attention of all political students is the history of Institutions. In
the constantly fluctuating conditions of human life no institution
ever remained for a long period unaltered. Sometimes with changed
beliefs and changed conditions institutions lose all their original
utility. They become simply useless, obstructive, and corrupt; and
though by mere passive resistance they may continue to exist long
after they have ceased to serve any good purpose, they will at last be
undermined by their own abuses. Other institutions, on the other hand,
show the true characteristic of vitality--the power of adapting
themselves to changed conditions and new utilities. Few things in
history are more interesting and more instructive than a careful study
of these transformations. Sometimes the original objects almost wholly
disappear, and utilities which were either never contemplated by the
founders or were only regarded as of purely secondary importance take
the first place on the scene. The old plan and symmetry almost
disappear as the institution is modified now in this direction and now
in that to meet some pressing want. The first architects, if they
could rise from the dead, would scarcely recognise their
creation--would perhaps look on it with horror. The indirect
advantages of an institution are sometimes greater than its direct
ones; and institutions are often more valuable on account of the evils
they avert than on account of the positive advantages they produce.
Not unfrequently in their later and transformed condition they
exercise wider and greater influence than when they were originally
established; for the strength derived from the long traditions of the
past and from the habits that are formed around anything that is
deeply rooted in the national life gives them a vastly increased
importance.
There is probably no better test of the political genius of a nation
than the power which it possesses of adapting old institutions to new
wants; and it is, I think, in this skill and in this disposition that
the political pre-eminence of the English people has been most
conspicuously shown. It is difficult to overrate its importance. It is
the institutions of a country that chiefly maintain the sense of its
organic unity, its essential connection with its past. By their
continuous existence they bind together as by a living chain the past
with the present, the living with the dead.
Few greater calamities can befall a nation than to cut herself off, as
France did in her great Revolution, from all vital connection with her
own past. This is one of the chief lessons you will learn from
Burke--the greatest and truest of all our political teachers. Bacon
expressed in an admirable sentence the best spirit of English politics
when he urged that 'men in their innovations should follow the example
of Time itself, which indeed innovated greatly, but quietly, and by
degrees scarcely to be perceived.'
There is a third department of history which appears to me especially
valuable to political students. It is the history of those vast
Revolutions for good or for ill which seem to have transformed the
characters or permanently changed the fortunes of nations, either by a
sudden and violent shock or by the slow process of gradual renovation.
You will find on this subject, in our country, two great and opposite
exaggerations. There is a school of writers, of which Buckle is an
admirable representative, who are so struck by the long chain of
causes, extending over many centuries, that preceded and prepared
Revolutions, that they teach a kind of historic fatalism, reducing
almost to nothing the action of Individualities; and there is another
school, which is specially represented by Carlyle, who reduce all
history into biographies, into the action of a few great men upon
their kind.
The one class of writers will tell you with great truth that the Roman
Republic was not destroyed by Cæsar, but by the long train of
influences that made the career of Cæsar a possibility. They will show
how influences working through many generations had sapped the
foundations of the Republic--how the beliefs and habits on which it
once rested had passed away--how its institutions no longer
corresponded with the prevailing wants and ideas--how a form of
government which had proved excellently adapted for a restricted
dominion failed when the Roman eagles flew triumphantly over the whole
civilised world, and how in this manner the strongest tendencies of
the time were preparing the downfall of the Republic, and the
establishment of a great empire upon its ruins. They will show how the
intellectual influences of the Renaissance, the invention of printing,
and a crowd of other causes, many of them at first sight very remote
from theological controversies, had in the sixteenth century so
shaken the power of the Roman Catholic Church, that the way was
prepared for the Reformation, and it became possible for Luther and
Calvin to succeed, where Wyckliffe and Huss had failed. They will show
how profoundly our theological beliefs are affected by our general
conception of the system of the universe, and how inevitably, as
Science changes the latter, the former will undergo a corresponding
process of modification. Creeds that are no longer in harmony with the
general spirit of the time may long continue, but a new spirit will be
breathed into the old forms. Those portions which are most discordant
with our fresh knowledge will be neglected or attenuated. Although
they may not be openly discarded, they will cease to be realised or
vitally operative.
In the sphere of politics a similar law prevails, and the fate of
nations largely depends upon forces quite different from those on
which the mere political historian concentrates his attention. The
growth of military or industrial habits; the elevation or depression
of different classes; the changes that take place in the distribution
of wealth; inventions or discoveries that alter the course or
character of industry or commerce, or reverse the relative advantages
of different nations in the competitions of life; the increase and,
still more, the diffusion of knowledge; the many influences that
affect convictions, habits and ideals, that raise, or lower, or modify
the moral tone and type--all these things concur in shaping the
destinies of nations. Legislation is only really successful when it is
in harmony with the general spirit of the age. Laws and statesmen for
the most part indicate and ratify, but do not create. They are like
the hands of the watch, which move obedient to the hidden machinery
behind.
In all this kind of speculation there is, I believe, great truth, and
it opens out fields of inquiry that are of the utmost interest and
importance. I have, however, long thought that it has been pushed by
some modern writers to extravagant exaggeration. As you well know,
there is another aspect of history, which, long before Carlyle, was
enforced by some of the ablest and most independent intellects of
Christendom. Pascal tells us that if Cleopatra's nose had been
shorter, the whole face of the world might have been changed, and
Voltaire is never tired of dwelling on the small springs on which the
greatest events of history turn. Frederick the Great, who was probably
the keenest practical intellect of his age, constantly insisted on the
same view. In the vast field of politics, he maintained, casual events
which no human sagacity can predict play by far the largest part. We
are in most cases groping our way blindly in the dark. Occasionally,
when favourable circumstances occur, there is a gleam of light of
which the skilful avail themselves. All the rest is uncertainty. The
world is mainly governed by a multitude of secondary, obscure, or
impenetrable causes. It is a game of chance in which the most skilful
may lose like the most ignorant. 'The older one becomes the more
clearly one sees that King Hazard fashions three-fourths of the events
in this miserable world.'
My own view of this question is that though there are certain streams
of tendency, though there is a certain steady and orderly evolution
that it is impossible in the long run to resist, yet individual action
and even mere accident have borne a very great part in modifying the
direction of history. It is with History as with the general laws of
Nature. We can none of us escape the all-pervading force of
gravitation, or the influence of the climate under which we live, or
the succession of the seasons, or the laws of growth and of decay; yet
man is not a mere passive weed drifting helplessly upon the sea of
life, and human wisdom and human folly can do and have done much to
modify the conditions of his being.
It is quite true that religions depend largely for their continued
vitality upon the knowledge and intellectual atmosphere of their time;
but there are periods when the human mind is in such a state of
pliancy that a small pressure can give it a bent which will last for
generations. If Mohammed had been killed in one of the first
skirmishes of his career, I know no reason for believing that a great
monotheistic religion would have arisen in Arabia, capable of moulding
for more than twelve hundred years not only the beliefs, laws, and
governments, but also the inmost moral and mental character of a vast
section of the human race. Gibbon was probably right in his conjecture
that if Charles Martel had been defeated at the famous battle near
Tours, the creed of Islam would have overspread a great part of what
is now Christian Europe, and in that case it might have ruled over it
for centuries. No one can follow the history of the conversion of the
barbarians to Christianity without perceiving how often a religion has
been imposed in the first instance by the mere will of the ruler,
which gradually took such root that it became far too strong for any
political power to destroy. Persecution cannot annihilate a creed
which is firmly established, or maintain a creed which has been
thoroughly undermined, but there are intermediate stages in which its
influence on national beliefs has been enormously great. Even at the
Reformation, though more general causes were of capital importance,
political events had a very large part in defining the frontier line
between the rival creeds, and the divisions so created have for the
most part endured.
In secular politics numerous instances of the same kind will occur to
every thoughtful reader of history. If, as might easily have happened,
Hannibal after the battle of Cannae had taken and burned Rome, and
transferred the supremacy of the world to a maritime commercial State
upon the Mediterranean; if, instead of the Regency, Louis XV. and
Louis XVI., France had passed during the eighteenth century under
sovereigns of the stamp of the elder branch of the House of Orange or
of Henry IV., or of the Great Elector, or of Frederick the Great; if,
at the French Revolution, the supreme military genius had been
connected with the character of Washington rather than with the
character of Napoleon--who can doubt that the course of European
history would have been vastly changed? The causes that made
constitutional liberty succeed in England, while it failed in other
countries where its prospects seemed once at least as promising, are
many and complex; but no careful student of English history will doubt
the prominence among them of the accidental fact that James II., by
embracing Catholicism, had thrown the Church feeling at a very
critical moment into opposition to the monarchical feeling, and that
in the last days of Anne, when the question of the succession was
trembling most doubtfully in the balance, his son refused to conform
to the Anglican creed.
Laws are no doubt in a great degree inoperative when they do not
spring from and represent the opinion of the nation, but they have in
their turn a great power of consolidating, deepening, and directing
opinion. When some important progress has been attained, and with the
support of public opinion has been embodied in a law, that law will do
much to prevent the natural reflux of the wave. It becomes a kind of
moral landmark, a powerful educating influence, and by giving what had
been achieved the sanction of legality, it contributes largely to its
permanence. Roman law undoubtedly played a great part in European
history long after all the conditions in which it was first enacted
had passed away, and the legislator who can determine in any country
the system of national education, or the succession of property, will
do much to influence the opinions and social types of many succeeding
generations.
The point, however, on which I would here especially insist is that
there has scarcely been a great revolution in the world which might
not at some stage of its progress have been either averted, or
materially modified, or at least greatly postponed, by wise
statesmanship and timely compromise. Take, for example, the American
Revolution, which destroyed the political unity of the English race.
You will often hear this event treated as if it were simply due to the
wanton tyranny of an English Government, which desired to reduce its
colonies to servitude by taxing them without their consent. But if you
will look closely into the history of that time--and there is no
history which is more instructive--you will find that this is a gross
misrepresentation. What happened was essentially this. England, under
the guidance of the elder Pitt, had been waging a great and most
successful war, which left her with an enormously extended Empire, but
also with an addition of more than seventy millions to her National
Debt. That debt was now nearly one hundred and forty millions, and
England was reeling under the taxation it required. The war had been
waged largely in America, and its most brilliant result was the
conquest of Canada, by which the old American colonies had benefited
more than any other part of the Empire, for the expulsion of the
French from North America put an end to the one great danger which
hung over them. It was, however, extremely probable that if France
ever regained her strength, one of her first objects would be to
recover her dominion in America.
Under these circumstances the English Government concluded that it was
impossible that England alone, overburdened as she was by taxation,
could undertake the military defence of her greatly extended Empire.
Their object, therefore, was to create subsidiary armies for its
defence. Ireland already raised by the vote of the Irish Parliament,
and out of exclusively Irish resources, an army consisting of from
twelve to fifteen thousand men, most of whom were available for the
general purposes of the Empire. In India, under a despotic system, a
separate army was maintained for the protection of India. It was the
strong belief of the English Government that a third army should be
maintained in America for the defence of the American colonies and of
the neighbouring islands, and that it was just and reasonable that
America should bear some part of the expense of her own defence. She
was charged with no part of the interest of the National Debt; she
paid nothing towards the cost of the navy which protected her coast;
she was the most lightly taxed and the most prosperous portion of the
Empire; she was the part which had benefited most by the late war, and
she was the part which was most likely to be menaced if the war was
renewed. Under these circumstances Grenville determined that a small
army of ten thousand men should be kept in America, under the distinct
promise that it was never to serve beyond that country and the West
Indian Isles, and he asked America to contribute 100,000_l._ a year,
or about a third part of its expense.
But here the difficulty arose. The Irish army was maintained by the
vote of the Irish Parliament; but there was no single parliament
representing the American colonies, and it soon became evident that it
was impossible to induce thirteen State legislatures to agree upon any
scheme for supporting an army in America. Under these circumstances
Grenville in an ill-omened moment resolved to revive a dormant power
which existed in the Constitution, and levy this new war-tax by
Imperial taxation. He at the same time guaranteed the colonists that
the proceeds of this tax should be expended solely in America; he
intimated to them in the clearest way that if they would meet his
wishes by themselves providing the necessary sum, he would be
abundantly satisfied, and he delayed the enforcement of the measure
for a year in order to give them ample time for doing so.
Such and so small was the original cause of difference between England
and her colonies. Who can fail to see that it was a difference
abundantly susceptible of compromise, and that a wise and moderate
statesmanship might easily have averted the catastrophe? There are few
sadder and few more instructive pages in history than those which show
how mistake after mistake was committed, till the rift which was once
so small widened and deepened; till the two sections of the English
race were thrown into an irreconcilable antagonism, and the fair
vision of an United Empire in the East and in the West came for ever
to an end.
Or glance for a moment at the French Revolution. It is a favourite
task of historians to trace through the preceding generations the long
train of causes that made the transformation of French institutions
absolutely inevitable; but it is not so often remembered that when the
States-General met in 1789 by far the larger part of the benefits of
the Revolution could have been attained without difficulty, without
convulsion, and by general consent. The nobles and clergy had pledged
themselves to surrender their feudal privileges and their privileges
in taxation; a reforming king was on the throne, and a reforming
minister was at his side. If the spirit of moderation had then
prevailed, the inevitable transformation might probably have been made
without the effusion of a drop of blood. Jefferson was at this time
the Minister of the United States in Paris. As an old republican he
knew well the conditions of free governments, and among the
politicians of his own country he represented the democratic section.
I know few words in history more pathetic than those in which he
described the situation. 'I was much acquainted,' he writes, 'with the
leading patriots of the Assembly. Being from a country which had
successfully passed through a similar reformation, they were disposed
to my acquaintance, and had some confidence in me. I urged most
strenuously an immediate compromise to secure what the Government were
now ready to yield.... It was well understood that the King would
grant at this time (1) freedom of the person by Habeas Corpus; (2)
freedom of conscience; (3) freedom of the press; (4) trial by jury;
(5) a representative legislature; (6) annual meetings; (7) the
origination of laws; (8) the exclusive right of taxation and
appropriation; and (9) the responsibility of Ministers; and with the
exercise of these powers they could obtain in future whatever might be
further necessary to improve and preserve their constitution. They
thought otherwise,' continued Jefferson; 'and events have proved their
lamentable error; for after thirty years of war, foreign and domestic,
the loss of millions of lives, the prostration of private happiness,
and the foreign subjugation of their own country for a time, they have
obtained no more, nor even that securely.'[2]
Let me, in concluding these observations, sum up in a few words some
other advantages which you may derive from history. It is, I think,
one of the best schools for that kind of reasoning which is most
useful in practical life. It teaches men to weigh conflicting
probabilities, to estimate degrees of evidence, to form a sound
judgment of the value of authorities. Reasoning is taught by actual
practice much more than by any _a priori_ methods. Many good
judges--and I own I am inclined to agree with them--doubt much whether
a study of formal logic ever yet made a good reasoner. Mathematics are
no doubt invaluable in this respect, but they only deal with
demonstrations; and it has often been observed how many excellent
mathematicians are somewhat peculiarly destitute of the power of
measuring degrees of probability. But history is largely concerned
with the kind of probabilities on which the conduct of life mainly
depends. There is one hint about historical reasoning which I think
may not be unworthy of your notice. When studying some great
historical controversy, place yourselves by an effort of the
imagination alternately on each side of the battle; try to realise as
fully as you can the point of view of the best men on either side, and
then draw up upon paper the arguments of each in the strongest form
you can give them. You will find that few practices do more to
elucidate the past, or form a better mental discipline.
History, again, greatly expands our horizon and enlarges our
experience by bringing us in direct contact with men of many times and
countries. It gives young men something of the experience of old men,
and untravelled men something of the experience of travelled ones. A
great source of error in our judgment of men is that we do not make
sufficient allowance for the difference of types. The essentials of
right and wrong no doubt continue the same, but if you look carefully
into history you will find that the special stress which is attached
to particular virtues is constantly changing. Sometimes it is the
civic virtues, sometimes the religious virtues, sometimes the
industrial virtues, sometimes the love of truth, sometimes the more
amiable dispositions, that are most valued, and occupy the foremost
place in the moral type. The men of each age must be judged by the
ideal of their own age and country, and not by the ideal of ours. Men
look at life in very different aspects, and they differ greatly in
their ways of reasoning, in the qualities they admire, in the aims
which they chiefly prize. In few things do they differ more than in
their capacity for self-government; in the kinds of liberty they
especially value; in their love or dislike of government guidance or
control.
The power of realising and understanding types of character very
different from our own is not, I think, an English quality, and a
great many of our mistakes in governing other nations come from this
deficiency. Some thirty or forty years ago especially it was the
custom of English statesmen to write and speak as if the salvation of
every nation depended mainly upon its adoption of a miniature copy of
the British Constitution. Now, if there is a lesson which history
teaches clearly, it is that the same institutions are not fitted for
all nations, and that what in one nation may prove perfectly
successful, will in another be supremely disastrous. The habits and
traditions of a nation; the peculiar bent of its character and
intellect; the degree in which self-control, respect for law, the
spirit of compromise, and disinterested public spirit are diffused
through the people; the relations of classes, and the divisions of
property, are all considerations of capital importance. It is a great
error, both in history and in practical politics, to attach too much
value to a political machine. The essential consideration is by what
men and in what spirit that machine is likely to be worked. Few
Constitutions contain more theoretical anomalies, and even
absurdities, than that under which England has attained to such an
unexampled height of political prosperity; while a servile imitation
of some of the most skilfully-devised Constitutions in Europe has not
saved some of the South American States from long courses of anarchy,
bankruptcy, and revolution.