the Missions of
the Roman Church. The Catholic world of Central and
Western Europe was full of zeal for the propagation of
the Gospel in Asia, where the somewhat mythical Christian
prince known under the name of Prester John lived, and
cherished also the hope to oppose invading Islam with a
barrier of Mongol tribes. Hence the missions of the Fran-
ciscan brother John of Piano Carpini, sent in 1245 by
Pope Innocent IV to the camps of Batu and of Cuyuk
Khan, and of the Dominican monk William of Rubruk,
dispatched by the King of France, St. Louis, in 1253, to
the court of the Great Khan Mangu at Karakorum, whose
journeys have been edited with so much skill and care for
thv. Hakluyt Society by our President, the Hon. William
W. Rockhill. Missionaries were dispatched to Khanbaliq
(Pe-king), to the Fu-Kien province, to Central Asia, and
bishoprics were created at Khanbaliq, at Zaitun, and at
Ili-baliq. All these missions disappeared in the course of
the fourteenth century, either destroyed in Central Asia
by the influx of Mohammedanism or on account of the
accession of the Ming Dynasty to the throne of China in
1368.

Missionaries returned to China only in 1579, but the
evangelization in this country was in truth the work of the
Jesuit Fathers and especially of the celebrated Matteo Ricci,
who died at Pe-king in 1610. Christianity, which was very
flourishing in the seventeenth century, soon declined, owing
to the petty quarrels between religious orders, and the bull

130 HISTORY OF GREECE. ROME AND ASIA

of Benedict XIV, B.v quo si)igulari, dealt to the missions
a death-blow in 1742, as it proscribed the liberal doctrines
advocated by the Jesuits in the worship paid by the natives
to Confucius and to their ancestors.

Protestant missions in China are of a far more recent
origin ; they do not go back further than the beginning of
the nineteenth century, when the famous Dr. Robert Mor-
rison, author of a great Chinese Dictionary, sent by the
London Missionary Society, arrived at Canton in 1807.
The number of missionaries is now very great, and many
of them are American. I may recall among them the
names of two distinguished sinologues : Elijah Coleman
Bridgman, of Connecticut, and Samuel Wells Williams, of
New York, who was se\'eral times charge d'affaires of the
United States at Pe-king.

In spite of the zeal, the activity, and the devotion dis-
played by both Catholic and Protestant missionaries, we
cannot say that their success in China has been considerable
or their action deep. The Chinaman is not hostile to Chris-
tianity; he is indifferent; he finds in the moral system of his
great sage, Confucius, the precepts which guide him in
private and public life; he takes in the doctrines of Buddha,
the practices of Taoism, the superstitions of Feng-shui, all
that is necessary to him in the question of religion. Chris-
tianity is still for the Chinaman a foreign religion, the
superiority of which has not been made so clear to his eyes
as to induce him to adopt it as a matter of course; and
though the religion of Christ met with almost unrestricted
success among the pagan nations forming the old Roman
Empire, or amid the wild tribes of modern Africa, Oceania,
and America, it has entirely failed with the Far Eastern
peoples, indifferent or atheist. If I dared say what. I think,
I should add that the destruction of Chinese society as it
exists at present could alone secure the triumph of Chris-

HISTORY OF ASIA— GENERAL SURVEY 131

tianity, and the literati understand this so well that they,
and not the people, are hostile to its spread.

Though the number of the followers of Islam in China
be far inferior to that of the Buddhists, the disciples of
Mohammed have nevertheless played a considerable part in
the Middle Kingdom.

The Arabs called Ta-zi were known to the Chinese, who
mention them in the annals of the T'angDynasty (618-907),
through Persia, the name of which appears for the first time
in the Chinese annals (461) in connection with an embassy
sent to the court of the Wei sovereigns. During the eighth
century the Bagdad Abbassides and their celebrated Khalif
Harun-ar-Rashid joined with the Uigurs and the Chinese
against the Tibetans, their common enemy. A fact inter-
esting to note, is the presence of Ta-zi in the kingdom of
Nan-Chao, a part of the actual Yun-nan Province, as early
as 801.

The Arabs built at Canton a large mosque, which was
burnt down in 758. In the course of the following century,
in 875, the Mohammedans transferred their business from
Canton to the Malay Peninsula, at Kalah, which inherited
the commercial importance of Ceylon in the sixth century.
Western visitors at the court of the Mongol Khans mention
a number of high Mussulman dignitaries. We shall see that
in the eighteenth century K'ien-lung annexed to his empire
the T'ien-Shan, part of the share of Jagatai in the inheri-
tance of his father, Chinguiz Khan. Without going into
the particulars of the rebellions which devastated Central
Asia, we shall recall that in 1864, a soldier of fortune,
Yakub, captured Kashgar and the other towns south of the
T'ien-Shan, thus creating a Mohammedan power in North-
western China between the possession newly acquired by
the Russians after the storming of Tashkant (June 27,
1865) and the Anglo-Indian Empire. Far some time.

132 HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME AND ASIA

Yakub was the undisputed and redoubtable sovereign of a
real empire, with Yarkand as a capital. England dispatched
to Yakub special missions with Sir Douglas Forsyth at their
head in 1870 and in 1873; in 1872 the Russian staff-colonel
Baron Kaulbars, signed a treaty of commerce with the
jMohammedan potentate. Yakub's rule was ephemeral and
ended with him when he died on the 29th of May, 1877; in
fact, the Chinese general Tso Tsung-tang had subdued a
great part of his territory, the conquest of which he com-
pleted after the death of the Ameer.

Another outburst of the Mohammedans, caused by a
quarrel between miners of different creeds and conflicting
interests, took place about 1855 in Southwestern China, in
the Yun-nan Province, and it led to the creation of a sul-
tanate at Ta-li, which lasted till the capture of this strong-
hold by the Chinese Imperial troops on the 15th of January,
1873.

China, which is the main subject treated of in this general
view, was in fact isolated only in the ancient times of her
history, when her territory, watered by the Yellow River,
hardly extended beyond the right bank of the Yang-tse
Kiang. From the fourteenth century the land route to
China was closed, and the foreigners who arrived by sea at
the beginning of the sixteenth could at Canton only hold
any intercourse with the Chinese, who got their scanty in-
formation about distant lands from the Canton merchants
and the missionaries submerged in the enormous mass of the
empire. The Cossacks who came from the north in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries added little or rather
nothing to this knowledge. It seems paradoxical, but it is
nevertheless exact to say that China was opened to Western
civilization and influence by the British gun. In the Middle
Ages, China had the benefit of some extraneous ideas
through Buddhism imported from India and through the

HISTORY OF ASIA— GENERAL SURVEY 133

Mongols who served as a link between Europe and Asia.
China herself broke her own bounds; like the Persian and
Arab merchants visiting her ports, her own traders pene-
trated to the farthest extremity of the Persian Gulf. At
different times she held Annam in bondage; she tried to
conquer Burmah and Japan, but failed; her influence was
all-powerful in Korea, and she carried on her explorations
to the Islands of Sunda, which soon became one of the fav-
orite spots of her emigration.

With the Chinese Dynasty of the Ming, which replaced
in 1368 the Mongol rule in the Middle Kingdom, China
assumes the definite form under which she is known hence-
forward to the foreigner. The Manchu Conquest in 1644
brings a fresh element into the country, but the new-comers
are soon absorbed ; they add to the Chinese E^npire the land
from which they come and which constitutes to-day the
northeast region of the Empire, the actual theatre of the
struggle between Russia and Japan.

With the annexation of the T'ien-Shan by the Emperor
K'ien-lung in 1759 and the seizure by this prince of the
temporal government of Tibet, the Chinese Empire reached
the boundaries which it has retained until recent years. It
is not speaking with disparagment or injustice to say that
the Emperors K'ang-hi and K'ien-lung in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries were in every respect equal or even
superior to most of the contemporary princes. It is hardly
possible to recognize as the heirs of these great men sover-
eigns like Kia-K'ing, Tao-Kwang, and especially the stupid
and cruel Hien-Fung (died 1861).

With the exception of the creation of a Great Council and
the superposition of Manchu dignitaries upon Chinese func-
tionaries, the Chinese administration stands unchanged, and
the moral precepts of Confucius continue to guide the con-
duct of all the Chinese from the lowest of the people up to

134 HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME AND ASIA

the Son of Heaven. The era of inventions is closed, the
fine literary productions of the T'ang period, and the great
philosophical \vorks of the Sung Dynasty do not find any
equivalent during the next centuries. China did not see,
and will not see anything; her glance did not extend beyond
the seas, nor even beyond her Great Wall; she shut herself
up, and living, so to speak, on her own stock, having at an
early hour reached a high state of civilization, she stopped
in her development. In some manner she became ''crystal-
lized," to use Stendhal's expression, and during this opera-
tion other nations have grown, have surpassed her, have
interfered with her peaceful existence, thus awakening her
in her sleep, compelling her to abandon her voluntary isola-
tion and to accept a promiscuity which is particularly dis-
tasteful and odious to her.

The decline of China coincides with the efforts of the
Western Powers to break her doors open. Until the middle
of the nineteenth century, with the exception of a few
Catholic missionaries retained as savants at the court of
Pe-king or hidden in the provinces, where they led a pre-
carious existence, foreigners were lodged in a quarter of
the single port of Canton without the right of moving
freely about the city ; moreover, they could only stay at the
place the time strictly necessary to the settlement of their
affairs, that is to say, during a pretty short portion of the
year; afterwards they had to return to the Portugese Colony
of Macao, where lived their families, who were not allowed
to accompany the cargoes to the Chinese port. Business
was not conducted freely with the natives, but through the
medium of privileged merchants, called hong merchants,
whose monopoly was finally abolished by the fifth article of
the treaty signed at Nanking by England August 20, 1842.
Wanton vexations were inflicted upon foreigners; it was
forbidden to the natives to teach their language to any

HISTORY OF ASIA— GENERAL SURVEY 135

"Western Devil" ( Yang-kvvei-tse) ; the lex talionis, man for
man, was applied with all its cruelty and injustice.

This state of things lasted till the Opium War, which
gave England the means of opening China more widely to
the foreign trade and of making the way for the introduc-
tion of Western ideas, without abating, however, the arro-
gant pretensions of the mandarins.

In the course of the sixteenth century began the double
march toward China, by the north and the south, by land
and by sea, which brought into contact the nations of the
Occident and those of the Far East. Ermak's Cossacks
were the pioneers of the northern route, Vasco da Gama's
sailors and Albuquerque's soldiers were the pilots and the
conquerors of the southern route.

To the Portuguese we owe the discovery, or more exactly
the reopening, of the road of Asia in modern times. The
cape discovered by Bartholomew Diaz in 1485, doubled by
Vasco da Gama in 1497, was the great port of call from
Europe to Asia, until the ancient way of Egypt was re-
sumed during the nineteenth century. Masters of the In-
dian Ocean, the capture of Malacca in 1511, their first voy-
age to Canton in 1514, a wreck in 1542 at Tanegashima, in
the Japanese Archipelago, gave to the Portuguese the pos-
session of an immense empire and the control of an enor-
mous trade which they were not able to keep. The annexa-
tion of Portugal to Spain, "The Sixty Years' Captivity,"
under Philip the Second, was as harmful to the first, drawn
by its conqueror into a struggle fatal for her prosperity,
as was to the Dutch colonies the absorption of Holland by
Napoleon I.

The Spaniards settled in the Philippine Islands: the
Dutch, with the enterprising Cornelius Houtman, landed in
1596 at Bantam, created the short-lived colony of Formosa,
and a lasting empire in the Sunda Islands, where in 1619

136 HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME AND ASIA

they laid the foundations of the town of Batavia, on the
ruins of the old native port of Jacatra.

However, one may say that England really opened East-
ern Asia to foreign influence, at least by sea, from the day
in 1634 when the gun of Captain Weddell thundered for the
first time in the Canton River. It was with the accompani-
ment of British powder, that during two centuries the coun-
tries of the Far East carried on trade with the Western
merchants. It was on sea, and of course by the south, that
England fought for the supremacy in Asia.

A terrible struggle in India against the French, where
Clive and Hastings got the benefit of the labors and exer-
tions of Frangois Martin, Dumas, Dupleix, and others, three
wars against the Mahrats, the conquest of the Punjab, the
crushing of the great rebellion of 1858, the suppression of
the Empire of the Great Mogul, have secured to Great
Britain the possession of the Indies, threatened only as of
yore by the northwestern invaders. Three lucky campaigns
have given Burmah to England, already master of the
greater part of the Malay Peninsula.

The treaty signed by Great Britain at Nanking in August.
1842, broke up the Chinese barrier; the various Powers
followed in emulation the example of England ; the United
States, France, Belgium, Sweden and Norway, by turn
signed treaties or conventions with the Son of Heaven. At
that time England was truly without a rival in the Far East,
but was not far-sighted enough; the pledge she took at
Hong Kong, important as it was, was but a small one with
regard to the hopes of the future. England gave back to
the Chinese the Chusan Islands, which had been in her
hands, as the French returned the Pescadores after the set-
tlement of the Tonquin question ; of course, loyal and honest
acts, but also acts of improvident politics.

To-day England has lost the unique situation she held

HISTORY OF ASIA— GENERAL SURVEY 137

sixty years ago. In all the peoples of the world, she has
found eager competitors anxious to share with her the prey
of which for a long time she was alone covetous, alone cap-
able of making the necessary effort to grasp it firmly.

France, which had formerly but a moral interest in the
Far East, that of the Catholic missions, has now a solid
ground of action, as a consequence of the conquest she made
of the oriental part of Indo-China, while England subdued
the western coast of this peninsula.

The colonization or the conquest by European nations
tends to diminish, tO' restrict, and especially to modify in
Indo-China the effect of the pacific or military invasions of
Hindus and of the Sons of Han. The struggle in Indo-
China is limited to-day to two champions ; the Chinese and
the foreigner, wherever he comes from — England, France,
or even Japan. The native, capable of slight or passive
resistance only, will have in the scale but the weight of his
master, w^ho may not be of his own choice.

However, the two facts dominating the political history
of the Far East during the last fifty years are the spread
of the Russian powder through Asia on the one hand, and the
revolution and the transformation of the Japanese Empire
on the other.

During the reign of Ivan IV, in the middle of the six-
teenth century, to the east of the Ural Mountains began this
tremendous march of the Russians which drove them be-
yond the sea, since the authority of the Tsar was formerly
extended to this side of the Straits of Behring; indeed, it
was but in 1867 that the Russian possessions in America,
Alaska, were acquired by the United States. The unifica-
tion of the states of Great Russia, the conquest of the Tartar
Kingdoms of Kazan (1552) and of Astrakhan (1554),
removed the boundaries of Russia to the east ; the Russian
advance to the Baltic had been stopped by the victories of

138 HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME AND ASIA

Stephen Bathory; the East only was left open to their
enterprise.

In 1558 a certain Gregori Strogonov obtained from the
Tsar the cession of the wild islands on the Kama River.
With some companions he settled in that region, created
colonies, and some of the hardy fellows went as far as the
Ural Mountains. An adventurous Cossack of the Don,
Ermak Timofeevitch, whose services had been secured by
Strogonov, crossed the Ural Mountains at the head of eight
hundred and fifty plucky men, and advanced as far as the
Irtysh and Ob rivers, on the way subduing the Tartar
princes. Ermak was the real conqueror of Western
Siberia, but if he had the luck and the glory of adding a
new kingdom to the states of the prince who has been sur-
named the Terrible, to his immediate successors was due
the foundation of the first towai in the territory snatched
from the Tartars, for Ermak was drowned in the Irtysh in
1584, and Tobolsk dates only from 1587. The effort of
the Russians was then directed to the north of Siberia: they
did not meet with any resistance until they reached the Lena
River; in 1632 they built the fort of Yakutsk oii the banks
of this river, and pushed their explorations on to the sea of
Okhotsk. In 1636 tidings of the Amoor River were for
the first time heard from Cossacks of Tomsk, who had made
raids to the south.

Vasili Poyarkov (1643-46) is the first Russian who navi-
gated the Amoor from its junction with the Zeia to its
mouth. In 1643-51, Khabarov led an expedition in the
course of which he built on the banks of the river several
forts, Albasine among them. In 1654, Stepanov for the
first time ascended the Sungari, where he met the Chinese,
who compelled him to trace his way back to the Amoor. In
spite of all their exertions, after two sieges of Albasine by
the Chinese, the Russians were obliged on the 27th of

HISTORY OF ASIA— GENERAL SURVEY 139

August, 1689, to sign at Nerchinsk a treaty by which they
were driven out of the basin of the Amoor.

The Russians, bound to carry their efforts to the north,
subdued Kamchatka. What is perhaps most remarkable in
the history of the relations of the two great Asiatic empires
is the tenacity of the Muscovite grappling with the cunning
of the Chinese, and the comparison between the starting-
point of these relations, the Russia of Michael and Alexis
and the China of K'ang-hi, and their culminating-point in
1860, when these very nations shall have passed, one
through the iron hands of Peter the Great and become the
Russia of Alexander II, and the other under the backward
government of Kia-K'ing and Tao-kwang and become the
China of their feeble successor Hien-Fung. Only on the
18th of May, 1854, did the Governor-General Muraviev
navigate again the waters of the Amoor River; on the 16th
of May, 1858, he signed at Aigun a treaty which made the
Amoor until its junction with the Usuri the boundary be-
tween the Russian and Chinese Empires, the territory be-
tween the Usuri and the sea remaining in the joint posses-
sion of the two Powers, but after the Pe-king Convention
(2-14 November, 1860) this land was abandoned to Russia
and the Usuri became the boundary. In the meantime,
the treaty signed at T'ien-tsin by Admiral Euthymus
Putiatin (1-13 June, 1858) secured for Russia all the
advantages gained by France and England after the occu-
pation of Canton and the capture of the Taku forts.

The second Russian move had Central Asia as its aim ;
it was the result of the foundation of the town of Oren-
burg, the exploration of the Syr-Daria by Batiakov, the
building of Kazalinsk (1848) near the mouth of this river;
the unsuccessful effort of General Perovsky (1839) turned
the enterprise of the Russians to the Khanate of Khokand ;
the storming of Tashkend by Colonel Chernaiev on the 27th

140 HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME AND ASIA

of June, 18G5, was the crowning point of the conquest of
Turkestan by the Russians, The road to the T'ien-Shan
had already been opened to the Russians by the treaty signed
at Kulja (July 25-August 8, 1851) by Colonel Kovalevsky,
which, however, was known only ten years later (28 Feb-
ruary-11 March 1861).

While Yakub Bey had founded, as already seen, a Mo-
hammedan Empire in the T'ien-Shan Nan Lu, the Russians
took possession of the Hi Territory on the 4th of July, 1871.
The retrocession of this territory to China after the death
of the Attalik Ghazi was the cause of long and difficult ne-
gotiations between Russia and China, which ended with the
treaties of Livadia (October, 1879) and of St. Petersburg
(February 12-24, 1881). Russia restored the lands which
she detained illegitimately, keeping, however, a small por-
tion, not the least valuable of the lot.

The third Russian move was aimed at the countries be-
yond the Caspian Sea, and was the result of the conquest of
the Crimea by Potemkin in the name of the great Catherine,
and of the treaty of Kutschuk Quainardji (1774), which
gave to the Russians the free navigation of the Black Sea.
Under the reign of Nicholas I, Putiatin established a per-
manent maritime station on the Island of Akurade in the
Gulf of Astrabad, and a line of ships on the Caspian Sea,
securing from the Persian Government facilities for Russian
fishermen and traders on the southern coast of that sea.

At last, in 1860, Russia took a definite position on the
eastern coast of the Caspian Sea in settling at Krasnovodsk.
Later on the break-up of the Turkish barrier of Geok-tepe
by Skobelev, the occupation of the Oasis of Merv by Alik-
hanov, the capture of Samarkand, made of the Transcaspian
country a Russian possession, rendered Russian influence
paramount in the north of Persia, and threatened Herat and
the route of Indian. The railway which the ingenuity and

HISTORY OF ASIA— GENERAL SURVEY 141

tenacity of Annenkov threw across the burning desert,
united the Caspian Sea to Bokhara and Samarkand, cross-
ing the Oxus at Charjui. The continuation of this railway
from Samarkand to Tashkend and the Siberian line was to
place the whole of Asia beyond the Ural Mountains and
the Caspian Sea in the hands of the Russians.

It seems as if nothing could put a stop to this expansion ;
on the contrary, the bold and rapid construction of a railway
across the frozen steppes of Siberia was to unite Russia
directly with the Far East by an unbroken chain ; the ports
of Manchuria and Korea, watered by the seas of China and
Japan, being considered the termini of the long line.

Work on the western part of the Siberian Railway began
on July 7, 1892. Its extension beyond the Baikal Lake was
to take it on the one hand to Vladivostock at the eastern
extremity of the Russian possessions in Asia, and on the
other to Port Arthur in the south of the Liao-tung Penin-
sula. It was fair to think that the point where the two lines
met, in the very heart of Manchuria, should become a most
important centre of industry and population; indeed, this
has been realized, and in a few years, in the place of a barren
spot, the considerable town of Kharbin (Harbin) has been
built in the twinkling of an eye, so to speak.

Russia weighs with its enormous mass on the Asiatic
Continent like a gigantic polyp, whose head and body press
on Siberia and Central Asia, with tentacles stretching
toward Korea, Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet, Afghanistan.
Persia, Asia Minor, ready to close them on the prey which
she encircles, and which is disputed to her by other nations
anxious to take their share of the plunder, thus creating
a permanent state of uneasiness throughout the Continent.

While Russia was making this enormous extension in the
northwest of Asia, Japan was pursuing the series of reforms
which were to secure for her a very special position in the

142 HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME AND ASIA

concert of the nations of the world. Previous to the revo-
hition of ISGS, which ahered entirely the state of things in
Japan, a real duality in the government existed in this
country; while the Tenno, or Mikado, the only Emperor,
reigned nominally at Kiota, the power was held in fact by
the Shogun, a sort of Mayor of the Palace, residing at
Yedo. From lyeyas, at the beginning of the seventeenth
century, who gave to feodality the definitive constitution
which lasted to our days, the power remained in his house,
that of Tokugawa. The foreigners who landed in Japan
in the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth cen-
tury — Portuguese and English — were expelled in 1G37, and
by the end of 1639 the Dutch and the Chinese were the only
outsiders allowed to live on the islet of Deshima, in the Bay
of Nagasaki, in order to supply the Japanese with the goods
they required.

This state of things, notwithstanding the attempts vainly
made by Great Britain and Russia during the first years of
the nineteenth century, was to last until the arrival of the
American Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, who in
July, 1853, anchored at Uraga at the entrance of the Bay of
Yedo, and who signed on March 31, 1854, a Kanagawa, the
first treaty concluded between Japan and a foreign power.

Was the revolution of 1868 for Japan but one of the
numerous crises which troubled its already long and not too
serene existence ? Was it a mere accident for that country,
progressing by jumps and bounds and not by evolution?
or was it the starting-point of a civilization copied from
that of Europe? Has she covered only the old culture of
Yamato with a superficial varnish? Has she completely
destroyed it to replace it by a new one ? I greatly doubt it,
or rather I do not believe it, as it cannot be that in some fifty
years a radical transformation can reach the deeper layers
of the population. The Japanese obey two motives in their

HISTORY OF ASIA— GENERAL SURVEY 143

warlike undertakings; one is dictated by a tradition of war,
by an unsurpassed bravery of which they have given un-
deniable proofs of centuries; the other by reasons of a
purely economic order. Japan is at heart a warlike nation ;
in every man of Nippon, the soul of a saiiuirai is asleep.
No, a people cannot be modified in a few years.

Japan has behind her a past of struggles, heroism, and
art, with very little original literature. Endowed with the
genius of application more than with that of invention, with
no great commercial aptitude, a hero or a pirate according
to circumstances, full of imprczm, as his tradition borrowed
from strangers does not trace to him a firm line of conduct,
the Japanese lives on reminiscences and is, above all, an
imitator; he is not gifted with imagination; an artist and a
warrior, he is not a philosopher. Does he give us now
more than the appearance of a Western civilization? I
hope so for the sake of Japan herself, as, if it were other-
wise, we should have but a fragile edifice erected by a super-
ficial as well as a versatile people. What an interesting
and curious sight it offers to the gaze of the observer !

In the midst of the peoples which from the West and the
East rush to the assault of the Middle Kingdom, Japan
stands as a young and vigorous power which, in 1868, by
a revolution without a parallel in the history of mankind,
transformed herself from a nation most hostile to foreign
intrusion to one of the most progressive of the globe. We
may seek in great part the solution of the Asiatic problem
in the future of Japan, which acts a part in no way inferior
to that of the Westerners, and which finds itself to be the
stumbling-block to the ambitious designs of the foreign
poweis. Will Japan be at the head of the invaders come
from near and far, as at Pe-king in 1900 ? Will she be, on
the contrary, having galvanized the old man, the champion
of the Asiatic World to repel the common enemy ?

144 HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME AND ASIA

It is fair to believe, in reviewing the history of the past
and in studying the various aspects of present politics, that
Japan would prefer the second of these parts, more in ac-
cordance with her traditions and her aspirations.

It is evident that two nations in full progress, operating
in the same field of action, would fatally meet some day.
If Russia needs a port free from ice in the Eastern Sea,
Japan has a no less imperious necessity of finding room for
its population in excess. From five thousand four hundred
and forty-three in 1880, the number of the Japanese living
out of their country increased in 1902 to one hundred and
thirty-nine thousand five hundred fifty-three, scattered
chiefly between Korea, Canada, the United States, the
Hawaiian Islands, etc.

The Treaty of Shimonoseki (April 27, 1895), signed
after a glorious war with China, had given to Japan the
southern portion of Manchuria, including Port Arthur.
The triumph of the Emperor of the Rising Sun made of an
Asiatic potentate like the Mikado a sovereign whose voice
was heard in the whole of the world ; from a local power,
Japan took rank among the great powers of the globe. In
the conquest of Manchuria, Germany, France, and Russia
perceived a danger to European influence in the Far East,
and by a convention on November 8, 1895, obtained the
retrocession of Liao-tung by Japan to China. It was no
doubt a severe wound to the amour propre of the victor.

In the mean time Russia continued to increase her means
of action and to strengthen her position in the Far East
by the creation at the end of 1895 of the Russo-Chinese
Bank, by conventions regarding the Manchurian Railway,
and by the signature in 1896 at St. Petersburg by the
Viceroy Li Hung-chang of a treaty still secret.

After the masscre of two of her missionaries, Germany
having taken possession of Kiao-chow on November 14,

HISTORY OF ASIA— GENERAL SURVEY 145

1897, Russia shortly after obtained the cession by lease o£
Port Arthur (December, 1897). England, in gaining a set-
tlement at W'ei-Hai-Wei and France at Kwang-chovv-Wan,
seemed to begin the partition of the Chinese Empire. At
one moment the old Manchu world seemed to awaken to the
danger; at one moment the Emperor Kwang-siu had no
doubt the real instinct of the situation. He had shown
dignity and bravery when he refused to fly to the west, as
was suggested to him by his timorous ministers at the time
the Japanese threatened his capital in 1895.

The demands of the foreigners who appeared to seek the
dismemberment of the Empire and threatened to make a
new Poland of China, frightened the Manchu monarch,
who felt strongly — in so far as his weakened health and a
superior will allowed — the wish to transform his country.
It was but a flash of lightning in a darkened horizon. In
order to succeed, it would have been necessary for Kwang-
siu to have at his command, with his handful of bold but
busy-body reformers, a solid army, capable of preventing
a reaction. But this army was lacking to the Chinese Em-
peror, who made the generous but abortive attempt to in-
troduce reforms in which he lost at once the power and
the appearance of energy which he had for a brief period
displayed.

On June 10, 1898, Kwang-siu began the series of re-
forms, the ephemeral course of which was stopped on Sep-
tember 30 of the same year by the Empress Dowager, the
reactionary party, with her, retaking the power. What
followed, the rebellion of the Boxers; the siege of the
foreign Legations at Pe-king, in 1900, is fresh in the mem-
ory of all. It is but just to note, as the Japanese Prime
Minister, Count Katsura, remarked quite recently, that
during all these events Japan has filled her duty as a civilized
nation by the side of the Western Powers.

146 HISTORY OF GREECE. ROME AND ASIA

The causes of the present gigantic struggle appear forc-
ibly to every one's eyes, but to say the least, the place to dis-
cuss them is not in a scientific congress; however, it is not
forbidden to foresee some of its results and the effects these
may have on the general politics of the universe. If Japan
is in our days the only nation capable of waging a war for
the sake of heroism, a rare virtue in our matter-of-fact
societies, it is nevertheless true that in the present struggle
economic interests were the main motives ; as we have said
already, Japan has neither the room nor the food with which
to supply the surplus of her population ; she is compelled to
look beyond her own boundaries for the necessaries of com-
mon life. Internal motives also dictate pardy her conduct.
The extension of nations is in nearly every case directed
according to natural though at times cruel laws ; often these
are in contradiction to the laws of civilization; so we see,
in spite of treaties, in spite of associations for peace, in
spite of leagues for promoting fraternity between nations,
in spite of arbitration committees or tribunals, war breaks
out suddenly, irresistibly, when vital economic interests are
at stake. Nations go back to the state of primitive man,
and the right of the stronger becomes the rule.

It must not be forgotten that if Japan needs an extension
of territory for her excess population, she has the need
scarcely less important of keeping up her communication
witn the various nations among which she desires to hold
her rank. The construction of the Siberian Railway, in
shortening the time of the journey from Europe to Asia, has
also practically shortened the distances. Until the problem-
atic project of building a railway to unite the Mediterranean
Sea to the Far East by the way of Persia and India shall be
carried out, and whatever be the result of the present war,
Russia will hold the highway of intercommunication be-
tween Europe and Asia; less than any other nation can

HISTORY OF ASIA— GENERAL SURVEY 147

Japan afford to give up the use of this route, and being tlius
dependent upon the Russians cannot keep in a state of per-
petual hostility with them.

During a long time, we had in Europe the bad habit of
studying separately the various political problems and of
seeing only particular cases in what were really but the
secondary effects from general causes. Nowadays, there
is not a single problem of foreign politics which can be
treated with indifference. Whatever be the part of the
globe where the gun thunders, the repercussion of it is felt
in the capitals of the whole world ; special questions be-
come questions of general interest, and the effort of diplo-
macy to avoid a universal conflagration tends to circum-
scribe the struggle between those chiefly concerned ; the
task is rendered the more arduous in that the multiple
treaties or alliances between nations extend the limits of the
debates and thus increase the chances of a general conflict.

Europe used to consider Asia, except in her western part,
as a domain where events rolled on without any distant
effect and having therefore but an interest of mere curiosity.
China, Bossuet could pass over in silence, that is to say
the third of the total population of the globe, in his Discours
sur I'Histoire Universelle, a very poor work by the bye,
admired only by those who have not read it. However,
during the course of the fifth century the invasion of the
barbarians, and in the thirteenth the raids of the jMongols,
should have opened the eyes of the most blind of observers.
And these considerable events were not the result of for-
tuitous causes, but the natural consequence of important
events which had happened in the interior of Asia, while our
ancestors had not the faintest suspicion of them.

Moreover, the great navigators of the sixteenth century
unraveled the mystery which shrouded the remote coun-
tries and helped to make clear the interest Europe had in

148 HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME AND ASIA

knowing- them better, and let us say, with frank cynicism, in
speculating upon them.

The first attempts to create factories, then the conquests
at the end of the seventeenth and during the eighteenth cen-
turies, showed that Europe had abandoned her majestic in-
difference, and was feeHng the necessity of a pohcy which
reached beyond the horizon bounded by her small and
greedy continent.

At the close of the wars of the First Empire, as soon as
peace is signed, we see the Western nations resume the
routes to Asia, for a short period neglected. England in
India and China, the Dutch in the Spice Islands, France in
Indo-China, later on the Russians in Central Asia, then in
the basin of the Amoor River, all rush to the conquest of
new territories; appetites are sharpened, rivalries created;
means of more rapid locomotion shorten distances; a new
nation, Japan, is born to civilization, or to what it pleases
us to call civilization ; and Central and Eastern Asia, being
no more isolated, are dragged into the inharmonious concert
of universal politics.

The Chinese problem, simple in 1842, when England
signed the treaty of Nanking, became more complicated
from year to year by the introduction of fresh and powerful
interests, following in this the ordinary laws of politics.
The arrival of the Russians by the north, the transformation
of Japan to a modernized empire, the occupation of Indo-
China by France and England, the taking possession of two
Oceanic archipelagoes by the United States, the newly born
colonial ambitions of Germany, new means of transport with
a rapidity which could not be foreseen half a century ago,
at last the magnificent prey at stake, made the problem, so
simple at first, one of increasing complexity.

The Chinese question, which is but one of the aspects of
the foreign politics of some nations, such as France, the

HISTORY OF ASIA— GENERAL SURVEY 149

United States, and even England, is vital for Japan, to a
lesser degree for Russia, which by a check will only be de-
layed in her designs for a more or less protracted period.
Political problems are interwoven one with another; Far
Eastern problems are connected with Oceanic problems, and
among the Powers who are to play a part in the Pacific, we
must reckon the young and active British Colony, the Com-
monwealth of Australia, which is beginning its international
life and will one day be called upon for some considerable
deeds. In this rapid survey I can make but a passing allu-
sion to the certain effect which the accomplishment of the
great work of cutting a canal across the Isthmus of Panama
will bring into the relations of the whole world.

In fifty years the alterations in the ways of intercommuni-
cation have completely changed not only the politics of Asia
but also of the rest of the world. China, which, in 1842,
had to stand but against Great Britain, in 1858 had to
reckon, besides this Power, with France, the United States,
and Russia. The most audacious people might hesitate to
undertake remote expeditions involving a journey of several
months by the Cape Route; the way of Siberia, taken again
by the Russians led by Muraviev (1856), was long and
difficult; the opening of the Suez Canal (1860), coinciding
with improvements to the steam-engine, permitted the estab-
lishment of more direct and frequent relations between the
peoples of the West and those of the Far East ; finally the
completion of the Siberian Railway during recent years,
placing Pe-king within three weeks from Paris and London,
could not longer allow any European country to remain in-
different to the fate of Eastern Asia. We see just the re-
verse of what happened in the course of the fifth and thir-
teenth centuries when we witnessed the movement, the de-
layed ebb tide of a wave rolled from the depths of Asia,
which will resume its old course in the near future if we may
believe in the predictions of ominous prophets.

150 HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME AND ASIA

The laws which regulate the existence of peoples are simi-
lar to those which govern the lives of individuals. Man is
born, lives, dies; nations have their periods of growth,
climax, transformation, decline, and disappearance; this
disappearance is not nothingness, which is meaningless; it
is no more total in a nation than in the individual, as, ac-
cording to Lavoisier's celebrated formula, "In nature noth-
ing is created, nothing is lost" ; the scattered elements go
toward the constitution of new nationalities.

The adult age of a nation, that is to say the highest pitch
it has reached, is the period when it has completed its com-
plete unity for which it struggled during the time of its
growth. This period of highest prosperity can last a
shorter or longer lapse of time, but all bodies which carry in
themselves the germs of their development contain also the
elements of their decay, which appear sooner or later ac-
cordmg to circumstances.

China has known brilliant periods in her history, such as
that of the T'ang Dynasty from the seventh to the ninth
centuries, a time which the Chinese people still remember
gratefully; such as that of the Mongol supremacy in the
thirteenth century, when the power of the Great Khans ex-
tended from the Chinese Sea to the right banks of the
Volga.

China has even known a period of splendor under the first
sovereigns of the present Manchu Dynasty, the great em-
perors, K'ang-hi and K'ien-lung; from the River of the
Black Dragon to Indo-China, from the Oriental Sea to the
Celestial Mountains and the mysterious capital of the Dalai-
lama, the name of the Son of Heaven was feared and re-
spected ; then shone upon the Flowery Kingdom an incom-
parable eclat ignored by the contemporary Westerners, simi-
lar in this respect to the Chinese of to-day who do not know
the real force of occidental nations.

HISTORY OF ASIA— GENERAL SURVEY 151

Immobility, as is the case with Cliina, when all the others
are progressing, is not stability; it is retrogression; rivals
and competitors are advancing without any rest. Woe to-
day on the people who in the scramble of nations tries to
stop; it is drawn forcibly along, uprooted like the proud
tree caried in its mad race by the tumultous Hood.

Has the decline of China, which began with the nineteenth
century, and had increased from reign to reign, reached
now the last period of the crisis? I believe it; but we are
witnessing an evolution, not a disappearance. In fact, only
the system of government and those who administer it are
worn out and corrupt and have served their purpose. The
Chinaman has always preserved his sterling qualities; hon-
esty, sobriety, inclination to work, love of his family, attach-
ment to his home, which are his characteristic traits, have
given him vitality, increased his longevity, and constituted
his real strength. The Chinese absorb their conqucrer, who
disappears in the strong individuality of the vanquished, as
a stream, less powerful in appearance, often captures the
neighboring watercourse, more important but ill-protected
against an enemy of whose existence it is unaware. The
warlike Mongol of the Middle Ages has become a peaceful
shepherd of flocks, and the fierce Manchu invader of the
seventeenth century is now but one of the innumerable func-
tionaries who crowd the administrative hierarchy of the
Celestial Empire. The evolution of China has hardly com-
menced as yet; a few isolated reformers can have no real
influence upon so vast an empire. Railroads will be the
conqueror of China ; the steam-engine will carry through the
whole empire ideas — not French, English, German, nay, nor
Japanese — but new general ideas which will give to the
Chinese a characteristic individuality.

After innovation will this great body remain homo-
genous ?

152 HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME AND ASIA

Homogeneity exists in China by virtue of the centraliza-
tion of the administration and the common origin of the
mandarins, but the points of view of the country and the
customs of the races which inhabit it are exceedingly varied ;
its different parts are merely placed in juxtaposition; they
are not blended into one uniform mass; they are only united
by the artificial tie of government. Strip the Chinese of the
queue which adorns the back of his head and suppress the
shaving of his skull, made compulsory by the victorious
Tartar, and one will see the most varied people throughout
the Empire. The Chinese of Canton and the Chinese of
Pe-king vary almost more one from the other than the
English and the French; the Lolo of Se-tch'uan is as un-
like the Chinaman as a Volga Kalmuk is unlike a Baltic
German; the rough mountains of Yun-nan have nothing
of the pleasing appearance of the hills of Che-Kiang; the
plain of China, practically the valley of the Imperial Canal,
does not recall in any manner the uneven country of the
Upper Yang-tse.

What will this evolution be, rendered compulsory by the
fall of an obsolete and rotten administration, hastened by
the construction of railways, and an obligatory contact with
peoples differing in their civilization, in their appearance, in
their aspirations ? No one can say.

There is no place in China for the immigration of foreign-
ers who would not certainly seek their livelihood in the
sterile parts of the Empire devastated by famine ; but privi-
leged or rather favored by chance, merchants, engineers,
soldiers will be able to subsist as in the past. Will they
exercise some of the influence hitherto refused to the foreign
element? I think so, thanks to the economic revolution
worked by railways, which cannot fail to be followed by a
social revolution. However democratic the system of
Chinese adrninistration may be, — an administration all the

HISTORY OF ASIA— GENERAL SURVEY 153

degrees of which are accessible to the most deserving or the
most intriguing, — the Chinese dignitaries are nevertheless
a backward caste which prevent all progress. But if this
state of things has lasted in China during centuries, if the
narrow and abusive interpretation of the precepts of Con-
fucius has postponed the introduction of reforms, it is only
because the means of intercommunication were too slow and
too rare between the various parts of this immense Empire.
That great events could take place in certain regions without
other provinces having the least knowledge of them; that
the very existence of the Empire could have been threatened
as it was in 1858 and 1860, without the bulk of the nation
having the least inkling of the danger, will surprise only
those who are ignorant of China. Things will be changed
when a net of rapid highroads shall cross the eighteen prov-
inces, and bring them into direct relation with the countries
where the outer barbarians have settled. The management
of affairs will fall into the hands of those who, more clear-
sighted than their elders, shall have foreseen the new state
of things; the Star of Confucius will vanish in the steam
of the locomotive, and fade in the light of the electric spark.

Whether China will remain a territorial unit, which I
do not believe, the economic interests of the north and the
south, of the east and of the west being too divergent;
whether she will keep her autonomy, or be dismembered, or
held in bondage by foreign chiefs — the prolific Chinese race
will ever remain one of the most important factors in the
great struggle for life of races and nations, a struggle for
which she is assuredly better prepared than many of those
who consider her an easy prey, which they may possibly
devour, but certainly will not digest.

It is not without some intent that till now I have hardly
spoken of the United States, whose guest I am to-day ; last
but not least.

154 HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME AND ASIA

The initiative of the trade of the United States with the
Far East is not due, as one might be tempted to believe, to
the merchants of the western coast, but to the enterprising
and spirited merchants of New England, Boston, New
York, Baltimore, whose wooden ships doubled Cape Horn
to go to Canton. Eight years after the Declaration of In-
dependence, on Sunday, February 22, 1784, for the first
time an American ship, The Empress of China, set sail at
New York for China ; since then an unbroken line of vessels
flying the star-spangled banner has crossed the Pacific Ocean
and established a communication between Young America
and Old Asia ; but the starting-point has been changed, and
it is now from the coast of California that the swift steam-
ers which connect the two shores are sent,

I remember the time, not yet far off, when the American
trade almost equaled that of England, and when at Canton
and Shang-hai the "Merchant Princes" of Boston and New
York did not yield either in their wealth or their influence
to those of London and Liverpool. Looking backward, I
cannot but think with gratefulness and not without some
melancholy of the happy hours I have spent in the house of
Messrs. Russell & Co., whose head, Edward Cunningham
of Boston, was the most popular, the most esteemed, and
the most justly influential citizen of Shang-hai.

The civilizing mission which the United States have taken
upon themselves has been extended beyond the already large
frontiers of their dominion; the occupation of the Hawaiian
and Philippine Islands has created new desires in a com-
mercial and industrial nation, turned it into a political power
which, in the future destinies of this new Mediterranean
called the Pacific Ocean, has the right to claim its share of
legitimate influence.

May I be permitted at the end of this lecture to express
my gratitude to those who did me the honor and gave me

HISTORY OF ASIA— GENERAL SURVEY 155

the pleasure of an invitation to come among you, and to
crave the indulgence of my hearers, ill as I have i>erformed
my task.

Citizen of the great Sister Republic, I do not forget that
being bom on the banks of the mighty Mississippi, at New-
Orleans, the first years of my life were spent under the
shelter of the star-spangled banner of the Union; I feel
happy to speak before fellow countrymen, regretting the
absence of the world-renowned traveler and scholar, my
friend, the Hon. William Woodville Rockhill.

HISTORICAL DEVHLOPMEXT AND PRESENT
CHARACTER OP THE SCIENCE OF HISTORY

BY PROFESSOR KARI, GOTTIIART LAMPRECHT

[Karl Gottiiart Lampreciit. Professor of History, Director of the
Historical Seminary and Historico-geographical Institute, Uni-
versity of Leipzig; and Privy Councilor to the Court of Saxony,
b. 1856, Jessen, Province of Saxony. University of Gottingen,
1874-76; University of Leipzig, 1876-78; University of Munchen,
1879. A.M. and Ph.D. University of Leipzig; 1-L.D. Columbia
University. Candidate of Superior Tutorship Friedrich-Wllhelm
Gymnasium, Cologne-on-Rhiue, 1879-80; Frivat-docent and Asso-
ciate Professor, University of Bonn, 1881-90; Professor of History,

University of Marburg. 1890-91; University of Leipzig, 1891 .

Member various scientific and learned societies. Author or
Editor of Contributions to the History of French Economical
History: German Political Econorny in the Middle Ages; Sketches
on the History of the Rhine; History of Germany. 8 vols., and
many other works of history and historical method.]

History is primarily a socio-psychological science. In
the conflict between the old and the new tendencies in his-
torical investigation, the main question has to do with
social-psychic, as compared and contrasted with individual-
psychic factors; or, to speak somewhat generally, the
understanding on the one hand of conditions, on the other
of heroes, as the motive powers in the course of history.
Hence, the new progressive, and therefore aggressive point
of view in this struggle is the socio-psychological, and for
that reason it may be termed modern. The individual point
of view is, on the other hand, the older, one that is based
on the championship of a long-contested but now. by means
of countless historical works, a well-established position.

What is, then, the cause of these differences? Personal
preference, or the special endowments of individual in-
vestigators? The reaction of feeling against the former
exaggerations of the one or the other principle? Assimila-
tion to other trends of thought, philosophic or scientific,

157

158 MEDIEVAL HISTORY

of the science of history? Nothing of the kind. Rather,
we are at the turn of the stream, the parting of the ways
in historical science.

In order to understand better the process tliat is going
on, let us consider the following contrasts.

Take first a period in which all men, within a relatively
small community, such as we see in the beginnings of a
nation, are absolutely of the same psychic equality, so much
so that they in action and feeling can be said to stand
side by side as examples of the same endowments. Then
take another age in which, within a given community of
much greater extent, each individual differs in kind from
all others, so that — even more than is at present the case
— his volitions and sensations differ radically from those
of his fellow men.

It is clear, then, that we have here the two poles of
human activity, whose influences must give different results
in any study of the currents of life that we call historical
psychic existence, the life embraced within the limits of
these poles. In the first case the treatment would yield
only a delineation of the life of units; for the treatment
of the collective psychic existence would produce as a result
only a sum of the already known, — the psychic existence
of the individual. In the second case we should indeed take
a glance first at the psychic life of the unit, from which
it would be seen that it by no means included the character
of the life of the many, but rather that the collective psychic
life fertilized by the marked deviations of the individual
within itself is quite a thing in itself, with its peculiar
psychic or socio-psychic activity of the individual is in such
a manner subordinate as to be dominated by it for the best
and highest ends.

One sees, therefore, that the first case of the coexistence
of persons psychically quite identical would result in a

THE SCIENCE OF HISTORY 159

purely individual psychology; the second case of coexist-
ence of absolutely differentiated persons would result in a
radically socio-psychological historical method of treatment.
But the instances just given never occur in perfection.
However, the connections formed among them constitute
principles in the course of history and hisl(jrical science ;
the pole of similarly organized persons appears in the be-
ginning of cultural development as the principle of lower
culture, while the pole of dissimilar units reveals itself as
underlying higher cultures, for the simple reason that the
trend of evolution is toward progressive differentiation
and intergradation of the human soul.

If on the results of the examples cited and deduced in a
purely psychological manner are based the main principles
of every development of historical treatment from the low-
est to the highest, one finds corresponding to them, in the
various civilizations of the world, the same course of his-
tory, descriptive or scientific. It begins always with the
individual-psychological investigation of the past, and ar-
rives finally at a markedly social-psychological point of
view. In a word, it is the course of events which begins
with the heroic poem and ends with the history of civiliza-
tion. If we paint the panorama of this historiographic
development rather more vividly and minutely, it will be
seen that the individuals of the lower stages of civilization
have as little consciousness of the conditions that are char-
acteristic of them, as of the difference between these con-
ditions and those of other stages of civilization. The
English, French, Italian, and, in particular, the German
poet of the golden age of medievalism who worked over
the materials of classic antiquity, transferred them un-
consciously to the conditions of his own age. .^neas
became a knight, and Dido a fair chatelaine. It was only
the beginning of modern times, the closing centuries of

160 MEDIEVAL HISTORY

dying medievalism, that brought the dawn of a compre-
liension of the differences of various cultural conditions,
and therefore in our opinion a quickened sense of the his-
torical difference of the periods of civilization in general.
Similar observations might be made in the history of
ancient people and in the cultural phases of Eastern Asia.
Everywhere the beginnings of socio-psychological histor-
ical comprehension are coincident with the emancipation
of individuality from medieval restraint, in order to enter
on the so-called new age with the more rapid process of
its own differentiation.

But before this stage is reached, centuries have elapsed,
and centuries in which history was understood only in the
individual-psychologic sense, merely as the product of
single distinguished individuals. And correspondingly the
forms of historical tradition are purely individual. Almost
everywhere there appear two forms which may be taken
as typical, — genealogy and the heroic poem.

A characteristic beginning! Whence arises its dual
nature? In both instances we are concerned with the
memory of single persons, particularly of ancestors. But
in the one case the barren record is taken from the purely
prosaic reality of a natural pedigee, in the other the single
individual is selected and his deeds immortalized in poetic
form with an exaggerated objectivity. How does this
difference arise? We are here face to face with a radical
division in the historical point of view, one which occurs
in all ages in higher as in lower stages of culture. It can
be characterized as the difference between naturalism and
idealism. In the first instance reality is followed closely,
held fast, copied. To this belong the rapid offhand
sketches, the journalism of to-day in so far as it serves
as the annalistic medium of news; and, finally, statistics.
In the other case there intervenes between the simultaneous

THE SCIENCE OF HISTORY 161

photographic and phonographic impression of occurrences
and their collective reproduction, time, and with time,
memory. Memory, with its thousand strange associations,
abbreviating, rounding off, and admitting of outer in-
fluences and inner prejudices; in a word, memory is the
artist that individualizes and remodels its subject. For
what else is idealism but the retrospective treatment of a
theme into which the personal note enters, — indeed with
intention, — whereby the floodgates are opend to the whole
intellectual current of personality proper? Hence in higher
states of culture, in the case of differentiated individuals,
the personal style arises, and with it the personal work of
art; while in lower states of culture, with individuals of
similar proportions, and from the simultaneous work of
the many, the impersonal, the typical time-style will arise,
and with it the art work of this particular style.

This explains, then, for the beginnings of historical
tradition the growth of naturalistic and realistic forms side
by side. As a naturalistic form there appears by preference
the genealogy; as idealistic, the heroic poem. And with
this the roots of the contention of ages are laid bare as
to whether an historical work is a work of art or not. It
will always be a work of art in so far as, even in naturalistic
transmission, at least in higher cultural stages, the influence
of personal elements cannot be avoided. And it will be
peculiarly a work of art as soon as, in the case of an im-
portant theme, the imagination can bring forth a compo-
sition by means of idealizing retrospection. So that, when
the de lege ferenda is uttered, one can only advise that to
every historical work of our time, not only unconsciously
but consciously, the character of a work of art should be
given.

But genealogy and the epic are not the only forms of
individual-psychic tradition. Together with them and with

162 MEDIEVAL HISTORY

increasing cultural growth and intellectual leisure, others
come to the fore. If it be possible to follow the progress
of human events not only through the forms of tradition,
as required in genealogy and epic poetry, but more in-
tensively ]:)y means of the written letter, the chisel, and
the stylus, pedigrees and epics will be superseded — if,
indeed, they do not disappear at once — by annals and
chronicles. And even these forms can be improved upon.
In the history of every human community, the inevitable
moment comes in which reason, based on increasing ex-
perience, attempts independently to classify and control
the world of phenomena, in which the logical conclusion
begins gradually to yield to induction, and the miraculous
to the causal principle; and if, with this, there begins a
really scientific mastery of the outward world, then this
too takes hold of historical tradition. And the direction
it follows is both naturalistic and idealistic.

In the first instance tradition is ransacked for new
sources ; when found, these are brought to light in a clear-
cut literary form. With untiring zeal the whole field is
worked over, and a careful consideration of isolated events
is entered upon, of which the object is to show each single
occurrence to be indisputably genuine; it is then polished
up, rubbed clear of its rusty casing, and presented to the
world.

On the other hand, there is great need for the enormous
accumulations of the classified and isolated traditional data
produced by the unceasing mills of naturalistic criticism :
these data must be turned to account as material for a more
general positive structure of history with its divisions and
emendations. Of course this is to be done under the direc-
tion of an authoritative and constructive mind, and not
without the aid of the imagination. How else is a control
of the enormous material possible? But the mere mem-

THE SCIENCE OF HISTORY 163

orizing of details and a linking together of particulars, a
handling such as was referred to, is clearly proved to be
impossible. It is necessary that we employ some means
of mechanical combination of the parts of the huge world
of facts which knowledge alone can supply, certain forms
of criticism to classify the mass of material and thereby
control it. And naturally this constructive criticism must
deal in the first place with individuals who may still be
considered as the only fundamental psychic motor powers
of history. If their deeds, their single achievements, and
the collective achievements of single persons, — if these can
be regarded as parts of a completed series of facts in official
service or in an independent profession, they must be
grouped according to a system which does not overlook
the universal course of things and which makes the whole
only the more intelligible. This is the origin of pragmatics.
But the Divide ct impera embraced in the application of
the pragmatic principle proves itself to be insufficient in
the face of the mass of traditional material, continually
increasing in scope as it does. Above those groups which
pragmatism has thus formed to facilitate the handling of
events, above the whole survey of heroic deeds, incidents
of war or diplomatic negotiations, we see appearing by
degrees the outlines of a better system of classification of
material, a system which groups series of events of entire
ages within the domain of whole nations and families of
nations ; as, for example, the outlines of certain oft-recur-
ring incidents in the history of the Papacy, or the types
of similar occurrences in the development of the Prussian
monarchy, or the main characteristics of religious move-
ments in all respects alike and which are to be detected in
the piety of all denominations of Protestantism. It is
clearly possible to follow these also in the paths of form-
ative criticism far beyond the simple domain of prag-

164 MEDIEVAL HISTORY

matism. The common landmarks, too. of historical hap-
pening-s, especially when pragmatically grouped, can be
massed together on the higher plane. \\'ith this accom-
plished, the work of the historian begins at the point where
the development of the so-caUed historic theon,- of ideas
sets in. The term ** idea " arises from the application of
the word to the historic elements common to these masses,
so that the idea asserts itself as a form of higher thought
integration. .\nd in Western culture, as far as investi-
gation permits of a time-limit, it is in its purely historio-
graphic beginnings to be first found in the historical works
of the last half of the eighteenth centur}-.^ One naturally
asks here, had these higher forms of integration from the
beginning a closer connection with the naturalistic or ideal-
istic conception of histor}*? It is of interest to know that
these comparatively abstract forms of intellectual activity
had, for purely psychological reasons at first, the closest
connection with idealistic historical description. Allied
with this is the fact that this activit}% having developed
along quite primitive lines to a higher plane, was yet
capable of assuming at times a transcendental character.
The ideas which were made the basis of the understanding
of the greatest historical concatenations by isolation and
abstraction of the elements common to them, did not appear
as human ideas, but were rather divine powers holding
sway behind these events, permeating and determining
them, as emanative and associative forms of the absolute
working through the fates of men. It was a sort of ideal-
istic historical treatment which slowly took shape in Ger-
many in the course of the second half of the eighteenth
centur}', which then, owing to Schelling. passed over into
the great idealistic philosophy of German Romanticism, to

^ Ct. of recent date, Heussi, Church History aid its Writing. Johann Lo-
Ttnz TOO Moeheims, Ootba, 1904.

THE SCIENCE OF HISTORY 165

which from the point of view of the profoundest tiicory
of hfe Ranke paid homage as long as he hved, and which,
starting from all these points of the development, hecame
a constituent part of all the higher historical training of
the nineteenth century.

Meanwhile the strictly epistemological character of the
theory of the idea had certainly been recognized, and not
least clearly at the beginning of the great discussions of
historical methods in the early nineties of the last century,
and which have not yet entirely ceased. It can truly be
said that to-day, practically no one believes in the tran-
scendency of historical ideas, — that is, not fully, nor even
in the Ranke sense, — but that, on the other hand, the
usefulness of the conceptions contained in them for the
grouping of the greater individual-psychic series of events
is generally conceded.

While the individual-psychological treatment of history
has been thus gradually developed to the state of perfection
which marks it to-day, it had long had its limits, and, as
far as the main principles of historical comprehension
are concerned, its substitution in the form of socio-psy-
chological treatment had begun and had been proved to
be necessary.

In the course of the latter part of the seventeenth, but
more especially in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
all the peoples of Western European culture passed through
stages in which the most marked psychic differentiations
took place in the individual members of these communities.
A certain time-spirit dominated all these nations in which
the civilization of the new American world had its origin ;
it is the spirit which may rightly be called that of subjec-
tivity. Not uniformity, but variety of the subjective per-
fection of the individual, is the ideal of to-day. And the
collective culture of our time rests on vast working cor-

166 MEDIEVAL HISTORY

porations of individuals who are no less vastly differen-
tiated each in themselves.

For us it is a well-known state of affairs, this product
of nervous acti\ity which has characterized the last six
or seven generations, and it is superfluous to describe it
in detail. But it would not be inappropriate to trace
once and for all, logically and clearly, the consequences
of these changes as well for the character of historical
science of the present as for that of the immediate future.
The result is that for such a time as this only that kind
of historical comprehension is adequate which, side by
side with the indiA'idual-psychological, admits also the
socio-psychological treatment, the consideration of the
evolution of the collective psychic products of human com-
munities — a treatment which does not merely allude oc-
casionally to this admission, but maintains consistently and
unconditionally, that for every case of historical investiga-
tion the socio-psychological forces are the stronger, and
therefore those that properly determine the course of
things ; that, consequently, they include the operation of
the individual-psychic forces. Granted that this is the
universal formulation of the now necessary point of view
as it is carried out to-day not only in the field of historio-
graphy (in some instances with a clear insight into its con-
sequences), but as seen in the new sciences and new methods
which it has made to bear fruit, for example, sociology,
or prehistoric excavations ; yet it would be a mistake to
assume that the revolution in this direction took place
suddenly or that it has even now reached its completion.
Rather has it gone forward slowly in the course of at
least a century and a half, if we reckon according to events
in Germany. And the resulting views have been shown,
though in steady conflict with the older individual-psychic
opinions, to be invincible in spite of the marks of imma-

THE SCIENCE OF HISTORY 167

turity and a lack of definiteness borne on their face. They
stand forth, nevertheless, with a breadth, a logical cohesion,
and an inward completeness, which it has been beyond
the power of the bitterest hostility to weaken or to remove.
If I carry the study further to the contemplation of the
evolution of Germany, because this is most familiar to
me, and because, I believe, by keeping to a narrower limit,
in the short time assigned me we may gain greater clear-
ness and a more plastic form, I must not fail to mention
the honored name of Herder, the hundredth anniversary
of whose death has just been fittingly observed by Germans
throughout the w'orld. In the realm of Germanic cultures,
and even beyond it. Herder stands as the creator of the
conception "folk-soul" (the psyche of the masses). He
was the first to admit the importance of the socio-psychic
demands for the proper historical comprehension of the
most important of all human communities, — nations, — and
to draw from these the necessary conclusions. He did
it,^ not in a calm, entirely emotionless, and intellectual spirit
of research, but rather by leaps, and wnth all the enthusi-
asm of the explorer. His was a psychic attitude toward
the new-found inexhaustible material of the socio-psychic
inter-relations. But to reproach Herder on this score
would betray an extremely small socio-psychic under-
standing. When communities have made rapid progress
toward a higher spiritual existence, it is not in a rational
manner or with purely intellectual age-marks of the
thought or process. Rather with youthful feelings of an-
ticipation, with an esctatic presentiment of dimly felt com-
binations, are the portals of a new epoch entered. Science
becomes a prophecy, philosophy turns to poetical meta-
physics. That was the character of the Great German
period of subjectivity that began with Klopstock. and ended

1 See his Ideas concerning the History of Mankind.

168 MEDIEVAL HISTORY

in the spreading of the branches of the philosophy of
identity — the period to which Herder, as one of its first
great phenomena, belongs. Therefore Herder's enthusiastic
grasp of the socio-psychic elements of history does not
stand alone. It is the property of the whole epoch and
dominates the characteristic movement of the time —
romanticism. The advance step in all this was a clearer
view of the vast combinations of the phenomena of the
mass-psyche — an advance which brought one to describe
vital points poetically, in part or wholly so. But there was
not the clear comprehension of the constituent elements of
the mass-psyche or even of the elementary disentangling
of combined phenomena.

It has been reserved to the so-called history-of-civiliza-
tion method to attempt the description of socio-psychic
phenomena, and Freytag, Riehl, even Burckhardt, devoted
themselves to this task. Since the last decade of the last
century, however, this method has gradually grown out
of date.

That no progress was made in historical method during
a long period may be traced to the existence of too great
a mass of material to deal with. To this another cause
must be added. The first great subjective period, which
had begun with 1750, ended about 1820, at latest 1830;
then about 1870 to 1880 another epoch begins, the second
period of subjectivism. In the interval, however (since
1820, at least), the conquests of the first period began to
be not so much developed as intellectualized. Enthusiasm
yielded to reflection, the anticipative comprehension of
rationalism. It is the rebound in which, in the domain of
natural science, the period of natural philosophy was re-
placed by the recent development of mechanics ; the change
by which, in the field of mental sciences, the old rationalism
of the Aufklarung, as it had been developed in the genera-

THE SCIENCE OF HISTORY 169

tions following 1680, again became conspicuous, though
with alterations. The outcome of this movement in the
science of history, which had run aground in the impotent
epigonism of art and poetry, as in the barren historicism
of the mental sciences of the period of 18G0 to 1870, was
the reappearance of the individual-psychological method.
But the socio-psychological point of view was not yet suf-
ficiently well grounded to maintain its supremacy. In the
competition of these rival influences, Ranke grew to be a
master of his art. This coincidence, in a certain sense
most fortunate, and at all events peculiar in its way, gives
to him and his works a position all their own. The in-
dividual-psychologic point of view now gains the ascend-
ency more completely, though not so much because of
Ranke as of his disciples, especially Von Sybel. There
was no longer any particular importance attached to the
efforts of those who thought and worked according to the
history-of-civilization method; these were not opposed
because they were not considered as of more than passing
significance. It was a time of almost purely political
activity; the nation yearned with every fibre of its soul for
the long-coveted political unity. Such works as the poli-
tical history of the old German empire by Giesebrecht, or
Droysen's History of Prussian Polity, may be cited as
important phenomena in this connection. \\'hy should they
not have preferred political history — which, to a certain
extent, was the individual-psychologic method — to all other
forms of history? This explains for the most part the fact
that the advance in the socio-psychological interpretation
of events, made in the meantime by other peoples, for
example, the French in the philosophy of Comte, met with
small acceptance in Germany.

But the last decades of the nmeteenth century brought
the rebound. The years 1870 and 1871 released men from

170 MEDIEVAL HISTORY

their great anxieties concerning the national Hfe and unity;
the development of internal culture comes prominently now
to the front. And that happened at the very dawn of a new
period of modern psychic existence. The rise of political
economy and technology, the rapid development of freedom
of trade all over the globe, the victories of science in the
realm of nature, even to penetrating into the confines of the
inner life: all of this and a host of other less important
phenomena yielded an untold amount of new stimuli and
possibilities of association, and with that an unheard-of
extension of psychic activity as then existing. But of this
more in another lecture. The result was a marked dif-
ferentiation of intellectual activity, and with it the renewed
and determining advance of the socio-psychic elements.
This was evident along the whole line of scientific en-
deavor, especially in the rise of sociology and anthropology
during the last decades, with their far-reaching conse-
quences and accompanying phenomena. In the domain of
history, this meant a fresh start in the writing of histories
of civilization in so far as the development of method was
energetically taken in hand ; description alone was no longer
the watchword, but an intelligent comprehension.

It was now a question of following up the complex phe-
nomena of the socio-psychic life, the working out of the
so-called national soul in its elementary parts. The first
step on this path would necessarily lead to the immediate
analysis of the phenomena that appeared within the exist-
ence of great communities of men, that is to say, chiefly
of nations. Hence the proving and detailed characteriza-
tion of socio-psychic eras within this domain : this was the
next step. We can see how this was done by Burckhardt
who, in his history of the culture of the Renaissance, was
the first to point out the great psychic difference between
the so-called Middle Ages and the periods of high culture.

Till', srii'.xci': oi' HISTOID'

171

'Pluis ;i m;iNtiT liaml iKii-rmiiicil and dt'piiU'd one of llir
mosi iiiailvi'd pli.iM's ill till- ili\tliniir iiicvi'mnit of tlu' nil
till I' I'poilis i)| .1 ii.ilioii. I''ii>iii tlii-^ poiiii tlu- wav inii.t
lt"ad on ti> a slaUMiicnl ol tlio rom so of a whole scrii's of
niltural a^cs. This has been altcmptod in my dcrnum
1 1 isti'f y.

r.iil this is only the hoj^itiuiii};' of an intensive six'io-
l»syilioK)};ieal method. In this hloekinj; ont i^\ the eiilture
epoehs, the elements tif the scu'lo-psyehie nnnements, as
s'rnh, are not anal\/ed, hiil sinipU' ttMiehed npon, and the
timi- indicated in wliuh i^umI nio\einents liiul their oiij^in.
W lu'ii this is onee well done, the i|nestion arises whelhei"
foi' these ap'cs ^^\ inltine there is one eoinmon nnderlyim;
psychic mechanism, aiul if so, ol wh.it natnre it is. ami
what is tlu" as;^rej;ate oi these inulerlyin<;, yet apparent,
psychic eleirents. And if these problems are soKed. theie
appears finllier a last \et peiliaps piovisional i|nestii<n,
namelv. whether the psychii- elements relerred to are really
elementar\- in the sense that they are tt> Ik* foniiil in the
results of niodi-in ps\clioK\i;'y as hitherto known.

'Phis is not tlu- place to analy/i- or attempt to soUe tlu-
(piestions thus raisetl ; hut the means oi lindini;" an answer
will he pointed ont in the later lectures, at least in so far
as to pro\ e that, \>.''V the mecli.inism ol the i;reat sivio-
psNcIiic nuuenients, the same elenients and l.iws hold good
i)\ which proof is given in recent psychological investiga-
tion, and with that of the discovery of the elementary
psychic eneig\' pi"o]ier to the historical minement. At
this point there arises, in conse(|uence oi the preceding
statement, aiu^ther (piestion. If HKnlern historical science
would iHMietrate to the innernu^st springs of universal his-
tory, find them to he in certain psychic condititMis. does it
act thus in i-onformitv with the universal tendencies of the
time, and has it accortlingly the prospect of a wholesome

172 MEDIEVAL HISTORY

duration and development? Here is the first difficulty to b<
solved. The second is as follows: if modern historical sci
ence as thus set forth is in accord with the spirit of the time,
what is then its relation to and effect on other sciences?

For those who are acquainted with intellectual move-
ments of Western Europe, the first question — that a more
intensive study of all phenomena, a closer acquaintance
with nature — is easy enough to answer. An impression
which at first took hold of the external phenomena with a
certainty of touch hitherto unknown was followed in the
field of mental sciences and imagination by a psychological
impressionism that discovered and revealed the depths of
the psychic life which till now had lain concealed under
the threshold of consciousness. The spirit brought, in
regard to natural sciences, an intensity of observation
which appeared almost to threaten those mechanical
theories which, during centuries of energetic research, had
stood as true and sufficient for all further progress in
investigation. In this course of psychic progress the his-
torical science of socio-psychology takes its place as a mat-
ter of course; it is nothing but the application of greater
intensity of observation to historical material. And there
is prospect, therefore, of a further development of this
idea, not only on Western and Middle European soil, but
since the new^ psychic existence is due chiefly to the vast
extension of association and stimuli which arise from the
new technical, economic, and social culture, it will estab-
lish itself everywhere where Western civilization prevails,
as is actually being shown to-day in the New World and
in Japan.

If socio-psychological history is of such growing im-
portance, the more, then, does its relationship to other
sciences call for consideration, even though but few words
can be devoted to it.

THE SCIENCE OF HISTORY 173

Foremost and clearest is its connection with psychology.
History in itself is nothing but a])i)lie(l psychology. Hence
we must look to theoretical psychology to give us the clue
to its true interpretation.

How often, indeed, has not psychology been named the
mechanics of mental science, in particular of the science
of history? But the appreciation of this connection and
the practical application of it are quite different things.
For the latter it is necessary that the i.tudy of historical
phenomena be extended to the most elementary occur-
rences and processes, — even those processes with which
psychology has primarily to do. It is characteristic of the
progress of science during the period of subjectivism of
about 1750 or that at the beginning, at least, neither his-
tory nor psychology was understood. Of how little im-
portance was psychology when books like Creutzer's
Bssay on the Soul and the fruitful but primitive journalism
of the decades of sentimentalism and the " Sturm und
Drang " periods tried at least to set it free from the old
traditional metaphysical theories. A universal genius like
Kant was right to refrain from taking part in such prim-
itive beginnings, and this stage of philosophy corresponded
to that of history.

Psychology and historical science begin to approach each
other about 1800, under the influence of the new ideas of
the time; but they were as yet far from meeting; between
them still lay heavy and bulky masses of scientifically un-
analyzed psychic matter.

How different it is to-day in the first decade of a new
period of subjectivism, which in so many of its parts seems
to be a restoration of the old, only in a higher stage of
development. To-day psychology looks back on two gen-
erations of investigators, who delivered it from the deadly
grasp of metaphysics and made it an independent science.

174 MEDIEVAL HISTORY

W'undt followed Herbart. And now a younger, a third,
generation is at work perfecting and amplifying the results
obtained. These results, however they may vary and be-
come matters of dispute, according to the direction of
investigation, permit a profound insight into the legitimate
course of individual-psychic life such as was denied to our
predecessors. The most important results of all this in-
vestigation for the historical student are recorded in the
works of Wundt, Ebbinghaus, Miinsterberg, Lipps, — col-
lections of data which have already become indispensable
to the allied sciences.

This is a condition of things extremely helpful to his-
torical science in the socio-psychic direction. If one pene-
trates into the depths of historic causation, it will be found
that psychology has prepared the way and has become a safe
guide to the historian, who wishes to make known his dis-
coveries in formulae in which they may be fitly expressed.

In this way psychology and historical science entered
into partnership. The partition between them is giving way,
and certainly one may say — if it may thus be expressed —
that psychology increasingly serves as a mechanical force
to history.

But the relations of the two sciences are by no means
thus completely described. Just as along with the psy-
chology of the normal adult there must be kept in mind
that of childhood and old age in order that the antithetic
character of all psychic processes, the full extent and the
whole circle of the potentiality of the human psyche, as
far as the individual is concerned, may be appreciated and
the coresponding biological functions be observed, so it is
necessary to obtain a full comprehension of the meaning
of the socio-psychological process in history in order to
proceed in a manner quite analogous. In this instance
psychology is dependent on history, and only from an

THE SCIENCE OF HISTORY 175

intensive investigation of the cultural periods of man-
kind as a whole are the data attainable which will enable
one to recognize the antithetic tendencies of the human-
mind in its whole empiric compass.

Thus we get a starting-point from which the relation
of modern historical science to the other mental sciences
may be explained. These may be divided into applied,
such as theology, jurisprudence, political economy, politics,
etc., and into constitutive, history of language, literature,
art, etc. It is clear that the constitutive branches simply
disappear as parts of modern historical science. For if
the latter concerns itself with the investigation of the
dominating social psyche of the times in question, and with
its changing forms during the various ages of culture, it can
only do this by taking a survey of all its embodiments in
history from time to time. These are to be found in
language, in poetry, and art (that is, style), in science and
philosophy, the climax of intellectual attainment, argu-
mentation, etc. And correspondingly, socio-psychological
history is the universal foundation of all these sciences,
and these are related to it as amplifying and special sciences.
But even more is the case with relation to the applied
mental sciences. For the latter, which have reference to a
certain given psyche of a certain cultural period, require a
general knowledge of this period, which leads to the socio-
psychological science of history.

Historical science therefore plays a double part: (1)
as the basis of the practical as of the theoretical mental
sciences, and (2) as stimulus to an historical method
within the range of psychology. It is a position which is
quite normally conditioned by the fact that psychic move-
ments pass, as regards time, far more rapidly than physi-
cal movements, and that the change appears to us qualita-
tively different on that account. If in their relations the

176 MEDIEVAL HISTORY

psychic developments of a given time had corresponded to
the physical, only one mechanism would be needed to domi-
nate them both; for they would have shown a hundred
thousand and more years ago the same character as they
show in the traditional records of to-day. Xow it is well
known that where the conception of life is in question,
this is not the case ; for example, in animal and plant organ-
isms. In human life, that is, in history, a moment of much
quicker change of phenomena intervenes. How is it to be
controlled? It can only happen in that psychology as a
psychological mechanism is allied with a functional idea
of the time and becomes at once variable. And this func-
tional idea historical science must apply. Through this it
grows to be an evolutionistic psychology fully suited to the
actual course of things and as such the basis of mental
sciences, both theoretical and applied.

Is not the relation of the historical to natural science
determined by the last few remarks, even if these are only
general propositions? I think so, if one does not indeed
include physics and chemistrv' in the historic point of view,
— sciences the objects of which belong to the passing mo-
ment. However, if one does this, nothing remains but
to admit that there are biological agencies even in inorganic
nature; with this we are driven out of the sphere of
science into the atmosphere of h>'pothetic philosophy, into
metaphysical mode of thought.

It is not necessary to transcend the bounds of our sub-
ject, to pass over the border-line that divides philosophy
and science. But one thing has been determined by these
reflections, — that the modem science of history has opened
up for itself a vastly greater field of endeavor and conflict,
and that it will require thousands of diligent workers and
creative minds to open up its rich and in many respects
unknown regions, and to cultivate them successfully.

THE PLACE OF MODERN HISTORY IN THE
PERSPECTIVE OF KNOWLEDGE.

BY JOHN B. BURY

[John B. Bub^. Professor of Modern History, Cambridge University,
b. Oct. 16, 1861. B.A. Trinity College, Dublin, 1882; Fellow, ibid.
1885; M. A. ibid. 1885; Professor of Modern History, Dublin Uni-
versity, 1893-98; Protessor of Greek, ibid. 1898-1902; Professor of

Modern History, Cambridge University, 1902 . Authob or

History of the Later Roman Empire, from Arcadius to Irene;
Studejit's History of the Roman Empire, from Augustus to
Marcus Aurelius; History of Greece to Death of Alexander the
Great. Editor of Pindar's Isthmian Odes; and Semean Odes;
Freeman's History of Federal Government in Greece; Gibbon'$
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.]

To define the position which the history of the last four
hundred years occupies as an object of study, or to signahze
its particular importance as a field of intellectual activity,
requires a preliminary consideration of the place which
history in general holds in the domain of human knowledge.
And this consideration cannot be confined to purely political
history. For political history is only an abstraction, — an
abstraction which is useful and necessary both practically
and theoretically, but is unable to serve as the basis of a
philosophical theory. Political development in the chronicle
of a society, or set of societies, is correlated with ether de-
velopments which are not political ; the concrete history of a
society is the collective histor}- of all its various activities,
all the manifestations of its intellectual, emotional, and
material life, ^^'e isolate these manifestations for the pur-
pose of analysis, as the physiologist can concentrate his
attention on a single organ apart from the rest of the body :
but we must not forget that political history out of relation
to the whole social development of which it is a part is not
less unmeaning than the heart detached from the body.

a77

178 MODERN HISTORY OF EUROPE

The inevitable and perfectly justifiable habit of tracing
political development by itself, and making political events
chronological landmarks, led to an unfortunate restriction
of the use of the v^ord history, which, when used without
qualification, is commonly taken to mean political history,
and not history in the larger concrete sense which I have
just defined. This ambiguity furnishes an explanation and
excuse for the view that history is subservient to political
science, and that the only or main value of historical study
consists in its auxiliary services to the study of political
science. This doctrine was propagated, for instance, by
Seeley, and gained some adhesion in England. Now if we
detach the growth of political institutions and the se-
quence of political events from all the other social phe-
nomena, and call this abstraction history, then I think
Seeley's theory would have considerable justification. His-
tory, in such a sense, would have very little worth or mean-
ing beyond its use as supplying material for the inductions
of political science, the importance of which I should be the
last to dispute. But if the political sequence is grasped as
only one part of the larger development which constitutes
history in the fuller sense, then it is clear that the study of
political history has its sufficient title and justification by
virtue of its relation to that larger development which in-
cludes it, and that it is not merely the handmaid of political
science. Political science depends upon its data, and, in
return, illuminates it ; but does not confer its title-deeds.

But a larger and more formidable wave, threatening the
liberty of history, has still to be encountered. It may be
argued that the relation of dependence holds good, though
it must be stated in a different and more scientific form. It
may be said : Political science is a branch of social science,
just as political history is a part of general history; and
the object of studying general history is simply and solely

THE PLACE OF MODERN HISTORY 17:»

to collect and furnish material for sociological science.
Thus the former theory reappears, subsumed under a higher
principle. The study of history generally is subordinate to
sociology; and it follows that the study of political history
especially is subordinate to that branch of sociology which
we call political science. The difference, and it is a very
important difference, is that, on this theory, political history
is no longer isolated; its relations of coordination and inter-
dependence with the other sides of social development would
be recognized and emphasized. But the study of general
history, including political, would be dependent on, and
ancillary to, a study ulterior to itself.

Now this theory seems to run counter to an axiom which
has been frequently enunciated and accepted as self-evident
in recent times, namely, that history should be studied for
its own sake. It is one of the remarkable ideas which first
emerged explicitly into consciousness in the last century
that the unique series of the phenomena of human developn
ment is worthy to be studied for itself, without any ulterior
purpose, without any obligation to serve ethical or thecv-
logical, or any practical ends. This principle of "history
for its own sake" might be described as the motto or watch-
word of the great movement of historical research which
has gone on increasing in volume and power since the be-
ginning of the last century. But has this principle a theo-
retical justification, or is it only an expedient but inde-
fensible fiction instinctively adopted? Is the postulate of
"history for its own sake" simply a regulative idea which
we find it convenient to accept because experience teaches us
that independence is the only basis on which any study can
be pursued satisfactorily and scientifically; and while we
accord history this status, for reasons of expedience, is it
yet true that the ultimate and only value of the study lies in
its potential services to another discipline, such as sociology' ?

180 MODERN HISTORY OF EUROPE

It seems to me that our decision of this question must fall
out according to the view we take of the relation of man's
historical development to the whole of reality. We are
brought face to face with a philosophical problem. Our
appiehension of history and our reason for studying it must
be ultimately determined by the view we entertain of the
moles ct machina nuindi as a whole. Naturalism will imply
a wholly different view from idealism. In considering the
place of history in the kingdom of knowledge, it is thus im-
possible to avoid referring to the questions with which the
so-called philosophy of history is concerned.

If human development can be entirely explained on the
general lines of a system such as Saint-Simon's or Comte's
or Spencer's, then I think we must conclude that the place
of history, within the frame of such a system, is subordinate
to sociology and anthropology. There is no separate or in-
dependent precinct in which she can preside supreme. But
on an idealistic interpretation of knowledge, it is otherwise.
History then assumes a different meaning from that of a
higher zoology, and is not merely a continuation of the
process of evolution in nature. If thought is not the result,
but the presupposition, of the process of nature, it follows
that history, in which thought is the characteristic and
guiding force, belongs to a different order of ideas from the
kingdom of nature and demands a different interpretation.
Here the philosophy of history comes in. The very phrase
is a flag over debated ground. It means the investigation
of the rational principles which, it is assumed, are disclosed
in the historical process due to the cooperation and inter-
action of human minds under terrestrial conditions. If the
philosophy of history is not illusory, history means a dis-
closure of spiritual reality in the fullest way in which it is
cognizable to us in these particular conditions. And, on
the other hand, the possibility of an interpretation of history

THE PLACE OF MODERN HISTORY 181

as a movement of reason, disclosing its nature in terres-
trial circumstances, seems the only hypothesis on which the
postulate of "history for its own sake" can be justified as
valid.

This fundamental problem belongs to philosophy and lies
outside the scope of discussion. All that can be done for the
present occasion is to assume the validity of that kind of
interpretation which is generally called the philosophy of
history, and, starting with this postulate, to show the par-
ticular significance of modern history. Perhaps it may
be said that such interpretation is quite a separate branch
of speculation, distinct from history itself, and not neces-
sarily the concern of an historical student. That is a view
which should be dismissed, for it reduces history to a col-
lection of annals. Facts must be collected, and connected,
before they can be interpreted ; but I cannot imagine the
slightest theoretical importance in a collection of facts or
sequences of facts, unless they mean something in terms
of reason, unless we can hope to determine their vital con-
nection in the whole system of reality. This is the funda-
mental truth underlying Macaulay's rather drastic remark
that "facts are the dross of history."

It is to be observed that the idea of history as a self-
centred study for its own sake arose without any conscious-
ness of further implications, w-ithout any overt reference to
philosophical theory or the systematization of knowledge.
It appeared as an axiom which at once recommended itself
as part of the general revolutionary tendency of every
branch of knowledge to emancipate itself from external
control and manage its own concerns. While this idea was
gaining ground, a large number of interpretations or "i)hil(i-
sophies" of history were launched upon the world, from
Germany, France, England, and elsewhere. They were
nearly all constructed by philosophers, not by historians;

182 MODERN HISTORY OF EUROPE

they were consequently conditioned by the nature of the
various philosophical systems from which they were gener-
ated ; and they did a great deal to bring the general idea of a
philosophy of history into discredit and create the suspicion
that such an idea is illusory. I observe with interest that
this Congress, in the Department of Philosophy, assigns a
section to the Philosophy of Religion but not to the Philo-
sophy of History. I feel, therefore, the less compunction,
that my argument compels me to make some remarks about
it here.

I need hardly remind you that the radical defect of all
these philosophical reconstructions of history is that the
framework is always made a priori, with the help of a super-
ficial induction. The principles of development are super-
imposed upon the phenomena, instead of being given by
the phenomena; and the authors of the schemes had no
thorough or penetrative knowledge of the facts which they
undertook to explain. Bossuet bodly built his theory of
universal history on the hardly disguised axiom that man-
kind was created for the sake of the Church ; but nearly all
the speculative theories of historical development fram.ed in
the nineteenth century, though less crudely subjective, fall
into the same kind of fallacy.

Two of the most notable attempts to trace the rational
element in the general movement of humanity were those of
Hegel and Krause. They are both splendid failures, Hegel's
more manifestly so. They are both marked by an insuf-
ficient knowledge of facts and details, but in imposing a
priori framework Hegel is far more mercilessly Procrus-
tean than Krause. It was the modern peri(xl which suffered
most painfully through Hegel's attemi)t io screw history
into his iron bed. His scheme implies that the modern
period represents the completion of historical development,
is part of the last act in the drama of the human spirit.

THE PLACE OF MODERN HISTORY 183

This implication is preposterous. What we know about the
future is that man has an indefinite time in front of him,
and it is absurd to suppose that in the course of that time
new phases of thought will not be realized, though it is
quite impossible for us to predetermine them. This ernjr
alone is sufficient to cast suspicion on the whole edifice. For
the stages of history, as a revelation of spirit, correspond
ex hypothesi to the dialectical stages in the logical evolution
of the idea : and if Hegel fixes the terminus of the historical
evolution at a point immeasurably distant from the true
term, it evidently follows that the correspondences which
he has established for the preceding stages with stages in
the logical evolution must be wholly or partly wrong, and
his interpretation breaks down. The keys are in the wrong
locks.

Krause's system, which has had considerable influence in
Belgium, avoids the absurdity of not allowing for progress
in the future, — a consideration which there was no excuse
for ignoring, since it had been recognized and emphasized
by Condorcet. He divides the whole of human history, in-
cluding that which is yet to come, into three great periods, — •
the ages of unity, of variety, and of harmony, — and pro-
nounces that mankind is now in the third and last stage of
the second period. This theory, you perceive, has an ad-
vantage over Hegel's in that it gives the indefinite future
something to do. But, although this Procrustes is more
merciful, the Procrustean principle is the same; there is an
a priori system into which human development has to be
constrained. I am not concerned here to criticise the
method on which Krause proceeds ; I only want to illustrate
by two notable examples, that of Hegel who ignores the
future, and that of Krause who presumes to draw its horo-
scope, how the philosophy of history has moved on false
lines, through the illusion that it could construct the develop-

184 MODERN HISTORY OF EUROPE

ment of reason in history from any other source than history
itself. By the one example we are taught that, in attempt-
ing to interpret history, we must remember there is no
such thing as finality within measurable distance :

His ego nee metas rerum nee tempora pono;

while the other example warns us that in considering the
past it is idle to seek to explain it by any synthesis involv-
ing speculations on the inscrutable content of the future.

It is, indeed, curious to note how the authors of the
numerous attempts to present a philosophical construction
of history, which appeared during the nineteenth century,
assume so naively, that their owni interpretations are final,
and that the ideas which are within the horizon of their
minds are the ultimate ideas to be sighted by man, the last
ports to be visited in his voyage down the stream of time.
It is strange how this childish delusion, this spell of the
present, has blinded the profoundest thinkers. Hegel
thought that the final form of political constitution was
something closely resembling the Prussian state, that the
final religion is Christianity, that the final philosophy is his
own. This was logical in his case, because it was part
of his view that the plenitude of time has come; yet we can
have very little doubt that this doctrine was prompted
psychologically by what I have called the spell of the present.
But even those who were able, in phrase at least, to tran-
scend the present and look forward to indefinite progress,
speak and argue nevertheless as if the ideas which are now
accessible and within the range of our vision could never be
transcended in the course of the progress which they admit.
The absurdity of this v^iew is illustrated by reflecting that
the ideas with which these writers conjured — such as hu-
manity, liberty, progress, in the pregnant meanings which
those words now possess — were be}ond men's horizon a few

THE PLACE OF MODERN HISTORY 185

centuries before. We must face the fact that our syntheses
and interpretations can have only a relative value, and that
the still latent ideas which must emerge in the process of
the further development of man will introduce new and
higher controlling conceptions for the interpretation of the
past.

I have pointed out the common error into which philoso-
phies of history have fallen, through not perceiving that in
order to lay bare the spiritual process which history repre-
sents, we must go to history itself without any a priori
assumptions or predetermined systems. All that philosophy
can do is to assure us that historical experience is a dis-
closure of the inner nature of spiritual reality. This dis-
closure is furnished by history and history alone. It follows
that it is the historian and not the philosopher who must
discover the diamond net; or the philosopher must become
an historian if he would do so.

But not only is it necessary to abandon unreservedly the
Procrustean principle ; the method of approach must also be
changed. This is the point to which it has been my particu-
lar object tO' lead up. The interpreter of the moveinent of
history must proceed backward, not forward ; he must start
from the modern period. For a through, fully articulated
knowledge of the phenomena is essential — not the super-
ficial acquaintance with which speculators like Hegel
worked ; and such a knowledge is only attainable for the
modern period, because here only are the requisite records
preserved. Here only can one hope to surprise the secrets
of the historical process and achieve a full analysis of the
complex movement. The records of ancient and medieval
history are starred with lacunae; we are ignorant of whole
groups of phenomena, or have but a slight knowledge of
other groups ; and what we do know must often be seen in
false perspective and receive undue attention on account of

186 MODERN HISTORY OF EUROPE

the adjacent obscurities. We can survey and attempt
syntheses ; but syntheses without fully articulated knowledge
are no more than vague shots in the direction of a dimly
seen object. And the only syntheses possible in such con-
ditions are insignificant generalities, bloodless abstract con-
ceptions, like the d-ix^vr^vd. xdp-rjva of Homcr's world of shades.
The interpretation of history that shall be more than a col^
lection of plausible labels must grasp the vital process, per-
ceive the breath and motion, detect the undercurrents, trace
the windings, discern the foreshadowings, see the ideas
traveling underground, discover how the spiritual forces are
poised and aimed, determine how the motives conspire and
interact. And it is only for the history of the last three
or four hundred years that we possess material for investi-
gating this complicated process.

And it is for the development of the nineteenth century
that our position in some respects is most fav^orable. It is
commonly said that recent history cannot be profitably
studied, on the ground that we are too near to the events
to be able to treat them objectively and see them in the
right perspective. Admitting the truth of the objection,
recognizing fully that recent events are seen by us "fore-
shortened in the tract of time," we must nevertheless re-
member that there is a compensation in proximity which it
is disastrous to ignore. For those who are near have
opportunities of tracing the hidden moral and intellectual
work of an age which subsequent generations cannot reach,
because they are not in direct relation. De Tocqueville
said : "What contemporaries know better than posterity is
the mental movement, the general passions and feelings of
the time, whereof they still feel the last shuddering motions
(les derniers fremissements) in their minds or in their
hearts." If this is so, it is one of the most pressing duties
to posterity that men in each generation should devote them-

THE PLACE OF MODERN HISTORY 187

selves to the scientific study of recent history from this point
of view.

We may go further, and declare that, in this light, modern
history as a whole possesses a claim on us now, which does
not belong either to antiquity or to the Middle Ages. We
have ourselves passed so completely beyond the spiritual
boundaries of the ancient and medieval worlds that we can
hardly suppose that we possess any greater capacity for a
sympathetic apprehension of them than our descendants
will possess a thousand years hence. Whereas, on the other
hand, we may fairly assume that we are in a much better
position than such remote posterity for sympathetic appre-
ciation of the movements — the emancipatory movements —
of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It
therefore devolves upon us before we have drifted too far
away to do what may be done to transmit to future genera-
tions the means of appreciating and comprehending. In
this sense the study of w'hat we call modern history is the
most pressing of all.

But I have permitted myself to digress from the argu-
ment. I w^as concerned to show that our only chance of
tracing the movement and grasping the principles of uni-
versal history is to start with the study of the modern age
where our material is relatively full, and proceed regress-
ively One great mistake of those who have attempted
philosophies of history has been that they began at the other
end, — not at the beginning, but at whatever point their
know-ledge happened to reach back to, perhaps in China,
perhaps in the Garden of Eden, — and were consequently
obliged to adopt a difficult and precarious synthetic method.
Precarious, because in passing on from one stage to another
there is no guarantee, owing to our fragmentary material,
that we have knowledge of all that is significant, and there-
fore the sythesis Avhich expresses the transition to a higher

188 MODERN HISTORY OF EUROPE

stage may be vitiated by incompleteness. We may be ac-
quainted only with some of the forces which determine the
sequel, and, if we proceed as though we had all those forces
in our hands, our conception of the sequel will be inadequate.

On the analytic method, on the contrary, we start from a
definite terminus, namely the present, — contingent indeed,
but not arbitrary, since it is the only possible limit for the
given investigator, — and in the first stage we have all the
material, so that it is the fault of the investigation and not
the result of accident if the analysis is not exhaustive. The
problem then is, having grasped the movement of the ideas
and spiritual forces which have revealed themselves in the
modern period, to trace, regressively, the processes out of
which they evolved, with the help of our records. This, at
least, is the ideal to which the interpreter would try to ap-
proximaite. That, with fragmentary records, the whole
historical movement can ever be traced by methods of in-
ference, I do not indeed believe; but assuredly it is only in
the period where the records exist that we can first detect
the secret of the process or begin to discern the figure on
the carpet.

But the question will be asked : Can we define absolutely
the position of the modern period in the secular perspective
of history? The field of what we call "modern history" has
a roughly marked natural boundary at the point where it
starts, towards the end of the fifteenth century. We may
say this without any prejudice to the doctrine of continuit)\
But the phrase is used to cover all post-medieval history,
and therefore the hither limit is always shifting. For
while it is usual to mark ofif the last thirty or forty years as
"contemporary history," as years pass on the beginning of
"contemporary history" moves forward, and the end of the
modern as distinguished from the contemporary period
moves forward too. The question arises whether this con-

THE PLACE OF MODERN HISTORY ISO

ventional nomenclature is any longer appropriate, whether
all post-medieval history can be scientifically classified as a
period, with the same right and meaning as the Middle
Ages. "Ancient History" is of course a merely conven-
tional and convenient, unscientific term; is this true of
"Modern History" also? It may be thoughi that the an-
swer is affirmative. It may seem probable that the changes
which began at the end of the eighteenth century, the great
movements of thought which have thrilled the nmeteenth
century, the implications of the far-reaching vistas of knowl-
edge whicli have been opened, mark as new and striking a
departure as any to which our records go back, and con-
stitute a Neu-zeit in the fullest sense of the word; that in
the nineteenth as in the sixteenth century man entered into
a new domain of ideas; that of the nineteenth as much as
of the sixteenth are we justified in saying

Ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo.

If so, our nomenclature should be altered. The three cen-
turies after Columbus should be called by some other name,
such as post-medieval, and "mo<^lern" should be appropri-
ated to the period ushered in by the French Revolution and
the formation of the American Commonwealth, until in turn
a new period shall claim a name which can never be per-
manently attached. It would follow that in the Historical
Department at this Congress, there should be another sec-
tion; the nineteenth century, the more modern modern
period, should have a section to itself. In Germany, a dis-
tinction of this kind has been adopted. The sixteenth, seven-
teenth, and eighteenth centuries are described as die ncucrc
Zcit; while the nineteenth is distinguished as die neiieste

Zeit.

Among the notes which form the stamp and signature of
this neneste Zeit is the new historical interest, if I may say

190 MODERN HISTORY OF EUROPE

so, which has become prevalent in the world and is itself an
historical fact of supreme importance. It is expressed not
only in the enormous amount of research that has been done,
but in the axiom of "histor}- for its own sake," and also in
the attempts to create a philosophy of history. It is a new
force set free, which will have its own place in the com-
plex of the driving forces of the world. It is to be taken
along with the equally recent development of a conscious-
ness of our relations to future generations, which is prac-
tically reflected in a growing sense of duty to posterity.
Both facts taken together, the interest in human experience
and the interest in human destiny, represent a new sense of
the solidarity of humanity, linking past ages and ages to
come. In other words, the human mind has begim to rise
above the immediate horizon of the circumstances and in-
terests of the present generation, and to realize seriously,
not as a mere object of learned curiosity, the significance of
the past and the potentialities of the future. The most
familiar of vrords, past and future, have become pregnant
with significance; they are charged with all the implications
of a new perspective.

It is clear that this new sense is inconsistent with the
affirmation of Arnold and Seeley that contemporary is
superior to preceding history by all the superiority of an end
to the means. This doctrine expresses the attitude of the
old unregenerate spirit. The theoretical truth which it con-
tains is simply this, that contemporary history represents a
more advanced stage than any preceding it, or, in other
words, there is a real evolution. But for the same reason
it is itself inferior to the development which will succeed
it; and if past history is to be described as a means, con-
temporary history must be equally described as a means, on
the same ground. Theoretically, therefore, this teleological
argument has no application; it would not become relevant

THE PLACE OF MODERN HISTORY 191

till the end of the process has been reached. But what
Arnold and Seeley probably had most in mind was the im-
portance of comprehending the past for the sake of compre-
hending the present for practical i)urix)ses. (This is now
so fully understood and recognized that 1 have not thought
it riecessary to dwell on it to-day. It is now generally
acknowledged, by those whose opinion need be considered,
that the practical value of history consists not, as used to be
thought, in lessons and example, but in the fact that it ex-
plains the present, and that without it the present, in which
we have to act, would be incomprehensible. It is modern
history, of course, that is here chiefly concerned. Lord
Acton said: "Modern history touches us so nearly, it is
so deep a question of life and death, that we are bound to
find our own way through it, and to owe our insight to our-
selves." I venture to think that Lord Acton, in this charac-
teristic statement, rather strains the note; but the statement
concerns, you observe, the practical not the theoretical value
of the subject.)

To attempt to define absolutely the significance of modern
or recent history in the order of development would be to
fall into an error like that for which I criticised Hegel and
Krause and others who thought to draw forth Leviathan
with a hook. It is much if it can be established, as I think
it can, that with the nineteenth century the curtain has risen
on a new act in the drama. But we can be more confident
in asserting negatives. The ideas and forces which have
driven man through the last four hundred years and are
driving him now, are not the last words or dooms in the
progress of reason. The idea of freedom which the modern
world has struggled to realize has been deemed by many the
ultima linea rerum; but it is difficult to see how or why it
should be final, in the sense of not being superseded by the
appearance of higher ideas which its realization shall have

192 MODERN HISTORY OF EUROPE

enabled to emerge. Or again, it is unreasonable to suppose
that the idea of nationality which has recently played and
still plays a great role, is an end in itself or more than a
phase in evolution. We must acquiesce in our incompetence
to form any scientific judgment as to the value or position
of this stage in the total development.

To state briefly the main thesis of this paper. The ansv^^er
to the question, "What is the position of modern history in
the domain of universal knowledge?" depends in the first
instance on our ^'iew of the fundamental philosophical ques-
tion at issue between idealism and naturalism. If we are
believers in naturalism, then all history, including modern
history, has its sole theoretical value in the function of pro-
viding material for the investigation of sociological laws.
It must accept a position such as Comte assigns to it. But
if we are idealists, if we hold that thought is a presupposi-
tion of physical existence and not a function of matter, then
history as a disclosure of the evolution of thought has an
independent realm of its own and demands a distinct inter-
pretation, to prepare for which is the aim of historical re-
search. The segment of history which we call modern,
from the sixteenth century onward, occupies a peculiar place,
because here, partly in consequence of the invention of
printing, our materials begin to be adequate for a complete
analysis. This gives us the theoretical significance of the
modern period as an object of study ; it is the field in which
we may hope to charm from human history the secret of
its rational movement, detect its logic, and win a glimpse of
a fragment of the pattern on a carpet, of which probably
much the greater part is still unwoven.

This Congress is suggestive in many w-ays, suggestive
especially of the distance the world has traveled since 1804
or since 1854. There will be many more of its kind; but
this is unique as the first. It is not very bold to predict that

THE PLACE OF MODERN HISTORY 193

historians of the distant future, in tracing the growth of
cooperation and tendencies to a federation of liuman effort,
which are one of the transformative influences now affecting
mankind, will record this Congress in which we are here
met together as a significant point in this particular stage of
man's progress toward his unknown destiny.

THE RELATION OF AMERICAN HISTORY TO
OTHER FIELDS OF HISTORICAL STUDY.

BY EDWARD GAYLORD BOURNE

[Edward Gaylord Bourne, Professor of History, Yale University
since 1895. b. June 24, 1860, Stryltersville, New Yorit. B.a!
Yale, 1883; Ph.D. ibid., 1892. Lecturer on Political Science and
Instructor in History, Yale University, 1886-88; Instructor in
History, Adelbert College, 1888-90; Professor of History, ibid.
1890-95; Professor of History, Yale University, 1895 . Mem-
ber of Council of American Historical Association; Member of
American Antiquarian Society; Corresponding Member of the
Massachusetts Historical Society. Author ok History of the
Surplus Revenue of 1837; Essays in Historical Criticism: Spain
in America; Historical Introduction to "The Philippine Islands" ;
Editor of Narratives of Hernando de Soto; Voyages and Explora-
tions of Champlain.]

Ladies and Gentlemen : — The subject assigned for the
second paper this morning is the Relation of American His-
tory to Other Fields of Historical Study, and the officers
of the Congress had most appropriately selected Professor
Hart of Harvard University to discuss this theme. That
he has found it impracticable to be here owing to a pressure
of other work is to be regretted for many reasons. It was,
indeed, most fitting that the institution which was the
pioneer in this country in developing systematic historical
studies as a part of its curriculum, and which is still the
leader in that work, should be represented at this gathering;
nor was it less suitable that the man to represent Harvard
and the study of American history should be the one upon
whom as an organizer of historical labors has fallen the
mantle of Justin Winsor.

In our common usage, the content of the term American
history embraces the history of the discovery of the New
World, a most cursory glance at the Spanish Conquest, the
colonization of the eastern coast by the English, the Amer-

195

196 HISTORY OF AMERICA

ican Revolution, and the political history of the United
States. Such a restriction of meaning is a natural out-
growth of circumstances in this country.

In this place, however, near the centre of the continent
first explored by the Spaniards, on the great river discov-
ered by De Soto, and not so very many hours' ride from a
point reached by Coronado from the shores of the Pacific
over three hundred and sixty years ago, so narrow a con-
struction of American history may rightly give way to one
which assigns to the Spanish American world a position
more truly in accord with its real historical significance in
the history of the race. It is the relation of American his-
tory in the broader sense, the history of the activities and
achievements of Europeans in the New World, to the
history of Europe and the history of the United States, to
which I invite your attention.

In reflecting upon this subject, my thoughts have grouped
themselves around four general inquiries : What should be
the attitude of the student of European history to American
history? what does American history contribute to the
interpretation of European history? in what ways has
America affected the development of European life? and,
lastly, what advantages may be derived in the United States
and in Europe from a more thorough investigation and a
more general study of the history of Spanish America?

In regard to the first part of my subject, the proper atti-
tude of students of European history toward American his-
tory, I wish to urge a more general recognition of American
history as an integral part of the history of the Western
European peoples ; in other words, that the history of Spain,
France, and England should embrace the history of the
Spanish, French, and English communities in the New
World as a natural and essential part of the whole and not
as a mere episode that may be neglected. In the study and

RELATIONS OF AMERICAN HISTORY 197

writing of English history this point of view lias been more
adequately realized than in the case of France and Spain.
The considerations that would he urged to prove the essen-
tial unity of the history of the English on both sides of the
sea are familiar to all students, and need not be recapitu-
lated. The case of France I shall pass by, in order to illus-
trate that of Spain and Spanish America more fully.

It is a not uncommon experience, although notable excep-
tions exist, to find in narrative histories of Spain her in-
terests in the New World treated incidentally, if at all.
rather than regarded as an integral element of profound
importance in the national life. Among recent examples of
this procedure, one will suffice for illustration. In Martin
Hume's Spain, its Greatness and Decay, in the Cambridge
Historical Series, there are in the period 1555-17S8, covered
by Major Hume's part of the work, not two pages devoted
to the Spanish possessions beyond the sea. Such a nar-
row, territorial view is devoid of any philosophical perspec-
tive, and is a veritable impoverishment of history. In the
light of general history, the Spanish conquest of America is
the greatest, the most far-reaching in its consequences, of
all the achievements in the life of the nation. It is the
single event in Spanish history that made Spain a world
power, and raised her for a time to a place beside Rome as
the mistress of a world and the source of the moral, re-
lisfious, and intellectual culture of a continent. To write
the history of Spain and to leave out the history of Spanish
America is like writing the history of Rome and confining
one's view to the Italian peninsula. The power of Spain
has lapsed and most of her former over-sea possessions arc
independent states, but whatever becomes of her relative
position in Europe, her great contribution to the world's
history is certain to rise in historical importance with the
passage of time.

198 HISTORY OF AMERICA

I am aware that these assertions will surprise some and
perhaps be dismissed by others as extravagant. I propose,
however, to elaborate them somewhat, to bring home per-
haps more effectively my point of the essential oneness of
American and Western European history.

What, in fact, did Spain attempt in the New World and
what did she accomplish? She undertook the magnificent
if impossible task of lifting a whole race numbering millions
into the sphere of European thought, life, and religion.
Beside such an enterprise the continental wars of Spain be-
come struggles of transitory interest. But I am reminded
that she failed. Such is the ready verdict that is pro-
nounced in accordance with prevalent opinion. But even if
the attempt was in some degree a failure, it was a failure
after the fashion of the failure of Alexander the Great to
establish a permanent Asiatic Empire, a failure that has left
an ineffaceable impress on succeeding ages.

Yet the conception was grand, and the effort to realize it
called forth the best that was in the men who labored either
consciously or unconsciously for its accomplishment. Like
all great events in human history it has its dark sides, and
unfortunately these dark sides, through the influence of
national jealousy and religious prejudice, have commonly
been thrust into the foreground by non-Spanish writers.

The great permanent fact remains, however, after all
qualifications, that during the colonial period the Innguage,
the religion, the culture, and the political institutions of
Castile were transplanted over an area twenty times as great
as that of the parent state. That this culture and religion
.seem to the English Protestant inferior to his own is
natural ; but while that opinion accounts for some of the
prevalent disparagement of the work of Spain in America.
its truth or falsity is not relevant to the present question.
The essential point is that, outside of the fields of art and

REXATIONS OF AMERICAN HISTORY 19!)

literature, the great contributions that Sixain made to human
progress in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were
made in America. In such contributions to the stock of
knowledge as are derived from observation in distinction
from those obtained by si>eculative thought, she far sur-
passed France and England. Immense additions to geo-
graphy, lo linguistics, to anthropology, flowed from the
activities of her explorers and scholars. Nor were the
additions to the national literature that took their rise in the
New World slight accessions to the general body of litera-
ture informed with the spirit of heroic action. The dis-
patches of Cortes, the True History of Bernal Diaz, may
fairly claim consideration beside Cesar's Commentaries.
Nor can one read the story of De Soto's march, as told by
the Gentlemen of Elvas or Rodrigo Ranjel in the pages of
Oviedo, without continually recalling the classic narrative
of the retreat of the ten thousand Greeks from Cunaxa to
the Euxine.

Enough has been said, perhaps, to raise a presumption
for regarding the history of Spanish America as an in-
tegral part of the history of Spain, but its importance for
the study of Spanish history does not end here. The work
of Spain in the New World, defective as it was and adul-
terated with selfish aims, ofifered an extraordinary field for
the display of national and individual character. The mod-
ern world can have little sympathy with the controlling
objects of Spanish policy in European politics in the second
half of the sixteenth century. Philip II in Spain seems
to be putting forth herculean efforts to stay human prog-
ress. In the Indies he shows a fairer figure. The colonial
legislation of his reign, whatever its defects, reveals a
profound and humane interest in the civilization of his
over-sea dominions. It was one thing to try to confine
Europe to the intellectual bounds of the Middle Ages and

200 HISTORY OF AMERICA

quite another to rai-se primitive America to that level. The
long arm of the king was stretched out to protect the weak
and the helpless from oppression and from error. It did
not always do it, but the honor of the effort should not be
withheld. The contrast between Philip II as ruler of the
Netherlands and the Philip II who was lord of the Indies
may be paralleled by the contrast between the Duke of
Alva and Hernando Cortes. The conqueror of Mexico
is the more universally known of the two, but the name
of no Spanish general of the sixteenth century is more
familiar in England and America than that of Alva. That
Alva should be popularly considered as a type of Spanish
character, and that he should occupy a larger place in his-
tories of the Spanish people than Cortes, will seem unfor-
tunate, and unjust in exact proportion as the varied great-
ness of Cortes's career is appreciated. How one-sided,
then, is a national history which finds no adequate recog-
nition for the nation's greatest achievements just because
the field of their accomplishment was beyond the sea!

If these considerations in regard to the history of Spain
and of Spanish America are well taken, the essential one-
ness of American and Western European history may be
granted at least the status of a fair presumption, and I
may pass to the next line of inquiry, What does Ameri-
can history contribute to the interpretation of European
history ?

The occupation of the New World by the divergent
methods of Spanish and English colonial policy repeated
processes of profound importance in the history of civiliza-
tion in regard to which we have comparatively little evi-
dence. The migration of the English to America was like
the diffusion of the Greeks to their colonies, and not a
few of the distinctive features of American life and tem-
perament that have been noted by foreign observers were

RELATIONS OF AMERICAN HISTORY 201

equally characteristic of the Greek colonial societies in
Sicily and Italy: the pride in big things; the fondness for
the florid in literature, art, and oratory; the absorption in
material interests; the self-confidence and the boastfulness.

The new conditions facing these I^nglish on the frontiers
of their settlements, in the conquest from nature of a home
for civilized man, compelled a readjustment of life to its
surroundings, a simple and elastic organization of society
in which the earlier life of Europe was lived over again.
As time went on, the frontier was pushed further out. and
in the older settlements society l)ecame more complex and
conventional, approaching the stability of the mother coun-
try. The thought is a familiar one that on the frontier we
have been able to recover the conditions of colonial history,
and in recovering these conditions breathe again its atmos-
phere. America,* then, has offered the student the singular
opportunity of observing successive periods of historical
and social development existing almost sid^ by side, so
that one could lift the veil of the past by going west. This
thought, which has been so richly developed and illustrated
by Professor Turner,^ was first fully realized, so far as I
know, by that acute Frenchman Talleyrand when sojourn-
ing in America. I shall take the liberty to quote his ob-
servations, on the chance of contributing to the history
of one of the most fertile and instructive contributions ever
made to the interpretation of American history. In his
memoir on The C ommercial Relations of the United States
zvith England, read before the Academy of Moral and
Political Sciences, March 25, 1797, he says:

"Let us look at these populous cities, full of English-
men, Germans, Irishmen, and Dutchmen, and also of the
native inhabitants; these remote hamlets, so far from one

I In his Significance of the Frontier in American History, State HiBtorlcal So-
ciety of Wiaconstn, 1894, and other papers.

202 HISTORY OF AMERICA

another; these vast untilled stretches of country, traversed
rather than hved in by men who have no settled home;
what common tie is there to bind together what is so
unhke? It is a novel sight for tlie traveler who, starting
from a leading town where the social order is matured and
settled, passes over in succession all the stages of civiliza-
tion and industry as they descend until in a very few days
he comes to the crude and shapeless cabin built of freshly
felled trees. Such a journey is a kind of practical analysis
and living demonstration of the growth of peoples and of
states. One starts from a highly complex total and reaches
the simplest elements. Day by day one after another of
those inventions which our multiplying wants ha\'e made
necessary disappears, and one seems to be traveling back-
ward in the history of the progress of the human mind."^

Other ways in which in American history the processes
of the remote past have been reproduced can be studied
in the history of Spanish America, where the conquest of
organized societies by alien invaders and the bringing in
of a new civilization help us to visualize the process by
which Africa became Roman or Syria Greek. Still again
the Spanish missions, which from California to Paraguay
pushed out among the wild Indians and prepared them for
civilized life, will help us to see more clearly the processes
by which Christianity made its way slowly into the recesses
of Germanic and Slavonic heathenism.

There is still another way in which the American colonial
communities offer instruction to the student of European
history. By their detachment from the main currents of
progress they formed, as it were, eddies in which were
preserved, still in vigorous life, much that had quite dis-

'*■ Mimoiri sur lea relations commerciales dea Etata-Unis arec V Angletcrre ;
1l6moirca de I'Institut National dea Sciencea et Arts; Sciencea Moralea et Poli-
tiques, Paris, An vii, t. n, p. 100.

RELATIONS OF AMERICAN HISTORY 203

appeared in more progressive centres, and in this respect
they may be said to serve as a kind of historical museum.

The rigorous sifting of emigration from Spain and its
prohibition from other countries, coupled with a close
censorship of the press, preserved in Spanish America
relatively undisturbed the thought, the life, and the man-
ners of Spain just as she emerged from the Middle Ages.
Nearly forty years after Luther posted his theses the name
Lutheran conveyed no meaning to the people of Mexico.
The first auto da fe in that city in 1556 aroused the great-
est curiosity, and the English merchant Tomson reported
that " there were that came one hundredth mile off, to see
the said Auto (as they call it), for that there were never
none before, that had done the like in the said country,
nor could not tell what Lutherans were, nor what it meant ;
for that they never heard of any such thing before."^ The
effects of a similar policy survive to the present day in
French Canada, wdiere one can still observe the piety of
pre-Reformation Europe.

In like manner, Puritanism dominated New England
over a century after its sway was broken in the mother
country. The English traveler who came to Boston in
1692 not only crossed the Atlantic but he went back in
time a half a century. Such a tragedy as the witchcraft
trials would have been impossible in England in 1692,
although in perfect accord with the spirit and beliefs of
the time of the Long Parliament and the Commonwealth.
In fact, the good and evil of English Puritanism are
nowhere so marked as in New England. There it was
segregated, dominant, and lived out its life.

I proposed as the third subdivision of my subject to
indicate some of the ways in which America has affected
European life by reaction. In the ample scope of the New

iHakluyt, Voyages (Goldsmid's ed.), xvi, 146.

204 HISTORY OF AMERICA

W'orld the dominant currents of national life found an
outlet for a less confined flow, and tendencies restrained
or impeded at home from free action were released. The
Spanish and French colonial estahlishments were founded
at a time when the Crown was aiming to extend and sys-
tematize its powers, and in the New World, unhampered
by traditions and usages, it became all powerful. The
tendency to absolutism at home was effectively reinforced
by the exercise of it in the dependencies. England, on the
other hand, began the continuous occupation of America
when the current was in the opposite direction and the tide
was slowly rising against the royal authority, and here again
the national drift was accelerated. The large measure of
local liberties enjoyed by the English colonies, the free mi-
gration of sects, were quite as much the result of the actual
condition of English politics at the time as of preconceived
convictions. Settled under these circumstances and left
mainly to themselves, the colonies became the field for
working out social experiments which would have been
impossible in Europe, and whose successful issue has pro-
foundly influenced all after-life.

The most signal instance of this is afforded by the history
of religioas toleration. In the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries it was a widespread and deeply rooted opinion
that religious liberty would undermine society. The social
dangers of free thought far outweighed what seem to many
to-day the economic perils of free trade. That they were
real dangers seemed to be unhappily proved by the aberra-
tions of the Reformation in Europe. If abstract reasoning
makes little headway to-day in the matter of securing free
trade, we may imagine how impotent arguments in favor
of free thought must have been. The risks of failure were
too great for the experiment to be tried. In America,
however, an opportunity was offered through the institu-

RELATIONS OF AMERICAN HISTORY 205

tion of the proprietary colonies for a thorough trial, which
demonstrated on a considerable scale the safety and ad-
vantage of a larger measure of religious liberty. For a
colonial proprietor or company to derive any profit, his
lands must be sold or rented. To get people was the first
need, and the strongest inducements must be offered. In
the seventeenth century the prospect of religious freedom
made a powerful appeal both in England and Germany.
The experiment w^as first tried by Lord Baltimore in Mary-
land, and its demonstrated success w-as followed by its
adoption by the proprietors of the Carolinas and Jerseys
for utilitarian reasons. The harmlessness and advantages
of religious toleration were effectively demonstrated in
Colonial America, principally in the proprietary colonies.
It spread from these till it became characteristic of the
United States, and from that vantage-ground so imposing
an example of its benefits, powerfully contributed to its
adoption throughout Western Europe. Who can affirm
that religious liberty with its enormous increment to ordi-
nary human happiness could have been attained even in the
twentieth century, without the lesson of die experiments
in Maryland and Rhode Island, the Carolinas, the Jerseys,
New York and Pennsylvania?

Still again, in America the theories of Locke seemed to
explain the facts of society, and became the people's poli-
tical creed. Incorporated in the Declaration of Independ-
ence and the State Bills of Rights, these principles exerted
an infinitely greater force uix)n France, and through France
upon Europe and South America, than could by any pos-
siblity have flowed directly from the Tzvo Essays on Gov-
ernment. It is needless here to expatiate upon so familiar
a topic as the rise of democracy in America and its dif-
fusion from these shores, or upon the development of
written constitutions and their spread over the world,

206 HISTORY OF AMERICA

after the most interesting contributions of Borgeaud to
those subjects.

Passing now to my concluding thought, I shall try to
point out certain advantages to be derived from a more
adequate study of the history of Spanish America.

Our colonial history in the past has too rarely emerged
from a narrow provincialism, and even now it often tends
to sink to ancestor worship. If a departure was made from
the narrow track of colonial annals, it generally consisted
in conventional comments on the Spanish cruelties and
thirst for gold and the superior wisdom and natural
capacity of the English race for colonization, with little
or no attempt at discriminating comparison between the
two types of colonial enterprise.

More broadly conceived, the study of the European
colonization of America becomes the investigation of one
of the great instances of the transmission of culture in
hum^n history, that process by which the social, intellectual,
and rtligious acquisitions of one people are transmitted
or imposed upon another, which is thereby lifted to a higher
stage of civilization. The conquests of Alexander spread
Greek culture far beyond the boundaries of Greek coloniza-
tion ; through the expansion of Rome the science of Greece,
the jurisprudence of Rome, and the Christian religion
became the common possession of the ancient world;
through the Norman conquest England was brought into
intimate political and social relations with the Continent
and shared more fully the heritage of Rome. At the time
of the Renaissance Italy was the teacher of Europe in
literature, art, politics, and manners; and the vivifying
influences flowing from that country fertilized the intel-
lectual soil of Germany. France, and England. During
the reign of Louis XIV, France, in turn, became the arbiter
of manners and set the fashion for literary and artistic

RELATIONS OF AMERICAN HISTORY 207

eflfort. Early in the eighteenth century the stream set in
from England, when the results of the Spanish Succession
War had raised her to the position of the first power in
Europe, and in France in particular keen curiosity was
aroused in English thought and literature.

The American Revolution in a measure shifted the
centre of interest across the Atlantic, and American poli-
tical ideas and methods became a powerful leaven in
France, where the French Revolution gave them a uni-
versal hearing and sent forth transforming influences in
every direction. Each one of these shifting currents of
cultural influences constitutes a rich field of study. The
analysis of its parts, the processes by which its work was
done, the relative degree of permanence of the results, all
these constitute fascinating problems for the historian.

If we approach American history from this point of
view and make it the study of the transmission of the
culture of Western Europe to a new and larger field of
development, we find ourselves engaged in the investiga-
tion of a most momentous movement in the history of
civilization, truly comparable to Alexander's Asiatic empire
and to Rome's African and Western European dominion.
For the youthful student or for the maturer investigator
such a comparative study of the Spanish, French, and
English colonization is rich in instruction. It will not only
broaden his conceptions of American history but throw a
new light on the history of Europe.

There are few fields better adapted for the comparative
study of the spirit, the capacities, and the character of these
great peoples ; nor is it easy to find one where the economic
and the human factors which shaped the course of history
can be more easily segregated and estimated. Such a study
calls first for a survey of the economic and social conditions
of the mother country, for a clear grasp of what it aimed

208 HISTORY OF AMERICA

to do, and of the physical conditions in the New World
which worked for or against those objects. Yet a word of
caution is to be uttered against beginning with the com-
parison of New Spain and Massachusetts, for almost all
the condiiions determining the character of these com-
munities were very different. Far more suitable is a com-
parison of New Spain and British India, for there you
have two imperial systems im^-^sed upon a mass of native
populations, and a certain broad similarity at the start. If
it is once realized that British India and not Massachusetts
is to be compared with the vice-royalties of New Spain
and of Peru, the emptiness of many a generalization about
the Spanish and English colonial systems is apparent. The
proper physical starting-point for such a comparative study
is the West Indies. In the West Indies the Spanish,
French, and English met on equal grounds, and the com-
parison between Cuba, Hayti, and Jamaica is sound and
instructive. It is a fruitful inquiry to examine how these
three peoples managed the problems of a plantation colony
with slave labor; nor is it less interesting to compare the
results of their respective policies since the abolition of
slavery. A comparison between the respective slave codes
of the Spanish, French, and the English colonies is some-
what disconcerting to the student of English blood, whose
knowledge of Spanish policy has been colored by some echo
of Las Casas' denunciations of the early conqidstadores.
If the comparison is extended to the criminal legislation in ,
force in Ihe colonies of these nations, one is again com-
pelled to acknowledge that whatever merits are accorded
to the English system superior humaneness is not one
of them.

After such an introductory study we may appropriately
compare some phases of Mexico with New England, always
keeping in mind, however, in the case of Mexico, the in-

RELATIONS OF AMERICAN HISTORY 209

fluence of a climate like the Rocky Mountain Plateau, t)f
the rich stores of the precious metals, and of the preserva-
tion of the native stocks.

If after this comparison we apply the same process to
the history of La Plata region and of the Mississippi Val-
ley, certain things stand out clearly which may be briefly
noted. The stupendous economic development of these
vast agricultural regions has been possible only since the
application of steam to industry and transportation. This
great factor which has revolutionized the relative advan-
tages of Argentina and Peru, and enabled Buenos Ayres
to become the greatest city in the Spanish American world,
has in the same way enormously increased the disparities
between Mexico and the United States. A comparison of
these two communities before the entrance of this factor
shows that in more than one respect New Spain was in
advance of New England. This is true in regard to the
prosecution of higher scientific studies, the establishment
of the institutions of charity, libraries, art, and architec-
ture: in a word, in those features characteristic of the life
of a wealthy community.

I have referred to the Spanish treatment of inferior or
dependent races, and intimated that it compares favorably
as a whole with the contemporary treatment accorded to
such dependents by the English colonists. The belief, of
course, is widely prevalent that the story of Spanish Indian
policy was merely the tragedy of devastation ; but that view
is profoundly mistaken. Its origin is found in the curious
fact that national jealousies of Spain three centuries and
more ago gave an enormous circulation in the various
languages of Western Europe to the impassioned appeals
of Las Casas for the protection of the natives. To depict
the Indian policy of Spain from the pages of Las Casas
would be like drawing the history of Southern slavery from

210 HISTORY OF AMERICA

the columns of the Liberator and multiplying the instances
by ten. The Indians owed much to Las Casas and history
owes him much, but he apparently felt that boundless ex-
aggeration in a righteous cause could do no harm and
might do good. If we take the confidential report of Juan
and Ulloa to the King of Spain in the eighteenth century
as to conditions in Peru,^ we find that, dark as they were,
they were almost bright as compared with what appear to
be to-day the conditions in the Congo State.

It is no doubt hazardous in an historical paper to touch
upon so delicate a subject as the race question, but I will
venture a tew words upon its broader aspects.

The race question involves not only the relations between
the whites and the colored in our Southern states ; it con-
fronts us in the Philippines and Porto Rico. In other
aspects it is and will be one of the perennial and absorbing
problems in the development of Africa. For the considera-
tion, not to say settlement, of a question so complicated
and so involved in prejudice and passion and wrong, no
light or teaching that history afifords should be neglected.
These questions were first faced by the Spaniards of all
modern Europeans, and in the four hundred years' history
of Spanish America there is a wealth of human experience
in the contact of races that may be drawn upon for warning
or instruction or possibly for reassurance.

If history has lessons for the present, the history of
Spanish America assuredly deserves an immensely more
careful study than it has yet received. If the study of that
history is prosecuted with scientific detachment, penetrating
discrimination, and generous liberality of mind, — that free-
dom from the distorting influences of race pride and re-
ligious prepossession, — it will enrich the history of Spain

1 Noticias Secretaa de America, etc. Sacadas fi, luz por Don David Barry.
London. 1826.

RELATIONS OF AMERICAN HISTORY 211

and broaden the study of our own colonial history, and
contribute to the intelligent appreciation of the race prob-
lems of the twentieth century.

In this brief essay upon a subject so comprehensive as
the relation of American history to other fields of historical
study, I have found it hardly practicable to do more than
to remind the student of European civilization that his
territory extends across the Atlantic, and is not bounded
by it, and that the forces and tendencies, the people and the
institutions with whose development he is occuiped, have
a life over-seas, distinct but not detached from the life in
the Old World, and one with whose powerful reactions
on the parent civilization he must reckon; and,, lastly, I
have ventured to advocate a broader treatment of the
history of European colonization in the New World, which
will accord to the work of Spain a more appreciative recog-
nition, and which may not be without interest and value to
us, now that we have undertaken to shape the history of
millions of people whose earlier acquisitions of European
culture came through Spain, or to those European nations
which have the problem of Africa on their hands.

SACAJAWEA aUIDINO TEE LEWIS AND CLARE EXPEDITION

The Lewis and Clark Expedition was appointed, during Jefferson's first admin-
istration, to explore the Missouri river and seek water communication with the
Pacific coast. The success of thin expedition was largely due to the services of
Sacajawea, the Shoshone Indian slave wife of a French pioneer who was engaged to
guide the partv from Mandan through the Rocky Mountains. This remarkable
woman endured all the hardships and shared with tlie men all the perils and priva-
tions of the expedition, carrying an infant at her back meantime, yet never a com-
plaint escaped her lips, and her spirits were ever the lightest. From the head-waters
of the Missouri she pointed the way to a pass through the Rocky Mountains, and
guided the party through it.

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY'

ANCIENT HISTORY

GENERAL.
DUNCKER, M., Geschichte des Alterthuma.
Lenormant, F., Histoire Ancienne de I'Orient.
Mahaffy, J. P., Prolegomena to Ancient History.
Maspeeo, G. C. C, Histoire Ancienne des Peuples de I'Orient.

Dawn of Civilization.

Struggle of the Nations.

Passing of the Empires.
Meyer, E., Geschichte des Alterthums.
Rawlinson, G., Five Great Monarchies.

Sixth Great Oriental Monarchy, Parthia.
Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy, New Persian Empire.
ScHRADEE, 0., Sprachvergleichung und Urgeschichte.
Seignobos, C., Les Anciens Peuples de I'Orient.
Welzhofer, H., Allgemeine Geschichte des Altertums.

BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA.
Hommel, F., Geschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens.
Oppert, J., Histoire des Empires de Chald6e et d'Assyrie.
TiELE, C. P., Babylonisch-Assyrische Geschichte.

ARABIA

Flugel, G., Geschichte der Araber.

Keemer, a., Culturgeschichte des Orients unter den Chalifen.

MuiB, Sir W., Annals of the Early Caliphate.

Life of Mahomet.

Rise and Decline of Islam.
Sedillot, L. p. E. a., Histoire G6n6rale des Arabes.

CHINA AND JAPAN
Adams, F. O., History of Japan.
Bastian, a.. Die Volker des Ostlichen Asien.
BouLGER, D. C, History of China.
Griffis, W. E.. The Mikado's Empire.
Kauffeb, J. E. R., Geschichte von Ost-Asien.

1 For universal histories, see under Modern History.

213

214 DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

Koch, W., Japan: Geschichte nach Japanischen Quellen.

Metchnikoff, L., L'Empire Japonais.

Rathgen, K., Japans Volkswirtschaft und Staatshaushalt.

Rein, J., Japan nach Reisen und Studien.

Williams, S. W., The Middle Kingdom.

EGYPT.
Bbugsch, H., Geschichte Aegyptens unter den Pharaonen.
Budge, E. A. W., History of Egypt.
Mahaffy, J. P.. Empire of the Ptolemies.
Petrie, W. M. F., History of Egypt.
Wiedemann, A., Aegyptische Geschichte.

GREECE
Abbott, E., History of Greece.
Beloch, J., Griechische Geschichte.
BuEY, J. B., History of Greece to death of Alexander.
BusoLT, G., Griechische Geschichte.
CuBTius, E., Griechische Geschichte.
Dboysen, J. G., Geschichte des Hellenismus.
DuBUY, v., L'Histoire des Grecs.
Freeman, E. A., History of Federal Government.
Fustel de Coulanges, La Cite Antique.
Gregorovius, F., Geschichte der Stadt Athen.
Grote, G., History of Greece.
Holm, A., Griechische Geschichte.
Lloyd, W. W., Age of Pericles.
Mahaffy, J. P., Greek World under Roman Sway.

Problems in Greek History.

Progress of Hellenism in Alexander's Empire.

Survey of Greek Civilization.
Mttller, L von, Handbouch der Klassischen Altertumswissenschaft.
Niese, N., Geschichte der Griechischen und Makedonischen Staaten.
ScHOMANN, G. F., Die Verfassungsgeschichte Athen's.
TsouNTAS, C, and Manatt, J. L, The Mycenaean Age.

INDIA
Elliot, Sib H. M., History of India.

Hunter, Sir W. W., Indian Empire: its Peoples, History, and Pro-
ducts.
Lefmann, S., Geschichte des Alten Indians.
Mill, J., History of British India.
Wheeleb, J. T., History of India.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 215

JEWS

EwAiD, H., Geschichte des Volkes Israel,
Gratz, H., Geschichte der Juden.
KiTTEL, R., Geschichte der Hebraer.
Reinach, T., Histoire des Israelites.
Renan, E., Histoire du Peuple d'Israel.

MONGOLS, PERSIA, AND PHOENICIA

HowOBTH, H. H., History of the Mongols.
GoBirEAU, J. A. de, Histoire des Perses.
JusTi, F., Geschichte des Alten Persiens.
PiETSCHMANN, R., Geschichtc der Phonizler.
Rawlinson, G., History of Phoenicia.

ROME.

Abnold, W. T., Roman System of Provincial Administration.

BUBY, J. B., History of the Later Roman Empire.

DuEUY, v., Histoire des Remains.

Freeman, E. A., History of Sicily.

Friedlander, L., Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschlchte Roms.

Gibbon, E., History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

HoDGKiN, T., Italy and her Invaders.

Ihne, W., Romische Geschichte.

KuHN, E., Der Stadtische und Biirgerliche Verfassung des Rom-

ischen Reichs.
Long, G., Decline of the Roman Republic.

Madvig, J. N., Verfassung und Verwaltung des Romischen Staatea.
Marquardt, K. J., and Mommsen, T., Handbuch der Romischen Alter-

thiimer.
Meeivale, C., History of the Romans under the Empire.
Mommsen, T., Romische Geschichte.

Provinces of the Roman Empire.
Romische Forschungen.
NiEBUHE, B. G., Romische Geschichte.
Schillee, H., Geschichte der Romische Kaiserzeit.
Schweglee, a., Romische Geschichte.
Thiebey, a., Tableau de I'Empire Romain.
WiLLEMS, P., Le Droit Public Romain.

Le S6nat de la R6publique Romaine.

216 DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

MEDIEVAL HISTORYi

Adams, G. B.. Civilization during the Middle Ages.

AssMANN, W., Geschichte des Mittelalters.

Bbyce, J., Holy Roman Empire.

BrRCKHAKDT, J., Die Zeit Constantins des Grossen.

Dahn, F., Urgeschichte der Germanischen und Romanischen V81ker.

DEL.VBC, 0.. Saint Gr6goire VII et la R6forme de I'Egllse au Xle

si§cle.
DuEUT, v., Histolre du Moyen Age.
Emerton, E., Mediaeval Europe, 814-1300.
FiSHEB, H. A. L., The Medieval Empire.
Freeman, E. A., Historical Geography of Europe.
Geffcken, F. H., Staat und Kirche.
Gfeoreb, a. F., Pabst Gregorius VII und sein Zeitalter.
Gbegoeovius, F., Geschichte der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter.
GuizoT, F. P. G., Histoire des Origines du Gouvernement repr6sen-

tatif en Europe.
Hallam, H., View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages.
HiMLY, A., Histoire de la Formation Territoriale des Etats de

I'Europe Centrale.
Kingslet, C., The Roman and the Teuton.
KuGLEB, B., Geschichte der Kreuzziige.
MicHAUD, J. F., Histoire des Croisades.
Milman, H. H., History of Latin Christianity.
MoNTALEMBERT, C, Les Moines d'Occident.
NiEHUEs. B., Geschichte des Verhaltnisses Zwlschen Kaiserthum und

Papstthum im Mittelalter.
Paixman, R., Geschichte der Volkerwanderung.
Pflugk-Harttukg, J. v., Geschichte des Mittelalters.
Prutz, H., Kulturgeschichte der Kreuzziige.

Savigxy, F. C, Geschichte des Romischen Rechts im Mittelalter.
ScHULTZE, v., Geschichte des Untergangs des Griechisch-Romischen

Heidentums.
Secri^tan, E., Essai sur la F6odalit6.
Stubbs, W., Study of Mediaeval and Modern History.
Sybel, H. von, History and Literature of the Crusades.
WiETERSHEiM, E., VON, Geschichte der Volkerwanderung.
Zeixeb, J., Entretiens sur I'Histoire du Moyen Age.

J For history of individual r.ountriet, see under Modern History of Eu/rope.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 217

MODERN HISTORY

(including some universal histories of which individual volumes

ARE given under SPECIAL COUNTRIES)

Alison, Sir A., History of EXirope, from 1789 to 1815.

History of Europe from 1815 to 1852.
Andrews, C. M., Historical Development of Modern Europa
Annual Register.

BuLLE, C, Geschichte der Neuesten Zeit.
Cambridge Modern History.
Creighton, M., History of the Papacy.
Dyer, T. H.. History of Modern Europe.
Fisher, G. P., The Reformation.
Flaxhe, T., and others. Allgemeine Weltgeschichte.
Fyffe, C. a.. History of Modern Europe.
Gervinus, G. G., Geschichte des 19ten Jahrhunderts.
GiNDELEY, A., Geschichte des Dreissigjahrigen Kreiges.
Hausser, L., Geschichte des Zeitalters der Reformation, 1517-1648.
Heeren, a. H. L., and others. Geschichte der Europaischen Staaten.
Helmot, H. F., ed., Weltgeschichte.
Lavisse, E., and Rambaud, A. N., Histoire GSnerale du IVe Si^cle k

nos Jours.
Lowell, A. L., Governments and Parties in Continental Europe.
May, Sir T. E., Democracy in Europe.
MtJLLER, W.. ed., Politische Geschichte der Gegenwart.

Politische Geschichte der Neuesten Zeit.
NooRDEN, C. voN, Europaische Geschichte im Achtzehnten Jahrhun-

dert.
Oncken, W., ed., Allgemeine Geschichte in Einzeldarstellungen.
Pastor, L., Geschichte der Papste.
Ranke, L. von, SS,mmtliche Werke.

Weltgeschichte.
Raumeb, F. von, Briefs aus Paris zur Erlauterung der Geschichte
des 16ten und 17ten Jahrhunderts.
Geschichte Europas seit dcm Ende des ISten Jahrhunderts.
ScHLOssER, F. C, Geschichte des ISten Jahrhunderts und des 19ten

bis zum Sturz des Franzosischen Kaiserreichs.
ScHULTHESs, H., ed., Europaischer Geschichtskalender.
Seignobos, C, Histoire Politique de I'Europe Contemporalne.
Staatengeschichte der Neuesten Zeit.
Stern, A., Geschichte Europas, 1815-1871.
Weber, G.. Allgemeine Weltgeschichte.
Williams, H. S.. ed.. Historian's History of the World,

218 DEPARTMENT OE HISTORY

ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND
Ashley, W. J.. Introduction to English Economic History and

Theory.
Brewer, J. S., Reign of Henry VIIL
Brown, P. H., History of Scotland.
Burton, J. H., History of Scotland.

History of the Reign of Queen Anne.
Freeman, E. A., History of the Norman Conquest.

Reign of William Rufus.
Gairdner, J., History of the Life and Reign of Richard the Third.
Gardiner, S. R.. History of England, 1603-1642.

History of the Great Civil War, 1642-1649.
History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate, 1649-1656.
Gneist, R., Englische Verfassungsgeschichte.

Geschichte und Heutige Gestalt der Englischen Kommunal-
verfassung oder des Selfgovernment.
Green, J. R., Conquest of England.
Making of England.
History of the English People.
Hallam, H., Constitutional History of England.
Hume, D., History of England.
James, W., Naval History of Great Britain.
Kemble, J. M., Saxons in England.
Lang, A., History of Scotland.

Lappenbeeg, J. M., Pauli, R.. and Beosch, M.. Geschichte von Eng-
land.
Lecky, W. E. H., History of England in the Eighteenth Century.
Lingard, J., History of England.
Longman, W., Life and Times of Edward IIL
Macaulay, T. B., History of England.
McCarthy, J., History of Our Own Times.
MACKINNON, J., History of Edward the Third.
May, Sir, T. E., Constitutional History of England.
MoLESwoRTH, W. N., History of England, 1830-1874.
NoRGATE, K., England under the Angevin Kings.

John Lackland.
Paul, H. W., History of Modern England.
Pearson, C. H., History of England during the Early and Middle

Ages.
Ramsay, Sib, J. H., The Foundations of England.
Angevin Empire.
Lancaster and York.
ScoTT, Sib S. D., The British Army.
Seebohm, F., English Village Community.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 219

Skene, W. F., Celtic Scotland.

Stanhope, P. H., History of England comprising the Reign of Queen
Anne until the Peace of Utrecht.
History of England from Peace of Utrecht to Peace of
Versailles.
Stubbs, W.. Constitutional History of England.
Todd, A., Parliamentary Government in England.
Tbaill, H. D., and Mann, J. S.. Social England.
ViNOGRADOFF, P., Villainage in England.
Walpole, Sir S., History of England from the Conclusion of the

Great War in 1815.
Wylle, J. H., History of England under Henry IV.

FRANCE.
Adams, C. K., Democracy and Monarchy in France.
Baird, H. M., Rise of the Huguenots of France.
Huguenots and Henry of Navarre.
Huguenots and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
Barante, a. G. p. de. Histoire des Dues de Bourgogne.
Blanc, L., Histoire de la Revolution Frangaise.
BoDLEY, J. E. C, France.

BoNNELL, H. E., Die Anfange des Karolingischen Hauses.
BoRDiER, H. L., and Charton, E., Histoire de France.
Carlyle, T., The French Revolution.
CouBEBTiN, P. DE, L'Evolution Frangaise sous la Troisieme R6pub-

lique.
Crowe, E. E., History of France.
Dareste de la Chavanne, C, Histoire de France.
Delord, T., Histoire Hlustree du Second Empire.
Duvergier de Hauranne, p., Histoire du Gouvernement Parlemen-

taire en France. 1814-1848.
Flach, J., Les Origines de I'Ancienne France.
Fustel de Coulanges, Histoire des Institutions Politiques de

I'Ancienne France.
Glasson, E., Histoire du Droit et des Institutions de la France.
GuizoT, F. P. G., Histoire de France.
Hanotaux, G., Histoire de la France Contemporaine.
HiLLEBRAND, K., Geschichte Frankreichs, 1830-1871.
JoBEz, A., La France sous Louis XV.

Kirk, J. F.. History of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy.
KiTCHiN, G. W., History of France.
Lamartine, a. DE, Histoire de la Restauration.
Lanfrey, p.. Histoire de Napoleon ler.
Lavisse, E., Histoire de France.

220 DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

LOEBELL, J. W., Gregor von Tours und seine Zeit.

LucHAiRE, A., Histoire des Institutions Monarcliiques de la France

sous les Premiers Capetiens.
Mahan, a. T., Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution

and Empire, 1793-1812.
Mabtin, H., Histoire de France.
MiCHEUET, J., Histoire de France.

Histoire de la Revolution Frangaise.
Palgrave, Sir F., History of Normandy and of England.
Pebkins, J. B., France under Mazarin, 1610-1660.
France under the Regency, 1661-1723.
France under Louis XV, 1723-1774.
PicoT, G., Histoire des Etats-Generaux.
PoiBSON, A., Histoire du R6gne de Henri IV.
Rambaud, a., Histoire de la Civilisation Frangaise.

Histoire de la Civilisation Contemporaine en France.
RiCHTER, G., Annalen des Frankischen Reichs.
SiMOXDE DE SiSMO'Di, J. C. L., Histoire des Frangais.
Sloane, W. M.. Life of Napoleon Bonaparte.
SoBEL, A., L'Europe et la Revolution Frangaise.
Stephens, H. M., History of the French Revolution.
Sybel, H. von, Geschichte der Revolutionzeit, 1789-1800.
Taine, H. a., Les Origines de la France Contemporaine.
Thierry, Am^d^e, Histoire des Gaulois.
Thierry, Augitstin, Essai sur I'Histoire de la Formation et des

Progrfes du Tiers Etat.
Thiers. A., Histoire de la Revolution Frangaise.

Histoire du Consulat et de I'Empire.
Thubeau-Dangin, p., Histoire de la Monarchie de Juillet.
Viel-Castel, L. de, Histoire de la Restauration.
Viollet, p., Histoire des Institutions Politique et Admlnistratives

de la France.
Wallon, H. a., St. Louis et son Temps.

GERMANY AND AUSTRIA
ARM.STR0NG, E., Empcror Charles V.
Arnold, W., Deutsche Geschichte.
Baumgarten, H., Geschichte Karls V.
Cablyle, T., History of Friedrich II of Prussia.
CosEL, E., VON, Geschichte des Preussischen Staates und Volkes unter

den Hohenzollern'schen Fiirsten.
CoxE, W., History of the House of Austria.
Dahn, F., Die Konige der Germanen.
Deoteen, J. G., Geschichte der Preussischen Politik.

(

BIBLIOGRAPHY 221

Ebebty, F., Geschichte des Preussischen Staats.

Gebhardt, B., Handbuch der Deutschen Geschichte.

Gerdes, H.. Geschichte des Deutschen Volkes und seiiwM- Kultur Im

Mittelalter.
GiESEBRECHT, W., Geschichte der Deutschen Kaizeizeil.
Hausser, L., Deutsche Geschichte vom Tode Friedrichs des Grossen

bis zur Griindung des Deutschen Bundes.
Hegel, K., Stadte und Gilden der Germanlschen Volker.
Henderson, E. F., History of Germany in the Middle Ages.

Short History of Germany.
Henne-am-Rhyn, 0., Kulturgeschichte des Deutschen Volkes.

jAHRBtJCHER DES DEUTSCHEN ReICHES.

Janseen, J., Geschichte des Deutschen Volkes seit dem Ausgang dea

Mittelalters.
Kaufmann, G., Deutsche Geschichte bis auf Karl den Grossen.
Kbones von Marchland, F. X., Handbuch der Geschichte Oster-

reichs.
Lampbecht, K... Deutsche Geschichte.
Leger, L., Histoire de I'Autriche-Hongrie.
Lindner, T., Geschichte des Deutschen Reiches, vom Ende des 14ten

Jahrhunderts bis zur Reformation.
LoHER, F., Kulturgeschichte der Deutschen im Mittelalter.
Mailath, J., Geschichte des Ostreichischen Kaiserstaats.
Maurer, G. L. von, Geschichte des Markenverfassung in Deutsch-
land.
Geschichte der Dorfverfassung in Deutschland.
Geschichte der Stadteverfassung in Deutschland.
Menzel, W., Geschichte der I>eutschen bis auf die Neuesten Tage.
NiTzscH, K. W., Geschichte des Deutschen Volkes.
Ozanam, a. F., Les Germains avant le Christianisme.
Raumer, F. von, Geschichte der Hohenstaufen und ihrer Zeit,
RoBEETSON, W., History of Charles V.
Sayous, E., Histoire Generale des Hongrois.
ScHAEFER, A., Geschichte des Siebenjahrigen Kreigs.
Seeley, J. R.. Life and Times of Stein.
SoHM, R., Die Altdeutsche Reichs und Gerichtsverfassung.
Spbingeb, a., Geschichte Osterreichs seit dem Wiener Frieden, 1809.
Stibling-Maxwell, Sib W., Don John of Austria.
Stobbe, O., Geschichte der Deutschen Rechtsquellen.
Sugenheim, S., Geschichte des Deutschen Volkes und seiner Kultur.
Sybel, H. von. Die Begriindung des Deutschen Reiches.
Treitschke, H. von, Deutsche Geschichte im 19ten Jahrhundert
TuTTLE, H.. History of Prussia.
Waitz, G., Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte.

222 DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

Zeixeb, J., Histoire d'Allemagne.
ZoPFL, H., Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte.

ITALY
BoTTA, C. G. G., Storia d'ltalia.

BuRCKHABDT, J., Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italien.
CANTtr C, Storia degli Italiana.

Dabu, p. a. N. B., Historie de la Republique de Venise.
Faraglia, N. F., II Comune nell' Italia Meridionale, 1100-180e.
Galluzzi. J. R., Istoria del Granducato di Toscana.
Hazlitt, W. C, History of the Venetian Republic.
HoDGKiN, T., Italy and her Invaders.
Leo, H., Geschichte der Italienischen Staaten.
Mabtinengo-Cesaresco, E., Storia della Liberazione d'ltalia, 1815-

1870.
Perrexs. F. T., Histoire de Florence.
Reuchlin, H., Geschichte Italiens von der Griindung der Regier-

enden Dynastien bis zur Gegenwart.
Reumont, a. vox, Geschichte Toscana's seit dem Ende des Floren-
tinischen Freistaats, 1530-1859.
Lorenzo de' Medici, il Magnifico.
Simonde de Sismoxdi, J. C. L., Histoire des Republiques Italiennes

du Moyen Age.
Symonds, J. A., Renaissance in Italy.

Tbollope, T. a.. History of the Commonwealth of Florence.
ViLLARi, P., I primi due Secoli della Storia di Firenze.

La Storia di Girolamo Savonarala e de* suoi Tempi.
Niccol6 Machiavelli e i suoi Tempi.
ed., Storia Generale d' Italia.

NETHERLANDS AND BELGIUM.
Blok, P. J., Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Volk.
Bosch-Kemper, J. DE, Geschiedenis van Nederland na 1830.
Geddes, J., History of the Administration of John De Witt.
Juste, T., Histoire de Belgique.

Histoire du Congrfis National de Belgique.
La R6volution Beige.
LEFfe\'BE-PoNTALis, A., Vingt Ann^Bs de RSpublique Parlementaira au

17e Si6cle; Jean de Witt.
Motlet, J. L., Rise of the Dutch Republic.
History of the United Netherlands.
Life and Death of John of Barneveld.
NuiJENS, W. J. F., Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Volk van
1815 tot op onze Dagen.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 223

Putnam, R.,> William the Silent, Prince of Orange.
Wenzelbubqeb, K. T., Geschichte der Nlederlande.

RUSSIA
Bebnhabdi, T. von, Geschichte Russlands und der Europalschen

Politik. 1814-1831.
Kabamzin, N., Histoire de I'Empire de Russie.
Leroy-Bealieu, a., L'Empire des Tsars.
Rambaud, a., Histoire de la Russie.

ScHNiTZLEB, J. H., L'Empire des Tsars au Point Actuel d.^ la Selene.
Schuyleb, E., Peter the Great.

Stbahl, p., and Herrmann, E., Geschichte des Russischen Staates.
Wallace, D. M.. Russia.

SCANDINAVIA
Allen, C. F., Haandbog i Fsedrelandets Historie.
Dahlmann, F. C, Geschichte von Dannemark.
Geijeb, E. G., and Carlson, F. F., Geschichte Schwedens.
Maureb, K., Island von seiner ersten Entdeckung bis zum Unter-
gange des Freistaats.

SPAIN
Baumgabten, H., Geschichte Spaniens vom Ausbruch der Franzo-

sischen Revolution bis auf unsere Tage.
Canovas del Castillo, A., Historia General de Espana.
CoppfiE, H., History of the Conquest of Spain by the Arab Moors.
Dozy, R. P. A., Histoire des Musulmans d'Espagne, 711-1110.
Dunham, S. A., History of Spain and Portugal.
FoENEBON, H., Histoire de Philippe II.
Hubbabd, G., Histoire Contemporaine de I'Espagne.
Lembke, F. W., and others, Geschichte von Spanien.
Lafuente, M., Historia General de Espana.
Napieb, Sib W. F. P., History of the War in the Peninsula.
Pirala, a., Historia Contemporanea.
Pbescott, W. H., History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella.

History of the Reign of Phillip the Second.
Romey, C, Histoire d'Espagne.

SWITZERLAND
Daguet, A., Histoire de la Confederation Suisse.
Dandlikeb, K., Geschichte der Schweiz.
DiEBAUEB. J., Geschichte, der Schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft

224 DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

Henne-am-Rhyn, 0., Geschichte des Schweizervolkes und seiner

Kultur.
MoKix. A.. Pr6cis de I'Histoire Politique de la Suisse.
MtJLLEB, J. VON, and others, Histoire de la Confederation Suisse.
VuLLiEMiN. L., Histoire de la Confederation Suisse.

TURKEY AND GREECE
Engelhabdt, E., La Turquie et le Tanzimat.
FiNLAY, G., History of Greece.

Hammer-Purgstall, J. VON, Gescliichte des Osmanischen Reiches.
Heetzbebg, G. F., Geschichte Griechenlands.
Mendelssohn-Babtholdy, K., Geschichte Griechenlands von 1453 biB

auf unsere Tage.
Prokesch-Ostex, a., Geschichte des Abfalls der Griechen.

TBIKOUPES, S., 'ItrropCa r^s 'EAA7)>'i)cJ)s 'ETravacTTao'ea)?,

Xenopolu, a. D., Istoria Rominilor din Dacia Traiana.

Zinkeisen, J. W., Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches in Europa.

HISTORY OF AMERICA

Adams, H., History of the United States of America.

Aveby, E. M., History of the United States and its People.

Banceoft, G., History of the United States.

Bancroft, H. H., History of the Pacific States.

Battles and Leadebs of the CrviL War.

Benton, T. H., Thirty Years' View.

Blaine, J. G., Twenty Years of Congress.

Bolles, a. S., Financial History of the United States.

Bbuce, p. a.. Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth

Century.
Bryant, W. C, and others, Scribner's Popular History of the

United States.
Beyce, James, The American Commonwealth.
CuBTis, G. T., Constitutional History of the United States.
Davis, Jefferson, Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government.
DoNiOL, H., Histoire de la Participation de la France a, I'Etablisse-

ment des Etats-Unis d'Amerique.
Doyle, J. A., English Colonies in America.
FisKE, J., Discovery of America.

Old Virginia and her Neighbours.

Beginnings of New England.

Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America.

New France and New England.

American Revolution.

Critical Period of American History.
Hamilton, J. C, History of the Republic of the United States.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 5i86

Habt, a. B.. ed., The American Nation.

Helps, Sik A., Spanish Conquest in America.

HiLDEETH, R., History of the United States of America.

HoLSi, H. E. VON, Constitutional and Political History of th» UnlUd

States.
Lecky, W. E. H., American Revolution.
Maclay, E. S., History of the United States Navy.
McMastek, J. B., History of the People of the United States.
MoiBEAU, A., Histoire des Etats-Unis de I'Amfirique du Nord.
Palfrey, J. G., History of New England.
Pakis, Comte de, Histoire de la Guerre Civile en Am6rique.
Rhodes, J. F.. History of the United States from the Compromls*

of 1850.
Roosevelt, T., Winning of the West.
Ropes, J. C, Story of the Civil War.
Schculeb, J., History of the United States of America.
Trevelyan, G. O., American Revolution.

Weeden, W. B., Economic and Social History of New England.
Wilson, H., History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power In

America.
WiNSOB, J., Cartier to Frontenac, 1534-1700.
The Mississippi Basin, 1697-1763.
The Westward Movement, 1763-1798.
ed., Narrative and Critical History of America.

CANADA
Chbistie, R., History of the Late Province of Lower Canada.
Faillon, M. E., Histoire de la Colonie Frangalse en Canada.
Gabneau, F. X., Histoire du Canada.
EliNGsroRD, W., History of Canada.
Parkman, F., Works.

SuLTE, B., Histoire des Canadiens-Frangais.
TtJBCOTTE, L. P., Le Canada sous I'Union, 1841-1867.-

MEXICO AND SOUTH AMERICA
Akkangoiz, F. de, M6jico desde 1808 hasta 1867.
Barbos Arana, D., Historia Jeneral de Chile.
Domenech, E., Histoire du Mexique.
Gay, C, Historia Fisica y Politica de Chile.

Mitre, B., Historia de Belgrano y de la Independencia Argentina.
Prescott, W. H., History of the Conquest of Mexico.

History of the Conquest of Peru.
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Zamacois, N. de, Historia de M6jico.

THE FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS AND

METHODS OF THE HISTORY

OF LANGUAGE

BY THOMAS RAYNESKORD LOUNSBURY

[Thomas Raynesford Lox'xsbiuy. Professor of English, Yale Uni-
versity, b. January 1, 1838, Ovid, New York. A.B. Yale Col-
lege, 1859; LL.D. ibid. 1892; ibid. Harvard College, 1893; L.H.D.
Lafayette, 1895; ibid. Princeton, 1896. Instructor in English.
Sheffield Scientific School, Yale University, 1870-71. Edited
complete edition of Charles Dudley Warner's Works, with bio-
graphical sketch. Author of Life of James Feniviore Coop>r:
Studies in Chaucer; History of the English Lanyxuiye: ahakis-
peare as a Dramatic Artist; Shakespeare and Voltaire; Standard
of Pronunciation in English.]

It is only within comparatively recent times that the prin-
ciples which underlie the development of language have been
clearly understood. By those who went before us speech
was usually regarded, not as an emanation from us, not as
an expression of us, but as something outside of us, a sort
of mechanism with which we had to do; which was some-
times good, sometimes bad, but having largely an independ-
ent life of its own. Hence it could improve or degenerate
without much regard to the character or attainments of those
who spoke it. All that it behooved these to do was to im-
prove it, and so far as that could be done, perfect it. When
that happy result was reached care was to be taken that no
further changes were to be made in it ; but preserved as
much as possible unimpaired, be transmitted to posterity,
and so continue the length of years it was permitted to live.

For along with this belief existed another. Every lan-
guage, it was supposed, went through the same sort of ex-
perience as the individuals to whom it was a possession.
It had its period of birth, of growth, and of maturity. Then
followed the inevitable decay. This could be retarded, but

227

228 HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

't could not be averted. The generally accepted view was
expressed by Dr. Johnson in the preface to his dictionary.
"Life," he said, "may be lengthened by care, though death
cannot be ultimately defeated : tongues, like govern;iients,
have a natural tendency to degeneration ; we have long pre-
served our constitution : let us make some struggles for our
language."

Undoubtedly traces of this belief still linger among us:
but in general it meets no longer with acceptance. We have
come to feel, even when we have not come to know, that
language has no independent life outside of the life of those
who speak it. Their spirit it expresses, their hopes and as-
pirations it embodies; and as a consequence it is operated
upon by the same influences which affect their action in
other ways. It shall be my aim in the present address to
point out how it is so thoroughly the reflex of man's nature
that even the very agencies which affect the character of its
vocabulary and the development of its grammatical struc-
ture are essentially like those which determine his conduct
and career in other respects. My illustration will naturally
be drawn from the speech with which I am most familiar;
but parallel illustrations will occur to any one to whom the
possession of any cultivated tongue belongs b" right of
birth.

Language is constantly acted upon by numerous in-
fluences, all of which are diverse and some of which are not
only different but actually hostile. Speech is really a com-
promise between opposing tendencies in the minds of its
users. The peculiar character it exhibits in any given case
is a result that has been brought about by these various
agencies. The time is too short to treat the subject with
exhaustive detail. Here it may be sufficient to give a gen-
eral idea of its nature by setting forth two or three of these
conflicting agencies which are always operating upon the

CONCEPTIONS AND METHODS 229

users of speech, whether educated or ilHterate, and affect un-
consciously their methods of utterance. Then we shall be
in a position tO' consider with more advantage the broad dis-
tinctions which prevail between the development of culti-
vated and uncultivated tongues.

The first, to which I call attention, of these contradictory
tendencies that are always manifesting themselves in speech,
is the disposition to practice economy of utterance and the
antagonistic disposition to indulge in prodigality of utter-
ance. By the former I am not referring to orthoepy, where
its effects have been most frequently noted, tending as they
do to induce the speaker to spend as little time as possible in
the pronunciation of words, and as a result of this economy
of effort, modifying their form. It is the material itself
of language, the words as they are weaved into the sentence,
that comes here under consideration. The one aim that the
user of speech has constantly in mind is to express himself
as briefly as possible consistent with easy and full compre-
hension. This is a feeling which affects all men in every
conceivable stage of intellectual development. Grammatic-
ally speaking, we are all endeavoring to convey our mean-
ing in any given sentence with the fullest economy of utter-
ance. Mark me, I say grammatically speaking, not rhetori-
cally. The latter is a personal influence acting upon in-
dividuals and not upon the body of speakers as a whole.

This practically universal disposition towards economy of
utterance has been one— though doubtless not the principal
one — of the agencies which have contributed to the develop-
ment and diffusion of the sign language. In a rudimentary
form this prevails everywhere. We see it exemplified daily
in numerous gestures in which the movement of some part
of the body indicates to the eye what the lips neglect to put
into words. But what concerns us here specifically is the
effect of this disposition upon the structure of the sentence.

230 HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

No small number of the rules laid down in our grammars
are for the purpose of meeting the requirements of the situ-
ation produced by the desire of the users of speech to ex-
press what they have to say with the least expenditure of
effort. Take as one illustration out of many the grammati-
cal construction called ap[X)sition. It is called into being
for no other purpose than to explain a practice of omitting'
words for the sake of economy of utterance, which has es-
tablished itself so generally that it has come to seem normal.
Hence we never take into account the fact that it denotes
nothing more than the abridgement of a complete dependent
phrase. This is but a single fact out of the multitude of
facts of this sort which the student of the grammar of every
tongue meets on every side. In going through the process
we call parsing we are constantly under the necessity of
declaring some word to be understood. Its presence is not
required for comprehension ; but grammar requires it for
the explanation of the construction. Language abounds
in these short cuts to expression. Every tongue has pecu-
liarities of its own in this respect which other tongues, at
least some other tongues, will not tolerate at all. We have
a striking illustration of this in English in the constant
omission of the relative. In such a sentence as "The man
you saw yesterday came to-day," no one, w'hether speaking
or hearing, feels the absence of the pronoun. It is only
when we set out to analyze the sentence grammatically that
we recognize the need of dragging into light the suppressed
relative. This is a usage to which many languages cannot
resort ; but there is probably not a language on the globe in
which a single word is not made to do often the duty of a
whole sentence.

But there is another side of the shield. We find a force
at work which impels men not to economize effort, but to
put it forth in profusion. They are not content with the

CONCEPTIONS AND METHODS 2'M

fewest words or abridged constructions in ordor to make
themselves understood. They aniphfy, they vary, they
employ expressions which abstractly may seem unnecessary.
Here again I am not referring to the expansion of the
thought in the way of adorning it or illustrating it, which
belongs to the domain of rhetoric and not of linguistics
proper. But the reason for the course indicated as being
followed is that the user of speech often feels that with the
words sufficient to make his meaning comprehended, it may
not after all be fully comprehended. He seeks therefore to
add to its clearness by the addition of terms and phrases
w'hich will not leave the hearer or reader in the slightest
doubt. Hence always has come and always will continue
to come into speech an army of expressions which we group
under the general names of expletives and redundances.
These often cause great grief to the grammarian; but the
user of speech cannot be deterred from employing them be-
cause he recognizes that the first aim of his utterance is to
be distinctly understood. These expressions, in conse-
quence, are not really expletives and redundances. So they
might be deemed, were men always in a state of mental
alertness, so that nothing whatever escapes their attention.
But unfortunately the human mind is apt to be inattentive.
It often misses the sense, which in theory has been suf-
ficiently expressed to be conveyed fully. Therefore in every
tongue and at all periods men resort to strictly superfluous
words and expressions to prevent their meaning being
missed or overlooked. As one illustration out of scores,
take in our own tongue the placing of the preposition, from
before the adverbs hence, thence, and ivhencc. From the
fourteenth century to the present day it has been so em-
ployed constantly by the best speakers and writers. Strictly
speaking, the preposition is unnecessary. There are places,
indeed, where its introduction could be deemed no other than

232 HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

an impertinence. There are other places where it adds
distinctly to the ease of comprehension.

Nor is clearness the only thing aimed at by the users of
speech in the employment of what from one point of view is
superfluous. There is equally the desire to impart force
to expression. Examples of this abound on every side.
"Forever and ever" is a phrase that theoretically conveys
no more meaning than the simple "forever" ; but it makes
more of an impression upon the mind. Linguistically, not
morally, the desire to strengthen the expression is the justi-
fication of the vast variety of expletives which make up the
vocabulary of profanity. When the practice of it is fre-
quent, it defeats its own end; but when sparingly indulged
in, especially in situations where great interests are at stake,
it conveys an intensity of meaning that the mere words,
though carrying the full sense, do not even remotely suggest.

Let us now proceed to the consideration of two other
opposing agencies, always operating upon language, which
more especially afYect the inflectional system. They might
be called the principles of unity and diversity; but as these
words are susceptible of being misunderstood, I shall call
them, from the paths they mainly adopt, the principles of
analogy and authority. In the matter of inflection there
always prevails a disposition in the users of speech to reduce
everything to a common procedure. A certain form is not
only in use, but it is in far the most common use. The
principle of analogy at once asserts itself, for it appeals to
every speaker. As most of certain classes of words follow
one particular inflection, why not make them all assume it?
The tendency manifests itself to have the leading form grow
at the expense of the others, and to discard from use all
forms which are different from it or in conflict with it. It
does not often meet with absolute success, to be sure, but
it frequently meets with great success; and the effort to

CONCEPTIONS AND METHODS 23:j

make its success complete never ceases. There is no better
illustration of this than the history of the declension of the
noun in English. When we first come to the knowledge of
our tongue during the Anglo-Saxon period, we find that
certain vowel declensions which had once existed had very
largely passed away. The comparison of other Teutonic
languages reveals what they must have been. The survival
of occasional forms leads to the unavoidable inference that
there was a time wdien these declensions were flourishing;
indeed, they may have been flourishing at the very time
itself in some then existing dialect of v\-hich no memorials
have been preserved. What these declensions had lost,
other declensions had gained, especially the one most pre-
dominant. Owing to agencies of which I shall speak later,
the process of effacement was temporarily arrested, or at
least was largely shorn of its strength. But the moment
the restraining power of literature was withdrawn in conse-
quence of the Norman Conquest, the principle of analog}'
resumed and carried out its work on a grand scale. When
English in the fourteenth century emerges with a literature
so valuable as to possess an authority of its own. not only
have the varying vowel declensions been reduced to the
common inflection exhibited by one of them, but even to that
has been entirely conformed the single but important con-
sonant declension which had once been in wide use. In the
case of this last the process has gone on so steadily that
English furnishes to-day but the one word ox, with its
plural oxen, as the single genuine survival in common speech
of a declension which embraced at one time about half the
noims of the language.

Powerful as is the influence of analogy in reducing diver-
sities to a common unity, there is in existence an opposmg
agency which furnishes resistance and at times the sturdiest
resistance to this leveling tendency. This, which, for the

234 HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

lack of a better name, 1 have called the principle of au-
thority, cherishes and strives to retain all variant forms of
inflection which are actually in existence and makes a deter-
mined stand against any charge whatever, whether the
change would be for the better or the worse. That which
is established has authority simply because it is established.
This influence varies distinctly with the intellectual status of
the users of speech ; but it is more or less in operation at all
times. In cultivated tongues it is exceedingly pow'erful,
if not actually dominant. What it saves from the wreck
which has been brought about by the principle of analogy,
it clings to earnestly, and indeed will never let go, if it can
be avoided. Illustrations of this tendency need not be
given here; for they will be exemplified in the part of the
subject with which we now come to deal.

These are some of the agencies which are always operat-
ing upon the internal life of a language. They are largely
responsible for the changes which take place slowly or
rapidly in methods of expression. So far as we can dis-
cover, they are true of the speech of the most illiterate and
degraded races ; they are certainly true of those which have
attamed any degree of intellectual development. This leads
us to the next topic, the difference in the agencies which act
upon cultivated and uncultivated speech.

It is a mere commonplace to say that every living lan-
guage constantly undergoes change. It may be little or it
may be great ; it may go on very slowly or very rapidly.
These are the accidents of circumstance. But so long as it
has life, it must undergo modification or alteration as do
the persons who speak it.

These changes belong generally to two classes, those af-
fecting the vocabulary and those aflfecting the grammatical
structure. Both of these agencies are always in operation ;
but they operate very differently at different periods and

CONCEPTIONS AND METHODS L':{r.

under different conditions, llcrc arises at once the j;real
distinction which exists between the Hfe and ^-rowth of cul-
tivated and uncultivatetl speech, or perhaps it would he bet-
ter to say more specifically between speech with a literature
and speech without one. The processes that are goin^ on in
each are precisely the same. Changes are taking place in
each both in grammar and vocabulary; but they manifest
themselves in ways essentially distinct and they prcKeed at
entirely different rates of movement. The differences, in-
deed, are so marked that they may be called fundamental.
This is not to maintain that there will not be in each class
apparent and it may be real exceptions to the rule laid down ;
it is only the general principle which is here stated.

Now the first point is that in uncultivated speech changes
in vocabulary under ordinary conditions take place slowly
and on a somewhat petty scale. Very few new words are
introduced into the speech, and any extension of meaning in
the case of those already existing happens rarely. The
reason for this lies on the surface. The users of unculti-
vated speech are themselves uncultivated. They have com-
paratively little knowledge and few^ ideas outside of the
range of those which are brought to their attention by their
necessities or limited opportunities for observation. Their
vocabulary is not ample, to start with, and as time goes on
they do not add to it many words. It is not that any open
hostility exists to their adoption. They are not introduced
into the speech because they arc not needed. The circle of
knowledge and of thought being small, the existing stock
of terms is amply sufficient to meet all the demands which
are made upon it. Consequently the vocabulary suffers
little enlarg-ement, and indeed mav remain practically sta-
tionary for an indefinite period, though it is of course liable
to be added to whenever the desire for a new word to ex-
press something previously unknown cannot be satisfied by

236 HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

any new meaning which can be attached to an old word or
to a combination of old words.

But in the case of the grammatical structure the reverse
of this is apt to be true. It is not so necessarily, indeed, but
there is no counteracting agency powerful enough of itself
to prevent its being so. The one great object of speech
which every man, educated or illiterate, sets always before
his eyes is to make himself understood. Now if the speaker
in an uncultivated tongue succeeds in effecting this, he has
secured all that he cares for. In so doing he may discard
old forms, old inflections ; or he may unconsciously develop
new ones ; or he may confuse wath one another those which
already exist. He may vary his expression essentially from
the construction which he himself has been wont to use as
well as those he is addressing. But about none of these
things does he trouble himself, if he can succeed in making
himself comprehended. There is no one to find fault with
him ; or if such a person could be supposed to exist, the vio-
lator of usage does not feel himself under the least obliga-
tion to heed the censure he receives. All this implies that
in uncultivated speech there is nowhere a standard of au-
thority of any sort which any one feels bound to respect.
Consequently changes in grammar are effected easily, if
they are effected at all. If outside agencies ever operate
upon the users of such a speech, if these are subjected to
conquest, if they are brought in frequent contact with the
speakers of another tongue, and are under the necessity of
communicating with them constantly, modifications of the
grammatical structure are likely to take place on a grand
scale,, though the vocabulary may be affected but slightly.
There is no better illustration of this principle than that
which has actually happened in the history of our own
speech. For more than two hundred years after the Nor-
man Conquest the English added scarcely anything to their

CONCEPTIONS AND MimiOD^ 237

stock of words from the language of the men of the race to
w!iom they had become subject, though w ith them they came
into constant contact. On the other hand, during this same
period the grammatical structure underwent violent and
extensive alteration.

Such are the principles which control the development of
unlettered speech. In exceptional circumstances these mas-
undergo modification, and perhaps in some instances re-
versal; but their general applicability to the facts of lin-
guistic history cannot well be gainsaid. But the moment a
speech comes into the possession of a great literature, this
condition of things is changed. The same agencies are at
work as in the case of an uncultivated tongue; but they vary
distinctly in the influence they exert, and the results in con-
sequence are in striking contrast to those just given.

In cultivated speech addition to the \ocabulary goes on
extensively, goes on rapidly. Furthermore it goes on with
little opposition. The hostility to the introduction of new
terms is almost invariably directed against particular words,
and in the case of these it is often confined to particular
persons. It therefore takes the form of an expression of
individual prejudice and not that of general aversion on
the part of users of speech. In cultivated speech addition
to the vocabulary is in truth a necessity of the situation.
The circle of knowledge and thought is constantly enlarg-
ing. The new facts learned, the new discoveries made, the
new inventions originated, the new ideas entertained, the
new distinctions set up, all these demand either the use of
old words in new senses or the introduction or formation
of new words. The latter is the course most usually fol-
lowed. It is not, nor is it felt to be objectionable. Men
indeed frequently make it a matter of boast that they were
the first to hit upon the employment of some term which
designates exactly the view of some new fact or theory or

238 HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

condition which all recognize but have found difficult to
express. The irruption of a large number of words hither-
to unknown into a speech is under the circumstances just
mentioned not an indication of the corruption or decay of a
language, but an evidence of the intellectual health and
vigor of its users. Scores and even hundreds of terms will
be proposed for admission which find no permanent lodg-
ment; for speech can ordinarily be trusted to reject that
which is really needless, that which adds nothing to clear-
ness or to force of expression ; on the other hand, to choose
and to hold fast with an instinct which may almost be
deemed unerring that which it requires for its best and full-
est development.

Consequently in a cultivated tongue the introduction of
new words is something that is going on constantly when-
ever and wherever intellectual life exists. But when to such
a tongue comes the consideration of new grammatical forms
or constructions, there ensues at once a complete change of
front. The attitude, instead of being one of friendliness or
acquiescence, is that of violent hostility. The newcomer
meets with examination from everybody and with denun-
ciation from many. There is a feeling on the part of the
cultivated users of speech that any alteration of grammatical
structure cannot be an improvement upon existing usage, as
would be conceded by all in the case of the introduction of
some new word. Rightly or wrongly the disposition does
not prevail to look upon it as a process of evolution. So far
as it goes, it is regarded as revolution, and therefore to be
resisted. Accordingly no change can take place in the
grammar of a cultivated speech which is not compelled to
fight its way to acceptance. It never succeeds without go-
ing through a struggle w^hich lasts at least scores of years.
If it triumphs, it triumphs because it recommends itself to
the users of speech as accomplishing something for expres-

CONCEPTIONS AND METHODS 239

sion which had not previously been secured. If once they
become thoroughly imbued with that view, vain are the
protests of purists and grammarians ; for the educated users
of speech know better what they want than any or all of
their self-constituted instructors.

The reason for this contrast between the attitudes as-
sumed by lettered and unlettered speech is due to a factor
which has at all times played an important part in the de-
velopment of language, but with the wide diffusion of edu-
cation in modern times is destined to play one still more
important. This is the creation of literature. Its exist-
ence in any tongue tends immediately to weaken or over-
throw entirely other influences which have been operating
upon the speech. Few even among scholars have learned to
appreciate fully the conservative influence which literature
exerts over language. Men used to take the ground that
speech was always moving away from its sources ; that the
longer a tongue continued to live, the more increasingly
difficult of comprehension became its earlier form to its later
speakers. There is, or at least there may be, a great deal
of truth in this view so long as we confine our attention to
tongues which can boast of no literary monuments of ex-
cellence. It becomes absolutely false, however, after a great
literature has been created and has become widely diffused.
If the speech then undergoes changes on any great scale,
that result will be owing to outside influences and not to
any which belong to its own natural development.

Yet this belief about the steady recession of speech from
its sources has lasted long after any reason for it has dis-
appeared. Even to-day it can be heard occasionally ex-
pressed. It is therefore not surprising to find it once widely
prevalent. By the great authors of the time of Qiieen .^nne
and the first Georges dismal forebodings were universally
entertained and frequently uttered as to the ruin which was

24Q HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

to overtake their own writings, in consequence of the
changes constantly going on in English speech. Their
works, they complained, could not hope to outlast a century,
unless the language became what they called fixed, and they
were in perpetual distress of mind because some person or
some organization could not be induced to undertake and
accomplish that impossible feat.

The fact which these men did not perceive at all, and
w^hich is none too clearly comprehended now, is that the
moment a great literature has been established, the language
revolves about it, and, so long as a healthy national life
exists, never moves far away from it. The great authors
are read and studied everywhere and at all times. They
make familiar to the knowledge of their admirers the words
and constructions they employ ; and these in turn are repro-
duced by their imitators. The operation of this influence
has been curiously illustrated in the history of our own
tongue. To us the language of the Elizabethan age is much
nearer than it was to the men of the eighteenth century,
mainly because the authors of that earlier age are now much
more read. As a result their words and usages have un-
consciously become a part of our own intellectual equipment.
Very few would be the men found now who would take
the view, widely entertained at the beginning of the eight-
eenth century, that a great deal of Shakespeare's language
was not merely archaic but practically obsolete. The nu-
merous imitators of Spenser later in that same century
furnished glossaries to their productions, explaining the
antiquated or unusual terms they had employed. In some
cases this was needed distinctly ; for the words they used had
never any existence outside of their own pages. But they
freauently defined those about whose meaning no man of
ordinary education would now entertain a doubt. Even
the necessity they seemed to have felt themselves under of

CONCEPTIONS AND METHODS 241

explaining the more purely poetic words excites a certain
surprise. What poet would think now of apologizint^. as
did Prior in 1706, for using such obsolete words, as he
called them, as behest in the carefully defined sense of "com-
mand," band in that of "army," / ween in that of "I think."
prozvess in that of "strength," and zvhilom in that of "here-
tofore." Some of these very definitions show too that in
all cases he did not understand the exact meaning of the
word he employed.

But far more than in the vocabulary is the conserving
power of literature — especially of a great literature — ex-
hibited in the grammatical structure. The moment it has
been in existence long enough to make its influence felt, it at
once proceeds to restrict change there within the closest
possible limits ; or if it permits any to be made with com-
parative ease, its action is directed in such instances to the
selection of one out of two or more forms in common use.
Let me illustrate its methods in this particular by a reference
to the history of the two conjugations of our tongue. After
the Norman Conquest English lost the literature she pos-
sessed which had attached to it any authority. Though not
entirely disused as a written speech, there existed no stanrl-
ard to which any one felt bound to conform. In conse-
quence a general dissolution of the grammatical structure
took place. One of its results was that verbs of the strong
conjugation went over to the weak in great numbers. It
seemed for a while as if it were merely a question of time
when every one of the former would disappear from the
language. Analog}- was entirely against them. .Vny new
verbs that came in, and a full half, if not the majority, of the
old ones formed their preterite by a syllable usually repre-
sented in modern English by -ed or -d. Why should not
this rule be extended to all? This was a feeling that
operated constantly upon men before they came into the

242 HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

possession of a literature. So general was the movement,
so large were the losses of the strong conjugation, that this
early transition has imposed upon the men of later times.
There were not wanting in the nineteenth century linguistic
scholars of considerable eminence who gravely announced
that the strong conjugation was destined to disappear from
English speech. As a matter of fact, the moment that
literature had been widely enough diffused to exert its
full influence, the transition of verbs of the strong con-
jugation to the weak ceased entirely. Not an instance can
be pointed out where a single one of these verbs has gone
over since the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Not the least sign
of any movement of this nature manifests itself now. On
the contrary, the tendency is, if anything, in the reverse
direction.

But literature does not content itself wnth merely arrest-
ing change which is going on in grammatical forms. It
presents a hostile attitude to anything which takes the shape
of grammatical innovation. That which already exists has
been found sufficient by the great writers of the past to do
all that is required for expression. What then can be the
need of new forms, of new constructions, of which they,
far greater than we, did not feel the lack ? To add anything
whatever seems therefore of the nature of an attempt to
paint the lily. This is the reason why every effort of the
nature of innovation meets, in the case of the grammatical
structure, with hostility so general and with denunciation so
violent. It is the exhortation of literature to stand fast by
the ancient ways.

But the users of speech are always striving for greater
clearness and force of expression. If the existing forms
and constructions do not exactly meet their requirements,
they will cast about for ways to secure what they are aiming
at. Let me illustrate this principle by a further example

CONCEPTIONS AND METHODS 243

from our speech. For a long period modern ICnglish suf-
fered from the lack of a distinct form for tlie passive which
would apply to all verbs. The inllection in common use was
made up of the substantive verb with the past participle of
another verb. This worked very well in many cases, es-
pecially so in the case of words wdiich denoted a continuous
action or state of mind. The phrase, "the man is loved or
is hated," conveys adequately the sense of the sj)eaker when
he is referring to the present time. But when the word
employed itself denoted a single act, the form just mentioned
meant an action fully completed and not one in process of
going on. It was really something past which was indicated
and not anything present. The phrase "the man is killed"
could not possibly suggest the idea that the subject of the
verb was merely in danger of death ; it meant that he was
actually dead. The form therefore, as applicable to all
verbs, broke down.

There is hardly anything more interesting in the history
of our speech than the various devices to which speakers and
writers resorted to get round the difficulty the construction
of the passive presented, the efforts they put forth to con-
trive something which would be of universal applicability.
The various attempts made give us a peculiarly vivid con-
ception of the infinite pains that are taken in speech, often
unconsciously, to render expression clear. All of these
efforts were for a long time unsatisfactory. They involved
a change of coustruction or a change of the form of the
sentence or they were made ineffective by the clumsiness of
circumlocution. At last a way w-as opened. A construc-
tion already existed in the speech which, though fully au-
thorized, belonged in its origin to the class of so-called cor-
ruptions. To certain verbs, but especially to the substantive
verb, a verbal noun preceded by the preposition on or in had
been added to complete the sense, as, for instance, "he was

244 HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

gone on hunting." The form of the connecting preposition
was in the first place corrupted into a; finahy it was dropped
altogether. This caused the verbal noun, when joined to
the substantive verb, to be regarded not as a noun, but as the
present participle; but a present participle, not in its usual
active signification, but in the sense of a passive. Hence
arose such expressions as ''the dinner is preparing," "the
house is building." In these the verb is active in form but
passive in meaning. But the goal could not be reached in
this way. The form suffered from exactly the same em-
barrassment which attended the ordinary one with the past
participle. Satisfactory with certain verbs, it could not be
used with all. The moment an object with life was intro-
duced as the subject, the passive sense disappeared. When
we hear it said that "a man is eating," we think of him as
the doer of an action and not the object of one. It does not
occur to us that he himself is undergoing mastication from
others. Here, too, in consequence the form broke down.
It was to remedy this condition of things that the verb to be
was at last united with the compound past participle. This
passive form conveyed an unmistakable meaning, and if de-
sired could be applied to any verb whatever. When we are
told, to use the previous illustration, that "a man is being
eaten," there is not the slightest doubt in the mind of any
one as to what is actually taking place.

This particular form first began to be distinctly noticeable
towards the end of the eighteenth century. For a while,
however, it attracted but little attention. But no sooner did
the sentinels who profess to watch over the purity of speech
have their attention called to it, than a violent outcry at once
arose. Few at the present day have any conception of the
clamor to which this new grammatical form gave rise
during the early and middle part of the nineteenth century,
and of the denunciation to which it was subjected. Accord-

CONCEPTIONS AND METHODS 24r.

ing to its assailants its introduction and use was a distinct
foreshadowing of the ruin that was imix.Miding over the
speech. Direful consequences were predicted if the objec-
tionable form should succeed in establishing itself in the
language. But the construction was too desirable an ac-
quisition to be allowed to disappear. Its usefulness pre-
vailed over all opposition, and at present it is fully accepted,
or meets at least only now and then with a protest from
some belated survivor of the conflict which once raged so
violently.

It must not be forgotten, however, that the hostility to the
introduction of new grammatical forms, though sometimes
manifesting itself absurdly, is an undeniably healthy hos-
tility. So long as it continues, the sijeech can be trusted to
remain steadfast to its moorings. It is the existence of this
feeling which keeps a language moving not from but about
its literature. The vocabulary can be increased almost in-
definitely without affecting the character or intelligibility of
the tongue which retains in familiar use the words em-
ployed by its greatest writers. But the moment its gram-
matical construction undergoes a violent upheave!, that
moment the language is on the road to decay and death.
For additions there, unlike those made to the vocabulary, do
not range themselves alongside of the ones already in use. or
usurp at best merely a part of the domain of significance. .\
new grammatical form is not long content with standnig
side by side w^ith an old one. It first displaces it from its
supremacy, and then supersedes it altogether: and this
means in process of time a complete change in the character
of the tongue.

From the hasty consideration which has been given here
of the characteristics which attend the development of culti-
vated speech, we are enabled to draw certain positive con-
clusions. A language cannot be made either to improve or

246 HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

degenerate of itself. It is nothing but the reflex of the
spirit and aims of the men who employ it, and it will rise or
fall in accordance with their intellectual and moral condition.
Its continued existence, therefore, depends solely upon the
fact whether the men to whom it is an inheritance are cul-
tivated enough to enrich its literature, virtuous enough to
elevate and maintain its character, and strong enough to
uphold and extend its sway. All these conditions are neces-
sary to its permanence, but in modern times the last has
attained an importance it never before held. The most in-
significant of tongues has, it is true, tremendous vitality; it
will cling to life long after the most conclusive reasons have
manifested themselves for its death. Yet it is a question
whether under modern conditions any language can be sure
of continued existence which does not have behind it the
support of a great nationality. It is a question whether the
languages of smaller peoples will not recede before the en-
croachments of their powerful neighbors, just as dialects
steadily tend to disappear before the advance of the literary
speech.

At all events the danger which once threatened cultivated
languages from the limitation of the knowledge of their
literature to a comparatively small number of men, has
largely disappeared with the invention of printing and the
diffusion of education which increasingly reaches every one
in the community, the low as well as the high. Forecasts
about the future of any speech and its permanence must
therefore now be made subject to conditions which never
before prevailed. The one thing only, which has been in-
dicated, can be relied upon with certainty. The continuance
of any language rests upon the ability, upon the character,
upon the strength of the men to whom it belongs. Its
literature may be its glory. It may be a source of just pride
to the race which has created it or has inherited it. But

CONCEPTIONS AND METHODS 247

however rich and varied it be, it cannot of itself preserve its
life though it may retard its death and hallow its memory.
No tongue can depend for its continuance upon the achieve-
ments of its past. It can exhibit no more than the vigor,
the purity, and the vitality of the men who speak it now, or
are to speak it hereafter : and if their vigor, their purity,
and their vitality disappear, the language as a living speech
will not survive their decay.

THE PROGRESS OF THE HISTORY OF LAN-
GUAGE DURING THE LAST CENTURY.

BY BENJAMIN IDE WHEELER

[Benjamin Ide Wheeler, President of the University of California,
b. July 15, 1854, Randolph, Massachusetts. Brown University.
1875; A.M. 1878; Ph.D. Heidelberg, 1885; LL.D. Princeton, 1896;
Harvard, 1900; Brown. 1900; Yale, 1901; Johns Hopkins, 1902;
University of Wisconsin, 1904; Illinois College, 1904; Dartmouth,
1905. Professor of Comparative Philology, 1886, and of Greek,
1888, Cornell University; Professor of Greek, American School
of Classical Studies, Athens, Greece, 1896. Member of American
Philological Association, American Oriental Society, The Society
for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies. Corresponding Mem-
ber of Kaiserlichen Archaeologischen Institut. Aitikih of The
Greek Noun Accent; Analogy in Language ; Introduction to the
History of Language; Dionysos and Immortality ; Organization
of the Higher Education in the United States; Life of Alexander
the Great, etc.]

It cannot be the purpose of this brief address to present
even in outHne a history of the science of language in the
century past; it can undertake only to set forth the chief
motives and directions of its development.

A hundred years ago this year (1904) Friedrich von
Schlegel was in Paris studying Persian and the mysterious,
new-found Sanskrit; Franz Bopp was a thirteen-year-old
student in the gymnasium at Aschaffenburg ; Jakob Grimm
was studying law in the University of Marburg. And yet
these three were to be the men who should find the paths
by which the study of human speech might escape from
its age-long wanderings in a wilderness without track or
cairn or clue, and issue forth upon oriented highways as a
veritable science.

Schlegel the Romanticist, who had peered into Sanskrit
literature in the interest of the fantastic humanism modish
in his dav, happened to demonstrate (Ucbcr die Sprachc
und Weisheit der Inder, 1808) beyond cavil the existence

249

250 HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

of a genetic relationship between the chief members of
what we now know as the Indo-European family of lan-
guages. Bopp ^ found a way to utiHze this demonstrated
fact in a quest which, though now recognized as mostly
vain, incidentally set in operation the mechanism of com-
parative grammar. Grimm,- under the promptings of a
national enthusiasm, sought after the sources of the Ger-
man national life, and, finding in language as in lore the
roots of the present deep planted in the past, laid the foun-
dations and set forth the method of historical grammar.
The grafting of comparative grammar upon the stock of
historical grammar gave it wider range and yielded the
scientific grammar of the nineteenth century. The method
of comparative grammar is merely auxiliary to historical
grammar; it establishes determinations of fact far behind
the point of earliest record, and enables historical grammar
to push its lines of descent in the form of " dotted lines "
far back into the unwritten past.

It was the discovery of Sanskrit to the attention and
use of European scholars at the close of the eighteenth
century that gave occasion to an effective use of the com-
parative method and a consequent establishment of a ver-
itable comparative grammar. But in two other distinct
ways it exercised a notable influence upon the study of
language. First, it offered to observation a language whose
structure yielded itself readily to analysis in terms of the
adaptation of its formal mechanism to the expression of
modifications of thought, and thus gave an encouragement
to the dissection of words in the interest of tracing the
principles of their formation. Second, the Hindoo national
grammar itself presented to Western scholars an illustra-
tion of accuracy and completeness in collecting, codifying,

* First work: Conjugationssystem der Sanskritsprache, 1816.
'Deutsche Gramatik, vol. 1 (1819).

PROGRESS DURING LAST CI<:XTURY 251

and reporting tlie facts of a language, especially such as
related to phonology, inflection, and word-formation, that
involved the necessity of a complete revolution in the whole-
attitude of grammatical procedure. The discovery of
Panini and the Prati(,'akhyas neant far more to the science
of language than the discovery of the Vedas. The gram-
mar of the Greeks had marked a path so clear, and estab-
lished a tradition so strong, guaranteed in a prestige so
high, that the linguistics of the West through all the gen-
erations faithfully abode in the way. 'i'he grammatical
categories once taught and established became the irre-
fragable moulds of grammatical thought, and constituted
a system so complete in its enslaving power that if any
man ever suspected himself in bondage he was yet unable
to identify his bonds.

The Greeks had addressed themselves to linguistic re-
flection in connection with their study of the content and
the forms of thought; grammar arose as the handmaiden
of philosophy. They assumed, without consciously and
expressly formulating it as a doctrine, that language is
the inseparable shadow of thought, and therefore proceeded
without more ado to find in its structure and parts replicas
of the substances and moulds of thought. They sought
among the facts of language for illustrations of theories;
it did not occur to them to collect the facts and organize
them to yield their own doctrine. Two distinct practical
uses finally brought the chief materials of rules and prin-
ciples to formulation in the guise of a system of descrip-
tive grammar: first, the interpretation of Homer and the
establishment of a correct text; second, the teaching of
Greek to aliens, and the establishment of a standard by
which to teach. These practical uses came in. however,
rather as fortunate opportunities for practical application
of an established discipline than as the motives to its

252 HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

creation. With the Hindoos it was the direct reverse.
They had a sacred language and sacred texts rescued from
earher days by means of oral tradition. The meaning of
the texts had grown hazy, but the word was holy, and even
though it remained but an empty shell to human under-
standing, it was pleasing to the gods and had served its
purpose through the generations to bring gods and men
into accord, and must be preserved ; likewise the language
of ritual and comment thereon, which, as the possession
of a limited class, required not only to be protected from
overwhelming beneath the floods of the vernacular, but
demanded to be extended to the use of wider circles in the
dominant castes. Sanskrit had already become a mori-
bund or semi-artificial language before grammar laid hold
upon it to continue and extend it. But from the outstart
the Hindoo grammarian sat humbly at the feet of lanjfuage
to learn of it, and never assumed to be its master or its
guide. Inasmuch as the language had existed and been
perpetuated primarily as a thing of the living voice and not
of ink and paper, and had been used to reach the ears
rather than the eyes of the divine, it followed, in a measure
remotely true of no other grammatical endeavor, that the
Hindoo grammar was compelled to devote itself to the
most exactingly accurate report upon the sounds of the
language. The niceties of phonetic discrimination repre-
sented in the alphabet itself, the refinements of observation
involved m the reports on accent and the phenomenon of
pluti, the formulation of the principles of sentence pho-
netics in the rules of sandhi, the observation on the phy-
siology of speech scattered through the Pratigakhyas are
all brilliant illustrations of the Hindoo's direct approach
to the real substance of living speech. None of the national
systems of grammar, the Chinese, the Egyptian, the As-
syrian, the Greek, or the Arabic, had anything to show

PROGRESS DURING LAST CKN'Tl'RV 9,r>?,

remotely comparable to this; and up to ilic beginninfj of
the nineteenth century, despite all the loi;{^ endeavors ex-
pended on Greek and Hel^rcw and Latin, nothinj^ remotely
like it had been known to the W'estern world. The Greek
grammarians had really never stormed the barriers of writ-
ten language ; they were mostly concerned with establish-
ing and teaching literary forms of the language. Even
when they deal with the dialects, they had the standardized
literary types thereof before their eyes rather than the
spoken forms ringing in their ears. When the grammars
of Colebrooke (1S05), of Carey (1800), and of Wilkins
(1808) opened the knowledge of Sanskrit to European
scholars, it involved nothing short of a grammatical revela-
tion, and prepared the way for an ultimate remodeling of
language-study nothing short of a revolution. Though
these Hindoo lessons in accurate phonetics as the basis of
sure knowledge and safe procedure had their immediate
and unmistakable influence upon the scientific work of the
first half century, their' full acceptance tarried until the
second half was well on its way. Even Jakob Grimm,
whose service in promoting the historical study of phon-
ology must be rated with the highest, was still so blind to
the necessity of phonetics as to express the view that his-
torical grammar could be excused from much attention to
the " bunte wirrwar mundartlicher lautverhaltnisse," and
though von Raumer in his Die Aspiration unci die laut-
verschiehung (1837) had not only set forth in all clearness
the theoretical necessity of a phonetic basis, but had given
practical illustration thereof in the material with which he
was dealing, it still was possible as late as 1868 for Scherer
in his Gcschichtc dcr deutschcn Sprachc justly to deplore
that '' only rarely is a philologist found who is willing to
enter upon phonetic discussion." The phonetic treatises

1 Of. H. Oertel. Lectures on the Study of Language, p. 30 ff. (1901).

254 HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

of Briicke' (1849 and 18G6) and of Merkel (185G and
1866)- failed, though excellent of their kind, to bring the
subject within the range of philological interest, and it
remained for Eduard Sievers in his Gnindaiigc dcr Laiit-
physiologic (1876) and Grund.ziigc dcr Phonctik (1881),
by stating phonetics more in terms of phonology, to bridge
the gap and establish phonetics as a constituent and funda-
mental portion of the science of language. The radical
change of character assumed by the science in the last
quarter of the century is due as much to the consummation
of this union as to any one influence.

But it was not phonetics alone that the Indian gram-
marians were able to teach to the W^est ; they had devel-
oped, in their processes of identifying the roots of words,
a scientific phonology that was all but an historical pho-
nology. In some of its applications it was that already,
for in explaining the relations to each other of various
forms of a given root as employed in different words,
even though the explanation was intended to serve the pur-
poses of word-analysis and not of sound-history, the gram-
marians virtually formulated in repeated instances what
we now know as " phonetic laws." The recognition of
giina and vrddhi, which antedates Panini, must rank as
one of the most brilliant inductive discoveries in the history
of linguistic science. The theory involved became the basis
of the treatment of the Indo-European vocalism. The first
thorough -going formulation, that of Schleicher in his Com-
pendium (1861), was conceived entirely in the Hindoo
sense, and it was to the opportunity which this formulation
offered of overseeing the material and the problems in-
volved that we owe the brilliant series of investigations

1 E. Briicke, Untersiichiingcn iiber dieLautbildxing und das natiirliche fiystem
der Sprachlaute (1849) ; Grundziige der Physiologie und Systematik der
Sprachlaute (1856).

- C. L. Merkel, Anatomic und Physiologie des menschlichen Stimm- und
Sprachorgans (1856) ; Physiologie der menschlicheti Sprache (1866).

PROGRESS DURING LAST CEXTL'RV 2.'ir.

by Georg Curtius (Spaltung dcs a-Loutcs, 1864), Ame-
lung^ (1871, 1873, 1875), Osthoff {N-Dcclinatiun, 1870 ),
Brugmann {Nasalis sonans, 187(5; Gcschkhtc dcr stam-
mabstufendcn Declination, 1870), Q,o\\\iz{U cbcr die An-
nahmc mchrerer grundsprachlichcn a-laiitc, 1878), Job.
Schmidt (Zzvei arischc a-lautc, 1879). which led up step
by step steadily and unerringly to the definite proof that
the Indo-European vocalisni was to be understood in terms
of the Greek rather than the Sanskrit. These articles,
written in the period of intensest creative activity the science
has known, represent in the cases of four of the scholars
mentioned, namely, Curtius, Amelung, Brugmann, CoUitz,
the masterpieces of the scientific life of each. Though
dealing with a single problem, they combined, both through
the results they achieved and the method and outlook they
embodied, to give character and directions to the science
of the next quarter-century. Karl Verner's famous article,
Bine Ausnahme der erstcin Lautverschiehung (KZ. xxiii,
97 fif., July, 1875), which proved of great importance,
among other things, in establishing a connection between
Indo-European ablaut and accent, belongs to this period;
and Brugmann's article, Nasalis Sonans. which served
more than any other work to clear the way for the now
prevailing view of ablaut, was influenced by Verner's
article, which was by a few months its predecessor. Both
articles, it is worthy of noting, were distinctly influenced
by the new phonetic ; Verner's, it would appear chiefly by
Briicke, Brugmann's, through a suggestion of OsthofT's.
by Sievers, whose Lautphysiologie had just appeared within
the same year. The full efifect upon Western science of the
introduction of the Indian attitude toward language-study

'A Amelung Die Bildung der Tempusstamme durch yocalsteigerung im
Deutchen Berlin 1S71. Erwlderung. KZ. xxii, 361 ft., completed July. 1873.
?ubSd'l87l! after the author's death. Der Ursprung dcr deutsrhcn a-vo-
cole. Haupt's Zeitschr. xviii, 161 ff., 1875.

256 HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

appears therefore to have been realized only with the last
quarter of the centur\'.

More prompt than the response of European science to
the teachings of Hindoo phonetics and phonology' had been
the acceptance of the Hindoo procedure in word-analysis,
especially with relation to suffixes and inflectional endings.
The centuries of study of Greek and Latin had yielded no
clue to any classification or assorting of this material ac-
cording to meaning or function. The medieval explana-
tion of dominicus as domini custos was as good as any.
Besnier in his essay. La science des Etymologies (1694),
counted it the mark of a sound et\Tnologist that he restrict
his attention to the roots of words, for to bother with the
other parts would be '* useless and ludicrous." And when
Home Tooke in the Diversions of Purley, ii, 429 (1786)-
1805), just before the sunrise, wrote the startling words.
"All those common terminations in any language , . . are
themselves separate words with distinct meanings," and
(ii, 454) "Adjectives with such terminations (that is, -ly,
-ous, -fill, -some, -ish, etc.) are, in truth, all compound
words" ; and when he flung out like a challenge the analysis
of Latin iho, " I shall go." as three letters containing three
words, namely. / "go" b {^=-!»'Ao,ia'.) "will," a (=ego)
" I," no one seems to have been near enough to the need
of such instruction to know whether or not he was to be
taken seriously : for the words bore no fruit, and only years
afterward when Bopp's doctrine had been recognized were
they disinterred as antiquarian curiosities. Eleven years
later, in the full light of the Sanskrit grammar, Bopp pub-
lished his Conjugations-system, and the clue had been
found. To be sure Bopp was misguided in his belief that
he could identify each element of a word-ending with a
significant word, and assign to it a distinct meaning, but
he had found the key to an analysis having definite his-

PROGRESS DURING LAST CENTURY L'r.7

torical value and permitting the identification of such
entities as mode-sign, tense-sign, personal endings, etc.
The erroneous portion of his doctrine based upon his con-
ception of the Indo-European as an agglutinative type of
speech dragged itself as an incumbrance through the first
half-century of the science, and, though gasping, still lived
in the second edition of Curtius's Vcrbiim (1877.) This,
along with many other mechanical monstrosities of its
kind, was gradually banished from the linguistic arena by
the saner views of the life-habits of language, which had
their rise from linguistic psychology as a study of the
relations of language to the hearing as well as speaking
individual and the relations of the individual to the speech
community, and which asserted themselves with full power
in the seventies. We shall have occasion to return to this
subject later.

Bopp had from the beginning devoted himself to lan-
guage-study, not as an end in itself, but as we know from
his teacher and sponsor Windischniann,' as well as infer
from the direction and spirit of his work, he hoped to be
able " in this way to penetrate into the mysteries of the
human mind and learn something of its nature and its
laws." He was therefore unmistakably of the school of
the Greeks, not of the Hindoos; for the Greek grammar-
ian in facing language asks the question " why." gram-
mar being to him philosophy, whereas the Hindoo asks
the question, " what," grammar being to him a science
after the manner of what we call the " natural sciences."
There is indeed but slight reason for the common practice
of dating the beginning of the modern science of language
with Bopp, aside from the one simple result of his activity,
which must in strict logic be treated as merely incidental
thereto, namely, that he gave a practical illustration of the

* Introduction to Bopp's Conjugationssystem der Sanskrit spr ache, p. 4, 1818.

258 HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

possibility of applying the comparative method for widen-
ing the scope and enriching the results of historical
grammar.

As Bopp had tried to use the comparative method in
determining the true and original meanings of the forma-
tive elements, so did his later contemporary, August Fried-
rich Pott' (1802-87), undertake to use it in finding out
the original meaning of words. The search for the etymol-
ogy or real meaning of words had been a favorite and
mostly bootless exercise of all European grammarians
from the Greek philosophers down, having its original
animus and more or less confessedly its continuing power
in the broadly human, though barely on occasion half-
formulated conviction, that words and their values by
some mysterious tie naturally belonged to each other. In
the instinct to begin his task Pott was still with the tradi-
tions of the Greeks and the Grasco-Europeans, but in de-
veloping it he was guided into new paths by two forces
that had arisen since the century opened. Under the guid-
ance of the comparative method whereby the vocabularies
of demonstrably cognate languages now assumed a de-
terminate relation to each other, he came unavoidably to
the recognition of certain normal corespondences of sounds
between -he different tongues. On the other hand, in
almost entire independence hereof, Jakob Grimm in the
pursuit of his historical method had formulated the regu-
larities of the mutation of consonants in the Teutonic dia-
lects, and had set them forth in a second edition of the
first volume of his grammar, appearing in 1822. In all
this was contained a strong encouragement as well as warn-
ing to apply these new definite tests to every etymological
postulate, and therewith arose, under Pott's hands, the

1 A. F. Pott, EtymologUche Forschungen, 2 vols. Lemgo, 1833-86 ; 2d ed. 6
TOl*. 1859-76.

PROGRESS DURING LAST Cl-.X'I'lkV ;.•:.-..

beginnings of a scientific etymology. It was a first pronii.sc
of deliverance from a long wilderness of caprice.

The positivistic attitude which had been gradually in-
fused into language-study under the inihience of the Hin-
doo grammar finally reached its extremest expression in
the works of August Schleicher (1821-G8). The science
of language he treated under the guise of a natural science.
Language appeared as isolated from the speaking indi-
vidual or the speaking community to an extent unparalleled
in any of his predecessors or successors, and was viewed as
an organism having a life of its own and laws of growth
or decline within itself. Following the analogies of the
natural sciences and trusting to the inferred laws of
growth, he ventured to reconstruct from the scattered data
of the cognate Indo-European languages the visible form
of the mother speech. His confidence in the character of
language as a natural growth made him the first great
systematizer and organizer of the materials of Indo-Eu-
ropean comparative grammar {Compendium dcr vcrglcich-
enden Grammatik, 1861); as confidence in the unerring
uniformity of the action of the laws of sound made Karl
Brugmann the second (Gnindriss der vcrglcichcnden
Grammatik, 1886-92).

It is not by accident that the first one to voice outright
the dogma of the absoluteness {Ausnahmslosigkcit) of the
laws of sound w^as a pupil of Schleicher, August Leskien
{Die Declination in Slavischlitauischcn mid Gcrnianischcn,
XXVIII, 1876). The use of this dogma as a norm and test
in the hands of a signally active and gifted body of scholars
who followed the leadership of Leskien and were known
under the title of the Leipziger Schulc or the Junggram-
matiker, and the adherence to it in practice of many others
w^ho did not accept the theory involved. — a use which was
undoubtedly greatly stimulated by Verner's discovery

260 HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

(1875) that a great body of supposed exceptions to
Grimm's law were in reality obedient to law — gave to the
science in the two following decades not only an abundance
of results, but an objectivity of attitude and procedure and
a firmness of structure that may fairly be said to represent
the consummation of that positivist tendency which we have
sought to identify with the influence of Hindoo grammar.
This movement, however, derived its impulse by no
means exclusively through Schleicher. A new stream had
meanwhile blended its waters with the current. The psy-
chology of language as a study of the relations of language
to the speaking individual, that is, of the conditions under
w^hich language is received, retained, and reproduced, and
of the relations of the individual to his speech community,
had been brought into play preeminently through the labors
of Heymann Steinthal,^ who though as a psychologist, a
follower of Herbert, must be felt to represent in general
as a linguist the attitude toward language-study first estab-
lished by Wilhelm v. Humboldt. William D. Whitney
shows in his writings on general linguistics the influence
of Steinthal, as well as good schooling in the grammar of
the Hindoos and much good common sense. His lectures
on Language and the Study of Language (1867) and the
Life and Growth of Language (1875) helped chase many
a goblin from the sky. Scherer's Geschichte der deutschen
Sprachc (1868) combined, more than any book of its day,
the influences of new lines of endeavor, and especially
gave hearing to the new work in the psychology as well
as the physiology of speech. To this period (1865-80),
under the influence of the combination of the psychological

1 H. Steinthal, Der Urprung der Sprache, im Zusammenhang mit den letzten
Fragen allcs Wisscns, 1851 ; Charakteristik der hauptsdchlichsten Typen dee
Sprachbaues, 1860 ; Einleitung in die Psychologie und Sprachtoissenschatt,
1881 ; Gesch. der Sprachw. bei den Griechen und Romern, 1863 ; 1890-91. Also
editor with Lazarus of the Zeitschrift fiir Volkerpschologic und Sprachtoitsen-
schaft, from 1859.

PROGRESS DURING LAST CENTURY -lil

with the physiological point of view, belongs the establish-
ment of scientific common sense in the treatment of lan-
guage. By virtue of this, as it were, binocular vision, lan-
guage was thrown up into relief, isolated, and objectiviscd
as it had never been before. Old half-mystical notions,
such as the belief in a period of upbuilding in language and
a period of decay, all savoring of Hegel, and the conse-
quent fallacy that ancient languages display a keener
speech-consciousness than the modern, speedily faded away.
The centre of interest transferred itself from ancient and
written types of speech to the modern and living. Men
came to see that vivisection rather than morbid anatomy
must supply the methods and spirit of linguistic research.
The germs of a new idea affecting the conditions under
which cognate languages may be supposed to have differ-
entiated out of a mother speech, and conceived in terms
of the observed relations of dialects to language, were
infused by Johannes Schmidt's Verivandtschafts-vcrh'alt-
nisse der indogcrman. Sprachcn (1S72). The rigid
formulas of Schleicher's Stammhaum melted away before
Schmidt's Wellcntheoric and its line of successors down
to the destructive theories of Kretschmer's Einlcitung in
die Geschichtc der gricch. Sprache (1896). Herein, as
in many another movement of the period, we trace the
results of applying the lessons of living languages to the
understanding of the old. A remarkable document thor-
oughly indicative of what was moving in the spirit of the
times was the Introduction to Osthoff and Brugmann's
Morphologischc Untersiichnngen, vol. i (1S78). But the
gospel of the period, and its theology, for that matter, was
most effectively set forth in Hermann Paul's Principicn
der Sprachgeschichte (1st ed. 1S80), a work that has had
more influence upon the science than any since Jakob
Grimm's Deutsche Grammatik. Paul was the real sue-

262 HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

cesser of Steinthal. He also represented the strictest sect
of the positivists in historical grammar. As a consequence
of the union in Paul of the two tendencies, his work ac-
quires its high significance. He established the reaction
from Schleicher's treatment of language-science as a
natural science; he showed it to be beyond peradventure
one of the social sciences, and set forth the life conditions
of language as a socio-historical product.

The work of the period dominated by Paul and the neo-
grammarians, as well as the theories of method proclaimed,
show^s, however, that the two factors just referred to had
not reached in the scientific thought and practice of the day
a perfect blending. A well-known book of Osthoff's bears
the title Das physiologische und psychologische Moment
in dcr sprachlichcn Formcnhildung (1879). The title is
symptomatic of the times. The physiological and the
psychological w^ere treated as two ri\al interests vying
for the control of language. \Miat did not conform to
the phonetic laws, in case it were not a phenomenon of
mixture, was to be explained if possible as due to analogy.
This dualism could be expected to be but a temporary
device, like the setting up of Satan over against God, in
order to account for the existence of sin. A temporary
device it has proved itself to be. The close of the first
century of the modern science of language is tending
toward a unitary conception of the various forms of his-
torical change in language. The process by which the
language of the individual adjusts itself to the community
speech differs in kind no w^hit from that by Avhich dialect
yields to the standard language of the larger community.
The process by which the products of form-association or
analogy establish themselves in language ^ differs no whit

' Gustaf E. Karsten, The Psychological Basin of Phonetic Lav) and Analogy,
Public. Mod. Lang. Assoc, ix. 312 ff. (1894), first sought a unitary psychologi-
cal statement for the two impulses. We are h^re, however, speaking of the
establishment of the results of the impulses in linguistic use.

TROGRESS DURING LAST CENTURY 263

in kind from that by which new pronunciations of words,
that is, new sounds, make their way to general acceptance.
The process by which loan-elements from an alien tongue
adjust themselves to use in a given language differs psy-
chologically and fundamentally no whit from cither of the
four processes mentioned. In fact, tlicy all, all five, are
phenomena of "mixture in language."^ The process,
furthermore, by which a sound-change in one word tends
to spread from word to word and displace the old through-
out the entire vocabulary of the language is also a process
of "mixture,"' and depends for its momentum in last
analysis upon a proportionate analogy after the same es-
sential model as that by which an added sound or a suffix
is carried by analogy from word to word. All the move-
ments of historical change in language respond to the
social motive; they all represent in some form the absorp-
tion of the individual into the community mass. It has
therewith become evident that there is nothing physio-
logical in language that is not psychologically conditioned
and controlled. So then it appears that the modern science
of language has fairly shaken itself free again from the
natural sciences and from such influences of their method
and analogies as were intruded upon it by Schleicher
and his period (1860-80), and after a century of groping
and experiment has definitely oriented and found itself as
a social science dealing wath an institution which represents

iSee O Bremer Deutsche Phonetik. Vorwort x fT. (1893): B I. Wbeelor.
Caiiet ?fUn!ffr>nUyin Phonetic Change, Transac. Amer. Phllol. Assoc, xx.u.
1 ff. (1901).

3 A point of view involving the recognition of a more recondite form of

s,eLzf.^Us that first ^^^^y^^^,^^^,^^::^T^:^i!^';^

f^n^acticai changes in language, and ultimately the differontintion of dlnlo-r.
ind even of languages may assume relation to languages of the BUbstraluu, n.
tZ^ypt^LelthatJis prior and ^^

^t^h^er^ire/cnTmUl^^;"^ ff V ^^^^^^^ "^'ec'h^s^ler.-O.r^r,^ 'Z.!;.
Hlrt (Znrfo^ Forsr^ur^aen TV 36 fl 1894 a ^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^.^

farsS't'o'deal.''we arT'pereuadrd. in the .econd century of it. exi.fnce.

264: HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

more intimately and exactly than any other the total life
of man in the historical determined society of men.

Within the history of the science of language the begin-
ning of the nineteenth century establishes beyond doubt a
most important frontier. To appreciate how sharp is the
contrast between hither and yonder we have only to turn
of Latin from Greek, or mayhap to be most utterly scien-
to any part or phase of the work yonder, — the derivation
tific, from the ^olic dialect of Greek, the sage libration
of the claims of Dutch as against Hebrew to be the original
language of mankind, the bondage to the forms of Greek
and Latin grammar, as well as to the traditional point of
view of the philosophical grammar of the Greeks, the
subordination of grammar to logic, the hopeless etymol-
ogies and form analyses culminating in the phantasies of
Hemsterhuis and Valckenaeer, the lack of any guiding clue
for the explanation of how sound or form came to be
what it is, and the curse of arid sterility that rested upon
every effort. All the ways were blind and all the toil was
vain. On the hither side, however, there is everywhere a
new leaven working in the mass. What was that leaven?
To identify if possible what it was has been the purpose
of this review. I think we have seen it was not the in-
fluence of the natural sciences, certainly not directly;
wherever that influence found direct application, it led
astray. It was not in itself the discovery ^of the compara-
tive method, for that proved but an auxiliary to a greater.
If a founder must be proclaimed for the modern science of
language, that founder was clearly Jakob Grimm, not
Franz Bopp.

The leaven in question was comprised of two elements.
One was found in the establishment of historical grammar,
for this furnished the long-needed clue; the other was
found in the discovery of Hindoo grammar, for this dis-

PROGRESS DURING LAST CENTURY 2(;r.

closed the fruitful attitude for linguistic observation. His-
torical grammar furnished the missing clue, because it
represented the form of language as created what it is,
not by the thought struggling for expression, but by iiis-
torical conditions antecedent to it. Hindoo grammar
furnished the method of observation because by its
fundamental instinct it asked the question how in a given
language does one say a given thing, rather than why does
a given form embody the thought it does.

The germinal forces which have made this century of
the science of language are not without their parallels in
the century of American national life we are met to cele-
brate to-day. Jakob Grimm w'as of the school of the
Romanticists, and he gained his conception of historical
grammar from his ardor to derive the institutions of his
people direct from their sources in the national life. The
acquaintance of European scholars with the grammar of
India arose from a counter-spirit in the world of the day
whereby an expansion of intercourse and rule was bringing
to the wine-press fruits plucked in many various fields of
national life. Thus did the spirit of national particularism
reconcile itself, in the experience of a science, with the
fruits of national expansion. After like sort has the Ameri-
can nation in its development for the century following
upon the typical event of 1803 combined the widening of
peaceful interchange and common standards of order with
strong insistence upon the right of separate communities
in things pertaining separately to them to determine their
lives out of the sources thereof. Therein has the nation
given fulfillment to the prophetic hope of its great demo-
cratic imperialist Thomas Jefferson,^ "I am persuaded no
constitution was ever before so well calculated as ours for
extensive empire and self-government."

1 Letter to Mr. Madison, 1809.

266 HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

The linguistic science of the second century will build
upon the plateau leveled by the varied toils and experiences
of the first. More than ever those who are to read the
lessons of human speech will gain their power through
intimate sympathetic acquaintance wnth the historically con-
ceived material of the individual language. But though
the wide rangings of the comparative method have for the
time abated somewhat of their interest and their yield, it
will remain that he who would have largest vision must
gain perspective by frequent resort to the extra-mural
lookouts. Language is an offprint of human life, and to
the student of human speech nothing linguistic can be ever
foreign.

THE TRANSFORMATION OF SANSKRIT STUDIES

IN THE COURSE OF THE NINETEENTH

CENTURY

BY SILVAIN LEVI
(Translated from the French hy Mabel Bode, Ph.D.)

[Sylvain, Levi, Professor of Sanskrit, College de France; Director
of Studies at tlie High School, Paris, since 1894. b. Paris, 1863.
Litt.F. 1883; Litt.D. 1890. Master of Conferences at the High
School, 1885; Assistant Professor in Sanskrit of the Faculty of
Letters, Paris, 1889. Member of Asiatic Society, Linguistic
Society, Society of Hebrew Studies, etc. Ai'thor and Editor ok
The Hindoo Theatre; Traces of the Greeks left on the Monu-
ments of the Ancient Hindoos: The Doctrine of Sacrific accord-
ing to the Brahmanas; The Nepal.]

Among the languages of the Indo-Iranian group Sanskrit
takes indisputably the highest place. I shall not make any
attempt here to justify this honor which Sanskrit owes to
the length of its existence, the wealth of its vocabulary, the
vastness of its literature, and to its role in history. It
would be an easy task, and one flattering to the heart of an
Indianist, to take each of these points in turn and treat each
in detail. But I have put before myself another aim, more
in keeping with the general spirit of our meeting; I wouUl
like to show, in dealing with Sanskrit, that a common im-
pulse animates all the efforts of human thought ; the more
those studies which I represent seem far-away, indifferent,
foreign alike to the passions and the interests of real life, the
better they will serve to support the thesis I advance, if it be
clearly shown that, in the course of their transformations,
they reflect the great ideas which lead humanity toward
its unknown goal.

The history of Sanskrit studies goes hardly a century
back; they came into being with the Independence of the
United States and with the French Revolution. In 1785

867

268 INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES

Charles \\'ilkins published in London a translation of the
Bhagavad Gita, prepared in India with the assistance of na-
tive scholars; four years later William Jones laid before
Western leaders a translation of Cakuntala. Before these
initiators, of glorious renown, Euroi^e had already heard of
the Sanskrit language. Europeans settled in India had
studied it, mastered it, and even used it, but their knowledge
had borne no fruit. They were missionaries dedicated to
the triumph of the Church, seeking in Sanskrit an instru-
ment of controversy or the spread of doctrine. Certainly
patience, energy, learning, and dignity of life were theirs,
but they lacked the active sympathy necessary for success,
the sympathy which animates research and makes it fruitful.
Moreover, they had not only the Brahmans to contend with ;
outside India they were closely watched by adversaries who
forced them to be prudent and paralyzed them. Voltaire
and his school witnessed with triumph and joy the fall of the
sacred barriers of ancient history at the end of the seven-
teenth century. Bossuet analyzed the secret designs of
Providence and pointed out their workings without going
beyond the world known to the Fathers of the Church ; the
Church was the central point of humanity. And, behold,
other peoples, other civilizations, and other literatures, un-
known to the Scriptures, had come to light, and were laying
claim to such antiquity as to eclipse the ancient Jewish
tradition. The Brahmans were not sparing with millions
or myriads of years in their chronology. The Encyclo-
paedia only asked to believe them ; the Church only thought
how to contradict them ; there was no one capable of discuss-
ing them.

But the mind of humanity was ripening; exact criticism
was to supplant idle controversy; facts were about to take
place of the artifices of disputation. England, mistress of
India by the fortune of arms, opened up the Hindu genius to

PROBLEMS IN SANSKRIT STUDIES ?09

the world and the world to the Hindu genius. France,
vanquished on the field of battle, at least competed with
honor in the conquest of Asia's past. We know the admir-
able history of Anquetil Duperron who went out as a volun-
teer to wring from the distrustful dasturs^ the sacred hooks
of Zoroaster, which he eventually brought back to France.
The Bhagavad Gita of Wilkins, the Cakuntala of Jones ex-
cited the imagination of literary Europe; Goethe's celebrated
stanza rings in every one's memory. The moment was
auspicious; the classical tradition was worn out, since the
masterpieces of the seventeenth century; reason, proud of
her victory over imagination, too long a hindrance to her
progress, had nothing to offer in exchange but an insipid
sentimentahsm. Men's minds impatiently desired violent
emotions, dazzling pictures, new landscapes, glaring lights ;
the senses demanded satisfaction in their turn. The Persian
and Arabian poets found translators and imitators. The
Egyptian campaign made the East popular. Bonaparte at
the Pyramids conjured up a past of forty centuries before
his wondering soldiers. But Sanskrit, only lately won from
the Brahmans, still remained the privilege of the English of
India ; Europe possessed neither books, grammars, nor dic-
tionaries. However, the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris
possessed a collection of Sanskrit manuscripts and some
clumsy rudiments of grammar due to the missionaries. Fas-
cinated, like so many others, by reading Cakuntala, Chezy
determined to go back, at any cost, to the original. A
worthy rival of the first humanists of the Renaissance, he
set to work alone to acquire a knowledge of Sanskrit.
Chezy was the son of a distinguished engineer, and destined
originally for his father's profession. It was not long be-
fore he deserted the too stern science of mathematics for the

iThe learned among the Parsi priests: literally, the chief of a Temple of
Fire.

270 INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES

kindly companionship of the Eastern muses. In him an
extreme sensibihty was united with firmness and method ; a
fortunate facility made the study of languages mere sport
to him. He became the pupil of Sacy and Langles, and was
a master of his subject at twenty years of age. He had been
appointed to take part in the labors of the Egyptian mission,
but was stopped at Toulon by illness. He returned to Paris
to seek consolation in the Library among the Oriental manu-
scripts. The story of his gropings and success has the
poignant interest of a drama in which science is at stake :
it was not even without a tragic catastrophe by which he lost
the sweet and precious peace of home life. He was forced
to sacrifice his conjugal happiness to the jealous demands of
research, but his obstinate enthusiasm did not falter ; twenty-
five years later, arrived at the goal of his efforts, but over-
whelmed with sorrows and filled with bitterness, he crowned
the six hundred and fifty pages of the quarto volume, in
which he had at last published the text of Qakuntala, with
this verse of Walter Scott, where he breathes out his very
soul:

"That I o'erlive such woes. Enchantress, is thine own!"

I have not been able to resist giving in detail the first steps
of this heroic pioneer, to whom I may be allowed to offer
homage here, as a Frenchman, as a forenmner, and my own
predecessor. It is Chezy's chair which I now occupy at the
College de France. "On the 29th of November in the year
of grace 1814 and the twentieth of the reign," an ordinance
of Louis XVIII, signed "at his royal chateau of the
Tuileries," created at the same time two new chairs in the
College de France ; one, to which Antoine Leonard de Chezy
was appointed, was for the teaching of the Sanskrit lan-
guage and literature; the other, for the Chinese language
and literature, was first occupied by Abel Remusat. Sil-

PROBLEMS IN SANSKRIT S'PlDll'S 271

vesire de Sacy, the recognized head of iMcncli CJrientalism.
pompously thanked "Loiiis-le-Desire," "through whom let-
ters flourished under the aegis of peace, in the shade of
Minerva's olive-tree." A less fervent royalist might have
enjoyed recording that the ancient regime was no sooner
restored but it found itself compelled to give its counte-
nance, at the outset, to the conquests of the modern spirit in
that very asylum which Francis I had thrown open to in-
dependent research, opposite the University devoted to tra-
dition. In 1530 Greek and Hebrew were sanctioned by
the royal will; it was the overthrow of the principle of au-
thority represented by the Latin of scholasticism. In IS 14
Sanskrit and Chinese, admitted on equal terms with classical
studies, foretold a wider humanity.

Chezy had not foreseen the far-reaching results of his
work, any more than Sacy or Louis XVIII. He was an
Orientalist steeped in classic rhetoric, and he sacrificed to
elderly Muses and superannuated Graces. His opening lec-
ture seems addressed to the retired magistrates who trans-
lated Horace into French verse. "Do not believe, gentle-
men, that this literature has treasures only for science and
stern reason. No; lively imagination also has a large part,
and among no people in the world has brilliant poesy dis-
played itself in more magnificent outward garb, or been
accompanied by a retmue more lovely and more captivating.
From the haughty Epic to the timid Idyll the most varied
productions of taste w^ill present themselves in crowds to
your enchanted gaze and arouse in you by turns every kind
of emotion of which the soul is susceptible." And to prove
"the fecundity of the Indian Muses" he enumerated all
these kinds "treated with equal success by the Bards of the

Ganges."

But more vigorous minds were already preparing to re-
sume the work and render it fruitful. It was the period m

272 INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES

which the author of Indian Wisdom, Schlegal, summed up
the programme of Sanskritists in three stages, Paris, Lon-
don, India. Since 1812 Bopp had settled in Paris, and,
without allowing the din of near battles to distract him,
patiently collected the materials which his genius was to
bring into order. Others before him, since the sixteenth
century, had observed the evident relationship of the Sans-
krit vocabulary with the classical languages. No European
could hear the Sai.shrit names of relationship, pitar, mdtar,
bhrdtar, the names of numbers, dvi, tri, etc., the verb "to be"
(French etre, Sanskrit, asti), but there awoke in him a far-
off echo of his mother tongue or of ancient languages.

Comparison, discussion, and speculation had gone on
without rule or measure; Bopp created the science of com-
parative grammar, classed facts, and recognized laws.
Under the varieties of language prevailing in Europe, Iran,
and India he pointed out a common stock and succeeded in
explaining most of the deviations from it, going back by
way of induction to the primitive type. Then appeared
a word which soon became current, a compound no less
unexpected than expressive, a symbol which summed up the
revolution that had been accomplished. India and Europe,
which everything seemed to separate till that time, came
together and were henceforth fused into one in the accepted
expression "Indo-European." The Brahmans, so long
mysterious, the obscure peasants of Bengal, the Punjab,
Gujerat, had received their heritage from the same linguistic
fund as a Homer or a Virgil ; the groups which had been
unknown, despised, hated, — the German, Slav, and Neo-
Latin, — grouped themselves into a new family of languages.
Soon new discoveries filled the gaps and attached to the
chain those links which were missing. The deciphering of
cuneiform inscriptions brought to light the Persian of the
Achaemenidae ; Zoroaster spoke in the Avesta, which was

PROBLEMS IN SANSKRIT STUDIES 27:i

even explained in the original, and these ancient documents
of Iran connected the shores of the Indus with the valleys
of the Caucasus. Never had a Plato, a Descartes, a L«.'il)-
nitz, in their vastest dreams conceived so large a family
within the human species. The learned were dazzled ; even
their heads were turned, this time. Then arose a strange
and at first puerile sentiment, which proved disastrous later,
when it spread to the common people; comparative grammar
gave birth to Indo-European chauvinism. The Revolution,
borne to the far ends of Europe by Napoleon's wars, had
awakened the national conscience in one people after an-
other. Allies or adversaries of France, those who had been
subjects the day before, awoke suddenly to find themselves
citizens; divine right was forgotten; the state ceased to
be incarnated in the monarch, and was incorporated in the
entire nation. Neither certain of their doctrines, nor of
their own inmost essence, but upheld nevertheless by the will
to live, the nations grouped themselves with restless fervor
around their languages, their institutions, their traditions,
which constituted their collective titles of nobility. The
national spirit was formed, as in the cities of ancient times,
in the struggle with barbarians. When scholars afterwards
proceeded to call attention to the linguistic relationships
which antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance had
neglected or disdained, national pride was willing to lay
claim to the kindred groups. Led away by the bewildering
charm of a grand discovery, savants, and after them the
public, took kinship of language to be a sure indication of
common origin. The peoples scattered over the immense
area of Indo-European languages saw themselves, in spite
of the natural sciences, and on the evidence of their lan-
guage, grouped into one single race which received the name
of Indo-European or Aryan race. The civilized world
which was still within the limits drawn by the prejudices

S74 INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES

current in Europe and the nearer half of Asia, appeared
thenceforward as the patrimony and the battle-field of two
races eternally hostile, the Aryan and the Semitic races,
both pushing forward to conquer the earth.

The fierce struggle between the Encyclopedia and the
Church was bearing fruit. In his eagerness to bring con-
tempt on the Bible Voltaire had already been imprudent
enough to accept as genuine testimony from ancient India
a pretended Veda, the B^oiir Vcdain, which a nobleman had
brought from India and presented to him as a book "trans-
lated from the Sanscretan by the high-priest or arch-brah-
man of the pagoda of Chiringham, an aged man respected
for his incorruptible virtue." In reality the original "Sans-
cretan" had never existed, and the arch-brahman was a
Jesuit missionary. The author of the clever imitation had
hoped to lead the Hindus to the Christian religion by this
pious fraud; if he did not succeed in that, he at least suc-
ceeding in duping Voltaire, and might rest satisfied. But
now the Sanskrit language, studied and taught in Europe,
gave access to the real Veda. The Brahmans persisted as
long as they could in defending this coveted treasure from
the enterprise of profane men of science; their delays and
refusals only served to pique curiosity and inflame imagina-
tion all the more. According to them the Veda had no
date, it went back beyond all time, back to a past impossible
to calculate. They easily imposed their conviction on the
earliest interpreters. At last the Aryan race had its Bible;
an Aryan Bible. But the Veda was not accommodating;
written in an archaic tongue which differed from classical
Sanskrit even more than Homer from Plato, bestrewn with
puzzling forms and disused words, it seemed to defy the
sagacity of philologists. The only help afforded by India
was a commentary too late to be authoritative. On these
ancient texts was expended a wealth of science, of shrewd-

PROBLEMS IN SANSKRIT STUDIES J.>75

ness, of patience, and almost of genius. But a fciregone con-
clusion, an unconscious parti pris, directed and inliuenccd
these efforts. There was a desire to gi\c the Aryans uf
Europe worthy ancestors. The German scholars wIkj
occupied the first rank in philology had naturally suhstituted
for the title Aryan or Indo-European a wonl which Hattcreil
national amour propre; they spoke of the Imlo-Germanic
language, of the Indo-Germanic race. Thenceforward the
Vedas were the complement of the Nichelungen. The
origins of religion took their place heside the origins of the
epic. It was pleasant to picture the singers of the ancient
hymns as grave and nohle patriarchs, thoughtful, devout,
austere, patriarchs formed on the romantic model; their
candid soul, filled with enthusiasm for the grand spectacles
of nature, poured itself forth in lyric effusions. Lost in
the radiance of the Veda, Indianism forfeited its independ-
ence and placed itself like a faithful Achates at the side of
comparative grammar. The infatuation of the first days
had died out some time before. The public, satiated with
the East by the Romantic School, found no further charm
in it; the successors of W'ilkins and Jones ])ursned their
laborious task without exciting attention. But Sanskrit still
remained, by well-established right, the corner-stone of
linguistic studies ; perpetuated without alteration for tens of
centuries, it surpassed in purity all the languages of the
family. Moreover, the Hindu grammarians had been the
real creators of comparative grammar; it was in their school
that Bopp and his successors had learned the art of rigorous
analysis of words, the art of classing their elements, ex-
plaining their formation, and tracing their derivation
through the vocabulary. The Hindus, who have but little
taste for observation of external phenomena, who are but
mediocre pupils of their neighbors in the domain of the
natural sciences, have given the closest study to the data of

276 INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES

the inner life; their psychology has penetrated to the un-
conscious and prepared the way for modern investigation;
their grammar, several centuries before the Christian era,
established the study of sounds with almost faultless pre-
cision. The glorious name of Panini. even to the present
day, hovers over Indo-European linguistic science.

Although sheltered under the ?egis of comparative gram-
mar, the study of the Veda was nevertheless tending toward
a revolution. Linked together from this time forth, the
Semitic Bible and the Aryan Bible were doomed to the same
fate Criticism, gradually emancipated from the tradition
of ag-es, had first tried its hand on Homer, and in spite of
the anxious protests of defenders of the past, it had dared to
direct a front attack against accumulated prejudices. Em-
boldened by success, it seized on the Scriptures, braved the
scandal, and subjected them to severe examination.

There was no choice but to submit and recognize in the
sacred books a late compilation, sacredotal in its origin and
inspiration. The shock of the attack reached the Veda.
May a disciple of Abel Bergaigne be allowed, upon this
high occasion, to recall the name of the master loved with
a filial affection and everlastingly regretted, who was the
author of this revolution? The liturg}-, when more thor-
oughly studied and better known, threw^ a pitiless light on
the ancient hymns; those songs in which, as was at first
believed, we could almost hear the whimper of humanity
in its cradle, betrayed a soulless religion reduced to mere
forms, a subtilized religion w'hich confounded the priest with
the magician, a priestly poetry which subsisted on old
patches and worked to order. The trench which had been
ingeniously dug between the Veda and Sanskrit literature
narrowed and tended gradually to be filled up. The Veda
once Aryan became Hindu. Indianism lost its connection
with Indo-Germanic studies; it retired within itself, form-

PROBLEMS IN SANSKRIT STLlJllCS -::

iiig a mighty, organic unity. The Veda lost nothing hy ilii> ;
it continued, by reason of its age and intluencc, to dominate
the development of India. Thus transformed, the study of
the Veda renewed its youth and entered on a new cia.
Among the four great collections (Samliita) which arc ihc
foundation of Vedic literature, the Rig-Veda collection had
long kept possession of the favor and attention of scholars ;
it was the Veda par excellence. This collection, methodic-
ally arranged, presented to the view of those prepossessed in
its favor an ensemble as noble and correct as could be
wished; it was possible to extract passages of lofty reach,
picturesque or pathetic or grandiose pieces such as the Aryan
Bible demanded. Two other collections, the Sama and the
Yajur-Veda, betrayed their liturgic origin too crudely to
take rank with the Rig-Veda. The fourth collection, the
Atharva-Veda, had nothing edifying about it; the Brah-
mans themselves had recognized this more than once. It
was a strange combination of charms, spells, speculations,
and domestic ritual, in which medicine, sorcery, debauchery,
poltical intrigue, and daily life, with its trifling incidents,
jostled each other. It was embarrassing for the ideal of
Aryan nobility; it was kept at a distance, or at least in the
background, like a suspected i>ersonage, like a bastard.
However, the world was changing; literary nobility and
nobility of birth were sinking together ; la grandc populace
et la sainte canaille were claiming their turn. History no
longer confined herself to a list of exploits connected with
illustrious natnes. Watching the stir in the street, she had
guessed at the obscure supernuineraries taking their part ni
the human drama; she strove to catch a glimpse of them
in the shadows of the past. Folk-lore came into existence,
and the Atharva supplanted the Rig- Veda, fallen into dis-
credit. Triumphant democracy made its victory apparent
in Vedic studies.

278 INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES

If limited to the study of the Yedas and the orthodox
classics, Sanskrit philology was in no danger of exhausting
its material too quickly ; the enormous mass of works accu-
mulated in the course of twenty centuries by unwearying
generations of writers gave promise of a long time to be
spent in exploiting them. A great number of these works
found favor with literary men by the beauty of their form,
with thinkers by the loftiness of their ideas or the boldness
of their speculations. But history, for which so much had
been expected from the discovery and study of these w^orks,
was destined to be disappointed. Blinded by puerile vanity,
the Brahmans had detached Indian from the world; they
had been wonderfully seconded by nature, which seemed to
have isolated the peninsula amid the walls of the Himalayas,
the formidable deserts of the Indus, and the yet more for-
midable expanse of the sea. They delighted in represent-
ing "Hindu wisdom" as a fruit sprung spontaneously from
the soil, a miraculous production due to their power alone.
Their fascinating spell, which still sways so many candid
minds, had already had its effect upon the ancients. Did
not Pythagoras, among others, pass for a disciple of the
Brahmans? With a consistency so strict that it seems to
imply a conscious determination, they had put away in-
convenient memories, and if, by chance, tradition forced a
real name upon them, they shrouded it in the mists of a
false antiquity. If we had to trust to their fantastic chro-
nology, a glorious contemporary of Alexander, Candragupta
the Maurya (the Sandrakoptos of the Greeks), would be
placed seventeen centuries before the Christian Era ! Of
Alexander himself and his expedition they naturally re-
membered nothing. Up to the time of the Mussulman in-
vasion, too positive and too near to be by any possibility
denied, they pictured India happy and blissful, enjoying
the willing or compelled respect of all the barbarians of the

PROBLEMS IN SANSKRIT STUDIES 270

earth. The positive and exact testimony of the Greeks and
Latins exposed the fraud of the Brahmans; Hellenism, it
was well known, has penetrated victoriously into the "Holv
Land." But it was not enough to bring to light the in-
terested falsehoods of the priestly caste; science undertook
the colossal task of restoring to India her lost history. Scat-
tered over the vast expanse of the country, steles, pillars,
and rocks could still be met with, on which were traced in-
scriptions in enigmatic characters, mute witnesses of van-
ished epochs. The patience of investigators — a patience of
genius — succeeded in breaking through their long silence.
After a century of work the political history of the Hindu
world begins to appear to us ; still broken up by enormous
gap-s, confused, uncertain, calling for cautious judgment.
It is still easy to mention dynasties which waver, according
to Ihe differing hypotheses, within a space of three cen-
turies, the length of time which separates Alexander from
Augustus, the discovery of America from the Independence
of the United States. But, taken as a whole, the picture is
already clear. Political India shows a resemblance to re-
ligious India in a continual production of small groups
which combine together, now and again, to form a system,
and fall apart almost immediately. And this history, which
was believed to be as old as the world, does not begin be-
fore the morrow of the Macedonian invasion! W^e have
not a single line of an inscription which we have the right
to date earlier than this. The epigraphy of India begins
with the admirable sermons which a Buddhist emperor.
Aqoka, caused to be engraved in every corner of his vast
dominions toward the year 250 before the Christian Era.
A happy chance, perhaps some deep excavations, may open
out to epigraphy a more distant horizon ; but at the present
time our positive documents do not go beyond the date men-
tioned. Sanskrit epigraphy begins still later. It api^ars

280 INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES

in tentative fashion at about the beginning of the Christian
Era, but does not begin to flourish till the middle of the
second century. Before this period the authors of the in-
scriptions used only dialects, related, no doubt, to Sanskrit,
but greatly disfigured and altered. I am far from conclud-
ing that the Sanskrit language was not formed till this late
epoch ; but it must be admitted on this testimony that Sans-
krit was not one of the vulgar tongues of India three cen-
turies before the birth of Christ. The grammarians who
had lovingly fashioned it had detached it from real life
when they gave it fixed forms. Doubtless the divorce only
became apparent by degrees ; the difference between the
spoken language and the written Sanskrit at first only
seemed to lie in slight shades of correctness or purity;
when the distance widened, the priestly caste remained faith-
fully attached to the privileged language that separated it
from the illiterate masses ; it consecrated its own language
to religion and imposed it on the orthodox literature.
Imagine the Latin of Cicero rescued by the Christian
Church, and, under her patronage, accepted as the language
of literature by all the peoples of Europe, irrespective of
spoken tongues, and you will understand the role of the
Sanskrit language and literature in India.

The Brahmans had intended to keep the monopoly of
Sanskrit ; they flattered themselves that they shared it with
the gods alone. But two rebellious churches rose up
against Braham pretensions and marked the hour of their
triumph by the conquest of Sanskrit. Cultivated by the
Buddhists and Jains, the mass, already huge, of Sanskrit
literature spread and multiplied in spite of the Brahmans.
But Jainism, after a short time of prosperity, sank into a
long torpor and was forgotten. Buddhism, receiving a
mortal blow by the invasion of Islam, which burnt the
convents end massacred or dispersed the communities, dis-

PROBLEMS IN SANSKRIT STUDll-S

:.'M

appeared from Hindu soil. The Brahman had his re-
venge; he wreaked his jealous hatred on Die remains of the
rival who had disputed empire with him; he thought t..
efface the last traces of Buddhism, and preserved the mere
name only to execrate it. But again Western science-
baffled his calculations.

In 1816, by the force of British arms, a British resident,
assisted by two subordinates, was established at Nepal
among the refractory Gurkhas. Ten years later Hodgson
with toilsome perseverance extracted the still immense ruins
of Buddhist Sanskrit literature from the libraries of Nepal.
At about the same time Ceylon, Burma, and Siam, which
had remained faithful to the Law of the Buddha, yielded
up to investigators a still more considerable collection of
works both religious and profane, written in Pali, an
ancient dialect, near to Sanskrit, and sprung from the same
soil, but independent.

Sanskrit texts and Pali texts, coming from opposite
points of the Indian horizon, brought with them, each one.
a body of tradition and legend on the life of the Buddha
and the destinies of the church. By means of strictly
critical comparison it was possible to extract their part
of history from these stories. Burnouf, the successor of
Chezy at the College de France, undertook this heavy task,
undaunted by the multitude of manuscripts and the variety
of languages; by dint of sagacity, penetration, justice, and
reason he accomplished at the outset a definite work. His
Introduction to the History of Indian Bnddhisni remains
at the end of half a century of new discoveries and re-
searches an authority still safe and still consulted.

With Buddhism Sanskrit finally overstepped the fron-
tiers of India. The bold enterprise of Csoma de Koros.
who had shut himself up for several years in a convent of
Ladakh, had brought to light an immense Tibetan library.

282 INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES

translated, to a great extent, from Sanskrit originals, some
of which were preserved in Nepal, others lost. China
and Japan, thrown open by degrees to Western research,
yielded up in their turn similar collections translated from
Sanskrit originals. The history and literature of China
added theu- testimony to the power of the movement which,
from the beginning of the Christian Era onwards, carried
Indian Buddhism in triumphant marches as far as the palace
of the Son of Heaven and even to the islands of the sea,
fructifying thought, elevating the souls of men, awakening
or transforming art. The memoirs of a Fa-hien, a Hiuen-
tsang, and I-tsing described the pilgrims fascinated by the
"Holy Land," impatient to adore the footprints of the
Buddha, braving the sterile sands and treacherous whirl-
winds, the brigands, the mountains, and the storms of the
ocean in order to study the sacred Sanskrit language and
bring back to their own country a reliable translation, with
the authentic words of the master or his disciples. So
strong a movement of expansion must necessarily leave
positive traces; the expansion of Europe at the present
day, following the self-same routes, is bringing about by
degrees the discovery of the monuments of this long-
perished past. No sooner was France mistress of Indo-
China than she began her work by an admirable campaign
of archaeological discovery; an immense harvest of in-
scriptions collected from Cambodia up to Tonkin has re-
vived a history which was believed to be utterly wiped out.
Sanskrit iiad served for twelve centuries to immortalize
the praises of the sovereigns of Cambodia and Champa.
The Ecole Frangaise d'Extreme-Orient, founded in 1898,
is methodically carrying on the work of the early pioneers ;
science profits by the fruitful union of Sanskrit and Chinese,
brilliantly accomplished by this school. The rivality of
England and Russia in Central Asia has not been less fruit-

PROBLEMS IN SANSKRIT STLUll-S ^^3

fill. Since 1800 the attention of Indianists has l)ccn kept
awake by a continuous series of discoveries. Under the
sands of ^he Takla Makan sleep Pompeiis, half Hindu in
character. Treasure-hunters, according to the chances of
their adventurous expeditions, have unearthed fragments
of ancient manuscripts written in Sanskrit, mingled with
fragments in an unknown language; arithmetic, medicine,
sorcery, astrology, jostle one another in these incongruous
leaves. A French mission has brought from Khotan a man-
uscript of the Dhammapada written in a dialect closely
resembling Sanskrit and dating, without doubt, at least
fifteen hundred years back. Dr. Stein's mission in 1000
was the beginning of a methodical and first-hand explora-
tion of the buried ruins; the religious, administrative and
artistic history of Central Asia in the first centuries of the
Christian Era shines forth with unexpected clearness. The
patience of scholars is still busied with these documents,
and, behold, new discoveries are already announced, due
to the Griinwedel and Huth mission. This time we have
to do not with fragments of manuscript, but a text printed
on w^ood In the Tibetan manner. The work is in Sanskrit.
Avith a marginal title in Chinese, and belongs to the
Buddhist Scriptures. What splendid discoveries are wc
not justified in hoping for, now, if the convents of Central
Asia have multiplied copies of the sacred canon, of the
Sanskrit Tripitaka, in print!

Thus, a century after its birth, Sanskrit i)hilology sees
its field extend to the limit;; of man's horizon. By its
origin, by its grammar, by its vocabulary, by its earliest
monuments, Sanskrit belongs to the Aryan group, extend-
ing from the mouths of the Ganges to the shores of the
Atlantic. By Alexander's expedition and the creation of
new kingdoms to the northwest of India. Indian and
Hellenic destinies were Imked together for three or four

284 INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES

hundred years. By the expansion of Buddhism India dom-
inated the poHtics, the thought, and the art of the Fax-
East. The childish pride of the Brahmans had thought
to exah the dignity of the sacred language by presuming
to confine it, like a secret treasure, within the impassable
boundaries of India. Science has once more broken down
superstitution and revealed a truth grander than falsehood.
No more than any other nation of the world has India
created or developed her civilization alone. Our civiliza-
tions, by whatever particular name we choose to call them,
are the collective work of humanity. Far from developing
in shy isolation, they are only of worth when they borrow
largely. The market of thought, like the business market,
is a continual movement of exchange. On whatever point
of the globe we may live, we are all legitimate heirs of all
the past humanity; the richest are those who claim most
of that past. Whether applied to India or other regions,
historical studies have grandeur and beauty in so far as
they increase the patrimony of man ; they awake in the in-
dividual the conscience of the species; they reveal to us
our double debt towards the past which has formed us,
towards the future which we are forming. Thus they raise
the labors of scholarship above a vain dilettantism ; by them
her role is carried even into practical life, unjustly dis-
dained, and they show her toiling patiently and consciously
for harmony and progress.

THE RELATIONS OF LATIX

BY KDVVARD ADOLF SONNKNSCIIKIN

■^Edward Adolf Soxxensciietx. Professor of Latin and Crppk. Uni-
versity of Birmingham, England, b. Loudon. I80L .M.A. Oxford.
1878; D.Litt. 1901; M.A. Birmingham, 19UL Dean of the Faculty
of Arts, Birmingham, 1901; Assistant Professor of Humanity.
University of Glasgow, 1877-81; Professor of Greek and Latin.
Mason College, Birmingham, 1883-90. E.xaminer Classics. Uni-
versity of Wales, University of Edinburgh. 1899-1902; Examiner
in Greek to the Central Welsh Board, 190."); Hon. Sec of the
Classical Association of England and Wales, 1904. Editok ok
Plautus's Captivi, MosteUuria, liudcns. Aithoh ok Latin and
Greek Orammurs in the Parallel Grammar Series (of which he Is
editor in chief); Ideals of Culture; Ora Maritima; I'rv Patria.
etc.]

I HAVE decided to treat the subject entrusted to ine to-
day not from the purely linguistic point of view, — thougli
this would have supplied me with a fruitful theme, — but
rather from a point of view which would, I suppose, in
Germany be called "kulturhistorisch." What I propose
to discuss is not the relation of Latin to other languages as
languages, but rather the place of Latin in the history of
civilization, and the work that it has done in the world
as a vehicle of culture. The subject thus opened up is, (^f
course, far too great to be embraced in a brief paper; nor
do I pretend to be able to deal competently with all its
aspects: but it is, perhaps, not inappropriate in scope and
magnitude to the present occasion.

The history of the Latin language, regarded as an organ
of culture, may be divided into three great periods: (1)
the period in which it is the organ of a culture moulded
mainly by Greece; this period extends from long l)efore
the third century b. c. to the latter part of the second
century a. d. : (2) the period in which Latin becomes the or-
gan of the Christian Church, from the end of the second

285

286 LATIN LANGUAGE

century to the end of the fifth century a. d. : (3) the period
vaguely spoken of as the "Middle Ages," from the sixth
to the end of the thirteenth century of our era.

It was a favorite idea of ancient writers to represent
the course of history as a succession of cycles, each of which
was more or less coincident with its predecessor. That
history repeats itself, — even that the atoms of which the
universe is composed return after the completion of some
magmis annus into the precise position which they occu-
pied at its commencement, — this is the common assump-
tion of ancient philosophers and poet :

Magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo.

If we compare this theory with modern philosophies of his-
tory, the broad distinction is that, whereas we proceed on the
postulate or working hypothesis that the world is progress-
ive, the belief in progress was in ancient times conspicuous
by its absence. Development, indeed, they knew; but only
development in the downward direction, — degeneration, —
and that only within the limits of one cycle. Thus at bottom
their philosophy of history was static. The Eleatic conception
of "Being" as against "Becoming" expresses the deeply
rooted conviction of antiquity. If Plato had been sketch-
ing the history of modern Europe he would probably have
seen in the period which followed the decline and fall of
the Roman Empire the commencement of a new cycle, he
would have compared the inroads of the barbarians to the
migrations which changed the face of Eastern Europe at
the commencement of the Hellenic period ; and he would
have ended by predicting a decline and fall of the civiliza-
tion of the West, including, perhaps, that of the great
Atlantis, whose existence he seems to have divined some
nineteen centuries before the time of Columbus. Yet such
a conception would have ignored a cardinal frict in the case.
It was not in utter nakedness that modern Europe entered

THE RELATIONS OF LATIN 287

on her career. Aluch, no doubt, of the spiritual wealtli of
ancient Hellas had been lost, many a "cloud of glc^ry" had
been dispelled, at any rate for a time, but much oi it lived
on in other forms, reborn in the institutions, the art, and
the philosophy of Rome. Thus it comes about that so
large a part of our spiritual inheritance is Greek. The
Renaissance of Greek studies in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries would not have been able to galvanize into life
a culture that was utterly dead; it was because part of that
culture was alive, albeit in Roman forms, that its second
rebirth was possible. And even for this secoiul rebirth
we are indebted principally to the genius of Rome working
in Italians like Petrarch, Politian, and Poggio. When
we think of these things, how to the same Rome which one
of her poets of imperialism apostrophized in the words, —

Fecisti patriam diversis gentibus unam, —

we owe also our connection at two points with the intel-
lectual conquests of Greece, we may well pause before we
accept as final the verdict which one of the greatest of
living scholars has summed up in the ungrateful phrase
"das seelenmordende Rom."

Standing some years ago in Norwich Cathedral, I had
the greatness of Rome brought forcibly home to my mind.
In the aisles there stretched out a series of groined vaults
which carried one straight back to the Colosseum: and at
the extreme east end, behind the altar, rose two stately
Early English arches, once the entrance to a Lady Chapel
of the thirteenth century, but now standing isolated; for
the Lady Chapel itself was destroyed in the sixteenth cen-
tury. The groined vaults are Romanesque, but the Early
English arches are also Roman, only one degree further
removed. Let two Roman barrel vaults or two Ro-
manesque arches intersect, and you get the arch misnamed

288 LATIN LANGUAGE

Gothic. A clear line of structural descent connects the one
with the otiier, atul the genius of Rome may claim them
both as her own.

The relations of Rome \n the Crock and to the modern
world may be also illusti-atcd by the history of verse. From
C"ireeco Rome borrowed the system of strictly quantitative
meter, and discarded in favor of it the native Saturnian.
But j^i^radually she adapted it to the conditions of the Latin
lauguat^e by j^raftinq- upon it the Italian principle of ac-
cent/ the beoinnins^ of certain feet beinj;- marked by the
use of an accented syllable, just as in architecture she in-
trixlnced the feature of the arch. The effect is prominent
in the verse of the poctae novclli of the second century
A. 1).; but it is also visible to some extent in much earlier
forms of Latin verse. To quote only one example, the
second half of the dactylic pentameter of Ovid is subject
to the law that it must be as accentual as possible, provided
always that it does not end with a monosyllable. This
sounds like a paradox; but I believe I could, if not give it
proof, at any rate make it jilausible. The dissyllabic end-
ing is simply a necessary sacrifice to secure coincidence of
"ictus," as it is called, with accent in the other places.
Well, in the course of time this accentual feature trans-
formed the whole character of Latin verse, yet without in-
volving a return to the Saturnian. And just as the pointed
Gothic arch developed out of the Romanesque, so the ac-
centual principle received such further development in the
modern Teutonic \erse based upon Latin models — accent
being of course also a Teutom'c principle — as to throw the
quantitative principle completely in the shade; so that we
now employ a kind of verse which seems at first sight com-
parable to Greek verse only by way of contrast. But only

' The differentia of T^atln verse as compared with Greek ia that it is both
quantitative or seiui-quantltatlve in some cases, axd at certain points ac-
centual ; nor do I accept any purely accentual theory of the Saturnian.

THE RELATIONS OF LATIN ogo

at first sight. This, too. I have no time to discuss fully
to-day; but I will merely say that in my opinion the main
difference between English and Lalini/.cd Greek verse is
that English is not based upon any system of prosody,—
that is, that the (juantities of syllables in English verse are
not predetermined, as they are in Latin, by rules repre-
senting more or less accurately the prose pronunciation.
The English poet in building his rime employs expansible
and contractible bricks.

Our debt to Greece was finely acknowledged by Shelley,
in his preface to Hellas, — a poem inspired by sympathy
with the cause of Greek independence. "We are all Greeks.
Our laws, our literature, our religion, our arts have all
their root in Greece." The truth which lies in this state-
ment, accompanied by some exaggeration, is becoming
clearer to us every day, in proportion as the achievements
of ancient Hellas in the fields of letters, or art, of science —
aye, even of religious thought and political organization —
become better known to us and more justly appreciated.
Yet it would probably by truer to say that we are all
Romans. For in the first place the Greek influence upon
the modern world is mainly indirect, coming to us through
Rome; and secondly, there are elements in our culture
which are not Greek at all ; other influences have been at
work — these, too, mediated by Rome and the Latin lan-
guage. As to the former point, no truer word can be
spoken than the oft-repeated statement that just as con-
quered Greece led her conqueror captive, so conquered
Rome imposed on the Teutonic barbarians not only her
laws but also her culture and her civilization as a whole.

This second mission of Rome, which began with and
before the fall of the Western Empire, was continued down
to the Renaissance; and that Italy and the Eternal City
might continue to hold the position of instructors of the

290 LATIN LANGUAGE

nations was the prayer of Marco Vida in the sixteenth
century :

Artibus emineat semper studiisque Minervae
Italia, et gentes doceat pulcherrima Roma
Quandoquidem armorum penitus fortuna recessit.i

As to my second point, the existence of non-Greek ele-
ments in our civihzation, that is a matter for which neither
Vida nor Shelly could be expected to have an open eye.
But the fact that not only Greece, but also Judea, and at
later date Arabia, stood at the back of Rome, and that the
triumph of Latin civilization was a triumph for these also,
is written large in history.

Rome was, in fact, the heir of at least two civilizations;
her culture was the common stream into which had flowed
the two rills of a universalized Hellenism and Hellenized
Judaism. But Latin was the medium of communication ;
so that we may fairly describe the complex unity of modern
civilization as mainly a Latin unity. There have also been
direct influences of Greece upon the modern world, notably
at the time of the Humanistic Renaissance of the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries, and during the last hundred years ;
but these have never overthrown, though they have modi-
fied, the structure which was erected on a Latin foundation.
Just as the political institutions and the law of Rome form
a large part of the structure of every modern state, Roman
roads playing the part of modern railways in opening up
new avenues for civilization, so Roman thought is the
predominating partner in the intellectual life of to-day.

The first period in the history of the Latin language, so
regarded, is the period of Greek influence; and its most
important subdivision falls in the middle of the second
century b. c, the time when Greeks like Polybius First
and Panaetius introduced to the "Scipionic circle" Period

1 Marco Vida (1489-1566), Poetica. u, 11. 63-65.

THE RELATIONS OF LATIX 291

at Rome an intenser form of Greek culture than had been
known there before. From this time onwards for over
three hundred years a new intluence dominates Latin hter-
ature, — the influence of Greek pliilosophy and especially of
Stoicism. Of all the gifts of Greece to Rome, none was
fraught with such far-reaching consequences as the philo-
sophy of the Stoa. The fact that it caught the ear
of Rome as no other system of philosophy e\er
did, that it exercised a profound influence on life ami
thought from the middle of the second century u. c. till
the end of the second century a. d., that it transformed the
whole system of Roman jurisprudence through the idea
of the Rights of Man (the Jus Naturcr), that it became
nothing less than the religion of the educated classes under
the early Empire, — all this is unmistakable testimony to
two facts: (1) that there was no absolute breach of con-
tinuity between the Greek and the modern world; and (2)
that Stoicism was really congenial to the Roman tempera-
ment.

But what was Stoicism? Not purely Greek, it would
seem : every one of its men of note — Such as Zeno.
Cleanthes, Chrysippus, Aratus, and at a later date Diogenes
of Babylon, Antipater, Pan?etius, Poseidonius, Atheno-
dorus (Canaanites) — hailed from the East, and some of
them were of Semitic blood : the period at which it sprang
into existence w^as that of the decay of the Greek city-
states; the atmosphere it breathed was that of the Greater
Greece opened up by the conquests of Alexander: the ideals
it expressed were those of an epoch of expansion, — ideals
of cosmopolitanism (the very word has a Stoic ring).'
of the brotherhood of man. of philosophic liberalism and
imperialism. Its monism and monotheism stood in marked

lit seems to have nome to the Stoics from the Cynic Diogenes: bis answer
((too-MOTToAiVr)?) to the question ttoSottos el, is quoted by Diogenes Laertlua, vi, 63.

292 LATIN LANGUAGE

contrast to the dualistic tendencies of Greek philosophy
since Anaxagoras. Altogether, though much be explained
as development on purely Greek lines, yet the probability,
both external and internal, of an Oriental and indeed a
Semitic strain in Stoicism seems too strong to be resisted.
Greece, in fact, had grozini into Stoicism — but not without
contact with Oriental thought. How deep the world's
debt to the East is will probably ne^'er be fully known.

Stoicism appealed strongly to the Roman character —
to its dignity, its piety, its commercial integrity, its
dictTc8aciiu',ia. ^ I am speaking, of course, of the Roman
character at its best. It is worth remark that the only de-
partment of Latin literature, except the literature of Law,
which was dintinctly a Roman creation was a special kind
of didactic literature, precisely the sphere in which these
Stoical qualities had a field for their exercise, though it
goes by the name of Satire. If we had adhered to the name
chosen by Lucilius and Horace, it might, perhaps, have
suggested to us as an English equivalent the word "Ser-
mons." What are the Sermones of Horace but lay ser-
mons, not without a spice of humor? And though he is
fond of drawing caricatures of the Stoics, caricatures
which we are too ready to take an grand serieux, he was
himself a bit of a Stoic at heart, at any rate when in a
moral mood. So were most of the great Roman writers.
Virgil seems to have given up his early Epicureanism in
favor of a religious view of things in which Stoicism and
Platonism were blended, if not indeed one: the doctrine
of the world-soul as expressed in the fourth Georgic (219-
227) is, I think. Stoic rather than Platonic; the famous
passage in the sixth /Eneid (724-751), with its doctrine
of rewards and punishments in the future state, is per-
haps Platonic rather than Stoic; for the Stoics believed in

1 Polybius, VI, 56, 10.

THE RELATIONS OF LATIN 203

absorption in the r.vzoiia too xonimo {sf^iritus, or auima,
mundi), rather than any form of personal ininK^rtaUty.'
The coryphaei of the Scipionic circle were, as I have said.
all Stoics — Lncilius," Lselius Furiiis T^hihis, Scsevola, and
the rest ; so too, perhaps, even Cato the Censor, in his old
age. Terence talks Stoicism in the line :

Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto (Hcaut. 11).

Varro was half a Stoic; Cicero a good deal more than
half. Even Sallust preaches Stoicism when he wishes to
be impressive. Under the Empire we find Stoicism pro-
fessed in Seneca and in Persius, as w^ell as in the Emperor
Marcus Aurelius and the Phrygian slave Epictetus. It
commanded the respect of Liican and Jinenal, whose later
Satires are practically Stoic tracts,^ and it would have
made a convert of Tacitus, had he not had other axes to
grind. The younger Pliny too shows Stoic leanings. Nor
was its influence confined to letters : it showed itself under
the Republic in the humanistic and socialistic radicalism
of the Gracchi — pupils of C. Blossius — and in the assas-
sination of Julius Caesar; and under the early Empire in
the political martyrdoms of men like Musonius Rufus.
Rubellius Plautus, Thrasea Paetus, and many others, who
formed the "Stoic opposition."

This vogue of Stoicism goes, indeed, so far as to sug-
gest a doubt as to whether the Stoicism of Rome was ik^i
merely an expression of the Roman character itself. And
no doubt the Romans w^ere Stoics by nature as well by

1 The virtues that Virgil admired most were fo';tit"<le_ <P«'''"'^> »°"'„i\!*''L*;
See the passage in Donatus's Lifr. ch. 18. quoted by Sellar. p. 123. and by
Wicliham, Introduction to Horace, Ode i, 21 (p. 73).

2 In my opinion Lucilius was a Stoio ; cf. esperlally the faement 'iboji^ rirfHs
(=.wisdom), preserved by Lactantius. The word i«r,',,.s a''l">'-^<l,» »;'''"'';»,
philosophical sense in Latin, equivalent tx) the Stoio opflo, ^"vo.. '^- CI';. Tum-
IV, 15, 34 (=recta ratio), Dc Leg. i, 8, 25. De t >n. ..i, 4. 1- . Hor. O./. ii. -.
18. Ill, 2, 17 ; Sat. ii, 1, 70, 72 ; Epist. i, 1. 17.

3 1 have not forgotten the passage (13. 121) '° ^hich the Stole Is spoken o^
as differing from the Cynic only in his fufiic. The Stoirs and the Cynks were
really akin.

294 LATIN LANGUAGE

nurture. Yet Stoicism must have lielped to develop those
elements in the Roman character to which it appealed so
strongly. The old Roman z-irtus (manliness) came to have
a wider sense (wisdom). Xor is it easy to say how much
of the later form which Stoicism assumed in the hands of
men of affairs like Cicero, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius
is due to contact with the Roman genius for simplification
and adaptation and practical life, and how much to later
developments of Stoicism itself, as taught by men like
PanjEtius and Poseidonius. One thing is certain, — that
neo-Stoicism, if I may so call it, put off something of its
arrogance, its dogmatism, its pedantry, and its paradoxes,
and became a more human thing than early Stoicism had
been. And this gain more than compensated for the losses
which it suffered on the purely speculative side. Neo-
Stoicism as developed at Rome became a power in the
world.

There is probably no school of philosophy which has
been so hardly judged as Stoicism. Its influence upon the
world has been incalculable. The main differentiae of
modern society, as compared with ancient, are, I suppose,
broadly speaking, three: the passage from the city-state
to the empire-state, the abolition of slavery, and the crea-
tion of the church as distinct from the state. All these
were voiced, or at least anticipated in principle, by Stoicism.
As to the third point. Stoicism, like some other Greek
schools of philosophy, linked men together in a unity w^hich
was independent of the state and in which therefore lay
the germs of a church.

Again the Stoic theology led to an attitude towards
nature w^hich was a new thing in literature, a sense of the
mvstery of nature, as the dwelling-place and vesture of
deity, the templum deorum immortalium (Seneca, De
Benef. vu, 7, 3). It was something like the old Greek

THE RELATIONS OI< LATIN

!<:.

nature-worsliip minus its polytheism. To ilu- loim.ition
of our modern attitude towards nature no doubt other
elements have contributed, notably the Celtic, as Matthew
Arnold held. But Stoicism was the be^innin^' of it.

The world at large is little conscious of the debt which
it owes to Stoicism as a religious philosophy. The high
seriousness and lofty morality taught by this school the
world has passed by with a shrug of indifference: its chari-
ties, extended to slaves and even to the lower animals, —

oira ^d)£i re xai tpret Svrjr 'cri yatav,^

have been put down to "rhetoric" or inconsistency; and
men have been contented merely to "shiver at its apathy."
But its apathy was, after all, only meant as a protest against
emotion in the wrong place. The Stoics objected to bas-
ing mercy {dementia) upon mere emotion {miscricordia).
May not the reason for this indifference of the world at
large towards a noble school of thought be found partly
in the fact that Stoicism stands too near to ourselves to be
seen clearly? It is said that if you show a man his own
likeness in a mirror he will sometimes turn from it in dis-
gust. Stoicism is essentially a philosophy not of desi)air,
but of confidence and almost defiant optimism. Many of
the fundamental ethical ])rinciples which are generally re-
garded as specifically Christian had been developed inde-
pendently by the Porch. The idea of the fatherhood of
God and its corollaries, the brotherhood of man and the
law of love, in a word, tb.c wliole idea of basing morality
directly upon a religious theory of the universe, is Stoic.

The striking phrase, r«0 yap xai yhni; Uidv. quoted by St.
Paul, and the use of the word vazr^p in addressing the
Deity are common to the Hymn of Cleanthes and the pro-
logue to the ^atvofieva of Aratus.

1 Hymn of Cleanthes, third century b. c.

296 LATIN LANGUAGE

And this is a new note in literature; there is nothing
quite like it in Plato or Aristotle, though Greek literature
of the classical age has some analogies/

In view of these facts it is no matter of surprise that
Stoicism has contributed to Christianity some of its cardi-
nal terms: xveD/ia (spintus), au-^ei8r,aig (conscicntia),
aurdpxeca (siifficientia) , in their special religious senses, have
come to us through the Stoics, Even Xdyo^ is ultimately-
due to them.

The phrase noXtTeta rod xoff/iov civitas communis homi-
num et dsorum, "city of God," is only one of many links
that connect the early Greek Stoics with Cicero and Alarcus
Aurelius, and Marcus Aurelius with St. Augustine. Nor
did some of the chief of the early fathers of the church,
notably St. Augustine, fail to recognize the affinities of
Christianity to earlier religious systems. Seneca saepc
noster, says Tertullian, Seneca noster, says Jerome: and
the recognition went so far as to lead some zealot to man-
ufacture a correspondence between Seneca and St. Paul,
which was intended to account for their resemblance. Some
passages in Seneca are indeed startling enough to awaken
a suspicion of some contact. He several times speaks of
God as parens noster, and as "within us" (prope est a te
deus, tecum est, intus est) ; he calls him sacer spirit us
{Sacer infra nos spirifus scdct — the same idea as I Corin-
thians III, 16, and vi, 19, "your body is the temple of the
Holy Ghost in you"). Whether Seneca may not have come
into contact with some refined form of Judaism at Rome,
it is indeed hard to say. Yet these terms are Stoical prop-
erty: the "God within" of Seneca is the same as the domi-
nans ille in nobis dens of Cicero, and the divinac particula
aurae of Horace. And if Seneca has some striking parallels

1 Plato speaks of God as narnp In the Timaeus, but rather in the sense of
the creator — the {ij/niovpyo? — than as standing in an intimate relation to the
Foul of man.

THE RELATIONS OF LATIX 2J»7

to the ethical teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, these
are only deductions from that fundamental ethical princi-
ple of Stoicism by which it is linked not less with Aristotle
than with Christianity: Iwiuiiiciii socialc cuiimal, com-
miini bono genitum} "Nur allein der Mensch vermag duN
Unmogliciic." The Stoics had seized the grand concep-
tion that Reason, man's prerogative, is an emanation from,
or part of, the Deity. I know of no better general exposi-
tion of this doctrine of the "Indwelling Supreme Spirit"
than Emerson's Divinity School Address of 1838.

Let us now turn to the second period in the history of
the Latin language, the period in which Latin becomes the
organ of the Christian Church. In this period, Second
which extends from the latter part of the second Period
century to the latter part of the fifth century a. d., from
Marcus Aurelius to the fall of the Western Emi)ire. Chris-
tianity was taking shape: and it brings us to the second
great element out of which the composite unity of Latin
civilization was developed. The official conversion of the
Roman Empire to Christianity in the fourth century has
been called "the miracle of history.'" but there is no need
to appeal to miracles in this case. The Gr?eco-Roman
world w^as prepared for the reception of Christianity
through that shifting of the ancient landmarks which finds
expression in Stoicism. And there is als<i another order
of facts to which I have now to allude, avoiding as far as
possible controversial matter. For if Stoicism was a com-
posite thing, Christianity, as it entered the stream of Roman
history, was not a simple one.

lam priflem Syrus in Tiberira drfluxit Orontes.
says Juvenal (3, C^2^ in his indiscriminate manner. But
before the Orontes flowed into ihe Tiber it had admitted

1 Seneca, De Clem, i, 3, 2.

2 Freeman,

298 LATIN LANGUAGE

a Greek tributary. Of the social and intellectual life of
Syria proper during the centuries that followed Alexander's
conquest, we know, alas, too little. What would we not
give to be present in one of those old lecture-rooms of
Tarsus or Soli or some other centre of Stoic teaching!
But of the Hellenization of Palestine we know more : how
from Alexandria, as a centre of influence, the process went
on quietly during the third century b. c. until the violent
attempt of Antiochus — 'Eru$avrj<i or ' ETU!iavyj<s — to force the
gods of Greece upon Judaea, and his insults to the Temple
and the Torah, led to a violent reaction, and Judaism as-
serted itself again under the Maccabees. But not till Hel-
lenism had left a deep mark upon Jewish thought and Jew-
ish literature. All this is fully recognized by Jewish as
well as by Christian historians. The Greek cities to the
east of the Jordan, alluded to by Josephus, cannot have
been without their influence. But even if Hellenism was
at a low ebb in Palestine between Antiochus and the birth
of Christ, the labors of the learned in the flourishing Jew-
ish colony at Alexandria, though directed primarily to
spreading a knowledge of the Jewish scriptures among the
heathen and reconciling the teachings of the Law with
Greek philosophy, were not without their reaction on Juda-
ism itself. A knowledge of this Hellenized and humanized
Judaism must have been spread over the world by the dis-
persions and settlements of the Jews which followed the
overthrow of Jewish independence by Pompey in b. c.
63. At Rome the Jews formed a regular colony on the
west of the Tiber, and we hear of them in Cicero and
Horace.

The converging streams of thought from Greece and
from Judrea were bound to meet; and the phraseology of
St. Paul can hardly be explained except on the supposition
that Christianity and Hellenism had already met in him.

THE RELATIONS OF LATIN

299

But at Rome the effective union came later. The old re-
ligion maintained its ^round for centuries, side by side
with the new; and wlien Christianity triumphed it tri-
umphed rather by taking its rival up into itself than by
destroying it. Thus if Stoicism prepared the way for
Christianity, Christianity made Stoicism for the first time
a force capable of appealing to all sorts and conditions of
men. The earliest extant product in the Latin language
of this fusion of elements is the Octavius of Minucius
Felix, in which Christianity and Stoicism are so blended
that it is sometimes difficult to say whether the argument
adduced is Christian or Stoic. Its date is not certain ;
but its latest editor. Waltzing, places it at the end of the
second century. The latter part of that century had wit-
nessed the production of the first Latin translation of the
Bible, — the Itala, — and the beginning of the fifth century
saw the completion of Jerome's Vulgate. Boethus, "the
last of the Romans whom Cato or Tully would have recog-
nized for their countryman," as Gibbon calls him, closes
our second period, — a period, no doubt, of decadence in
literature, as literature; but a period of full vitality and
efficiency in the history of the Latin language. By the
close of the fifth century Latin Christianity had taken
definite shape, a body of doctrine formulated on the prin-
ciples of Roman law and a church organized on the lines
of Roman administration.

Is it not the history of architecture and of verse over
again, even though we are not able to point to any feature
quite so definitely Roman as the arch in architecture or
the accentual principle in verse? The products of Greater
Greece and of Judaea were not merely adoi)tcd and trans-
mitted by Rome; she made them her own; and sent them
forth, stamped by her own genius, to shape the relii^ious
sentiment of the modern world. It was not the intention

300 LATIN LANGUAGE

of this paper to vindicate the originaHty of the Romans,
but it seems to vindicate itself.

Historians of Latin hterature generally put up a notice-
board at the end of the fifth century to the effect that the
"Dark Ages" have commenced, or warning us Third
that to the age of gold, silver, and the baser Period
metals has succeeded an age for which no metal is base
enough. But the reign of the Latin language was far from
coming to an end with Boethius. Nor can the attempt to
set up an entity called Modern History, as distinct from
Ancient History, be congratulated on its success. His-
torians are so little agreed as to where it begins that their
dates range from the first inroad of the barbarians to the
seventeenth or even the eighteenth century.

There was no real breach of continuity; and the Latin
language of the eight centuries that lie between Boethius
and Roger Bacon, whether it be called "Dog Latin" or
"Lion Latin," remained a language which was both living
and national, the organ of that greater Roman nation or
Christian commonwealth which included the Teutons and
which about the middle of this period assumed a new form
in the Holy Roman Empire. The idea that nationality
depends on unity of race does not appeal to a Briton, and
must seem still more eccentric to an American. The proper
name for the Latin language from the sixth to the end of
the thirteenth century is not lingua Latina, but lingua
Romana. In this capacity it achieves an even greater uni-
versality than it enjoyed before. And it is fully alive,
though there spring up side by side with it a number of
daughter languages which are completely developed be-
fore the close of this period. Moreover, this Latin, if gram-
matically decadent, is capable of serving its age well as an
instrument of thought. The rule of Augustine, "Melius
est reprehendant nos grammatici quam non intellegant

THE RELATIONS OF KATIX :iOi

popiili," expresses the very sensible jx-im oi \icu a(i(.i)te<l
by his successors in their handhiig ul the ///j^'mu
Romana.

During the first three centuries of this long period the
work done by Latin is necessarily liniitetl ; for all in-
tellectual life had perished except in favored i)laces like
Ireland, and among exceptional men like I'riscian. Bedc.
and Alcuin. The relations of Latin were mainly with the
monasteries; and to these centuries, if to any. may be filly
applied the term "The Dark Ages." The three centuries
that follov (a. d. 800-1100) are a period of transition to
a brighter period, and are marked by a reform of schools.
But Latin is still mainly confined to the clergy, though the
works of men like Scotus Erigena and Eginhard must iMt
be forgotten. It is not till the twelfth and thirteenth cen-
turies that Latin once more becomes a great force in the
world. During this last stage of its existence as a living
language it puts ofif its ecclesiastical character and enters
on new paths as an organ of secular life, in philosophy, in
law, and in science, especially the science of medicine. It
becomes the language of the universities which were then
springing into existence, and finds a wide field of activity
open to it in the service of that movement which has been
rightly called the Early or Scholastic Renaissance, as dis-
tinct from that greater Humanistic Renaissance of which
Petrarch was the "morning star." The stimulus to all this
new life came partly from the Saracens. Arabic works
on philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and
other branches of science and pseudo-science were trans-
lated into Latin, and Europe was thus brought for a third
time into contact with Semitic thought. But it must be
remembered that the light of Arabia was in large measure
a light borrowed from Greece and the remoter East : con-
spicuously so in the case of the Arabic Aristotle, which

302 LATIN LANGUAGE

made its way in a Latin dress from Spain into Northern
Europe at the beginning of the thirteenth century.

After the fourteenth century Latin is no longer the uni-
versal language of Europe, no longer a national language
in the sense in which the term has been used above, though
it continued to live in works like the Imitatio Christi of
Thomas a Kempis. The reason is that it was no longer
alone in the field. And the Renaissance, from the very fact
that it w^as a revival of purer standards of taste and diction,
necessarily turned its back upon that well of living speech
which had supplied the needs of the preceding centuries.
But what killed Latin as a living tongue was not only
purism but also the growth of its rivals in literary capacity.
English bad blossomed into literature as early as the
seventh century (C?edmon, to say nothing of Bcozmilf).
German had produced a truly national literature in the
twelfth and thirteenth. The reign of Latin thus overlaps
that of the modern tongues as an organ of literature and
science; and as their influence waxed, hers waned.

But I have yet to ask your attention to one more phase
in the life of Latin. For if Latin died as a universal lan-
guage when the new literatures were born, yet it died only
to rise again, together with Greek, in a new form.

For the revival of classical literature in the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries turned its face in reality, not so
much to the past as to the future. And perhaps the most
important fact in the history of modern literatures is this,
that all the names of first importance are post-Renaissance.^
Chaucer had caught its spirit ; and among its most promi-
nent representatives are to be numbered a Rabelais, a Cer-
vantes, a Shakespeare, and later on a Goethe and a Schiller.
Herein, I take it, lies the ultimate reason w^hy we study
the Greek and Latin classics at all ; their study is in reality

1 Dante is one of the witnesses to the dawn which preceded the day.

THE RELATIONS OF LATIN :;(,;;

a study of our own past, — our very own, — divorced from
which all that is most characteristic in the present is only
half-intelligible. Were it not for this, — were it true that
the world would be exactly what it is if the Greeks and
Romans had never existed, as the late Mr. Herbert Spenccr
thought and said,' — then, I confess, I shoukl feel that the
classical studies could be justified only as a disciplinary
study — and for the light that Latin throws upon the vocab-
ulary and syntax of the mother tongue. It is because the
precise opposite is true, because modern life is soaked with
Greek and still more with Latin inlluences. that it will al-
ways depend for its complete interpretation on a study oi
the classics — that is, so long as the landmarks of our
present culture remain unshifted. And even at the present
day the Latin language is to the Latinized classes what it
was to our Teutonic ancestors, a second tongue, to which
we can apply in a more real sense than to Greek the old
saying of Cassiodorus : "Dulcius suscipitur (juod patrio
sermone narratur."^ Hence it is that we like to speak of
Plato rather than of Platon, and that the Germans, going
one step further, convert Bacon into Baco. It is, indeed,
a noteworthy phenomenon that the tongue of old Latiuni
should have conquered for itself the New as well as the
Old World, and should find now in America a land which
not only inaintains Latin as an integral part of the school
curriculum, but has also given to the Old World some of
its most scientific grammars and dictionaries.

Let me illustrate the influence of Latin upon English
literature by one fact which I discovered only the other
day. One of the most fainous speeches of Shakespeare is.
I think, based upon what would seem o priori a very un-
likely source— the treatise of Seneca "On Mercy," an ap-

' See his Autobiography, vol. ii, p. 237.

2 Preface to his De Ortliographia, quoted by Sandys, History of Cln-t.itral
Scholarship, p. 254.

304 LATIN LANGUAGE

peal to the reigning Emperor Nero/ The leading ideas
of Portia's speech are all there; it is only the inimitable
form of expression that is Shakespeare's,

Nullum dementia ex omnibus magis quam legem aut princlpem
decet (i, 3, 3; again i, 19, 1).

"It becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown."

Eo scillicet formosius id esse magnificentiusque fatebimur quo in
maiore praestabitur potestate (i, 19, 1).

" 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest."

Quod si di placabiles et aequi delicta potentium non statim fulmi-
nibus persequuntur, quanto aequius est hominem hominibus praepo-
situm miti animo exercere imperium? (i, 7, 2.)

'But mercy is above this sceptred sway.
It is enthroned in the heart of kings;
It is an attribute of God himself."

Quid autem? Non proximum eis (dis) locum tenet is qui se ex
deorum natura gerit beneficus et largus et in melius potens? (i,
19, 9.)

"And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice."

Cogitato quanta solitudo et vastitas futura sit si nihil

relinquitur nisi quod index severus absolverit (i, 6, 1).

"Consider this
That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation."

Compare Hamlet, ii, 2 : "Use every man after his desert,
and who shall 'scape whipping?"

And the story of Augustus pardonmg Cinna (i, 9) pro-
bably suggested :

"It is twice blessed;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes."

Lodge's translation was not published till some twenty
years after the Merchant of Venice. But that is no diffi-

1 Parallels between Seneca's tragedies and Shakespeare have been quoted by
J. Churtou Collins in his recent Studies in Shakespaare ; but I am not aware
that any one has hitherto adduced evidence that any prose work of Seneca was
known to Shakespeare. In the light of the De dementia I am inclined to
think that the passage of Titus Andronicus which Mr. Collins regards as based
on Cicero Pro Liyario, xii, 32, may also come from Seneca.

THE RELATIONS OF LATIX

;ior>

culty to those who believe that Shakespeare had not for-
gotten the Latin which he had learnt at Stratford Grainniar
School. And Seneca was more read in those days than he
is now : witness the enormous influence which his tragedies
exercised on the predecessors of Shakespeare. I venture-
to commend the study of Seneca's prose works to Shake-
spearian scholars.

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