INQUIRY INTO THE INFLUENCE EXERCISED BY RELIGION, LITERATURE, AND
GOVERNMENT.
By applying to the history of Man those methods of investigation which
have been found successful in other branches of knowledge, and by
rejecting all preconceived notions which would not bear the test of
those methods, we have arrived at certain results, the heads of which it
may now be convenient to recapitulate. We have seen that our actions,
being solely the result of internal and external agencies, must be
explicable by the laws of those agencies; that is to say, by mental laws
and by physical laws. We have also seen that mental laws are, in Europe,
more powerful than physical laws; and that, in the progress of
civilization, their superiority is constantly increasing, because
advancing knowledge multiplies the resources of the mind, but leaves the
old resources of nature stationary. On this account, we have treated the
mental laws as being the great regulators of progress; and we have
looked at the physical laws as occupying a subordinate place, and as
merely displaying themselves in occasional disturbances, the force and
frequency of which have been long declining, and are now, on a large
average, almost inoperative. Having, by this means, resolved the study
of what may be called the dynamics of society into the study of the laws
of the mind, we have subjected these last to a similar analysis; and we
have found that they consist of two parts, namely, moral laws and
intellectual laws. By comparing these two parts, we have clearly
ascertained the vast superiority of the intellectual laws; and we have
seen, that as the progress of civilization is marked by the triumph of
the mental laws over the physical, just so is it marked by the triumph
of the intellectual laws over the moral ones. This important inference
rests on two distinct arguments. First, that moral truths being
stationary, and intellectual truths being progressive, it is highly
improbable that the progress of society should be due to moral
knowledge, which for many centuries has remained the same, rather than
to intellectual knowledge, which for many centuries has been incessantly
advancing. The other argument consists in the fact, that the two
greatest evils known to mankind have not been diminished by moral
improvement; but have been, and still are, yielding to the influence of
intellectual discoveries. From all this it evidently follows, that if we
wish to ascertain the conditions which regulate the progress of modern
civilization, we must seek them in the history of the amount and
diffusion of intellectual knowledge; and we must consider physical
phenomena and moral principles as causing, no doubt, great aberrations
in short periods, but in long periods correcting and balancing
themselves, and thus leaving the intellectual laws to act uncontrolled
by these inferior and subordinate agents.
Such is the conclusion to which we have been led by successive analyses,
and on which we now take our stand. The actions of individuals are
greatly affected by their moral feelings and by their passions; but
these being antagonistic to the passions and feelings of other
individuals, are balanced by them; so that their effect is, in the great
average of human affairs, nowhere to be seen; and the total actions of
mankind, considered as a whole, are left to be regulated by the total
knowledge of which mankind is possessed. And of the way in which
individual feeling and individual caprice are thus absorbed and
neutralized, we find a clear illustration in the facts already brought
forward respecting the history of crime. For by those facts it is
decisively proved, that the amount of crime committed in a country is,
year after year, reproduced with the most startling uniformity, not
being in the least affected by those capricious and personal feelings to
which human actions are too often referred. But if, instead of examining
the history of crime year by year, we were to examine it month by
month, we should find less regularity; and if we were to examine it hour
by hour, we should find no regularity at all; neither would its
regularity be seen, if, instead of the criminal records of a whole
country, we only knew those of a single street, or of a single family.
This is because the great social laws by which crime is governed, can
only be perceived after observing great numbers or long periods; but in
a small number, and a short period, the individual moral principle
triumphs, and disturbs the operation of the larger and intellectual law.
While, therefore, the moral feelings by which a man is urged to commit a
crime, or to abstain from it, will produce an immense effect on the
amount of his own crimes, they will produce no effect on the amount of
crimes committed by the society to which he belongs; because, in the
long-run, they are sure to be neutralized by opposite moral feelings,
which cause in other men an opposite conduct. Just in the same way, we
are all sensible that moral principles do affect nearly the whole of our
actions; but we have incontrovertible proof that they produce not the
least effect on mankind in the aggregate, or even on men in very large
masses, provided that we take the precaution of studying social
phenomena for a period sufficiently long, and on a scale sufficiently
great, to enable the superior laws to come into uncontrolled operation.
The totality of human actions being thus, from the highest point of
view, governed by the totality of human knowledge, it might seem a
simple matter to collect the evidence of the knowledge, and, by
subjecting it to successive generalizations, ascertain the whole of the
laws which regulate the progress of civilization. And that this will be
eventually done, I do not entertain the slightest doubt. But,
unfortunately, history has been written by men so inadequate to the
great task they have undertaken, that few of the necessary materials
have yet been brought together. Instead of telling us those things which
alone have any value,--instead of giving us information respecting the
progress of knowledge, and the way in which mankind has been affected by
the diffusion of that knowledge,--instead of these things, the vast
majority of historians fill their works with the most trifling and
miserable details: personal anecdotes of kings and courts; interminable
relations of what was said by one minister, and what was thought by
another; and, what is worse than all, long accounts of campaigns,
battles, and sieges, very interesting to those engaged in them, but to
us utterly useless, because they neither furnish new truths, nor do they
supply the means by which new truths may be discovered. This is the real
impediment which now stops our advance. It is this want of judgment, and
this ignorance of what is most worthy of selection, which deprives us of
materials that ought long since to have been accumulated, arranged, and
stored-up for future use. In other great branches of knowledge,
observation has preceded discovery; first the facts have been
registered, and then their laws have been found. But in the study of the
history of Man, the important facts have been neglected, and the
unimportant ones preserved. The consequence is, that whoever now
attempts to generalize historical phenomena must collect the facts, as
well as conduct the generalization. He finds nothing ready to his hand.
He must be the mason as well as the architect; he must not only scheme
the edifice, but likewise excavate the quarry. The necessity of
performing this double labour entails upon the philosopher such enormous
drudgery, that the limits of an entire life are unequal to the task; and
history, instead of being ripe, as it ought to be, for complete and
exhaustive generalizations, is still in so crude and informal a state,
that not the most determined and protracted industry will enable any one
to comprehend the really important actions of mankind, during even so
short a period as two successive centuries.
On account of these things, I have long since abandoned my original
scheme; and I have reluctantly determined to write the history, not of
general civilization, but of the civilization of a single people. While,
however, by this means, we curtail the field of inquiry, we
unfortunately diminish the resources of which the inquiry is possessed.
For although it is perfectly true, that the totality of human actions,
if considered in long periods, depends on the totality of human
knowledge, it must be allowed that this great principle, when applied
only to one country, loses something of its original value. The more we
diminish our observations, the greater becomes the uncertainty of the
average; in other words, the greater the chance of the operation of the
larger laws being troubled by the operation of the smaller. The
interference of foreign governments; the influence exercised by the
opinions, literature, and customs of a foreign people; their invasions,
perhaps even their conquests; the forcible introduction by them of new
religions, new laws, and new manners,--all these things are
perturbations, which, in a view of universal history, equalize each
other, but which, in any one country, are apt to disturb the natural
march, and thus render the movements of civilization more difficult to
calculate. The manner in which I have endeavoured to meet this
difficulty will be presently stated; but what I first wish to point out,
are the reasons which have induced me to select the history of England
as more important than any other, and therefore as the most worthy of
being subjected to a complete and philosophic investigation.
Now, it is evident that, inasmuch as the great advantage of studying
past events consists in the possibility of ascertaining the laws by
which they were governed, the history of any people will become more
valuable in proportion as their movements have been least disturbed by
agencies not arising from themselves. Every foreign or external
influence which is brought to bear upon a nation is an interference with
its natural development, and therefore complicates the circumstances we
seek to investigate. To simplify complications, is, in all branches of
knowledge, the first essential of success. This is very familiar to the
cultivators of physical science, who are often able, by a single
experiment, to discover a truth which innumerable observations had
vainly searched; the reason being, that by experimenting on phenomena,
we can disentangle them from their complications; and thus isolating
them from the interference of unknown agencies, we leave them, as it
were, to run their own course, and disclose the operation of their own
law.
This, then, is the true standard by which we must measure the value of
the history of any nation. The importance of the history of a country
depends, not upon the splendour of its exploits, but upon the degree to
which its actions are due to causes springing out of itself. If,
therefore, we could find some civilized people who had worked out their
civilization entirely by themselves; who had escaped all foreign
influence, and who had been neither benefited nor retarded by the
personal peculiarities of their rulers,--the history of such a people
would be of paramount importance; because it would present a condition
of normal and inherent development; it would show the laws of progress
acting in a state of isolation; it would be, in fact, an experiment
ready-made, and would possess all the value of that artificial
contrivance to which natural science is so much indebted.
To find such a people as this is obviously impossible; but the duty of
the philosophic historian is, to select for his especial study the
country in which the conditions have been most closely followed. Now, it
will be readily admitted, not only by ourselves, but by intelligent
foreigners, that in England, during, at all events, the last three
centuries, this has been done more constantly and more successfully than
in any other country. I say nothing of the number of our discoveries,
the brilliancy of our literature, or the success of our arms. These are
invidious topics; and other nations may perhaps deny to us those
superior merits which we are apt to exaggerate. But I take up this
single position, that of all European countries, England is the one
where, during the longest period, the government has been most
quiescent, and the people most active; where popular freedom has been
settled on the widest basis; where each man is most able to say what he
thinks, and do what he likes; where every one can follow his own bent,
and propagate his own opinions; where, religious persecution being
little known, the play and flow of the human mind may be clearly seen,
unchecked by those restraints to which it is elsewhere subjected; where
the profession of heresy is least dangerous, and the practice of dissent
most common; where hostile creeds flourish side by side, and rise and
decay without disturbance, according to the wants of the people,
unaffected by the wishes of the church, and uncontrolled by the
authority of the state; where all interests, and all classes, both
spiritual and temporal, are most left to take care of themselves; where
that meddlesome doctrine called Protection was first attacked, and where
alone it has been destroyed; and where, in a word, those dangerous
extremes to which interference gives rise having been avoided, despotism
and rebellion are equally rare, and concession being recognized as the
groundwork of policy, the national progress has been least disturbed by
the power of privileged classes, by the influence of particular sects,
or by the violence of arbitrary rulers.
That these are the characteristics of English history is notorious; to
some men a matter of boast, to others of regret. And when to these
circumstances we add, that England, owing to its insular formation,[371]
was, until the middle of the last century, rarely visited by foreigners,
it becomes evident that, in our progress as a people, we have been less
affected than any other by the two main sources of interference, namely,
the authority of government, and the influence of foreigners. In the
sixteenth century, it became a fashion, among the English nobility, to
travel abroad;[372] but it was by no means the fashion for foreign
nobility to travel in England. In the seventeenth century, the custom of
travelling for amusement spread so much, that, among the rich and idle
classes, there were few Englishmen who did not, at least once in their
life, cross the Channel; while the same classes in other countries,
partly because they were less wealthy, partly from an inveterate dislike
to the sea, hardly ever entered our island, unless compelled to do so on
some particular business. The result was, that in other countries, and
particularly in France and Italy, the inhabitants of the great cities
became gradually accustomed to foreigners, and, like all men, were
imperceptibly influenced by what they often saw. On the other hand,
there were many of our cities in which none but Englishmen ever set
their feet;[373] and inhabitants, even of the metropolis, might grow old
without having once seen a single foreigner, except, perhaps, some dull
and pompous ambassador taking his airing on the banks of the Thames. And
although it is often said that, after the restoration of Charles II.,
our national character began to be greatly influenced by French
example,[374] this, as I shall fully prove, was confined to that small
and insignificant part of society which hung about the court; nor did it
produce any marked effect upon the two most important classes,--the
intellectual class, and the industrious class. The movement may, indeed,
be traced in the most worthless parts of our literature,--in the
shameless productions of Buckingham, Dorset, Etherege, Killigrew,
Mulgrave, Rochester, and Sedley. But neither then, nor at a much later
period, were any of our great thinkers influenced by the intellect of
France;[375] on the contrary, we find in their ideas, and even in their
style, a certain rough and native vigour, which, though offensive to our
more polished neighbours, has at least the merit of being the indigenous
product of our own country.[376] The origin and extent of that connexion
between the French and English intellects which subsequently arose, is a
subject of immense importance; but, like most others of real value, it
has been entirely neglected by historians. In the present work, I shall
attempt to supply this deficiency: in the mean time I may say, that
although we have been, and still are, greatly indebted to the French for
our improvement in taste, in refinement, in manners, and indeed in all
the amenities of life, we have borrowed from them nothing absolutely
essential, nothing by which the destinies of nations are permanently
altered. On the other hand, the French have not only borrowed from us
some very valuable political institutions, but even the most important
event in French history is due, in no small degree, to our influence.
Their revolution of 1789 was, as is well known, brought about, or, to
speak more properly, was mainly instigated, by a few great men, whose
works, and afterwards whose speeches, roused the people to resistance;
but what is less known, and nevertheless is certainly true, is, that
these eminent leaders learnt in England that philosophy and those
principles by which, when transplanted into their own country, such
fearful and yet such salutary results were effected.[377]
[371] Coleridge well says, 'it is the chief of many blessings derived
from the insular character and circumstances of our country, that
our social institutions have formed themselves out of our proper
needs and interests.' _Coleridge on the Constitution of the
Church and State_, 8vo. 1830, pp. 20, 21. The political
consequences of this were much noticed at the time of the French
Revolution. See _Mémoires de La Fayette_, vol. i. p. 404,
Bruxelles, 1837.
[372] In another place, I shall collect the evidence of the rapidly
increasing love of travelling in the sixteenth century; but it is
interesting to observe, that during the latter half of the
century there was first established the custom of appointing
travelling tutors. Compare _Barrington's Observations on the
Statutes_, p. 218, with a letter from Beza, written in 1598, in
_Mémoires et Correspondence de Du Plessis Mornay_, vol. ix. p.
81.
[373] In regard to the society of women, this was still more observable,
even at a much later period; and when the Countess de Boufflers
visited England, at the beginning of the reign of George III.,
'on lui faisoit un mérite de sa curiosité de voir l'Angleterre;
car on remarquoit qu'elle étoit la seule dame françoise de
qualité qui fût venue en voyageuse depuis deux cents ans: on ne
comprenoit point, dans cette classe, les ambassadrices, ni la
duchesse de Mazarin, qui y étoient venues par nécessité.'
_Dutens_, _Mémoires d'un Voyageur_, vol. i. p. 217. Compare
_Mémoires de Madame de Genlis_, vol. viii. p. 241.
[374] _Orme's Life of Owen_, p. 288; _Mahon's History of England_,
vol. ii. p. 211; and many other writers.
[375] The only Englishman of genius who, during this period, was
influenced by the French mind, was Dryden; but this is chiefly
apparent in his plays, the whole of which are now deservedly
forgotten. His great works, and, above all, those wonderful
satires, in which he distances every competitor, except Juvenal,
are thoroughly national, and, as mere specimens of English, are,
if I may express my own judgment, to be ranked immediately after
Shakspeare. In Dryden's writings there are unquestionably many
Gallicisms of expression, but few Gallicisms of thought; and it
is by these last that we must estimate the real amount of foreign
influence. Sir Walter Scott goes so far as to say, 'It will admit
of question, whether any single French word has been naturalized
upon the sole authority of Dryden.' _Scott's Life of Dryden_, p.
523, 8vo. 1808. Rather a bold assertion. As to the opinion of
Fox, see Lord Holland's preface to _Fox's James II._, 4to. 1808,
p. xxxii.
[376] Another circumstance which has maintained the independence, and
therefore increased the value, of our literature, is, that in no
great country have literary men been so little connected with the
government, or rewarded by it. That this is the true policy, and
that to protect literature is to injure it, are propositions for
the proof of which I must refer to chap. xi. of this volume--on
the system of Louis XIV. In the mean time, I will quote the
following words from a learned and, what is much better, a
thoughtful writer: 'Nor must he who will understand the English
institutions leave out of view the character of the enduring
works which had sprung from the salient energy of the English
mind. Literature had been left to develop itself. William of
Orange was foreign to it; Anne cared not for it; the first George
knew no English; the second not much.' _Bancroft's History of the
American Revolution_, vol. ii. p. 48. Compare _Forster's Life of
Goldsmith_, 1854, vol. i. pp. 93-96, vol. ii. p. 480.
[377] See, for evidence of this influence of England, chap. v. of the
second volume.
It will not, I hope, be supposed, that by these remarks I mean to cast
any reflection on the French: a great and admirable people; a people in
many respects superior to ourselves; a people from whom we have still
much to learn, and whose deficiencies, such as they are, arise from the
perpetual interference of a long line of arbitrary rulers. But, looking
at this matter historically, it is unquestionably true that we have
worked out our civilization with little aid from them, while they have
worked out theirs with great aid from us. At the same time, it must also
be admitted, that our governments have interfered less with us than
their governments have interfered with them. And without in the least
prejudging the question as to which is the greater country, it is solely
on these grounds that I consider our history more important than theirs:
and I select for especial study the progress of English civilization,
simply because, being less affected by agencies not arising from itself,
we can the more clearly discern in it the normal march of society, and
the undisturbed operation of those great laws by which the fortunes of
mankind are ultimately regulated.
After this comparison between the relative value of French and English
history, it seems scarcely necessary to examine the claims which may be
put forward for the history of other countries. Indeed, there are only
two in whose favour any thing can be said: I mean Germany, considered as
a whole, and the United States of North America. As to the Germans, it
is undoubtedly true, that since the middle of the eighteenth century
they have produced a greater number of profound thinkers than any other
country, I might perhaps say, than all other countries put together. But
the objections which apply to the French are still more applicable to
the Germans. For the protective principle has been, and still is,
stronger in Germany than in France. Even the best of the German
governments are constantly interfering with the people; never leaving
them to themselves, always looking after their interests, and meddling
in the commonest affairs of daily life. Besides this, the German
literature, though now the first in Europe, owes it origin, as we shall
hereafter see, to that great sceptical movement, by which, in France,
the Revolution was preceded. Before the middle of the eighteenth
century, the Germans, notwithstanding a few eminent names, such as
Kepler and Leibnitz, had no literature of real value; and the first
impetus which they received, was caused by their contact with the French
intellect, and by the influence of those eminent Frenchmen who, in the
reign of Frederick the Great, flocked to Berlin,[378] a city which has
ever since been the head-quarters of philosophy and science. From this
there have resulted some very important circumstances, which I can here
only briefly indicate. The German intellect, stimulated by the French
into a sudden growth, has been irregularly developed; and thus hurried
into an activity greater than the average civilization of the country
requires. The consequence is, that there is no nation in Europe in which
we find so wide an interval between the highest minds and the lowest
minds. The German philosophers possess a learning, and a reach of
thought, which places them at the head of the civilized world. The
German people are more superstitious, more prejudiced, and,
notwithstanding the care which the government takes of their education,
more really ignorant, and more unfit to guide themselves, than are the
inhabitants either of France or of England.[379] This separation and
divergence of the two classes is the natural result of that artificial
stimulus, which a century ago was administered to one of the classes,
and which thus disturbed the normal proportions of society. Owing to
this, the highest intellects have, in Germany, so outstripped the
general progress of the nation, that there is no sympathy between the
two parties; nor are there at present any means by which they may be
brought into contact. Their great authors address themselves, not to
their country, but to each other. They are sure of a select and learned
audience, and they use what, in reality, is a learned language; they
turn their mother-tongue into a dialect, eloquent indeed, and very
powerful, but so difficult, so subtle, and so full of complicated
inversions, that to their own lower classes it is utterly
incomprehensible.[380] From this, there have arisen some of the most
marked peculiarities of German literature. For, being deprived of
ordinary readers, it is cut off from the influence of ordinary
prejudice; and hence, it has displayed a boldness of inquiry, a
recklessness in the pursuit of truth and a disregard of traditional
opinions, which entitle it to the highest praise. But, on the other
hand, this same circumstance has produced that absence of practical
knowledge, and that indifference to material and physical interests, for
which the German literature is justly censured. As a matter of course,
all this has widened the original breach, and increased the distance
which separates the great German thinkers from that dull and plodding
class, which, though it lies immediately beneath them, still remains
uninfluenced by their knowledge, and uncheered by the glow and fire of
their genius.
[378] The history of this remarkable, though short-lived, union between
the French and German intellects will be traced in the next
volume; but its first great effect, in stimulating, or rather in
creating, the German literature, is noticed by one of the most
learned of their own writers: 'Denn einestheils war zu diesen
Gegenständen immer die lateinische Sprache gebraucht und die
Muttersprache zu wenig cultivirt worden, anderntheils wurden
diese Schriften auch meistentheils nur von Gelehrten, und zwar
Universitätsgelehrten, für welche sie auch hauptsächlich bestimmt
waren, gelesen. Gegen die Mitte des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts, als
mehrere englische und französische Werke gelesen und übersetzt
wurden, und durch die Vorliebe des Königs von Preussen
Friedrichs II., der von Franzosen gebildet worden war,
französische Gelehrte besonders geehrt und angestellt wurden,
entstand ein Wetteifer der Deutschen, auch in dem schriftlichen
Vortrage nicht zurück zu bleiben, und die Sprache hob sich bald
zu einem hohen Grade von Vollkommenheit.' _Tennemann_,
_Geschichte der Philosophie_, vol. xi. pp. 286, 287.
[379] A popular view of the system of national education established in
Germany will be found in _Kay's Social Condition and Education of
the People of Europe_, vol. ii. pp. 1-344. But Mr. Kay, like most
literary men, overrates the advantages of literary acquirements,
and underrates that education of the faculties which neither
books nor schools can impart to a people who are debarred from
the exercise of civil and political rights. In the history of the
protective spirit (chaps. ix. and x. of the present volume), I
shall return to this subject, in connexion with France; and in
the next volume I shall examine it in regard to German
civilization. In the mean time, I must be allowed to protest
against the account Mr. Kay has given of the results of
compulsory education; an agreeable picture, drawn by an amiable
and intelligent writer, but of the inaccuracy of which I possess
decisive evidence. Two points only I will now refer to: 1st. The
notorious fact, that the German people, notwithstanding their
so-called education, are unfit to take any share in political
matters, and have no aptitude for the practical and
administrative parts of government. 2nd. The fact, equally
notorious to those who have studied the subject, that there are
more popular superstitions in Prussia, the most educated part of
Germany, than there are in England; and that the tenacity with
which men cling to them is greater in Prussia than in England.
For illustration of the practical working, in individual cases,
of compulsory education, and of the hardship it causes, see a
scandalous occurrence, related in _Laing's Notes of a Traveller_,
8vo. 1842, p. 165, first series; and on the physical evils
produced by German education, see _Phillips on Scrofula_, London,
1846, pp. 253, 254, where there is some useful evidence of the
consequences of 'that great German sin of over-regulation.'
[380] This is well stated by Mr. Laing, by far the ablest traveller who
has published observations on European society: 'German authors,
both the philosophic and the poetic, address themselves to a
public far more intellectual, and more highly cultivated, than
our reading public.... In our literature, the most obscure and
abstruse of metaphysical or philosophical writers _take the
public mind in a far lower state_, simply cognisant of the
meaning of language, and possessed of the ordinary reasoning
powers.... The social influence of German literature is,
consequently, confined within a narrower circle. It has no
influence on the mind of the lower, or even of the middle classes
in active life, who have not the opportunity or leisure to screw
their faculties up to the pitch-note of their great writers. The
reading public must devote much time to acquire the knowledge,
tone of feeling, and of imagination, necessary to follow the
writing public. The social economist finds accordingly in Germany
the most extraordinary dulness, inertness of mind, and ignorance,
below a certain level, with the most extraordinary intellectual
development, learning, and genius, at or above it.' _Laing's
Notes of a Traveller_, first series, pp. 266, 267. The same acute
observer says, in a later work (_Notes_, third series, 8vo. 1852,
p. 12): 'The two classes speak and think in different languages.
The cultivated German language, the language of German
literature, is not the language of the common man, nor even of
the man far up in the middle ranks of society,--the farmer,
tradesman, shopkeeper.' See also pp. 351, 352, 354. It is
singular that so clear and vigorous a thinker as Mr. Laing
evidently is, should have failed in detecting the cause of this
peculiar phenomenon.
In America, on the other hand, we see a civilization precisely the
reverse of this. We see a country, of which it has been truly said, that
in no other are there so few men of great learning, and so few men of
great ignorance.[381] In Germany, the speculative classes and the
practical classes are altogether disunited; in America, they are
altogether fused. In Germany, nearly every year brings forward new
discoveries, new philosophies, new means by which the boundaries of
knowledge are to be enlarged. In America, such inquiries are almost
entirely neglected: since the time of Jonathan Edwards no great
metaphysician has appeared; little attention has been paid to physical
science; and, with the single exception of jurisprudence,[382] scarcely
anything has been done for those vast subjects on which the Germans are
incessantly labouring. The stock of American knowledge is small, but it
is spread through all classes; the stock of German knowledge is immense,
but it is confined to one class. Which of these two forms of
civilization is the more advantageous, is a question we are not now
called upon to decide. It is enough for our present purpose, that in
Germany, there is a serious failure in the diffusion of knowledge; and,
in America, a no less serious one in its accumulation. And as
civilization is regulated by the accumulation and diffusion of
knowledge, it is evident that no country can even approach to a complete
and perfect pattern, if, cultivating one of these conditions to an
excess, it neglects the cultivation of the other. Indeed, from this want
of balance and equilibrium between the two elements of civilization,
there have arisen in America and in Germany those great but opposite
evils, which, it is to be feared, will not be easily remedied; and
which, until remedied, will certainly retard the progress of both
countries, notwithstanding the temporary advantages which such
one-sided energy does for the moment always procure.
[381] 'Je ne pense pas qu'il y ait de pays dans le monde où, proportion
gardée avec la population, il se trouve aussi peu d'ignorants et
moins de savants qu'en Amérique.' _Tocqueville de la Démocratie
en Amérique_, vol. i. p. 91.
[382] The causes of this exception I shall endeavour to trace in the
next volume; but it is interesting to notice, that, as early as
1775, Burke was struck by the partiality of the Americans for
works on law. See _Burke's Speech_, in _Parliamentary History_,
vol. xviii. p. 495; or in _Burke's Works_, vol. i. p. 188. He
says: 'In no country perhaps in the world is the law so general a
study. The profession itself is numerous and powerful; and in
most provinces it takes the lead. The greater number of the
deputies sent to the Congress were lawyers. But all who read--and
most do read--endeavour to obtain some smattering in that
science. I have been told by an eminent bookseller, that in no
branch of his business, after tracts of popular devotion, were so
many books as those on the law exported to the plantations. The
colonists have now fallen into the way of printing them for their
own use. I hear that they have sold nearly as many of
Blackstone's Commentaries in America as in England.' Of this
state of society, the great works of Kent and Story were, at a
later period, the natural result. On the respect at present felt
for the legal profession, see _Lyell's Second Visit to the United
States_, 1849, vol. i. p. 45; and as to the judges, _Combe's N.
America_, vol. ii. p. 329.
I have very briefly, but I hope fairly, and certainly with no conscious
partiality, endeavoured to estimate the relative value of the history of
the four leading countries of the world. As to the real greatness of the
countries themselves, I offer no opinion; because each considers itself
to be first. But, unless the facts I have stated can be controverted, it
certainly follows, that the history of England is, to the philosopher,
more valuable than any other; because he can more clearly see in it the
accumulation and diffusion of knowledge going hand-in-hand; because that
knowledge has been less influenced by foreign and external agencies; and
because it has been less interfered with, either for good or for evil,
by those powerful, but frequently incompetent men, to whom the
administration of public affairs is entrusted.
It is on account of these considerations, and not at all from those
motives which are dignified with the name of patriotism, that I have
determined to write the history of my own country, in preference to that
of any other; and to write it in a manner as complete, and as
exhaustive, as the materials which are now extant will enable me to do.
But, inasmuch as the circumstances already stated, render it impossible
to discover the laws of society solely by studying the history of a
single nation, I have drawn up the present Introduction in order to
obviate some of the difficulties with which this great subject is
surrounded. In the earlier chapters, I have attempted to mark out the
limits of the subject considered as a whole, and fix the largest
possible basis upon which it can rest. With this view, I have looked at
civilization as broken into two vast divisions: the European division,
in which Man is more powerful than Nature; and the non-European
division, in which Nature is more powerful than Man. This has led us to
the conclusion, that national progress, in connexion with popular
liberty, could have originated in no part of the world except in Europe;
where, therefore, the rise of real civilization, and the encroachments
of the human mind upon the forces of nature, are alone to be studied.
The superiority of the mental laws over the physical, being thus
recognized as the groundwork of European history, the next step has
been, to resolve the mental laws into moral and intellectual, and prove
the superior influence of the intellectual ones in accelerating the
progress of Man. These generalizations appear to me the essential
preliminaries of history, considered as a science; and, in order to
connect them with the special history of England, we have now merely to
ascertain the fundamental condition of intellectual progress, as, until
that is done, the annals of any people can only present an empirical
succession of events, connected by such stray and casual links as are
devised by different writers, according to their different principles.
The remaining part of this Introduction will, therefore, be chiefly
occupied in completing the scheme I have sketched, by investigating the
history of various countries in reference to those intellectual
peculiarities on which the history of our own country supplies no
adequate information. Thus, for instance, in Germany, the accumulation
of knowledge has been far more rapid than in England; the laws of the
accumulation of knowledge may, on that account, be most conveniently
studied in German history, and then applied deductively to the history
of England. In the same way, the Americans have diffused their knowledge
much more completely than we have done; I, therefore, purpose to explain
some of the phenomena of English civilization by those laws of
diffusion, of which, in American civilization, the workings may be most
clearly seen, and hence the discovery most easily made. Again, inasmuch
as France is the most civilized country in which the protective spirit
is very powerful, we may trace the occult tendencies of that spirit
among ourselves, by studying its obvious tendencies among our
neighbours. With this view, I shall give an account of French history,
in order to illustrate the protective principle, by showing the injury
it has inflicted on a very able and enlightened people. And, in an
analysis of the French Revolution, I shall point out how that great
event was a reaction against the protective spirit; while, as the
materials for the reaction were drawn from England, we shall also see in
it the way in which the intellect of one country acts upon the intellect
of another; and we shall arrive at some results respecting that
interchange of ideas which is likely to become the most important
regulator of European affairs. This will throw much light on the laws of
international thought; and, in connexion with it, two separate chapters
will be devoted to a History of the Protective Spirit, and an
Examination of its relative intensity in France and England. But the
French, as a people, have, since the beginning or middle of the
seventeenth century, been remarkably free from superstition; and,
notwithstanding the efforts of their government, they are very averse to
ecclesiastical power: so that, although their history displays the
protective principle in its political form, it supplies little evidence
respecting its religious form; while, in our own country, the evidence
is also scanty. Hence, my intention is, to give a view of Spanish
history; because in it we may trace the full results of that protection
against error which the spiritual classes are always eager to afford. In
Spain, the church has, from a very early period, possessed more
authority, and the clergy have been more influential, both with the
people and the government, than in any other country; it will,
therefore, be convenient to study in Spain the laws of ecclesiastical
development, and the manner in which that development affects the
national interests. Another circumstance, which operates on the
intellectual progress of a nation, is the method of investigation that
its ablest men habitually employ. This method can only be one of two
kinds; it must be either inductive, or deductive. Each of these belongs
to a different form of civilization, and is always accompanied by a
different style of thought, particularly in regard to religion and
science. These differences are of such immense importance, that, until
their laws are known, we cannot be said to understand the real history
of past events. Now, the two extremes of the difference are,
undoubtedly, Germany and the United States; the Germans being
pre-eminently deductive, the Americans inductive. But Germany and
America are, in so many other respects, diametrically opposed to each
other, that I have thought it expedient to study the operations of the
deductive and inductive spirit in countries between which a closer
analogy exists; because the greater the similarity between two nations,
the more easily can we trace the consequences of any single divergence,
and the more conspicuous do the laws of that divergence become. Such an
opportunity occurs in the history of Scotland, as compared with that of
England. Here we have two nations, bordering on each other, speaking the
same language, reading the same literature, and knit together by the
same interests. And yet it is a truth, which seems to have escaped
attention, but the proof of which I shall fully detail, that, until the
last thirty or forty years, the Scotch intellect has been even more
entirely deductive than the English intellect has been inductive. The
inductive tendencies of the English mind, and the almost superstitious
reverence with which we cling to them, have been noticed with regret by
a few, and a very few, of our ablest men.[383] On the other hand, in
Scotland, particularly during the eighteenth century, the great
thinkers, with hardly an exception, adopted the deductive method. Now,
the characteristic of deduction, when applied to branches of knowledge
not yet ripe for it, is, that it increases the number of hypotheses from
which we reason downwards, and brings into disrepute the slow and
patient ascent peculiar to inductive inquiry. This desire to grasp at
truth by speculative, and, as it were, foregone conclusions, has often
led the way to great discoveries; and no one, properly instructed, will
deny its immense value. But when it is universally followed, there is
imminent danger lest the observation of mere empirical uniformities
should be neglected; and lest thinking men should grow impatient at
those small and proximate generalizations which, according to the
inductive scheme, must invariably precede the larger and higher ones.
Whenever this impatience actually occurs, there is produced serious
mischief. For these lower generalizations form a neutral ground, which
speculative minds and practical minds possess in common, and on which
they meet. If this ground is cut away, the meeting is impossible. In
such case, there arises among the scientific classes an undue contempt
for inferences which the experience of the vulgar has drawn, but of
which the laws seem inexplicable; while, among the practical classes,
there arises a disregard of speculations so wide, so magnificent, and of
which the intermediate and preliminary steps are hidden from their gaze.
The results of this in Scotland are highly curious, and are, in several
respects, similar to those which we find in Germany; since in both
countries the intellectual classes have long been remarkable for their
boldness of investigation and their freedom from prejudice, and the
people at large equally remarkable for the number of their superstitions
and the strength of their prejudices. In Scotland this is even more
striking than in Germany; because the Scotch, owing to causes which have
been little studied, are, in practical matters, not only industrious and
provident, but singularly shrewd. This, however, in the higher
departments of life, has availed them nothing; and, while there is no
country which possesses a more original, inquisitive, and innovating
literature than Scotland does, so also is there no country, equally
civilized, in which so much of the spirit of the Middle Ages still
lingers, in which so many absurdities are still believed, and in which
it would be so easy to rouse into activity the old feelings of religious
intolerance.
[383] Particularly Coleridge and Mr. John Mill. But, with the greatest
possible respect for Mr. Mill's profound work on Logic, I must
venture to think that he has ascribed too much to the influence
of Bacon in encouraging the inductive spirit, and too little to
those other circumstances which gave rise to the Baconian
philosophy, and to which that philosophy owes its success.
The divergence, and indeed the hostility, thus established between the
practical and speculative classes, is the most important fact in the
history of Scotland, and is partly cause and partly effect of the
predominance of the deductive method. For this descending scheme being
opposed to the ascending or inductive scheme, neglects those lower
generalizations which are the only ones that both classes understand,
and, therefore, the only ones where they sympathize with each other. The
inductive method, as popularized by Bacon, gave great prominence to
these lower or proximate truths; and this, though it has often made the
intellectual classes in England too utilitarian, has at all events saved
them from that state of isolation in which they would otherwise have
remained. But in Scotland the isolation has been almost complete,
because the deductive method has been almost universal. Full evidence of
this will be collected in the third volume; but, that I may not leave
the subject entirely without illustration, I will notice very briefly
the principal instances that occurred during those three generations in
which Scotch literature reached its highest excellence.
During this period, which comprises nearly a century, the tendency was
so unmistakable as to form a striking phenomenon in the annals of the
human mind. The first great symptom was a movement begun by Simson,
professor at the University of Glasgow, and continued by Stewart,
professor at the University of Edinburgh. These able men made strenuous
efforts to revive the pure Greek geometry, and depreciate the algebraic
or symbolical analysis.[384] Hence there arose among them, and among
their disciples, a love of the most refined methods of solution, and a
contempt for those easier, but less elegant ones, which we owe to
algebra.[385] Here we clearly see the isolating and esoteric character
of a scheme which despises what ordinary understandings can quickly
master, and which had rather proceed from the ideal to the tangible,
than mount from the tangible to the ideal. Just at the same time, the
same spirit was displayed, in another branch of inquiry, by Hutcheson,
who, though an Irishman by birth, was educated in the University of
Glasgow, and was professor there. In his celebrated moral and æsthetic
researches, he, in the place of inductive reasoning from palpable facts,
substituted deductive reasoning from impalpable principles; ignoring the
immediate and practical suggestions of the senses, and believing that by
a hypothetical assumption of certain laws, he could descend upon the
facts, instead of rising from the facts in order to learn the laws.[386]
His philosophy exercised immense influence among metaphysicians;[387]
and his method of working downwards, from the abstract to the concrete,
was adopted by another and a still greater Scotchman, the illustrious
Adam Smith. How Smith favoured the deductive form of investigation is
apparent in his _Theory of Moral Sentiments_, likewise in his _Essay on
Language_,[388] and even in his fragment on the _History of Astronomy_,
in which he, from general considerations, undertook to prove what the
march of astronomical discovery must have been, instead of first
ascertaining what it had been.[389] The _Wealth of Nations_, again, is
entirely deductive, since in it Smith generalizes the laws of wealth,
not from the phenomena of wealth, nor from statistical statements, but
from the phenomena of selfishness; thus making a deductive application
of one set of mental principles to the whole set of economical
facts.[390] The illustrations with which his great book abounds are no
part of the real argument: they are subsequent to the conception; and if
they were all admitted, the work, though less interesting and perhaps
less influential, would, in a scientific point of view, be equally
valuable. To give another instance: the works of Hume, his metaphysical
essays alone excepted, are all deductive; his profound economical
inquiries are essentially _a priori_, and might have been written
without any acquaintance with those details of trade and finance from
which, according to the inductive scheme, they should have been
generalized.[391] Thus, too, in his _Natural History of Religion_, he
endeavoured simply by reflection, and independently of evidence, to
institute a purely speculative investigation into the origin of
religious opinions.[392] In the same way, in his _History of England_,
instead of first collecting the evidence, and then drawing inferences
from it, he began by assuming that the relations between the people and
the government must have followed a certain order, and he either
neglected or distorted the facts by which this supposition was
contradicted.[393] These different writers, though varying in their
principles, and in the subjects they studied, were all agreed as to
their method; that is to say, they were all agreed to investigate truth
rather by descent than by ascent. The immense social importance of this
peculiarity I shall examine in the third volume, where I shall endeavour
to ascertain how it affected the national civilization, and caused some
curious contrasts with the opposite, and more empirical, character of
English literature. In the meantime, and merely to state what will be
hereafter proved, I may add, that the deductive method was employed, not
only by those eminent Scotchmen I have mentioned, but was carried into
the speculative _History of Civil Society_ by Ferguson; into the study
of legislation by Mill; into the study of jurisprudence by Mackintosh;
into geology by Hutton; into thermotics by Black and Leslie; into
physiology by Hunter, by Alexander Walker, and by Charles Bell; into
pathology by Cullen; into therapeutics by Brown and Currie.
[384] Simson was appointed in 1711; and even before he began to lecture,
he drew up 'a translation of the three first books of
L'Hospital's Conic Sections, in which geometrical demonstrations
are substituted for the algebraical of the original, according to
Mr. Simson's early taste on this subject.' _Trail's Life and
Writings of Robert Simson_, 1812, 4to. p. 4. This was probably
the rudiment of his work on Conic Sections, published in 1735.
_Montucla_, _Histoire des Mathématiques_, vol. iii. p. 12. On the
difference between the ancient and modern schemes, there are some
ingenious, though perhaps scarcely tenable, remarks in Dugald
Stewart's _Philosophy of the Mind_, vol. ii. pp. 354 seq. and p.
380. See also _Comte_, _Philosophie Positive_, vol. i. pp.
383-395. Matthew Stewart, the mathematical professor at
Edinburgh, was the father of Dugald. See, respecting him and his
crusade against the modern analysis, _Bower's History of the
University of Edinburgh_, vol. ii. pp. 357-360, vol. iii. p. 249;
and a strange passage in _First Report of the British
Association_, p. 59.
[385] One of Simson's great reasons for recommending the old analysis,
was that it was 'more elegant' than the comparatively modern
practice of introducing algebraic calculations into geometry. See
_Trail's Simson_, 1812, 4to. pp. 27, 67; a valuable work, which
Lord Brougham, in his hasty life of Simson, calls, 'a very
learned and exceedingly ill-written, indeed hardly readable'
book. _Brougham's Men of Letters and Science_, vol. i. p. 482,
8vo. 1845. Dr. Trail's style is clearer, and his sentences are
less involved, than Lord Brougham's; and he had moreover the
great advantage of understanding the subject upon which he wrote.
[386] Sir James Mackintosh (_Dissertation on Ethical Philosophy_, p.
208) says of Hutcheson, 'To him may also be ascribed that
proneness to multiply ultimate and original principles in human
nature, which characterized the Scottish school till the second
extinction of a passion for metaphysical speculation in
Scotland.' There is an able view of Hutcheson's philosophy in
_Cousin_, _Histoire de la Philosophie_, I. série, vol. iv. pp. 31
seq.; written with clearness and eloquence, but perhaps
overpraising Hutcheson.
[387] On its influence, see a letter from Mackintosh to Parr, in
_Memoirs of Mackintosh_, by his Son, vol. i. p. 334. Compare
_Letters from Warburton to Hurd_, pp. 37, 82.
[388] Which is added to his _Theory of Moral Sentiments_, edit. 1822,
2 volumes. Compare a letter which Smith wrote in 1763 on the
origin of language (in _Nichols's Literary Illustrations of the
Eighteenth Century_, vol. iii. pp. 515, 516), which exhibits, on
a small scale, the same treatment, as distinguished from a
generalization of the facts which are supplied by a comprehensive
comparison of different languages. Dr. Arnold speaks slightingly
of such investigations. He says, 'Attempts to explain the
phenomena of language _a priori_ seem to me unwise.' _Arnold's
Miscellaneous Works_, p. 385. This would lead into a discussion
too long for a note, but it appears to me that those _a priori_
inferences are, to the philologist, what hypotheses are to the
inductive natural philosopher; and if this be the case, they are
extremely important, because no really fruitful experiment ever
can be made unless it is preceded by a judicious hypothesis. In
the absence of such an hypothesis, men may grope in the dark for
centuries, accumulating facts without obtaining knowledge.
[389] See, for instance, his attempt to prove, from general reasonings
concerning the human mind, that there was a necessary relation in
regard to the order in which men promulgated the system of
concentric spheres and that of eccentric spheres and epicycles.
_History of Astronomy_, in _Smith's Philosophical Essays_, 1795,
4to. pp. 31, 36, which it may be convenient to compare with
_Whewell's Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences_, 1847, vol. ii.
pp. 53, 60, 61. This striking fragment of Adam Smith's is
probably little read now; but it is warmly praised by one of the
greatest living philosophers, M. A. Comte, in his _Philosophie
Positive_, vol. vi. p. 319.
[390] The two writers who have inquired most carefully into the method
which political economists ought to follow, are Mr. John Mill
(_Essays on Unsettled Questions of Political Economy_, 1844, pp.
120-164) and Mr. Rae (_New Principles of Political Economy_,
1834, pp. 328-351). Mr. Rae, in his ingenious work, objects to
Adam Smith that he transgressed the rules of the Baconian
philosophy, and thus prevented his inferences from being as
valuable as they would have been if he had treated his subject
inductively. But Mr. Mill, with great force of reasoning, has
proved that the deductive plan is the only one by which political
economy can be raised to a science. He says, p. 143, political
economy is 'essentially an _abstract_ science, and its method is
the method _a priori_;' and at p. 146, that the _a posteriori_
method is 'altogether inefficacious.' To this I may add, that the
modern theory of rent, which is now the corner-stone of political
economy, was got at, not by generalizing economical facts, but by
reasoning downwards after the manner of geometricians. Indeed,
those who oppose the theory of rent, always do so on the ground
that it is contradicted by facts; and then, with complete
ignorance of the philosophy of method, they infer that therefore
the theory is wrong. See, for instance, _Jones on the
Distribution of Wealth_, 8vo. 1831: a book containing some
interesting facts, but vitiated by this capital defect of method.
See also _Journal of Statistical Society_, vol. i. p. 317, vol.
vi. p. 322; where it is said that economical theories should be
generalized from statistical facts. Compare vol. xvii. p. 116,
vol. xviii. p. 101.
[391] A striking instance has lately come to light of the sagacity with
which Hume employed this method. See _Burton's Life and
Correspondence of Hume_, vol. ii. p. 486; where we find, that
immediately Hume had read the _Wealth of Nations_, he detected
Smith's error concerning rent being an element of price: so that
it now appears that Hume was the first to make this great
discovery, as far as the idea is concerned; though Ricardo has
the merit of proving it.
[392] The historical facts he introduces are merely illustrations; as
any one will see who will read _The Natural History of Religion_,
in _Hume's Philos. Works_, Edinb. 1826, vol. iv. pp. 435-513. I
may mention, that there is a considerable similarity between the
views advocated in this remarkable essay and the religious stages
of _Comte's Philosophie Positive_; for Hume's early form of
polytheism is evidently the same as M. Comte's fetichism, from
which both these writers believe that monotheism subsequently
arose, as a later and more refined abstraction. That this was the
course adopted by the human mind is highly probable, and is
confirmed by the learned researches of Mr. Grote. See his
_History of Greece_, vol. i. pp. 462, 497, vol. v. p. 22. The
opposite and more popular opinion, of monotheism preceding
idolatry, was held by most of the great earlier writers, and is
defended by many moderns, and among others by Dr. Whewell
(_Bridgewater Treatise_, p. 256), who expresses himself with
considerable confidence: see also _Letters from Warburton to
Hurd_, p. 239. Compare _Thirlwall's History of Greece_, vol. i.
p. 183, Lond. 1835, with the 'einige Funken des Monotheismus' of
Kant, _Kritik der reinen Vernunft_, in _Kant's Werke_, vol. ii.
p. 455.
[393] That is to say, he treated historical facts as merely illustrative
of certain general principles, which he believed could be proved
without the facts; so that, as M. Schlosser (_History of the
Eighteenth Century_, vol. ii. p. 76) well says, 'History with
Hume was only a subordinate pursuit, only a means by which he
might introduce his philosophy,' &c. Considering how little is
known of the principles which govern social and political
changes, there can be no doubt that Hume was premature in the
application of this method; but it is absurd to call the method
dishonest, since the object of his History was, not to _prove_
conclusions, but to _illustrate_ them: and he therefore thought
himself justified in selecting the illustrations. I am simply
stating his views, without at all defending them; indeed, I
believe that in this respect he was seriously in the wrong.
This is an outline of the plan I purpose to follow in the present
Introduction, and by means of which I hope to arrive at some results of
permanent value. For by studying different principles in those countries
where they have been most developed, the laws of the principles will be
more easily unfolded than if we had studied them in countries where they
are very obscure. And, inasmuch as, in England, civilization has
followed a course more orderly, and less disturbed, than in any other
country, it becomes the more necessary, in writing its history, to use
some resources like those which I have suggested. What makes the history
of England so eminently valuable is, that nowhere else has the national
progress been so little interfered with, either for good or for evil.
But the mere fact that our civilization has, by this means, been
preserved in a more natural and healthy state, renders it incumbent on
us to study the diseases to which it is liable, by observing those other
countries where social disease is more rife. The security and the
durability of civilization must depend on the regularity with which its
elements are combined, and on the harmony with which they work. If any
one element is too active, the whole composition will be in danger.
Hence it is, that although the laws of the composition of the elements
will be best ascertained wherever we can find the composition most
complete, we must, nevertheless, search for the laws of each separate
element wherever we can find the element itself most active. While,
therefore, I have selected the history of England, as that in which the
harmony of the different principles has been longest maintained, I have,
precisely on that account, thought it advisable to study each principle
separately in the country where it has been most powerful, and where, by
its inordinate development, the equilibrium of the entire structure has
been disturbed.
By adopting these precautions, we shall be able to remove many of the
difficulties which still beset the study of history. Before, however,
entering that wide field which now lies in our way, it will be well to
clear up some preliminary points, which I have not yet noticed, and the
discussion of which may obviate certain objections that might otherwise
be raised. The subjects to which I allude, are Religion, Literature, and
Government: three topics of vast importance, and which, in the opinion
of many persons, are the prime movers of human affairs. That this
opinion is altogether erroneous will be amply proved in the present
work; but as the opinion is widely spread, and is very plausible, it is
necessary that we should at once come to some understanding respecting
it, and inquire into the real nature of that influence, which these
three great powers do actually exercise over the progress of
civilization.
Now, in the first place, it is evident that if a people were left
entirely to themselves, their religion, their literature, and their
government would be, not the causes of their civilization, but the
effects of it. Out of a certain condition of society certain results
naturally follow. Those results may, no doubt, be tampered with by some
external agency; but if that is not done, it is impossible that a highly
civilized people, accustomed to reason and to doubt, should ever embrace
a religion of which the glaring absurdities set reason and doubt at
defiance. There are many instances of nations changing their religion,
but there is no instance of a progressive country voluntarily adopting a
retrogressive religion; neither is there any example of a declining
country ameliorating its religion. It is of course true, that a good
religion is favourable to civilization, and a bad one unfavourable to
it. Unless, however, there is some interference from without, no people
will ever discover that their religion is bad until their reason tells
them so; but if their reason is inactive, and their knowledge
stationary, the discovery will never be made. A country that continues
in its old ignorance will always remain in its old religion. Surely
nothing can be plainer than this. A very ignorant people will, by virtue
of their ignorance, incline towards a religion full of marvels; a
religion which boasts of innumerable gods, and which ascribes every
occurrence to the immediate authority of those gods. On the other hand,
a people whose knowledge makes them better judges of evidence, and who
are accustomed to that most difficult task, the practice of doubting,
will require a religion less marvellous, less obtrusive; one that taxes
their credulity less heavily. But will you, therefore, say, that the
badness of the first religion causes the ignorance; and that the
goodness of the second religion causes the knowledge? Will you say, that
when one event precedes another, the one which comes first is the
effect, and the one which follows afterwards is the cause? This is not
the way in which men reason on the ordinary affairs of life; and it is
difficult to see why they should reason thus respecting the history of
past events.
The truth is, that the religious opinions which prevail in any period
are among the symptoms by which that period is marked. When the opinions
are deeply rooted, they do, no doubt, influence the conduct of men; but
before they can be deeply rooted, some intellectual change must first
have taken place. We may as well expect that the seed should quicken in
the barren rock, as that a mild and philosophic religion should be
established among ignorant and ferocious savages. Of this innumerable
experiments have been made, and always with the same result. Men of
excellent intentions, and full of a fervent though mistaken zeal, have
been, and still are, attempting to propagate their own religion among
the inhabitants of barbarous countries. By strenuous and unremitting
activity, and frequently by promises, and even by actual gifts, they
have, in many cases, persuaded savage communities to make a profession
of the Christian religion. But whoever will compare the triumphant
reports of the missionaries with the long chain of evidence supplied by
competent travellers, will soon find that such profession is only
nominal, and that these ignorant tribes have adopted, indeed, the
ceremonies of the new religion, but have by no means adopted the
religion itself. They receive the externals, but there they stop. They
may baptize their children; they may take the sacrament; they may flock
to the church. All this they may do, and yet be as far removed from the
spirit of Christianity as when they bowed the knee before their former
idols. The rites and forms of a religion lie on the surface; they are at
once seen, they are quickly learned, easily copied by those who are
unable to penetrate to that which lies beneath. It is this deeper and
inward change which alone is durable; and this the savage can never
experience while he is sunk in an ignorance that levels him with the
brutes by which he is surrounded. Remove the ignorance, and then the
religion may enter. This is the only course by which ultimate benefit
can be effected. After a careful study of the history and condition of
barbarous nations, I do most confidently assert, that there is no well
attested case of any people being permanently converted to Christianity,
except in those very few instances where missionaries, being men of
knowledge, as well as men of piety, have familiarized the savage with
habits of thought, and, by thus stimulating his intellect, have prepared
him for the reception of those religious principles, which, without
such stimulus, he could never have understood.[394]
[394] A writer of great authority has made some remarks on this, which
are worth attending to: 'Ce fut alors que les Jésuites
pénétrèrent dans la Chine pour y prêcher l'évangile. Ils ne
tardèrent pas à s'apercevoir qu'un des moyens les plus efficaces
pour s'y maintenir, en attendant le moment que le ciel avoit
marqué pour éclairer ce vaste empire, étoit d'étaler des
connoissances astronomiques.' _Montucla_, _Histoire des
Mathématiques_, vol. i. p. 468; and see vol. ii. pp. 586, 587.
Cuvier delicately hints at the same conclusion. He says of Emery:
'Il se souvenait que l'époque où le christianisme a fait le plus
de conquêtes, et où ses ministres ont obtenu le plus de respect,
est celle où ils portaient chez les peuples convertis les
lumières des lettres, en même temps que les vérités de la
religion, et où ils formaient à la fois dans les nations l'ordre
le plus éminent et le plus éclairé.' _Cuvier_, _Eloges
Historiques_, vol. iii. p. 170. Even Southey (_History of
Brazil_, vol. ii. p. 378) says: 'Missionaries have always
complained of the fickleness of their converts; and they must
always complain of it, till they discover that some degree of
civilization must precede conversion, or at least accompany it.'
And see to the same effect, _Halkett's Notes on the North
American Indians_, pp. 352, 353; and _Combe's North America_,
vol. i. p. 250, vol. ii. p. 353.