THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD IN HUMAN HISTORY.
"He hath made of one blood all the nations of mankind to dwell upon
the face of the whole earth, and ordained to each the appointed
seasons of their existence and the bounds of their habitation, that
they should seek God."--ST. PAUL.
"Divine providence, which conducts all things marvelously, rules
the series of human generations from Adam to the end of the world
_like one man_, who, from his infancy to his old age, furnishes
forth his career in time in passing through all its ages."--ST.
AUGUSTINE.
"The right education of the human race, so far as concerns the
people of God, like that of a single man, advances through certain
divisions of time, as that of the individual through the
consecutive ages of human life."--ST. AUGUSTINE.
"Les nations sont régies par les mêmes lois que les
individus."--LAURENT.
From the central and fundamental truth that God is the Creator and
Conservator of the universe, Christian theology advances to the still
more practical truth that He determines and presides over the
development of the human race, leading it toward a foreseen and
predestinated goal.
This is the natural and logical order of thought. If nature and man were
created and are still conserved by an intelligent power, there must be
some reason or end for which they exist; for intelligent power can only
be conceived as a power which works toward ends. The existence of the
world and of man being given, the question concerning the purpose or end
for which they exist becomes unavoidable and necessary; and though
physical science may proclaim "its inability to disclose the final
purpose of creation," and speak contemptuously of all such inquiries, it
does not by any means follow that Christian doctrine can furnish no
satisfactory answer to this inevitable question. As the reference of the
dependent universe to the efficient ground of its existence gives the
concepts of _Creation_ and _Conservation_ with which the idea of power
is pre-eminently associated, so the reference of the same to the
ultimate reason of its existence gives the concepts of _Providence_ and
_Moral Government_ with which the idea of all-wise love is immediately
correlated.
The Christian doctrine of Providence in human history is succinctly
stated in the words of St. Paul: "God hath made of one blood all the
nations of mankind to dwell upon the face of the whole earth, and
ordained to each the appointed times of their existence and the bounds
of their habitation, that they should seek after, and indeed feel after,
and find the Lord." He has endowed man with intelligence and freedom by
which he may achieve the conquest of nature, and be able to maintain his
existence and ascendency in every part of the habitable globe. A new and
subtile force appears in the arena of nature, which is superior to
nature, which can control and regulate its action, and subordinate the
forces of nature to the higher purposes and needs of spiritual and moral
being. By travel and observation, by reasoning and invention, by
interchange of ideas and products, man may continually enlarge the
sphere of his knowledge, and multiply the means of improvement and
happiness.[355] God has also "determined beforehand the _time_ of each
nation's existence, and the geographical _boundaries_ of their
habitation." Divine providence has decreed and presided over the
dispersions and migrations of the human race, and in the plan of history
fixed the time when and the people by which each continent and island
shall be inhabited. And the ultimate purpose of this providential
arrangement and supervision is that men "may seek God, and feel after
and really find Him," who for all dependent rational existence is the
chief good.
This, then, is the explicit teaching of Christian theology: The
appearance of rational existence on the earth constitutes a distinct
creative epoch; the final cause of all rational existence is to know
God, consciously to feel after and find Him; and the whole of God's
action upon humanity has been an inspiration, guidance, and education
toward this end. _The progress of the human race, the course of human
history, is therefore a revelation of the Providence of God._
"The consideration of nature," says Niebuhr, "shows an inherent
intelligence, which may be also considered as coherent in nature; so
does history, on a hundred occasions, show an intelligence distinct from
nature which conducts and determines those things which may seem to us
accidental; and it is not true that history weakens our belief in Divine
providence. History is, of all kinds of knowledge, the one which tends
most decidedly to that belief."[356] "History," observes Richter, "has,
like nature, the highest value (if studied philosophically) in so far as
we by means of it, as by means of nature, can divine and read the
Infinite Spirit who, with nature and history as with letters, legibly
writes to us. He who finds a God in the physical world will also find
one in the moral world--which is history. Nature forces on our hearts a
Creator; history, a Providence." To the student of history it becomes
apparent that the hand of God has been guiding humanity toward the
fulfillment of its destiny. God has presided over the development of
human society and government. Throughout the ages He has been the
Educator of the race--leading, instructing, chastening, and blessing the
nations. "Man holds relations to God not merely at the moment of
creation; he does not cease to be in connection with his Creator through
the endless duration of his existence. The incessant action of God on
man is grace; the incessant action of God on humanity is providential
government."[357] "History is the manifestation of God's supervision of
humanity, and the judgments of history are the judgments of God."[358]
If we have here the true conception of history, if it is a manifestation
of Divine supervision, direction, and discipline, then the question is
at once legitimate and practical, What is the end of this discipline?
what is the foreseen and predestinated goal toward which, through
conflict and pain and travail, Divine providence is leading the human
race?
It must be conceded on all hands that the adequate and final answer can
only be given by that Divine prescience which "sees the end from the
beginning." The study of the past and of the present moral and religious
phenomena of the world may afford to the philosophic mind some prevision
of the future, but it is obvious that revelation alone can supply the
principles which must constitute the light of history--the light in
which even its darkest chapters may be interpreted, and its true
philosophy evolved.
The general answer which speculative thought has furnished to this
question is that the goal of history is _the highest perfection of
humanity_. Aristotle clearly recognizes that there must be an end or
final cause of human existence and action--a τέλειον τέλος (_summum
bonum_), or chief end.[359] He therefore addresses himself to the
inquiry, What is the chief good, or highest end of man? The conclusion
which he reaches is, that it is the absolute satisfaction of his whole
nature--that which men have agreed to call _happiness_. This happiness,
however, is not mere sensual pleasure. The brute shares this in common
with man, therefore it can not constitute the happiness of man. Human
happiness must express the _completeness_ of rational existence, or, as
he expresses it, "a perfect practical activity in a perfect life."[360]
This "complete and perfect life" is the complete satisfaction of our
rational nature. It is the realization of the Divine in man, and
constitutes the absolute and all-sufficient good.[361] A good action is
thus "an end in itself," inasmuch as it tends to secure the _perfection_
of our nature.
The human mind can not, however, rest in the general and vague idea of
perfection; we are therefore pressed with the further question, In what
does the highest perfection of humanity consist? by what standard are we
to judge of this perfection? what is the _ideal_ toward which the
progress of humanity may be presumed to tend, and which we hope it will
ultimately attain? The following considerations may furnish the answer:
1. That ideal must be the same for the race as for the individual, the
same for the nation as for the man. For, on the one hand, society exists
for the sake of the individual, and it is only in society that
individual existences can be preserved, developed, and perfected; on the
other hand, national character is but the expression of the collective
or average character of the individual citizens.
In seeking for the ideal of individual perfection, we must take account
of all the capacities, powers, and relations of man. We must have in
view, not simply his physical and intellectual, but also his moral and
religious nature. We must think of the relation in which he stands to
his fellow-beings and to his God, as well as the relation in which he
stands to himself--that is, to the liberty and intelligence which are in
him, and which he must develop. Now no man can be said to be complete,
to be _perfect_, no man can be said to have reached his τέλος, or end,
until he has developed in his thought and realized in his life the idea
of the useful, the true, the just, the good, the pure, the Divine.
Loyalty to God and the truth, justice and charity toward men,
self-control and purity of mind, intellectual discipline and cultivated
taste--these are the characteristics of the perfect man. Judged from the
Christian stand-point, he is the perfect man who has attained to that
ideal of moral and spiritual excellence which was exhibited in the human
life of Christ, that grand embodiment of all that is "pure and true and
just and lovely and of good report." The realization of this ideal in
the collective life of humanity must be the goal of history.
2. Further light is shed upon this problem by the consideration of the
Christian idea of God. The gravitating point of Christian theology is
found in the Divine declaration, "_God is Love_" (1 John iv. 8, 16).
This is the most fundamental revelation of the Divine nature, so that
nothing can pertain to his perfections or his works which is not
ultimately resolvable into love. "If ever the idea of Divine justice
shall obtain consistency [in our systems of theology], it must be in
general through the relation of infinite holy love to the spontaneous
and self-determining capacity of the personal being, or the relation of
Divine perfection to the existence of the economy in the universe."[362]
The fact that God creates worlds and gives birth to personal existences
is not grounded in his omnipotence, but in his love. Divine love is the
determinative principle of Divine efficiency--the final cause or
ultimate reason of all existence. Creation must therefore be conceived
as the free self-communication of God, who is Himself eternally
self-complete and self-sufficient, but who, from love alone, wills that
other intelligences shall have existence who can "know God," and in
fellowship with Him attain that fullness and fruition of being which is
called "Eternal Life."[363] If, then, the Divine mind has always had
this end in view--the perfection and blessedness of personal being in
fellowship with Himself--it must be regarded by us as the consummation
toward which his providence is leading humanity.
3. The explicit declarations of Scripture are in perfect accord with
these inferences drawn from the nature of man and the idea of God. We
learn from the words of St. Paul that the aim of Divine providence is to
lead the race to the practical recognition of the personal dignity of
man as "the offspring of God;" to the practical recognition of the
universal brotherhood of man, as "of one blood," with equal rights to
place, provision, and free self-development in "every part of the
earth;" finally, to the practical recognition of our relation to God as
his dependent creatures, in fellowship with whom we have eternal
life.[364] God's great end in the whole course and discipline of
providence is to unite all men in bonds of mutual affection and aid, and
to unite the race to Himself in bonds of loyalty and love. Then
"whatsoever things are true and pure and honest and lovely and of good
report" will be revered and practiced among the nations of the earth.
These views of Divine providence can scarcely be said to have had any
place or any recognition in the ancient schools of philosophy. The
Stoics taught that an invincible necessity rules in the realm of history
as well as in the field of nature, to which God and man are equally
subject. "God is the reason of the world (τοῦ παντὸς τοῦ λόγου); the
laws of the world are as necessary as the laws of eternal reason. This
necessity is at once _fate_ (εἱμαρμένη), and the _providence_ (πρόνοια)
which governs all things."[365] The Epicureans reduced all existence to
the plane of mere physical nature, and represented humanity as a
development from the lower forms of life by the agency of blind,
unconscious force. If they recognized the existence of any god or gods,
they removed them far away from all intercourse with humanity, and all
supervision of or concern in human affairs. "They admitted their
existence in words," says Cicero, "but denied it in act." These two
forms of error are combined by the modern deniers of providence. Human
society, languages, laws, institutions, arts, sciences, are all the
products of matter and force. The succession of events, the progress of
civilization, and the religious phenomena of the world, have not been
determined by an intelligent Will, or presided over by a conscious
Personality. In the last analysis, matter is resolved into a function of
force, and a process of necessary evolution, which has no design and no
final purpose, is substituted for Divine providence. The ultimate
destination of the world and humanity is unknown, or, if conjecture is
permissible, is chaos and death.
In opposition to these cold and cheerless speculations Christianity
affirms the doctrine of Divine providence in human history.[366]
By Providence we understand intelligent _forethought_ and timely
_provision_ for all contingencies. The term supposes a precognized
_plan_, a constant supervision of its development, and the control and
subordination of all finite powers and agencies in order to its
completion. From nature, strictly considered as the empire of mechanical
necessity, nothing can proceed but that which is posited in it by the
immediate act of God; and consequently, considered apart from man, there
can be no contingency, and, properly speaking, no providence in this
sphere. The existence of mere nature, however, can not be regarded as an
end in itself. The whole interest and significance of nature is found in
the conception that it exists as a means for a higher end. As matter is
simply the condition for the manifestation of force, as the physical
forces are subordinated to the vital force, and the vital is
subordinated to the mental, so is it a legitimate assumption, which we
shall justify in the sequel, that all these are subordinated to the
_moral_ and _spiritual_. It is only in the sphere of spiritual
being--that is, of self-conscious and self-determined being--and in the
_relation of nature to spiritual being_, that contingency can arise and
providence find place.
The uniform teaching of Scripture is that human history is the special
field of Divine providence. In fact, the historic portions of the Bible
are nothing else than a record of the control and direction and
subordination of human agencies, and of external physical conditions in
their relation to personal beings, by the hand of God. This primitive
revelation throws light upon the cradle of human civilization. It points
to a period when man, at his departure from the hand of God, received
those intellectual, moral, and spiritual endowments which raise him in
the scale of being immeasurably above the animal creation, and fit him
for a progress, a development to which no conceivable limits can be
assigned.[367] The Bible is the history of Divine providence from that
signal commencement to the planting of the Christian Church, where we
can clearly see all the lines along which the race advanced, converging
upon "the Kingdom of God." It is a history of Divine interposition in
human affairs, and of supernatural guidance toward a higher development
and a nobler destiny. Indeed, to the eye of the observant and
conscientious student of all history, whether secular or ecclesiastical,
there are undeniable evidences of the presence of Intelligence,
disposing and collocating the conditions of human progress, and
directing humanity toward a nobler civilization.
Considering the earth in its relation to man, we must recognize the
providence of God in the physical universe. The earth was unquestionably
made for man. It was created, and has been especially adapted to be the
theatre of human history. This is the doctrine of Scripture (Gen. i.
28-31; Psa. cxv. 16)--I believe it is also the doctrine of science. The
geological changes through which the earth has passed indicate "a
process of preparation" for the inhabitation of man. This process of
preparation is fully recognized by Agassiz. "There has been," he says,
"a manifest progress in the succession of beings on the surface of the
globe. This progress consists in an increasing similarity to the living
fauna, and, among the vertebrates especially, in the increasing
resemblance to man. But this connection is not the consequence of a
direct lineage between the faunas of different ages. The fishes of the
Palæozoic are in no respect the ancestors of the reptiles of the
Secondary age, nor does man descend from the mammals of the Tertiary
age. The link by which they are connected is of an immaterial nature,
and their connection is to be sought in the thought of the Creator
Himself, whose _aim_ in forming the earth, in allowing it to pass
through the successive changes which Geology has pointed out, and in
creating successively all the different types of animals which have
passed away, was to introduce man upon the surface of the globe. Man is
the end toward which all the animal creation has tended."[368] The
language of Prof. Owen is equally explicit: "The recognition of an ideal
exemplar in the vertebrated animals proves that the knowledge of such a
being as man existed before man appeared; for the Divine Mind which
planned the archetype also foresaw all its modifications. The archetype
idea was manifested in the flesh long prior to the existence of those
animal species that actually exemplify it."[369] "Of the nature of the
creative acts by which the successive races of animals were called into
being, we are ignorant. But this we know, that as the evidence of unity
of plan testifies to the oneness of the Creator, so the modifications of
the plan for different modes of existence illustrate the benevolence of
the Designer. Those structures, moreover, which are at present
incomprehensible as adaptations to a special end, are made
comprehensible on a higher principle, and a _final purpose_ is gained in
relation to human intelligence."[370] That these views are still held by
Prof. Owen is evident from his remarks in the fortieth chapter of his
"Anatomy of the Vertebrates:" "Of all the quadrupedal servants of man,
none have proved of more value to him, in peace or war, than the horse;
none have co-operated with the advanced races more influentially in
man's destined mastery over the earth and its lower denizens.... I
believe the horse to have been predestinated and prepared for man. It
may be a weakness; but, if so, it is a glorious one, to discern, however
dimly, across our finite prison-wall, evidence of 'the Divinity that
shapes our ends,' abuse the means as we may."[371]
Long before the appearance of man upon the earth, the providence of God
laid up in its strata those vast treasures of granite, sandstone, lime,
marble, coal, salt, petroleum, and the various metals, the product of a
long succession of ages and revolutions, thus making an inexhaustible
provision for the necessities of man, and furnishing ample resources for
the development of his genius and skill.[372] In the vegetable life
which appeared on the globe immediately prior to and contemporaneous
with the advent of man, we can recognize a providential arrangement made
for man. In the flora of the Palæozoic and Secondary periods we can not
fail to observe the absence of all those plants which are adapted for
human food. Even in the Tertiary epoch, which immediately precedes the
Adamic or human period, so far as Geology reveals, there were few or no
plants yielding the appropriate supplies for the sustentation of man.
There are few indications of any of those vegetables from which man may
derive food and valuable fibre, and, in a word, of species which support
and clothe by far the larger portion of the human race. "Scarcely any
grasses appear in the list of extinct vegetation, and there is reason
to believe that the principal cereals which are characteristic of the
human period--as barley, wheat, oats, rye, millet, Indian corn, and
rice"--had no existence.[373] When the fullness of time was come, and
all things were ready for the reception of man, then God called him into
being, and invested him with dominion over nature.
Physical geography also indicates, not only a state of preparation for
man, but also a special adaptation of the fixed forms of the earth's
surface for securing the perfect development of man according to the
Divine ideal. And as the land which man inhabits, the food he eats, the
air he breathes, the mountains and rivers and seas which are his
neighbors, the skies that overshadow him, the diversities of climate to
which he is subject, and indeed all physical conditions, exert a
powerful influence upon his tastes, pursuits, habits, and character--we
may presume that not only are all these conditions predetermined by God,
but continually under his control and supervision.
The distribution of terrestrial areas--the continents, islands, and
seas; the disposition of the climate, soil, and vegetation, apparently
accidental, have played an important part in the moral history of our
race. There is a close relation between nature and history, between the
earth and man. The soul of man is distinct from, but not totally
independent of the body and of external physical conditions. To deny
this would be to reject all the lessons of experience. The relation of
man to nature is not, however, a relation of cause and effect, but, as
Cousin remarks, "Man and nature are two great effects which, coming from
the _same_ cause, bear the same characteristics, so that the earth and
he who inhabits it, man and nature, are in perfect harmony."[374] "A
living God," says Ritter, "is at the head of the physical and moral
world."[375] The earth was created for man, not simply to be a
dwelling-place, but a _school-house_[376]--made to be a theatre for the
education, the development, and the perfection of the human race. And as
the moral and intellectual culture of the child is materially affected
by the physical conditions with which he is surrounded, and as these are
consequently the subject of care and forethought on the part of the
intelligent and prudent parent and teacher, so the external physical
conditions of a nation exert a powerful influence on its intellectual
and moral development, and therefore must be presumed to be the subject
of forethought and providence on the part of God, "the Father of the
families of all the earth." God has superintended the peopling of the
earth, the dispersions and migrations of nations, guiding the footsteps
of the "covenant, educating, and missionary nations" to those countries
best adapted to their highest development. In a word, He has ordained
the progress of empire and the course of civilization.
Thus nature and history are the two great factors of Divine providence;
in their relations and harmonies we have a revelation of the purposes
and plans of God.[377]
That geographical conditions do exert a powerful influence on the
character of nations can not be denied. "The bodily constitution of a
people, their temperament, modes of life, habitations, customs,
languages, and even religious opinions have been formed or modified
under the influence of that magic circle of nature which surrounds them,
and which so powerfully affects what is individual in national
character." So that, could we fully grasp all the characteristics of a
country--its position, configuration, climate, scenery, and natural
products--we could, with tolerable accuracy, determine what are the
characteristics of the people who inhabit it. We have discussed this
topic at some length in "Christianity and Greek Philosophy," and shall
here simply recall such of the general facts and principles as may be
needed for a clear understanding of the present discussion.
1. _The habits and characteristics of the dwellers in the Temperate Zone
differ widely from those of the dwellers in the Torrid Zone._ This is an
obvious fact; and the causes of this difference are equally obvious to
the observant mind. In the tropical regions the powers of vegetable and
animal life are stimulated to the highest degree, and here nature
displays her fullest energy, her greatest variety, and her richest
splendors. Excessive heat enfeebles and enervates man. It induces
lassitude, dreaminess, effeminacy, and tempts to quietude and indolence.
Where nature pours her fullness into the lap of ease, forethought and
providence are little needed. Here is none of that struggle for
existence which awakens sagacity and develops industry. Nothing calls
man to that effort for the conquest of nature by which the intellect is
aroused and the reasoning faculties are developed. Consequently the mere
life of the body, the powers of the physical nature of man, overmaster
the faculties of the mind. The instincts predominate over the reason.
Simple spontaneity of thought is manifested, but little or no analytic
reflection. Feeling, imagination, sentiment, predominate over intellect,
reason, and science. In a temperate climate all is reversed. The
alternations of heat and cold render man more vigorous, and impart more
physical tone. Where there is less profusion and lavishment of nature's
gifts, there is more room and motive for industry. The change of
seasons, and an annual period of dormancy, demand forethought and
prudence. The preservation of life demands, not merely physical toil,
but some degree of contrivance, and, indeed, the vigorous exertion of
the intellectual powers. And here, though nature is not prodigal of her
gifts, she grants to industry and skill something more than the bare
necessities of life. She allows man to lay up a store for the future,
and furnishes some leisure for the culture of the mind. The active
powers of man, his reason and judgment, rule his instincts, and control,
more or less, his appetites and emotions. Here man becomes a careful
observer of events; he treasures up the results of experience, compares
one fact with another, notes their relations, and makes new experiments
to test his conclusions. Thus science has its birth in the Temperate
Zone.[378]
2. _There is a marked difference between the mental habits and modes of
thought of the peoples who dwell in the interior of an immense continent
and those who dwell on the margin of the sea._ Vast continents, unbroken
by lakes and inland seas, and extended plains where broad deserts and
high mountain ranges separate the populations, are the seats of
immobility. The inhabitants are isolated from the rest of the world, and
excluded from a stimulating and profitable intercourse with the nations
of the earth. They have comparatively no navigation, their commerce is
limited to the bare necessities of life, and there are no inducements to
movement, to travel, and to enterprise. Society is therefore stationary,
as in China; the habits, manners, and usages of social and civil life
remain as they were two thousand years ago. Infolded and imprisoned
within the overwhelming vastness and illimitable sway of nature, man is
almost unconscious of his freedom and personality. He surrenders himself
to the disposal of a mysterious "fate," and yields readily to the
absolute control of rulers who are regarded as of supernatural origin
and endowed with superhuman powers. The forms of government remain
unchanged from age to age, and the state is the reign of fixed and
inexorable laws--"The laws of the Medes and Persians are unalterable."
The rights of the person are scarcely recognized, and the individual is
lost in the mass.
Extended border-lands on the margin of great rivers and inland seas are,
on the contrary, the theatre of movement, activity, and life. Here man
is set free from the bondage imposed by the overpowering magnitude and
vastness of continental and oceanic forms. Here industry is not
stationary, but progressive; and commerce thrives because the rivers and
inland seas furnish the means of easy transit, and the opportunity for a
free interchange of commodities. Along with the exchange of commodities
there will be an exchange of ideas, because ideas flow along the
channels of commerce. Here also the arts will be cultivated, first for
purposes of gain, and subsequently for the gratification of taste. And,
where there is freedom of movement, where there is creative industry,
where nature is subjugated by man, the idea of personal liberty will be
developed, and the rights of the individual will be regarded. These
ideas of personal liberty and rights will become incorporated with the
laws and institutions of society, and the government will tend toward a
democracy. Finally, this freedom of movement and action will engender
freedom of thought. Reflection will commence, the speculative and
critical spirit will arise, and philosophy will be born.[379]
3. _There is also an acknowledged difference between the mental
character of the inhabitants of a bright and sunny climate who breathe
an elastic atmosphere, and are surrounded by the most inspiring scenery,
and that of the people who dwell under a gray and sombre sky, and daily
look upon the more stern and rugged aspects of nature._ The dwellers in
the former climate are ardent, vivacious, and mercurial; the inhabitants
of the latter are slow, deliberate, persistent, and conservative. One
nation will be speculative, enamored of plausible hypotheses, and prone
to hasty and brilliant generalization; the other will be practical,
intolerant of hypotheses, and clamorous for facts and logical inferences
from facts. In the former climate the fine arts will be enthusiastically
cultivated, and elegance and taste, and all that is graceful in
sentiment and action, will find a congenial home; in the latter, the
exact sciences and the useful arts will be cultivated with persistence
and zeal. Under the former conditions, a religion of poetry, of
sentiment, of artistic display and imposing ceremonial, will sway the
popular mind; under the latter, a religion of personal duty and purity,
of social righteousness, of active beneficence, and of universal
charity, will command respect.
These principles constitute what may be designated the _statics_ of
history--the more or less stable and permanent _conditions_ under which
the living forces of humanity are developed.
The _dynamics_ of history are the fundamental powers and rational ideas
of human nature. There are certain primary ideas of the reason which are
revealed in the universal consciousness of our race under the
conditions of experience--the exterior conditions of physical nature and
sensational life. Such are the ideas of substance and cause, of unity
and infinity, which govern all the processes of discursive thought, and
lead us to the recognition of the uncreated and unconditioned Being;
such the ideas of right, of duty, of accountability, and of retribution
which regulate all the conceptions we form of our relations to other
moral beings, and constitute _morality_; such the ideas of order,
proportion, and harmony which preside in the realm of art, and
constitute the beau-ideal of _æsthetics_; such the ideas of God, the
soul, and immortality which rule in the domain of _religion_, and
constitute man a religious being. In addition to these, there are the
powers of observation, of abstraction, of generalization, of inference,
the capacity of symbolic conception and expression, the faculty of
creative imagination, the powers of invention, of foresight, and of
scientific prevision. These are the living forces of humanity,
fundamentally the same under all circumstances, but modified in their
intensity and development by geographical, climatal, and scenic
conditions. The providential adjustment and harmonious relation of the
exterior conditions with the inherent powers of humanity is the problem
of history.
Before attempting to trace the hand of Divine providence in the original
location and subsequent migrations of the historic races, let us briefly
reproduce the sentences which express the _conditions_ most favorable to
the development and perfection of humanity. 1. While the tropical
climate of Southern Asia, of Africa, and of South America is unfavorable
to the highest intellectual and moral development, the temperate climate
of Western Asia, of Europe, and of North America is peculiarly adapted
to minister to the advancement and perfection of the human race. 2. The
massive, unbroken continents of the South, shut in by immense oceans and
impassable mountain ranges, are the seats of immobility and the home of
despotic power; but the deeply indented and elaborately articulated
continents of the North, with their inland seas and large navigable
rivers, are the theatre of activity, of progress, and of liberty. 3. The
sunny skies and glowing landscapes and inspiring scenery of the south of
Europe are most congenial to poetry and music, and painting and
sculpture, and all that is graceful in expression and action; the deeper
tone and sterner features of the northern portion of Europe, "whose
skies are sombre, and whose mountains are rugged and gray," determine it
to be the home of practical industry and useful arts, of benevolent
enterprises and philanthropic deeds. Bearing in mind these principles,
we turn to history in the belief that we shall find that Divine
providence has at successive periods placed the historic races in such
geographical relations and amid such physical conditions as have been
most favorable to their intellectual and moral development.
1. The first historic fact to which we would now direct attention is
_that the human race really commenced its history in the midst of the
continents of the Temperate Zone_. Western Asia was unquestionably the
cradle of the human race, the grand centre whence the different families
or races commenced their migrations.
Whatever views may be entertained of the doctrine supposed to be taught
in Gen. i.-iv. that the whole human race originally descended from a
single pair, or whatever method of interpretation in regard to that
ancient document may finally prevail--even should we adopt the theory of
Dr. McCausland[380] that the Biblical account is concerned only with
the origin of a covenant and redemptive race (the Adamite or Edenic
race), which was to be the instructor and benefactor of the pre-Adamite
races--there can be no question that the sacred historian traces the
source of the great historic nations to the family of Noah (Gen. ix.
19). Whatever difficulties there may be in determining the site of
Eden--and they are confessedly great, if not insurmountable--there is no
difficulty in locating the second geographical centre from whence the
great historic races departed to overspread the earth. Ararat is, no
doubt, in its Biblical import, the Armenian highlands, the lofty plateau
which overlooks the plains of the Araxes on the north and Mesopotamia on
the south. This "Armenian plateau stands equidistant from the Euxine and
the Caspian seas on the north, and between the Persian Gulf and the
Mediterranean Sea on the south. With the first it is connected by the
Acampsis, with the second by the Araxes, with the third by the Tigris
and the Euphrates, the latter of which serves as an outlet toward the
countries on the Mediterranean coast. These seas were the highways of
primitive colonization, and the plains watered by these rivers were the
seats of the most powerful nations of antiquity--the Assyrians, the
Babylonians, the Medes, and the Colchians. Viewed with reference to the
dispersion of the nations, Armenia is the true ὀμφαλος--the
middle part--of the earth; and it is a significant fact that at the
present day Ararat is the great boundary-stone between the empires of
Russia, Turkey, and Persia."[381]
The Scripture account, which certainly authorizes us to fix upon the
highlands of Armenia as the new centre whence the descendants of Noah
went forth to people the earth, is confirmed by the most ancient
traditions and the most reliable historic records. Josephus tells us
there was in Armenia a city which was called Ἀποβατήριον--the
Place of Descent[382]--"for the ark being saved in that place, its
remains are shown by the inhabitants to this day."[383] He further adds
that "all the writers of the barbarian histories make mention of the
flood, and of this ark, among whom is Berosus, the Chaldæan,[384] who,
when he goes on to describe the circumstances of the flood, remarks, 'it
is said there is still some part of this ship in Armenia, at the
mountain of the Cordyæans;' Hieronymus, the Egyptian, who wrote the
Phœnician antiquities, and Manases, and indeed a great many others,
also make mention of the same. Nay, Nicholas of Damascus, in his
ninety-sixth book, hath a particular relation about them, where he
speaks thus: 'There is a great mountain in Armenia, over Minyas, called
Baris, upon which, it is reported,... that one who was carried in an ark
came on shore upon the top of it, and that the remains of the timber
were a great while preserved.'"[385]
This concurrent testimony of sacred and profane history, which
designates Western Asia as the cradle of the historic nations, has
received additional confirmation from the researches of modern
ethnologists and philologists. In the tenth chapter of Genesis, the
sacred historian sketches the nations of the earth at his time of
writing, indicates their ethnic affinities, and marks to some extent
their geographical positions. The professor of ancient history in the
University of Oxford, George Rawlinson, remarks that "the _Toldoth Beni
Noah_ (the Generations of Noah) has excited the admiration of modern
ethnologists, who continually find in it the anticipations of their
greatest discoveries."[386] Sir Henry Rawlinson assures us that "the
Toldoth Beni Noah is undoubtedly the _most authentic_ record we possess
of the affiliations of the human race which sprang from the triple stock
of the Noachidæ."[387] The same distinguished Oriental scholar in an
essay "On the Ethnic Affinities of the Nations of Western Asia,"
further remarks: "In Western Asia, the cradle of the human race, the
several ethnic branches of the human family were more closely
intermingled and more evenly balanced than in any other portion of the
ancient world. Semitic, Indo-European, and Tâtar or Turanian races not
only divided among them this portion of the earth's surface, but lay
interspersed and confused upon it in a most remarkable entanglement. It
is symptomatic of this curious intermixture that the Persian monarchs,
when they wished to communicate to their Asiatic subjects in such a way
that it should be generally intelligible, had to put it out not only in
three different languages, but in three languages belonging to the
_three principal divisions of human speech_. Hence the trilingual
inscriptions of Behistun, Persepolis, etc., which consist of an
Indo-European, a Tâtar, and a Semitic column."[388]
Thus do all the varied lines of evidence proceeding from history,
ethnology, and philology converge upon Western Asia as the cradle of the
human race--the centre from which the families of mankind departed to
people the earth; and we are constrained to regard the early populations
of that region as furnishing the _typical_ standard or average sample of
our species.
Proceeding from a purely zoological stand-point, we should be led to an
opposite conclusion. Looking to the general phenomena of the
geographical distribution of animals, and the natural rather than the
artificial conditions of human existence, and arguing solely on
naturalistic grounds, we should be constrained to place the centre of
our race in the tropics; and of the intertropical regions those which
are the habitat of the anthropoid (or anthropomorphic) ape, as Western
Africa and the southern extremity of Asia. In the protoplasts of his
species the mere zoologist sees but so many naked bipeds, with the
capabilities, indeed, of working out for their future behoof the
essentials of clothing, the use of fire, and the like, but in the first
instance unfit for any climate except the mildest, and incapable of
sustenance on any soil except the most luxuriant. He consequently fixes
upon the tropics as the cradle of our race; and those who assume the
lineal descent of the human species from the quadrumana fix upon those
intertropical points which are the habitats of the anthropomorphic apes.
The law which governs the distribution and development of vegetable and
animal life would also lead us to fix upon the tropical regions as the
geographical centre of our race. That law may be thus stated: _The
degree of perfection of the types of life, and the diversity and number
of species, are proportional to the intensity of heat._ In this
progress, as Humboldt has remarked, we find organic life and vigor
gradually augmenting with the increase of temperature. And the number of
species increases as we approach the equator, and decreases as we retire
from it.[389]
In the Frigid Zone life seems almost extinguished during the greater
part of the year by the rigors of an almost perpetual winter. The
vegetation of the polar regions is stunted, dull, and monotonous in
color, and inadequate to sustain animal life. The plains are covered
with mosses and lichens, and here and there a few herbs and shrubs
(saxifrages, gentians, papaver, etc.), but no stately forest trees. In
short, the general characteristic of these cold regions is the
preponderance of cryptogamous plants. In the Temperate Zone we have a
marked superiority in vegetable life. Here we have grassy pastures,
cerealia, and dicotyledonous trees--the oak, ash, beech, maple,
chestnut, walnut, the apple, pear, plum, etc. The number of genera and
species is greatly increased, and the superior types acquire a fuller
development. The preponderance of phanerogamous plants, the richer
coloring, and the appearance of evergreen trees, are the signs of an
immense progress. But the soft tints, the medium forms, and the wintry
sleep extending through half the year, clearly indicate that the
perfection of physical nature is not attained.[390] It is in the heat of
the Torrid Zone where nature puts forth all her energy, and displays her
greatest resources. "The cryptogamous plants attain, in arborescent
forms, the proportions of our forest trees. The grasses which we know in
our climates only under the humble forms they put on in our fields,
rise, in the elegant and majestic bamboo, to the height of sixty or
seventy feet. A single tree is a garden, wherein a hundred different
plants intertwine their branches, and display their brilliant flowers on
a ground of verdure, where their varied hues and forms of leaves are
richly blended." And here the perfection of vegetable life is attained
in the graceful palms which stand at the head and crown the vegetable
kingdom. This is the region of a perpetual summer, where nature makes
ample provision for the support of animal life, and the date, the
cocoa-nut, the banana, the plantain, the sugar-cane, the pine-apple,
supply all the wants of uncivilized man.
The same gradation is marked in the animal kingdom. The most
characteristic feature of the arctic fauna is its dull uniformity. The
species are few in number, their forms are regular, and their tints are
dusky as the northern heavens. The most conspicuous animals are the
reindeer, the white bear, and the various seals; but the most important
are the whales, which rank lowest of all the mammals. The preponderance
of marine animals clearly indicates an inferior development. The faunas
of the temperate regions are much more varied than in the Arctic Zone.
Instead of consisting mainly of aquatic tribes, we have a considerable
number of terrestrial animals of graceful form, animated appearance, and
varied coloring, though less brilliant than those found in tropical
regions. It is in the tropics that animal life attains its highest
development. The boundless variety of species, the richness of the
colors, the diversity of forms, the size and strength of the great
pachyderms that people the forests and rivers, the fleetness and vigor
of the ferocious denizens of the jungle and the plain, all attest that
this is the privileged zone. And here only are found the quadrumanæ,
which stand at the head of the animal kingdom.
Such, then, is clearly the law of the physical world. "Nature goes on
adding perfection to perfection from the polar regions to the Temperate
Zone, and from the Temperate Zone to the region of the greatest heat."
Animal life increases in strength and development; the types are
improved; intelligence enlarges; the form approaches nearer the human
figure; the ourang-outang occasionally stands erect; and the presence of
the mastoid and styloid processes, the development of the heel-bone, and
the form of the pelvis, together with the shape of the ears and a higher
frontal development, give the gorilla a startling resemblance to man.
Following, then, the ascending series (especially if man be regarded as
the lineal descendant of the anthropomorphic apes), we might reasonably
suppose that here would be found the proper home and habitat of man,
and that the tropical man would be the highest type of humanity, and,
physically speaking, the most beautiful of the species.
But this, as every one knows, is not the case. While all the types of
plants and of animals go on increasing in perfection from the polar to
the equatorial regions in proportion to the increase of temperature,
"man presents to our view his purest, his most perfect type at the very
centre of the temperate continents, at the centre of Asia-Europe, in the
region of Iran, of Armenia, and of the Caucasus;, and, departing from
this geographical centre in the three grand directions of the lands, the
types gradually lose the beauty of their forms in proportion to their
distance, even to the extreme points of the southern continents, where
we find the most deformed and [physically] degenerated races, and the
lowest in the scale of humanity."[391]
The distribution of the human race over the face of the earth has thus
been governed by a different law from that which has governed the
distribution of plants and animals.
In the latter case, the degree of perfection of the types is exactly
proportional to the intensity of heat and other material conditions
favorable to the development of physical life. _This is the law of a
physical order._
In the former case, in man, the degree of perfection of the types is in
proportion to the degree of intellectual and moral improvement, and to
the physical conditions favorable to intellectual and moral development.
_This is the law of a moral order._
This difference between the two laws has its ground and reason in the
essential difference between the nature and destination of these
different orders of being. The plant and the animal are not destined to
become a different thing from what they already are. The end of their
existence is already attained. The development of each individual is
bound to an immutable necessity of nature. Therefore vegetable life and
organization are ceaselessly uniform; there are always the same cellular
structures and the same morphological forms. Unreasoning and instinctive
life never leaves its sphere. The beaver builds its dam, lives, and
dies, just as it did six thousand years ago. The bee builds the same
hexagonal cell she built before the flood. There is an all-pervading
order in the physical world, But with man it is quite otherwise. Man,
created in the image of God, is a free moral being. He is not solely
under the dominion of mere nature-conditions, and he is therefore a
progressive being. The physical man is not the true man; the body is not
an end, but a means. There is another man--the intellectual, the moral,
the spiritual man--which grows up with the body, and to which the
physical man is a servant and minister. The unfolding, the development,
the perfection of this spiritual nature is the grand end of man. This
development can only take place under freedom; this nature be unfolded
only by education; the maturity and the perfection of man secured only
by the exercise and discipline of his spiritual powers.[392]
Who does not see a plan, a purpose, a Providence in this fact that the
cradle of the human race was placed in the midst of the continents of
the north and not at the centre of the tropical regions? The balmy but
enervating atmosphere of the equatorial regions would have lulled man
to sleep, and he would have made no progress. With an abundant supply
for his natural wants, there would have been no motive to industry, to
enterprise, and to the development of his intellectual powers. Unable to
endure the rigors of a colder climate, and to live on a less luxuriant
soil, he could not have been induced to migrate to less favorable
regions, and, crowded on a narrow area, the race must have been finally
exterminated. But planted in the Temperate Zone, in the midst of the
continents of the North, so well adapted by their forms, their highly
articulated peninsulas, and their climate to stimulate the active powers
of man, to promote enterprise, to favor commerce, and hasten individual
development and social organization, he was surrounded by conditions
most favorable to the fulfillment of his destiny.
It is also worthy of being noted that Western Asia was not only the
geographical centre of the human race, but also the grand centre of
religious light--the cradle of man's spiritual nature. It was here in
the midst of the six great nations of antiquity--the Babylonians, the
Assyrians, Medes, Persians, Phœnicians, and Egyptians--that for ages
"the living oracles" proclaimed the "Truth of God," and patriarchs and
prophets and seers were received into intercourse with the higher world.
And it was in Palestine, the centre of the three continents of the Old
World, and near five great seas--the highways of the world's travel and
commerce--that Jesus of Nazareth taught "the glad tidings of great joy"
for the nations, and sent forth his apostles "into all the world to
preach that Gospel to every creature."
2. Another important fact which history enables us very distinctly to
recognize is _that those epochs of civilization which represent the
highest degree of culture attained by man at different periods in his
history have not succeeded one another in the same place, but have
passed from one country to another_.
It is an undoubted historic fact, as we have already seen, that Asia was
the cradle of the human race. Western Asia is the theatre of the
earliest civilization of which we have any historic records. Then a
newer and higher form appears on the peninsula of Greece. The centre of
civilization again changes place, and Rome embraces and improves upon
that of the ancient world. Then passing the Alps, still further to the
west, it spreads over France and Germany and the British Isles, and
assumes a nobler form; and finally it crosses the Atlantic Ocean, and
develops its highest type in the New World. This order may be called the
geographical march of civilization.
In the principle we enounced at the opening of this chapter, that the
earth is the school-house of man--its highest function being to aid in
his intellectual and moral training, and furnish the conditions in which
he may fulfill his noble destiny--we can recognize at once the reason
and the law of this remarkable progression. And as no single continent
furnishes all the conditions necessary to the complete development of
man, and each of the three northern continents, by virtue of its
structure and climate and physical conditions, has a special function to
fulfill in the education of mankind, so God, in his providence, has led
the human family from east to west, over the continents of the Temperate
Zone, in order to secure the education, the moral advancement, and the
final perfection of our race.
The education of the race has, no doubt, proceeded very much in the same
manner as the education of the individual. The general law observable in
the development of one human mind may be traced in the development of
humanity as a whole. That which takes place on the limited field of
individual consciousness may also be found upon the larger field of
universal consciousness, which is the theatre of history; and as one
epoch succeeds another in the progress of the individual, so must it be
in the progress of nations. What, then, are the clear and obvious stages
in the development of the human mind? Do we not clearly recognize the
following order?
1. _The period of submission to absolute authority._ This is the first
condition of infancy. The child is controlled absolutely by the will of
the parent. It is almost passive amid surrounding conditions, and
parental authority is its only law of movement and action.
2. _The discipline of the conscience._ This is the era of childhood. The
ideas of the right and the good are developed in the mind. An internal
law of duty begins to reveal itself. The child begins to discriminate
between what he ought and ought not to do. And in the education of the
child the object of a wise and virtuous parent is to strengthen this
tendency by urging him to act upon these ideas.
3. _The development of personal liberty_--that is, of independent
thought and self-originated action. This is the period of youth. The
youth passes from the control of his parents and teachers, and begins to
think and act for himself.
4. _The training and discipline of the will under social law_--that is,
the voluntary obedience to laws imposed by society, submission to
regulations imposed for the public good. This is the period of manhood.
The young man passes into society, he becomes a member of the body
politic, and freely acts, not simply as an individual, but as a member
of a corporation and of a state.
5. _The development of active philanthropy._ The man advances beyond the
claims of social law, and acts from the promptings of love and good-will
toward all men. Passing through all the varied stages in the progressive
development of human character, and retaining the results of each, he
becomes the perfect man.
And now it will be promptly recognized that this has been the order of
progress in humanity as a whole--that is, the progress of history and of
civilization. The first corresponds with _Oriental_, the second with
_Hebrew_, the third with _Greek_, the fourth with _Roman_, and the last
with _Christian_ civilization.
It will also be observed that each epoch in the development of the
individual has demanded new conditions, and has taken place in a new
sphere. The first stage in the development of individual character is
infoldment in the arms of the parent. He is still held, as it were,
within the circle of maternal life. He is bewildered by the vastness and
variety of external nature, and he sinks back into his mother's arms.
The second sphere is in the bosom of the family and amid the scenes of
domestic life, where he recognizes relations and becomes conscious of
duties. The third is in the school and the outer world, where thought
awakens, and, enjoying more freedom of movement, he becomes more
conscious of his personal liberty. The fourth is in society, the state,
the arena of political life, where his movements must be regulated by
law; and the pursuit of his own pleasure or aggrandizement must not
interfere with the rights of his fellow-man. The fifth and last is in
the church, the home of religious life, where he is called to ascend
from the region of mere law to that of holy love. So also each epoch in
the development of humanity has had its separate sphere and its new
conditions, first in Asia proper, next in Palestine, on the borders of
the Mediterranean Sea, then on the peninsula of Greece, then in Italy,
and lastly in Continental Europe, England, and America.
1. Asia, as we have seen, was the cradle of the race. Here, in the
infancy of humanity, Oriental Civilization dawns. Amid the extended
plains and lofty mountains of Asia, those stupendous and massive forms
of Oriental nature, man felt himself absolutely dependent. To the river
he looked as the fertilizer of the soil; to the animal which roamed in
the desert, and the almost spontaneous vegetation of the earth, for his
food; to the sun, as the fountain of light and heat, the giver of life
and death.[393] He was environed and overpowered by nature. Almost
unconscious of his own freedom, he lay in her bosom, as the child
reposes in the arms of its mother. Underlying all the massive forms of
Oriental nature he recognized an invisible Power and Presence, and he
worshiped nature as an impersonation of God. Every thing inspired him
with the sense of the Infinite, the consciousness of dependence on an
absolute Will. The patriarchal government, imposed by nature, restrained
his personal liberty. His property and life were at the disposal of his
chief--an absolute autocrat, who exercised over him an unlimited power.
Oriental civilization unquestionably represents the _infancy_ of man.
2. In Hebrew civilization we have, as an especial feature, the
discipline of the conscience. The child-man comes more directly under
the power of moral culture. The government and discipline to which he is
now subjected aim to develop in his mind the idea of the just, the
right, the pure. He is receiving instruction in what he ought and ought
not to do. His conceptions of the moral character of God are to be
enlarged, the idea especially of the holiness of God is to be developed
in his mind through the medium of material symbols and religious rites.
The call of Abraham sets forth at once the central lesson of faith in an
unseen personal God. The history of the patriarchs brings into clearer
light the sovereignty of God as opposed to the mere dominion of nature
and fate. A nation grows up in presence of Egyptian culture, and after
the purpose of God in the discipline of Egypt is accomplished, they are
led into the wilderness, and God now reveals Himself as a Lawgiver and
Judge, and a ritual is given which teaches at once the holiness of God
and the exceeding sinfulness of sin.[394]
For the achievement of this object a new sphere is demanded--the
seclusion and isolation of family life. Accordingly Abraham was called
to leave Chaldæa, the scene of Oriental civilization, and led into
Canaan, that he might become the father of a great nation, and the
source of a new and better civilization. The mountainous region of
Palestine was admirably fitted to be the theatre of this new
civilization. No other land on the globe was so peculiarly fitted to
fulfill this office. The northern half of Syria was not so favorable a
locality; for traversed as it was by the great highway from Asia Minor
to Assyria, it was subject to the influence of foreign travel from the
earliest times. But Palestine lay surrounded by populous countries, and
yet isolated from them. In the midst of the six great nations of
antiquity--the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Medes, Persians,
Phœnicians, and Egyptians--it was separated from them all.[395] Thus
secluded and isolated from the rest of mankind, the Hebrews dwelt alone
as one great _family_. The first form of government was a
patriarchy--the father of the family and of the tribe being the ruler.
The second was a theocracy, in which God, the Father of the families of
all the earth, becomes the immediate ruler. The third was a
monarchy--the government of a man appointed and sustained in his
authority by God. And the history of this nation is little else than one
of instruction, discipline, and chastisement--a tutelage in which the
people were under law and not under grace. The Hebrew civilization
represents the _childhood_ of humanity.
And the lessons here taught were not lost to the race. They were carried
to Assyria and Babylonia during the period of the two captivities; and
in the colonies which were founded in Asia Minor, Rome, and Alexandria
the influence exerted by Judaism was considerably greater than that
which was exerted upon it. The union of Judaism and Platonism is fully
represented in Philo the Alexandrian Jew.
3. In Grecian civilization we have the development of personal freedom
of thought and action. The Divine discipline of the Jews, as we have
seen, was essentially a moral discipline--a discipline of the
conscience. This, however, was not a complete discipline of our whole
nature. The reason demands culture as well as the conscience. The
process and the issue in the two cases were widely different, but they
were in some sense complementary; and the one succeeds the other in the
order of time. The Divine kingdom of the Jews was just overthrown when
free speculation arose in the Ionian colonies of Asia; and the teaching
of the last prophet nearly synchronizes with the death of Socrates.[396]
This new civilization could not be achieved on the continent of Asia,
and therefore a new theatre is prepared. "Europe may be called a
continuation of Central Asia. It surpasses its Oriental neighbor in the
advantage of having no internal mountain barrier to divide its north and
south. Thus Europe has been able to develop itself more independently
and freely in consequence of the number of its peninsular forms.... The
three characteristic features in the formation of Europe that are the
physical grounds of the development of its nations are its large extent
of seaboard, its peninsular forms, and the number of its islands."[397]
On the peninsula of Greece, on the shores of the Ægean and Ionian seas,
there was freedom of movement, facility of intercourse with the
surrounding nations, and inducements to maritime enterprise. These
conditions were undoubtedly favorable to a higher development. "The
inland sea, the magnificent river," says Cousin, "is the natural symbol
of _movement_." These represent the activity of nature, and they become
natural centres of progress. The sea is the highway of commerce, and
commerce is the grand channel of ideas, the medium through which the
knowledge acquired by one people can flow readily into other lands.
Amid such conditions the mind awakes to activity, and the _period of
youth_ commences. Awakening thought is first directed to the outer
world, and attempts an explanation of its phenomena. Greek philosophy
thus becomes, at its first appearance, a philosophy of nature, and the
Ionian school was a school of physicists. Here the great names which
appear at the dawn of mental activity are Thales, Anaximander,
Anaximenes, Heraclites, and Diogenes. From the study of nature the human
race advances to the study of man. The new school is a school of moral
and mental philosophy, or, more correctly, of psychology and ethics,
adorned by such immortal names as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. In
Greece, philosophy, poetry, eloquence, the fine arts, were extensively
cultivated. As this was an age of great activity of thought, so it was
also an age of great political freedom. The government was in many
respects a government of the people, a democracy. "Every thing, in fact,
in Greece bears evidence of the preponderance of human personality, and
the energy of individual character."[398] Grecian civilization
represents the _youth_ of humanity.
The results of this culture were carried to other lands by the conquests
of Alexander, and subsequently by the conquering Romans. The poets, the
architects, the sculptors, the historians, the philosophers of Greece,
are still the guides and models of the men of thought and taste in all
cultivated nations. The Greek is still, in a peculiar sense, the teacher
of the world.
4. In Roman civilization we have the discipline of the will under social
and civil law, the more perfect organization of society and of
government, the development of the science of jurisprudence.
This social and political organization was a new work, a higher
civilization, and it demanded a new and, in fact, a larger sphere. The
centre of the civilized world now changes place, and, moving westward,
establishes itself in the peninsula of Italy. By successive conquests
its circumference enlarges, and finally it embraces at once the South
and the East and the West. The place which Rome occupied, in the very
middle of the basin of the Mediterranean Sea, seemed to foreshadow that
she was destined to become the metropolis of all the civilized nations
who dwelt upon its shores. Rome extended its conquests to Spain, Gaul,
Britain, Illyria, Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt, Africa, and the islands of
the Mediterranean--over, in fact, six hundred thousand square leagues of
the most fertile country; and all but realized the dream of the world's
great conquerors--a universal empire. It was defended by a regular army
of five hundred thousand men, ranged in the order of the famous legions,
which constituted the most effective military organization known. The
government of an empire of such vast proportions and diversity of
populations demanded the greatest political skill. To establish durable
ties between these diverse peoples, and to combine in the same social
network all the civilized nations of the world, demanded the highest
legislative talent, and gave birth to the science of jurisprudence,
which, next to that of theology, is the most important and useful to
man. The inability of the Greek to achieve this great work is clearly
evinced by the terrible Peloponnesian War and the lamentable history of
the empire of Alexander and his successors. Greece represents
individuality; Rome, association, unity, and, in some degree, the
equality of all races of men.
This was unquestionably a marvelous development: "In public law, the
extension, step by step, through many a civil commotion, of the full
rights of citizenship from the narrow circle of a few score of favored
families to the entire sphere of the free subjects of the empire; in
private law, the equal communication among various classes of the rights
of property and dominion over the national soil; the abolition of
territorial privileges; the readjustment, by gradual and peaceful
manipulation, of the cadastral map of the empire; the relaxation, by
slow and experimental process, of the patriarchal authority of the head
of the family; of the father over the son, whom at first he might
punish, sell, or slay; of the husband over the wife, whom at first he
received from her parents as the spoil of his own spear, and ruled as
the chattel he had plundered;[399] of the master over the slave,
absolute at first, final and irresponsible to law, custom, or
conscience; the gradual replacement of the strictly national and tribal
ideas on these subjects by views of right, justice, and virtue to
mankind in general; the slow but constant growth of principles of
natural and universal law, and their application, searchingly and
thoroughly, to every subject of jurisprudence, and to all the dealings
of man with man."[400]
This vast Roman Empire combined all the elements of civilization
characteristic of former periods. The philosopher, the lawyer, and the
statesman were united in the person of her great men, as Cicero and
Cato, and sometimes also the warrior, as in the case of the first of the
Cæsars. The days of the Roman Republic present the most brilliant social
and political epoch in the history of the ancient world. The life of a
Roman citizen was emphatically a public life. The love of country was
carried to the highest pitch, and was paramount to every other
consideration. The laws and jurisprudence of Ancient Rome have furnished
models for the whole civilized world. "The world-wide elastic system of
jurisprudence by which the great Roman Empire, with all its boundless
variety of races, creeds, and manners, was for ages harmoniously and
equitably governed; which was accepted and ratified as an eternal
possession by the same empire when it became Christian; and has been
proved to satisfy the principles of law and justice announced by a
religion which alone proclaimed the unity and equality of man;...
finally, a jurisprudence which has been incorporated into the particular
legal systems of, I suppose, every modern nation in Christendom," marks
a high degree of civilization, and justifies us in regarding Roman
civilization as representing the _manhood_ of our race.
5. And now comes, last of all, the Christian civilization, or the age of
philanthropy. When the Roman Empire had attained its zenith, and all
civilized nations were brought under one government; and the world was
at peace; and the philosophy of Greece and the jurisprudence of Rome had
prepared the way for a higher and a nobler civilization, then, "in the
fullness of time"--the ripeness and maturity of the ages or
dispensations--"God sent his Son, made under the law, to redeem them
that are under the law, that we might receive the _adoption of sons_."
He came to exhibit completely the truth which had been partially
revealed to Plato, that "_God is Love_"--that "Love is creation's final
law"--and that the completeness and perfection of humanity is
"_resemblance to God_."[401] He came to announce and enforce the
brotherhood of mankind, and the equality of all classes and races in
the sight of God. He proclaimed the equal worth of all human souls in
the estimation of the heavenly Father; and to prove that all men are
alike the objects of Divine care and solicitude, He laid down his life
as "a propitiation for the sins of the whole world." For the reception
of this gospel of universal brotherhood and equal rights the Grecian and
Roman civilizations had prepared the way. And now He gives to the race
the "new commandment," which is the fundamental law of the Kingdom of
God, and is finally to become the universal law for all nations, that
"_Men should love one another, as He loved all men, and laid down his
life for them._" The whole spirit and tendency of this crowning form of
civilization can not be misapprehended. Its sympathies are all with the
poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; it can not fail to overthrow
castes and aristocracies, to destroy tyranny, oppression, and slavery,
and at last to unite all men in bonds of love to each other and to God.
And now to what people shall be committed the office of diffusing and
perpetuating this noblest and highest civilization? Not to the Jewish
nation, for it was exclusive and selfish; not to the Greek, for it had
become effete; not to the Roman, for it had become corrupt.
Christianity, it is true, was born on Jewish soil, but it was soon
transferred to a more favorable clime. The Church was early planted in
Rome, but achieved its grandest conquests among another people. The
fierce Germanic tribes of the North conquer the Roman Empire, and are
conquered by its Christianity. Already the Germans had the conception of
an illimitable Deity, toward whom they looked with solemn and
reverential awe.[402] Having penetrated into the midst of the Roman
Empire, they came fully into the presence and under the influence of
Christianity. Their conversion was speedy and comparatively complete.
The constant intercourse now maintained between Rome and Central and
Northern Europe in a short time carried this new civilization across the
Alps; the circle rapidly widens, and embraces all Europe in a common
faith.
All the rich treasures of the past are appropriated by Christianity--the
moral culture of the Hebrew, the poetry and philosophy of Greece, the
jurisprudence of Ancient Rome. All these--in so far as they are pure and
good--are absorbed by Christianity, and ennobled and baptized by the
Christian spirit. In Christian Europe poetry, philosophy, science
flourished as they had never flourished in any preceding age, and they
lay their richest tribute at the feet of Christ, the Divine King of the
world. Nature, also, herself becomes more and more subject to man, and
to the religion of the God-man. Science multiplies the means of
diffusing knowledge and the facilities of intercourse among the nations
of the earth. The discovery of the art of printing opens the Book of
Life to the millions of our race. Space has been annihilated by
railroads; by the help of steam continents are united; the electric
telegraph is binding the nations in one. And now the genius of
Christianity begins more signally to reveal itself as a power acting on
the social life of man. The forms and conditions of his earthly lot are
being wonderfully transformed and improved. Science is emancipating
labor, and constantly overcoming the sources of human suffering.
Hygienic science is preserving life and extending the term of human
existence. Mankind is rising above the sphere of mere law, into the
sphere of noble love. Philanthropic institutions are being daily
multiplied, humanitarian and Christian enterprises most vigorously
prosecuted, and a noble benevolence is rapidly supplanting the ignoble
selfishness of former ages. Chalmers, Howard, Wilberforce, Hitchcock,
Amos Lawrence, Elizabeth Fry, Florence Nightingale, Mrs. Gladstone, are
representative men and women of the new age.
Christian civilization is no longer the property of any one nation
alone. Now it embraces in its purposes and plans the evangelization of
all the nations of the earth. The world is now its field. The
accumulated waves of light and power from Hebrew and Grecian and Roman
civilizations, to which Christianity has added a new life and force, are
destined to roll back a tide of blessing upon the remnants of those
ancient nations, and sweep northward and southward--
"Till like a sea of glory,
It spreads from pole to pole."
The crowning achievement of a Christian civilization will be the
political regeneration of the nations--the establishment of all human
governments on the principles of human equality, natural rights, and the
brotherhood of man. The glory of this achievement, in all its fullness,
is not, however, the work of Europe. She inherits too positively the
martial spirit of Ancient Rome. Ancient customs and prescriptions,
hereditary castes, aristocracies, and kings, and an ecclesiastical
polity moulded by these, stand in the way of a Christianity of equality,
of freedom, and of universal brotherhood. Europe has her roots too
deeply infixed in the past to adapt herself, fully and readily, to the
enlarged principles of a thoroughly Christian civilization. A new
country is therefore needed, a _New World_, where Christianity can
remodel human society, and reconstruct human governments upon her own
principles, and the human race can enter upon the last stage in its
progress toward the now visible portals of its final goal. "The East,"
says Ritter, "represents _hope_, the West, _fulfillment_." That new
continent was discovered just at the proper hour. Had North America been
discovered earlier, it would have been peopled by Catholic nations, and
the noble civilization which Christianity was designed to achieve would
have been cramped and fettered by the hand of an ecclesiastical
hierarchy. The New World reposed quietly in the bosom of a yet
untraversed ocean awaiting the advent of the Protestant Reformation.
Luther drew the Bible from its concealment in the library of the
University of Erfurt at the same time (1502) that Columbus discovered
the American continent.[403]
The first settlers in New England were eminently Protestant. They were
men who loved the Word of God, and they sought to organize society in
this new country upon its holy principles. This new colonization had its
birth amid the agonizing throes of martyrdom. The "Pilgrim Fathers" had
been persecuted and driven from home for Christ's sake. They sought the
desert that they might have freedom to worship God according to the
dictates of their own consciences; and they braved the dangers of the
almost untraveled deep, and the perils of an inhospitable shore in
mid-winter, to lay the foundations of a new empire which should be the
home of liberty, and the sanctuary of piety for themselves and their
children. The Puritan love of freedom and reverence for religion has
left its impress on the mind and character of the American people, upon
their modes of thought, and upon the institutions of their country. The
ideas of universal liberty and equal justice are interwoven in her
Constitution, and, in general, the spirit of her legislation has been in
accordance therewith. A relic of barbarism landed at Jamestown, in
Virginia, which after a fierce struggle of years was finally conquered,
and the rank offense was expiated by tears and blood. God has destroyed
slavery in America by "the breath of his mouth," and its death-knell has
sounded all over the globe. The cause of freedom is stronger in Europe
as the reflex of her triumphs here.
Finally, a remarkable characteristic of the civilization of the New
World is the emancipation of man from the dominion of nature. By an
amazing fertility of mechanical contrivance man is here rapidly
"subduing the earth." Released from merely local and hereditary ties, he
spreads freely over the vast territory, and rapidly multiplies the means
of easy locomotion. The soil is being extensively cultivated; the
climate, even, modified; the physiognomy of nature changed by the
intelligence of man; and a regenerated earth is to be, at last, the
consequence of a regenerated race. Physical nature sympathizes with the
intellectual and moral condition of man. Science is anticipating the
time "when the earth will only produce cultivated plants and domestic
animals; when man's selection shall have supplanted 'natural selection;'
and when the ocean alone will be the only domain in which that power can
be exerted which for countless cycles of ages ruled supreme over the
earth."[404] "The whole creation has groaned and travailed together in
pain until now,... waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God."
"Verily there is a God" that not only judges in the earth, but guides
and instructs the nations, and who in the development of the earth and
of history "worketh all things according to his eternal counsel and
purpose," that for the rational creation "God may be all in all."