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HISTORY OF THE INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT OF EUROPE.
by
JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER, M.D., LL.D.,
Professor of Chemistry in the University of New York, Author of a
"Treatise on Human Physiology," "Civil Policy of America,"
"History of the American Civil War," &c.
REVISED EDITION, IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
[Illustration]
New York:
Harper & Brothers, Publishers,
Franklin Square.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, by
Harper & Brothers,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
PREFACE.
At the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of
Science, held at Oxford in 1860, I read an abstract of the physiological
argument contained in this work respecting the mental progress of
Europe, reserving the historical evidence for subsequent publication.
This work contains that evidence. It is intended as the completion of my
treatise on Human Physiology, in which man was considered as an
individual. In this he is considered in his social relation.
But the reader will also find, I think, that it is a history of the
progress of ideas and opinions from a point of view heretofore almost
entirely neglected. There are two methods of dealing with philosophical
questions--the literary and the scientific. Many things which in a
purely literary treatment of the subject remain in the background,
spontaneously assume a more striking position when their scientific
relations are considered. It is the latter method that I have used.
Social advancement is as completely under the control of natural law as
is bodily growth. The life of an individual is a miniature of the life
of a nation. These propositions it is the special object of this book to
demonstrate.
No one, I believe, has hitherto undertaken the labour of arranging the
evidence offered by the intellectual history of Europe in accordance
with physiological principles, so as to illustrate the orderly progress
of civilization, or collected the facts furnished by other branches of
science with a view of enabling us to recognize clearly the conditions
under which that progress takes place. This philosophical deficiency I
have endeavoured in the following pages to supply.
Seen thus through the medium of physiology, history presents a new
aspect to us. We gain a more just and thorough appreciation of the
thoughts and motives of men in successive ages of the world.
In the Preface to the second edition of my Physiology, published in
1858, it was mentioned that this work was at that time written. The
changes that have been since made in it have been chiefly with a view of
condensing it. The discussion of several scientific questions, such as
that of the origin of species, which have recently attracted public
attention so strongly, has, however remained untouched, the principles
offered being the same as presented in the former work in 1856.
_New York, 1861._
PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION.
Many reprints of this work having been issued, and translations
published in various foreign languages, French, German, Russian, Polish,
Servian, &c., I have been induced to revise it carefully, and to make
additions wherever they seemed to be desirable. I therefore hope that it
will commend itself to the continued approval of the public.
_November, 1875._
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
ON THE GOVERNMENT OF NATURE BY LAW.
_The subject of this Work proposed.--Its difficulty._
_Gradual Acquisition of the Idea of Natural Government by
Law.--Eventually sustained by Astronomical, Meteorological,
and Physiological Discoveries.--Illustrations from Kepler's
Laws, the Trade-winds, Migrations of Birds, Balancing of
Vegetable and Animal Life, Variation of Species and their
Permanence._
_Individual Man is an Emblem of Communities, Nations, and
Universal Humanity.--They exhibit Epochs of Life like his,
and, like him, are under the Control of Physical Conditions,
and therefore of Law._
_Plan of this Work.--The Intellectual History of Greece.--Its
Five characteristic Ages.--European Intellectual History._
_Grandeur of the Doctrine that the World is governed by Law._
Page 1
CHAPTER II.
OF EUROPE: ITS TOPOGRAPHY AND ETHNOLOGY.
ITS PRIMITIVE MODES OF THOUGHT, AND THEIR PROGRESSIVE VARIATIONS,
MANIFESTED IN THE GREEK AGE OF CREDULITY.
_Description of Europe: its Topography, Meteorology, and
secular Geological Movements.--Their Effect on its
Inhabitants._
_Its Ethnology determined through its Vocabularies._
_Comparative Theology of Greece; the Stage of Sorcery, the
Anthropocentric Stage.--Becomes connected with false Geography
and Astronomy.--Heaven, the Earth, the Under World.--Origin,
continuous Variation and Progress of Greek Theology.--It
introduces Ionic Philosophy._
_Decline of Greek Theology, occasioned by the Advance of
Geography and Philosophical Criticism.--Secession of Poets,
Philosophers, Historians.--Abortive public Attempts to sustain
it.--Duration of its Decline.--Its Fall._ 23
CHAPTER III.
DIGRESSION ON HINDU THEOLOGY AND EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION.
_Comparative Theology of India; its Phase of Sorcery; its
Anthropocentric Phase._
VEDAISM _the Contemplation of Matter, or Adoration of Nature,
set forth in the Vedas and Institutes of Menu.--The Universe
is God.--Transmutation of the World.--Doctrine of
Emanation.--Transmigration.--Absorption.--Penitential
Services.--Happiness in Absolute Quietude._
BUDDHISM _the Contemplation of Force.--The supreme impersonal
Power.--Nature of the World--of Man.--The Passage of every
thing to Nonentity.--Development of Buddhism into a vast
monastic System marked by intense Selfishness.--Its practical
Godlessness._
EGYPT _a mysterious Country to the old Europeans.--Its
History, great public Works, and foreign Relations.--Antiquity
of its Civilization and Art.--Its Philosophy, hieroglyphic
Literature, and peculiar Agriculture._
_Rise of Civilization in rainless Countries.--Geography,
Geology, and Topography of Egypt.--The Inundations of the Nile
lead to Astronomy._
_Comparative Theology of Egypt.--Animal Worship, Star
Worship.--Impersonation of Divine Attributes.--Pantheism.--The
Trinities of Egypt.--Incarnation.--Redemption.--Future
Judgment.--Trial of the Dead.--Rituals and Ceremonies._ 56
CHAPTER IV.
GREEK AGE OF INQUIRY.
RISE AND DECLINE OF PHYSICAL SPECULATION.
IONIAN PHILOSOPHY, _commencing from Egyptian Ideas, identifies
in Water, or Air, or Fire, the First Principle.--Emerging from
the Stage of Sorcery, it founds Psychology, Biology,
Cosmogony, Astronomy, and ends in doubting whether there is
any Criterion of Truth._
ITALIAN PHILOSOPHY _depends on Numbers and Harmonies.--It
reproduces the Egyptian and Hindu Doctrine of Transmigration._
ELEATIC PHILOSOPHY _presents a great Advance, indicating a
rapid Approach to Oriental Ideas.--It assumes a Pantheistic
Aspect._
RISE OF PHILOSOPHY IN EUROPEAN GREECE.--_Relations and
Influence of the Mediterranean Commercial and Colonial
System.--Athens attains to commercial Supremacy.--Her vast
Progress in Intelligence and Art.--Her Demoralization.--She
becomes the Intellectual Centre of the Mediterranean._
_Commencement of the Athenian higher Analysis.--It is
conducted by_ THE SOPHISTS, _who reject Philosophy, Religion,
and even Morality, and end in Atheism._
_Political Dangers of the higher Analysis.--Illustration from
the Middle Ages._ 94
CHAPTER V.
THE GREEK AGE OF FAITH.
RISE AND DECLINE OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY.
SOCRATES _rejects Physical and Mathematical Speculations, and
asserts the Importance of Virtue and Morality, thereby
inaugurating an Age of Faith.--His Life and Death.--The
schools originating from his Movement teach the Pursuit of
Pleasure and Gratification of Self._
PLATO _founds the Academy.--His three primal Principles.--The
Existence of a personal God.--Nature of the World and the
Soul.--The ideal Theory, Generals or
Types.--Reminiscence.--Transmigration.--Plato's political
Institutions.--His Republic.--His Proofs of the Immortality of
the Soul.--Criticism on his Doctrines._
RISE OF THE SCEPTICS, _who conduct the higher Analysis of
Ethical Philosophy.--Pyrrho demonstrates the Uncertainty of
Knowledge.--Inevitable Passage into tranquil Indifference,
Quietude, and Irreligion, as recommended by
Epicurus.--Decomposition of the Socratic and Platonic Systems
in the later Academies.--Their Errors and Duplicities.--End of
the Greek Age of Faith._ 143
CHAPTER VI.
THE GREEK AGE OF REASON.
RISE OF SCIENCE.
THE MACEDONIAN CAMPAIGN.--_Disastrous in its political Effects
to Greece, but ushering in the Age of Reason._
ARISTOTLE _founds the Inductive Philosophy.--His Method the
Inverse of that of Plato.--Its great power.--In his own hands
it fails for want of Knowledge, but is carried out by the
Alexandrians._
ZENO.--_His Philosophical Aim is the Cultivation of Virtue and
Knowledge.--He is in the Ethical Branch the Counterpart of
Aristotle in the Physical._
FOUNDATION OF THE MUSEUM OF ALEXANDRIA.--_The great Libraries,
Observatories, Botanical Gardens, Menageries, Dissecting
Houses.--Its Effect on the rapid Development of exact
Knowledge.--Influence of Euclid, Archimedes, Eratosthenes,
Apollonius, Ptolemy, Hipparchus, on Geometry, Natural
Philosophy, Astronomy, Chronology, Geography._
_Decline of the Greek Age of Reason._ 171
CHAPTER VII.
THE GREEK AGE OF INTELLECTUAL DECREPITUDE.
THE DEATH OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY.
_Decline of Greek Philosophy: it becomes Retrospective, and in
Philo the Jew and Apollonius of Tyana leans on Inspiration,
Mysticism, Miracles._
NEO-PLATONISM _founded by Ammonius Saccas, followed by
Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblicus, Proclus.--The Alexandrian
Trinity.--Ecstasy.--Alliance with Magic, Necromancy._
_The Emperor Justinian closes the philosophical Schools._
_Summary of Greek Philosophy.--Its four Problems: 1. Origin of
the World; 2. Nature of the Soul; 3. Existence of God; 4.
Criterion of Truth.--Solution of these Problems in the Age of
Inquiry--in that of Faith--in that of Reason--in that of
Decrepitude._
_Determination of the Law of Variation of Greek Opinion.--The
Development of National Intellect is the same as that of
Individual._
_Determination of the final Conclusions of Greek Philosophy as
to God, the World, the Soul, the Criterion of
Truth.--Illustrations and Criticisms on each of these Points._
207
CHAPTER VIII.
DIGRESSION ON THE HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHICAL INFLUENCES OF ROME.
PREPARATION FOR RESUMING THE EXAMINATION OF THE INTELLECTUAL PROGRESS
OF EUROPE.
_Religious Ideas of the primitive Europeans.--The Form of
their Variations is determined by the Influence of
Rome.--Necessity of Roman History in these Investigations._
_Rise and Development of Roman Power, its successive Phases,
territorial Acquisitions.--Becomes Supreme in the
Mediterranean.--Consequent Demoralization of
Italy.--Irresistible Concentration of Power.--Development of
Imperialism.--Eventual Extinction of the true Roman Race._
_Effect on the intellectual, religious, and social Condition
of the Mediterranean Countries.--Produces homogeneous
Thought.--Imperialism prepares the Way for
Monotheism.--Momentous Transition of the Roman World in its
religious Ideas._
_Opinions of the Roman Philosophers.--Coalescence of the new
and old Ideas.--Seizure of Power by the Illiterate, and
consequent Debasement of Christianity in Rome._ 239
CHAPTER IX.
THE EUROPEAN AGE OF INQUIRY.
THE PROGRESSIVE VARIATION OF OPINIONS CLOSED BY THE INSTITUTION OF
COUNCILS AND THE CONCENTRATION OF POWER IN A PONTIFF. RISE, EARLY
VARIATIONS, CONFLICTS, AND FINAL ESTABLISHMENT OF CHRISTIANITY.
_Rise of Christianity.--Distinguished from ecclesiastical
Organization.--It is demanded by the deplorable Condition of
the Empire.--Its brief Conflict with Paganism.--Character of
its first Organization.--Variations of Thought and Rise of
Sects: their essential Difference in the East and West.--The
three primitive Forms of Christianity: the Judaic Form, its
End--the Gnostic Form, its End--the African Form, continues._
_Spread of Christianity from Syria.--Its Antagonism to
Imperialism; their Conflicts.--Position of Affairs under
Diocletian.--The Policy of Constantine.--He avails himself of
the Christian Party, and through it attains supreme
Power.--His personal Relations to it._
_The Trinitarian Controversy.--Story of Arius.--The Council of
Nicea._
_The Progress of the Bishop of Rome to Supremacy.--The Roman
Church; its primitive subordinate Position.--Causes of its
increasing Wealth, Influence, and Corruptions.--Stages of its
Advancement through the Pelagian, Nestorian, and Eutychian
Disputes.--Rivalry of the Bishops of Constantinople,
Alexandria, and Rome._
_Necessity of a Pontiff in the West and ecclesiastical
Councils in the East.--Nature of those Councils and of
pontifical Power._
_The Period closes at the Capture and Sack of Rome by
Alaric.--Defence of that Event by St. Augustine.--Criticism on
his Writings._
_Character of the Progress of Thought through this
Period.--Destiny of the three great Bishops._ 266
CHAPTER X.
THE EUROPEAN AGE OF FAITH.
AGE OF FAITH IN THE EAST.
_Consolidation of the Byzantine System, or the Union of Church
and State.--The consequent Paganization of Religion and
Persecution of Philosophy._
_Political Necessity for the enforcement of Patristicism, or
Science of the Fathers.--Its peculiar Doctrines._
_Obliteration of the Vestiges of Greek Knowledge by
Patristicism.--The Libraries and Serapion of
Alexandria.--Destruction of the latter by Theodosius.--Death
of Hypatia.--Extinction of Learning in the East by Cyril, his
Associates and Successors._ 308
CHAPTER XI.
PREMATURE END OF THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE EAST.
THE THREE ATTACKS, VANDAL, PERSIAN, ARAB.
THE VANDAL ATTACK _leads to the Loss of Africa.--Recovery of
that Province by Justinian after great Calamities._
THE PERSIAN ATTACK _leads to the Loss of Syria and Fall of
Jerusalem.--The true Cross carried away as a Trophy.--Moral
Impression of these Attacks._
THE ARAB ATTACK.--_Birth, Mission, and Doctrines of
Mohammed.--Rapid Spread of his Faith in Asia and Africa.--Fall
of Jerusalem.--Dreadful Losses of Christianity to
Mohammedanism.--The Arabs become a learned Nation._
_Review of the Koran.--Reflexions on the Loss of Asia and
Africa by Christendom._ 326
CHAPTER XII.
THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST.
_The Age of Faith in the West is marked by Paganism.--The
Arabian military Attacks produce the Isolation and permit the
Independence of the Bishop of Rome._
GREGORY THE GREAT _organizes the Ideas of his Age,
materializes Faith, allies it to Art, rejects Science, and
creates the Italian Form of Religion._
_An Alliance of the Papacy with France diffuses that
Form.--Political History of the Agreement and Conspiracy of
the Frankish Kings and the Pope.--The resulting Consolidation
of the new Dynasty in France, and Diffusion of Roman
Ideas.--Conversion of Europe._
_The Value of the Italian Form of Religion determined from the
papal Biography._ 349
CHAPTER XIII.
DIGRESSION ON THE PASSAGE OF THE ARABIANS TO THEIR AGE OF REASON.
INFLUENCE OF MEDICAL IDEAS THROUGH THE NESTORIANS AND JEWS.
_The intellectual Development of the Arabians is guided by the
Nestorians and the Jews, and is in the Medical Direction.--The
Basis of this Alliance is theological._
_Antagonism of the Byzantine System to Scientific
Medicine.--Suppression of the Asclepions.--Their Replacement
by Miracle-cure.--The resulting Superstition and Ignorance._
_Affiliation of the Arabians with the Nestorians and Jews._
_1st. The Nestorians, their Persecutions, and the Diffusion of
their Sectarian Ideas.--They inherit the old Greek Medicine._
_Sub-digression on Greek Medicine.--The
Asclepions.--Philosophical Importance of Hippocrates, who
separates Medicine from Religion.--The School of Cnidos.--Its
Suppression by Constantine._
_Sub-digression on Egyptian Medicine.--It is founded on
Anatomy and Physiology.--Dissections and Vivisections.--The
Great Alexandrian Physicians._
_2nd. The Jewish Physicians.--Their Emancipation from
Superstition.--They found Colleges and promote Science and
Letters._
_The contemporary Tendency to Magic, Necromancy, the Black
Art.--The Philosopher's Stone, Elixir of Life, etc._
_The Arabs originate scientific Chemistry.--Discover the
strong Acids, Phosphorus, etc.--Their geological Ideas.--Apply
Chemistry to the Practice of Medicine.--Approach of the
Conflict between the Saracenic material and the European
supernatural System._ 383
CHAPTER XIV.
THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST--(_Continued_).
IMAGE-WORSHIP AND THE MONKS.
_Origin of_ IMAGE-WORSHIP.--_Inutility of Images discovered in
Asia and Africa during the Saracen Wars.--Rise of Iconoclasm._
_The Emperors prohibit Image-worship.--The Monks, aided by
court Females, sustain it.--Victory of the latter._
_Image-worship in the West sustained by the Popes.--Quarrel
between the Emperor and the Pope.--The Pope, aided by the
Monks, revolts and allies himself with the Franks._
THE MONKS.--_History of the Rise and Development of
Monasticism.--Hermits and Coenobites.--Spread of Monasticism
from Egypt over Europe.--Monk Miracles and
Legends.--Humanization of the monastic Establishments.--They
materialize Religion, and impress their Ideas on Europe._ 413
THE INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT OF EUROPE.
CHAPTER I.
ON THE GOVERNMENT OF NATURE BY LAW.
_The subject of this Work proposed.--Its difficulty._
_Gradual Acquisition of the Idea of Natural Government by
Law.--Eventually sustained by Astronomical, Meteorological,
and Physiological Discoveries.--Illustrations from Kepler's
Laws, the Trade-winds, Migrations of Birds, Balancing of
Vegetable and Animal Life, Variation of Species and their
Permanence._
_Individual Man is an Emblem of Communities, Nations, and
Universal Humanity.--They exhibit Epochs of Life like his,
and, like him are under the Control of Physical Conditions,
and therefore of Law._
_Plan of this Work.--The Intellectual History of Greece.--Its
Five characteristic Ages.--European Intellectual History._
_Grandeur of the Doctrine that the World is governed by Law._
[Sidenote: The subject proposed.]
I intend, in this work, to consider in what manner the advancement of
Europe in civilization has taken place, to ascertain how far its
progress has been fortuitous, and how far determined by primordial law.
Does the procession of nations in time, like the erratic phantasm of a
dream, go forward without reason or order? or, is there a predetermined,
a solemn march, in which all must join, ever moving, ever resistlessly
advancing, encountering and enduring an inevitable succession of events?
[Sidenote: Its difficulty and grandeur.]
In a philosophical examination of the intellectual and political history
of nations, an answer to these questions is to be found. But how
difficult it is to master the mass of facts necessary to be collected,
to handle so great an accumulation, to place it in the clearest point of
view; how difficult it is to select correctly the representative men,
to produce them in the proper scenes, and to conduct successfully so
grand and complicated a drama as that of European life! Though in one
sense the subject offers itself as a scientific problem, and in that
manner alone I have to deal with it; in another it swells into a noble
epic--the life of humanity, its warfare and repose, its object and its
end.
Man is the archetype of society. Individual development is the model of
social progress.
Some have asserted that human affairs are altogether determined by the
voluntary action of men, some that the Providence of God directs us in
every step, some that all events are fixed by Destiny. It is for us to
ascertain how far each of these affirmations is true.
[Sidenote: Individual life of a mixed kind.]
The life of individual man is of a mixed nature. In part he submits to
the free-will impulses of himself and others, in part he is under the
inexorable dominion of law. He insensibly changes his estimate of the
relative power of each of these influences as he passes through
successive stages. In the confidence of youth he imagines that very much
is under his control, in the disappointment of old age very little. As
time wears on, and the delusions of early imagination vanish away, he
learns to correct his sanguine views, and prescribes a narrower boundary
for the things he expects to obtain. The realities of life undeceive him
at last, and there steals over the evening of his days an unwelcome
conviction of the vanity of human hopes. The things he has secured are
not the things he expected. He sees that a Supreme Power has been using
him for unknown ends, that he was brought into the world without his own
knowledge, and is departing from it against his own will.
[Sidenote: It foreshadows social life.]
Whoever has made the physical and intellectual history of individual man
his study, will be prepared to admit in what a surprising manner it
foreshadows social history. The equilibrium and movement of humanity are
altogether physiological phenomena. Yet not without hesitation may such
an opinion be frankly avowed, since it is offensive to the pride, and to
many of the prejudices and interests of our age. An author who has been
disposed to devote many years to the labour of illustrating this topic,
has need of the earnest support of all who prize the truth; and,
considering the extent and profundity of his subject, his work, at the
best, must be very imperfect, requiring all the forbearance, and even
the generosity of criticism.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: First opinions of savage life.]
In the intellectual infancy of a savage state, Man transfers to Nature
his conceptions of himself, and, considering that every thing he does is
determined by his own pleasure, regards all passing events as depending
on the arbitrary volition of a superior but invisible power. He gives to
the world a constitution like his own. His tendency is necessarily to
superstition. Whatever is strange, or powerful, or vast, impresses his
imagination with dread. Such objects are only the outward manifestations
of an indwelling spirit, and therefore worthy of his veneration.
After Reason, aided by Experience, has led him forth from these
delusions as respects surrounding things, he still clings to his
original ideas as respects objects far removed. In the distance and
irresistible motions of the stars he finds arguments for the
supernatural, and gives to each of those shining bodies an abiding and
controlling genius. The mental phase through which he is passing permits
him to believe in the exercise of planetary influences on himself.
[Sidenote: Fetichism displaced by star-worship.]
But as reason led him forth from fetichism, so in due time it again
leads him forth from star-worship. Perhaps not without regret does he
abandon the mythological forms he has created; for, long after he has
ascertained that the planets are nothing more than shining points,
without any perceptible influence on him, he still venerates the genii
once supposed to vivify them, perhaps even he exalts them into immortal
gods.
[Sidenote: The idea of government by law.]
Philosophically speaking, he is exchanging by ascending degrees his
primitive doctrine of arbitrary volition for the doctrine of law. As the
fall of a stone, the flowing of a river, the movement of a shadow, the
rustling of a leaf, have been traced to physical causes, to like causes
at last are traced the revolutions of the stars. In events and scenes
continually increasing in greatness and grandeur, he is detecting the
dominion of law. The goblins, and genii, and gods who successively
extorted his fear and veneration, who determined events by their fitful
passions or whims, are at last displaced by the noble conception of one
Almighty Being, who rules the universe according to reason, and
therefore according to law.
[Sidenote: Its application to the solar system.]
In this manner the doctrine of government by law is extended, until at
last it embraces all natural events. It was thus that, hardly two
centuries ago, that doctrine gathered immense force from the discovery
of Newton that Kepler's laws, under which the movements of the planetary
bodies are executed, issue as a mathematical necessity from a very
simple material condition, and that the complicated motions of the solar
system cannot be other than they are. Few of those who read in the
beautiful geometry of the 'Principia' the demonstration of this fact,
saw the imposing philosophical consequences which must inevitably follow
this scientific discovery. And now the investigation of the aspect of
the skies in past ages, and all predictions of its future, rest
essentially upon the principle that no arbitrary volition ever
intervenes, the gigantic mechanism moving impassively in accordance with
a mathematical law.
[Sidenote: And to terrestrial events.]
And so upon the earth, the more perfectly we understand the causes of
present events, the more plainly are they seen to be the consequences of
physical conditions, and therefore the results of law. To allude to one
example out of many that might be considered, the winds, how
proverbially inconstant, who can tell whence they come or whither they
go! If any thing bears the fitful character of arbitrary volition,
surely it is these. But we deceive ourselves in imagining that
atmospheric events are fortuitous. Where shall a line be drawn between
that eternal trade-wind, which, originating in well-understood physical
causes, sweeps, like the breath of Destiny, slowly, and solemnly, and
everlastingly over the Pacific Ocean, and the variable gusts into which
it degenerates in more northerly and southerly regions--gusts which seem
to come without any cause, and to pass away without leaving any trace?
In what latitude is it that the domain of the physical ends, and that of
the supernatural begins?
All mundane events are the results of the operation of law. Every
movement in the skies or upon the earth proclaims to us that the
universe is under government.
But if we admit that this is the case, from the mote that floats in the
sunbeam to multiple stars revolving round each other, are we willing to
carry our principles to their consequences, and recognise a like
operation of law among living as among lifeless things, in the organic
as well as the inorganic world? What testimony does physiology offer on
this point?
[Sidenote: And to the organic world.]
Physiology, in its progress, has passed through the same phases as
physics. Living beings have been considered as beyond the power of
external influences, and, conspicuously among them, Man has been
affirmed to be independent of the forces that rule the world in which he
lives. Besides that immaterial principle, the soul, which distinguishes
him from all his animated companions, and makes him a moral and
responsible being, he has been feigned, like them, to possess another
immaterial principle, the vital agent, which, in a way of its own,
carries forward all the various operations in his economy.
[Sidenote: Especially to man.]
But when it was discovered that the heart of man is constructed upon the
recognised rules of hydraulics, and with its great tubes is furnished
with common mechanical contrivances, valves; when it was discovered that
the eye has been arranged on the most refined principles of optics, its
cornea, and humours, and lens properly converging the rays to form an
image--its iris, like the diaphragm of a telescope or microscope,
shutting out stray light, and also regulating the quantity admitted;
when it was discovered that the ear is furnished with the means of
dealing with the three characteristics of sound--its tympanum for
intensity, its cochlea for pitch, its semicircular canals for quality;
when it was seen that the air brought into the great air-passages by the
descent of the diaphragm, calling into play atmospheric pressure, is
conveyed upon physical principles into the ultimate cells of the lungs,
and thence into the blood, producing chemical changes throughout the
system, disengaging heat, and permitting all the functions of organic
life to go on; when these facts and very many others of a like kind were
brought into prominence by modern physiology, it obviously became
necessary to admit that animated beings do not constitute the exception
once supposed, and that organic operations are the result of physical
agencies.
If thus, in the recesses of the individual economy, these natural agents
bear sway, must they not operate in the social economy too?
[Sidenote: In social as well as individual life.]
Has the great shadeless desert nothing to do with the habits of the
nomade tribes who pitch their tents upon it--the fertile plain no
connection with flocks and pastoral life--the mountain fastnesses with
the courage that has so often defended them--the sea with habits of
adventure? Indeed, do not all our expectations of the stability of
social institutions rest upon our belief in the stability of surrounding
physical conditions? From the time of Bodin, who nearly three hundred
years ago published his work 'De Republica,' these principles have been
well recognized: that the laws of Nature cannot be subordinated to the
will of Man, and that government must be adapted to climate. It was
these things which led him to the conclusion that force is best resorted
to for northern nations, reason for the middle, and superstition for the
southern.
[Sidenote: Effects of the seasons on animals and plants.]
In the month of March the sun crosses the equator, dispensing his rays
more abundantly over our northern hemisphere. Following in his train, a
wave of verdure expands towards the pole. The luxuriance is in
proportion to the local brilliancy. The animal world is also affected.
Pressed forward, or solicited onward by the warmth, the birds of passage
commence their annual migration, keeping pace with the developing
vegetation beneath. As summer declines, this orderly advance of light
and life is followed by an orderly retreat, and in its turn the southern
hemisphere presents the same glorious phenomenon. Once every year the
life of the earth pulsates; now there is an abounding vitality, now a
desolation. But what is the cause of all this? It is only mechanical.
The earth's axis of rotation is inclined to the plane of her orbit of
revolution round the sun.
Let that wonderful phenomenon and its explanation be a lesson to us; let
it profoundly impress us with the importance of physical agents and
physical laws. They intervene in the life and death of man personally
and socially. External events become interwoven in our constitution;
their periodicities create periodicities in us. Day and night are
incorporated in our waking and sleeping; summer and winter compel us to
exhibit cycles in our life.
[Sidenote: Individual existence depends on physical conditions.]
They who have paid attention to the subject have long ago ascertained
that the possibility of human existence on the earth depends on
conditions altogether of a material kind. Since it is only within a
narrow range of temperature that life can be maintained, it is needful
that our planet should be at a definite mean distance from the source of
light and heat, the sun; and that the form of her orbit should be so
little eccentric as to approach closely to a circle. If her mass were
larger or less than it is, the weight of all living and lifeless things
on her surface would no longer be the same; but absolute weight is one
of the primary elements of organic construction. A change in the time of
her diurnal rotation, as affecting the length of the day and night, must
at once be followed by a corresponding modification of the periodicities
of the nervous system of animals; a change in her orbitual translation
round the sun, as determining the duration of the year, would, in like
manner, give rise to a marked effect. If the year were shorter, we
should live faster and die sooner.
[Sidenote: Animal and vegetable life interbalanced by material
conditions.]
In the present economy of our globe, natural agents are relied upon as
the means of regulation and of government. Through heat, the
distribution and arrangement of the vegetable tribes are accomplished;
through their mutual relations with the atmospheric air, plants and
animals are interbalanced, and neither permitted to obtain a
superiority. Considering the magnitude of this condition, and its
necessity to general life, it might seem worthy of incessant Divine
intervention, yet it is in fact accomplished automatically.
[Sidenote: And also appearances and extinctions determined.]
Of past organic history the same remark may be made. The condensation of
carbon from the air, and its inclusion in the strata, constitute the
chief epoch in the organic life of the earth, giving a possibility for
the appearance of the hot-blooded and more intellectual animal tribes.
That great event was occasioned by the influence of the rays of the sun.
And as such influences have thus been connected with the appearance of
organisms, so likewise have they been concerned in the removal. Of the
myriads of species which have become extinct, doubtless every one has
passed away through the advent of material conditions incompatible with
its continuance. Even now, a fall of half-a-dozen degrees in the mean
temperature of any latitude would occasion the vanishing of the forms of
warmer climates, and the advent of those of the colder. An obscuration
of the rays of the sun for a few years would compel a redistribution of
plants and animals all over the earth; many would totally disappear, and
everywhere new comers would be seen.
[Sidenote: Permanence of organisms due to immobility of external
conditions.]
The permanence of organic forms is altogether dependent on the
invariability of the material conditions under which they live. Any
variation therein, no matter how insignificant it might be, would be
forthwith followed by a corresponding variation in the form. The present
invariability of the world of organization is the direct consequence of
the physical equilibrium, and so it will continue as long as the mean
temperature, the annual supply of light, the composition of the air, the
distribution of water, oceanic and atmospheric currents, and other such
agencies remain unaltered; but if any one of these, or of a hundred
other incidents that might be mentioned, should suffer modification, in
an instant the fanciful doctrine of the immutability of species would be
brought to its true value. The organic world appears to be in repose,
because natural influences have reached an equilibrium. A marble may
remain for ever motionless upon a level table; but let the surface be a
little inclined, and the marble will quickly run off. What should we say
of him, who, contemplating it in its state of rest, asserted that it was
impossible for it ever to move?
[Sidenote: Orderly sequence of conditions is followed by orderly organic
changes.]
They who can see no difference between the race-horse and the Shetland
pony, the bantam and the Shanghai fowl, the greyhound and the poodle
dog, who altogether deny that impressions can be made on species, and
see in the long succession of extinct forms, the ancient existence of
which they must acknowledge, the evidences of a continuous and creative
intervention, forget that mundane effects observe definite sequences,
event following event in the necessity of the case, and thus
constituting a chain, each link of which hangs on a preceding, and holds
a succeeding one. Physical influences thus following one another, and
bearing to each other the inter-relation of cause and effect, stand in
their totality to the whole organic world as causes, it representing the
effect, and the order of succession existing among them is perpetuated
or embodied in it. Thus, in those ancient times to which we have
referred, the sunlight acting on the leaves of plants disturbed the
chemical constitution of the atmosphere, gave rise to the accumulation
of a more energetic element therein, diminished the mechanical pressure,
and changed the rate of evaporation from the sea, a series of events
following one another so necessarily that we foresee their order, and,
in their turn, making an impression on the vegetable and animal economy.
The natural influences, thus varying in an orderly way, controlled
botanical events, and made them change correspondingly. The orderly
procedure of the one must be imitated in the orderly procedure of the
other. And the same holds good in the animal kingdom; the recognized
variation in the material conditions is copied in the organic effects,
in vigour of motion, energy of life, intellectual power.
When, therefore, we notice such orderly successions, we must not at once
assign them to a direct intervention, the issue of wise predeterminations
of a voluntary agent; we must first satisfy ourselves how far they are
dependent on mundane or material conditions, occurring in a definite and
necessary series, ever bearing in mind the important principle that an
orderly sequence of inorganic events necessarily involves an orderly and
corresponding progression of organic life.
[Sidenote: Universal control of physical agents over organisms.]
To this doctrine of the control of physical agencies over organic forms
I acknowledge no exception, not even in the case of man. The varied
aspects he presents in different countries are the necessary
consequences of those influences.
[Sidenote: The case of man.]
He who advocates the doctrine of the unity of the human race is plainly
forced to the admission of the absolute control of such agents over the
organization of man, since the originally-created type has been brought
to exhibit very different aspects in different parts of the world,
apparently in accordance with the climate and other purely material
circumstances. To those circumstances it is scarcely necessary to add
manner of life, for that itself arises from them. The doctrine of unity
demands as its essential postulate an admission of the paramount control
of physical agents over the human aspect and organization, else how
could it be that, proceeding from the same stock, all shades of
complexion in the skin, and variety in the form of the skull, should
have arisen? Experience assures us that these are changes assumed only
by slow degrees, and not with abruptness; they come as a cumulative
effect. They plainly enforce the doctrine that national type is not to
be regarded as a definite or final thing, a seeming immobility in this
particular being due to the attainment of a correspondence with the
conditions to which the type is exposed. Let those conditions be
changed, and it begins forthwith to change too. I repeat it, therefore,
that he who receives the doctrine of the unity of the human race, must
also accept, in view of the present state of humanity on various parts
of the surface of our planet, its necessary postulate, the complete
control of physical agents, whether natural, or arising artificially
from the arts of civilization and the secular progress of nations toward
a correspondence with the conditions to which they are exposed.
To the same conclusion also must he be brought who advocates the origin
of different races from different centres. It comes to the same thing,
whichever of those doctrines we adopt. Each brings us to the admission
of the transitory nature of typical forms, to their transmutations and
extinctions.
[Sidenote: Human variations.]
Variations in the aspect of men are best seen when an examination is
made of nations arranged in a northerly and southerly direction; the
result is such as would ensue to an emigrant passing slowly along a
meridional track; but the case would be quite different if the movement
were along a parallel of latitude. In this latter direction the
variations of climate are far less marked, and depend much more on
geographical than on astronomical causes. In emigrations of this kind
there is never that rapid change of aspect, complexion, and intellectual
power which must occur in the other. Thus, though the mean temperature
of Europe increases from Poland to France, chiefly through the influence
of the great Atlantic current transferring heat from the Gulf of Mexico
and tropical ocean, that rise is far less than would be encountered on
passing through the same distance to the south. By the arts of
civilization man can much more easily avoid the difficulties arising
from variations along a parallel of latitude than those upon a meridian,
for the simple reason that in that case those variations are less.
[Sidenote: Their political result.]
But it is not only complexion, development of the brain, and, therefore,
intellectual power, which are thus affected. With difference of climate
there must be differences of manners and customs, that is, differences
in the modes of civilization. These are facts which deserve our most
serious attention, since such differences are inevitably connected with
political results. If homogeneousness be an element of strength, an
empire that lies east and west must be more powerful than one that lies
north and south. I cannot but think that this was no inconsiderable
cause of the greatness and permanence of Rome and that it lightened the
task of the emperors, often hard enough, in government. There is a
natural tendency to homogeneousness in the east and west direction, a
tendency to diversity and antagonism in the north and south, and hence
it is that government under the latter circumstances will always demand
the highest grade of statesmanship.
[Sidenote: Nature of transitional forms.]
The transitional forms which an animal type is capable of producing on a
passage north and south are much more numerous than those it can produce
on a passage east and west. These, though they are truly transitional as
respects the type from which they have proceeded, are permanent as
regards the locality in which they occur, being, in fact, the
incarnation of its physical influences. As long, therefore, as those
influences remain without change the form that has been produced will
last without any alteration. For such a permanent form in the case of
man we may adopt the designation of an ethnical element.
[Sidenote: Conditions of change in an ethnical element.]
An ethnical element is therefore necessarily of a dependent nature; its
durability arises from its perfect correspondence with its environment.
Whatever can affect that correspondence will touch its life.
[Sidenote: Progress of nations like that of individuals.]
Such considerations carry us from individual man to groups of men or
nations. There is a progress for races of men as well marked as the
progress of one man. There are thoughts and actions appertaining to
specific periods in the one case as in the other. Without difficulty we
affirm of a given act that it appertains to a given period. We recognize
the noisy sports of boyhood, the business application of maturity, the
feeble garrulity of old age. We express our surprise when we witness
actions unsuitable to the epoch of life. As it is in this respect in the
individual, so it is in the nation. The march of individual existence
shadows forth the march of race-existence, being, indeed, its
representative on a little scale.
[Sidenote: Communities, like families, exhibit members in different
stages of advance.]
Groups of men, or nations, are disturbed by the same accidents, or
complete the same cycle as the individual. Some scarcely pass beyond
infancy, some are destroyed on a sudden, some die of mere old age. In
this confusion of events, it might seem altogether hopeless to
disentangle the law which is guiding them all, and demonstrate it
clearly. Of such groups, each may exhibit, at the same moment, an
advance to a different stage, just as we see in the same family the
young, the middle-aged, the old. It is thus that Europe shows in its
different parts societies in very different states--here the restless
civilization of France and England, there the contentment and
inferiority of Lapland. This commingling might seem to render it
difficult to ascertain the true movement of the whole continent, and
still more so for distant and successive periods of time. In each
nation, moreover, the contemporaneously different classes, the educated
and illiterate, the idle and industrious, the rich and poor, the
intelligent and superstitious, represent different contemporaneous
stages of advancement. One may have made a great progress, another
scarcely have advanced at all. How shall we ascertain the real state of
the case? Which of these classes shall we regard as the truest and most
perfect type?
Though difficult, this ascertainment is not impossible. The problem is
to be dealt with in the same manner that we should estimate a family in
which there are persons of every condition from infancy to old age. Each
member of it tends to pursue a definite course, though some, cut off in
an untimely manner, may not complete it. One may be enfeebled by
accident, another by disease; but each, if his past and present
circumstances be fully considered, will illustrate the nature of the
general movement that all are making. To demonstrate that movement most
satisfactorily, certain members of such a family suit our purpose better
than others, because they more closely represent its type, or have
advanced farthest in their career.
[Sidenote: The intellectual class the true representative of a
community.]
So in a family of many nations, some are more mature, some less
advanced, some die in early life, some are worn out by extreme old age;
all show special peculiarities. There are distinctions among kinsmen,
whether we consider them intellectually or corporeally. Every one,
nevertheless, illustrates in his own degree the march that all are
making, but some do it more, some less completely. The leading, the
intellectual class, is hence always the true representative of a state.
It has passed step by step through the lower stages, and has made the
greatest advance.
[Sidenote: Interstitial change and death the condition of individual
life.]
In an individual, life is maintained only by the production and
destruction of organic particles, no portion of the system being in a
state of immobility, but each displaying incessant change. Death is,
therefore, necessarily the condition of life, and the more energetic the
function of a part--or, if we compare different animals with one
another--the more active the mode of existence, correspondingly, the
greater the waste and the more numerous the deaths of the interstitial
constituents.
[Sidenote: Particles in the individual answer to persons in the state.]
To the death of particles in the individual answers the death of persons
in the nation, of which they are the integral constituents. In both
cases, in a period of time quite inconsiderable, a total change is
accomplished without the entire system, which is the sum of these
separate parts, losing its identity. Each particle or each person comes
into existence, discharges an appropriate duty, and then passes away,
perhaps unnoticed. The production, continuance, and death of an organic
molecule in the person answers to the production, continuance, and death
of a person in the nation. Nutrition and decay in one case are
equivalent to well-being and transformation in the other.
[Sidenote: Epochs in national the same as in individual life.]
In the same manner that the individual is liable to changes through the
action of external agencies, and offers no resistance thereto, nor any
indication of the possession of a physiological inertia, but submits at
once to any impression, so likewise it is with aggregates of men
constituting nations. A national type pursues its way physically and
intellectually through changes and developments answering to those of
the individual, and being represented by Infancy, Childhood, Youth,
Manhood, Old Age, and Death respectively.
[Sidenote: Disturbance through emigration.]
But this orderly process may be disturbed exteriorly or interiorly. If
from its original seats a whole nation were transposed to some new
abode, in which the climate, the seasons, the aspect of nature were
altogether different, it would appear spontaneously in all its parts to
commence a movement to come into harmony with the new conditions--a
movement of a secular nature, and implying the consumption of many
generations for its accomplishment. During such a period of
transmutation there would, of course, be an increased waste of life, a
risk, indeed, of total disappearance or national death; but the change
once completed, the requisite correspondence once attained, things would
go forward again in an orderly manner on the basis of the new
modification that had been assumed. When the change to be accomplished
is very profound, involving extensive anatomical alterations not merely
in the appearance of the skin, but even in the structure of the skull,
long periods of time are undoubtedly required, and many generations of
individuals are consumed.
[Sidenote: And through blood admixture.]
Or, by interior disturbance, particularly by blood admixture, with more
rapidity may a national type be affected, the result plainly depending
on the extent to which admixture has taken place. This is a disturbance
capable of mathematical computation. If the blood admixture be only of
limited amount, and transient in its application, its effect will
sensibly disappear in no very great period of time, though never,
perhaps, in absolute reality. This accords with the observation of
philosophical historians, who agree in the conclusion that a small tribe
intermingling with a larger one will only disturb it in a temporary
manner, and, after the course of a few years, the effect will cease to
be perceptible. Nevertheless, the influence must really continue much
longer than is outwardly apparent; and the result is the same as when,
in a liquid, a drop of some other kind is placed, and additional
quantities of the first liquid then successively added. Though it might
have been possible at first to detect the adulteration without trouble,
it becomes every moment less and less possible to do so, and before long
it cannot be done at all. But the drop is as much present at last as it
was at first: it is merely masked; its properties overpowered.
Considering in this manner the contamination of a numerous nation, a
trifling amount of foreign blood admixture would appear to be indelible,
and the disturbance, at any moment, capable of computation by the
ascertained degree of dilution that has taken place. But it must not be
forgotten that there is another agency at work, energetically tending to
bring about homogeneity: it is the influence of external physical
conditions. The intrusive adulterating element possesses in itself no
physiological inertia, but as quickly as may be is brought into
correspondence with the new circumstances to which it is exposed, herein
running in the same course as the element with which it had mingled had
itself antecedently gone over.
National homogeneity is thus obviously secured by the operation of two
distinct agencies: the first, gradual but inevitable dilution; the
second, motion to come into harmony with the external natural state. The
two conspire in their effects.
[Sidenote: Secular variations of nations.]
[Sidenote: Their institutions must correspondingly change.]
We must therefore no longer regard nations or groups of men as offering
a permanent picture. Human affairs must be looked upon as in continuous
movement, not wandering in an arbitrary manner here and there, but
proceeding in a perfectly definite course. Whatever may be the present
state, it is altogether transient. All systems of civil life are
therefore necessarily ephemeral. Time brings new external conditions;
the manner of thought is modified; with thought, action. Institutions of
all kinds must hence participate in this fleeting nature, and, though
they may have allied themselves to political power, and gathered
therefrom the means of coercion, their permanency is but little improved
thereby; for, sooner or later, the population on whom they have been
imposed, following the external variations, spontaneously outgrows them,
and their ruin, though it may have been delayed, is none the less
certain. For the permanency of any such system it is essentially
necessary that it should include within its own organization a law of
change, and not of change only, but change in the right direction--the
direction in which the society interested is about to pass. It is in an
oversight of this last essential condition that we find an explanation
of the failure of so many such institutions. Too commonly do we believe
that the affairs of men are determined by a spontaneous action or free
will; we keep that overpowering influence which really controls them in
the background. In individual life we also accept a like deception,
living in the belief that every thing we do is determined by the
volition of ourselves or of those around us; nor is it until the close
of our days that we discern how great is the illusion, and that we have
been swimming--playing and struggling--in a stream which, in spite of
all our voluntary motions, has silently and resistlessly borne us to a
predetermined shore.
In the foregoing pages I have been tracing analogies between the life of
individuals and that of nations. There is yet one point more.
[Sidenote: The death of nations.]
Nations, like individuals, die. Their birth presents an ethnical
element; their death, which is the most solemn event that we can
contemplate, may arise from interior or from external causes. Empires
are only sand-hills in the hour-glass of Time; they crumble
spontaneously away by the process of their own growth.
A nation, like a man, hides from itself the contemplation of its final
day. It occupies itself with expedients for prolonging its present
state. It frames laws and constitutions under the delusion that they
will last, forgetting that the condition of life is change. Very able
modern statesmen consider it to be the grand object of their art to keep
things as they are, or rather as they were. But the human race is not at
rest; and bands with which, for a moment, it may be restrained, break
all the more violently the longer they hold. No man can stop the march
of destiny.
[Sidenote: There is nothing absolute in time.]
Time, to the nation as to the individual, is nothing absolute; its
duration depends on the rate of thought and feeling. For the same reason
that to the child the year is actually longer than to the adult, the
life of a nation may be said to be no longer than the life of a person,
considering the manner in which its affairs are moving. There is a
variable velocity of existence, though the lapses of time may be
equable.
[Sidenote: Nations are only transitional forms.]
The origin, existence, and death of nations depend thus on physical
influences, which are themselves the result of immutable laws. Nations
are only transitional forms of humanity. They must undergo obliteration
as do the transitional forms offered by the animal series. There is no
more an immortality for them than there is an immobility for an embryo
in any one of the manifold forms passed through in its progress of
development.
[Sidenote: Their course is ever advancing, never retrograde.]
[Sidenote: Variable rapidity of national life.]
The life of a nation thus flows in a regular sequence, determined by
invariable law, and hence, in estimating different nations, we must not
be deceived by the casual aspect they present. The philosophical
comparison is made by considering their entire manner of career or cycle
of progress, and not their momentary or transitory state. Though they
may encounter disaster, their absolute course can never be retrograde;
it is always onward, even if tending to dissolution. It is as with the
individual, who is equally advancing in infancy, in maturity, in old
age. Pascal was more than justified in his assertion that "the entire
succession of men, through the whole course of ages, must be regarded as
one man, always living and incessantly learning." In both cases, the
manner of advance, though it may sometimes be unexpected, can never be
abrupt. At each stage events and ideas emerge which not only necessarily
owe their origin to preceding events and ideas, but extend far into the
future and influence it. As these are crowded together, or occur more
widely apart, national life, like individual, shows a variable rapidity,
depending upon the intensity of thought and action. But, no matter how
great that energy may be, or with what rapidity modifications may take
place--since events are emerging as consequences of preceding events,
and ideas from preceding ideas--in the midst of the most violent
intellectual oscillations, a discerning observer will never fail to
detect that there exists a law of continuous variation of human
opinions.
[Sidenote: Plan of this work.]
[Sidenote: Selection among European communities.]
In the examination of the progress of Europe on which we now enter, it
is, of course, to intellectual phenomena that we must, for the most
part, refer; material aggrandisement and political power offering us
less important though still valuable indications, and serving our
purpose rather in a corroborative way. There are five intellectual
manifestations to which we may resort--philosophy, science, literature,
religion, government. Our obvious course is, first, to study the
progress of that member of the European family, the eldest in point of
advancement, and to endeavour to ascertain the characteristics of its
mental unfolding. We may reasonably expect that the younger members of
the family, more or less distinctly, will offer us illustrations of the
same mode of advancement that we shall thus find for Greece; and that
the whole continent, which is the sum of these different parts, will, in
its secular progress, comport itself in like manner.
[Sidenote: Our investigation limited to the intellectual, and commencing
with Greece.]
[Sidenote: From thence we pass to the examination of all Europe.]
Of the early condition of Europe, since we have to consider it in its
prehistoric times, our information must necessarily be imperfect.
Perhaps, however, we may be disposed to accept that imperfection as a
sufficient token of its true nature. Since history can offer us no aid,
our guiding lights must be comparative theology and comparative
philology. Proceeding from those times, we shall, in detail, examine the
intellectual or philosophical movement first exhibited in Greece,
endeavouring to ascertain its character at successive epochs, and
thereby to judge of its complete nature. Fortunately for our purpose,
the information is here sufficient, both in amount and distinctness. It
then remains to show that the mental movement of the whole continent is
essentially of the same kind, though, as must necessarily be the case,
it is spread over far longer periods of time. Our conclusions will
constantly be found to gather incidental support and distinctness from
illustrations presented by the aged populations of Asia, and the
aborigines of Africa and America.
[Sidenote: The five ages of European life.]
The intellectual progress of Europe being of a nature answering to that
observed in the case of Greece, and this, in its turn, being like that
of an individual, we may conveniently separate it into arbitrary
periods, sufficiently distinct from one another, though imperceptibly
merging into each other. To these successive periods I shall give the
titles of--1, the Age of Credulity; 2, the Age of Inquiry; 3, the Age of
Faith; 4, the Age of Reason; 5, the Age of Decrepitude; and shall use
these designations in the division of my subject in its several
chapters.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: The world is ruled by law.]
From the possibility of thus regarding the progress of a continent in
definite and successive stages, answering respectively to the periods of
individual life--infancy, childhood, youth, maturity, old age--we may
gather an instructive lesson. It is the same that we have learned from
inquiries respecting the origin, maintenance, distribution, and
extinction of animals and plants, their balancing against each other;
from the variations of aspect and form of an individual man as
determined by climate; from his social state, whether in repose or
motion; from the secular variations of his opinions, and the gradual
dominion of reason over society: this lesson is, that the government of
the world is accomplished by immutable law.
Such a conception commends itself to the intellect of man by its
majestic grandeur. It makes him discern the eternal in the vanishing of
present events and through the shadows of time. From the life, the
pleasures, the sufferings of humanity, it points to the impassive; from
our wishes, wants, and woes, to the inexorable. Leaving the individual
beneath the eye of Providence, it shows society under the finger of law.
And the laws of Nature never vary; in their application they never
hesitate nor are wanting.
[Sidenote: And yet there is free-will for man.]
But in thus ascending to primordial laws, and asserting their
immutability, universality, and paramount control in the government of
this world, there is nothing inconsistent with the free action of man.
The appearance of things depends altogether on the point of view we
occupy. He who is immersed in the turmoil of a crowded city sees nothing
but the acts of men, and, if he formed his opinion from his experience
alone, must conclude that the course of events altogether depends on the
uncertainties of human volition. But he who ascends to a sufficient
elevation loses sight of the passing conflicts, and no longer hears the
contentions. He discovers that the importance of individual action is
diminishing, as the panorama beneath him is extending. And if he could
attain to the truly philosophical, the general point of view,
disengaging himself front all terrestrial influences and entanglements,
rising high enough to see the whole globe at a glance, his acutest
vision would fail to discover the slightest indication of man, his
free-will, or his works. In her resistless, onward sweep, in the
clock-like precision of her daily and nightly revolution, in the
well-known pictured forms of her continents and seas, now no longer dark
and doubtful, but shedding forth a planetary light, well might he ask
what had become of all the aspirations and anxieties, the pleasures and
agony of life. As the voluntary vanished from his sight, and the
irresistible remained, and each moment became more and more distinct,
well might he incline to disbelieve his own experience, and to question
whether the seat of so much undying glory could be the place of so much
human uncertainty, whether beneath the vastness, energy, and immutable
course of a moving world, there lay concealed the feebleness and
imbecility of man. Yet it is none the less true that these contradictory
conditions co-exist--Free-will and Fate, Uncertainty and Destiny, It is
only the point of view that has changed, but on that how much has
depended! A little nearer we gather the successive ascertainments of
human inquiry, a little further off we realize the panoramic vision of
the Deity. A Hindu philosopher has truly remarked, that he who stands by
the banks of a flowing stream sees, in their order, the various parts as
they successively glide by, but he who is placed on an exalted station
views, at a glance, the whole as a motionless silvery thread among the
fields. To the one there is the accumulating experience and knowledge of
man in time, to the other there is the instantaneous the unsuccessive
knowledge of God.
[Sidenote: Changeability of forms and unchangeability of law.]
Is there an object presented to us which does not bear the mark of
ephemeral duration? As respects the tribes of life, they are scarcely
worth a moment's thought, for the term of the great majority of them is
so brief that we may say they are born and die before our eyes. If we
examine them, not as individuals, but as races, the same conclusion
holds good, only the scale is enlarged from a few days to a few
centuries. If from living we turn to lifeless nature, we encounter again
the evidence of brief continuance. The sea is unceasingly remoulding its
shores; hard as they are, the mountains are constantly yielding to frost
and to rain; here an extensive tract of country is elevated, there
depressed. We fail to find any thing that is not undergoing change.
Then forms are in their nature transitory, law is everlasting. If from
visible forms we turn to directing law how vast is the difference. We
pass from the finite, the momentary, the incidental, the conditioned--to
the illimitable, the eternal, the necessary, the unshackled.
[Sidenote: The object of this book is to assert the control of law in
human affairs.]
It is of law that I am to speak in this book. In a world composed of
vanishing forms I am to vindicate the imperishability, the majesty of
law, and to show how man proceeds, in his social march, in obedience to
it. I am to lead my reader, perhaps in a reluctant path, from the
outward phantasmagorial illusions which surround us, and so
ostentatiously obtrude themselves on our attention, to something that
lies in silence and strength behind. I am to draw his thoughts from the
tangible to the invisible, from the limited to the universal, from the
changeable to the invariable, from the transitory to the eternal; from
the expedients and volitions so largely amusing the life of man, to the
predestined and resistless issuing from the fiat of God.