pains in existence. To increase those pleasures and reduce those pains
would be to introduce an improvement into the sentient world, as if a
devil suddenly died in hell or in heaven a new angel were created. Since
the beings, however, in which these values would reside, would, by
hypothesis, know nothing of one another, and since the betterment would
take place unprayed-for and unnoticed, it could hardly be called a
progress; and certainly not a progress in man, since man, without the
ideal continuity given by memory and reason, would have no moral being.
In human progress, therefore, reason is not a casual instrument, having
its sole value in its service to sense; such a betterment in sentience
would not be progress unless it were a progress in reason, and the
increasing pleasure revealed some object that could please; for without
a picture of the situation from which a heightened vitality might flow,
the improvement could be neither remembered nor measured nor
desired."[9]
Carrying thus the conception and measure of progress in his own career,
man can judge his history morally, and decide what progress he has made.
He speaks aptly of "making" progress, recognizing in that expression
that he uses the materials at his command for the ends he desires. But
the materials at his command are not of his own making. He may, indeed,
have modified them by former use, but in each instance of his using them
they are always so much matter with a structure and character of their
own. This fact puts the continuity of history in a new light. It forbids
the attempt to conceive it as a movement pushing forward, as it were,
into the future. We should conceive it rather from the point of view of
the time process as we have already analyzed it. Then we should see that
the continuity of history is the continuity of the results of the
conversion of the possible into the actual--the part of the line which
has been drawn. It comprises all that has been accomplished, conserved
either by man's memory or by nature at large, and existing for continued
modification or use. As such, it has its own structure, its own
uniformities, and its own laws. To them every modification made is
subject. That is why everything "connects on from what lies at hand,"
and why everything we do--even the expressions we use--points backward
to what our ancestors have done. Since what they have done is only
material for what we may do, it can not of itself explain our use of it,
or judge our own values. An understanding of it should, however, make us
wiser in the use of it. That is why we need contemporaneous experience
and empirical science. We need to discover, either by our own experience
or by reconstituting the experience of others, what happens when given
material is used in a given way. Such discoveries are the only genuine
explanations. They reveal the conditions to which actions must conform
if the ends we desire are to be attained.
More generally expressed the continuity of history is the continuity of
matter. It comprises in sum the structure to which every movement in
time is subject. It makes up what we call the laws of nature conformably
to which whatever is done must be done. But in itself it is inert and
impotent. Activity of some sort must penetrate it, if there is to be
anything effected. And what is effected reveals, when experimentally
understood, the laws as limitations within which the control of any
movement is possible.
A wall is built by laying stone on stone. It may be torn down and built
again, or left a ruin. The placing or overthrow of every stone occurs as
just that event but once, never to return, but the stones, though
chiseled or worn in the handling, remain constant material for constant
use. The result is a wall or a ruin, both of which illustrate the law of
gravitation, but neither of which was produced by that law. That is what
history is like. It is an activity which transforms the materials of the
world without destroying them, and transforms them subject to laws of
their own. The world is thus ever new, but never lawless. It is always
fresh and always old. The present is, as Francis Bacon said, its real
antiquity. Time is thus the arch-conservative and the arch-radical.
Forever it revises its inheritance, but it is never quit of it.
Man's inheritance comprises both what he has derived from his ancestors,
and also the world bequeathed to him from day to day. This material he
uses with some knowledge of its laws, and with the conscious desire to
convert it to his own ends. The kinds of progress he can make are thus
relevant to the purposes he sets before him. Since the satisfaction of
his physical needs and the desire of comfortable living require some
mastery of physical resources, his progress can naturally be measured by
the degree of success he makes in providing for satisfactions of this
kind. Such progress is material progress, and its standards are economy
and efficiency, or the attainment of the maximum result with the minimum
of effort. This kind of progress is very diversified, embracing all the
economic concerns of life, and much of society and the arts. But
material prosperity is provisional. To be well-housed, well-fed,
well-clothed, and even to have friends and the opportunity for unlimited
amusement, these things have never been permanently regarded as
defining human happiness to the full. Having these things man is still
curious to know what he will do. Material progress indicates mastery of
the necessities of his existence in order that he may then be free to
act. If no free act follows upon such mastery, life loses its savor, and
pleasures grow stale. Material progress would thus seem to be a
preliminary to living well, but would not be living well itself. For man
would be in a sorry plight if he succeeded in mastering the physical
resources of his world, and then found nothing to do.
There seems to be nothing further for him to do than to reflect, or
rather what he does further, flows from his reflections. Since he
satisfies his bodily wants, not blindly, but consciously and through
exercise of his intelligence, looking before and after, and trying to
see his life from beginning to end, his reflections lead him to
self-consciousness. He discovers his personality and makes the crucial
distinction between his body and his soul. He speaks of _his_ world, of
_his_ friends, of _his_ life. He begins then to wonder for what purpose
and by what right his possessive attitude is warranted; for unless he
suppresses his reflections or yields himself thoughtlessly to his
instincts and emotions, he can not fail to observe that things are no
more rightfully his than another's, and that to belong rightfully to any
one there must be some warrant drawn from a world with which his soul
could be congenial. Even his soul begins to appear as not rightfully
his, for why should he have now this haunting sense of belonging to
another world, and of being a visitor to this in need of introduction
and credentials? Reflection thus gives birth to a new kind of life in
which also progress may be made. We call it rational progress, for it
involves the attempt to justify existence by discovering sanctions which
reason can approve, and to which all should give assent, because each
soul must, on seeing them, recognize them as its own.
Reflection may lead man to do generous things. He may comfort the
distressed, help the poor, relieve pain, or reform society. The world
affords him abundant opportunity for his benefactions. He may create
beautiful things which he and others can enjoy perfectly in the mere
beholding of them. He may worship the gods, dimly conscious that they at
least lead the perfect life, and that to dwell with them is immortality.
Such exercises of the spirit yield him a new kind of happiness. But his
danger lies in supposing that his existence can be thus externally
justified: that others will bless him for his benefactions; that Beauty
lurks hidden to be gloriously seen even at the risk of destruction; or
that God intended him to be happy. If, however, he is saved from thus
superstitiously converting the ideal possibilities of his life into
justifying reasons why he should exist at all, he may see in them the
fruition of all his history. Even his material progress gives him a hint
of this, for it is genuine progress and justifies itself naturally
through the attainment of its ends. For he needs no sanction to warm his
body when cold, or to feed it when hungry. It is sufficient that he sees
the end to be reached and finds the means to reach it. The hunger of the
soul may be no less efficacious. Although these cravings tend to bring
uneasiness and distaste into his animal enjoyments, they find some
satisfaction if these enjoyments are idealized and transformed into a
vision of what they might be freed from the material grossness which
clogs them. Man then begins to conceive ideal love and friendship, and
an ideal society. If only he were the free partaker of such perfect
things, his existence would need no justification. In acknowledging
this, however, he may rediscover himself and learn more adequately what
the purpose of his history is. It is so to use the materials of the
world that they will be permanently used in the light of the ideal
perfection they naturally suggest. Man can conceive no occupation more
satisfying and no happiness more complete. In entering upon it he makes
rational progress. Its measure is the degree of success he attains in
making his animal life minister to ideals he can own without reserve and
love without regret.
Human history is something more than the lives of great men, the rise
and fall of states, the growth of institutions and customs, the vagaries
of religion and philosophy, or the controlling influence of economic
forces. It is also a rational enterprise. Expressed in naturalistic
terms it is history conscious of what history is. To remember and to
understand what has happened is not, therefore, simply an interesting
and profitable study; it may be also an illustration of rational living.
It may be an indication that man, in finally discovering what his
history genuinely is, is at the same time making it minister constantly
and consciously to its own enlargement and perfection. That intelligent
beings should recover their history is no reason why they should
repudiate it, even if they find many things of which to be ashamed; for
they are examples of the recovery of the past with the prospect of a
future. In reading their own history, they may smile at that which once
they reverenced, and laugh at that which once they feared. They may have
to unlearn many established lessons and renounce many cherished hopes.
They may have to emancipate themselves continually from their past; but
note that it is from their past that they would be emancipated and that
it is freedom that they seek. It is not a new form of slavery. Into what
greater slavery could they fall than into that implied by the
squandering of their inheritance or by blaming their ancestors for
preceding them? They will be ancestors themselves one day and others
will ask what they have bequeathed. These others may not ask for Greece
again or for Rome or for Christianity, but they will ask for the like of
these, things which can live perennially in the imagination, even if as
institutions they are past and dead. He is not freed from the past who
has lost it or who regards himself simply as its product. In the one
case he would have no experience to guide him and no memories to
cherish. In the other he would have no enthusiasm. To be emancipated is
to have recovered the past untrammeled in an enlightened pursuit of that
enterprise of the mind which first begot it. It is not to renounce
imagination, but to exercise it illumined and refreshed.
History is, then, not only the conserving, the remembering, and the
understanding of what has happened: it is also the completing of what
has happened. And since in man history is consciously lived, the
completing of what has happened is also the attempt to carry it to what
he calls perfection. He looks at a wilderness, but, even as he looks,
beholds a garden. For him, consequently, the purpose of history is not a
secret he vainly tries to find, but a kind of life his reason enables
him to live. As he lives it well, the fragments of existence are
completed and illumined in the visions they reveal.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] Tylor, Edward B. "Primitive Culture." Henry Holt & Co., 1889. Vol.
I, pages 17 ff.
[6] Cornford, Francis M. "From Religion to Philosophy." Longmans, Green
& Co., 1912.
[7] See Dedekind, Richard. "Continuity and Irrational Numbers," in
"Essays on the Theory of numbers." Tr. by Wooster W. Beman. Open Court
Publishing Co., 1901.
[8] If space permitted, this same limitation could be abundantly
illustrated from the sciences, especially the biological sciences. They
have made very clear what an essential difference there is between the
continuity of living forms and the origin of new forms. This difference
can be readily appreciated by comparing a work on "evolution" or
"natural history" with a work on "experimental biology."
[9] Santayana, George. "The Life of Reason," 1905. Vol. I, pages 3-4.