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diff --git a/27948.txt b/27948.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..53a6782 --- /dev/null +++ b/27948.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9885 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Progress and History, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Progress and History + +Author: Various + +Editor: F. S. Marvin + +Release Date: January 31, 2009 [EBook #27948] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PROGRESS AND HISTORY *** + + + + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + +------------------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Note | + | | + | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in | + | this text. For a complete list, please see the bottom of | + | this document. | + | Text printed using the Greek alphabet in the original book | + | is shown as follows: [Greek: logos] | + +------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + +PROGRESS AND +HISTORY + +_ESSAYS ARRANGED AND EDITED_ + +BY + +F. S. MARVIN + +LATE SENIOR SCHOLAR OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, OXFORD + +AUTHOR OF 'THE LIVING PAST' + +EDITOR OF 'THE UNITY OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION' + + +'Tanta patet rerum series et omne futurum +Nititur in lucem.' + LUCAN. + + +_THIRD IMPRESSION_ + + + +HUMPHREY MILFORD + +OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS + +LONDON EDINBURGH GLASGOW NEW YORK +TORONTO MELBOURNE CAPE TOWN BOMBAY + +1919 + + +PRINTED IN ENGLAND AT THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS + + + + +PREFACE + + +This volume is a sequel to _The Unity of Western Civilization_ published +last year and arose in the same way, from a course of lectures given at +the Woodbrooke Settlement, Birmingham. + +The former book attempted to describe some of the permanent unifying +factors which hold our Western civilization together in spite of such +catastrophic divisions as the present war. This book attempts to show +these forces in growth. The former aimed rather at a statical, the +present at a dynamical view of the same problem. Both are historical in +spirit. + +It is hoped that these courses may serve as an introduction to a series +of cognate studies, of which clearly both the supply and the scope are +infinite, for under the general conception of 'Progress in Unity' all +great human topics might be embraced. One subject has been suggested for +early treatment which would have especial interest at the present time, +viz. 'Recent Progress in European Thought'. We are by the war brought +more closely than before into contact with other nations of Europe who +are pursuing with inevitable differences the same main lines of +evolution. To indicate these in general, with stress on the factor of +betterment, is the aim of the present volume. + +F.S.M. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + I. THE IDEA OF PROGRESS 7 + + By F. S. MARVIN. + + II. PROGRESS IN PREHISTORIC TIMES 27 + + By R. R. MARETT, Reader in Social Anthropology, + Oxford. + + III. PROGRESS AND HELLENISM 48 + + By F. MELIAN STAWELL, late Lecturer at + Newnham College, Cambridge. + + IV. PROGRESS IN THE MIDDLE AGES 72 + + By the Rev. A. J. CARLYLE, Tutor and + Lecturer at University College, Oxford. + + V. PROGRESS IN RELIGION 96 + + By BARON FRIEDRICH VON HUeGEL. + + VI. MORAL PROGRESS 134 + + By L. P. JACKS, Principal of Manchester + New College, Oxford. + + VII. GOVERNMENT 151 + + By A. E. ZIMMERN, late Fellow of New + College, Oxford. + +VIII. INDUSTRY 189 + + By A. E. ZIMMERN. + + IX. ART 224 + + By A. CLUTTON BROCK. + + X. SCIENCE 248 + + By F. S. MARVIN. + + XI. PHILOSOPHY 273 + + By J. A. SMITH, Waynflete Professor of + Mental and Moral Philosophy, Oxford. + + XII. PROGRESS AS AN IDEAL OF ACTION 295 + + By J. A. SMITH. + + + + +I + +THE IDEA OF PROGRESS + +F. S. MARVIN + + +The editor of these essays was busy in the autumn of last year collating +the opinions attached by different people to the word 'progress'. One +Sunday afternoon he happened to be walking with two friends in Oxford, +one a professor of philosophy, the other a lady. The professor of +philosophy declared that to him human progress must always mean +primarily the increase of knowledge; the editor urged the increase of +power as its most characteristic feature, but the lady added at once +that to her progress had always meant, and could only mean, increase in +our appreciation of the humanity of others. + +The first two thoughts, harmonized and directed by the third, may be +taken to cover the whole field, and this volume to be merely a +commentary upon them. What we have to consider is, when and how this +idea of progress, as a general thing affecting mankind as a whole, first +appeared in the world, how far it has been realized in history, and how +far it gives us any guidance and hope for the future. In the midst of a +catastrophe which appears at first sight to be a deadly blow to the +ideal, such an inquiry has a special interest and may have some +permanent value. + +Words are the thought of ages crystallized, or rather embodied with a +constantly growing soul. The word 'Progress', like the word 'Humanity', +is one of the most significant. It is a Latin word, not used in its +current abstract sense until after the Roman incorporation of the +Mediterranean world. It contains Greek thought summed up and applied by +Roman minds. Many of the earlier Greek thinkers, Xenophanes and +Empedocles as well as Plato and Aristotle, had thought and spoken of a +steady process in things, including man himself, from lower to higher +forms; but the first writer who expounds the notion with sufficient +breadth of view and sufficiently accurate and concrete observation to +provide a preliminary sketch, was the great Roman poet who attributed +all the best that was in him to the Greeks and yet has given us a highly +original picture of the upward tendency of the world and of human +society upon it. He, too, so far as one can discover, was the first to +use the word 'progress' in the sense of our inquiry. The passage in +Lucretius at the end of his fifth book on the Nature of Things is so +true and brilliant and anticipates so many points in later thought that +it is worth quoting at some length, and the poet's close relation with +Cicero, the typical Greco-Roman thinker, gives his ideas the more weight +as an historical document. + +He begins by describing a struggle for existence in which the less +well-adapted creatures died off, those who wanted either the power to +protect themselves or the means of adapting themselves to the purposes +of man. In this stage, however, man was a hardier creature than he +afterwards became. He lived like the beasts of the field and was +ignorant of tillage or fire or clothes or houses. He had no laws or +government or marriage, and though he did not fear the dark, he feared +the real danger of fiercer beasts. Men often died a miserable death, but +not in multitudes on a single day as they do now by battle or shipwreck. + +The next stage sees huts and skins and fire which softened their +bodies, and marriage and the ties of family which softened their +tempers. And tribes began to make treaties of alliance with other +tribes. + +Speech arose from the need which all creatures feel to exercise their +natural powers, just as the calf will butt before his horns protrude. +Men began to apply different sounds to denote different things, just as +brute beasts will do to express different passions, as any one must have +noticed in the cases of dogs and horses and birds. No one man set out to +invent speech. + +Fire was first learnt from lightning and the friction of trees, and +cooking from the softening and ripening of things by the sun. + +Then men of genius invented improved methods of life, the building of +cities and private property in lands and cattle. But gold gave power to +the wealthy and destroyed the sense of contentment in simple happiness. +It must always be so whenever men allow themselves to become the slaves +of things which should be their dependants and instruments. + +They began to believe in and worship gods, because they saw in dreams +shapes of preterhuman strength and beauty and deemed them immortal; and +as they noted the changes of the seasons and all the wonders of the +heavens, they placed their gods there and feared them when they spoke in +the thunder. + +Metals were discovered through the burning of the woods, which caused +the ores to run. Copper and brass came first and were rated above gold +and silver. And then the metals took the place of hands, nails, teeth, +and clubs, which had been men's earliest arms and tools. Weaving +followed the discovery of the use of iron. + +Sowing, planting, and grafting were learnt from nature herself, and +gradually the cultivation of the soil was carried farther and farther up +the hills. + +Men learnt to sing from the birds, and to blow on pipes from the +whistling of the zephyr through the reeds: and those simple tunes gave +as much rustic jollity as our more elaborate tunes do now. + +Then, in a summary passage at the end, Lucretius enumerates all the +chief discoveries which men have made in the age-long process--ships, +agriculture, walled cities, laws, roads, clothes, songs, pictures, +statues, and all the pleasures of life--and adds, 'these things practice +and the experience of the unresting mind have taught mankind gradually +as they have progressed from point to point'.[1] + +It is the first definition and use of the word in literature. If we +accept it as a typical presentation of the Greco-Roman view, seen by a +man of exceptional genius and insight at the climax of the period, there +are two or three points which must arrest our attention. Lucretius is +thinking mainly of progress in the arts, and especially of the arts as +they affect man's happiness. There is no mention of increase in +knowledge or in love. As in the famous parallel passage in Sophocles' +_Antigone_, it is man's strength and skill which most impressed the +poet, and his skill especially as exhibited in the arts. Compared with +what we shall see as typical utterances of later times, it is an +external view of the subject. The absence of love as an element of +progress carries with it the absence of the idea of humanity. There is +no conception here, nor anywhere in classical thought before the Stoics, +of a world-wide Being which has contributed to the advance and should +share fully in its fruits. Still less do we find any hint of the +possibilities of an infinite progress. The moral, on the contrary, is +that we should limit our desires, banish disturbing thoughts, and settle +down to a quiet and sensible enjoyment of the good things that +advancing skill has provided for us. It is, of course, true that +thoughts can be found in individual writers, especially in Plato and +Aristotle, which would largely modify this view. Yet it can hardly be +questioned that Lucretius here represents the prevalent tone of +thoughtful men of his day. They had begun to realize the fact of human +progress, but envisaged it, as was natural in a first view, mainly on +the external side, and, above all, had no conception of its infinite +possibilities. + +When we turn to typical utterances of the next great age in history the +contrast is striking. Catholic doctrine had absorbed much that was +congenial to it from the Stoics, from Plato and Aristotle, but it added +a thing that was new in the world, a passionate love and an overpowering +desire for personal moral improvement. This is so clear in the greatest +figures of the Middle Ages, men such as St. Bernard and St. Francis, and +it is so unlike anything that we know in the world before, that we are +justified in treating it as characteristic of the age. To some of us, +indeed, it will appear as the most important element in the general +notion of progress which we are tracing. It so appeared to Comte.[2] Of +numberless passages that might be quoted from fathers and doctors of the +Church, a few words from Nicholas of Cusa must suffice. He was a divine +of the early fifteenth century, true to the faith, but anxious to +improve the discipline of the Church. To him progress took an entirely +spiritual form. 'To be able to understand more and more without end is +the type of eternal wisdom.... Let a man desire to understand better +what he does understand and to love more what he does love and the whole +world will not satisfy him.' + +Here is a point of view so different from the last that we find some +difficulty in fitting it into the same scheme of things. Yet both are +essential elements in Western civilization; both have been developed by +the operations of similar forces in the world civilized and incorporated +by Greece and Rome. + +The Catholic divine looks entirely inward for his idea of progress, and +his conception contains elements of real and permanent validity, of +which our present notions are full. His eyes are turned towards the +future and there is no limit to his vision. And though the progress +contemplated is within the soul of the individual believer, it rests on +the two fundamental principles of knowledge and love which are both +essentially social. The believer may isolate himself from the world to +develop his higher nature, but the knowledge and the love which he +carries with him into his solitude are themselves fruits of that +intercourse with his fellows from which an exclusive religious ideal +temporarily cuts him off. + +Nor must we forget that Catholic doctrine and discipline, though aiming +at this perfection of the individual rather than of the race, was +embodied in an organization which carried farther than the Roman Empire +the idea of a united civilization and furnished to many thinkers, +Bossuet as well as Dante, a first sketch of the progress of mankind. + +But it is clear that this construction was provisional only, either on +the side of personal belief and practice, or of ecclesiastical +organization; provisional, that is, if we are looking for real unity in +the mind of mankind. For we need a doctrine, a scheme of knowledge, into +which all that we discover about the world and our own nature may find +its place; we need principles of action which will guide us in attaining +a state of society more congruent with our knowledge of the +possibilities of the world and human nature, more thoroughly inspired +by human love, love of man for man as a being living his span of life +here and now, under conditions which call for a concentration of skill +and effort to realize the best. The breaking of the old Catholic +synthesis, narrow but admirable within its limits, took place at what we +call the Renascence and Reformation; the linking up of a new one is the +task of our own and many later generations. Let it not be thought that +such a change involves the destruction of any vital element in the idea +of progress already achieved; if true and vital, every element must +survive. But it does involve an acceptance of the fact that progress, or +humanity, or the evolution of the divine within us--however we prefer to +phrase it--is a larger thing than any one organization or any one set of +carefully harmonized doctrines. The truth, and the organ in which we +enshrine it, must grow with the human minds who are collectively +producing it. The new unity is itself progress. + +It must give us confidence in facing such a prospect to observe that at +each remove from the first appearance of the idea of progress in the +world man's use of the word has carried more meaning and, though +sometimes quieter in tone, as in recent times, is better grounded in the +facts of life and history. Such an advance in our conceptions took place +after the Renascence. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, when +the art and science of the ancient world had been recovered, the word +and the idea of progress started on a fresh course of unexampled vigour. +The lines were closer to those of the pre-Christian than of the Catholic +world, but it would be by no means true to call them pagan. When Bacon +and Descartes begin to sound the modern note of progress, they think +primarily of an advance in the arts and sciences, but there is a +spiritual and human side to their ideal which could not be really +paralleled in classical thought. The Spirit of Man is now invoked, and +this, not in the sense of an elite, the builders of the Greek State or +the rulers of the Roman Empire, but of mankind as a whole. This is +Christian, or perhaps we should say, Stoical-Christian. Thus Descartes +tells us that he looks to science to furnish us ultimately with an art +which will make us 'masters and possessors of nature ... and this not +solely for the pleasure of enjoying with ease the good things of the +world, but principally for the preservation and improvement of human +health which is both the foundation of all other goods and the means of +strengthening the spirit itself' ('Discours de la Methode'). It is +significant that the two words Progress and Humanity come into use in +their modern sense side by side. The latter is the basis and the ideal +of the former. + +But the new thing which had come into the world at this point, and gives +a fresh impulse and content to the idea of progress, is the development +of science. The Greeks had founded it and, as we shall see in a later +chapter, it was the recovery of the Greek thread which gave the moderns +their clue. But no one before the sixteenth century, before the marvels +revealed by Galileo's telescope and knit up by Newton's synthetic +genius, could have conceived the visions of human regeneration by +science which light up the pioneers of the seventeenth century and are +the gospel of the eighteenth. + +We turn to the eighteenth century, and primarily to the school of +thinkers called 'philosophes' in France, for the fullest and most +enthusiastic statement of progress as a gospel. It is, of course, +European, as all the greatest advances of thought have been; and German +thinkers, as well as English, stand with the French in the vanguard. +Kant and Herder, from different points of view, thought it out perhaps +more thoroughly than any one else at that time; but the French believed +in it as a nation and were willing to stake their lives and souls on the +belief. Thus Turgot, before the Revolution, declared that 'the total +mass of the human race marches continually though sometimes slowly +towards an ever-increasing perfection'. And Condorcet, in the midst of +the Revolution, while himself under its ban, painted a picture 'of the +human race, freed from its chains, and marching with a firm tread on the +road of truth and virtue and happiness'. + +Here is the gospel in its purest and simplest form, and when we are +inclined to think that the crimes and the partial failure of the +Revolution discredit its principles, it is well to remember that the man +who believed in them most systematically, expounded his belief with +perfect calmness and confidence as he lay under sentence of death from a +revolutionary tribunal. + +If this enthusiasm is madness, we might all well wish to be possessed. +The true line of criticism is different. At the Revolution, as before at +the Renascence, the leaders of the new movement could not see all their +debt to the past. Like the Renascence, they idealized certain features +in classical antiquity, but they had not yet gained the notion of +historical continuity; above all, they did not realize the value of the +religious development of the Middle Ages. It was left for the nineteenth +century and for us, its successors, to attempt the supreme task of +seeing things steadily and seeing them whole. + +For in spite of the capital contributions of the Renascence to progress +and the idea of progress, especially by its scientific constructions, it +is undeniable that a bias was then given to the course of Western +civilization from which it has suffered ever since, and which it is now +our urgent duty to correct. Two aspects of this may be specified. The +old international unity which Rome had achieved, at least superficially, +in the Mediterranean world, and which the Catholic Church had extended +and deepened, was broken up in favour of a system of sovereign and +independent states controlling religion and influencing education on +lines calculated to strengthen the national forces and the national +forces alone. They even believed that, at any rate in trade and +commerce, the interests of these independent states were rather rival +than co-operative. The Revolution struck the note of human association +clearly enough, but we have not yet learnt to set all our other tunes in +accord with it. Another, and perhaps even more fundamental, weakness of +the Renascence tradition was the stress it laid on the material, +mechanical, external side of progress. On the one hand, the spiritual +side of life tended to be identified with that system of thought and +discipline which had been so rudely disrupted. On the other hand, the +new advance in science brought quickly after it a corresponding growth +of wealth and mechanical inventions and material comforts. The spirit of +man was for the time impeded and half suffocated by its own productions. + +The present war seems to many of us the supreme struggle of our better +nature to gain the mastery over these obstructions, and freedom for its +proper growth. + +Now if this analysis be anywhere near the truth, it is clear that our +task for the future is one of synthesis on the lines of social progress. +Knowledge, power, wealth, increase of skill, increase of health, we have +them all in growing measure, and Mr. Clutton Brock will tell us in his +chapter in this volume that we may be able by an exercise of will to +achieve even a new renascence in art. But we certainly do not yet +possess these things fairly distributed or in harmony of mind. + +The connexion therefore between progress as we now envisage it, and +unity, both in ourselves and in society at large, becomes apparent. At +each of the previous great moments in the history of the West +development has been secured by emphasis on one side of our nature at +the expense of the rest. Visions of mankind in common progress have +flashed on individual thinkers, a Roman Emperor, a Catholic Schoolman, a +Revolutionary prophet. But the thing achieved has been one-sided, and +the needed correction has been given by another movement more one-sided +still. The greatest hope of the present day lies in the fact that in all +branches of life, in government as well as in philosophy, in science as +in social reform, in religion and in international politics, men are now +striving with determination to bind the threads together. + +There is no necessary opposition between the rival forces which have so +often led to conflict. In all our controversies harmony can be reached +and has often been reached by the application of patience, knowledge, +and goodwill. And goodwill implies here the readiness to submit the +particular issue to the arbitration of the general good. The +international question has been so fully canvassed in these days that it +would be superfluous to discuss it here. The moral is obvious, and +abundant cases throughout the world illustrate the truth that +well-organized nationalities contain in themselves nothing contrary to +the ideal of international peace.[3] Nor is the still more persistent +and universal opposition of capital and labour really less amenable to +reconciliation, because in this case also the two factors in the problem +are equally necessary to social progress, and we shall not enter on the +various practical solutions--co-operation, co-partnership, partial +state-socialism, &c.--which have been proposed for a problem which no +one believes to be insoluble. The conflict in our own souls between the +things of matter and sense and the life of the spirit, is more closely +germane to the present argument, because ultimately this has to be +resolved, if not in every mind yet in the dominant mind of Europe, +before the more practical questions can be generally settled. Harmony +here is at the root of a sound idea of progress. + +When the concluding chapters of this volume are reached it will be seen +how fully the recent developments both in science and philosophy +corroborate the line which is here suggested for the reconciliation of +conflicts and the establishment of a stronger and more coherent notion +of what we may rightly pursue as progress. For both in science and still +more in philosophy attention is being more and more closely concentrated +on the meaning of life itself, which science approaches by way of its +physical concomitants, and philosophy from the point of view of +consciousness. And while science has been analysing the characteristics +of a living organism, philosophy finds in our consciousness just that +element of community with others which an organic conception of progress +demands. The only progress of which we can be certain, the philosopher +tells us, is progress in our own consciousness, which becomes constantly +fuller, more knowing, and more social, as time unfolds. This, he tells +us, must endure, though the storms of passion and nature may fall upon +us. + +On such a firm basis we would all gladly build our faith. No unity can +be perfect except that which we achieve in our own souls, and no +progress can be relied on except that which we can know within, and can +develop from, our own consciousness and our own powers. But we cannot +rest in this. We are bound to look outside our own consciousness for +some objective correspondence to that progress which our own nature +craves; and history supplies this evidence. It is from history that we +derive the first idea and the accumulating proofs of the reality of +progress. Lucretius's first sketch is really his summary of social +history up to that point. The Catholic thinker had a wider scope. He +was able to see that the whole course of Greco-Roman civilization was, +from his point of view, a preparation for the Church which had the care +of the spiritual life of man while on earth. And in the next stage, that +in which we now live, we see all the interests of life taken back again +into the completeness of human progress, and can trace that complete +being, labouring slowly but unmistakably to a higher state, outside us +in the world, as well as within our own consciousness, which is ready to +expand if we will give it range. + +On such lines we may sketch the historical aspect of progress on which +the personal is based; and it is of the utmost importance to keep the +two aspects before us concurrently, because reliance on the growing +fullness of the individual life to the neglect of the social evolution +is likely to empty that life itself of its true content, to leave the +self-centred visionary absorbed in the contemplation of some ideal +perfection within himself, while the world outside him from which he +ultimately derives his notions, is toiling and suffering from the want +of those very elements which he is best able to supply. + +The succeeding chapters of this book will, it is hoped, supply some +evidence of the concrete reality of progress, as well as of the tendency +to greater coherence and purity in the ideal itself. It would have been +easy to accumulate evidence; some sides of life are hardly touched on at +all. The collective and the intellectual sides are fully dealt with both +in this and in the volume on _The Unity of Western Civilization_. But if +we make our survey over a sufficient space, coming down especially to +our own days, our conclusion as to the advance made in the physical and +moral well-being of mankind, will be hardly less emphatic. Our average +lives are longer and continue to lengthen, and they are unquestionably +spent with far less physical suffering than was generally the case at +any previous period. We are bound to give full weight to this, however +much we rightly deplore the deadening effect of monotonous and +mechanical toil on so large a part of the population. And even for these +the opportunities for a free and improving life are amazingly enlarged. +We groan and chafe at what remains to be done because of the unexampled +size of the modern industrial populations with which we have to deal. +But we know in some points very definitely what we want, and we are now +all persuaded with John Stuart Mill that the remedy is in our own hands, +'that all the great sources of human suffering are in a great degree, +many of them entirely, conquerable by human care and effort.' This +conviction is perhaps the greatest step of all that we have gained. In +morality some pertinent and necessary questions are raised in Chap. VI, +but the general progress would be doubted by very few who have had the +opportunity of comparing the evidence as to any previous state of +morals, say in the Middle Ages or in the Elizabethan age--the crown of +the Renascence in England--with that of the present day. The capital +advance in morality, which by itself would be sufficient to justify our +thesis, is the increase in the consciousness and the obligation of the +'common weal', that conception of which Government, increasingly better +organized, is the most striking practical realization. It has its +drawback in the spread of what we feel as a debasing 'vulgarity', but +the general balance is overwhelmingly on the side of good. And in all +such discussions we are apt to allow far too little weight to the change +which the New World, and especially the United States, has brought +about. In matters of personal prosperity and a high general standard of +intellectual and moral competence, what has been achieved there would +outweigh a good deal of our Old World defects when we come to drawing +up a world's balance-sheet. + +It will be seen therefore that we dismiss altogether any doctrine of an +'illusion of progress' as a necessary decoy to progressive action. +Progress is a fact as well as an ideal, and the ideal, though it springs +from an objective reality, will always be in advance of it. So it is +with all man's activities when he comes to man's estate. In science he +has always an ideal of a more perfect knowledge before him though he +becomes scientific by experience. In art he is always striving to +idealize fresh things, though he first becomes an artist from the pure +spontaneous pleasure of expressing what is in him. The deliberate +projection of the ideal into the future, seeing how far it will take us +and whether we are journeying in the right direction, is a late stage. +As to progress, the largest general ideal which can affect man's action, +it is only recently that mankind as a whole has been brought to grips +with the conception, also enlarged to the full. He was standing, +somewhat bewildered, somewhat dazzled, before it, when the war, like an +eclipse of the sun, came suddenly and darkened the view. But an eclipse +has been found an invaluable time for studying some of the problems of +the sun's nature and of light itself. + +One of the most acute critics of the mid-Victorian prophets of progress, +Dr. John Grote, did very well in disentangling the ideal element which +is inherent in every sound doctrine of progress as a guide to conduct. +He took the theory of a continuous inevitable progress in human affairs, +and showed how this by itself might lead to a weakening of the will, on +which alone in his view progress in the proper sense depends. He took +the mechanical theory of utilitarianism and subjected it to a similar +analysis. We cannot evaluate progress as an increase in a sum-total of +happiness. This is incapable of calculation, and if we aim directly at +it, we are likely to lose the higher things on which it depends, and +which are capable of being made the objects of that direct striving +which is essential to progress. Dr. Grote's analysis has long since +passed into current philosophical teaching, but he will always be well +worth reading for his fresh and vigorous reasoning and for the way in +which he builds up his own position without denying the solid +contributions of those whom he criticizes. Complete truth in the matter +seems to us to involve a larger share for the historical element than +Dr. Grote explicitly allows. We grant fully the paramount necessity for +an ideal of progress and for constantly revising, purifying, and +strengthening it. But in its formation we should trace more than he does +to the collective forces of mankind as expressed in history. These have +given us the ideal and will carry us on towards it by a force which is +greater than, and in one sense independent of, any individual will. This +is the cardinal truth of sociology, and is obvious if we consider how in +matters of everyday experience we are all compelled by some social force +not ourselves, as for instance in actions tending to maintain the family +or in a national crisis such, as the war. This general will is not, of +course, independent of all the wills concerned, but it acts more or less +as an outside compelling force in the case of every one. Moreover our +selves are composite as well as wholes, and parts of us are active in +forming the general will, parts acquiesce and parts are overborne. Thus +it is clear that a general tendency to progress in the human race may be +well established--as we hold it to be--and yet go on in ways capable of +infinite variation and at very various speed. We are all, let us +suppose, being carried onward by one mighty and irresistible stream. We +may combine our strength and skill and make the best use of the +surrounding forces. This is working and steering to the chosen goal. Or +we may rest on our oars and let the stream take us where it will. This +is drifting, and we shall certainly be carried on somewhere; but we may +be badly bruised or even shipwrecked in the process, and in any case we +shall have contributed nothing to the advance. Some few may even waste +their strength in trying to work backwards against the stream. We seem +to have reached the point in history when for the first time we are +really conscious of our position, and the problem is now a possible and +an urgent one to mark the goal clearly and unitedly and bend our common +efforts to attaining it. + +If this be so, the work of synthesis may be thought to have a higher +practical value for the moment than the analysis which has prevailed in +European thought for the last forty or fifty years. In the earlier part +of the nineteenth century the great formative ideas which had been +gathering volume and enthusiasm during the revolutionary period, took +shape in complete systems of religious and philosophic truth--Kant, +Hegel, Spencer, Comte. They have been followed by a period of criticism +which has left none of them whole, but on the other hand has produced a +mass of contradictions and specialisms highly confusing and even +hopeless to the public mind and veiling the more important and profound +agreements which have been growing all the time beneath. There are now +abundant signs of a reaction towards unity and construction of a broad +and solid kind. In no respect is such a knitting up more desirable than +in this idea of progress itself. Are we to say that there is no such +thing as all-round continuous progress, but only progress in definite +branches of thought and activity, progress in science or in particular +arts, social progress, physical progress, progress in popular education +and the like, but that any two or more branches only coincide +occasionally and by accident, and that when working at one we can and +should have no thought of working at them all? This is no doubt a +prevalent view and we may hope that some things said in this book may +modify it. Another school of critical thinkers, approaching the question +from the point of view of the ultimate object of action, asks what is +the one thing for which all others are to be pursued as means? Is +increase of knowledge the absolute good or increase of happiness? Or if +it is increase of love, is it quite indifferent what we love? A few +words on this may fitly conclude this chapter. + +The task of mankind, and of every one of us so far as he is able to +enter into it, is to bring together these various aspects of human +excellence, to see them as parts of one ideal and labour to approach it. +This approach is progress, and if you say 'progress of what, and to what +end', the answer can only be, the progress of humanity, and the end +further progress. Some of the writers in this book will indicate the +point at which in their view this progress is in contact with the +infinite, with something not given in history; but, whatever our view of +the transcendental problem may be, it is of the utmost importance for +all of us to realize that we have given to us in the actual process of +time, in concrete history, a development of humanity, a growth from a +lower to a higher state of being, which may be most perfectly realized +in the individual consciousness, fully awake and fully socialized, but +is also clearly traceable in the doings of the human race as a whole. +Such is in fact the uniting thread of these essays, and when we proceed +to the converse of this truth and apply this ideal which we have shown +to be the course of realization, as a governing motive in our lives, it +is even more imperative to strive constantly to keep the whole +together, and not to regard either knowledge or power or beauty or even +love as an ultimate and supreme thing to which all other ends are merely +means. The end is a more perfect man, developed by the perfecting of all +mankind. + +Such a conception embraces all the separate aspects of our nature each +in its place, and each from its own angle supreme. Love and knowledge +inseparable and fundamental, freedom and happiness essential conditions +of healthy growth, personality developed with the development of the +greater personality in which we all live and grow. This greater +personality is at its highest immeasurably above us, and has no +assignable limits in time or in capacity to know, to love, or to enjoy. +We cannot fix its origin at any known point in the birth of planets, nor +does the cooling of our sun nor of all the suns seem to put any limit in +our imagination to the continuous unfolding of life like our own. While +thus practically infinite, the ideal of human nature is revealed to us +concretely in countless types of goodness and truth and beauty which we +may know and love and imitate. To all it is open to study the lineaments +of this ideal in the records and figures of the past; to most it is +revealed in some fellow beings known in life. From these, the human +spirits which embody the strivings, the hopes, the conquered failings of +the past, we may form our better selves and build the humanity of the +future. + +There is a famous and magnificent passage in Dante's _Purgatorio_ which +Catholic commentators interpret in sacramental terms but we may well +apply in a wider sense to the progress of the human spirit towards the +ideal. It occurs at that crucial point where the ascending poet leaves +the circles of sad repentance to reach the higher regions of growing +light. + + 'And when we came there, to the first step, it was of white + marble, so polished that I could see myself just as I am. + + 'And the second was coloured dark, a rugged stone, cracked + lengthwise and across. And the third piled above it was + flaming porphyry, red like the blood from a vein. + + 'Above this one was the angel of God, sitting on the + threshold, bright as a diamond. + + 'Up the three steps my master led me with goodwill and then + he said, "Beg humbly that he unlock the door."'[4] + +Like this, the path man has to tread is not an easy progress. But he is +rising all the time and he rises on steps of his own past. He sees +reflected in them the image of himself, and he sees too the deep faults +in his nature, and the rough surface of his path through time. The last +step, tinged by his own blood, gives access to a higher dwelling, firm +and bright and leading higher still. But it is open only after a long +ascent, and to the human spirit that has worked faithfully, with love +for his comrades and leaders, and reverence for the laws which bind both +the world and him. + + +BOOKS FOR REFERENCE + +John Grote, _Examination of Utilitarian Philosophy_. + +Kant, _Principles of Politics_ (translated by Hastie and published by +Clark) contains his smaller works on Universal History, Perpetual Peace, +and the Principle of Progress. See also the _Essay on Herder_. + +Comte's _Positive Polity_, vols. i. and ii, passim. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] 'usus et impigrae simul experientia mentis + paulatim docuit pedetemtim progredientes.' + +[2] Comte, _Positive Polity_, ii 116. + +[3] See Delisle Burns, _Morality of Nations_, and _The Unity of Western +Civilization_, passim. + +[4] _Purgatorio_, ix. 94-108. + + + + +II + +PROGRESS IN PREHISTORIC TIMES + +R. R. MARETT + + +If I am unable to deliver this lecture in person, it will be because I +have to attend in Jersey to the excavation of a cave once occupied by +men of the Glacial Epoch. Now these men knew how to keep a good fire +burning within their primitive shelter; their skill in the chase +provided them with a well-assorted larder; their fine strong teeth were +such as to make short work of their meals; lastly, they were clever +artisans and one may even say artists in flint and greenstone, not only +having the intelligence to make an economic use of the material at their +disposal, but likewise having enough sense of form to endow their +implements with more than a touch of symmetry and beauty. All this we +know from what they have left behind them; and the rest is silence. + +And now let us imagine ourselves possessed of one of those time-machines +of which Mr. H. G. Wells is the inventor. Transported by such means to +the Europe of that distant past, could we undertake to beat the record +of those cave-men? + +Clearly, all will depend on how many of us, and how much of the +apparatus of civilization, our time-machine is able to accommodate. If +it were simply to drop a pair of us, naked and presumably ashamed, into +the midst of the rigours of the great Ice Age, the chances surely are +that the unfortunate immigrants must perish within a week. Adam could +hardly manage to kindle a fire without the help of matches. Eve would +be no less sorely troubled to make clothes without the help of a needle. +On the other hand, if the time-machine were as capacious as Noah's Ark, +the venture would undoubtedly succeed, presenting no greater difficulty +than, let us say, the planting of a settlement in Labrador or on the +Yukon. Given numbers, specialized labour, tools, weapons, books, +domesticated animals and plants, and so forth, the civilized community +would do more than hold its own with the prehistoric cave-man, devoid of +all such aids to life. Indeed, it is tolerably certain that, willingly +or unwillingly, our colonists would soon drive the ancient type of man +clean out of existence. + +On the face of it, then, it would seem that we, as compared with men of +Glacial times, have decidedly 'progressed'. But it is not so easy to say +off-hand in what precisely such progress consists. + +Are we happier? As well ask whether the wild wolf or the tame dog is the +happier animal. The truth would seem to be that wolf and dog alike can +be thoroughly happy each in its own way; whereas each would be as +thoroughly miserable, if forced to live the life of the other. In one of +his most brilliant passages Andrew Lang, after contrasting the mental +condition of one of our most distant ancestors with yours or mine, by no +means to our disadvantage, concludes with these words: 'And after all he +was probably as happy as we are; it is not saying much.'[5] + +But, if not happier, are we nobler? If I may venture to speak as a +philosopher, I should reply, confidently, 'Yes.' It comes to this, that +we have and enjoy more soul. On the intellectual side, we see farther +afield. On the moral side, our sympathies are correspondingly wider. +Imaginatively, and even to no small extent practically, we are in touch +with myriads of men, present and past. We participate in a world-soul; +and by so doing are advanced in the scale of spiritual worth and dignity +as members of the human race. Yet this common soul of mankind we know +largely and even chiefly as something divided against itself. Not only +do human ideals contradict each other; but the ideal in any and all of +its forms is contradicted by the actual. So it is the discontent of the +human world-soul that is mainly borne in upon him who shares in it most +fully. A possibility of completed good may glimmer at the far end of the +quest; but the quest itself is experienced as a bitter striving. Bitter +though it may be, however, it is likewise ennobling. Here, then, I find +the philosophic, that is, the ultimate and truest, touchstone of human +progress, namely, in the capacity for that ennobling form of experience +whereby we become conscious co-workers and co-helpers in an age-long, +world-wide striving after the good. + +But to-day I come before you, not primarily as a philosopher, but rather +as an anthropologist, a student of prehistoric man. I must therefore +define progress, not in the philosophic or ultimate way, but simply as +may serve the strictly limited aims of my special science. As an +anthropologist, I want a workable definition--one that will set me +working and keep me working on promising lines. I do not ask ultimate +truth of my anthropological definition. For my science deals with but a +single aspect of reality; and the other aspects of the real must +likewise be considered on their merits before a final account can be +rendered of it. + +Now anthropology is just the scientific history of man; and I suppose +that there could be a history of man that did without the idea of human +progress altogether. Progress means, in some sense, change for the +better. But, strictly, history as such deals with fact; and is not +concerned with questions of better or worse--in a word, with value. +Hence, it must always be somewhat arbitrary on the part of an historian +to identify change in a given direction with a gain or increase in +value. Nevertheless, the anthropologist may do so, if he be prepared to +take the risk. He sees that human life has on the whole grown more +complex. He cannot be sure that it will continue to grow more complex. +Much less has he a right to lay it down for certain that it ought to +grow more complex. But so long as he realizes that he is thereby +committing himself by implication to a prophetic and purposive +interpretation of the facts, he need not hesitate to style this growth +of complexity progress so far as man is concerned. For if he is an +anthropologist, he is also a man, and cannot afford to take a wholly +external and impartial view of the process whereby the very growth of +his science is itself explained. Anthropologists though we be, we run +with the other runners in the race of life, and cannot be indifferent to +the prize to be won. + +Progress, then, according to the anthropologist, is defined as increase +in complexity, with the tacit assumption that this somehow implies +betterment, though it is left with the philosopher to justify such an +assumption finally and fully. Whereas in most cases man would seem to +have succeeded in the struggle for existence by growing more complex, +though in some cases survival has been secured by way of simplification, +anthropology concentrates its attention on the former set of cases as +the more interesting and instructive even from a theoretical point of +view. Let biology by all means dispense with the notion of progress, and +consider man along with the other forms of life as subject to mere +process. But anthropology, though in a way it is a branch of biology, +has a right to a special point of view. For it employs special methods +involving the use of a self-knowledge that in respect to the other forms +of life is inevitably wanting. Anthropology, in short, like charity, +begins at home. Because we know in ourselves the will to progress, we go +on to seek for evidences of progress in the history of mankind. Nor need +we cease to think of progress as something to be willed, something that +concerns the inner man, even though for scientific purposes we undertake +to recognize it by some external sign, as, for instance, by the sign of +an increasing complexity, that is, such differentiation as likewise +involves greater cohesion. All history, and more especially the history +of early man, must deal primarily with externals. Thence it infers the +inner life; and thereby it controls the tendency known as 'the +psychologist's fallacy', namely, that of reading one's own mind into +that of another man without making due allowance for differences of +innate capacity and of acquired outlook. In what follows, then, let us, +as anthropologists, be content to judge human progress in prehistoric +times primarily by its external and objective manifestations; yet let us +at no point in our inquiries forget that these ancient men, some of whom +are our actual ancestors, were not only flesh of our flesh, but likewise +spirit of our spirit. + + * * * * * + +A rapid sketch such as this must take for granted on the part of the +audience some general acquaintance with that succession of prehistoric +epochs which modern research has definitely established. Pre-history, as +distinguished from proto-history, may, in reference to Europe as a +whole, be made coextensive with the Stone Age. This divides into the Old +Stone Age and the New. The Old Stone Age, or Palaeolithic Period, yields +three well-marked subdivisions, termed Early, Middle, and Late. The New +Stone Age, or Neolithic Period, includes two sub-periods, the Earlier or +Transitional, and the Later or Typical. Thus our historical survey will +fall naturally into five chapters. + +There are reasons, however, why it will be more convenient to move over +the whole ground twice. The material on which our judgements must be +founded is not all of one kind. Anthropology is the joint work of two +departments, which are known as Physical Anthropology and Cultural +Anthropology respectively. The former, we may say, deals with man as an +organism, the latter with him as an organizer. Here, then, are very +different standpoints. For, in a broad way of speaking, nature controls +man through his physical organization, whereas through his cultural +organization man controls nature. From each of these standpoints in +turn, then, let us inquire how far prehistoric man can be shown to have +progressed. First, did the breed improve during the long course of the +Stone Age in Europe? Secondly, did the arts of life advance, so that by +their aid man might establish himself more firmly in his kingdom? + +Did the breed improve during prehistoric times? I have said that, +broadly speaking, nature controls man as regards his physical endowment. +Now in theory one must admit that it might be otherwise. If Eugenics +were to mature on its purely scientific side, there is no reason why the +legislator of the future should not try to make a practical application +of its principles; and the chances are that, of many experiments, some +would prove successful. But that conscious breeding was practised in +prehistoric times is out of the question. The men of those days were one +and all what we are ourselves--nature's mongrels, now broken up into +varieties by casual isolation, and now by no less casual intermixture +recompounded in a host of relatively unstable forms. Whatever progress, +therefore, may have occurred in this respect has been unconscious. Man +cannot take the credit for it, except in so far as it is indirectly due +to that increase and spread of the race which have been promoted by his +achievements in the way of culture. + +The barest outline of the facts must suffice. For the Early Pleistocene, +apart from the Java fossil, _Pithecanthropus erectus_, a veritable +'missing link', whom we may here disregard as falling altogether outside +our world of Europe, there are only two individuals that can with +certainty be referred to this distant period. These are the Piltdown and +the Heidelberg specimens. The former consists of a fragmentary +brain-case, thick-boned and narrow-fronted, but typically human in its +general characters, and of the greater part of a lower jaw, which, as +regards both its own elongated and curiously flanged structure, and that +of the teeth it contained, including an enormous pointed canine, is +conversely more appropriate to an ape-like being than to a man. The +latter consists only of a lower jaw, of which the teeth, even the +canines, are altogether human, whereas the jaw itself is hardly less +simian than that of the Sussex skull. If we add the Java example to the +list of very primitive forms, it is remarkable to note how, though +differing widely from each other, all alike converge on the ape. +Nevertheless, even in Pithecanthropus, the brute is passing into the +man. We note the erect attitude, to be inferred from his thigh-bone, and +the considerably enlarged, though even so hardly human, brain. The +Piltdown individual, on the other hand, has crossed the Rubicon. He has +a brain-capacity entitling him to rank as a man and an Englishman. Such +a brain, too, implies a cunning hand, which doubtless helped him greatly +to procure his food, even if his massive jaw enabled him to dispose of +the food in question without recourse to the adventitious aids of knife +and fork. For the matter of that, if our knowledge made it possible to +correlate these rare finds of bones more exactly with the innumerable +flint implements ascribable to this period (and, indeed, not without +analogies among the spoil from the Piltdown gravels), it might turn out +that even the equivalent of knife and fork was not wanting to the Early +Pleistocene supper-party, or, at any rate, that the human hand was +already advanced from the status of labourer to the more dignified +position of superintendent of the tool. + +The Middle Pleistocene Epoch belongs to the men of the Neanderthal type. +Some thirty specimens, a few of them more or less complete, have come +down to us, and we can form a pretty clear notion of the physical +appearance of the race. Speaking generally, we may say that it marks a +stage of progress as compared with the Piltdown type; though, if the +jaw, heavy and relatively chinless as it is, has become less simian, the +protruding brow-ridge lends a monstrous look to the face, while the +forehead is markedly receding--a feature which turns out, however, to be +not incompatible with a weight of brain closely approaching our own +average. Whether this type has disappeared altogether from the earth, or +survives in certain much modified descendants, is an open question. The +fact remains that during the last throes of the Glacial Epoch this +rough-hewn kind of man apparently had Northern Europe as his exclusive +province; and it is by no means evident what _Homo Sapiens_, the +supposed highly superior counterpart and rival of _Homo +Neanderthalensis_, was doing with himself in the meantime. Moreover, not +only in respect of space does the population of that frozen world show +remarkable homogeneity; but also in respect of time must we allow it an +undisputed sway extending over thousands of years, during which the race +bred true. The rate of progress, whether reckoned in physical terms or +otherwise, is so slow as to be almost imperceptible. A type suffices for +an age. Whereas in the life-history of an individual there is rapid +development during youth, and after maturity a steadying down, it is the +other way about in the life-history of the race. Man, so to speak, was +born old and accommodated to a jog-trot. We moderns are the juveniles, +and it is left for us to go the pace. + +Yet Late Pleistocene Period introduces us to more diversity in the way +of human types. Only one race, however, that named after the +rock-shelter of Cro-Magnon in the Dordogne, is represented by a fair +number of specimens, namely, about a dozen. At this point we come +suddenly and without previous warning on as pretty a kind of man as +ever walked this earth. In his leading characters he is remarkably +uniform. Six feet high and long-legged, he likewise possessed a head +well stocked with brains and a face that, if rather broad and short, +was furnished by way of compensation with a long and narrow nose. If +the present world can show nothing quite like him, it at least cannot +produce anything more shapely in the way of the 'human form divine'. +Apart from the Cro-Magnons, the remains of an old woman and a youth +found at the lowest level of the Grotte des Enfants at Mentone are +usually held to belong to a distinct stock known as the Grimaldi. The +physical characters of the pair are regarded as negroid, verging on +the Pygmy; but if we could study an adult male of the same stock, it +might possibly turn out not to be so very divergent from the +Cro-Magnon. Again, a single specimen does duty for the so-called +Chancelade race. The skeleton is of comparatively low stature, and is +deemed to show close affinities to the type of the modern Eskimo. +Without being unduly sceptical, one may once more wonder if the +Cro-Magnon stock may not have produced this somewhat aberrant form. +Even on such a theory, however--and it is hardly orthodox--diversity +of physical structure would seem to be on the increase. On the other +hand, there are reasons of considerable cogency for referring to the +end of this period skeletons of what Huxley termed the 'River-bed +type', the peculiarity of which consists in the fact that they are +more or less indistinguishable from the later Neolithic men and indeed +from any of those slight-built, shortish, long-headed folk who form +the majority in the crowded cities of to-day. Some authorities would +ascribe a far greater antiquity to this type, but, I venture to think, +on the strength of doubtful evidence. The notorious Galley Hill +skeleton, for instance, found more or less intact in an Early +Pleistocene bed in which the truly contemporary animals are +represented by the merest battered remnants, to my mind reeks of +modernity. Be these things as they may, however, when we come to +Neolithic times a race of similar physical characters has Europe to +itself, though it would seem to display minor variations in a way that +suggests that the reign of the mongrel has at length begun. And here +we may close our enumeration of the earliest known branches of our +family tree, since the coming of the broad-heads pertains to the +history of the Bronze Age, and hence falls outside the scope of the +present survey. + +Now what is the bearing of these somewhat scanty data on the question of +progress? It is not easy to extract from them more than the general +impression that, as time went on, the breed made persistent headway as +regards both the complexity of its organization and the profusion of its +forms. After all, we must not expect too much from this department of +the subject. For one thing, beyond the limits of North-western Europe +the record is almost blank; and yet we can scarcely hope to discover the +central breeding-place of man in what is, geographically, little more +than a blind alley. In the next place, Physical Anthropology, not only +in respect to human palaeontology, but in general, is as barren of +explanations as it is fertile in detailed observations. The systematic +study of heredity as it bears on the history of the human organism has +hardly begun. Hence, it would not befit one who is no expert in relation +to such matters to anticipate the verdict of a science that needs only +public encouragement in order to come into its own. Suffice it to +suggest here that nature as she presides over organic evolution, that +is, the unfolding of the germinal powers, may be conceived as a kindly +but slow-going and cautious liberator. One by one new powers, hitherto +latent, are set free as an appropriate field of exercise is afforded +them by the environment. At first divergency is rarely tolerated. A +given type is extremely uniform. On the other hand, when divergency is +permitted, it counts for a great deal. The wider variations occur +nearest the beginning, each for a long time breeding true to itself. +Later on, such uncompromising plurality gives way to a more diffused +multiplicity begotten of intermixture. Mongrelization has set in. Not +but what there may spring up many true-breeding varieties among the +mongrels; and these, given suitable conditions, will be allowed to +constitute lesser types possessed of fairly uniform characters. Such at +least is in barest outline the picture presented by the known facts +concerning the physical evolution of man, if one observe it from outside +without attempting to explore the hidden causes of the process. Some +day, when these causes are better understood, man may take a hand in the +game, and become, in regard to the infinite possibilities still sleeping +in the transmitted germ, a self-liberator. Nature is but a figurative +expression for the chances of life, and the wise man faces no more +chances than he needs must. Scientific breeding is no mere application +of the multiplication table to a system of items. We must make +resolutely for the types that seem healthy and capable, suppressing the +defectives in a no less thorough, if decidedly more considerate, way +than nature has been left to do in the past. Here, then, along physical +lines is one possible path of human progress, none the less real because +hitherto pursued, not by the aid of eyes that can look and choose, but +merely in response to painful proddings at the tail-end. + +Our remaining task is to take stock of that improvement in the arts of +life whereby man has come gradually to master an environment that +formerly mastered him. For the Early Palaeolithic Period our evidence in +respect of its variety, if not of its gross quantity, is wofully +disappointing. Not to speak of man's first and rudest experiments in the +utilization of stone, which are doubtless scattered about the world in +goodly numbers if only we could recognize them clearly for what they +are, the Chellean industry by its wide distribution leads one to suppose +that mankind in those far-off days was only capable of one idea at a +time--a time, too, that lasted a whole age. Yet the succeeding Acheulean +style of workmanship in flint testifies to the occurrence of progress in +one of its typical forms, namely, in the form of what may be termed +'intensive' progress. The other typical form I might call 'intrusive' +progress, as happens when a stimulating influence is introduced from +without. Now it may be that the Acheulean culture came into being as a +result of contact between an immigrant stock and a previous population +practising the Chellean method of stone-work. We are at present far too +ill-informed to rule out such a guess. But, on the face of it, the +greater refinement of the Acheulean handiwork looks as if it had been +literally hammered out by steadfastly following up the Chellean pattern +into its further possibilities. Explain it as we will, this evolution of +the so-called _coup-de-poing_ affords almost the sole proof that the +human world of that remote epoch was moving at all. If we could see +their work in wood, we might discern a more diversified skill or we +might not. As it is, we can but conclude in the light of our very +imperfect knowledge that in mind no less than in body mankind of Early +Palaeolithic times displayed a fixity of type almost amounting to that +of one of the other animal species. + +During Middle Palaeolithic times the Mousterian culture rules without a +rival. The cave-period has begun; and, thanks to the preservation of +sundry dwelling-places together with a goodly assortment of their less +perishable contents, we can frame a fairly adequate notion of the +home-life of Neanderthal man. I have already alluded to my excavations +in Jersey, and need not enter into fuller details here. But I should +like to put on record the opinion borne in upon me by such first-hand +experience as I have had that cultural advance in Mousterian days was +almost as portentously slow as ever it had been before. The human +deposits in the Jersey cave are in some places about ten feet thick, and +the fact that they fall into two strata separated by a sterile layer +that appears to consist of the dust of centuries points to a very long +process of accumulation. Yet though there is one kind of elephant +occurring amid the bone refuse at the bottom of the bed, and another +and, it would seem, later kind at the top, one and the same type of +flint instrument is found at every level alike; and the only development +one can detect is a certain gain in elegance as regards the Mousterian +'point', the reigning substitute for the former _coup-de-poing_. Once +more there is intensive progress only, so far at least as most of the +Jersey evidence goes. One _coup-de-poing_, however, and that hardly +Acheulean in conception but exactly what a hand accustomed to the +fashioning of the Mousterian 'point' would be likely to make by way of +an imitation of the once fashionable pattern, lay at lowest floor-level; +as if to remind one that during periods of transition the old is likely +to survive by the side of the new, and may even survive in it as a +modifying element. As a matter of fact, the _coup-de-poing_ is frequent +in the earliest Mousterian sites; so that we cannot but ask ourselves +how it came to be in the end superseded. Whether the Mousterians were of +a different race from the Acheuleans is not known. Certain it is, on the +other hand, that the industry that makes its first appearance in their +train represents a labour-saving device. The Mousterian had learned how +to break up his flint-nodule into flakes, which simply needed to be +trimmed on one face to yield a cutting edge. The Acheulean had been +content to attain this result more laboriously by pecking a pebble on +both faces until what remained was sharp enough for his purpose. Here, +then, we are confronted with that supreme condition of progress, the +inventor's happy thought. One of those big-brained Neanderthal men, we +may suppose, had genius; nature, the liberator, having released some +latent power in the racial constitution. Given such a culture-hero, the +common herd was capable of carrying on more or less mechanically for an +aeon or so. And so it must ever be. The world had better make the most +of its geniuses; for they amount to no more than perhaps a single one in +a million. Anyway, Neanderthal man never produced a second genius, so +far as we can tell; and that is why, perhaps, his peculiar type of +brow-ridge no longer adorns the children of men. + +Before we leave the Mousterians, another side of their culture deserves +brief mention. Not only did they provide their dead with rude graves, +but they likewise furnished them with implements and food for use in a +future life. Herein surely we may perceive the dawn of what I do not +hesitate to term religion. A distinguished scholar and poet did indeed +once ask me whether the Mousterians, when they performed these rites, +did not merely show themselves unable to grasp the fact that the dead +are dead. But I presume that my friend was jesting. A sympathy stronger +than death, overriding its grisly terror, and converting it into the +vehicle of a larger hope--that is the work of soul; and to develop soul +is progress. A religious animal is no brute, but a real man with the +seed of genuine progress in him. If Neanderthal man belonged to another +species, as the experts mostly declare and I very humbly beg leave to +doubt, we must even so allow that God made him also after his own image, +brow-ridges and all. + +The presence of soul in man is even more manifest when we pass on to the +Late Palaeolithic peoples. They are cave-dwellers; they live by the +chase; in a word, they are savages still. But they exhibit a taste and a +talent for the fine arts of drawing and carving that, as it were, +enlarge human existence by a new dimension. Again a fresh power has been +released, and one in which many would seem to have participated; for +good artists are as plentiful during this epoch as ever they were in +ancient Athens or mediaeval Florence. They must have married-in somewhat +closely, one would think, for this special aptitude to have blossomed +forth so luxuriantly. I cannot here dwell at length on the triumphs of +Aurignacian and Magdalenian artistry. Indeed, what I have seen with my +own eyes on the walls of certain French caves is almost too wonderful to +be described. The simplicity of the style does not in the least detract +from the fullness of the charm. On the contrary, one is tempted to doubt +whether the criterion of complexity applies here--whether, in fact, +progress has any meaning in relation to fine art--since, whether +attained by simple or by complex means, beauty is always beauty, and +cannot further be perfected. Shall we say, then, with Plato that beauty +was revealed to man from the first in its absolute nature, so that the +human soul might be encouraged to seek for the real in its complementary +forms of truth and goodness, such as are less immediately manifest? For +the rest, the soul of these transcendently endowed savages was in other +respects more imperfectly illuminated; as may be gathered from the fact +that they carved and drew partly from the love of their art, but partly +also, and, perhaps, even primarily, for luck. It seems that these +delineations of the animals on which they lived were intended to help +them towards good hunting. Such is certainly the object of a like custom +on the part of the Australian aborigines; there being this difference, +however, that the art of the latter considered as art is wholly +inferior. Now we know enough about the soul of the Australian native, +thanks largely to the penetrating interpretations of Sir Baldwin +Spencer, to greet and honour in him the potential lord of the universe, +the harbinger of the scientific control of nature. It is more than half +the battle to have willed the victory; and the picture-charm as a piece +of moral apparatus is therefore worthy of our deepest respect. The +chariot of progress, of which the will of man is the driver, is drawn by +two steeds, namely, Imagination and Reason harnessed together. Of the +pair, Reason is the more sluggish, though serviceable enough for the +heavy work. Imagination, full of fire as it is, must always set the +pace. So the soul of the Late Palaeolithic hunter, having already in +imagination controlled the useful portion of the animal world, was more +than half-way on the road to its domestication. But in so far as he +mistook the will for the accomplished deed, he was not getting the value +out of his second horse; or, to drop metaphor, the scientific reason as +yet lay dormant in his soul. But his dream was to come true presently. + +The Neolithic Period marks the first appearance of the 'cibi-cultural' +peoples. The food-seekers have become food-raisers. But the change did +not come all at once. The earlier Neolithic culture is at best +transitional. There may even have been one of those set-backs in culture +which we are apt to ignore when we are narrating the proud tale of human +advance. Europe had now finally escaped from the last ravages of an +Arctic climate; but there was cruel demolition to make good, and in the +meantime there would seem, as regards man, to have been little doing. +Life among the kitchen-middens of Denmark was sordid; and the Azilians +who pushed up from Spain as far as Scotland did not exactly step into a +paradise ready-made. Somewhere, however, in the far south-east a higher +culture was brewing. By steps that have not yet been accurately traced +legions of herdsmen and farmer-folk overspread our world, either +absorbing or driving before them the roving hunters of the older +dispensation. We term this, the earliest of true civilizations, +'neolithic', as if it mattered in the least whether your stone implement +be chipped or polished to an edge. The real source of increased power +and prosperity lay in the domestication of food-animals and food-plants. +The man certainly had genius and pluck into the bargain who first +trusted himself to the back of an unbroken horse. It needed hardly less +genius to discover that it is no use singing charms over the +seed-bearing grass in order to make it grow, unless some of the seed is +saved to be sowed in due season. Society possibly brained the +inventor--such is the way of the crowd; but, as it duly pocketed the +invention, we have perhaps no special cause to complain. + +By way of appreciating the conditions prevailing in the Later Neolithic +Age, let us consider in turn the Lake-dwellers of Switzerland and the +Dolmen-builders of our Western coast-lands. I was privileged to assist, +on the shore of the Lake of Neuchatel, in the excavation of a site where +one Neolithic village of pile-dwellings had evidently been destroyed by +fire, and at some later date, just falling within the Stone Age, had +been replaced by another. Here we had lighted on a crucial instance of +the march of cultural progress. The very piles testified to it, those of +the older settlement being ill-assorted and slight, whereas the later +structure was regularly built and heavily timbered. It was clear, too, +that the first set of inhabitants had lived narrow lives. All their +worldly goods were derived from strictly local sources. On the other +hand, their successors wore shells from the Mediterranean and amber +beads from the Baltic among their numerous decorations; while for their +flint they actually went as far afield as Grand Pressigny in +West-Central France, the mines of which provided the butter-like nodules +that represented the _ne plus ultra_ of Neolithic luxury. Commerce must +have been decidedly flourishing in those days. No longer was it a case +of the so-called 'silent trade', which the furtive savage prosecutes +with fear and trembling, placing, let us say, a lump of venison on a +rock in the stream dividing his haunts from those of his dangerous +neighbours, and stealing back later on to see if the red ochre for which +he pines has been deposited in return on the primitive counter. The +Neolithic trader, on the other side, must have pushed the science of +barter to the uttermost limits short of the invention of a circulating +medium, if indeed some crude form of currency was not already in vogue. + +When we turn to the Dolmen-builders, and contemplate their hoary +sanctuaries, we are back among the problems raised by the philosophic +conception of progress as an advance in soul-power. Is any religion +better than none? Does it make for soul-power to be preoccupied with the +cult of the dead? Does the imagination, which in alliance with the +scientific reason achieves such conquests over nature, give way at times +to morbid aberration, causing the chill and foggy loom of an after-life +to obscure the honest face of the day? I can only say for myself that +the deepening of the human consciousnesses due to the effort to close +with the mystery of evil and death, and to extort therefrom a message of +hope and comfort, seems to me to have been worth the achievement at +almost any cost of crimes and follies perpetrated by the way. I do not +think that progress in religion is progress towards its ultimate +abolition. Rather, religion, if regarded in the light of its earlier +history, must be treated as the parent source of all the more spiritual +activities of man; and on these his material activities must depend. +Else the machine will surely grind the man to death; and his body will +finally stop the wheels that his soul originally set in motion. + +The panorama is over. It has not been easy, at the rate of about a +millennium to a minute, to present a coherent account of the prehistoric +record, which at best is like a jig-saw puzzle that has lost most of the +pieces needed to reconstitute the design. But, even on this hasty +showing, it looks as if the progressive nature of man were beyond +question. There is manifest gain in complexity of organization, both +physical and cultural; and only less manifest, in the sense that the +inwardness of the process cannot make appeal to the eye, is the +corresponding gain in realized power of soul. In short, the men of the +Stone Age assuredly bore their full share in the work of +race-improvement; and the only point on which there may seem to be doubt +is whether we of the age of metal are as ready and able to bear our +share. But let us be optimistic about ourselves. As long as we do not +allow our material achievements to blind us to the need of an education +that keeps the spiritual well to the fore, then progress is assured so +far as it depends on culture. + +Yet if we could likewise breed for spirituality, humanity's chances, I +believe, would be bettered by as much again or more. But how is this to +be done? Science must somehow find out. To leave it to nature is treason +to the mind. Man may be an ass on the whole, but nature is even more of +an ass, especially when it stands for human nature minus its saving +grace of imaginative, will-directed intelligence. So let us hope that +one day people will marry intelligently, and that the best marriages +will be the richest in offspring. I believe that the spiritual is not +born of the sickly; and at any rate should be prepared to make trial of +such a working principle in my New Republic. + +So much for the practical corollaries suggested by our flying visit to +Prehistoric Europe. But, even if any detailed lessons to be drawn from +such fragmentary facts have to be received with caution, you need not +hesitate to pursue this branch of study for its own sake as part of the +general training of the mind. Accustom yourselves to a long perspective. +Cultivate the eagle's faculty of spacious vision. It is only thus that +one can get the values right--see right and wrong, truth and error, +beauty and ugliness in their broad and cumulative effects. Analytic +studies, as they are termed, involving the exploration of the meaning of +received ideas, must come first in any scheme of genuine education. We +must learn to affirm before we can go on to learn how to criticize. But +historical studies are a necessary sequel. Other people's received ideas +turn out in the light of history to have sometimes worked well, and +sometimes not so well; and we are thereupon led to revise our own +opinions accordingly. Now the history of man has hitherto stood almost +exclusively for the history of European civilization. Being so limited, +it loses most of its value as an instrument of criticism. For how can a +single phase of culture criticize itself? How can it step out of the +scales and assess its own weight? Anthropology, however, will never +acquiesce in this parochial view of the province of history. History +worthy of the name must deal with man universal. So I would have you all +become anthropologists. Let your survey of human progress be age-long +and world-wide. You come of a large family and an ancient one. Learn to +be proud of it, and then you will seek likewise to be worthy of it. + + +BOOKS FOR REFERENCE + +W. J. Sollas, _Ancient Hunters and their Modern Representatives_, 2nd +edition, 1915. + +E. A. Parkyn, _Introduction to the study of Prehistoric Art_. + +R. R. Marett, _Anthropology_ (Home University Library). + +J. L. Myres, _Dawn of History_ (Home University). + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[5] Presidential Address to the International Folk-Lore Congress, 1891, +p. 9. + + + + +III + +PROGRESS AND HELLENISM + +F. MELIAN STAWELL + + +To speak the truth about national characteristics it is often necessary +to speak in paradoxes, for of all unities on earth nothing contains so +many contradictions as a nation. So it is here: it may be said quite +truly that the Greeks had at once the most profound conceptions about +Progress and no faith in it: that they were at once the most hopeful and +the most despairing of peoples. Let me try to explain. When we speak of +a faith in Progress, whatever else we mean, we must mean, I take it, +that there is a real advance in human welfare throughout time from the +Past to the Future, that 'the best is yet to be', and that the good wine +is kept to the last. But if we are to have a philosophy underlying that +faith we must be able to say something more. What, in the first place, +do we mean by 'a real advance'? Or by 'human welfare'? Progress, yes, +but progress towards what? What is the standard? And if we cannot +indicate a standard, what right have we to say that one life is any +better than another? The life of the scientific man any better than the +life of the South Sea Islander--content if only he has enough bananas to +eat? Or than the life of a triumphant conqueror, a Zenghis Khan or a +Tamberlaine--exultant if he has enough human heads before him? Or, +indeed, any of these rather than the blank of Nirvana or the life of a +vegetable? + +Our first need, then, is the need of a standard for good over and above +the conflicting opinions of men, and some idea as to what that standard +implies. + +And the next question is, why we should hold that any of this good is +going to be realized in human life at all? If it is, there must be some +connexion of cause and effect between goodness and human existence. What +is the nature of that connexion? Finally, why should we hope that this +goodness is realized more and more fully as time goes on? + +The Greeks faced these questions, as they faced so many, with +extraordinary daring and penetration and with an intimate mixture of +sadness and hope. + +They themselves, of all nations known to us in history, had made the +greatest progress in the shortest space of time. A long course of +preparation, it is true, underlay that marvellous growth. The classical +Greeks,--and when I speak of Hellenism I mean the flower of classical +Greek culture,--the classical Greeks entered into the labours of the +island peoples, who, whether kindred to them or not, had built up from +neolithic times a great civilization, the major part of which they +could, and did, assimilate. They found the soil already worked. None the +less it is to their own original genius that we owe those great +discoveries of the spirit which, to quote a recent writer, 'created a +new world of science and art, established an ideal of the sane mind in +the sane body and the perfect man in the perfect society, cut out a new +line of progress between anarchy and despotism, and made moral ends +supreme over national in the State.'[6] + +But these practical achievements of theirs have been already summed up +by Professor J. A. Smith in his lecture[7] at this school last year, and +it is to that lecture that I would refer you. I will take it as a basis +and proceed for my own purposes to discuss the Greek conceptions about +progress. Those conceptions were complex, and, speaking roughly, we may +say this: if belief in real progress implies belief in three things, +namely, (1) an absolute standard apprehended, however dimly, by man, (2) +a causal connexion between existence and perfection, and (3) a +persistent advance through time, then the Greeks held to the first two +and doubted, or even denied, the third. Their two great thinkers, Plato +and Aristotle, worked out systems based on the conviction that there +really was an absolute standard of perfection, that man could really +apprehend something of this perfection, and that the effort towards it +was essential to the very existence of the world, part of the stuff, as +it were, that made the universe. These systems have had an effect not to +be exaggerated on the whole movement of thought since their day. +Moreover, many of their fundamental conceptions are being revived in +modern science and metaphysics. And the convictions that underlie them +are calculated, one would say, to lead at once to a buoyant faith in +progress. But with Plato, and Aristotle, and the Greeks generally, they +did not so lead. The Greeks could not feel sure that this effort towards +perfection, though it is part of existence, is strong enough to deliver +man in this world from the web of evil in which also he is involved, nor +even that he makes any approach on the whole towards the loosening of +the toils. The spectre of world-destruction, as Whitman says of Carlyle, +was always before them. And I wish to ask later on if we may not surmise +definite reasons in their own history for this recurring note of +discouragement. But let us first look at the positive side, and first in +Plato. Plato came to his system by several lines of thought, and to +understand it we ought to take account of all. + +1. In the first place no thinker, I suppose, ever felt more keenly than +he felt the desire for an absolute standard of truth, especially in +matters of right and wrong, if only to decide between the disputes of +men. And, in Greece men disputed so boldly and so incessantly that there +was no possibility of forgetting the clash of opinion in any 'dogmatic +slumber'. Thus Plato is always asking, like Robert Browning in 'Rabbi +Ben Ezra',-- + + Now, who shall arbitrate? + Ten men love what I hate, + Shun what I follow, slight what I receive; + Ten who in ears and eyes + Match me: we all surmise, + They this thing, and I that; whom shall my soul believe? + +In one of his very earliest dialogues, the 'Euthyphro', Plato puts the +question almost in so many words. What is it, he asks (7 A-E), that men +quarrel over most passionately when they dispute? Is it not over the +great questions of justice and injustice, of beauty, goodness, and the +like? They do not quarrel thus over a question of physical size, simply +because they can settle such a dispute by reference to an unquestioned +standard, a standard measure, let us say. + +If there is no corresponding standard for right and wrong, if each man +is really the judge and the measure for himself, then there is no sense, +Plato feels, in claiming that one man is wiser than another in conduct, +or indeed any man wiser than a dog-faced baboon (_Theaet._ 161 C-E). + +2. Again, Plato feels most poignantly the inadequacy of all the goodness +and beauty we have ever actually seen in this world of space and time, +compared with the ideal we have of them in their perfection. How can we +have this sense of deficiency, he asks, unless somehow we apprehend +something supreme, over and above all the approaches to it that have as +yet appeared? (_Phaedo_, 74 E). + +This vision of an absolute perfection, as yet unrealized on earth, so +dominates all his thinking, and has such peculiar features of its own, +that even familiar quotations must be quoted here. You will find an +exquisite translation of a typical passage in our Poet Laureate's +Anthology, _The Spirit of Man_ (No. 37). Specially to be noted here is +the stress on the unchanging character of this eternal perfection and +the suggestion that it cannot be fully realized in the world. At the +same time, Plato is equally sure that it is only through the study of +this world that our apprehension of that perfection is awakened at +all:-- + + 'He who has thus been instructed in the science of Love, and + has been led to see beautiful things in their due order and + rank, when he comes toward the end of his discipline, will + suddenly catch sight of a wondrous thing, beautiful with the + absolute Beauty ... he will see a Beauty eternal, not + growing or decaying, not waxing or waning, nor will it be + fair here and foul there ... as if fair to some and foul to + others ... but Beauty absolute, separate, simple, and + everlasting; which lending of its virtue to all beautiful + things that we see born to decay, itself suffers neither + increase nor diminution, nor any other change' (_Symp._ + 211). + +All beautiful things remind man, Plato tells us in his mythological +fashion, of this perfect Beauty, because we had seen it once before in +another life, before our souls were born into this world, 'that blissful +sight and spectacle' (_Phaedrus_, 250 B) when we followed Zeus in his +winged car and all the company of the gods, and went out into the realm +beyond the sky, a realm 'of which no mortal poet has ever sung or ever +will sing worthily'. + +3. But, beside this passion for the ideal, Plato was intensely +interested in our knowledge of the actual world of appearances around +us. And one of the prime questions with which he was then concerned was +the question, what we mean when we talk about the nature or character +of the things we see, a plant, say, or an animal, or a man. We must mean +something definite, otherwise we could not recognize, for example, that +a plant _is_ a plant through all its varieties and all the different +stages of its growth. Plato's answer was, that in all natural things +there is a definite principle that copies, as it were, a definite Type +or Form, and this Type he calls an Idea. Thus in some sense it is this +Type, this Idea, this Form, that brings the particular thing into being. + +4. But it was not enough for Plato to say that every natural thing had +in some sense a certain type for its basis, unless he could believe that +this type was good, and that all the types were harmonious with each +other. He could only be satisfied with the world, in short, if he could +feel that it came about through a movement towards perfection. He makes +his Socrates say that in asking about 'the causes of things, what it is +that makes each thing come into being', it was not enough for him if he +could only see that the thing was there because something had put it +there: he also wanted to see that it was good for it to be there. +Socrates tells us that what he needed he thought he had found in a book +by Anaxagoras, which announced 'that Mind was the disposer and cause of +all' because, 'I said to myself, If this be so--if Mind is the orderer, +it will have all in order, and put every single thing in the place that +is best for it'.[8] + +It is the same feeling as that which underlies the words of Genesis +about the Creation, 'And God saw that it was good'. And there is no +doubt that such a view of the world would be supremely satisfying if we +could count it true. There may be considerable intellectual +satisfaction, no doubt, in merely solving a puzzle as to how things come +about, but it is as nothing compared to the joy there would be in +contemplating their goodness. + +5. But is it true? Can we possibly say so in view of the hideous +imperfection round us? The writers of Genesis spoke of a Fall. Plato, in +his own way, speaks of a Fall himself. He never gives up the belief in +an Absolute Perfection, a system of Perfect Types somehow--he does not +say exactly how--influencing the structure of things in this world. But +he holds that on earth this perfection is always thwarted by a medium +which prevents its full manifestation. This medium is the medium of +Space and Time, and therefore the medium of history--and therefore +history is always and inevitably a record of failure. 'While we are in +the body,' Plato writes, 'and while the soul is contaminated with its +evils, our desire will never be thoroughly satisfied.'[9] 'The body is a +tomb,' he writes elsewhere, quoting a current phrase. + +This is sad enough: yet if we put against it Plato's vision of what Man +might be, we get as inspiring words as ever were written: + +'We have spoken of Man', he says at the end of the _Republic_, 'as he +appears to us now, but now he looks as Glaucus looked after he had been +cast into the sea, and his original nature was scarcely to be discerned, +for his limbs were broken and crushed and defaced by the waters, and +strange things had grown round him, shells and seaweed and stones, so +that he was more like a beast than a man. That is how the soul looks to +us now encompassed by all her evils. It is elsewhere, my friend, that we +ought to look.' Where? asks Plato's friend, and Plato answers, 'We +should look to her love of wisdom and realize what she clings to, what +company she desires, for she is akin to the Divine and Immortal and +Eternal, and we should understand what she would become if she followed +after it, with all her strength, and were lifted by that effort out of +the sea where she now lies.... Then we should understand her real +nature.' (_Republic_, 611.) + +Somewhere, Plato believes, this true nature of man may be realized. The +Principle of Good is something active, not a dead helpless thing, with +no effect on the rest of the universe (_Sophist_, 248, 249); it is a +living power, which desires that everything everywhere should be as +glorious as possible (_Tim._ 29 D). There is no envy, Plato says, in the +Divine, that grudging spirit has no part in the heavenly company. Only +it is not on earth that the glory can be realized. It is towards the +life after death that Plato's real hopes are directed. + +None the less, and this is important, this world does not cease to be +significant for him. He does not turn aside,--as some souls, intoxicated +with the Divine, have done,--from this world altogether. + +Because he holds that man can only advance by struggling to make this +world better. Man's ordinary life may be like the life in a cave, as he +says in his famous myth, but the true philosopher who has once risen out +of the cave must go back into it again and teach the prisoners there +what the universe really is (_Republic_, Book vi, _fin._; vii, _init._). +The very passage that I quoted about man's real nature comes at the end +of the _Republic_. Now the _Republic_ is a Utopia, and no one writes a +Utopia unless he believes that the effort to reach it is of prime +importance to man and helps him to advance. + +Only, for Plato, the advance is not marked in the successive stages of +history, as the modern faith in progress asserts. The life on earth, for +Plato, is like a school through which men pass and in which they may +learn and grow, but the school itself does not go on growing. It is not +that he does not envisage change in history, but what he seems to hope +for at the best is nothing more hopeful than recurring cycles of better +and worse. He tells a fable, in his dialogue 'The Statesman', of how at +one time the world is set spinning in the right direction by God and +then all goes well, and again how God ceases to control it, and then it +gradually forgets the divine teaching and slips from good to bad and +from bad to worse, until at last God takes pity on it once more to save +it from utter destruction (_Polit._ 269 ff.). No doubt in this idea of +cycles Plato is influenced by the popular thought of his time: this +feeling that there had been a lost Golden Age in the past was deeply +rooted in Greek mythology. We get it long before Plato, in Hesiod, and +there are similar touches in Homer, and once men believe that they have +sunk from glory, there is always the dread that if ever they recover it +they will lose it again. And with Plato this dread is reinforced by his +sense of something incurable in the world, the thwarting influence of +spatial and temporal matter (_Theaet._ 176 A). + +It is strange that, though he is always thinking of the individual soul +as learning through experience in its passage from one life to another, +Plato does not seem to have the idea of mankind learning by the lessons +of history, of knowledge being handed down from one age to another, and +growing in the process. That is one of the most inspiring ideas in +modern thought: a German writer has spoken of history as the long +Odyssey of the human spirit, the common mind of Man coming at last +through its wanderings to find out what it really wants, and where its +true home lies. + +And here, significantly enough, we find we are brought back in our +modern way to something very like Plato's own conception of an eternal +unchanging Reality. There are endless problems in the whole conception +of the Eternal that I am quite unable even to attempt; but this much at +least seems clear to me, that the whole idea of mankind learning by the +experience of History, implies something of permanent value running +through that experience. The very thought of continued progress implies +that man can look back at the successive stages of the Past and say of +each: In that lay values which I, to-day and always, can recognize as +good, although I believe we have more good now. Seeley speaks in a noble +passage of how religion might conceive a progressive revelation which +was, in a sense, the same through all its stages, and yet was a growing +thing:--'each new revelation asserts its own superiority to those which +went before,' but the superiority is 'not of one thing to another +thing--but of the developed thing to the undeveloped'. 'It is thus', he +writes, 'that the ages should behave to one another.' This is the true +'understanding and concert with time'.[10] And though Plato does not +live in the thought of historic progress, yet such a conception of +progress which recognizes at different stages different expressions, +more or less adequate, of one eternal value, such a way of thinking is +entirely Platonic. When we look back at history in this mood we think +not only of grasping the right principles for the Future, but of +rejoicing in the definite achievements of the Past, and we feel this +most poignantly, I think, of the achievements won by the spirit of +Beauty. Great works of Art we are accustomed actually to call immortal, +and we mean by this not merely that we think they will always be famous, +but that there is something in them that makes it impossible for them +ever to be superseded. In themselves they are inexhaustible: if they +cease to interest us, it is our fault and not theirs. We may want more, +we do want more, where they came from, but we never want to lose them, +any more than we could bear to lose our old friends, though we may +desire to make new ones. Of all the divine Ideas, said Plato, Beauty is +the one that shows itself most plainly in the world of sense and speaks +to us most plainly of the eternal realities. + +This, however, is perhaps trenching on the subject of Progress in Art, +and I should like to return to the general Greek conception of the +tendency in all nature towards the Good, the perfect realization of +perfect types. + +Plato does not expressly insist that this tendency is of the nature of +effort, though I think that is involved in his view. But Aristotle does. +Following Plato in essentials, he makes bold to say outright that every +natural thing in its own way longs for the divine and desires to share +in the divine life, so far as it can.[11] Every such thing in this world +of space and time has to cope with difficulties and is imperfect, but +everything struggles towards the good. That good is in the life of God, +a thinking life, an activity of thought, existing in some sense beyond +this imperfect world; and this life is so supremely desirable that it +makes everything else struggle to reach it. It moves the whole world, +Aristotle says, in a famous passage, because it is loved. It is the +world's desire.[12] + +Now this idea of effort--or of something analogous to +effort--constituting the inner nature of every natural thing reappears, +with pregnant consequences, in modern thought, though seldom with these +vast theological consequences. The idea of an upward effort through +nature lies at the base of our most hopeful theories of evolution, and +forms the true support of our modern faith in progress. Broadly +speaking, our evolutionists are now divided into two schools: the +adherents of the one believe that variations are purely accidental, and +may occur in any direction whatsoever, the useful ones being preserved +only because they happen to be useful for the life of the species, while +the adherents of the other--the school that I would call the school of +hope--believe that accident, even with natural selection to aid it, is +utterly inadequate to account for the ordered beauty and harmony that we +do see in natural things. They admit, as Plato and Aristotle admit, +imperfection and difficulty in the world, but they insist on a movement +towards value: in short, they conceive an order emerging that is brought +about, to quote a modern writer, both in nature and in society, by 'a +principle of movement and progress conflicting with a principle of +inertia.'[13] + +Aristotle, in words that are strikingly modern, raises the very question +at issue here.[14] He asks whether we can suppose that nature does not +aim at the good at all, but that variations arise by chance and are +preserved just because they are useful, and he scouts the idea that +chance could do more, as Zeller says, than 'bring about isolated and +abnormal results'. He chooses instead the conception of purpose and +effort, and this in spite of the difficulties in conceiving a purpose +and an effort that are not definitely conscious. The sort of thing that +is in Aristotle's mind when he speaks of nature aiming at the good, +comes out in a passage by Edward Carpenter in his little book _The Art +of Creation_. Carpenter plunges boldly and compares the principle that +makes a tree grow and propagate its kind with the impulse that makes a +man express himself. Man, he says, + + has a Will and Purpose, a Character, which, do what you + will, tends to push outwards towards expression. You put + George Fox in prison, you flog and persecute him, but the + moment he has a chance he goes and preaches just the same as + before.... But take a Tree and you notice exactly the same + thing. A dominant Idea informs the life of the Tree; + persisting, it forms the tree. You may snip the leaves as + much as you like to a certain pattern, but they will only + grow in their own shape. Finally, you may cut the tree down + root and branch and burn it, but, if there is left a single + seed, within that seed ... lurks the formative ideal, which + under proper conditions will again spring into life and + expression.[15] + +Aristotle would have endorsed almost every word of this. In his pithy +way, speaking of the distinction between natural and artificial objects, +he says himself that if you planted a wooden bed and the wood could +still grow, it would grow up, not a bed, but a tree.[16] + +He would not have gone so far as to talk about the _Will_ of a tree, but +he would have admitted that what made the tree grow was the same sort of +thing as Will. And in one respect he goes farther than Edward Carpenter +does. For he considers that not only growth but even the movement of +natural things through space is somehow an expression of a tendency +towards the good and the divine, a tendency which, when consciousness +supervenes, we can call effort, an activity, even though, at its best, +only an imperfect activity. He looks up at the splendour of the circling +stars and asks if it is possible that so glorious an order can be +anything but a manifestation of something akin to the divine. Here +indeed he is speaking of movements made by existences he reckoned among +the highest in the world, for he thought the stars were living beings +higher than man. But he recognized a rudimentary form of such activity +even in what we now call inanimate matter. Here we come to a leading +conception of Aristotle's, and one most important for our purpose: the +conception of a hierarchy of natural existences, all of them with some +value, less or more. When Aristotle is truest to himself, he will tell +us not to be afraid of studying the meanest forms of natural existence, +because in everything there is something marvellous and divine. He +quotes with much satisfaction the story of Heracleitus, who welcomed +his friends into the bakehouse with the saying that 'there were gods in +the bakehouse too'.[17] + +Thus, at the lowest end of the scale, we have what we call inanimate +matter, which Aristotle thinks of much as we do, namely, as something +occupying space, the different parts of it being endowed with different +powers of movement, and with different properties, such as warmth or +coldness, wetness or dryness. A natural thing, he says, is a thing that +has a principle of activity in itself, something that makes it act in a +definite way, whenever it is not interfered with by anything else.[18] +Aristotle speaks, for example, of fire having a natural tendency to +mount up, much as we might speak of solids having a natural tendency to +gravitate towards one another. Go back as far as we like, and, Aristotle +thinks, we still find certain primitive differences which constitute +what we call the primitive elements. This, I imagine, is much the point +of view of modern science. + +And these primitive elements in Aristotle's view influence each other, +unite with each other, or change into each other. As a rule, however, +they exhibit no new powers. But given a happy concurrence of qualities, +say a certain union of heat and cold, and a new power does become +manifest: the power of life. Thus, in a sense, Aristotle does envisage +the spontaneous generation of life; and he knows, roughly, what he means +by life. The living thing can go through far more changes than the +non-living, while yet remaining recognizably the same thing. For +example, it shows in itself a greater advance to richness and also a +decline, it uses other things to foster this advance, and it sends out +fresh things, like itself, but independent of itself: in short, it +grows, decays, feeds itself, and propagates its kind.[19] + +As I understand Aristotle, for him there is not an entire and absolute +difference between ordinary matter and living things, and yet there is a +real difference, and one not to be explained away, for there is a new +manifestation of active energy. And if we consider life of more value +than mere motion, then we are right in saying there is a higher energy. +The quality of growth is a quality which could not be deduced from the +quality of warmth or from the quality of mere movement in space, and yet +all three qualities are alike in this, that they are all manifestations +of an energy which is somehow inherent in things, and not merely imposed +on them from without. The manifestations of life are started, in a +sense, by the different movements, 'mechanical', if you like to call +them so, in the rudimentary forms of matter, the elements meeting each +other in space. The process of life could not have begun without such +movements. But neither could it have begun if the elements, just as they +appear, had been all there was. There had to be latent, that is, the +possibility of a different and higher mode of action. This higher mode +of action Aristotle calls a higher Form, a higher Idea. And I think it +is true to him to say that he believes the lower Forms, the lower Ideas, +do their most perfect work when they bring about the conditions under +which the higher ones can operate. For when he speaks of that +concurrence of elements that conditions life he speaks of the 'warmth +and cold' as 'having mastered the matter'.[20] + +In any case he conceives a whole series of higher and lower Forms, the +higher coming nearer and nearer to that full and glorious activity which +he conceives to be the life of God. Above the power of the thing to grow +as a plant grows appears the power of sensation as it is present in +animals, and above that again the power, first seen in man, of living +the life of thought, perceiving what is beautiful and true in the +'forms', the characters, of all the things around him, and with this +that further power of setting consciously before himself what he really +wants to be and to do, the power of moral action strictly so-called. + +Throughout this series, in every higher stage the lower is present as a +kind of basis. In the man who thinks there is active not only the power +of thought, but also the power of sensation, the faculty of growth, and +the physical properties of the body. It would seem that Aristotle has +only to take one step, and he would be a thoroughgoing evolutionist. He +has only to say that the different stages are successive in time, the +lower regularly preceding the higher. But this step he hesitates to +take. + +He often comes very near it. He speaks of nature passing gradually from +inanimate things through living things to living animals. He speaks of +what is first in itself, first inherently, 'prior' in the logical sense +because it is the goal and the completion of the thing, as appearing +later in time. For instance, he believes that man can only find his real +happiness and develop his real nature in the State, but the State +appears later in time than the primitive associations of the household +and the family.[21] What came earlier in history were barbarous +communities such as those of the Cyclopes, where 'each man laid down the +law for his wife and children and obeyed no other law'. + +But Aristotle does not go on from this belief to the belief in a +universal upward process throughout all history. The developed State, it +is true, may always have been preceded by a lower form, but that lower +form may itself have been preceded by a higher. + +Aristotle, in short, is haunted, like Plato, by the idea of cycles, +alternations, decline and progress, progress and decline. He feels this +both in the life of States and in the whole life of the world. He speaks +of the same discoveries being made over and over again, an infinite +number of times, in the history of civilization. And his words recall +the sad passage in Plato's _Laws_ (676) referring to the numberless +nations and states, ten thousand times ten thousand, that had risen and +fallen all over the world, passing from worse to better and from better +to worse. Similarly Aristotle will speak of degraded animal forms, and +sometimes write as though the animal world could sink back into the +vegetable altogether. + +Admitting, however, something like progress within the different cycles, +we must ask a little more about the kind of progress which Aristotle +would have desired. (I take Aristotle again as a typical Greek.) Man at +his best, he clearly holds, in trying to realize his true nature should +aim at a happiness which involves a harmony of all his faculties, a +harmony inspired and led by the highest faculty of all, the Reason which +rejoices in the contemplation of what is at once true and good and +beautiful. + +Now in this aim, we must ask, does a man need other men and other +creatures, and in what sense does he need them? Here, I think, we come +on two inconsistent tendencies in Aristotle's thought, connected with +two different ways of regarding the hierarchy of existences. We say that +one existence is higher than another. Does this mean that what we call +the lower are only so many blundering attempts to reach the higher? That +every creature, for example, which is not a thinking man is, on the +whole, a mistake? Aristotle often does speak like that. Woman, he says +in one passage, is only a mutilated male.[22] The principle which ought +to develop into the active power of thought could not, he explains, in +women master the recalcitrant element which is always thwarting +perfection, and thus woman is man _manque_. On these lines of thought it +is easy to slip into looking on all other forms of existence as merely +valuable in so far as they serve the direct purposes of men, and indeed +only of a few men, those namely who are able to think as philosophers. +This is the kind of view according to which, as the satirist suggests, +cork-trees only grow in order to make corks for champagne-bottles, and +the inferior races of mankind only exist to furnish slaves for the +higher. And Aristotle does, on occasion, lend himself to such a view: he +justifies a slavery in which, as he says, some men are to be treated +merely as living tools. And yet on his own principles every man ought to +aim at realizing his own end, and not merely the ends of others. + +But there is a widely different view, also present in Aristotle, and +truer to the essence of his thought. It is a view instinct with that +reverence for all existence of which I spoke at first, and it holds that +all the different natural types, high or low, could all be united in one +harmony, like an ordered army, as Aristotle himself would say, in which +the divine spirit was present even as the spirit of a general is present +in his men. The greatest thing in man, Aristotle thinks, is the godlike +power of apprehending the different characters of all the things around +him, and this of itself suggests the belief that all these characters +have a value of their own, unique and indispensable, each aiming at a +distinct aspect of the Divine, each, if it fulfilled its inner nature, +finding, as Plato might have said, the place where it was best for it to +be. Again, it is clear from Aristotle's whole treatment of the State, +that when he wrote his famous phrase, 'Man is by nature a political +animal', he meant that man, as we should say, is essentially social. It +is part of man's goal to live with others; it is not merely a means to +the goal. His highest happiness lies in the contemplation of the good, +and the good, Aristotle says, can be contemplated far better in others +than in ourselves. This is a profound saying, and from this thought +springs the deep significance of friendship in Aristotle's system. The +crown of the civic life he takes to be the community of friends who +recognize the good in each other, and enjoy each other through this. The +wider this community, then, we must surely say, the better. + +For Aristotle then, man's perfection ought to mean the perfection of +every individual, and progress, so far as he conceives it, involve +progress towards this end. This should lead on to belief in the supreme +importance of the individual soul, and to Kant's great principle that we +should always treat each man as an end in himself. + +Thus, if we concentrate on the hopeful elements in Plato and Aristotle, +we may fairly say, I think, that we can see outlined in their +philosophies something like the following belief: every natural thing in +this world, and every natural creature, so far as it is good,--and all +are more or less good,--tends to express some distinct aspect of a +perfect harmony: we human beings are the first on earth to be definitely +conscious of such a tendency, the first to be able definitely to direct +it to its true goal, and our business in life is therefore threefold: to +make actual our own function in this harmony, to help other creatures to +actualize theirs, and to contemplate every such manifestation, in men or +in things, with reverence and rejoicing. + +The harmony, if complete, would be a manifestation of a divine reality, +and thus the love of God, the love of our neighbour, the love of nature, +self-development, political life, scientific study, poetic +contemplation, and philosophic speculation, would all unite in one +comprehensive and glorious task. + +This, surely, is hopeful enough. But the Greek hope faltered and sank. +Could this harmony ever be realized? Would not the thwarting element in +the world always drag it down again and again, and drag some men down +always, so that after all progress was impossible, and for some men +should not even be attempted? As a matter of fact, Plato and Aristotle +do limit their exhortations to a narrow circle of cultured Greeks, and +even with them they doubt of success. + +Now this despondency came partly, I think, through the very +sensitiveness of the Hellenic nature. The spectacle of the ever-baffled +struggle in Nature and Man they felt at times almost intolerable. +Aristotle saw that this perpetual failure in the heart of glorious good +made the very essence of tragedy. The tragic hero is the man of innate +nobleness who yet has some one defect that lays him open to ruin. Man is +set in a world full of difficulties, a world much of which is dark and +strange to him: his action and those of others have results which he did +not, and in his ignorance could not, foresee; he is not strong enough +for his great task. + +All the Greek poets have this deep sadness. Homer has it, in and through +his intense feeling for the beauty and energy of life. There has never +been such war-poetry as Homer's, and yet there has never been any which +felt more poignantly the senselessness in war. 'And I must come here', +Achilles says to his noble enemy at the close, 'to torture you and your +children.' + +In the next place, the sadness of the world could not be lightened for +the Greeks by the vision that the modern theory of evolution has opened +up to us of the long advance in the history of life on the planet. Even +their knowledge of history in the strict sense was scanty, and it is +only a long view of history that is likely to be comforting. What +history they did know could bring them little comfort. In the first +place it showed them a series of great civilizations, rising and +falling, and those that had fallen seemed at least as good as those that +followed them. A Greek like Plato knew of the Homeric civilization, +simpler indeed, but fresher and purer than his own. And he believed, +what we now know to be the fact, that even before the Homeric there had +been a wonderful island-culture, what we call the Minoan, flourishing +before the Homeric. 'There had been kings before Agamemnon.' + +And behind Minos and Agamemnon lay the great, and by that time the +ossifying, kingdom of Egypt, compared to which the Greeks were, and felt +themselves to be, but children. Plato had seen, finally, the +degeneration of the Persian Empire--once so magnificent and mighty. + +This fact of recurrent decay is one of the heaviest that the human +spirit can shoulder. Any theory of progress must come to terms with it, +for Progress through history is certainly not an uninterrupted ascent; a +spiral is the better image. And the weight must lie most heavily on a +generation which feels its own self to be in peril of decay. Now Plato +and Aristotle lived at such a period. Greece had gone through the bitter +experiences of the Peloponnesian War, and the shadow of it lay on them, +as on its historian Thucydides. In that fratricidal conflict Greece tore +herself to pieces. It was a struggle between the two leaders of the then +civilized world, and it has a terrible likeness to the struggle that is +going on now. From its devastating influence Greece never recovered. +Historians still dispute, and always will, as to the exact proportion of +praise and blame between the two. But Thucydides himself, a true-hearted +Athenian, brings out the tyrannical side in the Athenian temper. Not +indeed towards her own people, but towards all who were not of her own +immediate stock. Because Athens thought herself the fairest city in the +world, as indeed she was, because she thought herself menaced by Sparta, +and menaced she was, she allowed herself to tyrannize and lightly took +up the burden of war between brethren. There are few passages in history +more stately than the Funeral Oration of Pericles in which he calls +Athens the School of Hellas, but even in it there is a certain deadly +coldness of heart. And few things are more terrible than the coarsening +of temper which Thucydides depicts as the war goes on and Pericles is +succeeded by his caricature Cleon, the man who means to prosecute the +war vigorously, and by vigour means ruthlessness. Nor was there ever a +sterner indictment of aggression than that given in the dialogue between +the spokesmen of Melos, the little island that desired to stand out of +the conflict, and the Athenian representatives who were determined to +force her into their policy. And after that dialogue comes, in +Thucydides' great drama, the fall of Athens. + +The city recovered in some measure from her fall, but only to face +another disaster. If she sinned in the Peloponnesian War through the +spirit of aggression, she sinned in the struggle with Macedon through +slackness and cowardice. In the one struggle she lost comradeship; in +the other she lost liberty. And with the loss of the two she lost +buoyancy. In a deeper sense than Pericles used the phrase, 'the +springtime went out of her year'. Ultimately, perhaps, we cannot explain +why this should be so. Other nations have had as disheartening +experiences and yet risen above them. Some of the most inspired +prophecies in the Hebrew writings came after the tiny state of Judaea +had been torn in pieces by the insensate conflict between North and +South, and after the whole people had been swept into captivity. But +whatever the ultimate reason, Athens did not recover. We must not end, +however, on a note of despair. Far from it. The work of Aristotle and +Plato and of the Greeks generally, was cramped for lack of sympathy and +lack of hope, and, strangely enough, it was after they had passed and +their glory with them that sympathy grew in the world, and after +sympathy grew, hope returned. + +For it is exactly in those failing years, when the Hellenic gave way to +the Hellenistic, that men first grasped, and grasped so firmly that it +could hardly be lost again, one of the fundamental principles on which +the whole fabric of our later civilization has rested, or ought to rest, +the great principle of personal equality, the claim of every individual +to transcendent value, irrespective of race and creed and endowment. The +conquering rule of Alexander, whatever else it did, broke down the +barriers of the little city-states and made men of different races feel +themselves members of mankind. There rose among the Stoics the +conviction that all men do belong together and are all made for each +other. And with the advent of Christianity came the belief that every +man, however mean and unworthy, can receive a power that will make him +all he ought to be. The highest is within his reach. There is no reason +now why the glorious life that Hellenism conceived for a few should not +lie open to all men. + +Finally, we might say, and truly, that the vast political organization +built up by Rome gave us Europeans, once and for all, the vision of a +united Europe. + +That dream has never left it. Even to-day, here and now, in spite of our +disasters, our blunders, and our crimes, let us not forget it, that +dream which is 'not all a dream', the dream of once again constructing a +system in which we might, all of us, all nations and all men and women, +make progress together in the common task. + + +BOOKS FOR REFERENCE + +G. L. Dickinson, _The Greek View of Life_. + +Zeller, _Aristotle and the Earlier Peripatetics_. + +Edited by Evelyn Abbott, _Hellenica_. + +Bury, _History of Greece_. + +Davies and Vaughan, _Plato's Republic_. + +Welldon, _Aristotle's Politics_. + +Peters, _Aristotle's Ethics_. + +Bridges, _The Spirit of Man_. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[6] G. H. Perris, _History of War and Peace_, p. 54. + +[7] 'The Unity of Western Civilization,' c. III. + +[8] _The Spirit of Man_, 40; _Phaedo_, 96. + +[9] _The Spirit of Man_, 16; _Phaedo_, 66. + +[10] _Natural Religion_, part ii, c. 5. + +[11] _De An._ ii. 4, 415, p. 35. + +[12] _The Spirit of Man_, 39; Aristotle, _Met._ 10. + +[13] T. W. Rolleston, _Parallel Paths_. + +[14] _Phys._ ii. 8, 198 16-34. + +[15] Pp. 28-9. + +[16] _Phys._ ii, c. I. + +[17] _De Part. An._, Bk. i, c. 5. + +[18] _Phys._ ii. I, _init._ + +[19] _De Anima_, _init._ + +[20] _Meteor_, iv. 1. 378. See Zeller's _Aristotle_, vol. i, _fin._ + +[21] _Polit._ 1253 a; _Eth._ 1162 a. + +[22] _Gen. An._ ii. 3. 737. + + + + +IV + +PROGRESS IN THE MIDDLE AGES + +A. J. CARLYLE + + +There still survives, not indeed among students of history, but among +some literary persons, the notion that the civilization of the Middle +Ages was fixed and unprogressive; that the conditions of these centuries +were wholly different from those of the ancient world and of modern +time; that there was little continuity with the ancient world, and +little connexion with the characteristic aspects of progress in the +modern world. + +The truth is very different. It may be doubted whether at any other +time, except perhaps in those two marvellous centuries of the flower of +Greek civilization, there has been a more rapid development of the most +important elements of civilization than in the period from the end of +the tenth to the end of the thirteenth centuries. While it is true that +much was lost in the ruin of the ancient world, much also survived, and +there was a real continuity of civilization; indeed some of the greatest +conceptions of the later centuries of the ancient world are exactly +those upon which mediaeval civilization was built. And again, it was in +the Middle Ages that the foundations were laid upon which the most +characteristic institutions of the modern world have grown. + +Indeed this notion that the civilization of the Middle Ages was fixed +and unprogressive is a mere literary superstition, and its origin is to +be found in the ignorance and perversity of the men of the Renaissance; +and hardly less, it must be added, in the foolishness of many of the +conceptions of the Romantic revival. + +There are, indeed, excuses for these mistakes and confusions. The +Renaissance represents, among other things, a great and necessary +movement of revolt against a religious and intellectual civilization +which had once been living and moving, but had tended from the latter +years of the thirteenth century to grow stiff and rigid. It was probably +a real misfortune that the great thinkers and scholars of the thirteenth +century, like Alexander of Hales and Thomas Aquinas, had embarked upon +what was a premature attempt at the systematization of all knowledge; +they made the same mistake as the Encyclopaedists of the eighteenth +century or Herbert Spencer in the nineteenth, but with more disastrous +results. For this work unhappily encouraged the mediaeval Church in its +most fatal mistake, its tendency to suspect and oppose the apprehensions +of new aspects of truth. + +The men of the Renaissance had to break the forms under which the +schoolmen had thought to express all truth, they had to carry forward +the great enterprise and adventure of the discovery of truth, and they +had to do this in the teeth of a violent resistance on the part of those +who thought themselves the representatives of the mediaeval +civilization. There are, therefore, excuses for them in their contempt +for the intellectual life of the past; but there is no real excuse for +them in their contempt for mediaeval art and literature. When they +turned their back upon the immediate past, and endeavoured pedantically +to reproduce the ancient world, they were guilty of an outrageous +ignorance and stupidity, a stupidity which is expressed in that unhappy +phrase of Pope, the 'Gothic night'. Happily neither the great artists of +the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries nor the great poets of England +and Spain were much affected by the classical pedantry of which +unhappily Petrarch was the begetter. + +It is this foolishness of the Renaissance which is the best excuse for +the foolishness of the Romantic revival; the new classical movement had +in such a degree interrupted the continuity of European art that it was +very difficult for men in the eighteenth century to recover the past, +and we must make allowance for the often ludicrous terms and forms of +the new mediaevalism. Indeed it is a strange and often absurd art--the +half-serious, half-parodying imitations of Thomson and Walpole and +Wieland, this ludicrous caricature Gothic of Strawberry Hill and All +Souls, the notion of Gothic architecture as a mass of crockets, +battlements, crypts, and dungeons--and all in ruins. Indeed, the +Romantic conception of the Middle Ages was often as absurd as that of +the Renaissance, and if we are to get at the truth, if we are to make +any serious attempt to understand the Middle Ages, we must clear our +minds of two superstitions; the one, which we derive from the +Renaissance, that mediaeval civilization was sterile, ignorant, and +content to be ignorant; the other, which survives from the Romantic +movement, that it was essentially religious, chivalrous and adventurous, +that men spent their time in saying their prayers, making reverent love +to their ladies, or carving the heads of the infidel. + +What I should desire to do is to persuade you that the more you study +the Middle Ages the more you will see that these men and women were +really very much like ourselves, ignorant, no doubt, of much which is to +us really or superficially important, gifted on the other hand with some +qualities which for the time we seem to have in a large measure lost, +but substantially very like ourselves, neither very much better nor very +much worse. Let me illustrate this by considering for a moment the +figure which to us is typical of the Middle Ages. What was the +mediaeval knight? We think of him as a courteous, chivalrous person of a +romantic and adventurous temper, whose business it was to fight for his +lady or in the service of religion against the infidel. In reality he +was usually a small landowner, who held his land on condition of +military service to some lord; the title 'knight' means in its Latin +form (_miles_), simply a soldier, in its Germanic form a servant, and +distinguishes him from the older type of landowner who held his land in +absolute ownership and free of all service except of a national kind. In +virtue of his holding a certain amount of land he had to present himself +for military service on those occasions and for those periods for which +he could be legally summoned. But even this description implies a wholly +wrong emphasis, for he was not primarily a soldier, but a small +landowner and cultivator, very much what we should call a squireen. He +was normally much more concerned about his crops, his cattle and pigs, +than about his lord's affairs and his lord's quarrels. He was ignorant, +often rather brutal, and turbulent, very ready for a quarrel with his +neighbour, but with no taste for national wars, and the prolonged +absence from his home which they might involve, unless indeed there was +a reasonable prospect of plunder. Indeed, he was a very matter-of-fact +person, with very little sense of romance, and little taste for +adventure unless there was something to be got out of it. We must +dismiss from our minds the pretty superstitions of romance from Chaucer +and Spenser to the time of the Romantic revival, and we must understand +that the people of the Middle Ages were very much like ourselves; the +times were rougher, more disorderly, there was much less security, but +on the whole the character of human life was not very different. + +What was it, then, that happened with the end of the ancient world? +Well, the civilization of the Roman Empire was overthrown by our +barbarous ancestors, the old order, and tranquillity, and comfort +disappeared, and the world fell back into discomfort and turbulence, and +disorder; the roads fell into disrepair and were not mended, the drains +were neglected, and the towns dwindled and shrank. We must remember, +however, that this great civilization was dying out, was failing by some +internal weakness, and that the barbarians only hastened the process. + +Much of the achievement of Greece and Rome was lost, much both material +and intellectual, but not all, and the new civilization which began +rapidly to grow up on the ruins of the old was in many respects +continuous with it. In order, however, that we may understand this we +must remember that the form of civilization with which the Middle Ages +were continuous was the Graeco-Roman civilization of the later Empire, +and not the great Hellenic civilization itself. What the Middle Ages +knew was primarily that which the Christian Fathers like St. Augustine +and St. Gregory the Great, St. Basil and St. Gregory of Nazianzus +learned at their schools and universities. Some of these Fathers were +educated at the great universities, like Athens, others at comparatively +humble provincial institutions; some of them were men of powerful +intellect, while others were more commonplace. What they learned was the +general intellectual system of the late Empire, and what they learned +they handed on to the Middle Ages; but it was not the great intellectual +culture of Greece. We have still too strong an inclination to think of +the ancient world as one and homogeneous; we have not yet sufficiently +apprehended the great changes both in the form and in the temper of that +world. And yet the varieties, the changes, are very diverse, the +outlook, the artistic methods of the Homeric poetry are very different +from the emotional and intellectual modernity of Euripides. The +philosophy of Plato and Aristotle is very different from that of the +Stoics and Neoplatonists. In that picturesque but perhaps not very +felicitous phrase which Mr. Murray has borrowed from Mr. Cornford, there +was a 'failure of nerve' which separates the earlier from the later +stages of the moral and intellectual culture of the ancient world. +However this may be, and we shall have more to say about this presently, +the civilization of the Middle Ages was made up on the one hand of +elements drawn from the later Empire, and on the other of +characteristics and principles which seem to have belonged to the +Barbarian races themselves. + +With the end of the sixth century the ancient world had passed away and +the mediaeval world had begun, and we have to consider the nature and +movement of the new order, or rather we have to consider some of its +elements, and their development, especially during the period from the +end of the tenth century to the end of the thirteenth, during which it +reached its highest level. We have to pass over the great attempt of the +ninth century, for we can only deal with a small part of a large +subject, and we shall only deal with a few aspects of it, and chiefly +with the development of the spiritual conception of life which we call +religion, with the reconstruction of the political order of society, +with the beginning of a new intellectual life and the pursuit of truth, +and with the development under new forms of the passion for beauty. + + * * * * * + +I have been compelled to warn you against the romantic superstition that +the Middle Ages were specifically religious, and yet it is quite true +that the first aspect of mediaeval life which compels our attention is +exactly the development of the sense of the significance of the +spiritual quality of life. This was the first great task of the men of +the Middle Ages, and this was in a real sense their achievement; but not +as contradicting the characteristic developments of the Hellenic +civilization, but rather as completing and fulfilling it. It is indeed a +singular superstition that the Hellenic world was lacking in spiritual +insight, but I need only refer you to Miss Stawell's lecture, as serving +to show you how great and how real this was. It really was not a mistake +when an honest but rather stupid man like Justin Martyr, and the more +acute and penetrating minds of the Alexandrian Fathers like Clement and +Origen, thought that they heard the authentic accents of the 'Word' of +God in the great philosophers of Greece, and especially in Plato. + +The apprehension of the spiritual element in human experience was not +wanting in Hellenic civilization, but it needed a further development +and especially in relation to those new apprehensions of personality and +individuality, whose appearance we can trace both in the +post-Aristotelian philosophy, and in the later Hebrew prophets and +poets, which Christianity found in the world, and to which in its +conception of the human in the Divine, and the Divine in the human, it +gave a new force and breath. It is easy for us to smile at what may well +be the over-rhetorical phrases of Seneca when he speaks of the +self-sufficingness ([Greek: autarkeia]) of the wise man, or when he says +that the wise man is, but for his mortality, like God himself; and yet +these rhetorical phrases are, after all, the forms of an apprehension +which has changed and is changing the world. And, it must be remembered +that to understand the full significance of these phrases, we must bear +in mind that the men of the Graeco-Roman civilization had put aside once +and for all the 'natural' distinction between the 'Greek' and the +'Barbarian', had recognized that men were equal and alike, not different +and unequal, that all men were possessed of reason, and all were +capable of virtue,[23] or, in the Christian terms, all men are the +children of God and capable of communion with Him. + +It is this new apprehension of life for which the Middle Ages found a +new form in the great organization of the Church, and it is this which +justifies our sense of the great and permanent significance of the +tremendous conflict of the Papacy and the Empire. It is true that at +times some of the representatives of the Church seem to have fallen into +the mistake of aiming at a tyranny of the Church over the State, which +would have been in the end as disastrous to the Church itself as to the +State. But the normal principle of the Church was that which was first +fully stated by Pope Gelasius I in the fifth century, that the two great +authorities, the spiritual and the temporal, are each divine, each draws +its authority ultimately from God himself, each is supreme and +independent in its own sphere, while each recognizes the authority of +the other within its proper sphere. + +It is, indeed, the freedom of the spiritual life which the mediaeval +Church was endeavouring to defend; it was the apprehension that there +was some ultimate quality in human nature which stands and must stand +outside of the direct or coercive control of society, which lies behind +all the confused clamour of the conflicts of Church and State. + +It is true that in this great and generous effort to secure the freedom +of the human soul men in some measure lost their way. They demanded and +in a measure they succeeded in asserting the freedom of the religious +organization, as against the temporal organization, but in doing this +they went perilously near to denying the freedom of the individual +spiritual experience. They went perilously near to denying it, but they +never wholly forgot it. The Church claimed and exercised an immense +authority in religion, so immense an authority that it might easily seem +as though there were no place left for the freedom of the individual +judgement and conscience. And yet that was not the case. The theory of +excommunication that is set out in the canonical literature of the +Middle Ages has generally been carelessly studied and imperfectly +understood. It was the greatest and most masterful of the Popes, +Innocent III, who laid down in memorable phrases which are embodied in +the great collection of the Decretals, that if a Christian man or woman +is convinced in his own mind and conscience that it would be a mortal +sin to do or to leave undone some action, he must follow his own +conscience even against the command of the authorities of the Church, +and must submit patiently to Church censures and even excommunication; +for it may well happen that the Church may condemn him whom God +approves, or approve him whom God condemns.[24] This is no isolated or +exceptional opinion, but is the doctrine which is constantly laid down +in the canonical literature.[25] It is, I think, profoundly true to say +that when men at last revolted against what seemed to them the +exaggerated claims of the Church, when they slowly fought their way +towards toleration and religious freedom, they were only asserting and +carrying out its one most vital principle, the principle of the +independence or autonomy of the spiritual life; the modern world is only +fulfilling the Middle Ages. + +I do not continue to develop this aspect of the progress of western +civilization, not because it is unimportant, for indeed it is perhaps +the greatest and most significant aspect of mediaeval life, but because +it is well known to you, and indeed, it has generally been insisted on +to such a degree as to obscure the other aspects of progress in the +Middle Ages, with which we must deal. + + * * * * * + +And first I would ask you to observe that it was in these centuries that +there were laid over again the foundations of the social and political +order of civilization, and that there were devised those forms of the +political order upon which the structure of modern society is founded. + +We are familiar with the conception of the divine nature of political +authority, the normal and fundamental mediaeval view of the State. If we +translate this into more general terms we shall find that its meaning is +that the State has an ethical or moral purpose or function; the State +exists to secure and to maintain justice. You must not, indeed, confuse +this great conception with that foolish perversion of it which was +suggested, I think, by some characteristically reckless phrases of St. +Augustine, stated in set terms by St. Gregory the Great, almost +forgotten in the Middle Ages, and unhappily revived by the perversity of +some Anglicans and Gallicans in the seventeenth century. This foolish +perversion, which we know as the theory of the 'Divine Right of Kings', +is indeed the opposite of the great Pauline and mediaeval conception of +the divine nature of political authority, for to St. Paul, to the more +normal Fathers like St. Ambrose, and to the political theory of the +Middle Ages authority is divine just because, and only in so far as, its +aim and purpose is the attainment and maintenance of justice. Indeed, it +is not only the notion of the 'Divine Right' which was inconsistent with +the mediaeval conception of the State, but the notion of an absolute +sovereignty inherent in the State, that notion with which some eccentric +or ignorant modern political theorists, ignorant of Rousseau as well as +of Aristotle, have played, to the great danger of society; we have, +indeed, got beyond the theory of the sovereignty of the king, but we are +in some danger of being hag-ridden by the imposture of the sovereignty +of the majority. Whatever mistakes the people of the Middle Ages may +have made, they were, with rare exceptions, clear that there was no +legitimate authority which was not just, and which did not make for +justice. + +It is here that we find the real meaning of the second great political +principle of the Middle Ages, that is the supremacy of law; that it is +the law which is the supreme authority in the State, the law which is +over every person in the State. When John of Salisbury, the secretary of +Thomas a Becket, wishes to distinguish between the prince and the +tyrant, he insists that the prince is one who rules according to law, +while the tyrant is one who ignores and violates the law.[26] And in a +memorable phrase, Bracton, the great English jurist of the latter part +of the thirteenth century, lays it down dogmatically that the king has +two superiors, God and the law.[27] There is an absurd notion still +current among more ignorant persons--I have even heard some theologians +fall into the mistake--that men in the Middle Ages thought of authority +as something arbitrary and unintelligible, while the truth is that such +a conception was wholly foreign to the temper of that time. It is quite +true that the political life of the Middle Ages seems constantly to +oscillate between anarchy and despotism, but this is not because the men +of those days did not understand the meaning of law and of freedom, but +because they were only slowly working out the organization through which +these can be secured. The supreme authority in the mediaeval state was +the law, and it was supreme because it was taken by them to be the +embodiment of justice. + +It is again out of this principle that there arose another great +conception which is still often thought to be modern, but which is +really mediaeval, the conception that the authority of the ruler rests +upon and is conditioned by an agreement or contract between him and the +people. For this agreement was not an abstract conception, but was based +upon the mutual oaths of the mediaeval coronation ceremony, the oath of +the king to maintain the law, and to administer justice, and the oath of +the people to serve and obey the king whom they had recognized or +elected. The people do, indeed, owe the king honour and loyal service, +but only on the condition that he holds inviolable his oath. The ruler +who breaks this is a tyrant, and for him there was no place in mediaeval +political theory. This conception was expressed in very plain and even +crude terms by Manegold in the eleventh century when he said that the +king was in the same relation to the community as the man who is hired +to keep the pigs to his master. If the swineherd fails to do his work +the master turns him off and finds another. And if the king or prince +refuses to fulfil the conditions on which he holds his power he must be +deposed.[28] John of Salisbury in the twelfth century expressed this in +even stronger terms when he said that if the prince became a tyrant and +violated the laws, he had no rights, and should be removed, and if there +were no other way to do it, it was lawful for any citizen to slay +him.[29] + +These are, no doubt, extreme forms of the mediaeval conception, but the +principle that the authority of the ruler was conditioned by his +faithful discharge of his obligations is the normal doctrine of the +Middle Ages, is maintained by the compilers of the feudal law-books of +the Kingdom of Jerusalem, by the great English jurist Bracton, by St. +Thomas Aquinas, and even by some of the most representative of the Roman +jurists of Bologna, like Azo. + +These were the fundamental principles of the conception of the nature of +political authority whose development we can trace in the Middle Ages, +and it is out of these conceptions that there grew the system of the +control of the common affairs of the community by means of the +representation of the community. For it should be more clearly +understood than it is, that the representative system was the creation +of the mediaeval political genius, it was these men--to whom even yet +the more ignorant would deny the true political instinct--it was these +men who devised that method upon which the structure of modern civilized +government has been built up. + +There is, however, yet another aspect of the development of political +civilization which deserves our attention if we are to understand the +nature of political progress in the Middle Ages. It was in these +centuries that there were created the elementary forms of the +administrative system of government. And indeed, there is perhaps no +clearer distinction between a barbarian and a civilized government than +this, that while the barbarian government hangs precariously on the life +of the capable king, the civilized government is carried on continuously +by an organized civil service. It would be impossible here to discuss +the earlier forms of this in the organization of government by Charles +the Great, or the very interesting developments of the royal or imperial +chapel as the nucleus of a civil service in Germany, it is enough here +to remind ourselves that it is the creation of this organized +administration by Henry I and Henry II of England which laid the +foundations of our national order. Enough has, I think, been said to +illustrate the reality and significance of the progressive +reconstruction of the political order of Western society in the Middle +Ages. + + * * * * * + +It may, however, be said that this may all be true, but that in all this +we have after all only an example of the preoccupation of the Middle +Ages with conduct and religion. I must, therefore, ask you to consider +the character and development of the intellectual movement of the Middle +Ages. And here, fortunately, we can find the best of guidance in Dr. +Rashdall's great work on _The Universities of Europe in the Middle +Ages_, and in Dr. R. L. Poole's _Illustrations of Mediaeval Thought_. +Indeed I could wish that a little more attention was given to the +history and character of the intellectual movement which the +Universities represent, and perhaps a little less to reading and +discussing the great scholastic works of the thirteenth century, which +are almost impossible to understand except in relation to the +intellectual movements of the twelfth century. + +The new intellectual movement came very suddenly in the last years of +the eleventh century; why it should have come then is hard to determine, +but it seems reasonable to say that it represents the reawakening of the +desire for knowledge which had been in abeyance during the stormy +centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire in the West, when men had +little leisure for anything but the constant labour to secure a little +decent order and peace. For a few years, indeed, in the ninth century +the genius of Charlemagne had almost restored the order of civilization, +and even in those few years the human mind reasserted itself, and for a +moment the learning and culture which had been preserved mainly by the +Irish and their pupils in Britain, and in Central Europe, flowered and +bore fruit; but with his death Western Europe plunged again into anarchy +and misery, and it was only slowly that the genius of the great German +emperors in Central Europe, and of the Norman settlers in France and +England, rebuilt the commonwealth of European civilization. By the end +of the eleventh century the work was not indeed done, but was being +done, and men had again a little leisure, and the desire for knowledge +reawakened, but indeed it was no mere gentle desire, but a veritable +passion which possessed the men of the twelfth century, and it was this +spontaneous passion which produced the universities. + +The first thing, indeed, which we must observe about the oldest +universities of Europe, especially Bologna, Paris, and Oxford, is just +this, that they were not made by any external authority, that they did +not derive their being from Church or State, from pope or king, but that +they were formed by the enthusiasm and passion which drew men from every +quarter of Europe to sit at the feet of some man or another who could +give them the knowledge which they desired, and, in their turn, to +become teachers. It is quite true that as time went on, and they found +that popes and kings were friendly and interested, these groups of +students procured for themselves bulls and charters of recognition and +protection, but while later universities may trace their foundation to +these respectable patrons, the older universities recognize them indeed +as benefactors and friends, but not as founders, but rather claim that +they grew out of men's desire for knowledge, and that they were +recognized by the general consent of the civilized world. + +In the second place it is important, and especially I think in these +days, to understand that the men who thus created the universities in +their eagerness to learn, were of every class and condition, rich and +poor, noble and simple, and they lived as they could, in comfortable +quarters if they were wealthy men, or in the garrets and cellars of the +citizens if they were poor, and for the most part they were poor; but +neither poverty nor riches could destroy their noble thirst for +knowledge. The life of the universities was indeed turbulent and +disorderly, the students were always at war with the citizens, and, when +they were not breaking the heads of the citizens or having their heads +broken by them, they were at war with each other, the men of the north +with the southerners, the western with the eastern; for the universities +were not local or national institutions, but were made up of a +cosmopolitan crowd of men of every nation in Europe, intelligible to +each other, as unhappily we are not, by the universal knowledge and use +of that mediaeval Latin, which might distress the Ciceronian ears of a +pedant of the Renaissance, but was a good, useful, and adaptable +language. It was a turbulent, disorderly, brutal, profligate, and +drunken world, for the students were as hard drinkers as the citizens, +but it was animated, it was made alive by a true passion for knowledge, +by an unwearied and never satisfied intellectual curiosity. + +But it will be asked, what did they learn? Well, the only answer that +one can give is that they learned whatever there was to learn. Our +literary friends have often still the impression that in the Middle Ages +men spent their whole time in learning theology, and were afraid of +other forms of knowledge, but this is a singular delusion. As the +universities developed a system, their studies were arranged in the main +under four heads, the general studies of what came to be called the +Faculty of Arts, and the professional studies of the three superior +Faculties of Law, Medicine, and Theology, but the student was not +normally allowed to study in the three superior Faculties until he had +spent some years in the studies of the Faculty of Arts. It is therefore +with this latter that we are primarily occupied. The studies in the +Faculty of Arts consisted, to use our modern terminology, of literature, +philosophy, and science, and the accomplished mediaeval student was +expected to know whatever there was to know. + +And this means--what is strangely often forgotten--that the studies of +the mediaeval universities were primarily based upon the literature +which had survived from the ancient world. The Latin poets and orators +were their models of literary art, the surviving treatises of the +ancients their text-books in medicine, and the Greek philosophers in +Latin translations, or in Latin works founded on them, their masters in +thought. To understand the extent of the influence and the knowledge of +antiquity of a twelfth-century scholar we need only turn again to John +of Salisbury, and we shall find him as familiar as any Renaissance +scholar with Latin literature, and possessing a very considerable +acquaintance with Greek literature so far as it could be obtained +through the Latin.[30] Indeed, so much is he possessed by the literature +of antiquity that in works like the _Policraticus_ he can hardly write +two lines together without a quotation from some classical author. This +type of literary scholarship has been too much overlooked, and, as I +said before, too exclusive an attention has been given to the +thirteenth-century schoolmen, who are neither from a literary nor from a +philosophical point of view as representative of mediaeval scholars, and +philosophically they are often really unmediaeval, for the general +quality of mediaeval thought is its Platonism: the Aristotelian logic +was indeed known to the Middle Ages through Boethius, but the other +Aristotelian works were not known till towards the middle of the +thirteenth century. + +It would be impossible here, even if I were competent, which I am not, +to discuss the character of mediaeval thought, but one thing we can +observe, one aspect of the intellectual method which may serve to clear +away some confusion. The great intellectual master of the Middle Ages +was Abelard, and the method which he elaborated in his _Sic et Non_ is +the method which imposed itself upon all aspects of mediaeval thought. + +It has often been supposed that mediaeval thinkers were in such a sense +the creatures of authority that it was impossible for them to exercise +any independent judgement; how far this may have been true of the +decadent scholasticism of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries I do +not pretend to say, but such a judgement is a ludicrous caricature of +the living and active thought of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, +and a little consideration of the critical method which Abelard +developed is sufficient to correct this. This is as follows: first some +general principle is enunciated for consideration, then all the +authorities which may seem to support it are cited, then all the +authorities against, and finally the writer delivers his own judgement, +criticizing and explaining the opinions which may seem contrary to it. +The method has its defects and its limitations, but its characteristic +is rather that of scepticism than of credulity. And it is on this method +that the most important systems of knowledge of the Middle Ages are +constructed. It was applied by Gratian in his _Decretum_, the first +great reasoned treatise on Church law, and leads there often to somewhat +unexpected conclusions, such as that even the legislative authority of +the Pope is limited by the consenting custom of the Christian +people;[31] and it is this method upon which the great systematic +treatises, like the _Suma Theologica_ of St. Thomas Aquinas, were +constructed in the thirteenth century. Whatever its defects may be the +method cannot fairly be accused of ignoring difficulties and of a +submission to authority which leaves no place for the critical reason. + +I have, I hope, said enough to make it clear that there was a real and +living intellectual movement in the Middle Ages, and that even in those +days men had resumed the great adventure of the pursuit of truth. + + * * * * * + +We can only for a moment consider the significance and the character of +mediaeval civilization as it expresses itself in Art, and we must begin +by noticing a distinction between mediaeval art and mediaeval learning, +which is of the first importance. + +The intellectual movement of the Middle Ages was related to the ancient +world, both in virtue of that continuity which was mediated by the +Christian Fathers, whose education was that of the later Empire, and +also in virtue of the intense and eager care with which mediaeval +scholars studied all that they possessed of ancient literature. The +relation of the art of the Middle Ages to the ancient world was quite +different. There was no continuity between the vernacular poetry of the +Middle Ages and that of the ancient world, and while there was a certain +continuity in architecture and in mosaic painting, this amounted to +little more than that the mediaeval artists took the formal structure or +method as the starting-point of their own independent and original work. +For the western art of the third and fourth centuries was conventional +and decadent, and had apparently lost its power of recovery, while the +art of the centuries which followed was at first rude and imperfect, but +was full of new life, determined in its reality and dominated by some +intimate sense of beauty; it was in no sense imitative of ancient art, +but grew and changed under the terms of its own inherent life and power. + +Mediaeval art, whatever else is to be said about it, was new and +independent, and it had all the variety, the audacious experiments, +characteristic of a living art. Nothing is so foolish as to imagine that +it was uniform and unchanging. Indeed, from the historical point of +view, the interest of the study of it is curiously contrasted with that +of the art of the ancient world. There we have only an imperfect and +fragmentary knowledge of the earlier and ruder form; its history, as we +know it, might almost be said to begin with the perfection of the sixth +and fifth centuries, and what we know after that is the history of a +long decadence, not indeed without new developments of importance, as +for instance in the architectural structure of Roman building, and +perhaps in the sculpture of the Early Empire on one side, and in certain +aspects of Latin literature on another. The history of mediaeval art is +the history of the long development from what are generally rude forms +to the highly developed art of the thirteenth century, a development +full of incidents and experiments and variety. I have called the early +form rude, but the phrase is not very happy, as those who know either +the early mosaic or the early epic will understand. + +There are still some people, I suppose, who think that mediaeval poetry +was all of one kind, cast in one mould, but the truth is that it is of +every form and character. It ranges from the bold imaginative realism of +the Epic of England, Iceland, Germany, and France, to the exquisite and +gracious but somewhat artificial allegory of the _Romance of the Rose_. +It includes the first great emotional poetry of the modern world--the +sense of the greatness and tragedy of human passion has perhaps never +been expressed in more moving terms than in the _Tristan and Iseult_ of +Thomas or Beroul--but it also includes the mordant satire of the Renard +poetry and of Jean de Meun, and the gross realistic humour of the +Fabliaux. The mediaeval drama, in whose complex development we have to +trace many strands, probably represents in its oldest forms the coarse +farcical buffoonery which may be related to the last fashions of the +ancient world; it received a new impulse from the dramatization of +scripture history in the twelfth century; but in the thirteenth and +fourteenth centuries, at least in France, it had already become +substantially a drama of romantic or contemporary life, as we can see in +Jean Bodel's _Jeu de St. Nicholas_, in Adam de la Halle's _Jeu de la +Feuillee_ and _Robin et Marion_, and in dramas like the _Empress of +Rome_ or the _Otho_. Whatever criticism we might want to make on +mediaeval literature, at least we cannot say that it was of one type and +of one mood. + +It is hardly necessary to point out the movement and changes in the +other forms of art in the Middle Ages; it is only necessary to remind +ourselves that, while we can see that the artists were often hampered by +inadequate technical knowledge, they were not conventional or merely +imitative. + +It would be impossible here to consider the history of mosaic painting, +and its development from the decadent Graeco-Roman work of Santa +Pudenziana in Rome, to the magnificent and living decorations of St. +Mark's in Venice, or of the cathedral of Monreale. It is enough to +remind ourselves of the immense interval which lies between the rude but +living sculpture of the ninth century, and the exquisite grace of +Chester or Wells, and of that development of architecture which +culminates in the majesty of Durham, and in the beauty of Chartres and +Westminster Abbey. + +It is doubtful if we have yet at all fully or correctly appreciated the +nature of mediaeval art; there has been a good deal of foolish talk +about 'primitives', which usually goes with a singular ignorance of +mediaeval civilization; the one thing which is already clear, and which +grows clearer, is that the men of those ages had an instinct and a +passion for beauty which expressed itself in almost every thing that +they touched; and, whatever we have gained, we have in a large measure +lost this. + + * * * * * + +The mediaeval world was then a living growing world, neither cut off +from the past, nor unrelated to the future. It was a rough and turbulent +world, our ancestors were dogged, quarrelsome, and self-assertive, and +the first task of civilization was to produce some sort of decent order. +The world was a long way off from the firm urbanity of the English +policeman. And yet the men of the Middle Ages never fell into that +delusion which, as it would seem, has ruined other civilizations; the +great effort for order was not in their mind to be fulfilled by any mere +mechanical discipline, by any system imposed from outside, the only +system of order which they were prepared to accept was one which should +express the character, the tradition, and finally the will of the whole +community. The great phrase of Edward I's summons to Parliament, 'Quod +omnes tangit, ab omnibus approbetur' (That which concerns all, must be +approved by all), was not a mere tag, as some foolish people have +thought, but expressed the character and the genius of a living +political civilization. + +And this rough turbulent world was inspired by a great breath of +spiritual and intellectual and artistic life and freedom. + +It might well seem as though the Church and religion were merely a new +bondage, and in part that is true, but it is not the whole truth. With +all its mistakes the religion of the Middle Ages meant the growing +apprehension of the reality of that 'love which moves the sun and other +stars', it meant the growth of reverence for that which is beyond and +above humanity and which is also within it. For it is the last truth of +the Christian faith that we know God only under the terms of human life +and nature. And with all the cruelty and brutality of the Middle Ages +they taught men love as well as obedience. + +Again, it was in these ages, as soon as the confusion of the outer world +was a little reduced, that the passion for knowledge awoke again in +men's hearts. It is true that some were afraid lest the eager inquiry of +men's minds should destroy the foundations of that order which men were +slowly achieving, but still the passionate pursuit of knowledge has +rarely been more determined. And once again the world was rough, but +these men had an instinct, a passion for beauty which expressed itself +in almost everything which they touched. They had not, indeed, the +almost miraculous sense and mastery of the great artists of Greece, that +did not come again till the time of the great Italian artists of the +fifteenth century. But they were free from pedantry, from formalism, +they left the dying art of the ancient world and made their own way. +Their sense of colour was almost infallible, as those who have seen the +mosaics of the older Roman basilicas and of St. Mark's in Venice will +know; but, indeed, we have only to look at the illuminated manuscripts +which are to be found in all our libraries. And in that great art in +which, above all perhaps, they expressed themselves, in their great +architecture, we see the growth of a constructive genius which is only +overshadowed by the superb beauty of its form. + +A rough, disorderly, turbulent, greedy, cruel world, but it knew the +human soul, and it knew the human heart. The ancient world had ended in +a great destruction, but the sadness and emptiness of its last days +compel us to feel that it was well that it should end. And the new world +was a world of life, of crude force and restless energy, and from it we +have received the principles and the forms of a great civilization, and +the temper which is never satisfied, for there is no end to life. + + +BOOKS FOR REFERENCE + +H. W. C. Davis, _Mediaeval Europe_ (Home University Library). + +Lord Bryce, _History of Roman Empire_. + +Rashdall, _Universities of Empire in the Middle Ages_. + +R. L. Poole, _Illustrations of Mediaeval Thought_. + +Gierke, _Political Theories of the Middle Ages_. + +W. P. Ker, _Epic and Romance_. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[23] Cf. Cicero, _De Legibus_, i. 10-12; and Seneca, _De Beneficiis_, +iii. 18. + +[24] Cf. Decretals, v. 39. 44, 28. + +[25] Cf. Carlyle, _Mediaeval Political Theory_, vol. ii. pp. 244-9. + +[26] Cf. John of Salisbury, _Policraticus_, iv. 1. + +[27] Cf. Bracton, _De Legibus et Consuetudinibus_, i. 8, 5. + +[28] Cf. Manegold, _Ad Gebehardum_, c. XXX. + +[29] Cf. John of Salisbury, _Policraticus_, iii. 15, viii. 17, 18, 20. + +[30] Cf. C. C. J. Webb's edition of John of Salisbury's _Policraticus_, +introduction. + +[31] Cf. Gratian, _Decretum_, D. iv. c. 3. + + + + +V + +PROGRESS IN RELIGION + +BARON FRIEDRICH VON HUeGEL + + +The difficulties are deep and delicate which confront any man at all +well acquainted with the fuller significance of Religion and of +Progress, who attempts clearly and shortly to describe or define the +ultimate relations between these two sets of fact and conviction. It is +plain that Religion is the deeper and richer of the two terms; and that +we have here, above all, to attempt to fathom the chief elements and +forces of Religion as such, and then to see whether Progress is really +traceable in Religion at all. And again it is clear that strongly +religious souls will, as such, hold that Religion answers to, and is +occasioned by, the action, within our human life and needs, of great, +abiding, living non-human Realities; and yet, if such souls are at all +experienced and sincere, they will also admit--as possibly the most +baffling of facts--that the human individuals, families, races, are +relatively rare in whom this sense and need of Religion is strongly, +sensitively active. Thus the religion of most men will either all but +completely wither or vanish before the invasion of other great facts and +interests of human life--Economics or Politics or Ethics, or again, +Science, Art, Philosophy; or it will, more frequently, become largely +assimilated, in its conception, valuation, and practice, to the quite +distinct, and often subtly different, conceptions, valuations, and +practices pertaining to such of these other ranges and levels of human +life as happen here to be vigorously active. And such assimilations +are, of course, effected with a particular Philosophy or Ethic, mostly +some passing fashion of the day, which does not reach the deepest laws +and standards even of its own domain, and which, if taken as Religion, +will gravely numb and mar the power and character of such religious +perception as may still remain in this particular soul. + +I will, then, first attempt some discriminations in certain fundamental +questions concerning the functioning of our minds, feelings, wills. I +will next attempt short, vivid descriptions of the chief stages in the +Jewish and Christian Religions, with a view to tracing here what may +concern their progress; and will very shortly illustrate the main +results attained by the corresponding main peculiarities of +Confucianism, Buddhism, and Mohammedanism. And I will finally strive to +elucidate and to estimate, as clearly as possible, the main facts in +past and present Religion which concern the question of religious +'Progressiveness'. + + +I + +I begin with insisting upon some seven discriminations which, even only +forty years ago, would have appeared largely preposterous to the then +fashionable philosophy. + +First, then, our Knowledge is always wider and deeper than is our +Science. I know my mother, I know my dog, I know my favourite rose-tree; +and this, although I am quite ignorant of the anatomical differences +between woman and man; of the psychological limits between dog and human +being; or of the natural or artificial botanical order to which my +rose-plant belongs. Any kind or degree of consciousness on my part as to +these three realities is a knowledge of their content. 'Knowledge is not +simply the reduction of phenomena to law and their resolution into +abstract elements; since thus the unknowable would be found well within +the facts of experience itself, in so far as these possess a concrete +character which refuses translation into abstract relations.' So +Professor Aliotta urges with unanswerable truth.[32] + +And next, this spontaneous awareness of other realities by myself, the +reality Man, contains always, from the first, both matter and form, and +sense, reason, feeling, volition, all more or less in action. Sir Henry +Jones insists finely: 'The difference between the primary and elementary +data of thought on the one hand, and the highest forms of systematized +knowledge on the other, is no difference in kind, analogous to a mere +particular and a mere universal; but it is a difference of +articulation.'[33] + +Thirdly, direct, unchallengeable Experience is always only experience of +a particular moment; only by means of Thought, and trust in Thought, can +such Experience be extended, communicated, utilized. The sceptic, to be +at all effective, practises this trust as really as does his opponent. +Thought, taken apart from Experience, is indeed artificial and arid; but +Experience without Thought, is largely an orderless flux. Philosophers +as different as the Neo-Positivist Mach and the Intuitionist Bergson, do +indeed attempt to construct systems composed solely of direct Experience +and pure Intuition; and, at the same time, almost ceaselessly insist +upon the sheer novelty, the utter unexpectedness of all direct +Experience, and the entire artificiality of the constructions of +Thought--constructions which alone adulterate our perceptions of reality +with the non-realities repetition, uniformity, foreseeableness. Yet the +amazing success of the application of such constructions to actual +Nature stares us all in the face. 'It is, indeed, strange,' if that +contention be right, 'that facts behave as if they too had a turn for +mathematics.' Assuredly 'if thought, with its durable and coherent +structure, were not the reflection of some order of stable relations in +the nature of things, it would be worthless as an organ of life'.[34] + +Fourthly, both Space and Time are indeed essential constituents of all +our perceptions, thoughts, actions, at least in this life. Yet Time is +perhaps the more real, and assuredly the richer, constituent of the two. +But this rich reality applies only to Concrete or Filled Time, Duration, +in which our experiences, although always more or less successive, +interpenetrate each other in various degrees and ways, and are thus more +or less simultaneous. An absolutely even flow of equal, mutually +exclusive moments, on the contrary, exists only for our theoretical +thinking, in Abstract, Empty, or Clock time. Already, in 1886, Professor +James Ward wrote: 'In time, conceived as physical, there is no trace of +intensity; in time, as psychically experienced, duration is primarily an +intensive magnitude.'[35] And in 1889 Professor Bergson, in his _Essai +sur les Donnees Immediates de la Conscience_, gave us exquisite +descriptions of time as we really experience it, of 'duration strictly +speaking', which 'does not possess moments that are identical or +exterior to each other'.[36] Thus all our real soul life, in proportion +to its depth, moves in Partial Simultaneity; and it apprehends, requires +and rests, at its deepest, in an overflowingly rich Pure Simultaneity. + +Fifthly, Man is Body as well as Soul, and the two are closely +interrelated. The sensible perception of objects, however humble, is +always necessary for the beginning, and (in the long run) for the +persistence and growth, of the more spiritual apprehensions of man. +Hence Historical Persons and Happenings, Institutions, affording +Sensible Acts and Contacts, and Social Corporations, each different +according to the different ranges and levels of life, can hardly fail to +be of importance for man's full awakening--even ethical and spiritual. +Professor Ernst Troeltsch, so free from natural prejudice in favour of +such a Sense-and-Spirit position, has become perhaps the most adequate +exponent of this great fact of life, which is ever in such danger of +evaporation amidst the intellectual and leading minority of men. + +Sixthly, the cultivated modern man is still largely arrested and stunted +by the spell of Descartes, with his insistence upon immediate unity of +outlook and perfect clearness of idea as the sole, universal tests, +indeed constituents, of truth. 'I judged that I could take for my +general rule that the things which we conceive very clearly and very +distinctly are all true'--these and these alone.[37] Thus thenceforth +Mathematics and Mechanics have generally been held to be the only full +and typical sciences, and human knowledge to be co-extensive with such +sciences alone. Yet Biology and Psychology now rightly claim to be +sciences, each with its own special methods and tests distinct from +those of Mathematics and Mechanics. Indeed, the wisest and most fruitful +philosophy is now coming to see that 'Reality generally eludes our +thought, when thought is reduced to mathematical formulas'.[38] Concrete +thought, contrariwise, finds full room also for History, Philosophy, +Religion, for each as furnishing rich subject-matters for Knowledge or +Science, of a special but true kind. + +Seventhly. Already Mathematics and Mechanics absolutely depend, for the +success of their applications to actual Nature, upon a spontaneous +correspondence between the human reason and the Rationality of Nature. +The immensity of this success is an unanswerable proof that this +rationality is not imposed, but found there, by man. But Thought without +a Thinker is an absurd proposition. Thus faith in Science is faith in +God. Perhaps the most impressive declaration of this necessary connexion +between Knowledge and Theism stands at the end of that great work, +Christoph Sigwart's _Logik_. 'As soon as we raise the question as to the +real _right_', the adequate reason, 'of our demands for a +correspondence, within our several sciences, between the principles and +the objects of the researches special to each, there emerges the need +for the Last and Unconditional Reason. And the actual situation is not +that this Reason appears only on the horizon of our finite knowledge,' +as Kant would have it. 'Not in thus merely extending our knowledge lies +the significance of the situation, but in the fact that this +Unconditional Reason constitutes the presupposition without which no +desire for Knowledge (in the proper and strict sense of the word) is +truly thinkable.'[39] + +And lastly, all this and more points to philosophical Agnosticism as an +artificial system, and one hopelessly inadequate to the depths of human +experience. Assuredly Bossuet is right: 'man knows not the whole of +anything'; and mystery, in this sense, is also of the essence of all +higher religion. But what man knows of anything is that thing +manifested, not essentially travestied, in that same thing's +appearances. We men are most assuredly realities forming part of a real +world-whole of various realities; those other realities continuously +affect our own reality; we cannot help thinking certain things about +these other realities; and these things, when accepted and pressed home +by us in action or in science, turn out, by our success in this their +utilization, to be rightly apprehended by us, as parts of +interconnected, objective Nature. Thus our knowledge of Reality is real +as far as it goes, and philosophical Agnosticism is a _doctrinaire_ +position. We can say with Herbert Spencer, in spite of his predominant +Agnosticism, that 'the error' committed by philosophers intent upon +demonstrating the limits and conditions of consciousness 'consists in +assuming that consciousness contains _nothing but_ limits and +conditions, to the entire neglect of that which is limited and +conditioned'. In reality 'there is some thing which alike forms the raw +material of definite thought and remains after the definiteness, which +thinking gave to it, has been destroyed'.[40] + + +II + +Let us next consider five of the most ancient and extensively developed +amongst the still living Religions: the Israelitish-Jewish and the +Christian religions shall, as by far the best known to us and as the +most fully articulated, form the great bulk of this short account; the +Confucian, Buddhist, and Mohammedan religions will be taken quite +briefly, only as contrasts to, or elucidations of, the characteristics +found in the Jewish and Christian faiths. All this in view of the +question concerning the relations between Religion and Progress. + +1. We can roughly divide the Israelitish-Jewish religion into three long +periods; in each the points that specially concern us will greatly vary +in clearness, importance, and richness of content. + +The first period, from the time of the founder Moses and the Jewish +exodus out of Egypt to the appearance of the first great prophet Elijah +(say 1300 B.C. to about 860 B.C.) is indeed but little known to us; yet +it gives us the great historical figure of the initial lawgiver, the +recipient and transmitter of deep ethical and religious experiences and +convictions. True, the code of King Hammurabi of Babylon (in 1958 to +1916 B.C.; or, according to others, in about 1650) anticipates many of +the laws of the _Book of the Covenant_ (Exod. xx, 22-xxiii. 33), the +oldest amongst the at all lengthy bodies of laws in the Pentateuch; and, +again, this covenant appears to presuppose the Jewish settlement in +Canaan (say in 1250 B.C.) as an accomplished fact. And, indeed, the Law +and the books of Moses generally have undoubtedly passed through a long, +deep, wide, and elaborate development, of which three chief stages, all +considerably subsequent to the Covenant-Book, have, by now, been +established with substantial certainty and precision. The record of +directly Mosaic sayings and writings is thus certainly very small. Yet +it is assuredly a gross excess to deny the historical reality of Moses, +as even distinguished scholars such as Edward Meyer and Bernhard Stade +have done. Far wiser here is Wellhausen, who finds, in the very +greatness and fixity of orientation of the development in the Law and in +the figure of the Lawgiver, a conclusive proof of the rich reality and +greatness of the Man of God, Moses. Yet it is Hermann Gunkel, I think, +who has reached the best balanced judgement in this matter. With Gunkel +we can securely hold that Moses called God Yahweh, and proclaimed Him as +the national God of Israel; that Moses invoked Him as 'Yahweh is my +banner'--the divine leader of the Israelites in battle (Exod. xvii. 15); +and that Yahweh is for Moses a God of righteousness--of the right and +the law which he, Moses, brought down from Mount Sinai and published at +its foot. Fierce as may now appear to us the figure of Yahweh, thus +proclaimed, yet the soul's attitude towards Him is already here, from +the first, a religion of the will: an absolute trust in God ('Yahweh +shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace,' Exod. xiv. 14), and +a terrible relentlessness in the execution of His commands--as when +Moses orders the sons of Levi to go to and fro in the camp, slaying all +who, as worshippers of the Golden Calf, had not been 'on Yahweh's side' +(Exod. xxxii. 25-29); and when the chiefs, who had joined in the worship +of Baal-Peor, are 'hung up unto Yahweh before the sun' (Num. xxv. 1-5). +Long after Moses the Jews still believed in the real existence of the +gods of the heathen; and the religion of Moses was presumably, in the +first instance, 'Monolatry' (the adoration of One God among many); but +already accompanied by the conviction that Yahweh was mightier than any +other god--certainly Micah, 'Who is like Yahweh?,' is a very ancient +Israelitish name. And if Yahweh is worshipped by Moses on a mountain +(Sinai) and His law is proclaimed at a spring, if Moses perhaps himself +really fashioned the brazen serpent as a sensible symbol of Yahweh, +Yahweh nevertheless remains without visible representation in or on the +Ark; He is never conceived as the sheer equivalent of natural forces; +and all mythology is absent here--the vehement rejection of the +calf-worship shows this strikingly. Michael Angelo, himself a soul of +fire, understood Moses well, Gunkel thinks.[41] + +The second period, from Elijah's first public appearance (about 860 +B.C.) to the Dedication of the Second Temple (516 B.C.), and on to the +public subscription to the Law of Moses, under Ezra (in 444 B.C.), is +surpassed, in spiritual richness and importance, only by the classical +times of Christianity itself. Its beginning, its middle, and its end +each possess distinctive characters. + +The whole opens with Elijah, 'the grandest heroic figure in all the +Bible,' as it still breathes and burns in the First Book of Kings. 'For +Elijah there existed not, in different regions, forces possessed of +equal rights and equal claims to adoration, but everywhere only one Holy +Power that revealed Itself, not like Baal, in the life of Nature, but +like Yahweh, in the moral demands of the Spirit' (Wellhausen). + +And then (in about 750 B.C.) appears Amos, the first of the noble +'storm-birds' who herald the coming national destructions and divine +survivals. 'Yahweh was for these prophets above all the god of justice, +and God of Israel only in so far as Israel satisfied His demands of +justice. And yet the special relation of Yahweh to Israel is still +recognized as real; the ethical truth, which now stood high above +Israel, had, after all, arisen within Israel and could still only be +found within it.' The two oldest lengthy narrative documents of the +Pentateuch--the Yahwist (J) and the Ephraemite (E)--appear to have been +composed, the first in Judah in the time of Elijah, the second in Israel +in the time of Amos. J gives us the immortal stories of Paradise and the +Fall, Cain and Abel, Noah and the Flood; E, Abraham's sacrifice of +Isaac; and the documents conjointly furnish the more naive and +picturesque parts of the grand accounts of the Patriarchs generally--the +first great narrative stage of the Pentateuch. God here gives us some of +His most exquisite self-revelations through the Israelitish +peasant-soul. And Isaiah of Jerusalem, successful statesman as well as +deep seer, still vividly lives for us in some thirty-six chapters of +that great collection the 'Book of Isaiah' (i-xii, xv-xx, xxii-xxxix). +There is his majestic vocation in about 740 B.C., described by himself, +without ambiguity, as a precise, objective revelation (chap. vi); and +there is the divinely impressive close of his long and great activity, +when he nerves King Hezekiah to refuse the surrender of the Holy City to +the all-powerful Sennacherib, King of Assyria: that Yahweh would not +allow a single arrow to be shot against it, and would turn back the +Assyrian by the way by which he came--all which actually happens as thus +predicted (chap. xxxvii). + +The middle of this rich second period is filled by a great +prophet-priest's figure, and a great prophetical priestly reform. +Jeremiah is called in 628 B.C., and dies obscurely in Egypt in about 585 +B.C.; and the Deuteronomic Law and Book is found in the Temple, and is +solemnly proclaimed to, and accepted by, the people, under the +leadership of the High Priest Hilkiah and King Josiah, 'the Constantine +of the Jewish Church,' in 628 B.C. Jeremiah and Deuteronomy (D) are +strikingly cognate in style, temper, and injunctions; and especially D +contrasts remarkably in all this with the documents J and E. We thus +have here the second great development of the Mosaic Law. Both Jeremiah +and Deuteronomy possess a deeply interior, tenderly spiritual, kernel +and a fiercely polemical husk--they both are full of the contrast +between the one All-Holy God to be worshipped in the one Holy Place, +Jerusalem, and the many impure heathen gods worshipped in so many places +by the Jewish crowd. Thus in Jeremiah Yahweh declares: 'This shall be my +covenant that I will make with the house of Israel: I will write my law +in their hearts: and they shall all know me, from the least to the +greatest: for I will remember their sin no more' (xxxi. 33, 34). And +Yahweh exclaims: 'My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken +me, the fountain of living waters, and have hewn out cisterns that can +hold no water.' 'Lift up thine eyes unto the high places ... thou hast +polluted the land with thy wickedness.' 'Wilt thou not from this time +cry unto me: My Father, thou art the guide of my youth?' (ii. 13, iii. +2, 4). And Deuteronomy teaches magnificently: 'This commandment which I +command you this day, is not too hard for thee, neither is it far off. +It is not in heaven, neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest +say: Who shall go up for us to heaven or over the sea, and bring it unto +us? But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart, +that thou mayest do it' (xxx. 11-14). And there are here exquisite +injunctions--to bring back stray cattle to their owners; to spare the +sitting bird, where eggs or fledglings are found; to leave over, at the +harvest, some of the grain, olives, grapes, for the stranger, the +orphan, the widow; and not to muzzle the ox when treading out the corn +(xxii. 1, 6, 7; xxiv. 19; xxv. 4). Yet the same Deuteronomy ordains: 'If +thine own brother, son, daughter, wife, or bosom friend entice thee +secretly, saying, let us go and serve other gods, thine hand shall be +first upon him to put him to death.' Also 'There shall not be found with +thee any consulter with a familiar spirit ... or a necromancer. Yahweh +thy God doth drive them out before thee.' And, finally, amongst the laws +of war, 'of the cities of these people (Hittite, Amorite, Canaanite, +Perizzite, Hivite, Jebusite) thou shalt save alive nothing that +breatheth, as Yahweh thy God hath commanded thee' (xii. 2-5; xiii. 6, 9; +xviii. 10-13; xx. 16, 17). Here we must remember that the immorality of +these Canaanitish tribes and cults was of the grossest, indeed largely +unnatural, kind; that it had copiously proved its terrible fascination +for their kinsmen, the Jews; that these ancient Easterns, e.g. the +Assyrians, were ruthlessly cruel at the storming of enemy cities; and +especially that the morality and spirituality, thus saved for humanity +from out of a putrid flood, was (in very deed) immensely precious. One +point here is particularly far-sighted--the severe watchfulness against +all animism, spiritualism, worship of the dead, things in which the +environing world of the Jews' fellow Semites was steeped. The +Israelitish-Jewish prophetic movement did not first attain belief in a +Future Life, and then, through this, belief in God; but the belief in +God, strongly hostile to all those spiritualisms, only very slowly, and +not until the danger of any infusion of those naturalisms had become +remote, led on the Jews to a realization of the soul's survival with a +consciousness at least equal to its earthly aliveness. The Second Book +of Kings (chaps. xxii, xxiii) gives a graphic account of King Josiah's +rigorous execution of the Deuteronomic law. + +The end of this most full second period is marked by the now rapid +predominance of a largely technical priestly legislation and a +corresponding conception of past history; by the inception of the +Synagogue and the religion of the Book; but also by writings the most +profound of any in the Old Testament, all presumably occasioned by the +probing experiences of the Exile. In 597 and 586 B.C. Jerusalem is +destroyed and the majority of the Jews are taken captives to Babylon; +and in between (in 593) occurs the vocation of the prophet-priest +Ezekiel, and his book is practically complete by 573 B.C. Here the +prophecies as to the restoration are strangely detailed and +schematic--already somewhat like the apocalyptic writers. Yet Ezekiel +reveals to us deathless truths--the responsibility of the individual +soul for its good and its evil, and God Himself as the Good Shepherd of +the lost and the sick (xviii. 20-32; xxxiv. 1-6); he gives us the grand +pictures of the resurrection unto life of the dead bones of Israel +(chap. xxxvii), and of the waters of healing and of life which flow +forth, ever deeper and wider, from beneath the Temple, and by their +sweetness transform all sour waters and arid lands that they touch +(xlvii. 1-12). A spirit and doctrine closely akin to those of Ezekiel +produced the third, last, and most extensive development of the +Pentateuchal legislation and doctrinal history--in about 560 B.C., the +Law of Holiness (Lev., chaps. xvii-xxvi); and in about 500 B.C., the +Priestly Code. As with Ezekiel's look forward, so here with these +Priests' look backward, we have to recognize much schematic precision of +dates, genealogies, and explanations instinct with technical interests. +The unity of sanctuary and the removal from the feasts and the worship +of all traces of naturalism, which in Jeremiah, Deuteronomy, and the +Second Book of Kings appear still as the subject-matters of intensest +effort and conflict, are here assumed as operative even back to +patriarchal times. Yet it can reasonably be pleaded that the life-work +of Moses truly involved all this development; and even that Monotheism +(at least, for the times and peoples here concerned) required some such +rules as are assumed by P throughout. + +And P gives us the great six days' Creation Story with its splendid +sense of rational order pervasive of the Universe, the work of the +all-reasonable God--its single parts good, its totality very good; and +man and woman springing together from the Creator's will. But the writer +nowhere indicates that he means long periods by the 'days'; each +creation appears as effected in an instant, and these instants as +separated from each other by but twenty-four hours. + +In between Deuteronomy and the Priestly Code, or a little later still, +lies probably the composition of three religious works full, +respectively, of exultant thanksgiving, of the noblest insight into the +fruitfulness of suffering, and of the deepest questionings issuing in +childlike trust in God. For an anonymous writer composes (say, in 550 +B.C.) the great bulk of the magnificent chapters forty to fifty-five of +our Book of Isaiah--a paean of spiritual exultation over the Jews' +proximate deliverance from exile by the Persian King Cyrus. In 538 B.C. +Cyrus issues the edict for the restoration to Judaea, and in 516 the +Second Temple is dedicated. Within this great Consolation stand (xlii. +1-4; xlix. 1-6; l. 4-9; lii. 13-liii. 12) the four poems on the +Suffering Servant of Yahweh--the tenderest revelation of the Old +Testament--apparently written previously in the Exile, say in 570-560 +B.C. The Old Law here reaches to the very feet of the New Law--to the +Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world. And the Book of Job, +in its chief constituents (chaps. i-xxxi, xxxviii-xlii), was probably +composed when Greek influences began--say in about 480 B.C., the year of +the battle of Thermopylae. The canonization of this daringly speculative +book indicates finely how sensitive even the deepest faith and holiness +can remain to the apparently unjust distribution of man's earthly lot. + +Our second period ends in 444 B.C., when the priest and scribe Ezra +solemnly proclaims, and receives the public subscription to, the Book of +the Law of Moses--the Priestly Code, brought by him from Babylon. + +The Jewish last period, from Ezra's Proclamation 444 B.C. to the +completion of the Fourth Book of Ezra, about A.D. 95, is (upon the +whole) derivative. Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah were absorbed in the realities +of their own epoch-making times, and of God's universal governance of +the world past and future; Daniel now, with practically all the other +Apocalyptic writers in his train, is absorbed in those earlier +prophecies, and in ingenious speculations and precise computations as to +the how and the when of the world's ending. The Exile had given rise to +the Synagogue, and had favoured the final development and codifying of +the Mosaic law; the seventy years intermission of the Temple sacrifices +and symbolic acts had turned the worship, which had been so largely +visible, dramatic, social, into the praying, singing, reading, preaching +of extant texts, taken as direct and final rules for all thought and +action, and as incapable of additions or interpretations equal in value +to themselves. Yet thus priceless treasures of spiritual truth and light +were handed down to times again aglow with great--the greatest religious +gifts and growths; and indeed this literature itself introduced various +conceptions or images destined to form a largely fitting, and in the +circumstances attractive, garment for the profound further realities +brought by Christianity. + +In the Book of Daniel (written somewhere between 163 and 165 B.C.) all +earthly events appear as already inscribed in the heavenly books (vii. +10), and the events which have still really to come consist in the +complete and speedy triumph of the Church-State Israel against King +Antiochus Epiphanes. But here we get the earliest clear proclamation of +a heightened life beyond death--though not yet for all (xii. 2). The +noble vision of the four great beasts that came up from the sea, and of +one like unto a Son of Man that came with the clouds of heaven (chap. +vii), doubtless here figures the earthly kingdoms, Babel, Media, Persia, +Greece (Alexander), and God's kingdom Israel. The Psalter appears to +have been closed as late as 140 B.C.; some Psalms doubtless date back to +701--a few perhaps to David himself, about 1000 B.C. The comminatory +Psalms, even if spoken as by representatives of God's Church and people, +we cannot now echo within our own spiritual life; any heightened +consciousness after death is frequently denied (e.g. vi. 5: 'in the +grave who shall give thee thanks?' and cxv. 17: 'the dead praise not the +Lord')--we have seen the impressive reason of this; and perhaps a +quarter of the Psalms are doubles, or pale imitations of others. But, +for the rest, the Psalter remains as magnificently fresh and powerful as +ever: culminating in the glorious self-commitment (Ps. lxxiii), 'I was +as a beast before Thee. Nevertheless I am continually with Thee. Whom +have I in heaven but Thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire +beside Thee.' The keen sense, present throughout this amazingly rich +collection, of the reality, prevenience, presence, protection--of the +central importance for man, of God, the All-Abiding, finds thus its +full, deathless articulation. + +Religiously slighter, yet interesting as a preparation for Christian +theology, are the writings of Philo, a devout, Greek-trained Jew of +Alexandria, who in A.D. 40 appeared before the Emperor Caligula in Rome. +Philo does not feel his daringly allegorical sublimations as any +departures from the devoutest Biblical faith. Thus 'God never ceases +from action; as to burn is special to fire, so is action to God'--this +in spite of God's rest on the seventh day (Gen. ii. 2). 'There exist two +kinds of men: the heavenly man and the earthly man.'[42] The long Life +of Moses[43] represents him as the King, Lawgiver, High Priest, Prophet, +Mediator. The Word, the Logos (which here everywhere hovers near, but +never reaches, personality) is 'the firstborn son of God', 'the image of +God'[44]; its types are 'the Rock', the Manna, the High Priest's Coat; +it is 'the Wine Pourer and Master of the Drinking Feast of God'.[45] The +majority of the Jews, who did not accept Jesus as the Christ, soon felt +they had no need for so much allegory, and dropped it, with advantage +upon the whole, to the Jewish faith. But already St. Paul and the Fourth +Gospel find here noble mental raiment for the great new facts revealed +by Jesus Christ. + +2. The Christian Religion we will take, as to our points, at four stages +of its development--Synoptic, Johannine, Augustinian, Thomistic. + +The Synoptic material here specially concerned we shall find especially +in Mark i. 1 to xv. 47; but also in Matt. iii. 1 to xxvii. 56, and in +Luke iii. 1 to xxiii. 56. Within the material thus marked off, there is +no greater or lesser authenticity conferred by treble, or double, or +only single attestation; for this material springs from two original +sources--a collection primarily of doings and sufferings, which our Mark +incorporates with some expansions; and a collection primarily of +discourses, utilized especially by Matthew and Luke in addition to the +original Mark. Both these sources contain the records of eyewitnesses, +probably Saints Peter and Matthew. + +The chronological order and the special occasions of the growths in our +Lord's self-manifestation, or in the self-consciousness of His human +soul, are most carefully given by Mark and next by Luke. Matthew largely +ignores the stages and occasions of both these growths, and assumes, as +fully explicit from the beginning of the Ministry, what was manifested +only later on or at the last; and he already introduces ecclesiastical +and Christological terms and discriminations which, however really +implicit as to their substance in Jesus's teaching, or inevitable (as to +their particular form) for the maintenance and propagation of +Christianity in the near future, are nevertheless still absent from the +accounts of Mark and Luke. + +The chief rules for the understanding of the specific character of our +Lord's revelation appear to be the following. The life and teaching must +be taken entire; and, within this entirety, each stage must be +apprehended in its own special peculiarities. The thirty years in the +home, the school, the synagogue, the workshop at Nazareth, form a +profoundly important constituent of His life and teaching--impressively +contrasted, as they are, with the probably not full year of the Public +Ministry, even though we are almost completely bereft of all details for +those years of silent preparation. + +The Public Ministry, again, consists of two strongly contrasted stages, +divided by the great scene of Jesus with the Apostles alone at Caesarea +Philippi (Mark viii. 27-33; Luke ix. 18-22; Matt. xvi. 13-23). The stage +before is predominantly expansive, hopeful, peacefully growing; the +stage after, is concentrated, sad, in conflict, and in storm. To the +first stage belong the plant parables, full of exquisite sympathy with +the unfolding of natural beauty and of slow fruitfulness; to the second +stage belong the parables of keen watchfulness and of the proximate, +sudden second coming. Both movements are essential to the physiognomy of +our Lord. And they are not simply differences in self-manifestation; +they represent a growth, a relatively new element, in His human soul's +experience and outlook. + +The central doctrine in the teaching is throughout the Kingdom of God. +But in the first stage this central doctrine appears as especially +upheld by Jesus's fundamental experience--the Fatherhood of God. In the +second stage the central doctrine appears as especially coloured by +Jesus's other great experience--of Himself as the Son of Man. In the +earlier stage the Kingdom is presented more in the spirit of the ancient +prophets, as predominantly ethical, as already come in its beginnings, +and as subject to laws analogous to those obtaining in the natural +world. In the second stage the coming of the Kingdom is presented more +with the form of the apocalyptic writers, in a purely religious, +intensely transcendent, and dualistic outlook--especially this also in +the Parables of Immediate Expectation--as not present but future (Matt. +xix. 28); not distant but imminent (Matt. xvi. 28; xxiv. 33; xxvi. 64); +not gradual but sudden (Matt. xxiv. 27, 39, 43); not at all achieved by +man but purely given by God (so still in Rev. xxi. 10). + +To the earlier stage belongs the great Rejoicing of Jesus (Matt. xi. +25-30; Luke x. 21, 22). The splendid opening, 'I thank Thee, Father--for +so it hath seemed good in Thy sight', and the exquisite close, special +to Matthew, 'Come unto Me--and my burthen is light', raise no grave +difficulty. But the intermediate majestic declaration, 'All things are +delivered unto Me by the Father--neither knoweth any man the Father save +the Son and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him', causes critical +perplexities. + +I take this declaration to be modelled upon actual words of Jesus, which +genuinely implied rather than clearly proclaimed a unique relation +between the Father and Himself. Numerous other words and acts involve +such a relation and Jesus's full consciousness of it. His first public +act, His baptism, is clearly described by Mark as a personal experience, +'He saw the heavens opened' and heard a heavenly voice 'Thou art my +beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased' (i. 10, 11). Already in the +first stage Jesus declares the Baptist to be 'more than a prophet' +(Matt. xi. 9), yet claims superiority over him and over Solomon (xi. 11; +xii. 42). His doctrine is new wine requiring new bottles (Mark ii. 22); +indeed His whole attitude towards the law is that of a superior, who +most really exhorts all, 'Learn of Me'. And soon after Caesarea Philippi +He insists to the people: 'Whosoever shall be ashamed of Me in this +generation, of him also shall the Son of Man be ashamed, when He cometh +in the glory of the Father' (Mark viii. 38). The most numerous cures, +physical, psychical, moral, certainly performed by Him, appear as the +spontaneous effect of a unique degree and kind of spiritual authority; +and the sinlessness attributed to Him throughout by the apostolic +community (2 Cor. v. 21; Heb. iv. 15; John viii. 46; 1 John ii. 29) +entirely corresponds to the absence, in the records of Him, of all +traits indicating troubles of conscience and the corresponding fear of +God. And this His unique Sonship is conjoined, in the earliest picture +of Him, with an endless variety and combination of all the joys, +admirations, affections, disappointments, desolations, temptations +possible to such a stainless human soul and will. We thus find here a +comprehensiveness unlike the attitude of the Baptist or St. Paul, and +like, although far exceeding, the joy in nature and the peace in +suffering of St. Francis of Assisi. + +The Second Stage opens with the great scene at Caesarea Philippi and its +sequel (given with specially marked successiveness in Mark viii. 27-x. +45), when, for the first time in a manner beyond all dispute, Mark +represents Jesus as adopting the designation 'the Son of Man' in a +Messianic and eschatological sense. For our Lord here promptly corrects +Peter's conception of 'Messiah' by repeated insistence upon 'the Son of +Man'--His glory yet also His sufferings. Thus Jesus adopts the term of +Daniel vii. 13 (which already the Apocalypse of Enoch had understood of +a personal Messiah) as a succinct description of His specific +vocation--its heavenly origin and difference from all earthly +Messianism; its combination of the depths of human weakness, +dereliction, sufferings with the highest elevation in joy, power and +glory; and its connexion of that pain with this triumph as strictly +interrelated--only with and through the Cross, was there here the offer +and acceptance of the Crown. + +As to the Passion and Death, and the Risen Life, four points appear to +be central and secured. Neither the Old Testament nor Jewish Theology +really knew of a Suffering Messiah. Jesus Himself clearly perceived, +accepted, and carried out this profound new revelation. This suffering +and death were conceived by Him as the final act and crown of His +service--so in Mark x. 44, 45 and Luke xxii. 24-7. (All this remains +previous to, and independent of, St. Paul's elaborated doctrine as to +the strictly vicarious and juridical character of the whole.) And the +Risen Life is an objectively real, profoundly operative life--the +visions of the Risen One were effects of the truly living Jesus, the +Christ. + +The Second Christian Stage, the Johannine writings, are fully +understandable only as posterior to St. Paul--the most enthusiastic and +influential, indeed, of all our Lord's early disciples, but a convert, +from the activity of a strict persecuting Pharisee, not to the earthly +Jesus, of soul and body, whom he never knew, but to the heavenly +Spirit-Christ, whom he had so suddenly experienced. Saul, the man of +violent passions and acute interior conflicts, thus abruptly changed in +a substantially _pneumatic_ manner, is henceforth absorbed, not in the +past Jewish Messiah, but in the present universal Christ; not in the +Kingdom of God, but in Pneuma, the Spirit. Christ, the second Adam, is +here a life-giving Spirit, an element that surrounds and penetrates the +human spirit; we are baptized, dipped, into Christ, Spirit; we can drink +Christ, the Spirit. And this Christ-Spirit effects and maintains the +universal brotherhood of mankind, and articulates in particular posts +and functions the several human spirits, as variously necessary members +of the one Christian society and Church. + +Now the Johannine Gospel indeed utilizes considerable Synoptic +materials, and does not, as St. Paul, restrict itself to the Passion and +Resurrection. Yet it gives us, substantially, the Spirit-Christ, the +Heavenly Man; and the growth, prayer, temptation, appeal for sympathy, +dereliction, agony, which, in the Synoptists, are still so real for the +human soul of Jesus Himself, appear here as sheer condescensions, in +time and space, of Him who, as all things good, descends from the +Eternal Above, so that we men here below may ascend thither with Him. +On the other hand, the Church and the Sacraments, still predominantly +implicit in the Synoptists, and the subjects of costly conflict and +organization in the Pauline writings, here underlie, as already fully +operative facts, practically the entire profound work. The great +dialogue with Nicodemus concerns Baptism; the great discourse in the +synagogue at Capernaum, the Holy Eucharist--in both cases, the strict +need of these Sacraments. And from the side of the dead Jesus flow blood +and water, as those two great Sacraments flow from the everliving +Christ; whilst at the Cross's foot He leaves His seamless coat, symbol +of the Church's indivisible unity. The Universalism of this Gospel is +not merely apparent: 'God so loved the world' (iii. 16), 'the Saviour of +the world' (iv. 42)--this glorious teaching is traceable in many a +passage. Yet Christ here condemns the Jews--in the Synoptists only the +Pharisees; He is from above, they are from below; all those that came +before Him were thieves and robbers; He will not pray for the world--'ye +shall die in your sins' (xvii. 9; viii. 24); and the commandment, +designated here by Jesus as His own and as new, to 'love one another', +is for and within the community to which He gives His 'example' (xv. 12; +xiii. 34)--in contrast with the great double commandment of love +proclaimed by Him, in the Synoptists, as already formulated in the +Mosaic Law (Mark xii. 28-34), and as directly applicable to every +fellow-man--indeed, a schismatic Samaritan is given as the pattern of +such perfect love (Luke x. 25-37). + +Deuteronomy gained its full articulation in conflict with Canaanite +impurity; the Johannine writings take shape during the earlier battles +of the long war with Gnosticism--the most terrible foe ever, so far, +encountered by the Catholic Church, and conquered by her in open and +fair fight. Also these writings lay much stress upon Knowing and the +Truth: 'this is life eternal, to know Thee, the only true God and Jesus +Christ whom Thou hast sent' (xvii. 3); symbolism and mysticism prevail +very largely; and, in so far as they are not absorbed in an Eternal +Present, the reception of truth and experience is not limited to +Christ's earthly sojourn--'the Father will give you another Helper, the +spirit of truth who will abide with you forever' (xiv. 16). Yet here the +knowing and the truth are also deeply ethical and social: 'he who doeth +the truth cometh to the light' (iii. 21); and Christ has a fold, and +other sheep not of this fold--them also He must bring, there will be one +fold, one Shepherd; indeed, ministerial gradations exist in this one +Church (so in xiii. 5-10; xx. 3-8; xxi. 7-19). And the Mysticism here is +but an emotional intuitive apprehension of the great historical figure +of Jesus, and of the most specifically religious of all facts--of the +already overflowing operative existence, previous to all our action, of +God, the Prevenient Love. 'Not we loved God (first), but He (first) +loved us,' 'let us love Him, because He first loved us,' 'no man can +come to Me, unless the Father draw him'--a drawing which awakens a +hunger and thirst for Christ and God (1 John iv. 10, 19; John vi. 44; +iv. 14; vi. 35). + +The Third Stage we can find in St. Augustine, who, born a North African +Roman (A.D. 354) and a convert from an impure life and Manichaeism, with +its spatially extended God (A.D. 386), wrote his _Confessions_ in 397, +lived to experience the capture and sack of Rome by Alaric the Goth, +410, composed his great work, _The City of God_, amidst the clear +dissolution of a mighty past and the dim presage of a problematical +future, and died at Hippo, his episcopal city, in 430, whilst the +Vandals were besieging it. St. Augustine is more largely a convert and a +rigorist even than St. Paul when St. Paul is most incisive. But here he +shall testify only to the natures of Eternity and of real time, a matter +in which he remains unequalled in the delicate vividness and balance of +his psychological analysis and religious perception. 'Thou, O God, +precedest all past times by the height of Thine ever-present Eternity; +and Thou exceedest all future times, since they _are_ future, and, once +they have come, will be past times. All thy years abide together, +because they abide; but these our years will all be, only when they all +will have ceased to be. Thy years are but One Day--not every day, but +To-Day. This Thy To-Day is Eternity'.[46] The human soul, even in this +life, has moments of a vivid apprehension of Eternity, as in the great +scene of Augustine and Monica at the window in Ostia.[47] And this our +sense of Eternity, Beatitude, God, proceeds at bottom from Himself, +immediately present in our lives; the succession, duration of man is +sustained by the Simultaneity, the Eternity of God: 'this day of ours +_does_ pass within Thee, since all these things' of our deeper +experience 'have no means of passing unless, somehow, Thou dost contain +them all'. 'Behold, Thou wast within, and I was without ... Thou wast +with me, but I was not with Thee.' 'Is not the blessed life precisely +_that_ life which all men desire? Even those who only hope to be blessed +would not, unless they in some manner already possessed the blessed +life, desire to be blessed, as, in reality, it is most certain that they +desire to be.'[48] Especially satisfactory is the insistence upon the +futility of the question as to what God was doing in Time before He +created. Time is only a quality inherent in all creatures; it never +existed of itself.[49] + +And our fourth, last Christian Stage shall be represented by St. Thomas +Aquinas (A.D. 1225-74), in the one great question where this +Norman-Italian Friar Noble, a soul apparently so largely derivative and +abstractive, is more complete and balanced, and penetrates to the +specific genius of Christianity more deeply, than Saints Paul and +Augustine with all their greater directness and intensity. We saw how +the deepest originality of our Lord's teaching and temper consisted in +His non-rigoristic earnestness, in His non-Gnostic detachment from +things temporal and spatial. The absorbing expectation of the Second +Coming, indeed the old, largely effete Graeco-Roman world, had first to +go, the great Germanic migrations had to be fully completed, the first +Crusades had to pass, before--some twelve centuries after Nazareth and +Calvary--Christianity attained in Aquinas a systematic and promptly +authoritative expression of this its root-peculiarity and power. No one +has put the point better than Professor E. Troeltsch: 'The decisive +point here is the conception, peculiar to the Middle Ages, of what is +Christian as Supernatural, or rather the full elaboration of the +consequences involved in the conception of the Supernatural. The +Supernatural is now recognized not only in the great complicated miracle +of man's redemption from out of the world corrupted by original sin. But +the Supernatural now unfolds itself as an autonomous principle of a +logical, religious and ethical kind. The creature, even the perfect +creature, is only Natural--is possessed of only natural laws and ends; +God alone is Supernatural. Hence the essence of Christian +Supernaturalism consists in the elevation of the creature, above this +creature's co-natural limitations, to God's own Supernature'. The +distinction is no longer, as in the Ancient Church, between two kinds +(respectively perfect and relative) of the one sole Natural Law; the +distinction here is between Natural Law in general and Supernature +generally. 'The Decalogue, in strictness, is not yet the Christian +Ethic. "Biblical" now means revealed, but not necessarily Christian; for +the Bible represents, according to Aquinas, a process of development +which moves through universal history and possesses various stages. The +Decalogue is indeed present in the legislation of Christ, but as a stage +preliminary to the specifically Christian Ethic. The formula, on the +contrary, for the specifically Christian Moral Law is here the +Augustinian definition of the love of God as the highest and absolute, +the entirely simple, Moral end--an end which contains the demand of the +love of God in the stricter sense (self-sanctification, self-denial, +contemplation) and the demand of the love of our neighbour (the active +relating of all to God, the active interrelating of all in God, and the +most penetrating, mutual self-sacrifice for God). This Ethic, a mystical +interpretation of the Evangelical Preaching, forms indeed a strong +contrast to the This-World Ethic of the Natural Law, Aristotle, the +Decalogue and Natural Prosperity; but then this cannot fail to be the +case, given the entire fundamental character of the Christian +Ethic'.[50] + +Thus the widest and most primitive contrasts here are, not Sin and +Redemption (though these, of course, remain) but Nature (however good in +its kind) and Supernature. The State becomes the complex of that +essentially good thing, Nature; the Church the complex of that +different, higher good, Supernature; roughly speaking, where the State +leaves off, the Church begins. + +It lasted not long, before the Canonists and certain ruling Churchmen +helped to break up, in the consciousness of men at large, this noble +perception of the two-step ladder from God to man and from man to God. +And the Protestant Reformers, as a whole, went even beyond Saints Paul +and Augustine in exclusive preoccupation with Sin and Redemption. +Henceforth the single-step character of man's call now more than ever +predominates. The Protestant Reformation, like the French Revolution, +marks the existence of grave abuses, the need of large reforms, and, +especially on this point, the all but inevitable excessiveness of man +once he is aroused to such 'reforming' action. Certainly, to this hour, +Protestantism as such has produced, within and for religion +specifically, nothing that can seriously compare, in massive, balanced +completeness, with the work of the short-lived golden Middle Ages of +Aquinas and Dante. Hence, for our precise present purpose, we can +conclude our Jewish and Christian survey here. + +3. Only a few words about Confucianism, Buddhism, Mohammedanism, as +these, in some of their main outlines, illustrate the points especially +brought out by the Jewish Christian development. + +Confucianism admittedly consists, at least as we have it, in a greatly +complicated system of the direct worship of Nature (Sun, Moon, Stars +especially) and of Ancestors, and of a finely simple system of ethical +rules for man's ordinary social intercourse. That Nature-worship closely +resembles what the Deuteronomic reform fought so fiercely in Israel; and +the immemorial antiquity and still vigorous life of such a worship in +China indicates impressively how little such Nature-worship tends, of +itself, to its own supersession by a definite Theism. And the Ethical +Rules, and their very large observance, illustrate well how real can be +the existence, and the goodness in its own kind, of Natural, This-World +morality, even where it stands all but entirely unpenetrated or +supplemented by any clear and strong supernatural attraction or +conviction. + +Buddhism, in its original form, consisted neither in the Wheel of +Reincarnation alone, nor in _Nirvana_ alone, but precisely in the +combination of the two; for that ceaseless flux of reincarnation was +there felt with such horror, that the _Nirvana_--the condition in which +that flux is abolished--was hailed as a blessed release. The judgement +as to the facts--that all human experience is of sheer, boundless +change--was doubtless excessive; but the value-judgement--that if life +be such pure shiftingness, then the cessation of life is the one end for +man to work and pray for--was assuredly the authentic cry of the human +soul when fully normal and awake. This position thus strikingly confirms +the whole Jewish and Christian persistent search for permanence in +change--for a Simultaneity, the support of our succession. + +And Mohammedanism, both in its striking achievements and in its marked +limitations, indeed also in the presentations of it by its own +spokesmen, appears as a religion primarily not of a special pervasive +spirit and of large, variously applicable maxims, but as one of precise, +entirely immutable rules. Thus we find here something not all unlike, +but mostly still more rigid than, the post-Exilic Jewish +religion--something doubtless useful for certain times and races, but +which could not expand and adapt itself to indefinite varieties of +growths and peoples without losing that interior unity and self-identity +so essential to all living and powerful religion. + + +III + +Let us now attempt, in a somewhat loose and elastic order, a short +allocation and estimate of the facts in past and present religion which +mainly concern the question of Religion and Progress. + +We West Europeans have apparently again reached the fruitful stage when +man is not simply alive to this or that physical or psychic need, nor +even to the practical interest and advantage of this or that Art, +Science, Sociology, Politics, Ethics; but when he awakens further to the +question as to why and how these several activities, all so costly where +at all effectual, can deserve all this sacrifice--can be based in +anything sufficiently abiding and objective. The history of all the past +efforts, and indeed all really adequate richness of immediate outlook, +combine, I think, to answer that only the experience and the conviction +of an Objective Reality distinct from, and more than, man, or indeed +than the whole of the world apprehended by man as less than, or as equal +to, man himself, can furnish sufficiently deep and tenacious roots for +our sense and need of an objective supreme Beauty, Truth, and +Goodness--of a living Reality already overflowing that which, in lesser +degrees and ways, we small realities cannot altogether cease from +desiring to become. It is Religion which, from first to last, but with +increasing purity and power, brings with it this evidence and +conviction. Its sense of the Objective, Full Reality of God, and its +need of Adoration are quite essential to Religion, although considerable +systems, which are largely satisfactory in the more immediate questions +raised by Aesthetics and even by Ethics, and which are sincerely anxious +to do justice also to the religious sense, are fully at work to explain +away these essential characteristics of all wideawake Religion. Paul +Natorp, the distinguished Plato-scholar in Germany, the short-lived +pathetically eloquent M. Guyau in France, and, above all, Benedetto +Croce, the large encyclopaedic mind in Italy, have influenced or led +much of this movement, which, in questions of Religion, has assuredly +not reached the deepest and most tenacious teachings of life. + +The intimations as to this deepest Reality certainly arise within my own +mind, emotion, will; and these my faculties cannot, upon the whole, be +constrained by my fellow mortals; indeed, as men grow more manysidedly +awake, all attempts at any such constraint only arrest or deflect the +growth of these intimations. Yet the dispositions necessary for the +sufficient apprehension of these religious intimations--sincerity, +conscientiousness, docility--are not, even collectively, already +Religion, any more than they are Science or Philosophy. With these +dispositions on our part, objective facts and living Reality can reach +us--and, even so, these facts reach us practically always, at first, +through human teachers already experienced in these things. The need of +such facts and such persons to teach them are, in the first years of +every man, and for long ages in the history of mankind, far more +pressing than any question of toleration. Even vigorous persecution or +keen exclusiveness of feeling have--_pace_ Lord Acton--saved for +mankind, at certain crises of its difficult development, convictions of +priceless worth--as in the Deuteronomic Reform and the Johannine +Writings. In proportion as men become more manysidedly awake, they +acquire at least the capacity for greater sensitiveness concerning the +laws and forces intrinsic to the various ranges and levels of life; and, +where such sensitiveness is really at work, it can advantageously +replace, by means of the spontaneous acceptance of such objective +realities, the constraints of past ages--constraints which now, in any +case, have become directly mischievous for such minds. None the less +will men, after this change as before, require the corporate experience +and manifestation of religion as, in varying degrees and ways, a +permanent necessity for the vigorous life of religion. Indeed, such +corporate tradition operates strongly even where men's spiritual sense +seems most individual, or where, with the retention of some ethical +nobility of outlook, they most keenly combat all and every religious +institution. So with George Fox's doctrine of the Divine Enlightenment +of every soul separately and without mediation of any kind, a doctrine +derived by him from that highly ecclesiastical document, the Gospel of +St. John; and with many a Jacobin's fierce proclamation of the rights of +Man, never far away from reminiscences of St. Paul. + +This permanent necessity of Religious Institutions is primarily a need +for men to teach and exemplify, not simply Natural, This-World Morality, +but a Supernatural, Other-World Ethic; and not simply that abstraction, +Religion in General or a Religious Hypothesis, but that rich concretion, +this or that Historical Religion. In proportion as such an Historical +Religion is deep and delicate, it will doubtless contain affinities with +all that is wholesome and real within the other extant historical +religions. Nevertheless, all religions are effectual through their +special developments, where these developments remain true at all. As +well deprive a flower of its 'mere details' of pistil, stamen, pollen, +or an insect of its 'superfluous' antennae, as simplify any Historical +Religion down to the sorry stump labelled 'the religion of every honest +man'. We shall escape all bigotry, without lapsing into such most unjust +indifferentism, if we vigorously hold and unceasingly apply the doctrine +of such a Church theologian as Juan de Lugo. De Lugo (A.D. 1583-1660), +Spaniard, post-Reformation Roman Catholic, Jesuit, Theological +Professor, and a Cardinal writing in Rome under the eyes of Pope Urban +VIII, teaches that the members of the various Christian sects, of the +Jewish and Mohammedan communions, and of the heathen religions and +philosophical schools, who achieve their salvation, do so, ordinarily, +simply through the aid afforded by God's grace to their good faith in +its instinctive concentration upon, and in its practice of, those +elements in their respective community's worship and teaching, which are +true and good and originally revealed by God.[51] Thus we escape all +undue individualism and all unjust equalization of the (very variously +valuable) religious and philosophical bodies; and yet we clearly hold +the profound importance of the single soul's good faith and religious +instinct, and of the worship or school, be they ever so elementary and +imperfect, which environ such a soul. + +A man's religion, in proportion to its depth, will move in a Concrete +Time which becomes more and more a Partial Simultaneity. And these his +depths then more and more testify to, and contrast with, the Fully +Simultaneous, God. Because man thus lives, not in an ever-equal chain of +mutually exclusive moments, in Clock Time, but in Duration, with its +variously close interpenetrations of the successive parts; and because +these interpenetrations are close in proportion to the richness and +fruitfulness of the durations he lives through; he can, indeed he must, +conceive absolutely perfect life as absolutely simultaneous. God is thus +not Unending, but Eternal; the very fullness of His life leaves no room +or reason for succession and our poor need of it. Dr. F. C. S. Schiller +has admirably drawn out this grand doctrine, with the aid of Aristotle's +Unmoving Action, in _Humanism_, 1903, pp. 204-27. We need only +persistently apprehend this Simultaneity as essential to God, and +Succession as varyingly essential to all creatures, and there remains no +difficulty--at least as regards the Time-element--in the doctrine of +Creation. For only with the existence of creatures does Time thus arise +at all--it exists only in and through them. And assuredly all finite +things, that we know at all, bear traces of a history involving a +beginning and an end. Professor Bernardino Varisco, in his great _Know +Thyself_, has noble pages on this large theme.[52] In any case we must +beware of all more or less Pantheistic conceptions of the simultaneous +life of God and the successive life of creatures as but essential and +necessary elements of one single Divine-Creaturely existence, in the +manner, e.g., of Professor Josiah Royce, in his powerful work _The World +and the Individual_, 2nd series, 1901. All such schemes break down under +an adequate realization of those dread facts error and evil. A certain +real independence must have been left by God to reasonable creatures. +And let it be noted carefully: the great difficulty against all Theism +lies in the terrible reality of Evil; and the deepest adequacy of this +same Theism, especially of Christianity, consists in its practical +attitude towards, and success against, this most real Evil. But +Pantheism increases, whilst seeming to surmount, the theoretical +difficulty, since the world as it stands, and not an Ultimate Reality +behind it, is held to be perfect; and it entirely fails really to +transmute Evil in practice. Theism, no more than any other outlook, +really explains Evil; but it alone, in its fullest, Jewish-Christian +forms, has done more, and better, than explain Evil: it has fully faced, +it has indeed greatly intensified, the problem, by its noble insistence +upon the reality and heinousness of Sin; and it has then overcome all +this Evil, not indeed in theory, but in practice, by actually producing +in the midst of deep suffering, through a still deeper faith and love, +souls the living expression of the deepest beatitude and peace. + +The fully Simultaneous Reality awakens and satisfies man's deepest, most +nearly simultaneous life, by a certain adaptation of its own intrinsic +life to these human spirits. In such varyingly 'incarnational' acts or +action the non-successive God Himself condescends to a certain +successiveness; but this, in order to help His creatures to achieve as +much simultaneity as is compatible with their several ranks and calls. +We must not wonder if, in the religious literature, these condescensions +of God largely appear as though they themselves were more or less +non-successive; nor, again, if the deepest religious consciousness tends +usually to conceive God's outward action, if future, then as proximate, +and, if present, then as strictly instantaneous. For God in Himself is +indeed Simultaneous; and if we try to picture Simultaneity by means of +temporal images at all, then the instant, and not any period long or +short, is certainly nearest to the truth--as regards the form and +vehicle of the experience. + +The greater acts of Divine Condescension and Self-Revelation, our +Religious _Accessions_, have mostly occurred at considerable intervals, +each from the other, in our human history. After they have actually +occurred, these several acts can be compared and arranged, according to +their chief characteristics, and even in a series of (upon the whole) +growing content and worth--hence the Science of Religion. Yet such +Science gives us no power to produce, or even to foresee, any further +acts. These great Accessions of Spiritual Knowledge and Experience are +not the simple result of the conditions obtaining previously in the +other levels of life, or even in that of religion itself; they often +much anticipate, they sometimes greatly lag behind, the rise or decline +of the other kinds of life. And where (as with the great Jewish +Prophets, and, in some degree, with John the Baptist and Our Lord) these +Accessions do occur at times of national stress, these several crises +are, at most, the occasion for the demand, not the cause of the supply. + +The mostly long gaps between these Accessions have been more or less +filled up, amongst the peoples concerned, by varyingly vigorous and +valuable attempts to articulate and systematize, to apply in practice, +and rightly to place (within the other ranges of man's total life) these +great, closely-packed masses of spiritual fact; or to elude, to deflect, +or directly to combat them, or some of their interpretations or +applications. Now fairly steady improvement is possible, desirable, and +largely actual, in the critical sifting and appraisement, as to the +dates and the actual reality, of the historical documents and details of +these Accessions; in the philosophical articulation of their doctrinal +and evidential content; in the finer understanding and wider application +of their ethical demands; and in the greater adequacy (both as to +firmness and comprehensiveness) of the institutional organs and +incorporations special to these same Accessions. All this can and does +progress, but mostly slowly, intermittently, with short violent +paroxysms of excess and long sleepy reactions of defect, with +one-sidedness, travesties, and--worst of all--with worldly indifference +and self-seeking. The grace and aid of the Simultaneous Richness are +here also always necessary; nor can these things ever really progress +except through a deep religious sense--all mere scepticism and all +levelling down are simply so much waste. Still, we can speak of progress +in the Science of Religion more appropriately than we can of progress in +the Knowledge of Religion. + +The Crusades, the Renaissance, the Revolution, no doubt exercised, in +the long run, so potent a secularizing influence, because men's minds +had become too largely other-worldly--had lost a sufficient interest in +this wonderful world; and hence all those new, apparently boundless +outlooks and problems were taken up largely as a revolt and escape from +what looked like a prison-house--religion. Yet through all these violent +oscillations there persisted, in human life, the supernatural need and +call. In this God is the great central interest, love and care of the +soul. We must look to it that both these interests and Ethics are kept +awake, strong and distinct within a costingly rich totality of life: the +Ethic of the honourable citizen, merchant, lawyer--of Confucius and +Socrates; and the Ethic of the Jewish Prophets at their deepest, of the +Suffering Servant, of our Lord's Beatitudes, of St. Paul's great eulogy +of love, of Augustine and Monica at the window in Ostia, of Father +Damian's voluntarily dying a leper amidst the lepers. The Church is the +born incorporation of this pole, as the State is of the other. The +Church indeed should, at its lower limit, also encourage the This-world +Stage; the State, at its higher limit, can, more or less consciously, +prepare us for the Other-World Stage. Both spring from the same God, at +two levels of His action; both concern the same men, at two stages of +their response and need. Yet the primary duty of the State is turned to +this life; the primary care of the Church, to that life--to life in its +deepest depths. + +Will men, after this great war, more largely again apprehend, love, and +practise this double polarity of their lives? Only thus will the truest +progress be possible in the understanding, the application, and the +fruitfulness of Religion, with its great central origin and object, God, +the beginning and end of all our true progress, precisely because He +Himself already possesses immeasurably more than all He helps us to +become,--He Who, even now already, is our Peace in Action, our Joy even +in the Cross. + + +BOOKS FOR REFERENCE + +I. 1. Oswold Kuelpe, _The Philosophy of the Present in Germany_, + English translation. London: George Allen, 1913, _3s. 6d._ + net. + + 2. J. McKeller Stewart, _A Critical Exposition of Bergon's + Philosophy_. London: Macmillan, 1913, _6s._ net. + +II. 1. R. H. Charles, _A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future + Life_. London: A. & C. Black, 1899, _10s. 6d._ net. + + 2. Ernest T. Scott, _The Fourth Gospel_. Edinburgh: T. & T. + Clark, 1906, _6s._ net. + +III. 1. Aliotta, _The Idealistic Reaction against Science_. English + translation. Macmillan, 1914, _12s._ net. + + 2. F. C. Schiller, _Humanism_, Macmillan, 1903, _7s. 6d._ net. + + 3. C. C. J. Webb, _Group Theories of Religion and the Individual_, + Allen and Unwin, 1916, _5s._ net. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[32] _The Idealistic Reaction against Science_, Engl. tr. 1914, pp. 6, +7. + +[33] _A Critical Account of the Philosophy of Lotze_, 1895, p. 104. + +[34] Aliotta, op. cit., pp. 89, 187. + +[35] _Encyl. Brit._, 'Psychology,' 11th ed., p. 577. + +[36] Ed. 1898, p. 90. + +[37] _Discours sur la Methode_, 1637, IVe Partie. + +[38] Aliotta, op. cit., p. 408. + +[39] Ed. 1893, vol. ii, p. 759. + +[40] _First Principles_, 6th ed., 1900, vol. i, p. 67. + +[41] Article, 'Moses,' in _Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart_, +1913. + +[42] Ed. Mangey, vol. i, pp. 44, 49. + +[43] Ibid., pp. 80-179. + +[44] Ibid., pp. 308, 427. + +[45] Ibid., pp. 213, 121, 562, 691. + +[46] _Conf._ x, 13, 2. + +[47] Autumn, 387. + +[48] _Conf._ 1, 6, 3; x, 27; x, 20. + +[49] _Conf._ xi, 13. + +[50] _Die Soziallehren der christlichen Kirchen und Gruppen_, 1912, pp. +263-5. + +[51] _De Fide_, Disp. xix, 7, 10; xx, 107, 194. + +[52] _Cognosci Te Stesso_, 1912, pp. 144-7. + + + + +VI + +MORAL PROGRESS + +L. P. JACKS + + +From the syllabus of all the lectures in this course I gather that every +lecturer on the programme is dealing with the question of moral +progress. This is inevitable. Each lecturer must show that the +particular sort of progress he is dealing with is real or genuine +progress, and this it cannot be unless it is moral. That is itself a +significant fact and throws a valuable light on our subject. It shows +that progress, as it is studied throughout the course, is not progress +in the abstract, whatever that may mean, but progress _for us_ +constituted as we are; and since our constitution is essentially moral +all progress that we can recognize as such must be moral also. Science, +Industry, Government, might all claim progress on their own ground and +in their own nature, but this would not prove progress as we understand +the word, unless it could be shown further that these things contribute +to human betterment in the highest sense of the word. _Their_ progress +might conceivably involve _our_ regress. + +To believe in moral progress as an historical fact, as a process that +has begun, and is going on, and will be continued--that is one thing, +and it is my own position. To believe that this progress is far advanced +is another thing, and is not my position. While believing in Moral +Progress as a fact, I also believe that we are much nearer to the +beginnings of it than the end. We should do well to accustom ourselves +to this thought. Many of our despairs, lamentations, and pessimisms are +disappointments which arise from our extravagant notions of the degree +of progress already attained. There has been a great deal of what I have +called philosophic pharisaism. Perhaps it would be better called aeonic +pharisaism. I mean the spirit in the present age which seems to say 'I +thank thee, O God, that I am not as former ages: ignorant, barbaric, +cruel, unsocial; I read books, ride in aeroplanes, eat my dinner with a +knife and fork, and cheerfully pay my taxes to the State; I study human +science, talk freely about humanity, and spend much of my time in making +speeches on social questions'. Now there is truth in all this, but not +the kind of truth which should lead us to self-flattery. A good rule for +optimists would be this: 'Believe in moral progress, but do not believe +in too much of it.' I think there would be more optimists in the world, +more cheerfulness, more belief in moral progress, if we candidly faced +the fact that morally considered we are still in a neolithic age, not +brutes indeed any longer, and yet not so far outgrown the brutish stage +as to justify these trumpetings. One of the beneficent lessons of the +present war has been to moderate our claims in this respect. It has +revealed us to ourselves as nothing else in history has ever done, and +it has revealed, among other things, that moral progress is not nearly +so advanced as we thought it was. It has been a terrible blow to the +pharisaism of which I have just spoken. It has not discredited science, +nor philosophy, nor government, nor anything else that we value, but it +has shown that these things have not brought us as far as we thought. +That very knowledge, when you come to think of it, is itself a very +distinct step in moral progress. Before the war we were growing morally +conceited; we thought ourselves much better, more advanced in morality, +than we really were, and this conceit was acting as a real barrier to +our farther advance. A sharp lesson was needed to take this conceit out +of us--to remind us that as yet we are only at the bare beginnings of +moral advance--and not, as some of us fondly imagined, next door to the +goal. This sudden awakening to the truth is full of promise for the +future. + +And now what is the cause of these exaggerated notions which so many of +us have entertained? I think they arise from our habit of letting +ourselves be guided by words rather than by realities, by what men are +_saying_ rather than by what they are _doing_, by what teachers are +teaching than by what learners are learning. If you take your stand in +the realm of words, of doctrines, of theories, of philosophies, of +books, preachings, and uttered ideals, you might make out a strong case +for a high degree of moral progress actually attained. But if you ask +how much of this has been learnt by mankind at large, and learnt in such +a way as to issue in practice, you get a different story. We have +attached too much importance to the first story and too little to the +second. There has been a great deal of false emphasis in consequence. +This false emphasis is especially prominent in the education controversy +which is now going on--and the question of moral progress, by the way, +is the question of education in the widest and highest sense of the +term. People seem quite content so long as they can get the right thing +taught. They don't always see that unless the right thing is taught by +the right people and in the right way it will not be _learnt_. Now +education is ultimately a question of what is being _learnt_, not of +what is being _taught_. The process of learning is a very curious and +complicated one, and it often happens that what goes in at the teacher's +end comes out at the pupil's end in a wholly different form and with a +wholly different value; and we have the highest authority for believing +that what really counts is not so much that which goeth into a man but +that which cometh out of him. That applies to all education--especially +moral education. So that if you argue from what has gone into the human +race in the way of moral teaching you may be greatly surprised and +perhaps disappointed when you compare it with what has come out of the +human race in the meantime. What has been taught is not what has been +learnt. It has suffered a sea change in the process. Nor is the question +wholly one of learning. There is the further question of remembering. I +believe that a candid examination of the facts would convince us that +the human race has proved itself a forgetful pupil. It has not always +retained what it has learnt. Emerson has said that no account of the +Holy Ghost has been lost. But how did Emerson find that out? The only +accents Emerson knew of were those which the world happened to have +remembered. If any had been lost in the meantime Emerson naturally would +not know of their existence. I have heard of a functionary, whose +precise office I am not able to define, called 'the Lord's +Remembrancer'. It would be a great help to Moral Progress if we had in +modern life a People's Remembrancer. His place is occupied to some +extent by the study of history, and for that reason one could wish for +the sake of Moral Progress that the study of history were universal. For +my own part I seldom open a book of history without recovering what for +me is a lost account of the Holy Ghost. Next to conceit I reckon +forgetfulness as the greatest enemy of Moral Progress. I suppose Rudyard +Kipling had something of this in mind when he wrote his poem-- + + Lord God of Hosts be with us yet, + Lest we forget, lest we forget. + +Another cause of our over-estimate of Moral Progress is that we have +thought too much of the abstract State and too little of the actual +States now in being. Our devotion to 'the' State as an ideal has led us +to overlook the fact that many actual States represent a form of +morality so low that it is doubtful if it can be called morality at all. +In their relations _with one another_ they display qualities which would +disgrace the brutes. And the worst of it is that at times these States +drag down to their own low level the morality of the individuals +belonging to them. Thus at the present moment we see quite decent +Englishmen and quite decent Germans tearing one another to pieces like +mad dogs, a thing they would never dream of doing as between man and +man, and which they do only because they are in the grip of forces alien +to their own nature. We have overestimated Progress by thinking only of +what is happening inside each of the States. We have forgotten to +consider the bearing of the States to one another, which remains on a +level lower than that of individuals. + +The impression has gone abroad that the nations of the world need to +take _only one step_ from the position where they now stand to +accomplish the final unity of all mankind. Taking any one of these +nations--our own for example--we can trace the steps by which the +warring elements within it have become reconciled, until finally there +has emerged that vast unitary corporation--the British Empire. So with +all the others. What more is required therefore than one step further in +the same direction, to join up all the States into a single world State. +But I am bound to think we are too hasty in treating the unity of +mankind as needing only one step more. It is not so easy as all that. +When you study the process by which unity has been brought about in the +various European communities you find that motives of conquest and +corresponding motives of defence have had a great deal to do with it. +Germany, for example, was built up and now holds together as a fighting +unit. Whether Germany and the other States would still maintain their +cohesion when they were no longer fighting units, and when the motives +of conquest and defence were no longer in operation, is a question on +which I should not like to dogmatize either way. Certainly we have no +right to assume offhand that the unifying process which has given the +nations the mass cohesion and efficiency they require for holding their +own against enemy States would still remain in full power when there +were no longer any enemy States to be considered. + +But what do we mean by Progress? + +Progress may be defined as that process by which a thing advances from a +less to a more complete state of itself. Now whether this process is a +desirable one or not obviously depends on the nature of the thing which +is progressing. Take the largest and most inclusive of all things--the +whole world. And now suppose philosophy to have proved that the world, +the whole world, is advancing from a less to a more complete state of +itself--which as a matter of fact is what the doctrine of evolution +claims to have proved. Ought I to rejoice in this discovery? Will it +give me satisfaction? That clearly depends on the nature of the world. +If I am antecedently assured that the world is good, I shall naturally +rejoice on hearing that it is advancing from a less to a more complete +state of itself. But if the nature of the world is evil, what reason can +I possibly have for rejoicing in its evolution? Assuming the world to be +evil in its essential nature, I for my part, if I were consulted in the +matter, would certainly give my vote against its being allowed to +advance from a less to a more complete state of itself. The less such a +world progresses the easier it will be for moral beings to live in it. +Our interest lies in its remaining as undeveloped as possible. + +Obvious as this seems there are some evolutionists who take a rather +different view. They seem to think that any sort of world, no matter +what its nature might be, would ultimately become a good world if it +were allowed to develop its nature far enough. It is just the fact of +its continually becoming more of itself that makes it good. But this +would compel us to abandon our definition that progress is the advance +of a thing from a less to a more complete state of _itself_. For if +itself were a bad self to begin with all such advance of _itself_ would +only make it worse. It is possible that an essentially bad man like Iago +might be converted into a good one, but not by advancing from a less to +a more complete state of _himself_ as he originally was--unless indeed +we change the hypothesis and suppose that he was not essentially bad to +begin with. So with the world at large. Our nature being what it is, +namely moral, we must first be convinced that the world is in principle +good before we can derive the least satisfaction from knowing that it is +advancing from a less to a more complete state of _itself_. The +alternative doctrine makes a breach in the doctrine of progress which is +inconsistent with its original form. A thing develops by retaining its +essential nature--that is the original form. But a bad world which +develops into a good one doesn't retain its essential nature. There +comes a point somewhere when the next step of progress can be achieved +only by the thing dropping its original nature--a point at which the +thing is no longer becoming more of its former self, which was bad, but +is ceasing to be its former self altogether and becoming something else, +which is good. + +Let us apply this to progress in three specific directions--Science, the +Mechanical Arts, and Government. + +We find that the progress of science has enormously increased man's +power over the forces of nature. Is it a good thing that man's power +over the forces of nature should be increased? That surely depends on +the manner in which this power is used, and this depends again on the +moral nature of man. When we observe, as we may truly observe, +especially at the present time, that of all the single applications +which man has made of science, the most extensive and perhaps the most +efficient is that of devising implements for destroying his brother man, +it is at least permissible to raise the question whether the progress of +science has contributed on the whole to the progress of humanity. Had it +not been for the progress of science, which has enormously increased the +wealth of the world, it is doubtful if this war, which is mainly a war +about wealth, would have taken place at all. Or if a war had broken out, +it would not have involved the appalling destruction of human life and +property we are now witnessing--such that, within a space of two years, +about six million human beings have been killed, thirty-five millions +wounded, and wealth destroyed to the extent of about fifteen thousand +millions sterling--though some say it is very much more. Science taught +us to make this wealth: science has also taught us how to destroy it. +When one thinks of how much of this is attributable to the progress of +science, I say it is _permissible to raise the question_ whether man is +a being who can safely be entrusted with that control over the forces of +nature which science gives him. What if he uses this power, as he +plainly can do, for his own undoing? To ask this, as we can hardly help +asking, is to transfer the question of scientific progress into the +sphere of morality. It is conceivable that the progress of science might +involve for us no progress at all. It might be, and some have feared +that it may become, a step towards the self-destruction of the human +race. + +Take the mechanical arts. The chief effects of progress in the +mechanical arts have been an enormous increase in the material wealth +of mankind, and, partly consequent upon this, a parallel growth of +population in the industrial countries of the world. It is by no means +clear that either of these things constitutes a definite step in human +progress. Consider the growth of population--the immense increase in the +total bulk and volume of the human race. Whether this constitutes a +clear gain to humanity obviously cannot be answered without reference to +moral considerations. To increase the arithmetical quantity of life in +the world can be counted a gain only if the general tendencies of life +are in the right direction. If they are in the wrong direction, then the +more lives there are to yield to these tendencies the less reason has +the moralist to be satisfied with what is happening. No one, so far as I +know, has ever seriously maintained that the end and aim of progress is +to increase the number of human beings up to the limit which the planet +is able to support; though some doctrines if pressed to their conclusion +would lead to that, notably the doctrine that all morality rests +ultimately on the instinct for the preservation and the reproduction of +life. We have first to be convinced that the human race is not on the +wrong road before we can look with complacency on the increase of its +numbers. We may note in this connexion that mankind possesses no sort of +collective control over its own mass or volume. The mass or total number +of lives involved is determined by forces which are not subject to the +unitary direction of any existing human will either individual or +collective. This applies not only to the human race as a whole, but to +particular communities. Their growth is unregulated. They just come to +be what they are in point of size. This fact seems to me a very +important one to bear in mind when we talk of the progress of science +giving us control over the forces of nature. So far no state, no +government, no community has won any effective control over that group +of the forces of nature which determine the total size of the community +in question. It is an aspect of human destiny which appears to be left +to chance; and yet when we consider what it means, is there any aspect +of human destiny on which such tremendous consequences depend? And ought +we not to consider this before claiming, as we so often claim, that the +progress of science has given us control of the forces of nature? It is +strange that this point has not been more considered, especially by +thinkers who are fond of the word 'humanity'--'the good of humanity'--or +the 'greatest happiness of the greatest number'. Humanity has an +arithmetical or quantitative side, and the good of humanity surely +depends, to some extent, on how much humanity there is. I can imagine +many things which might be good for a Greek city state of 10,000 souls +which would not be good, or not good in the same sense, for a community +of 100,000,000 souls. Surely it needs no reasoning to prove that our +power to do our duty to others is affected by the number of others to +whom duty has to be done--it makes a difference where there are 10,000 +of men or 100,000,000. Similarly with the greatest happiness of the +greatest number. What is the _greatest_ number? A great deal that has +been said about this would not have been said if we had considered that +the _greatest number_ itself is left at the disposal of forces outside +the present scope of our own will. Even the proposal to sell our goods +and give the proceeds to the poor would surely be affected, from the +moral point of view, by the number of the poor who were to receive the +distribution. Were this so small that the poor would get five pounds +apiece it would be one question; were it so large that they would +receive a halfpenny apiece it would be another question. Thus we may +conclude that the progress of the mechanical arts with the consequent +increase in the bulk of the human race has not solved the problem of +moral progress, but only placed that problem in a new and more +perplexing context. A similar conclusion would meet us if we were to +consider the parallel increase of the wealth of the world. The moral +question is not about the amount of wealth the world possesses, but +about the way men spend it and the use they make of it. Industrially +speaking, the human race has made its fortune during the last hundred +years. But has it made up its mind what to do with the fortune? And has +its mind been made up in the right way? To raise these questions is to +see that progress from the economic point of view may be the reverse of +progress from the moral. But I shall not further enlarge upon this--the +theme being too familiar. + +The third question which relates itself to moral progress is that of +Government. Now Government, I need hardly say, is not an end in itself. +It is a device which man has set up to help him in attaining the true +end of his life. To make up our minds how we ought to be governed is +therefore impossible unless we have previously made up our minds how we +ought to live. What might be a good government for a people whose end is +industrial success might be a very bad one for a people who had some +other end in view. Well, then, are we well governed at the present time? +Are we better governed than we were? Has progress taken place in this +department? Plainly we cannot answer these questions unless we have +chosen our end in life and are morally satisfied with it. In the history +of modern states we discover a tendency, more strongly marked in some +quarters than in others, towards that form of democracy which is called +responsible self-government. Government of the people, for the people, +by the people. The people are going to govern themselves. But they may +do so in a thousand different ways--each of which has a different moral +value. A people may go wrong just as fatally in governing itself as in +being governed by some external authority. I confess that nothing I can +learn from the history of government entirely reassures me on this +point. I see everywhere progress towards organization, but then one is +bound to ask on what ulterior end is this organization directed? I see +everywhere a growing subordination of the individual to the State. This +may or may not be a very good thing. What _kind of State_ is it to which +the individual is becoming subordinated? There are great differences +among them--some seem to me, one in particular at the present time, +thoroughly bad, and I cannot see that the individual gains morally by +being subordinated to such a State--at least if he gains in one +direction he loses more in another. + +Even the social unity which Governments are capable of achieving must +not be too hastily translated into moral progress. We are entitled to +ask several questions before the one can be equated with the other. To +begin with, do men know what they want to achieve by their unified life? +And if they do know what they want, have we not still the right to +criticize its moral value and say 'this is right' or this is wrong? +Should the time ever come when the common will of mankind should get +itself expressed by the decrees of a universal democracy, would moral +criticism be at an end so far as the said decrees were concerned? For my +part I cannot see that it would. Perhaps it were truer to say that only +then would moral criticism effectively begin. As things now are, we are +prevented from criticizing the common will because none of us knows what +exactly the common will demands. But if it could get itself expressed +and defined by the decrees of a perfect democracy we should know. Those +decrees would reveal the human community to itself, and it is possible +that the revelation would not be altogether agreeable to our moral +sense. We might then discover that the common will is capable of being +grossly immoral. So far it has been impossible for us to make this +discovery because no organ exists for expressing the common will on the +human scale, and even those which express it on the national scale are +not perfect. I am far from saying the discovery would be made; but I +know of no line of argument which rules it out as impossible. Meanwhile +we are scarcely justified in regarding the common will as necessarily +moral until we know more than we do of what precisely it is that the +common will aims at and intends to achieve. To back the common will +through thick and thin, as some of our philosophers seem disposed to do, +is a dangerous speculation--it might perhaps be described as putting +your money on a dark horse. + +This leads me to say a word concerning a phrase which has been much in +use of late--the Collective Wisdom of Mankind, or the Collective Wisdom +of the State. Progress is sometimes defined as a gradual approach to a +state of things where this collective wisdom rules the course of events. +And collective wisdom is sometimes represented as vastly wiser than that +possessed by any individual, even the wisest. + +Now if this really is so it seems pretty obvious that, when the +collective wisdom speaks, no individual can have the right of appeal. +What are you, what am I, that either of us should set up our private +intelligence against the intelligence of forty million of our fellow +citizens? That surely would be a preposterous claim. The collective +wisdom must know best: at least it knows much better than you or I. + +But is the collective wisdom of the State so immensely superior to that +of the individual, and of necessity so? Have we any means of bringing +the matter to the test? It is extremely difficult to do so. Not until +we make the experiment do we find how rare are the occasions of which we +can say that then and there the collective wisdom of the community +fairly and fully expressed itself. Acts of Parliament are not good +examples. They usually represent not the collective wisdom of the whole +community, but the wisdom of the majority after it has been checked, +modified, and perhaps nullified by the opposing wisdom of an almost +equal minority. Take as an example the history of the Irish Question. +How difficult it is to put one's finger on any moment in that tangled +story and say that then and there the collective wisdom of the community +knew what it wanted to do and did it! So with almost everything else. + +Now if there be such a thing as the collective wisdom of the State I +suppose that the moment when we are most likely to find it in action is +the moment when one State has dealings with another State. That surely +is a fair test. If States possess collective wisdom they ought to show +its existence and measure when they confront one another _as +States_--when State calls to State across the great deeps of +international policy. What should we say of any State which claimed +collective wisdom only when dealing with its own individual +members--with you and me--but dropped the claim when the question was +one of reasonable intercourse with another State similarly endowed? This +we should say is a very dubious claim. + +Well, how stands the matter when this test is applied? The present war +provides the answer. The war arose out of a type of quarrel which, had +it occurred between half a dozen individuals of average intelligence, +would have been amicably settled, by reasonable human intercourse, in +twenty minutes. Does not this afford a rough measure of the collective +wisdom of such States as at present exist in this world? Does it not +suggest that they have little faculty of reasonable intercourse with +one another? And when you say _that_ of any being, or any collection of +beings, do you not put it pretty low down in the scale of intelligence? +It is literally true that these States do not understand one another. +Thus we are driven back upon a plain alternative; either the States do +not represent collective wisdom, or else this collective wisdom is one +of the lowest forms of wisdom now extant on this planet. In either case +we must be very cautious in our use of the phrase. We must not infer +moral progress from the reign of collective wisdom until we are assured +that collective wisdom is really as wise as some of its devotees assume +it to be. + +About the idea of moral progress, which is only another name for the +idea of progress in its widest form, I need say little, the question +having been adequately treated by other lecturers. But I will add this. +Belief in moral progress is a belief which no man can live without, and, +at the same time, a belief which cannot be proved by any appeal to human +experience. We cannot live without it, because life is just the process +of reaching forward to a better form of itself. Were a man to say that +since the world began no moral progress has taken place he would thereby +show his latent belief in moral progress. For no man would take the +trouble to deny moral progress unless he believed that the world would +in some way be made better by his denial. He would not even trouble to +come to a private conclusion in the matter unless he believed that his +private conclusion was something to the good. In that sense perhaps we +may say that moral progress is proved, for the best proof of any belief +is that it remains indispensable to the life we have to live. But the +appeal to experience would not prove it--and for this reason. A +progressive world is a world which not only makes gains, but _keeps_ its +gains when they are made. If the Kingdom of Heaven were to become a +fact to-morrow, that of itself would not prove progress, if you admit +the possibility that the world might hereafter retreat from the position +it had won. That possibility you could never rule out--except by an +appeal to faith. A world which attained the goal and then lost it would +be a greater failure, from the point of view of moral progress, than one +which never attained the goal at all. The doctrine that the gains of +morality can never be lost is widely held; but it does not rest on a +philosophic or a scientific basis. As Hume taught long ago, you cannot +infer an infinite conclusion from finite data--and in this case the +conclusion is infinite and the data are finite. They are not only finite +but various: some pointing one way, some another. + +Finally we cannot prove moral progress by appeal to any objective +standard, such as the amount of happiness existing in the world at +successive dates. Suppose you were able to show that, up to date, the +amount of happiness in the world has shown a steady increase until it +has reached the grand sum total now existing. Now suppose that you were +transferred to another planet where the conditions were the exact +opposite: where the inhabitants ages ago started with the happiness we +now possess, and gradually declined until, at the present moment, they +are no happier than the human race was at the first stage of its career. +Now add together the totals of happiness for both your worlds, the +ascending world which starts with the minimum and ends with the maximum, +the declining world which starts with the maximum and ends with the +minimum. The grand totals in both cases are exactly the same. So far as +the total result is concerned, the declining world has just as much to +show for itself as the ascending. Valued in terms of happiness, the one +world would be worth as much as the other. + +And yet we know that the value of these two worlds is not the same. The +ascending is worth a lot more than the descending. Why? I leave you with +that conundrum. Answer it, and you have the key to the meaning of Moral +Progress. + + +BOOKS FOR REFERENCE + +T. H. Green, _Prolegomena to Ethics_, Book III, ch. 3. + +Lecky, _History of European Morals_, ch. 1. + +Spencer, _Data of Ethics_, ch. 13 to 14. + + + + +VII + +PROGRESS IN GOVERNMENT + +A. E. ZIMMERN + + +When I was asked to speak to you on the subject of Progress in +Government I gladly accepted, for it is a subject on which I have +reflected a good deal. But when I came to think over what I should say, +I saw that you had asked me for the impossible. For what is Government? +I do not know whether there are any here for whom Government means no +more than a policeman, or a ballot-box, or a list of office-holders. The +days of such shallow views are surely over. Government is the work of +ordering the external affairs and relationships of men. It covers all +the activities of men as members of a community--social, industrial, and +religious as well as political in the narrower sense. It is concerned, +as the ancients had it, with 'that which is public or common', what the +Greeks called [Greek: to koinon] and the Romans _res publica_. The Old +English translation of these classical terms is 'The Commonwealth' or +Common Weal; and I do not see that we can do better than adopt that +word, with its richness of traditional meaning and its happy association +of the two conceptions, too often separated in modern minds, of Wealth +and Welfare. + +Our subject then is the Progress of the Commonwealth or, in other words, +the record of the course of the common life of mankind in the world. It +is a theme which really underlies all the other subjects of discussion +at this week's meetings: for it is only the existence of the +Commonwealth and its organized efforts to preserve and sustain the life +of the individuals composing it, which have made possible the +achievements of mankind in the various separate fields of effort which +are claiming your attention. Lord Acton spent a lifetime collecting +material for a History of Liberty. He never wrote it: but, if he had, it +would have been a History of Mankind. A History of Government or of the +Commonwealth would be nothing less. Such is the nature of the invitation +so kindly given to me and so cheerfully accepted. If you could wait a +lifetime for the proper treatment of the subject I would gladly give the +time; for, in truth, it is worth it. + +What is the nature of this common life of mankind and with what is it +concerned? The subjects of its concern are as wide as human nature +itself. We cannot define them in a formula: for human nature overleaps +all formulas. Whenever men have tried to rule regions of human activity +and aspiration out of the common life of mankind, and to hedge them +round as private or separate or sacred or by any other kind of taboo, +human nature has always ended by breaking through the hedges and +invading the retreat. Man is a social animal. If he retires to a +monastery he finds he has carried problems of organization with him, as +the promoters of this gathering would confess you have brought with you +here. If he shuts himself up in his home as a castle, or in a workshop +or factory as the domain of his own private power, social problems go +with him thither, and the long arm of the law will follow after. If he +crosses the seas like the Pilgrim Fathers, to worship God unmolested in +a new country, or, like the merchant-venturers, to fetch home treasure +from the Indies, he will find himself unwittingly the pioneer of +civilization and the founder of an Empire or a Republic. In the life of +our fellows, in the Common Weal, we live and move and have our being. +Let us recall some wise words on this subject from the Master of +Balliol's book on the Middle Ages. 'The words "Church" and "State"', he +writes, + + represent what ought to be an alliance, but is, in modern + times, at best a dualism and often an open warfare.... The + opposition of Church and State expresses an opposition + between two sides of human nature which we must not too + easily label as good and evil, the heavenly and the earthly, + the sacred and the profane. For the State, too, is divine as + well as the Church, and may have its own ideals and + sacramental duties and its own prophets, even its own + martyrs. The opposition of Church and State is to be + regarded rather as the pursuit of one great aim, pursued by + contrasted means. The ultimate aim of all true human + activity must be in the noble words of Francis Bacon 'the + glory of God and the relief of man's estate'.[53] + +Bacon's words form a fitting starting-point for our reflections: for +they bring vividly before us both the idealism which should inspire all +who labour at the task of government and the vastness and variety of the +field with which they are concerned. Looked at in this broad light, the +history of man's common life in the world will, I think, show two great +streams of progress--the progress of man over Nature, or, as we say +to-day, in the control of his environment, and the progress of man in +what is essentially a moral task--the art of living together with his +fellows. These two aspects of human activity and effort are in constant +contact and interaction. Studied together, they reveal an advance which, +in spite of man's ever-present moral weakness, may be described as an +advance from Chaos to Cosmos in the organization of the world's common +life; yet they are so distinct in method and spirit that they can best +be described separately. + +Let us first, then, consider the history of Government, as a record of +the progress of man's power over Nature. + +Human history, in this sphere, is the story of man making himself at +home in the world. When human history begins we find men helpless, +superstitious, ignorant, the plaything of blind powers in the natural +and animal world. Superstitious because he was helpless, helpless +because he was ignorant, he eked out a bare existence rather by avoiding +than controlling the forces in the little world by which he found +himself surrounded. Human life in its earliest stages is, as Hobbes +described it, nasty, brutish, and short. Man was the slave of his +environment. He has risen to become its master. The world, as the +prophetic eye of Francis Bacon foretold, has become 'The Kingdom of +Man'. + +How complete this conquest is, can best be realized perhaps by +considering man's relation to the lower animals. When history opens, the +animals are in their element; it is man who is the interloper. Two +thousand years ago it was not the Society of Friends but wolves and wild +boars who felt themselves at home on the site of Bournville Garden +Village. To-day we are surprised when we read that in remote East Africa +lions and giraffes venture occasionally to interfere in the murderous +warfare between man and man. Man has imposed himself on the animals, by +dint of his gradual accumulation of knowledge and his consequent power +of organization and government. He has destroyed the conditions under +which the animals prospered. He has, as we might say, destroyed their +home life, exposing them to dangers of his own making against which they +are now as powerless as he was once against them. 'It is a remarkable +thing,' writes Sir E. Ray Lankester, + + which possibly may be less generally true than our present + knowledge seems to suggest--that the adjustment of organisms + to their surroundings is so severely complete in Nature + apart from Man, that diseases are unknown as constant and + normal phenomena under those conditions. It is no doubt + difficult to investigate this matter, since the presence of + Man as an observer itself implies human intervention. But it + seems to be a legitimate view that every disease to which + animals (and probably plants also) are liable, excepting as + a transient and very exceptional occurrence, is due to Man's + interference. The diseases of cattle, sheep, pigs, and + horses are not known except in domesticated herds and those + wild creatures to which Man's domesticated productions have + communicated them. The trypanosome lives in the blood of + wild game and of rats without producing mischief. The hosts + have become tolerant of the parasite. It is only when man + brings his unselected, humanly-nurtured races of cattle and + horses into contact with the parasite, that it is found to + have deadly properties. The various cattle-diseases which in + Africa have done so much harm to native cattle, and have in + some regions exterminated big game, have _per contra_ been + introduced by man through his importation of diseased + animals of his own breeding from Europe. Most, if not all, + animals in extra-human conditions, including the minuter + things such as insects, shellfish, and invisible aquatic + organisms, have been brought into a condition of + 'adjustment' to their parasites as well as to the other + conditions in which they live: it is this most difficult and + efficient balance of Nature which Man everywhere upsets.[54] + +And Sir E. Ray Lankester goes on to point out the moral to be drawn from +this development. He points out that + + civilized man has proceeded so far in his interference with + extra-human nature, has produced for himself and the living + organisms associated with him such a special state of things + by his rebellion against natural selection and his defiance + of Nature's pre-human dispositions, that he must either go + on and acquire firmer control of the conditions, or perish + miserably by the vengeance certain to fall on the + half-hearted meddler in great affairs. We may indeed compare + civilized man to a successful rebel against Nature, who, by + every step forward, renders himself liable to greater and + greater penalties, and so cannot afford to pause or fail in + one single step. Or again we may think of him as the heir to + a vast and magnificent kingdom, who has been finally + educated so as to take possession of his property, and is at + length left alone to do his best; he has wilfully abrogated, + in many important respects, the laws of his mother Nature by + which the kingdom was hitherto governed; he has gained some + power and advantage by so doing, but is threatened on every + hand by dangers and disasters hitherto restrained: no + retreat is possible--his only hope is to control, as he + knows that he can, the sources of these dangers and + disasters. + +The time will come, not too long hence, as I believe, when men have +realized, with the scientists, that the world is one kingdom not many, +and these problems of man's relation to his non-human environment will +be the first concern of statesmen and governors. In some of our tropical +colonies they have, perforce, become so already. If you live on the Gold +Coast, the war against malaria cannot help seeming more important to you +than the war against German trade: and in parts of Central Africa the +whole possibility of continued existence centres round the presence or +absence of the tsetse fly which is the carrier of sleeping sickness. +Some day, when means have been adopted for abating our fiercer +international controversies, we shall discover that in these and kindred +matters lies the real province of world-politics. When that day comes +the chosen representatives of the human race will see their +constituents, as only philosophers see them now, as the inheritors of a +great tradition of service and achievement, and as trustees for their +successors of the manifold sources of human happiness which the advance +of knowledge has laid open to us. + +If the first and most important of these sources is the discovery of +the conditions of physical well-being, the second is the discovery of +means of communication between the widely separate portions of man's +kingdom. The record of the process of bringing the world under the +control of the organized government of man is largely the record of the +improvement of communications. Side by side with the unending struggle +of human reason against cold and hunger and disease we can watch the +contest against distance, against ocean and mountain and desert, against +storms and seasons. There can be few subjects more fascinating for a +historian to study than the record of the migrations of the tribes of +men. He might begin, if he wished, with the migrations of animals and +describe the westward progress of the many species whose course can be +traced by experts along the natural highways of Western Europe. Some of +them, so the books tell us, reached the end of their journey while +Britain was still joined to the continent. Others arrived too late and +were cut off by the straits of Dover. I like to form an imaginary +picture, which the austerity of the scientific conscience will, I know, +repudiate with horror, of the unhappy congregation, mournfully assembled +bag and baggage on the edge of the straits and gazing wistfully across +at the white cliffs of England, which they were not privileged to +reach--_tendentesque manus ripae ulterioris amore_, 'stretching out +their paws in longing for the further bank.' + +Our historian would then go on to describe the early 'wanderings of +peoples' (_Voelkerwanderungen_) how whole tribes would move off in the +spring-time in the search for fresh hunting-grounds or pasture. He would +trace the course of that westward push which, starting from somewhere in +Asia, brought its impact to bear on the northern provinces of the Roman +Empire and eventually loosened its whole fabric. He would show how +Europe, as we know it, was welded into unity by the attacks of +migratory warriors on three flanks--the Huns and the Tartars, a host of +horsemen riding light over the steppes of Russia and Hungary: the Arabs, +bearing Islam with them on their camels as they moved westward along +North Africa and then pushing across into Spain: and the Northmen of +Scandinavia, those carvers of kingdoms and earliest conquerors of the +open sea, who left their mark on England and northern France, on Sicily +and southern Italy, on the Balkan Peninsula, on Russia, on Greenland, +and as far as North America. Then, passing to Africa and Asia, he would +describe the life of the pack-saddle and the caravan, the long and +mysterious inland routes from the Mediterranean to Nubia and Nigeria, or +from Damascus with the pilgrims to Medina, and the still longer and more +mysterious passage through the ancient oases of Turkestan, now buried in +sand, along which, as recent discoveries have shown us, Greece and +China, Christianity and Buddhism, exchanged their arts and ideas and +products. Then he would tell of the great age of maritime discovery, of +the merchant-adventurers and buccaneers, of their gradual transformation +into trading companies, in the East and in the West, from companies to +settlements, from settlements to colonies. Then perhaps he would close +by casting a glimpse at the latest human migration of all, that which +takes place or took place up to 1914, at the rate of a million a year +from the Old World into the United States. He would take the reader to +Ellis Island in New York harbour, where the immigrants emerge from the +steerage to face the ordeal of the Immigration Officer. He would show +how the same causes, hunger, fear, persecution, restlessness, ambition, +love of liberty, which set the great westward procession in motion in +the early days of tribal migration, are still alive and at work to-day +among the populations of Eastern Europe. He would look into their minds +and read the story of the generations of their nameless fore-runners; +and he would ask himself whether rulers and statesmen have done all that +they might to make the world a home for all its children, for the poor +as for the rich, for the Jew as for the Gentile, for the yellow and +dark-skinned as for the white. + +Let us dwell for a moment more closely on one phase of this record of +the conquest of distance. The crucial feature in that struggle was the +conquest of the sea. The sea-surface of the world is far greater than +its land-surface, and the sea, once subdued, is a far easier and more +natural means of transport and communication. For the sea, the +uncultivable sea, as Homer calls it, is itself a road, whereas on earth, +whether it be mountain or desert or field, roads have first painfully to +be made. Man's definitive conquest of the sea dates from the middle of +the fifteenth century when, by improvements in the art of sailing and by +the extended use of the mariner's compass, it first became possible to +undertake long voyages with assurance. These discoveries are associated +with the name of Prince Henry of Portugal, whose life-long ambition it +was, to quote the words engraved on his monument at the southern +extremity of Portugal, 'to lay open the regions of West Africa across +the sea, hitherto not traversed by man, that thence a passage might be +made round Africa to the most distant parts of the East.' + +The opening of the high seas which resulted from Prince Henry's +activities is one of the most momentous events in human history. Its +effect was, sooner or later, to unite the scattered families of mankind, +to make the problems of all the concern of all: to make the world one +place. Prince Henry and his sailors were, in fact, the pioneers of +internationalism, with all the many and varied problems that +internationalism brings with it. 'In 1486,' says the most recent history +of this development, + + Bartholomew Dias was carried by storm beyond the sight of + land, round the southern point of Africa, and reached the + Great Fish River, north of Algoa Bay. On his return journey + he saw the promontory which divides the oceans, as the + narrow waters of the Bosphorus divide the continents, of the + East and West. As in the crowded streets of Constantinople, + so here, if anywhere, at this awful and solitary headland + the elements of two hemispheres meet and contend. As Dias + saw it, so he named it, 'The Cape of Storms'. But his + master, John II, seeing in the discovery a promise that + India, the goal of the national ambition, would be reached, + named it with happier augury 'The Cape of Good Hope'. No + fitter name could have been given to that turning-point in + the history of mankind. Europe, in truth, was on the brink + of achievements destined to breach barriers, which had + enclosed and diversified the nations since the making of the + World, and commit them to an intercourse never to be broken + again so long as the World endures. That good rather than + evil may spring therefrom is the greatest of all human + responsibilities.[55] + +The contrast between Constantinople and the Cape, so finely drawn in +these lines, marks the end of the age when land-communications and +land-power were predominant over sea-power. The Roman Empire was, and +could only be, a land-power. It is no accident that the British +Commonwealth is, as the American Commonwealth is fast becoming, +predominantly a sea-power. + +How was 'the greatest of all human responsibilities', arising from this +new intercourse of races, met? Knowledge, alas, is as much the devil's +heritage as the angels': it may be used for ill, as easily as for good. +The first explorers, and the traders who followed them, were not +idealists but rough adventurers. Breaking in, with the full tide of +western knowledge and adaptability, to the quiet backwaters of primitive +conservatism, they brought with them the worse rather than the better +elements of the civilization, the control of environment, of which they +were pioneers. To them Africa and the East represented storehouses of +treasure, not societies of men; and they treated the helpless natives +accordingly. + + England and Holland as well as the Latin monarchies treated + the natives of Africa as chattels without rights and as + instruments for their own ends, and revived slavery in a + form and upon a scale more cruel than any practised by the + ancients. The employment of slaves on her own soil has + worked the permanent ruin of Portugal. The slave trade with + America was an important source of English wealth, and the + philosopher John Locke did not scruple to invest in it. + There is no European race which can afford to remember its + first contact with the subject peoples otherwise than with + shame, and attempts to assess their relative degrees of + guilt are as fruitless as they are invidious. The question + of real importance is how far these various states were able + to purge themselves of the poison, and rise to a higher + realization of their duty towards their races whom they were + called by the claims of their own superior civilization to + protect. The fate of that civilization itself hung upon the + issue.[56] + +The process by which the Western peoples have risen to a sense of their +duty towards their weaker and more ignorant fellow citizens is indeed +one of the chief stages in that progress of the common life of mankind +with which we are concerned. + +How is that duty to be exercised? The best way in which the strong can +help the weak is by making them strong enough to help themselves. The +white races are not strong because they are white, or virtuous because +they are strong. They are strong because they have acquired, through a +long course of thought and work, a mastery over Nature and hence over +their weaker fellow men. It is not virtue but knowledge to which they +owe their strength. No doubt much virtue has gone to the making of that +knowledge--virtues of patience, concentration, perseverance, +unselfishness, without which the great body of knowledge of which we are +the inheritors could never have been built up. But we late-born heirs of +the ages have it in our power to take the knowledge of our fathers and +cast away any goodness that went to its making. We have come into our +fortune: it is ours to use it as we think best. We cannot pass it on +wholesale, and at one step, to the more ignorant races, for they have +not the institutions, the traditions, the habits of mind and character, +to enable them to use it. Those too we must transmit or develop together +with the treasure of our knowledge. For the moment we stand in the +relation of trustees, teachers, guides, governors, but always in their +own interest and not ours, or rather, in the interest of the +commonwealth of which we and they, since the opening of the high seas, +form an inseparable part. + +It has often been thought that the relation of the advanced and backward +races should be one purely of philanthropy and missionary enterprise +rather than of law and government. It is easy to criticize this by +pointing to the facts of the world as we know it--to the existing +colonial empires of the Great Powers and to the vast extension of the +powers of civilized governments which they represent. But it may still +be argued that the question is not Have the civilized powers annexed +large empires? but Ought they to have done so? Was such an extension of +governmental authority justifiable or inevitable? Englishmen in the +nineteenth century, like Americans in the twentieth, were slow to admit +that it was; just as the exponents of _laissez-faire_ were slow to +admit the necessity for State interference with private industry at +home. But in both cases they have been driven to accept it by the +inexorable logic of facts. What other solution of the problem, indeed, +is possible? 'Every alternative solution', as a recent writer +remarks,[57] + + breaks down in practice. To stand aside and do nothing under + the plea that every people must be left free to manage its + own affairs, and that intervention is wicked, is to repeat + the tragic mistake of the Manchester School in the economic + world which protested against any interference by the State + to protect workmen ... from the oppression and rapacity of + employers, on the ground that it was an unwarranted + interference with the liberty of the subject and the freedom + of trade and competition. To prevent adventurers from + entering the territory is impossible, unless there is some + civilized authority within it to stop them through its + police. To shut off a backward people from all contact with + the outside world by a kind of blockade is not only + unpracticable, but is artificially to deny them the chances + of education and progress. The establishment of a genuine + government by a people strong enough and liberal enough to + ensure freedom under the law and justice for all is the only + solution.... They must undertake this duty, not from any + pride of dominion, or because they wish to exploit their + resources, but in order to protect them alike from + oppression and corruption, by strict laws and strict + administration, which shall bind the foreigner as well as + the native, and then they must gradually develop, by + education and example, the capacity in the natives to manage + their own affairs. + +Thus we see that the progress in knowledge and in the control of their +environment made by the civilized peoples has, in fact and inevitably, +led to their leadership in government also, and given them the +predominant voice in laying down the lines along which the common life +of mankind is to develop. If we are to look for the mainspring of the +world's activities, for the place where its new ideas are thought out, +its policies framed, its aspirations cast into practical shape, we must +not seek it in the forests of Africa or in the interior of China, but in +those busy regions of the earth's surface where the knowledge, the +industries, and all the various organizations of government and control +find their home. Because organization is embodied knowledge, and because +knowledge is power, it is the Great Powers, as we truly name them,[58] +who are predominantly responsible for the government of the world and +for the future of the common life of mankind. + +In the exercise of this control the world has already, in many respects, +become a single organism. The conquest of distance in the fifteenth +century was the beginning of a process which led, slowly but inevitably, +to the widening of the boundaries of government. Two discoveries made +about the same time accentuated the same tendency. By the invention of +gunpowder the people of Europe were given an overwhelming military +superiority over the dwellers in other continents. By the invention of +printing, knowledge was internationalized for all who had the training +to use it. Books are the tools of the brain-worker all the world over; +but, unlike the file and the chisel, the needle and the hammer, books +not only create, but suggest. A new idea is like an electric current set +running throughout the world, and no man can say into what channels of +activity it may not be directed. + +But neither travel nor conquest nor books and the spread of ideas caused +so immense a transformation in the common life of mankind as the process +beginning at the end of the eighteenth century which is known to +historians as the Industrial Revolution. As we have spoken of the +conquest of distance perhaps a better name for the Industrial +Revolution would be the Conquest of Organization. For it was not the +discovery of the steam-engine or the spinning-jenny which constituted +the revolution: it was the fact that men were now in a position to apply +these discoveries to the organization of industry. The ancient Greeks +played with the idea of the steam-engine: it was reserved for +eighteenth-century England to produce a generation of pioneers endowed +with the knowledge, the power, the foresight, and the imagination to +make use of the world-transforming potentialities of the idea. The +Industrial Revolution, with its railways and steamships, telegraphs and +telephones, and now its airships and submarines and wireless +communication, completed the conquest of distance. Production became +increasingly organized on international lines. Men became familiar with +the idea of an international market. Prices and prospects, booms and +depressions, banking and borrowing, became international phenomena. The +organization of production led to an immensely rapid increase of wealth +in Western Europe. The application of that wealth to the development of +the world's resources in and outside Europe led to a correspondingly +huge advance in trade and intercourse. The breakfast-table in an +ordinary English home to-day is a monument to the achievements of the +Industrial Revolution and to the solid reality of the economic +internationalism which resulted from it. There is still poverty in +Western Europe, but it is preventable poverty. Before the Industrial +Revolution, judged by a modern standard, there was nothing but poverty. +The satisfying physical and economic condition which we describe by the +name of comfort did not exist. The Italian historian Ferrero, in one of +his essays, recommends those who have romantic yearnings after the good +old times to spend one night on what our forefathers called a bed. Mr. +Coulton, in his books on the Middle Ages, has used some very plain +language on the same text. And Professor Smart, in his recently +published posthumous work, pointing a gentle finger of rebuke at certain +common Socialist fantasies, remarks: + + There never was a golden age of equality of wealth: there + was rather a leaden one of inequality of poverty.... We + should speak more guardedly of the riches of the old world. + A careful examination of any old book would show that the + most splendid processions of pomp and luxury in the Middle + Ages were poor things compared to the parade of a modern + circus on its opening day.[59] + +Such prosperity as we enjoy to-day, such a scene as we can observe on +these smiling outskirts of Birmingham, is due to man's Conquest of +Organization and to the consequent development and linking-up, by mutual +intercourse and exchange, of the economic side of the world's life. + +So far we have been watching the progress of man in his efforts to 'make +himself at home' in the world. We have seen him becoming more skilful +and more masterful century by century, till in these latter days the +whole world is, as it were, at his service. He has planted his flag at +the two poles: he has cut a pathway for his ships between Asia and +Africa, and between the twin continents of America: he has harnessed +torrents and cataracts to his service: he has conquered the air and the +depths of the sea: he has tamed the animals: he has rooted out +pestilence and laid bare its hidden causes: and he is penetrating +farther and ever farther in the discovery of the causes of physical and +mental disease. He has set his foot on the neck of Nature. But the last +and greatest conquest is yet before him. He has yet to conquer himself. +Victorious against Nature, men are still at war, nay, more than ever at +war, amongst themselves. How is it that the last century and a half, +which have witnessed so unparalleled an advance in the organization of +the common life of man on the material side, should have been an age of +wars and rumours of wars, culminating in the vastest and most +destructive conflict that this globe of ours has ever witnessed? What +explanation could we give of this to a visitor from the moon or to those +creatures of inferior species whom, as Sir E. Ray Lankester has told us, +it is our function, thanks to our natural superiority, to command and +control? + +This brings us to the second great branch of our subject--the progress +of mankind in the art of living together in the world. + +Government, as we have seen, covers the whole social life of man: for +the principles that regulate human association are inherent in the +nature of man. But in what follows we shall perforce confine ourselves +mainly to the sphere of what is ordinarily called politics, that is to +the recognized and authoritative form of human association called the +State, as opposed to the innumerable subordinate or voluntary bodies and +relationships, which pervade every department of man's common life. + +The progress of Government in this second sphere may be defined as the +deepening and extension of man's duty towards his neighbour. It is to be +reckoned, not in terms of knowledge and organization, but of character. +The ultimate goal of human government, in the narrower sense, as of all +social activity--let us never forget it--is liberty, to set free the +life of the spirit. 'Liberty,' said Lord Acton, who could survey the +ages with a wealth of knowledge to which no other man, perhaps, ever +attained, 'Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is +itself the highest political end. It is not for the sake of a good +public administration that it is required but for security in the +pursuit of the highest objects of civil society and of private +life.'[60] Government is needed in order to enable human life to become, +not efficient or well-informed or well-ordered, but simply good; and +Lord Acton believed, as the Greeks and generations of Englishmen +believed before him, that it is only in the soil of liberty that the +human spirit can grow to its full stature, and that a political system +based upon any other principle than that of responsible self-government +acts as a bar at the outset to the pursuit of what he called 'the +highest objects of civil society or of private life'. For though a +slave, or a man living under a servile political system, may develop +many fine qualities of character: yet such virtues will, in Milton's +words, be but 'fugitive and cloistered', 'unexercised and unbreathed'. +For liberty, and the responsibilities that it involves, are the school +of character and the appointed means by which men can best serve their +neighbours. A man deprived of such opportunities, cut off from the +quickening influence of responsibility, has, as Homer said long ago +'lost half his manhood'. He may be a loyal subject, a brave soldier, a +diligent and obedient workman: but he will not be a full-grown man. +Government will have starved and stunted him in that which it is the +supreme object of government to develop and set free. + +It is idle, then, to talk in general terms about the extension of +government as a good thing, whether in relation to the individual +citizen or to the organization of the world into an international State. +We have always first to ask: What kind of Government? On what principles +will it be based? What ideal will it set forth? What kind of common life +will it provide or allow to its citizens? If the whole world were +organized into one single State, and that State, supreme in its control +over Nature, were armed with all the knowledge and organization that +the ablest and most farseeing brains in the world could supply, yet +mankind might be worse off under its sway, in the real essentials of +human life, than if they were painted savages. 'Though I have the gift +of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge: and though I +have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, +I am nothing.' Government may be the organization of goodness, or the +organization of evil. It may provide the conditions by which the common +life of society can develop along the lines of man's spiritual nature: +or it may take away the very possibility of such a development. Till we +know what a Government stands for, do not let us judge it by its +imposing externals of organization. The Persian Empire was more imposing +than the Republics of Greece: Assyria and Babylon than the little tribal +divisions of Palestine: the Spanish Empire than the cities of the +Netherlands. There is some danger that, in our new-found sense of the +value of knowledge in promoting happiness, we should forget what a +tyrant knowledge, like wealth, can become. No doubt, just as we saw that +moral qualities, patience and the like, are needed for the advancement +of knowledge, so knowledge is needed, and greatly needed, in the task of +extending and deepening the moral and spiritual life of mankind. But we +cannot measure that progress in terms of knowledge or organization or +efficiency or culture. We need some other standard by which to judge +between Greece and Persia, between Israel and Babylon, between Spain and +the Netherlands, between Napoleon and his adversaries, and between +contending powers in the modern world. What shall that standard be? + +It must be a similar standard--let us boldly say it--to that by which we +judge between individuals. It must be a standard based on our sense of +right and wrong. But right and wrong in themselves will not carry us +very far, any more than they will carry the magistrate on the bench or +the merchant in his counting-house. Politics, like business, is not the +whole of life--though some party politicians and some business men think +otherwise--but a department of life: both are means, not ends; and as +such they have developed special rules and codes of their own, based on +experience in their own special department. In so far as they are framed +in accordance with man's spiritual nature and ideals these rules may be +considered to hold good and to mark the stage of progress at which +Politics and Business have respectively arrived in promoting the common +weal in their own special sphere. With the rules of business, or what is +called Political Economy, we have at the moment no concern. It is the +rules of politics, or the working experience of rulers, crystallized in +what is called Political Science or Political Philosophy, to which we +must devote a few moments' attention. + +We are all of us, of course, political philosophers. Whether we have +votes or not, whether we are aware of it or not, we all have views on +political philosophy and we are all constantly making free use of its +own peculiar principles and conceptions. Law, the State, Liberty, +Justice, Democracy are words that are constantly on our lips. Let us try +to form a clear idea of the place which these great historic ideals +occupy in the progress of mankind. + +The great political thinkers of the world have always been clear in +their own minds as to the ultimate goal of their own particular study. +Political thought may be said to have originated with the Jewish +prophets, who were the first to rebuke kings to their faces and to set +forth the spiritual aims of politics--to preach Righteousness and Mercy +as against Power and Ambition and Self-interest. Their soaring +imagination, less systematic than the Greek intellect, was wider in its +sweep and more farseeing in its predictions. 'As the earth bringeth +forth her bud and as the garden causeth the things sown in it to spring +forth', says Isaiah, in magnificent anticipation of the doctrine of +Natural Law, 'so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to +spring forth before all the nations.' 'Peace, peace, to him that is far +off, and to him that is near, saith the Lord, and I will heal him: but +the wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters +cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, for the wicked.' +'Out of Zion shall go forth the Law and the word of the Lord from +Jerusalem. And he shall judge between the nations and shall reprove many +peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their +spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against +nation, neither shall they learn war any more.'[61] + +It was, however, Plato and Aristotle who first made politics a branch of +separate study: and, unlike many of their modern successors, they +pursued it throughout in close connexion with the kindred studies of +ethics and psychology. Their scope was, of course, confined to the field +of their own experience, the small self-contained City-States of Greece, +and it did not fall within their province to foreshadow, like the Jewish +Prophets, the end of warfare, or to speculate on the ultimate unity of +mankind. Their task was to interpret the work of their own +fellow-countrymen on the narrow stage of Greek life. Their lasting +achievement is to have laid down for mankind what a State is, as +compared with other forms of human association, and to have proclaimed, +once and for all, in set terms, that its object is to promote the 'good +life' of its members. 'Every State', says Aristotle in the opening +words of his _Politics_, 'is a community of some kind.' That is to say, +States belong to the same _genus_, as it were, as political parties, +trade unions, cricket clubs, business houses, or such gatherings as +ours. What, then, is the difference between a State and a political +party? 'If all communities', he goes on, 'aim at some good, the State or +political community, which is the highest of all and which embraces all +the rest, aims, and in a greater degree than any other, at the highest +good.' + +Why is the State the highest of all forms of association? Why should our +citizenship, for instance, take precedence of our trade unionism or our +business obligations? Aristotle replies, and in spite of recent critics +I think the reply still holds good: because, but for the existence of +the State and the reign of law maintained by it, none of these +associations could have been formed or be maintained. 'He who first +founded the State was the greatest of benefactors. For man, when +protected, is the best of animals, but when separated from law and +righteousness, he is the worst of all.' Or, to put it in the resounding +Elizabethan English of Hooker: 'The public power of all societies is +above every soul contained in the same societies. And the principal use +of that power is to give laws to all that are under it; which laws, in +such case, we must obey, unless there be reason showed which may +necessarily enforce that the law of Reason or of God doth enjoin the +contrary. Because except our own private and probable resolutions be by +the law of public determinations overruled, we take away all possibility +of social life in the world.'[62] The Greeks did not deny, as the +example of Socrates shows, the right of private judgement on the +question of obedience to law, or the duty of respect for what Hooker +calls the Law of Reason or of God. Against the authentic voice of +conscience no human authority can or should prevail. But Aristotle +held, with Hooker, that obedience to law and faithful citizenship are +themselves matters normally ordained by the law of Reason or of God and +that, as against those of any other association ([Greek: koinonia]), the +claims of the State are paramount. In other words, he would deny what is +sometimes loosely called the _right_ of rebellion, whilst not closing +the door to that _duty_ of rebellion which has so often advanced the +cause of liberty. When Aristotle speaks of the State, moreover, he does +not mean a sovereign authority exercising arbitrary power, as in Persia +or Babylon: he means an authority administering Law and Justice +according to recognized standards: and he is thinking of Law and +Justice, not simply as part of the apparatus of government but as based +upon moral principles. 'Righteousness', he says, 'is the bond of men in +States and the administration of Justice, which is the determination of +what is righteous, is the principle of order in political society.' 'Of +Law', says Hooker,[63] here as elsewhere echoing the ancients, 'there +can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of God, her +voice the harmony of the world.' The State takes precedence of the party +or the trade union because, however idealistic in their policy these +latter may be, the State covers all, not merely a section of the +community, and is able not merely to proclaim but to enforce the rule of +law and justice. Put in modern language, one might define the Greek idea +of the State as the Organization of Mutual Aid. + +The Greek States did not remain true to this high ideal. Faced with the +temptations of power they descended almost to the level of the oriental +monarchies with which they were contrasted. But even had they remained +faithful to their philosophers' ideal of public service they would not +have survived. Unable to transcend the limits of their own narrow +State-boundaries and to merge their ideals with those of their +neighbours, they were helpless in the face of the invader. First +Macedonia and then Rome swept over them, and political idealism +slumbered for many centuries. Rome gave the world, what it greatly +needed, centuries of peace and order and material prosperity: it built +up an enduring fabric of law on principles of Reason and Humanity: it +did much to give men, what is next to the political sense, the social +sense. It made men members of one another from Scotland to Syria and +from Portugal to Baghdad. But it did not give them 'the good life' in +its fullness: for it did not, perhaps it could not, give them liberty. +Faced with the choice between efficiency and the diffusion of +responsibility, the rulers of the Roman Empire unhesitatingly chose +efficiency. But the atrophy of responsibility proved the canker at the +heart of the Empire. Deprived of the stimulus that freedom and the habit +of responsibility alone can give, the Roman world sank gradually into +the morass of Routine. Life lost its savour and grew stale, flat and +unprofitable, as in an old-style Government office. 'The intolerable +sadness inseparable from such a life', says Renan, 'seemed worse than +death.' And when the barbarians came and overturned the whole fabric of +bureaucracy, though it seemed to educated men at the time the end of +civilization, it was in reality the beginning of a new life. + +Amid the wreckage of the Roman Empire, one governing institution alone +remained upright--the Christian Church with its organization for +ministering to the spiritual needs of its members. With the conversion +of the barbarians to Christianity the governing functions and influence +of the Church became more and more important; and it was upon the basis +of Church government that political idealism, so long in abeyance, was +reawakened. The thinkers who took up the work of Plato and Aristotle on +the larger stage of the Holy Roman Empire boldly looked forward to the +time when mankind should be united under one government and that +government should embody the highest ideals of mankind. Such an ideal +seemed indeed to many one of the legacies of the Founder of +Christianity. The familiar petition in the Lord's Prayer: _thy kingdom +come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven_ sounded, in the ears +of Dante and Thomas Aquinas and innumerable theologians and canonists, +as a prayer and a pledge for the ultimate political unity of mankind on +the basis of Christian Law. Such a belief was indeed the bedrock of +mediaeval political thought. To devout Christians, brought up in the +oecumenical traditions of the Roman Empire, + + 'every ordering of a human community must appear as a + component part of that ordering of the world which exists + because God exists, and every earthly group must appear as + an organic member of that _Civitas Dei_, that God-State, + which comprehends the heavens and the earth.[1] ... Thus the + Theory of Human Society must accept the divinely created + organization of the Universe as a prototype of the first + principles which govern the construction of human + communities.... Therefore, in all centuries of the Middle + Age, Christendom, which in destiny is identical with + Mankind, is set before us as a single, universal Community, + founded and governed by God Himself. Mankind is one + "mystical body"; it is one single and internally connected + "people" or "folk"; it is an all-embracing corporation, + which constitutes that Universal Realm, spiritual and + temporal, which may be called the Universal Church, or, with + equal propriety, the Commonwealth of the Human Race. + Therefore, that it may attain its one purpose, it needs One + Law and One Government.'[64] + + +But the mediaeval ideal, like the Greek, broke down in practice. 'Where +the Middle Ages failed', says the Master of Balliol, continuing a +passage already quoted, 'was in attempting ... to make politics the +handmaid of religion, to give the Church the organization and form of a +political State, that is, to turn religion from an indwelling spirit +into an ecclesiastical machinery.' In other words, the mediaeval attempt +broke down through neglecting the special conditions and problems of the +political department of life, through declining, as it were, to +specialize. While men were discussing the Theory of the Two Swords, +whether the Emperor derived his power directly from God or indirectly +through the Pope, or whether the sword should be used at all, the actual +work of government in laying the foundations of the good life was +neglected. Not only Liberty but Justice and Order were largely in +abeyance and the range of State action which we to-day describe as +'social legislation' was not even dreamed of. Absorbed in theory or +wrapped in ignorance, men forget the practical meaning of Statehood and +its responsibilities. Central Europe languished for centuries, under a +sham Empire, in the unprogressive anarchy of feudalism. 'The feudal +system', it has been said,[65] 'was nothing more nor less than the +attempt of a society which had failed to organize itself as a State, to +make contract do the work of patriotism.' It is the bitter experience +which Germany went through under the anarchy of feudalism and petty +governments, lasting to well within living memory, which by a natural +reaction has led the German people, under Prussian tutelage, to cling to +the conception of the State as Power and nothing more. + +The study of politics had to become secular before it could once more +become practical, and, by being practical, ministering to practical +ideals and enlisting practical devotion, become, as it were, sacred +once more. Where the well-being of our fellow men is concerned it is not +enough to be well-meaning. Government is an art, not an aspiration: and +those who are concerned with it, whether as rulers or voters, should +have studied its problems, reflected on its possibilities and +limitations, and fitted themselves to profit by its accumulated +experience. + +Since the close of the Middle Ages, when politics became secular, the +art of government has advanced by giant strides. Invention has followed +invention, and experiment experiment, till to-day skilled specialists in +the Old World and the New are at hand to watch and to record the latest +devices for dealing with a hundred difficult special problems--whether +it be the administration of justice or patronage, the organization of +political parties, the fixing of Cabinet responsibility, the +possibilities and limits of federalism, the prevention of war. There +has, indeed, been as great an advance in the political art in the last +four centuries and particularly in the last century, as in the very +kindred art of medicine. The wonderful concentration of energy which the +various belligerent powers have been able to throw into the present war +is at once the best and the most tragic illustration of this truth. +Man's common life in the State is more real, more charged with meaning +and responsibility, more potent for good or for ill than it has ever +been before--than our predecessors even in the time of Napoleon could +have dreamed of. + +The greatest inventors and most skilful practitioners of the political +art in the modern world have been the English, for it is the English +who, of all nations, have held closest to the ideal of freedom in its +many and various manifestations. Superficially regarded, the English are +a stupid people, and so their continental neighbours have often +regarded them. But their racial heritage and their island situation seem +to have given them just that combination of experience and natural +endowment necessary to success in the task of government. Taken as a +whole, the English are not brilliant, but they are clear-headed: they +are not far-sighted, but they can see the fact before their eyes: they +are ill equipped with theoretical knowledge, but they understand the +working of institutions and have a good eye for judging character: they +have little constructive imagination of the more grandiose sort, but +they have an instinct for the 'next step' which has often set them on +paths which have led them far further than they dreamed; above all, they +have a relatively high standard of individual character and public duty, +without which no organization involving the free co-operation of man and +man can hope to be effective. It is this unique endowment of moral +qualities and practical gifts, coupled with unrivalled opportunities, +which has made the English the pioneers in modern times in the art of +human association. Englishmen, accustomed to what eighteenth-century +writers used to call 'the peculiar felicity of British freedom', do not +always remember how far their own experience has carried them on the +road of political progress. They do not realize how many problems they +have solved and abolished, as the art of medicine has abolished +diseases. When they hear speak of the eternal conflict between +Nationality and Nationality, they often forget that a war between +England and Scotland has long since become unthinkable and that the +platitudes of St. Andrew's Day are still paradoxes in Central and +Eastern Europe. When they are told of States where the spontaneous +manifestations of group-life, non-conforming sects, workmen's +associations, and ordinary social clubs, are driven underground and +classed as dangerous secret societies, they should realize how precious +a thing is that freedom of association which is one of the dearest +attributes of English liberty. So too when they read of monarchical and +military supremacy in a country like Germany, which is still politically +speaking in the stage of England under the Tudors, or of Russian +autocracy, or of the struggle over the King's prerogative which has been +taking place in Greece. If we believe, as we must, in the cause of +liberty, let us not be too modest to say that nations which have not yet +achieved responsible self-government, whether within or without the +British Commonwealth, are politically backward, and let us recall the +long stages of political invention by which our own self-government has +been achieved. Representation, trial by jury, an independent judiciary, +equality before the law, habeas corpus, a limited monarchy, the practice +of ministerial responsibility, religious toleration, the freedom of +printing and association, colonial autonomy--all these are distinctly +English inventions, but time has shown that most of them are definite +additions to the universal art of government. We can survey the Balkans, +for instance, and say with confidence that one thing, amongst others, +that those nations are in need of is toleration, both in the sphere of +nationality and of religion: or declare of the United States that their +industrial future will be menaced till they have freed Trade Unionism +from the threat of the so-called law of Conspiracy: or ask of our own +so-called self-governing Dominions whether they are content with a +system that concedes them no responsible control over the issues of +peace and war. This is not to say that our own governmental machinery is +perfect. Far from it. It was never in greater need of overhauling. It is +only to reaffirm the belief, which no temporary disillusionment can +shake, that it is founded on enduring principles which are not political +but moral. To compare a system which aims at freedom and seeks to +attain that aim through the working of responsible self-government with +systems, however logically perfect or temporarily effective, which set +no value on either, is, as it were, to compare black with white. It is +to go back on the lessons of centuries of experience and to deny the +cause, not of liberty alone, but of that progress of the spirit of man +which it is the highest object of liberty to promote. + +We have no time here to discuss in detail the various English inventions +in the art of politics, but we must pause to consider two of the most +important, because they are typical of British methods. The first is the +invention called the Principle of Representation. Representation is a +device by which, and by which alone, the area of effective government +can be extended without the sacrifice of liberty. It is a device by +which the scattered many can make their will prevail over the few at the +centre. Under any non-representative system, whether in a State or a +Church or a Trade Union or any other association, men always find +themselves set before the inexorable dilemma between freedom and +weakness on the one hand and strength and tyranny on the other. Either +the State or the association has to be kept small, so that the members +themselves can meet and keep in touch with all that goes on. Or it is +allowed to expand and grow strong, in which case power becomes +concentrated at the centre and the great body of members loses all +effective control. The ancient world saw no way out of this dilemma. The +great Oriental monarchies never contemplated even the pretence of +popular control. The city-states of Greece, where democracy originated, +set such store in consequence by the personal liberty of the individual +citizen, that they preferred to remain small, and suffered the +inevitable penalty of their weakness. Rome, growing till she +overshadowed the world, sacrificed liberty in the process. Nor was the +Christian Church, when it became a large-scale organization, able to +overcome the dilemma. It was not till thirteenth-century England that a +way out was found. Edward I in summoning two burgesses from each borough +and two knights from each shire to his model Parliament in 1295, hit on +a method of doing business which was destined to revolutionize the art +of government. He stipulated that the men chosen by their fellows to +confer with him must come, to quote the exact words of the summons, +armed with 'full and sufficient power for themselves and for the +community of the aforesaid county, and the said citizens and burgesses +for themselves and the communities of the aforesaid cities and boroughs +separately, there and then, for doing what shall then be ordained +according to the Common Council in the premises, so that the aforesaid +business shall not remain unfinished in any way for defect of this +power'. In other words, the members were to come to confer with the king +not as individuals speaking for themselves alone, but as +representatives. Their words and acts were to bind those on whose behalf +they came, and those who chose them were to do so in the full knowledge +that they would be so bound. In choosing them the electors deliberately +surrendered their own share of initiative and sovereignty and combined +to bestow it on a fellow citizen whom they trusted. In this way, and in +this way alone, the people of Cornwall and of Northumberland could bring +their wishes to bear and play their part, together with the people at +the centre, in the government of a country many times the size of a +city-state of ancient Greece. There had been assemblies before in all +ages of history: but this was something different. It was a Parliament. + +Representation seems to us such an obvious device that we often forget +how comparatively modern it is and what a degree of responsibility and +self-control it demands both in the representative and in those whom he +represents. It is very unpleasant to hear of things done or acquiesced +in by our representatives of which we disapprove, and to have to +remember that it is our own fault for not sending a wiser or braver man +to Westminster in his place. It is still more unpleasant for a +representative to feel, as he often must, that his own honest opinion +and conscience draw him one way on a matter of business and the opinions +of most of his constituents another. But these are difficulties inherent +in the system, and for which there is no remedy but sincerity and +patience. It is part of the bargain that a constituency should not be +able to disavow a representative: and that a representative should feel +bound to use his own best judgement on the issues put before him. To +turn the representative, as there is a tendency to do in some quarters, +into a mere mouthpiece with a mandate, is to ignore the very problem +which made representation necessary, and to presume that a local +mass-meeting can be as well informed or take as wide a view as those who +have all the facts before them at the centre. The ancient Greeks, who +had a strong sense of individuality, were loth to believe that any one +human being could make a decision on behalf of another. In the deepest +sense of course they were right. But government, as has been said, is at +best a rough business. Representation is no more than a practical +compromise: but it is a compromise which has been found to work. It has +made possible the extension of free government to areas undreamed of. It +has enabled the general sense of the inhabitants of the United States, +an area nearly as large as Europe, to be concentrated at Washington, and +it may yet make it possible to collect the sense of self-governing +Dominions in four continents in a Parliament at London. All this lay +implicit in the practical instructions sent by the English king to his +sheriffs; but its development would only have been possible in a +community where the general level of character was a high one and where +men were, therefore, in the habit of placing implicit trust in one +another. The relationship of confidence between a member of Parliament +and his constituents, or a Trade Union leader and his rank and file, is +a thing of which public men are rightly proud: for it reflects honour on +both parties and testifies to an underlying community of purpose which +no passing disagreement on details can break down. + +Representation paved the way for the modern development of responsible +self-government. But it is important to recognize that the two are not +the same thing. Responsible self-government, in its modern form, is a +separate and more complex English invention in the art of government. A +community may be decked out with a complete apparatus of representative +institutions and yet remain little better than an autocracy. Modern +Germany is a case in point. The parliamentary suffrage for the German +Reichstag is more representative than that for the British House of +Commons. The German workman is better represented in his Parliament than +the British workman is in ours. But the German workman has far less +power to make his will effective in matters of policy than the British, +because the German constitution does not embody the principle of +responsible self-government. Sovereignty still rests with the Kaiser as +it rested in the thirteenth century with Edward I. The Imperial +Chancellor is not responsible to the Reichstag but to the Kaiser, by +whom he is appointed and whose personal servant he remains. The +Reichstag can discuss the actions of the Chancellor: it can advise him, +or protest to him, or even pass votes of censure against him; but it +cannot make its will effective. We can observe the working of similar +representative institutions in different parts of the British +Commonwealth. The provinces of India and many British Colonies have +variously composed representative assemblies, but in all cases without +the power to control their executives. The self-governing Dominions, on +the other hand, do enjoy responsible self-government, but in an +incomplete form, because the most vital of all issues of policy are +outside their control. On questions of foreign policy, and the issues of +war and peace, the Parliaments of the Dominions, and the citizens they +represent, are, constitutionally speaking, as helpless as the most +ignorant native in the humblest dependency. Representative institutions +in themselves thus no more ensure real self-government than the setting +up of a works committee of employees in a factory would ensure that the +workmen ran the factory. The distinction between representation and +effective responsibility is so simple that it seems a platitude to +mention it. Yet it is constantly ignored, both in this country by those +who speak of Colonial self-government as though the Dominions really +enjoyed the same self-government as the people of these islands, and by +the parties in Germany whose programme it is, not to make Germany a +truly constitutional country, but to assimilate the retrograde Prussian +franchise to the broader representation of the Reichstag. + +Wherein does the transition from representation to full responsibility +consist? It came about in England when Parliament, instead of merely +being consulted by the sovereign, felt itself strong enough to give +orders to the sovereign. The sovereign naturally resisted, as the Kaiser +and the Tsar will resist in their turn; but in this country the battle +was fought and won in the seventeenth century. Since that time, with a +few vacillations, Parliament has been the sovereign power. But once this +transfer of sovereignty has taken place, a new problem arises. A +Parliament of several hundred members, even though it meets regularly, +is not competent to transact the multitudinous and complex and highly +specialized business of a modern State. The original function of +Parliament was to advise, to discuss, and to criticize. It is not an +instrument fit for the work of execution and administration. Having +become sovereign, its first business must be to create out of its own +members an instrument which should carry out its own policy and be +responsible to itself for its actions. Hence arose the Cabinet. The +Cabinet is, as it were, a distillation of Parliament, just as Parliament +itself is a distillation of the country. It consists of members of +Parliament and it is in constant touch with Parliament; but its methods +are not the methods of Parliament but of the older, more direct, organs +of government which Parliament superseded. It meets in secret: it holds +all the strings of policy: it has almost complete control of political +and legislative initiative: it decides what is to be done and when and +how: it has its own staff of agents and confidential advisers in the +Departments and elsewhere whose acts are largely withdrawn from the +knowledge and criticism of Parliament. A modern Cabinet in fact is open +to the charge of being autocracy in a new guise. Such a charge would, of +course, be a gross overstatement. But there is no doubt that the +increasing complexity in the tasks of government has led to a +corresponding growth of power and organization at the centre which has +strengthened the Cabinet immeasurably of recent years at the expense of +the direct representatives of the people. There are, however, powerful +influences at work in the opposite direction, towards decentralization +and new forms of representation, which there is no space to touch on +here. Suffice it to say that here, as elsewhere, the price of liberty is +eternal vigilance. + +England, then, and all who enjoy the full privileges of British +citizenship have been placed by the progress of events in a position of +peculiar responsibility. The twentieth century finds us the centre of +the widest experiment of self-government which the world has ever seen; +for the principles of liberty, first tested in this island, have +approved themselves on the soil of North America, Australasia, and South +Africa. It finds us also responsible for the government and for the +training in responsibility of some 350,000,000 members of the more +politically inexperienced and backward races of mankind, or about +one-fifth of the human race. The growth of the British Commonwealth, +about which so astonishingly little is known either by ourselves or by +other peoples, is not a mere happy or unhappy accident. It is one of the +inevitable and decisive developments in the history of mankind. It is +the direct result of that widening of intercourse, that +internationalizing of the world, to which reference has already been +made. It represents the control of law and organized government over the +blind and selfish forces of exploitation. In the exercise of this +control we have often ourselves been blind and sometimes selfish. But +'the situation of man', as Burke finely said of our Indian Empire, 'is +the preceptor of his duty'. The perseverance of the British character, +its habit of concentration on the work that lies to hand, and the +influence of our traditional social and political ideals, have slowly +brought us to a deeper insight, till to-day the Commonwealth is becoming +alive to the real nature of its task--the extension and consolidation of +liberty. If it has thus taken up, in part, the work of the mediaeval +Empire and has had a measure of success where the other failed, it is +because of the character of its individual citizens, because despite +constant and heart-breaking failures in knowledge and imagination, we +are a people who, in the words of a stern, if friendly, critic, 'with +great self-assertion and a bull-dog kind of courage, have yet a +singular amount of gentleness and tenderness'.[66] + + * * * * * + +We have come to the end of our long survey. Some of you may feel that I +have fetched too wide a compass and given too wide an extension to the +meaning of government. But if I have sinned I have sinned of set +purpose. I refuse to confine government within the limits of what is +ordinarily called politics, or to discuss the association called the +State in isolation from other sides of man's community life. To do so, I +feel, is to lay oneself open to one of two opposite errors: the error of +those for whom the State is the Almighty, and who invest it with a +superhuman morality and authority of its own; and the error of those who +draw in their skirts in horror from the touch of what Nietzsche called +this 'cold monster' and take refuge in monastic detachment from the +political responsibilities of their time. We must be able to see +politics as a part of life before we can see it steadily and see it +whole. We must be able to see it in relation to the general ordering of +the world and to connect it once more, as in the Middle Ages, with +religion and morality. No thinking man can live through such a time as +this and preserve his faith unless he is sustained by the belief that +the clash of States which is darkening our generation is not a mere +blind collision of forces, but has spiritual bearings which affect each +individual living soul born or to be born in the world. It is not for us +to anticipate the verdict of history. But what we can do is to bear +ourselves worthily, in thought and speech, like our soldiers in action, +of the times in which we live--to testify, as it were, in our own lives, +to that for which so many of our friends have laid down theirs. We are +met at a culminating moment of human fate--when, so far as human +judgement can discern, the political destinies of this planet are being +settled for many generations to come--perhaps for good. If the task of +leadership in the arts of government remains with us, let us face the +responsibility conscious of the vast spiritual issues which it involves, +and let us so plan and act that history, looking back on these years of +blood, may date from them a new birth of freedom and progress, not for +ourselves in this country alone but throughout that kingdom of Man which +must one day, as we believe, become in very truth the kingdom of God. + + +BOOKS FOR REFERENCE + +1. _Man's Control over Nature_: + + Ray Lankester, _The Kingdom of Man_, and other essays. 1912. + + Demolins, _Comment la route cree le type social_. + + Curtis (ed. by), _The Commonwealth of Nations_. Vol. i, 1916. + + Murphy, _The Basis of Ascendancy_. 1909. + + _Introduction to the Study of International Relations_ (Greenwood + and others). 1916. + +2. _Political Ideals_: + + _The Jews_: Todd, _Politics and Religion in Ancient Israel_. 1904. + + _Greece_: _Aristotle's Politics_, translated by B. Jowett. 1908. + + Dickinson, _The Greek View of Life_. 1909. + + Barker, _The Political thought of Plato and Aristotle_. 1908. + + _Rome_: H. Stuart Jones, _The Roman Empire_. (Story of the + Nations.) 1908. Warde Fowler, _Rome_ (Home University + Series). + + _The Middle Ages_: A. L. Smith, _Church and State in the Middle + Ages_. 1911. + + Gierke, _Political Theories of the Middle Ages_ (introduction by + Maitland). 1900. + + _Miscellaneous_: Wallas, _Human Nature in Politics_. 1908. + + Acton, _The History of Freedom_, and other essays. 1909. + + Lowell, _The Government of England_. + + Buelow, _Imperial Germany_. 1916. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[53] A. L. Smith, _Church and State in the Middle Ages_, pp. 207-8. + +[54] Lankester, _Nature and Man_, Romanes Lecture, 1905, pp. 27-9. + +[55] _The Commonwealth of Nations_, edited by L. Curtis, Part I, p. 130. + +[56] Ibid., p. 166. + +[57] P. H. Kerr in _An Introduction to the Study of International +Relations_, 1915, p. 149. + +[58] A still better name would be the Great Responsibilities. + +[59] _Second Thoughts of an Economist_, 1916, pp. 17-18, 22. + +[60] _Freedom and other Essays_, p. 22. + +[61] Isaiah lxvi. 2; lvii. 19, 21; ii. 3, 4. + +[62] _Ecclesiastical Polity_, Book I, ch. xvi. 5. + +[63] End of Book I of the _Ecclesiastical Polity_. + +[64] Gierke, _Political Theories of the Middle Age_, pp. 8 and 10. + +[65] _The Commonwealth of Nations_, Part I, p. 73. + +[66] _Memoirs and letters of Sir Robert Morier_, ii. 276. + + + + +VIII + +PROGRESS IN INDUSTRY + +A. E. ZIMMERN + + +In our study of Government we traced the upward course of the common +life of mankind in the world. We saw it in the increasing control of Man +over his physical environment, and we saw it also in his clearer +realization of the ultimate ideal of government--the ordering of the +world's affairs on the basis of liberty. We have now to turn aside from +this main stream of social development to watch one particular branch of +it--to survey man's record in the special department of economics. We +shall no longer be studying human history, or the history of human +society, as a whole, but what is known as economic or industrial +history. + +It is important to be clear at the outset that economic or industrial +history _is_ a tributary stream and not the main stream: for there are a +number of people who are of the contrary opinion. There has been an +increasing tendency of recent years to write human history in terms of +economic or industrial progress. 'Tell me what men ate or wore or +manufactured,' say historians of this school, 'and we will tell you what +stage of civilization he had reached. We will place him in his proper +pigeonhole in our arrangement of the record of human progress.' Did he +use flint implements or fight with nothing but a bow and arrow? Did he +use a canoe with a primitive pole which he had not even the sense to +flatten so as to make it into a serviceable paddle? Then our +sociologist will put him very low down on his list of the stages of +human progress. For the modern sociologist is a confirmed plutocrat. He +measures the character of men and races by their wealth. Just as +old-fashioned people still think of the society of our own country as a +hierarchy, in which the various classes are graded according to their +social prestige and the extent of their possessions: so students of +primitive civilization classify races according to their material +equipment, and can hardly help yielding to the temptation of reckoning +their stage of progress as a whole by the only available test. Thus it +is common, especially in Germany and the United States, to find +histories of what purports to be the progress of mankind which show man +first as a hunter and a fisherman, then as a shepherd, then as a tiller +of the soil, and then work upwards to the complicated industrial system +of to-day. We are asked to accept the life of Abraham or David among the +sheepfolds as the bottom of the ladder, and the life of a modern +wage-earner under the smoky sky of a manufacturing area as the top; and +when we complain and say, as men like William Morris and Stephen Graham +are always saying, that we would far prefer to live in David's world, in +spite of all its discomforts, we are told that we have no right to +quarrel with the sacred principle of Evolution. + +To interpret human history in this way is, of course, to deny its +spiritual meaning, to deny that it is a record of the progress of the +human _spirit_ at all. It is to read it as a tale of the improvement, or +rather the increasing complication, of _things_, rather than of the +advance of man. It is to view the world as a Domain of Matter, not as +the Kingdom of Man--still less, as the Kingdom of God. It is to tie us +helplessly to the chariot wheels of an industrial Juggernaut which knows +nothing of moral values. Let the progress of industry make life noisy +and ugly and anxious and unhappy: let it engross the great mass of +mankind in tedious and uncongenial tasks and the remainder in the +foolish and unsatisfying activities of luxurious living; let it defile +the green earth with pits and factories and slag-heaps and the mean +streets of those who toil at them, and dim the daylight with exhalations +of monstrous vapour. It is not for us to complain or to resist: for we +are in the grip of a Power which is greater than ourselves, a Power to +which mankind in all five continents has learnt to yield--that Economic +Process which is, in truth, the God, or the Devil, of the modern world. + +No thinking man dare acquiesce in such a conclusion or consent to bow +the head before such fancied necessities. The function of industry, he +will reply, is to serve human life not to master it: to beautify human +life not to degrade it: to set life free not to enslave it. Economics is +not the whole of life: and when it transgresses its bounds and exceeds +its functions it must be controlled and thrust back into its place by +the combined activities of men. The soul is higher than the body, and +life is more than housekeeping. Liberty is higher than Riches, and the +welfare of the community more important than its economic and material +progress. These great processes, which the increase of man's knowledge +has set in motion, are not impersonal inhuman forces: Men originated +them: men administer them: and men must control them. Against economic +necessity let us set political necessity: and let the watchword of that +political necessity, here as always, be the freedom and the well-being +of mankind. + +With this caution in mind, then, let us approach our subject. + +What is Economics? Economics is simply the Greek for 'house-keeping'. If +writers and thinkers on the subject had only kept this simple fact in +mind, or used the English word instead of the Greek, the world would +have been saved much misery and confusion. Political economy is not, +what Mill and other writers define it to be, 'the Science of Wealth'. It +is the art of community-housekeeping, and community-housekeeping, as +every woman knows, is a very important if subsidiary branch of the art +of community-management or government. + +Housekeeping, of course, is not a selfish but a social function. +Housewives do not lay in bread and cheese simply to gratify their own +desire to be possessors of a large store, but for the sake of their +household. The true housekeeper or economic man is the man who is +consciously ministering to the real needs of the community. Like the +ruler or minister in the political sphere, he is a man who is performing +a public service. + +This is equally true whether the housekeeper has a monopoly of the +purchase of bread and cheese for the household, or whether he or she has +to compete with others as to which is to be allowed to serve the public +in that particular transaction. Just as, under the party system, which +seems to be inseparable from the working of democratic institutions, men +stand for Parliament and compete for the honour of representing their +neighbours, so in most systems of industry men compete for the honour of +supplying the public. Competition in industry is practically as old as +industry. In the earliest picture that has come down to us of Greek +village life we read of the competition between potter and potter and +between minstrel and minstrel--a competition as keen and as fierce, we +may be sure, as that between rival shopkeepers to-day. For the opposite +of competition, as has been truly said, is not co-operation but monopoly +or bureaucracy: and there is no short and easy means of deciding between +the rival systems. Sometimes the community is better served by +entrusting one department wholly to one purveyor or one system of +management--as in the Postal Service, or the Army and Navy. Sometimes it +is clearly better to leave the matter open to competition. Nobody, for +instance, would propose to do with only one minstrel, and seal the lips +of all poets but the Poet Laureate. Sometimes, as in the case of the +organized professions and the liquor trade, a strictly regulated system +of competition has been considered best. No doubt the tendency at the +present time is setting strongly against competition and towards more +unified and more closely organized systems of doing business. But it is +important to make quite clear that there is nothing immoral or +anti-social about the fact of competition itself, and nothing +inconsistent with the idea of service and co-operation which should +underlie all social and economic activity. It is not competition itself, +as people often wrongly think, which is the evil, but the shallow and +selfish motives and the ruthless trampling down of the weak that are too +often associated with it. When we condemn the maxim 'the Devil take the +hindmost', it is not because we think we ought to treat the hindmost as +though he were the foremost--to buy cracked jars or patronize incapable +minstrels. It is because we feel that there is a wrong standard of +reward among those who have pushed to the front, and that the community +as a whole cannot ignore its responsibility towards its less fortunate +and capable members. + +It is, indeed, quite impossible to abolish competition for the patronage +of the household without subjecting its members to tyranny or tying them +down to an intolerable uniformity--forcing them to suppress their own +temporary likes or dislikes and to go on taking in the same stuff in the +same quantities world without end. For the most serious and permanent +competition is not that between rival purveyors of the same goods, +between potter and potter and minstrel and minstrel, but between one +set of goods and another: between the potter and the blacksmith, the +minstrel and the painter. If we abolished competition permanently +between the British railways we could not make sure that the public +would always use them as it does now. People would still be at liberty +to walk or to drive or to bicycle or to fly, or, at the very worst, to +stay at home. Competition, as every business man knows, sometimes arises +from the most unexpected quarters. The picture-house and the bicycle +have damaged the brewer and the publican. Similarly the motor-car and +the golf links have spoilt the trade in the fine china ornaments such as +used to be common in expensively furnished drawing-rooms. People sit +less in their rooms, so spend less on decorating them. The members of +the household always retain ultimate control over their economic life, +if they care to exercise it. 'Whoso has sixpence,' as Carlyle said, 'is +sovereign (to the length of sixpence), over all men; commands Cooks to +feed him, Philosophers to teach him, Kings to mount guard over him,'--to +the length of sixpence. Passive resistance and the boycott are always +open to the public in the last resort against any of their servants who +has abused the powers of his position. A good instance of this occurred +in the events which led to the so-called Tobacco riots in Milan in 1848. +The Austrians thought they could force the Italians in their Lombard +provinces to pay for a government they hated by putting a heavy tax on +tobacco. But the Italians, with more self-control than we have shown in +the present war, with one accord gave up smoking. Here was a plain +competition between a monopoly and the consumer, between tobacco and +patriotism: between a united household and an unpopular servant: and the +household won, as it always can unless its members are incapable of +combined action or have been deprived by governmental tyranny of all +power to associate and to organize. + +We are faced then with a community or household which has certain wants +that need to be supplied. The individual members of the community are +justified, within the limits of general well-being,[67] in deciding what +are their own wants and how to satisfy them. They claim the right to +_demand_, as the economists put it, the goods and services they require, +bread and cheese, poetry, tobacco, motor-bicycles, china ornaments. In +order to meet those demands, which are stable in essentials but subject +to constant modification in detail, there is ceaseless activity, +rivalry, competition, on the part of the purveyors--on the side of what +economists call _supply_. The business of housekeeping, or what is +called the economic process, is that of bringing this demand and this +supply into relation with one another. If the members of the household +said they wanted to eat the moon instead of sugar, their demand would +not be an economic demand: for no housekeeper could satisfy it. +Similarly on the supply side: if the baker insisted on bringing round +bad epics instead of bread and the grocer bad sonatas instead of sugar, +the supply, however good it might seem to the baker and the grocer, and +however much satisfaction they might personally have derived from their +work, would not be an economic supply: for the housekeeper, acting on +behalf of the household, would not take it in. But if the demand was for +something not yet available, but less impossibly remote than the moon, +the housekeeper might persuade the purveyors to cudgel their brains till +they had met the need. For, as we know, Necessity, which is another word +for Demand, is the mother of invention. Similarly, if a purveyor +supplied something undreamed of by the household, but otherwise good of +its kind, he might succeed in persuading the household to like it--in +other words, in creating a demand. The late Sir Alfred Jones, by putting +bananas cheap on the market, persuaded us that we liked them. Similarly +Mr. Marvin, who deals in something better than bananas, has persuaded us +all to come here, though most of us would never have thought of it +unless he had created the demand in us. + +Economic Progress, then, is progress both on the side of demand and on +the side of supply. It is a progress in wants as well as in their means +of satisfaction: a progress in the aspirations of the household as well +as in the contrivances of its purveyors: a progress in the sense of what +life might be, as well as in the skill and genius and organizing powers +of those to whom the community looks for help in the realization of its +hopes. It is important that this double aspect of our subject should be +realized, for in what follows we shall have no opportunity to dwell +further upon it. Space compels us to leave the household and its wants +and aspirations out of account and to direct our attention solely to the +side of supply; although it must always be remembered that no real and +permanent progress in the organization of production is possible without +improvements in the quality and reduction in the number of the +requirements of what is called civilization.[68] What we have to watch, +in our study of progress in industry, is the history of man as a +purveyor of the household: in other words, as a producer of goods and +services: from the days of the primitive savage with his bark canoe to +the gigantic industrial enterprises of our own time. + +We can best do so by dividing our subject into two on somewhat similar +lines to the division in our study of government. Let us consider +industry, first as an activity involving a relationship between man and +Nature; secondly, as involving what may be called a problem of +industrial government, a problem arising out of the co-operation between +man and man in industrial work. In the first of these aspects we shall +see man as a maker, an inventor, an artist; in the second as a subject +or a citizen, a slave or a free man, in the Industrial Commonwealth. + +Man as a maker or producer carries us back to the dawn of history. Man +is a tool-using animal and the early stages of human history are a +record of the elaboration of tools. The flint axes in our museums are +the earliest monuments of the activity of the human spirit. We do not +know what the cave men of the Old Stone Age said or thought, or indeed +whether they did anything that we should call speaking or thinking at +all; but we know what they made. Centuries and millenniums elapsed +between them and the first peoples of whom we have any more intimate +record--centuries during which the foundations of our existing +industrial knowledge and practice were being steadily laid. 'One may say +in general,' says Mr. Marvin,[69] + + that most of the fruitful practical devices of mankind had + their origin in prehistoric times, many of them existing + then with little essential difference. Any one of them + affords a lesson in the gradual elaboration of the simple. A + step minute in itself leads on and on, and so all the + practical arts are built up, a readier and more observant + mind imitating and adapting the work of predecessors, as we + imagined the first man making his first flint axe. The + history of the plough goes back to the elongation of a bent + stick. The wheel would arise from cutting out the middle of + a trunk used as a roller. House architecture is the + imitation with logs and mud of the natural shelters of the + rocks, and begins its great development when men have learnt + to make square corners instead of a rough circle. And so on + with all the arts of life or pleasure, including clothing, + cooking, tilling, sailing, and fighting. + +How did this gradual progress come about? Mr. Marvin himself supplies +the answer. Through the action of the 'readier and more observant +minds'--in other words, through specialization and the division of +labour. As far back as we can go in history we find a recognition that +men are not all alike, that some have one gift and some another, and +that it is to the advantage of society to let each use his own gift in +the public service. Among primitive peoples there has indeed often been +a belief that men are compensated for physical weakness and disability +by peculiar excellence in some sphere of their own. Hephaestos among the +Greek gods was lame: so he becomes a blacksmith and uses his arms. Homer +is blind: so instead of fighting he sings of war. They would not go so +far as to maintain that all lame men must be good blacksmiths or all +blind men good poets: but at least they recognized that there was room +in the community for special types and that the blacksmith and the poet +were as useful as the ordinary run of cultivators and fighting men. The +Greek word for craftsman--[Greek: demiourgos]--'worker for the people,' +shows how the Greeks felt on this point. To them poetry and +craftsmanship were as much honourable occupations or, as we should say, +professional activities as fighting and tilling. Whether Homer took to +poetry because he could not fight or because he had an overwhelming +poetic gift, he had justified his place in the community. + +Specialization is the foundation of all craftsmanship and therefore the +source of all industrial progress. We recognize this, of course, in +common speech. 'Practice makes perfect,' 'Genius is an infinite capacity +for taking pains,' are only different ways of saying that it is not +enough to be 'ready' and 'observant', but that continued activity and +concentration are necessary. A perfect industrial community would not be +a community where everybody was doing the same thing: nor would it be a +community where every one was doing just what he liked at the moment: it +would be a community where every one was putting all his strength into +the work which he was by nature best qualified to do--where, in the +words of Kipling: + + No one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame, + But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star, + Shall draw the thing as he sees it for the God of Things as They Are. + +Progress in industry, then, on this side, consists in increasing +specialization and in the perfection of the relationship between the +workman and his work. Man in this world is destined to labour, and +labour is often described as the curse of Adam. But in reality, as every +one knows who has tried it, or observed the habits of those who have, +idleness is far more of a curse than labour. Few men--at any rate in the +temperate zone--can be consistently idle and remain happy. The born +idler is almost as rare as the born poet. Most men, and, it must be +added, most women, are happier working. If holidays were the rule and +work the exception the world would be a much less cheerful place than it +is even to-day. Purposeful activity is as natural to man as playing is +to a kitten. From a purely natural point of view, no one has ever given +a better definition of happiness than Aristotle when he defined it as +_an activity of the soul in the direction of excellence in an unhampered +life_. By excellence, of course, in this famous definition, Aristotle +does not mean simply virtue: he means excellence in work. It is +impossible, as we all know, to be good in the abstract. We must be good +in some particular directions, _at_ some particular thing. And the +particular thing that we are good at is _our_ work, our craft, our +art--or, to use our less aesthetic English word, for which there is no +equivalent in Greek, our duty. If happiness is to be found in doing +one's duty, it does not result from doing that duty badly, but from +doing it well--turning out, as we say, a thoroughly good piece of work, +whether a day's work or a life work. There is a lingering idea, still +held in some quarters, that the more unpleasant an activity is the more +virtuous it is. This is a mere barbarous survival from the days of what +Nietzsche called slave-morality. We are each of us born with special +individual gifts and capacities. There is, if we only knew it, some +particular kind or piece of work which we are pre-eminently fitted to +do--some particular activity or profession, be it held in high or in low +repute in the world of to-day, in which we can win the steady happiness +of purposeful labour. Shall we then say that it ministers to human +progress and to the glory of God deliberately to bury our talent out of +sight and to seek rather work which, because it is irksome and +unpleasant to us, we can never succeed in doing either easily or really +well? No one who knows anything of education or of the training of the +young, no one, indeed, who has any love for children, would dare to say +that we should. Our State educational system, miserably defective though +it is in this regard, is based upon the idea of ministering to the +special gifts of its pupils--of trying by scholarships, by Care +Committees, by the institution of schools with a special 'bias', to meet +the needs of different kinds of young people and to set them in the path +on which they are best fitted to travel. + +In doing this the modern State is only trying to carry out the +principle laid down in the greatest book ever written on +education--Plato's _Republic_. Plato's object was to train every citizen +to fill the one position where he could lead the best life for the good +of the State. His aim was not to make his citizens happy but to promote +goodness; but he had enough faith in human nature--and who can be an +educational thinker without having faith in human nature?--to be +convinced that to enable men to 'do their bit', as we say to-day, was to +assure them of the truest happiness. We of this generation know how +abundantly that faith has been confirmed. And indeed we can appeal in +this matter not only to the common sense of Education Authorities or to +the philosophy of the ancients, but to the principles of the Christian +religion. The late Professor Smart, who was not only a good economist +but a good man; has some very pertinent words on this subject. 'If for +some reason that we know not of,' he remarks,[70] + + this present is merely the first stage in being; if we are + all at school, and not merely pitched into the world by + chance to pick up our living as best we can ... it seems to + me that we have reason enough to complain of the existing + economic system.... I imagine that many of our churchgoing + people, if they ever get to the heaven they sing about, will + find themselves most uncomfortable, if it be a place for + which they have made no preparation but in the 'business' in + which they have earned their living.... A man's daily work + is a far greater thing towards the development of the God + that is in him than his wealth. And, however revolutionary + the idea is, I must say that all our accumulations of wealth + are little to the purpose of life if they do not tend + towards the giving to all men the opportunity of such work + as will have its reward _in the doing_. + +And of his own particular life-work, teaching, he remarks, in words that +testify to his own inner peace and happiness, that 'some of us have got +into occupations which almost seem to guarantee immortality'. + +Let us, then, boldly lay it down that the best test of progress in +industry and the best measure of success in any industrial system is the +degree to which it enables men to 'do their bit' and so to find +happiness in their daily work, or if you prefer more distinctively +religious language, the degree to which it enables men to develop the +God that is in them. Let us have the courage to say that in the great +battle which Ruskin and William Morris fought almost single-handed +against all the Philistines of the nineteenth century, Ruskin and +Morris, however wrong they may have been on points of practical detail, +were right in principle. Let us make up our minds that a world in which +men have surrendered the best hours of the day to unsatisfying drudgery, +and banished happiness to their brief periods of tired leisure, is so +far from civilized that it has not even made clear to itself wherein +civilization consists. And when we read such a passage as the following +from a leading modern economist, let us not yield to the promptings of +our lower nature and acquiesce in its apparent common sense, but +remember that economists, like all workmen, are bounded by the limits of +their own particular craft or study. 'The greater part of the world's +work,' says Professor Taussig,[71] the leading exponent of Economics at +Harvard, + + is not in itself felt to be pleasurable. Some reformers have + hoped to reach a social system under which all work would be + in itself a source of satisfaction. It is probable that + such persons are made optimistic by the nature of their own + doings. They are writers, schemers, reformers; they are + usually of strongly altruistic character, and the + performance of any duty or set task brings to them the + approval of an exacting conscience; and they believe that + all mankind can be brought to labour in their own spirit. + The world would be a much happier place if their state of + mind could be made universal. But the great mass of men are + of a humdrum sort, not born with any marked bent or any + loftiness of character. Moreover, most of the world's work + for the satisfaction of our primary wants must be of a + humdrum sort, and often of a rough and coarse sort. There + must be ditching and delving, sowing and reaping, hammering + and sawing, and all the severe physical exertion which, + however lightened by tools and machinery, yet can never be + other than labour in the ordinary sense of the word. + +When Professor Taussig assures us that 'the great mass of men are of a +humdrum sort, not born with any marked bent or loftiness of character' +he is simply denying the Christian religion. To argue the point with him +would carry us too far. We will do no more here than remind him that the +people to whom the Founder of Christianity preached, and even those who +were chosen to be its first disciples, were, like this audience, +distinctly humdrum, and that assuredly the American Professor would not +have discerned in them promising material for a world-transforming +religious movement. What people see in others is often a mirror of +themselves. Perhaps Professor Taussig, in spite of his excellent book, +is rather a humdrum person himself. + +When, however, Professor Taussig declares that 'the greater part of the +world's work is not in itself felt to be pleasurable' he is saying what, +under existing conditions, we must all recognize to be true. A year or +two ago Mr. Graham Wallas made an investigation into this very question, +the results of which confirmed the general impression that modern +workmen find little happiness in their work.[72] But two of the +conclusions which he reached conflict in a rather curious way with the +statement of Professor Taussig. Mr. Wallas's evidence, which was largely +drawn from students of Ruskin College, led him to the conclusion 'that +there is less pleasantness or happiness in work the nearer it approaches +the fully organized Great Industry'. The only workman who spoke +enthusiastically of his work was an agricultural labourer who 'was very +emphatic with regard to the pleasure to be obtained from agricultural +work'. Professor Taussig, on the other hand, selects four agricultural +occupations, ditching, delving, sowing, and reaping, as +characteristically unpleasant and looks to machinery and the apparatus +of the Industrial Revolution to counteract this unpleasantness. But the +most interesting evidence gathered by Mr. Wallas was that relating to +women workers. He had an opportunity of collecting the views of girls +employed in the laundries and poorer kind of factories in Boston. 'The +answers', he says,[73] 'surprised me greatly. I expected to hear those +complaints about bad wages, hard conditions and arbitrary discipline +which a body of men working at the same grade of labour would certainly +have put forward. But it was obvious that the question "Are you happy?" +meant to the girls "Are you happier than you would have been if you had +stayed at home instead of going to work?" And almost every one of them +answered "Yes".' Why were they unhappy at home? Let Professor Taussig +reflect on the answer. Not because they had 'rough' or 'coarse' or +'humdrum' work to do, as in a factory or laundry, but because they had +nothing to do, and they had found idleness unbearable. 'One said that +work "took up her mind", she had been awfully discontented'. Another +that 'you were of some use'. Another thought 'it was because the hours +went so much faster. At home one could read, but only for a short time, +there was the awful lonesome afternoon ahead of you.' 'Asked a little +girl with dyed hair but a good little heart. She enjoyed her work. It +made her feel she was worth something.' And Mr. Wallas concludes that it +is just because 'everything that is interesting, even though it is +laborious, in the women's arts of the old village is gone': because +'clothes are bought ready-made, food is bought either ready-cooked, like +bread and jam and fish, or only requiring the simplest kind of cooking': +in fact just because physical exertion has been lightened by books and +machinery, that 'there results a mass of inarticulate unhappiness whose +existence has hardly been indicated by our present method of +sociological enquiry'. + +It would seem then that the task of associating modern industrial work +with happiness is not impossible, if we would only set ourselves to the +task. And the task is a two-fold one. It is, first, to make it possible +for people to follow the employment for which they are by nature best +fitted; and secondly, to study much more closely than heretofore, from +the point of view of happiness, the conditions under which work is done. +The first task involves a very considerable reversal of current +educational and social values. It does not simply mean paving the way +for the son of an engine-driver to become a doctor or a lawyer or a +cavalryman. It means paving the way for the son of a duke to become, +without any sense of social failure, an engine-driver or a merchant +seaman or a worker on the land--and to do so not, as to-day, in the +decent seclusion of British Columbia or Australia, but in our own +country and without losing touch, if he desires it, with his own natural +circle of friends. The ladder is an old and outworn metaphor in this +connexion. Yet it is still worth remembering that the Angels whom Jacob +observed upon it were both ascending and descending. It is one of the +fallacies of our social system to believe that a ladder should only be +used in one direction--and that the direction which tends to remove men +from contact and sympathy with their fellows. But in truth we need to +discard the metaphor of the ladder altogether, with its implied +suggestion that some tasks of community-service are more honourable and +involve more of what the world calls 'success' than others. We do not +desire a system of education which picks out for promotion minds gifted +with certain kinds of capacity and stimulates them with the offer of +material rewards, while the so-called humdrum remainder are left, with +their latent talents undiscovered and undeveloped. + +Recent educational experiments,[74] and not least that most testing of +all school examinations, the war, have shown us that we must revise all +our old notions as to cleverness and stupidity. We know now that, short +of real mental deficiency, there is or ought to be no such personage as +the dunce. Just as the criminal is generally a man of unusual energy and +mental power directed into wrong channels, so the dunce is a pupil whose +special powers and aptitudes have not revealed themselves in the routine +of school life. And just as the criminal points to serious defects in +our social system, so the dunce points to serious defects in our +educational system. The striking record of our industrial schools and +reformatories in the war shows what young criminals and dunces can do +when they are given a fair field for their special gifts. One of the +chief lessons to be drawn from the war is the need for a new spirit and +outlook in our national education from the elementary school to the +University. We need a system which treats every child, rich or poor, as +a living and developing personality, which enables every English boy and +girl to stay at school at least up to the time when his or her natural +bent begins to disclose itself, which provides for all classes of the +community skilled guidance in the choice of employment based upon +psychological study of individual gifts and aptitude,[75] which sets up +methods of training and apprenticeship in the different trades--or, as I +would prefer to call them the different professions--such as to +counteract the deadening influence of premature specialization, and +which ensures good conditions and a sense of self-respect and +community-service to all in their self-chosen line of life, whether +their bent be manual or mechanical or commercial or administrative, or +for working on the land or for going to sea, or towards the more special +vocations of teaching or scholarship or the law or medicine or the cure +of souls. No one can estimate how large a share of the unhappiness +associated with our existing social system is due to the fact that, +owing to defects in our education and our arrangements for the choice of +employment, there are myriads of square pegs in round holes. This +applies with especial force to women, to whom many of the square holes +are still inaccessible, not simply owing to the lack of opportunities +for individuals, but owing to the inhibitions of custom and, in some +cases, to narrow and retrograde professional enactments. The war has +brought women their chance, not only in the office and the workshop, +but in higher administrative and organizing positions, and not the least +of its results is the revelation of undreamt-of capacities in these +directions. + +In the second task, that of perfecting the adaptation between men and +their tools, we have much to learn from the industrial history of the +past. It is natural for men to enjoy 'talking shop', and this esoteric +bond of union has existed between workmen in all ages. We may be sure +that there were discussions amongst connoisseurs in the Stone Age as to +the respective merits of their flint axes, just as there are to-day +between golfers about niblicks and putters, and between surgeons as to +the technique of the extraction of an appendix. A good workman loves his +tools. He is indeed inseparable from them, as our law acknowledges by +forbidding a bankrupt's tools to be sold up. Give a good workman, in +town or country, a sympathetic listener and he is only too ready to +expatiate on his daily work. This sense of kinship between men and their +tools and material is so little understood by some of our modern expert +organizers of industry that it is worth while illustrating it at some +length. I make no apology, therefore, for quoting a striking passage +from an essay by Mr. George Bourne, who is not a trade unionist or a +student of Labour politics but an observer of English village life, who +has taken the trouble to penetrate the mind of what is commonly regarded +as the stupidest and most backward--as it is certainly the least +articulate--class of workmen in this country, the agricultural labourer +in the southern counties. 'The men', he writes, + + are commonly too modest about their work, and too + unconscious that it can interest an outsider, to dream of + discussing it. What they have to say would not therefore by + itself go far in demonstration of their acquirements in + technique. Fortunately, for proof of that we are not + dependent on talk. Besides talk there exists another kind of + evidence open to every one's examination, and the technical + skill exercised in country labours may be purely deduced + from the aptness and singular beauty of sundry country + tools. + + The beauty of tools is not accidental, but inherent and + essential. The contours of a ship's sail bellying in the + wind are not more inevitable, nor more graceful, than the + curves of an adze-head or of a plough-share. Cast in iron or + steel, the gracefulness of a plough-share is more + indestructible than the metal, yet pliant (in the limits of + its type) as a line of English blank verse. It changes for + different soils: it is widened out or narrowed; it is + deep-grooved or shallow; not because of caprice at the + foundry or to satisfy an artistic fad, but to meet the + technical demands of the expert ploughman. The most familiar + example of beauty indicating subtle technique is supplied by + the admired shape of boats, which, however, is so variable + (the statement is made on the authority of an old + coast-guardsman) that the boat best adapted for one stretch + of shore may be dangerous, if not entirely useless, at + another stretch ten miles away. And as technique determines + the design of a boat, or of a waggon, or of a plough-share, + so it controls absolutely the fashioning of tools, and is + responsible for any beauty of form they may possess. Of all + tools none, of course, is more exquisite than a fiddle-bow. + But the fiddle-bow never could have been perfected, because + there would have been no call for its tapering delicacy, its + calculated balance of lightness and strength, had not the + violinist's technique reached such marvellous fineness of + power. For it is the accomplished artist who is fastidious + as to his tools; the bungling beginner can bungle with + anything. The fiddle-bow, however, affords only one example + of a rule which is equally well exemplified by many humbler + tools. Quarryman's peck, coachman's whip, cricket-bat, + fishing-rod, trowel, all have their intimate relation to the + skill of those who use them; and like animals and plants, + adapting themselves each to its own place in the universal + order, they attain to beauty by force of being fit. That law + of adaptation which shapes the wings of a swallow and + prescribes the poise and elegance of the branches of trees + is the same that demands symmetry in the corn-rick and + convexity in the beer-barrel; the same that, exerting itself + with matchless precision through the trained senses of + haymakers and woodmen, gives the final curve to the handles + of their scythes and the shafts of their axes. Hence the + beauty of a tool is an unfailing sign that in the proper + handling of it technique is present ... + +'It is not the well-informed and those eager to teach', he says in +another passage, + + who know the primitive necessary lore of civilization; it is + the illiterate. In California, Louis Stevenson found men + studying the quality of vines grown on different pockets of + earth, just as the peasants of Burgundy and the Rhine have + done for ages. And even so the English generations have + watched the produce of their varying soils. When or how was + it learnt--was it at Oxford or at Cambridge?--that the + apples of Devonshire are so specially fit for cider? Or how + is it that hops are growing--some of them planted before + living memory--all along the strip of green sand which + encircles the Weald--that curious strip to which text-books + at last point triumphantly as being singularly adapted for + hops? Until it got into the books, this piece of knowledge + was not thought of as learning; it had merely been acted + upon during some centuries. But such knowledge exists, + boundless, in whatever direction one follows it: the + knowledge of fitting means to ends: excellent rule-of-thumb + knowledge, as good as the chemist uses for analyzing water. + When the peculiar values of a plot of land have been + established--as, for instance, that it is a clay 'too + strong' for bricks--then further forms of localized + knowledge are brought to supplement this, until at last the + bricks are made. Next, they must be removed from the field; + and immediately new problems arise. The old farm-cart, + designed for roots or manure, has not the most suitable + shape for brick-carting. Probably, too, its wide wheels, + which were intended for the softness of ploughed land, are + needlessly clumsy for the hard road. Soon, therefore, the + local wheelwright begins to lighten his spokes and felloes, + and to make the wheels a trifle less 'dished'; while his + blacksmith binds them in a narrower but thicker tyre, to + which he gives a shade more tightness. For the wheelwright + learns from the carter--that ignorant fellow--the answer to + the new problems set by a load of bricks. A good carter, for + his part, is able to adjust his labour to his locality. A + part of his duty consists in knowing what constitutes a fair + load for his horse in the district where he is working. So + many hundred stock bricks, so many more fewer of the red or + wire-cut, such and such a quantity of sand, or timber, or + straw, or coal, or drain-pipes, or slates, according to + their kinds and sizes, will make as much as an average horse + can draw in this neighbourhood; but in London the loads are + bigger and the vehicles heavier; while in more hilly parts + (as you may see any day in the West Country) two horses are + put before a cart and load which the London carter would + deem hardly too much for a costermonger's donkey. + + So it goes throughout civilization: there is not an industry + but produces its own special knowledge relating to + unclassified details of adjustment.[76] + +It is this craft-knowledge and common professional feeling which is at +the basis of all associations of workpeople, from the semi-religious +societies of ancient times, which met in secret to worship their +patron-god--Hephaestos, the god of the metal-workers, or Asclepios, the +god of the doctors--through the great guilds of the Middle Ages to the +trade unions and professional organizations of to-day. Trade unions do +not exist simply to raise wages or to fight the capitalist, any more +than the British Medical Association exists simply to raise fees and to +bargain with the Government. They exist to serve a professional need: to +unite men who are doing the same work and to promote the welfare and +dignity of that work. It is this which renders so difficult the problems +of adjustment which arise owing to the introduction of new and +unfamiliar processes. Professional associations are, and are bound to +be, conservative: their conservatism is honourable and to their credit: +for they are the transmitters of a great tradition. The problem in every +case is to ensure the progress necessary to the community without injury +to that sense of 'fellowship in the mystery' on which the social spirit +of the particular class of workmen depends. It is from this point of +view that recent American proposals in the direction of 'scientific +management' are most open to criticism: for they involve the break-up of +the craft-spirit without setting anything comparable in its place. In +fact, Mr. F. W. Taylor, one of the inventors of what is called the +'system' of scientific management, frankly ignores or despises the +craft-spirit and proposes to treat the workman as a being incapable of +understanding the principles underlying the practice of his art. He goes +so far as to lay it down as a general principle that 'in almost all the +mechanic arts the science which underlies each act of each workman is so +great and amounts to so much that the workman who is best suited to +actually doing the work is incapable of fully understanding this +science, without the guidance and help of those who are working with him +or over him, either through lack of education or through insufficient +mental capacity'.[77] Along the lines of this philosophy no permanent +industrial advance is possible. It may improve the product for a time, +but only at the cost of degrading the producer. If we are to make +happiness our test, and to stand by our definition of happiness as +involving free activity, such a system, destructive as it is of any real +or intense relationship between the workman and his work, stands +self-condemned. If we are looking for _real_ industrial progress it is +elsewhere that we must turn. + +This leads us naturally on to the second great division of our subject: +progress in the methods of co-operation between man and man in doing +industrial work. For if man is a social animal his power to do his bit +and his consequent happiness must be derived, in part at least, from his +social environment. The lonely craftsman perfecting his art in the +solitude of a one-man workshop does not correspond with our industrial +ideal any more than the hermit or the monk corresponds with our general +religious ideal. It was the great apostle of craftsmanship, William +Morris, who best set forth the social ideal of industry in his immortal +sentence: 'Fellowship is Life and lack of Fellowship is Death.' Our +study of the workman, then, is not complete when we have seen him with +his tools: we must see him also among his workmates. We must see +industry not simply as a process of production but as a form of +association; and we must realize that the association of human beings +for the purpose of industrial work involves what is just as much a +problem of government as their association in the great political +community which we call the State. + +It is difficult to see the record of the progress of industrial +government in clear perspective for the simple reason that the world is +still so backward as regards the organization of this side of its common +life. The theory and practice of industrial government is generations, +even centuries, behind the theory and practice of politics. We are still +accustomed in industry to attitudes of mind and methods of management +which the political thought of the Western World has long since +discarded as incompatible with its ideals. Two instances must suffice to +illustrate this. It is constantly being said, both by employers and by +politicians, and even by writers in sympathy with working-class +aspirations, that all that the workman needs in his life is security. +Give him work under decent conditions, runs the argument, with +reasonable security of tenure and adequate guarantees against sickness, +disablement and unemployment, and all will be well. This theory of what +constitutes industrial welfare is, of course, when one thinks it out, +some six centuries out of date. It embodies the ideal of the old feudal +system, but without the personal tie between master and man which +humanized the feudal relationship. Feudalism, as we saw in our study of +political government, was a system of contract between the lord and the +labourer by which the lord and master ran the risks, set on foot the +enterprises (chiefly military), and enjoyed the spoils, incidental to +mediaeval life, while the labourer stuck to his work and received +security and protection in exchange. Feudalism broke down because it +involved too irksome a dependence, because it was found to be +incompatible with the personal independence which is the birthright of a +modern man. So it is idle to expect that the ideal of security will +carry us very far by itself towards the perfect industrial commonwealth. + +Take a second example of the wide gulf that still subsists between men's +ideas of politics and men's ideas of industry. It is quite common, even +in these latter days, and among those who have freely sacrificed their +nearest and dearest to the claims of the State, to hear manufacturers +and merchants say that they have a 'right to a good profit'. The +President of the Board of Trade remarked openly in the House of Commons +after many months of war that it was more than one could expect of human +nature for coal-owners not to get the highest price they could. Such a +standpoint is not merely indecent: it is hopelessly out-of-date. Looked +at from the political point of view it is a pure anachronism. There used +to be times when men made large fortunes out of the service of +government, as men still make them out of the service of the community +in trade and industry to-day. In the days of St. Matthew, when +tax-gathering was let out by contract, the apostle's partners would +probably have declared, as Mr. Runciman does to-day, that it was more +than one could expect of human nature that a publican who had a +government contract for the collection of the taxes should not get all +he could out of the tax-payer. It is, indeed, little more than a century +ago since it was a matter of course in this country to look upon oversea +colonies merely as plantations--that is, as business investments rather +than as communities of human beings. The existence of Chartered Company +government marks a survival of this habit of mind. The old colonial +system, which embodied this point of view, proved demoralizing not only +to the home government but to the colonists, as a similar view is to the +working class, and it led to the loss of the American colonies as surely +as a similar attitude on the part of employers leads to unrest and +rebellion among workpeople to-day. + +We have thus a long way to travel before the ideals of politics have +been assimilated into the industrial life of the community and have +found fitting embodiment in its kindred and more complex problems. But +at least we have reached a point where we can see what the problem of +industrial government is. We can say with assurance that a system which +treats human beings purely as instruments or as passive servants, and +atrophies their self-determination and their sense of individual and +corporate responsibility, is as far from perfection in industry as the +Roman Empire was in politics. Renan's words about 'the intolerable +sadness' incidental to such a method of organization apply with +redoubled force to occupations which take up the best part of the day of +the mass of the working population. The bleak and loveless buildings, +with their belching chimneys, which arrest the eye of the thoughtful +traveller in the industrial districts of England are not prisons or +workhouses. But they often look as if they were, and they resemble them +in this--that they too often stand for similarly authoritarian ideas of +government and direction. Industry is still an autocracy, as politics +was in the days before the supremacy of Parliament. Power still descends +from above instead of springing from below. It is a power limited no +doubt by trade union action and parliamentary and administrative +control: but it is in essence as autocratic as the government of England +used to be before the transference of sovereignty from the monarch to +the representatives of his subjects. It was recently announced in the +press that Lord Rhondda had bought a group of Welsh collieries for 2 +millions, and that as a result 'Lord Rhondda now controls over 3-1/2 +millions of capital, pays 2-1/2 millions in wages every year, and is +virtually the dictator of the economic destiny of a quarter of a million +miners. Rumours are also current', the extract continues, 'that Lord +Rhondda is extending his control over the press of Wales'.[78] The +existence of such power in this twentieth century in the hands of single +individuals, not selected from the mass for their special wisdom or +humanity, is a stupendous fact which must give pause to any one who is +inclined to feel complacent about modern industrial progress. In days +gone by political power was as irresponsible as the economic power +wielded to-day by Lord Rhondda; and it descended from father to son by +hereditary right in the same way as the control over the lives of +countless American workers descends to-day as a matter of course from +John D. Rockefeller senior to John D. Rockefeller junior. If there is +any reality at all in our political faith we must believe that a similar +development towards self-government can and must take place in +industry. It may be that generations will elapse before the problems of +industrial government find a final and satisfactory constitutional +solution. But at least we can say that there is only one basis for that +solution which is compatible with a sound ideal of government, or indeed +with any reasoned view of morality or religion--the basis of individual +and corporate freedom with its corresponding obligations of +responsibility and self-respect. No nation, as Abraham Lincoln said, can +remain half-slave and half-free: and it was a greater than Lincoln who +warned us that we cannot serve both God and Mammon. It is this +underlying conflict of ideals in the organization of our existing +economic system which is the real cause of the 'Labour unrest' of which +we have heard so much in recent years. + +With this warning in our minds as to the imperfections of our modern +industrial organization, let us briefly survey the record of the forms +of economic association which preceded it. + +The earliest form of industrial grouping is, of course, the family; and +the family, as we all know, still retains its primitive character in +some occupations as a convenient form of productive association. This is +particularly the case in agriculture in communities where peasant +holdings prevail. But the family is so much more than an industrial +group that it hardly falls to us to consider it further here. + +Outside the family proper, industrial work among primitive peoples is +often carried on by slaves. It was a step forward in human progress when +primitive man found that it was more advantageous to capture his enemies +than to kill or eat them; and it was a still greater step forward when +he found that there was more to be got out of slaves by kind treatment +than by compulsion. This is not the place in which to go into the vexed +questions connected with various forms of slavery. Suffice it to say +that it is a profound mistake to dismiss the whole system in one +undiscriminating condemnation. Slavery involves the denial of freedom, +and as such it can never be good. But other systems besides slavery +implicitly involve the denial of freedom. Some of the finest artistic +work in the world has been done by slaves--and by slaves not working +under compulsion but in the company of free men and on terms of +industrial equality with them. This should serve to remind us that, in +judging of systems of industry, we must look behind the letter of the +law to the spirit of the times and of social institutions. Slavery at +its best merges insensibly into wage-labour at its lower end. Many of +the skilled slaves of ancient Greece and Rome are hardly distinguishable +in status from a modern workman bound by an unusually long and strict +indenture and paid for his work not only in money but partly in truck. +In order to stimulate their productive capacity it was found necessary +in Greece and Rome to allow skilled slaves to earn and retain +money--although in the eye of the law they were not entitled to do so; +and they were thus frequently in a position to purchase their own +freedom and become independent craftsmen. Slavery in the household and +in small workshops is open to many and serious dangers, which need not +be particularized here; but the worst abuses of slavery have always +taken place where slaves have been easily recruited, as in the early +days of European contact with Africa, and when there were large openings +for their employment in gangs on work of a rough and unskilled +character. The problem of slavery in its worse forms is thus at bottom a +cheap-labour problem analogous to that which confronts North America and +South Africa to-day; and there is an essential difference which is often +ignored between the educated slave in a Roman Government office who did +the work of a First Division Civil Servant for his imperial master and +his compeer working in the fields of South Italy: and between the +household servants of a Virginian family and the plantation-slaves of +the farther South. Let us remember, in passing judgement on what is +admittedly an indefensible system, that during the war which resulted in +the freeing of the American slaves the slaveholders of the South trusted +their household slaves to protect the women and children during their +absence from home and that that trust was nowhere betrayed. There is +another side to _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ as surely as there is another side +to Mr. Carnegie's paean of modern industrialism in his _Triumphant +Democracy_. + +Systems of serfdom or caste which bind the workman to his work without +permitting him to be sold like a slave may be regarded as one step +higher than slavery proper. Such systems are common in stable and +custom-bound countries, and persisted throughout the European Middle +Ages. We need not describe how the rising tide of change gradually broke +up the system in this country and left the old-time villein a free but +often a landless and property less man. The transition from serfdom to +the system of wage-labour which succeeded it was a transition from legal +dependence to legal freedom, and as such it marked an advance. But it +was also a transition from a fixed and, as it were, a professional +position of service to the community to a blind and precarious +individualism. It was a transition, as Sir Henry Maine put it, from +status to contract. This famous nineteenth-century aphorism is eloquent +of the limitations of that too purely commercial age. Every thinking man +would admit to-day that status at its best is a better thing than +contract at its best--that the soldier is a nobler figure than the army +contractor, and that corporate feeling and professional honour are a +better stimulus to right action than business competition and a laudable +keenness to give satisfaction to a valuable customer. We have always +suffered from the temptation in this country of adapting business +methods and ideals to politics rather than political ideals and methods +to business. Our eighteenth-century thinkers explained citizenship +itself, not as a duty to our neighbours but as the fulfilment of an +unwritten contract. Our nineteenth-century legal writers elevated the +idea of free contract almost to an industrial ideal; while, in somewhat +the same spirit, the gutter journalists of to-day, when they are at a +loss for a popular watchword, call for a business government. Such +theories and battle-cries may serve for a 'nation of shopkeepers'; but +that opprobrious phrase has never been true of the great mass of the +English people, and it was never less true than to-day. + +The idea of industrial work as the fulfilment of a contract, whether +freely or forcibly made, is thus essentially at variance with the ideal +of community service. It is difficult for a man who makes his livelihood +by hiring himself out as an individual for what he can get out of one +piece of work after another to feel the same sense of community service +or professional pride as the man who is serving a vocation and has +dedicated his talents to some continuous and recognized form of work. It +is this which makes the system of wage-labour so unsatisfactory in +principle compared with the guilds of the town workmen in the Middle +Ages and with the organized professions of to-day; and it is this which +explains why trade unions of recent years have come to concern +themselves more and more with questions of status rather than of wages +and to regard the occupation which they represent more and more as a +profession rather than a trade. No one has laid bare the deficiencies of +the wage-system more clearly than Adam Smith in the famous chapter in +which he foreshadows the principle of collective bargaining. 'What are +the common wages of labour', he there remarks,[79] + + 'depends everywhere upon the contract usually made between + those two parties, whose interests are by no means the same. + The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as + little, as possible. The former are disposed to combine in + order to raise, the latter in order to lower, the wages of + labour.... We rarely hear, it has been said, of the + combinations of masters, though frequently of those of + workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that + masters rarely combine is as ignorant of the world as of the + subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of + tacit but constant and uniform combination not to raise the + wages of labour above their actual rate. To violate this + combination is everywhere a most unpopular action and a sort + of reproach to a master among his neighbours and equals. We + seldom, indeed, hear of this combination, because it is the + usual, and one may say, the natural state of things which + nobody ever hears of. Masters, too, sometimes enter into + particular combinations to sink the wages of labour even + below this rate. These are always conducted with the utmost + secrecy till the moment of execution; and, when the workmen + yield, as they sometimes do without resistance, though + severely felt by them, they are never heard of by other + people. Such combinations, however, are frequently resisted + by a contrary defensive combination of the workmen, who + sometimes, too, without any provocation of this kind, + combine of their own accord to raise the price of labour. + Their usual pretences are, sometimes the high price of + provisions, sometimes the great profit which their masters + make by their work.' + +These words were written 140 years ago, but, as we all know, they are +still true of the working of the system to-day. Indeed the war has +served to emphasize their truth by showing us how deeply entrenched are +the habits of bargaining and of latent antagonism which the working of +the wage-system has engendered. It is the defect of the wage-system, as +Adam Smith makes clear to us, that it lays stress on just those points +in the industrial process where the interests of employers and +workpeople run contrary to one another, whilst obscuring those far more +important aspects in which they are partners and fellow-workers in the +service of the community. This defect cannot be overcome by +strengthening one party to the contract at the expense of the other, by +crushing trade unions or dissolving employers' combinations, or even by +establishing the principle of collective bargaining. It can only be +overcome by the recognition on both sides that industry is in essence +not a matter of contract and bargaining at all, but of mutual +interdependence and community service: and by the growth of a new ideal +of status, a new sense of professional pride and corporate duty and +self-respect among all who are engaged in the same function. No one can +say how long it may take to bring about such a fundamental change of +attitude, especially among those who have most to lose, in the material +sense, by an alteration in the existing distribution of economic power. +But the war has cleared away so much of prejudice and set so much of our +life in a new light that the dim ideals of to-day may well be the +realities of to-morrow. This at least we can say: that no country in the +world is in a better position than we are to redeem modern industry from +the reproach of materialism and to set it firmly upon a spiritual basis, +and that the country which shall first have had the wisdom and the +courage to do so will be the pioneer in a vast extension of human +liberty and happiness and will have shown that along this road and no +other lies the industrial progress of mankind. + + +BOOKS FOR REFERENCE + +1. _Economics_: + + H. Clay, _Economics for the General Reader_. 1916. + + Ruskin, _Unto this last_. + + Smart, _Second Thoughts of an Economist_. 1916. + +2. _Man and his Tools_: + + Marvin, _The Living Past_. 1913. + + F. W. Taylor, _The Principles of Scientific Management_. 1911. + + Hoxie, _Scientific Management and Labour_. 1916. + +3. _Industrial Government_: + + Aristotle, _Politics_ (Book I, chapters on Slavery). + + Zimmern, _The Greek Commonwealth_ (chapters on Slavery). 1911. + + Ashley, _The Economic Organization of England_. 1914. + + Unwin, _Industrial Organization in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth + Centuries_. + + S. and B. Webb, _The History of Trade Unionism_. + + Macgregor, _The Evolution of Industry_ (Home University Library). + + Wallas, _The Great Society_. 1914. + + G. D. H. Cole, _The World of Labour_. 1915. + + _Round Table, June 1916 (Article on the Labour Movement and the + Future of British Industry)._ + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[67] Including the well-being of the producers--a point which is too +often overlooked. + +[68] On this point see _Poverty and Waste_, by Hartley Withers, 1914, +written before the war, which has driven its lessons home. + +[69] _The Living Past_, pp. 20, 21. + +[70] _Second Thoughts of an Economist_, p. 89. + +[71] _Principles of Economics_, vol. i, p. 11. It is interesting to note +that in his latest book, _Inventors and Money-making, lectures on some +relations between Economics and Psychology_ (1915), Professor Taussig to +some extent goes back upon the point of view of the extract given above. + +[72] A similar inquiry on a much larger scale was made by Adolf +Levinstein in his book _Die Arbeiterfrage_ (Munich, 1910). He examined +4,000 workpeople, consisting of coalminers, cotton operatives, and +engineers. With the exception of a few turners and fitters almost all +replied that they found little or no pleasure in their work. + +[73] _The Great Society_, p. 363. + +[74] Especially the wonderful results obtained from the young criminals +at the Little Commonwealth in Dorsetshire. + +[75] See _Readings in Vocational Guidance_ by Meyer Bloomfield (Boston, +1915). + +[76] _Lucy Bettesworth_, pp. 178-80, and 214-16. + +[77] This sentence is practically an unconscious paraphrase of a passage +from Aristotle's defence of slavery. + +[78] _The Welsh Outlook_, August 1916, p. 272. + +[79] _Wealth of Nations_, Book I, ch. viii. + + + + +IX + +PROGRESS IN ART + +A. CLUTTON BROCK + + +It is often said that there can be no such thing as progress in art. At +one time the arts flourish, at another they decay: but, as Whistler put +it, art happens as men of genius happen; and men cannot make it happen. +They cannot discover what circumstances favour art, and therefore they +cannot attempt to produce those circumstances. There are periods of +course in which the arts, or some one particular art, progress. One +generation may excel the last; through several generations an art may +seem to be rushing to its consummation. This happened with Greek +sculpture and the Greek drama in the sixth and fifth centuries; with +architecture and all kindred arts in western Europe in the twelfth and +thirteenth centuries, and at the same time with many arts in China. It +happened with painting and sculpture in Italy in the fourteenth and +fifteenth centuries, with literature in England in the sixteenth +century, with music in Germany in the eighteenth century and the +beginning of the nineteenth. But in all these cases there followed a +decline, often quite unconscious at the time and one of which we cannot +discover the causes. Attempts are made by historians of the arts to +state the causes; but they satisfy only those who make them, for they +are, in fact, only statements of the symptoms of decline. They tell us +what happened, not why it happened. And they all seem to point to two +conclusions about the course of the arts, both of which would make us +despair of any settled progress in them. The first is that the practice +of any art by any particular people always follows a certain natural +course of growth, culmination, and decay. At least it always follows +this course where an art is practised naturally and therefore with +success. Art in fact, in its actual manifestations, is like the life of +an individual human being and subject to inexorable natural laws. It is +born, as men are born, without the exercise of will; and in the same way +it passes through youth, maturity, and old age. The second conclusion +follows from this, and it is that one nation or age cannot take up an +art where another has left it. That is where art seems to differ from +science. The mass of knowledge acquired in one country can, if that +country loses energy to apply or increase it, be utilized by another. +But we cannot so make use of the art of the Greeks or of the Italian +Renaissance or of our own Middle Ages. In the Gothic revival we tried to +make use of the art of the Middle Ages and we failed disastrously. We +imitated without understanding, and we could not understand because we +were not ourselves living in the Middle Ages. Art, in fact, is always a +growth of its own time which cannot be transplanted, and no one can tell +why it grows in one time and among one people and not in another. + +That is what we are always told, and yet we never quite believe all of +it. For, as art is a product of the human mind, it must also be a +product of the human will, unless it is altogether unconscious like a +dream. But that it is not; for men produce it in their waking hours and +with the conscious exercise of their faculties. If a man paints a +picture he does so because he wants to paint one. He exercises will and +choice in all his actions, and the man who buys a picture does the same. +We talk of inspiration in the arts as something that cannot be +commanded, but there is also inspiration in the sciences. No man can +make a scientific discovery by the pure exercise of his will. It jumps +into one mind and not into another just like an artistic inspiration. +And further we are taught and trained in the arts as in the sciences; +and success in both depends a great deal upon the nature of the +training. In both good training will not give genius or inspiration to +those who are without it; but it will enable those who possess it to +make the most of it; and, what is more, it will enable even the mediocre +to produce work of some value. What strikes us most about the Florentine +school of painting of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is the fact +that its second-rate painters are so good, that we can enjoy their works +even when they are merely imitative. But the Florentine school excelled +all others of the time in its teaching; most painters of other schools +in Italy learnt from Florence; and the inspiration came to them from +Florence, they were quickened from Florence, however much their art kept +its own natural character. But this school which had the best teaching +also produced the most painters of genius. Its level was higher and its +heights were higher; and for this reason, that the whole Florentine +intellect went both into the teaching and into the practice of painting +and sculpture. The Florentine was able to put all his mind, the +scientific faculties as well as the aesthetic, into his art. He never +relied merely on his temperament or his mood. He was eager for +knowledge. It was not enough for him to paint things as he saw them; he +tried to discover how they were made, what were the laws of their growth +and construction; and his knowledge of these things changed the +character of his vision, made him see the human body, for instance, as +no mediaeval artist had ever seen it; made him see it as an engineer +sees a machine. Just as an engineer sees more in a machine than a man +who does not understand its working, so the Florentine saw more in the +human body than a mediaeval artist. He saw it with a scientific as well +as an aesthetic passion, and all this science of his enriched his art so +that there has never since been drawing like the Florentine, drawing at +once so logical and so expressive. + +The Florentines in fact did exercise their will upon their art more than +any other modern artists, more, perhaps, than any other artists known to +us, and their painting and sculpture were the greatest of the modern +world. Yet the fact remains that Florentine art declined suddenly and +irresistibly, and that all the Florentine intellect, which still +remained remarkable and produced men of science like Galileo, could not +arrest that decline. Indeed the Florentines themselves seem not to have +been conscious of it. They thought that the dull imitators of +Michelangelo were greater than his great predecessors. As we say, their +taste became bad, their values were perverted; and with that perversion +all their natural genius for the arts was wasted. To this day Carlo +Dolci is the favourite painter of the ordinary Florentine. He was a man +of some ability, and he painted pictures at once feeble and revolting +because he himself and his public liked such pictures. + +There is no accounting for tastes, we say, and in saying that we despair +of progress in the arts. For it is ultimately this unaccountable thing +called taste, and not the absence or presence of genius, which +determines whether the arts shall thrive or decay in any particular age +or country. People often say that they know nothing about art, but that +they do know what they like; and what they imply is that there is +nothing to be known about art except your own likes and dislikes, and +further that no man can control those. The Florentines of the +seventeenth century happened to like Carlo Dolci, where the Florentines +of the fifteenth had liked Botticelli. That is the only explanation we +can give of the decline of Florentine painting. + +It is of course no explanation; and because no explanation beyond it has +been given, we are told that there can be no such thing as progress in +the arts. That is the lesson of history. We are far beyond the Egyptians +in science, but certainly not beyond them in art. Indeed one might say +that there has been a continual slow decline in all the arts of Europe, +except music, since the year 1500, and that music itself has been slowly +declining since the death of Beethoven. But with this slow inexorable +decline of the arts there has been a great advance in nearly everything +else, in knowledge, in power, even in morality. Upon everything man has +been able to exercise his will except upon the arts. Where he has really +wished for progress there he has got it, except in this one case. +Therefore it seems that upon the arts he cannot exercise his will, and +that they alone of all his activities are not capable of progress. What +do we mean by progress except the successful exercise of the human will +in a right direction? That is what distinguishes progress from natural +growth; that alone can preserve it from natural processes of decay. +There are people who say that it does not exist, that everything which +happens to man is a natural process of growth or decay. Whether that is +so or not, we do mean by progress something different from these natural +processes. When we speak of it we do imply the exercise of the human +will, man's command over circumstances; and those who deny progress +altogether deny that man has any will or any command over circumstances. +For them things happen to man and that is all, it is not man's will that +makes things happen. But if we use the word progress at all, we imply +that it is man's will that makes things happen. And since man is +evidently liable to decline as well as progress, it follows that if we +believe man to be capable of exercising his will in a right direction we +must also believe that he can and does exercise it in a wrong direction. +I assume that man has this power both for good and for evil. If I did +not, I should not be addressing you upon the question whether man is +capable of progress in the arts, but upon the question whether he is +capable of progress at all. And I should be trying to prove that he is +not. + +As it is, the question I have to discuss is whether he has the power of +exercising for good or evil his will upon the arts as upon other things; +and hitherto I have been giving you certain facts in the history of the +arts which seem to prove that he is not. They all amount to this--that +man has not hitherto succeeded in exercising his will upon the arts; +that he has not produced good art because he wished to produce it. We, +for instance, wish to excel in the arts; we have far more power than the +ancient Greeks or Egyptians; but we have not been able to apply that +power to the arts. In them we are conscious of a strange impotence. We +cannot build like our forefathers of the Middle Ages, we cannot make +furniture like our great-grandfathers of the eighteenth century. Go into +an old churchyard and look at the tombstones of the past and present. +You will see that the lettering is always fine up to the first +generation of the nineteenth century. In that generation there is a +rapid decline; and since about 1830 there has been no decent lettering +upon tombstones except what has been produced in the last ten years or +so by the conscious effort of a few individual artists of great natural +talent and high training. If I want good lettering on a tombstone I have +to employ one of these artists and to pay him a high price for his +talent and his training. But that is only one example of a universal +decline in all the arts of use, a decline which happened roughly between +the years 1800 and 1830. And the significant fact about it is that when +it happened no one was aware of it. So far as I know, this artistic +catastrophe, far the swiftest and most universal known to us in the +whole course of history, was never even mentioned in contemporary +literature. The poets, the lovers of beauty, did not speak of it. They +talked about nature, not about art. There is not a hint of it in the +letters of Shelley or Keats. There is just a hint of it in some sayings +of Blake; but that is all. One would suppose that such a catastrophe +would have filled the minds of all men who were not entirely occupied +with the struggle for life, that all would have seen that a glory was +passing away from the earth, and would have made some desperate struggle +to preserve it. But, as I say, they saw nothing of it. They were not +aware that a universal ugliness was taking the place of beauty in all +things made by man; and therefore the new ugliness must have pleased +them as much as the old beauty. So it appears once again that there is +no accounting for tastes, and no test that we can apply to them. When +science declines, men at least know that they have less power. They are +more subject to pestilence when they forget medicine and sanitation; +their machines become useless to them when they no longer know how to +work them; there is anarchy when they lose their political goodwill. But +when their taste decays they do not know that it has decayed. And with +it decays their artistic capacity, so that, quite complacently, they +lose the power of doing decently a thousand things that their fathers +did excellently. + +But here suddenly I am brought to a stop by a new fact in human history. +The arts have declined, but our complacency over their decline has +ceased. The first man who disturbed it was Ruskin. It was he who saw +the catastrophe that had happened. Suddenly he was aware of it; suddenly +he escaped from the universal tyranny of the bad taste of his time. He +was the first to deny that there was no accounting for tastes; the first +to deny, indeed, that the ordinary man did know what he liked. And he +was followed with more knowledge and practical power, in fact with more +science, by William Morris. What both of these great men really said was +that taste is not unaccountable; that the mass of men do not know what +they like, that they do not apply their intellect and will to what they +suppose to be their likes and dislikes, and that they could apply their +intellect and will to these things if they chose. + +When we say that there is no accounting for tastes we imply that tastes +are always real, that, whether good or bad, they happen to men without +any exercise of their will. But Ruskin and Morris implied that we must +exercise our will and our intelligence to discover what our tastes +really are; that this discovery is not at all easy, but that, if we do +not make it, we are at the mercy, not of our own real tastes, but of an +unreal thing which is called the public taste, or of equally unreal +reactions against it. We think that we like what we suppose other people +to like, and these other people too think that they like what no one +really likes. Or in mere blind reaction we think that we dislike what +the mob likes. But in either case our likes and dislikes are not ours at +all and, what is more, they are no one's. Taste in fact is bad because +it is not any one's taste, because no one's will is exercised in it or +upon it. When it is good, it is always real taste, that is to say some +real person's taste. In the work of art the artist does what he really +likes to do and expresses some real passion of his own, not some passion +which he believes that he, as an artist, ought to express. Art, said +Morris, is the expression of the workman's pleasure in his work. It +cannot be real art unless it is a real pleasure. And so the public will +not demand real art unless they too take a real pleasure in it. If they +do not know what they really like, they will not demand of the artist +what they really like or what he really likes. They will demand +something tiresome and insincere, and by the tyranny of their demand +will set him to produce it. + +That was what happened at the beginning of the nineteenth century in +nearly all the arts and especially in the arts of use. It had happened +before in different ages and countries, especially in painting, +sculpture, architecture, and the arts of use as they were patronized by +the vulgar rich, such as the court of Louis XV. But now it happened +suddenly and universally to all arts. There were no longer vulgar rich +only but also vulgar poor and vulgar middle-classes. Everywhere there +spread a kind of aesthetic snobbery which obscured real tastes. Of this +I will give one simple and homely example. The beautiful flowers of the +cottage garden were no longer grown in the gardens of the well-to-do, +because they were the flowers of the poor. Instead were grown lobelias, +geraniums, and calceolarias, combined in a hideous mixture, not because +any one thought them more beautiful, but because, since they were grown +in green-houses, they implied the possession of green-houses and so of +wealth. They did not, of course, even do that, since they could be +bought very cheaply from nurserymen. They implied only the bad taste of +snobbery which is the absence of all real taste. For it is physically +impossible for any one to like such a combination of plants better than +larkspurs and lilies and roses. What they did enjoy was not the flowers +themselves but their association with gentility. But so strong was the +contagion of this association that cottagers themselves began to throw +away their beautiful cottage-garden flowers and to grow these plants, so +detestable in combination. And to this day one can see often in cottage +gardens pathetic imitations of a taste that never was real and which now +is discredited among the rich, so that a border of lobelias, +calceolarias, and geraniums has become a mark of social inferiority as +it was once one of social superiority. But what it never was and never +could be was an expression of a genuine liking. + +Now I owe the very fact that I am able to give this account of a simple +perversion of taste to Ruskin and Morris. It was they who first made the +world aware that its taste was perverted and that most of its art was +therefore bad. It was they who filled us with the conviction of artistic +sin, and who also in a manner entirely scientific tried to discover what +was the nature of this sin and how it had come about. First Ruskin +tentatively, and afterwards Morris systematically and out of his own +vast artistic experience, connected this decay of the arts with certain +social conditions. It was not merely that taste had decayed or that the +arts had developed to a point beyond which there was nothing for them +but decline. Morris insisted that there were causes for the decay of +taste and the decline of the arts, causes as much subject to the will of +man as the causes of any kind of social decay or iniquity. He insisted +that a work of art is not an irrational mystery, not something that +happens and may happen well or ill; but that all art is intimately +connected with the whole of our social well-being. It is in fact an +expression of what we value, and if we value noble things it will be +noble, if we pretend to value base things it will be base. + +Whistler said that this was not so. He insisted that genius is born, not +made, and that some peoples have artistic capacity, some have not. Now +it is true that nations vary very much in their artistic capacity and in +the strength of their desire to produce art. But even the nations which +have little artistic capacity and little desire to produce art have in +their more primitive state produced charming works of real art. Whistler +gave the case of the Swiss as an excellent people with little capacity +for art. But the old Swiss chalets are full of character and beauty, and +there are churches in Switzerland which have all the beauty of the +Middle Ages. The cuckoo clocks and other Swiss articles of commerce +which Whistler despised are contemptible, not because they are Swiss, +but because they are tourist trash produced by workmen who express no +pleasure of their own in them for visitors who buy them only because +they think they are characteristic of Switzerland. They are, in fact, +not the expression of any genuine taste or liking whatever, like the +tourist trash that is sold in the Rue de Rivoli. Probably the Swiss +would never be capable of producing works of art like Chartres Cathedral +or Don Giovanni, but they have in the past possessed a genuine and +delightful art of their own like nearly every European nation in the +Middle Ages. + +So, though genius is born, it is also made, and though nations differ in +artistic capacity, they all have some artistic capacity so long as they +know what they like and express only their own liking in their art, so +long as they are not infected with artistic snobbism or commercialism. +This we know now, and we have developed a new and remarkable power of +seeing and enjoying all the genuine art of the past. This power is part +of the historical sense which is itself modern. In the past, until the +nineteenth century, very few people could see any beauty or meaning in +any art of the past that did not resemble the art of their own time and +country. The whole art of the Middle Ages, for instance, was thought to +be merely barbarous until the Gothic revival, and so was the art of all +the past so far as it was known, except the later art of Greece and +Rome. For our ancestors' taste did indeed happen as art happened, and +they could not escape from the taste which circumstances imposed on +them; any art that was not according to that taste was for them as it +were in an unknown tongue. But we have made this great progress in +taste, at least, if not in the production of art, that we can understand +nearly all artistic languages, and that what used to be called classical +art has lost its old superstitious prestige for us. Not only can we +enjoy the art of our own Middle Ages; but many of us can enjoy and +understand just as well the great art of Egypt and China, and can see as +clearly when that art is good or bad as if it were of our own time. We +have, in fact, in the matter of artistic appreciation gained the freedom +of all the ages, and this is a thing that has never, so far as we know, +happened before in the history of the human mind. + +But still this freedom of all the ages has not enabled us to produce a +great art of our own. There are some, indeed, who think that it has +hindered us from doing so, that we are becoming merely universal +connoisseurs who can criticize anything and produce nothing. We have the +most wonderful museums that ever were, and the most wonderful power of +enjoying all that is in them, but, with all our riches from the past, +our present is barren; and it is barren because our rich men would +rather pay great prices for past treasures than encourage artists to +produce masterpieces now. If that is so, if that is all that is coming +to us from our freedom of all the ages, there is certainly not progress +in it. Better that we should produce and enjoy the humblest genuine art +of our own than that we should continue in this learned impotence. + +But this power of enjoying the art of all ages, though it certainly has +had some unfortunate results, must be good in itself. It is sympathy, +and that is always better than indifference or antipathy. It is +knowledge, and that is always better than ignorance. And we have to +remember that it has existed only for a short time and is, therefore, +not yet to be judged by its fruits. We are still gasping at all the +artistic treasures of the past that have been revealed to us like a new +world; and still they are being revealed to our new perceptions. Only in +the last ten years, for instance, have we discovered that Chinese +painting is the rival of Italian, or that the golden age of Chinese +pottery was centuries before the time of that Chinese porcelain which we +have hitherto admired so much. The knowledge, the delight, is still +being gathered in with both hands. It is too soon to look for its +effects upon the mind of Europe. + +But it is not the result of mere barren connoisseurship or +scholasticism. Rather it is a new renaissance, a new effort of the human +spirit, and an effort after what? An effort to exert the human will in +the matter of art far more consciously than it has exerted ever before. +It is to be noted that Morris himself, the man who first told us that we +must exert our wills in art, was also himself eager in the discovery and +enjoyment of all kinds of art in the past. He had his prejudices, the +prejudices of a very wilful man and a working artist. 'What can I see in +Rome,' he said, 'that I cannot see in Whitechapel?' But he enjoyed the +art of most ages and countries more than he enjoyed his prejudices. He +had the historical sense in art to a very high degree. He knew what the +artist long dead meant by his work as if it were a poem in his own +language, and from the art of the past which he loved he saw what was +wrong with the art of our time. So did Ruskin and so do many now. +Further we are not in the least content to admire the art of the past +without producing any of our own. There is incessant restless +experiment, incessant speculation about aesthetics, incessant effort to +apply them to the actual production of art, in fact to exert the +conscious human will upon art as it has never been exerted before. + +So, if one wished in a sentence to state the peculiarity of the last +century in the history of art, one would say that it is the first age in +which men have rebelled against the process of decadence in art, in +which they have been completely conscious of that process and have tried +to arrest it by a common effort of will. We cannot yet say that that +effort has succeeded, but we cannot say either that it has failed. We +may be discontented with the art of our own time, but at least we must +allow that it is, with all its faults, extravagances, morbidities and +blind experiments, utterly unlike the art of any former age of decadence +known to us. There may be confusion and anarchy, but there is not mere +pedantry and stagnation. Artists perhaps are over-conscious, always +following some new prophet, but at least there is the conviction of sin +in them, which is exactly what all the decadent artists of the past have +lacked. + +The artistic decadence of the past which is most familiar to us is that +of the later Graeco-Roman art. It was a long process which began at +least as early as the age of Alexander and continued until the fall of +the Western Roman Empire and afterwards, until, indeed, the decadent +classical art was utterly supplanted by the art which we call Romanesque +and Byzantine, and which seems to us now at its best to be as great as +any art that has ever been. + +But a hundred years ago this Romanesque and Byzantine art was thought to +be only a barbarous corruption of the classical art. For then the +classical art even in its last feebleness still kept its immense and +unique prestige. Shelley said that the effect of Christianity seemed to +have been to destroy the last remains of pure taste, and he said this +when he had been looking at the great masterpieces of Byzantine mosaic +at Ravenna. Now we know with an utter certainty that he was wrong. He +was himself a great artist, but to him there was only one rational and +beautiful and civilized art, and that was the decadent Graeco-Roman art. +To him works like the Apollo Belvedere were the masterpieces of the +world, and all other art was good as it resembled them. He and in fact +most people of his time were still overawed by the immense complacency +of that art. They had not the historical sense at all. They had no +notion of certain psychological facts about art which are now familiar +to every educated man. They did not know that art cannot be good unless +it expresses the character of the people who produce it; that +characterless art, however accomplished, is uninteresting; that there +may be more life and so more beauty in the idol of an African savage +than in the Laocoon. + +This later Greek and Graeco-Roman art was doomed to inevitable decay +because of its immense complacency. The artists had discovered, as they +thought, the right way to produce works of art, and they went on +producing them in that way without asking themselves whether they meant +anything by them or whether they enjoyed them. They knew, in fact, what +was the proper thing to do just as conventional people now know what is +the proper thing to talk about at a tea party; and their art was as +uninteresting as the conversation of such people. In both the talk and +the art there is no expression of real values and so no expression of +real will. The past lies heavy upon both. So people have talked, so +artists have worked, and so evidently people must talk and artists must +work for evermore. + +Now we have been threatened with just the same kind of artistic +decadence, and we are still threatened with it; so that it would be very +easy to argue that, when men reach a certain stage in that organization +of their lives which we call civilization, they must inevitably fall +into artistic decadence. The Roman Empire did attain to a high stage of +such organization, and all the life went out of its art. We have reached +perhaps a still higher or at least more elaborate stage of it, and the +life has gone or is going out of our art. It has become even more +mechanical than the Graeco-Roman. We, too, have lost the power of +expressing ourselves, our real values, our real will, in it; and we had +better submit to that impotence and not make a fuss about it. Indeed art +really is an activity proper to a more childish stage of the human mind, +and we shall do well not to waste our time and energy upon it. That is +the only way in which we can be superior to the Graeco-Roman world in +the matter of art. We can give it up altogether or rather put it all +into museums as a curiosity of the past to be studied for historical and +scientific purposes. + +But I have only to say that to prove that we will not be contented with +such a counsel of despair. The Romans went on producing art, even if it +was bad art, and we shall certainly go on producing art whether it is +good or bad. We have produced an immense mass of bad art, worse perhaps +than any that the Roman world produced. But there is this difference +between us and the Romans, that we are not content with it. We have the +conviction of artistic sin and they had not. Therefore we do not think +that their example need make us despair. They were not exercising their +will on their art. It was to them what a purely conventional morality is +to a morally decadent people. It went from bad to worse, just as +conventional morals do, when no man arises and says: 'This is wrong, +although you think it right. I know what is right from my own sense of +values, and I will do it in spite of you.' So far as we know, there were +no rebels of that kind in the art of the Graeco-Roman world. But our +world of art is full of such rebels and has been ever since the artistic +debacle at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In fact the chief +and the unique characteristic of the art of the last hundred years has +been the constant succession of artistic rebels. All our greatest +artists have been men who were determined to exercise their own wills in +their art, whatever the mass of men might think of it. And what has +always happened is that they have been first bitterly abused and then +passionately praised. This, so far as I know, has never happened before. +There have been rebel artists like Rembrandt, but only a few of them. +Most great artists before the nineteenth century have been admired in +their own time. But in the nineteenth century, and more and more towards +the end of it, the great artists have had to conquer the world with +their rebellion, they have had to exercise their own individual wills +against the common convention. And it seems to us now the mark of the +great artist so to exercise his individual will, so to rebel and conquer +the world with his rebellion, even if he kills himself in the process. +Think of Constable and even Turner, of our pre-Raphaelites, and above +all of nearly all the great French artists, of Millet, of Manet, of +Cezanne, Gauguin, of Rodin himself, who has conquered the world now, but +only in his old age. Think of Beethoven, of Schubert, of Wagner, and of +all the rebel musicians of to-day. But in the past the great artists, +Michelangelo, Titian, even the great innovator Giorgione; Mozart, Bach, +Handel; none of these were thought of as rebels. They had not to conquer +the world against its will. They came into the world, and the world +knew them. So, we may be sure, the decadent artists of the Graeco-Roman +world were not rebels. There they were like Michelangelo and Raphael, if +they were like them in nothing else. If they had been rebels we might +not yawn at their works now. + +Now, clearly, this rebellion is not so good a thing as the harmony +between the artist and his public which has prevailed in all great ages +of art. But it is better than the harmony of dull and complacent +convention which prevailed in the Graeco-Roman decadence. For it means +that our artists are not content with such complacence, that they will +not accept decadence as an inevitable process. And the fact that we do +passionately admire them for their rebellion as soon as we understand +what it means, that this rebellion seems to us a glorious and heroic +thing, is a proof that we, the public, also are not content to sink into +the Graeco-Roman complacency. We may stone our prophets at first, but +like the Hebrews, we produce prophets as well as priests, that is to say +academicians. And we treasure their works as the Hebrews treasured the +books of the prophets. + +Art, in fact, is a human activity in which we try to exercise our wills. +We are aware that it is threatened with decadence by the mere process of +our civilization, that it is much more difficult for us to produce +living art than it was for our forefathers of the Middle Ages. But still +we are not content to produce dead art. Half unconsciously we are making +the effort to exercise our wills upon our art, as upon our science, our +morals, our politics, to avoid decadence in art as we try to avoid it in +other human activities; and this effort is the great experiment, the +peculiar feature, of the art of the last century. + +It is an effort not merely aesthetic but also intellectual. There is a +great interest in aesthetics and a constant and growing effort to +charge them with actual experience and to put them to some practical +end. In the past they have been the most backward, the most futile and +barren, kind of philosophy because men wrote about them who had never +really experienced works of art and who saw no connexion between their +philosophy and the production of works of art. They talked about the +nature of the beautiful, as schoolmen talked about the nature of God. +And they knew no more about the nature of the beautiful from their own +experience of it than schoolmen knew about the nature of God. But now +men are interested in the beautiful because they miss it so much in the +present works of men and because they so passionately desire it; and +their speculation has the aim of recovering it. So aesthetics, whatever +some artists in their peculiar and pontifical narrowness may say, is of +great importance now; they are part of the effort which the modern world +is making to exercise its will in the production of works of art, and +they are bound, if that effort is successful, to have more and more +effect upon that production. + +But is that effort going to be successful? That is a question which no +one can answer yet. But my object is to insist that in our age, because +of its effort, an effort which has never been made so consciously and +resolutely before, there is a possibility of a progress in art of the +same nature as progress in other human activities. If we can escape from +what has seemed to some men this inexorable process of decadence in art, +we shall have accomplished one of the greatest achievements of the human +will. We shall have redeemed art from the tyranny of mere fate. + +What we have to do now is to understand what it is that causes decadence +in art, we have to apply a conscious science to the production of it. We +have to see what are the social causes that produce excellence and +decay in it. And we have made a great beginning in this. For we are all +aware that art is not an isolated thing, that it does not merely happen, +as Whistler said. We know that it is a symptom of something right or +wrong with the whole mind of man and with the circumstances that affect +that mind. We know at last that there is a connexion between the art of +man and his intellect and his conscience. It was because William Morris +saw that connexion that he, from being a pure artist, became a socialist +and spoke at street corners. Such a change, such a waste and perversion +as it seemed to many, would have been impossible in any former age. It +was possible and inevitable, it was a natural process for Morris in the +nineteenth century, because he was determined to exercise his will upon +art, just as men in the past had exercised their will upon religion or +politics; because he no longer believed that art happened as the weather +happens and that the artist is a charming but irresponsible child swayed +merely by the caprices of his own private subconsciousness. Was he right +or wrong? I myself firmly believe that he was right. That if man has a +will at all, if he is not a mere piece of matter moulded by +circumstances, he has a will in art as in all other things. And, +further, if he has a common will which can express itself in his other +activities, in religion or politics, that common will must also be able +to express itself in art. It has not hitherto done so consciously, +because man in all periods of artistic success has been content to +succeed without asking why he succeeded, and in all periods of artistic +failure he has been content to fail without asking why he has failed. We +have been for long living in a period of artistic failure, but we have +asked, we are asking always more insistently, why we fail. And that is +where our time differs from any former period of artistic decadence, +why, I believe, it is not a period of decadence but one of experiment, +and of experiment which will not be wasted, however much it may seem at +the moment to fail. But if out of all this conscious effort and +experiment we do arrest the process of decadence, if we do pass from +failure to success, then we shall have accomplished a progress in art +such as has never been accomplished before even in the greatest ages. +For whereas men have never been able to learn from the experience of +those ages, whereas the Greeks and the men of the thirteenth century +have not taught men how to avoid decadence in art, we and our children +will teach them how to avoid it. We shall then have given a security to +art such as it has never enjoyed before; and we shall do that by +applying science to it, by using the conscious intelligence upon it. + +We may fail, of course, but even so our effort will not have been in +vain. And some future age in happier circumstances may profit by it, and +achieve that progress, that application of science to art, which we are +now attempting. + +Many people, especially artists, tell us that the attempt is a mere +absurdity. But ignorance even about art need not be eternal. Ignorance +is eternal only when it is despairing or contented. Twenty years ago +many people said that men never would be able to fly, yet they are +flying now because they were resolved to fly. So we are more and more +resolved to have great art. Every year we feel the lack of it more and +more. Every year more people exercise their wills more and more +consciously in the effort to achieve it. This, I repeat, has never +happened before in the history of the world. And the consequence is that +our art, what real art we have, is unlike any that there has been in the +world before. It is so strange and so rebellious that we ourselves are +shocked and amazed by it. Much of it, no doubt, is merely strange and +rebellious, as much of early Christianity was merely strange and +rebellious and so provoked the resentment and persecution of +self-respecting pagans. Every great effort of the human mind attracts +those who merely desire their own salvation, and so it is with the +artistic effort now. There are cubists and futurists and +post-impressionists who are as silly as human beings can be, because +they hope to attain to artistic salvation by rushing to extremes. They +are religious egotists, in fact, and nothing can be more disagreeable +than a religious egotist. But there were no doubt many of them among the +early Christians. Yet Christianity was a great creative religious effort +which came because life and truth had died out of the religions of the +past, and men could not endure to live without life and truth in their +religion. So now they cannot endure to live without life and truth in +their art. They are determined to have an art which shall express all +that they have themselves experienced of the beauty of the universe, +which shall not merely utter platitudes of the past about that beauty. + +So far perhaps there is little but the effort at expression, an effort +strange, contorted, self-conscious. You can say your worst about it and +laugh at all its failures. Yet they are failures different in kind from +the artistic failures of the past, for they are failures of the +conscious will, not of mere complacency. And it is such failures in all +human activities that prepare the way for successes. + +Let us remember then, always, that art is a human activity, not a fairy +chance that happens to the mind of man now and again. And let us +remember, too, that it does not consist merely of pictures or statues or +of music performed in concert-rooms. It is, indeed, rather a quality of +all things made by man, a quality that may be good or bad but which is +always in them. That is one of the facts about art that was discovered +in the nineteenth century, when men began to miss the excellence of art +in all their works and to wish passionately that its excellence might +return to them. And this discovery which was then made about art was of +the greatest practical importance. For then men became aware that they +could not have good pictures or architecture or sculpture unless the +quality of art became good again in all their works. So much they learnt +about the science of art. They began, or some of them did, to think +about their furniture and cottages and pots and pans and spoons and +forks, and even about their tombstones, as well as about what had been +called their works of art. And in all these humbler things an advance, a +conscious resolute wilful advance, has been made. We begin to see when +and also why spoons and forks and pots and pans are good or bad. We are +less at the mercy of chance or blind fashion in such things than our +fathers were. We know our vulgarity and the naughtiness of our own +hearts. The advance, the self-knowledge, is not general yet, but it +grows more general every year and the conviction of sin spreads. No +doubt, like all conviction of sin, it often produces unpleasant results. +The consciously artistic person often has a more irritating house than +his innocently philistine grandfather had. So, no doubt, many simple +pagan people were much nicer than those early Christians who were out +for their own salvation. But there was progress in Christianity and +there was none in paganism. + +The title of this book is _Progress and History_, and it may justly be +complained that the progress of which I have been talking is not +historic, but a progress that has not yet happened and may never happen +at all. But that I think is a defect of my particular branch of the +subject. Progress in art, if progress is anything more than a natural +process of growth to be followed inevitably by a natural process of +decay, has never yet happened in art; but there is now an effort to make +it happen, an effort to exercise the human will in art more completely +and consciously than it has ever been exercised before. Therefore I +could do nothing but attempt to describe that effort and to speculate +upon its success. + + + + +X + +PROGRESS IN SCIENCE + +F.S. MARVIN + + + 'L'Esprit travaillant sur les donnees de l'experience.' + +The French phrase, neater as usual than our own, may be taken as the +starting-point in our discussion. We shall put aside such questions as +what an experience is, or how much the mind itself supplies in each +experience, or what, if anything, is the not-mind upon which the mind +works. We must leave something for the chapter on philosophy; and the +present chapter is primarily historical. Having defined what we mean by +science, we are to consider at what stage in history the working of the +mind on experience can be called scientific, in what great strides +science has leapt forward since its definite formation, and in what ways +this growth of science has affected general progress, both by its action +on the individual and on the welfare and unity of mankind. + +Our French motto must be qualified in order to give us precision in our +definition and a starting-point in history for science in the strict +sense. In a general sense the action of the mind upon the given in +experience has been going on from the beginning of animal life. But +science, strictly so-called, does not appear till men have been +civilized and settled in large communities for a considerable time. We +cannot ascribe 'science' to the isolated savage gnawing bones in his +cave, though the germs are there, in every observation that he makes of +the world around him and every word that he utters to his mates. But we +may begin to speak of science when we reach those large and ordered +societies which are found in the great river-basins and sedentary +civilizations of East and West, especially in Egypt and Chaldea. + +When we turn to the quality of the thing itself, we note in the first +place that while science may be said to begin with mere description, it +implies from the first a certain degree of order and accuracy, and this +order and accuracy increase steadily as science advances. It is thus a +type of progress, for it is a constant growth in the fullness, accuracy +and simplification of our experience. From the dawn of science, +therefore, man must have acquired standards and instruments of +measurement and means of handing on his observations to others. Thus +writing must have been invented. But in the second place, there is +always involved in this orderly description, so far as it is scientific, +the element of prediction. The particular description is not scientific. +'I saw a bird fly' is not a scientific description, however accurate; +but 'The bird flies by stretching out its wings' is. It contains that +causal connexion or element of generality which enables us to predict. + +Before entering on a historical sketch of the most perfect example of +human progress, it is of the first importance to realize its social +foundation. This is the key-note, and it connects science throughout with +the other aspects of our subject. Knowledge depends upon the free +intercourse of mind with mind, and man advances with the increase and +better direction of his knowledge. But when we consider the implications +of any generalization which we can call 'a law of nature' the social +co-operation involved becomes still more apparent. Geometry and +astronomy--the measurement of the earth and the measurement of the +heavens--dispute the honour of the first place in the historical order. +Both, of course, involved the still more fundamental conception of number +and the acceptance of some unit for measurement. Now in each case and at +every step a long previous elaboration is implied of intellectual +conventions and agreements--conscious and unconscious--between many minds +stretching back to the beginnings of conscious life: the simplest element +of thought involves the co-operation of individual minds in a common +product. Language is such a common product of social life and it prepares +the ground for science. But science, as the exact formulation of general +truths, attains a higher degree of social value, because it rises above +the idioms of person or race and is universally acceptable in form and +essence. Such is the intrinsic nature of the process, and the historical +circumstances of its beginnings make it clear. It was the quick mind of +the Greek which acted as the spark to fire the trains of thought and +observation which had been accumulating for ages through the agency of the +priests in Egypt and Babylonia. The Greeks lived and travelled between the +two centres, and their earliest sages and philosophers were men of the +most varied intercourse and occupation. Their genius was fed by a wide +sympathy and an all-embracing curiosity. No other people could have +demonstrated so well the social nature of science from its inception, and +they were planting in a soil well prepared. In Egypt conspicuously and in +Chaldea also to a less extent there had been a social order which before +the convulsions of the last millennium B.C. had lasted substantially +unchanged for scores of centuries. This order was based upon a religious +discipline which connected the sovereigns on earth with the divine power +ruling men from the sky. Hence the supreme importance of the priesthood +and their study of the movements of the heavenly bodies. The calendar, +which they were the first to frame, was thus not only or even primarily a +work of practical utility but of religious meaning and obligation. The +priests had to fix in advance the feast days of gods and kings by +astronomical prediction. Their standards and their means of measurement +were rough approximations. Thus the 360 degrees into which the Babylonians +taught us to divide the circle are thought to have been the nearest round +number to the days of the year. The same men were also capable of the more +accurate discovery that the side of a hexagon inscribed in a circle was +equal to the radius and gave us our division of sixty minutes and sixty +seconds with all its advantages for calculation. In Egypt, if the +surveyors were unaware of the true relation between a triangle and the +rectangle on the same base, they had yet established the carpenter's rule +of 3, 4 and 5 for the sides of a right-angled triangle. + +How much the Greeks drew from the ancient priesthoods we shall never +know, nor how far the priests had advanced in those theories of general +relations which we call scientific. But one or two general conclusions +as to this initial stage of scientific preparation may well be drawn. + +One is that a certain degree of settlement and civilization was +necessary for the birth of science. This we find in these great +theocracies, where sufficient wealth enabled a class of leisured and +honoured men to devote themselves to joint labour in observing nature +and recording their observations. Another point is clear, namely, that +the results of these early observations, crude as they were, contributed +powerfully to give stability to the societies in which they arose. The +younger Pliny points out later the calming effect of Greek astronomy on +the minds of the Eastern peoples, and we are bound to carry back the +same idea into the ancient settled communities where astronomy began and +where so remarkable an order prevailed for so long during its +preparation. + +But however great the value we allow to the observations of the priests, +it is to the Ionian Greeks that we owe the definite foundation of +science in the proper sense; it was they who gave the raw material the +needed accuracy and generality of application, A comparison of the +societies in the nearer East to which we have referred, with the history +of China affords the strongest presumption of this. In the later +millenniums B.C. the Chinese were in many points ahead of the +Babylonians and Egyptians. They had made earlier predictions of eclipses +and more accurate observations of the distance of the sun from the +zenith at various places. They had, too, seen the advantages of a +decimal system both in weights and measures and in the calculations of +time. But no Greek genius came to build the house with the bricks that +they had fashioned, and in spite of the achievements of the Chinese they +remained until our own day the type in the world of a settled and +contented, although unprogressive, conservatism. + +Science then among its other qualities contains a force of social +movement, and our age of rapid transformation has begun to do fuller +justice to the work of the Greeks, the greatest source of intellectual +life and change in the world. We are now fully conscious of the defects +in their methods, the guesses which pass for observations, the +metaphysical notions which often take the place of experimental +results.[80] But having witnessed the latest strides in the unification +of science on mathematical lines, we are more and more inclined to prize +the geometry and astronomy of the Greeks, who gave us the first +constructions on which the modern mechanical theories of the universe +are based. We shall quote from them here only sufficient illustrations +to explain and justify this statement. + +The first shall be what is called Euclidean geometry, but which is in +the main the work of the Pythagorean school of thinkers and social +reformers who flourished from the seventh to the fifth centuries B.C. +This formed the greater part of the geometrical truth known to mankind +until Descartes and the mathematicians recommenced the work in the +seventeenth century. The second greatest contribution of the Greeks was +the statics and the conics of which Archimedes was the chief creator in +the third century B.C. In his work he gave the first sketch of an +infinitesimal calculus and in his own way performed an integration. The +third invaluable construction was the trigonometry by which Hipparchus +for the first time made a scientific astronomy possible. The fourth, the +optics of Ptolemy based on much true observation and containing an +approximation to the general law. + +These are a few outstanding landmarks, peaks in the highlands of Greek +science, and nothing has been said of their zoology or medicine. In all +these cases it will be seen that the advance consisted in bringing +varying instances under the same rule, in seeing unity in difference, in +discovering the true link which held together the various elements in +the complex of phenomena. That the Greek mind was apt in doing this is +cognate to their idealizing turn in art. In their statues they show us +the universal elements in human beauty; in their science, the true +relations that are common to all triangles and all cones. + +Ptolemy's work in optics is a good example of the scientific mind at +work.[81] The problem is the general relation which holds between the +angles of incidence and of refraction when a ray passes from air into +water or from air into glass. He groups a series of the angles with a +close approximation to the truth, but just misses the perception which +would have turned his excellent raw material into the finished product +of science. His brick does not quite fit its place in the building. His +formula _i_ (the angle of incidence) = _nr_ (the angle of refraction) +only fits the case of very small angles for which the sine is +negligible, though it had the deceptive advantage of including reflexion +as one case of refraction. He did not pursue the argument and make his +form completely general. Sin _i_ = _n_ sin _r_ escaped him, though he +had all the trigonometry of Hipparchus behind him, and it was left for +Snell and Descartes to take the simple but crucial step at the beginning +of the seventeenth century. + +The case is interesting for more than one reason. It shows us what is a +general form, or law of nature in mathematical shape, and it also +illustrates the progress of science as it advances from the most +abstract conceptions of number and geometry, to more concrete phenomena +such as physics. The formula for refraction which Ptolemy helped to +shape, is geometrical in form. With him, as with the discoverer of the +right angle in a semicircle, the mind was working to find a general +ideal statement under which all similar occurrences might be grouped. +Observation, the collection of similar instances, measurement, are all +involved, and the general statement, law or form, when arrived at, is +found to link up other general truths and is then used as a +starting-point in dealing with similar cases in future. Progress in +science consists in extending this mental process to an ever-increasing +area of human experience. We shall see, as we go on, how in the concrete +sciences the growing complexity and change of detail make such +generalizations more and more difficult. The laws of pure geometry seem +to have more inherent necessity and the observations on which they were +originally founded have passed into the very texture of our minds. But +the work of building up, or, perhaps better, of organizing our +experience remains fundamentally the same. Man is throughout both +perceiving and making that structure of truth which is the framework of +progress. + +Ptolemy's work brings us to the edge of the great break which occurred +in the growth of science between the Greek and the modern world. In the +interval, the period known as the Middle Ages, the leading minds in the +leading section of the human race were engaged in another part of the +great task of human improvement. For them the most incumbent task was +that of developing the spiritual consciousness of men for which the +Catholic Church provided an incomparable organization. But the interval +was not entirely blank on the scientific side. Our system of +arithmetical notation, including that invaluable item the cipher, took +shape during the Middle Ages at the hands of the Arabs, who appear to +have derived it in the main from India. Its value to science is an +excellent object-lesson on the importance of the details of form. Had +the Greeks possessed it, who can say how far they might have gone in +their applications of mathematics? + +Yet in spite of this drawback the most permanent contribution of the +Greeks to science was in the very sphere of exact measurement where they +would have received the most assistance from a better system of +calculation had they possessed it. They founded and largely constructed +both plane and spherical geometry on the lines which best suit our +practical intelligence. They gave mankind the framework of astronomy by +determining the relative positions of the heavenly bodies, and they +perceived and correctly stated the elementary principles of equilibrium. +At all these points the immortal group of men who adopted the Copernican +theory at the Renascence, began again where the Greeks had left off. But +modern science starts with two capital improvements on the work of the +Greeks. Measurement there had been from the first, and the effort to +find the constant thing in the variable flux; and from the earliest days +of the Ionian sages the scientific mind had been endeavouring to frame +the simplest general hypothesis or form which would contain all the +facts. But the moderns advanced decisively, in method, by experimenting +and verifying their hypotheses, and in subject-matter, by applying their +method to phenomena of movement, which may theoretically include all +facts biological as well as physical. Galileo, the greatest founder of +modern science, perfectly exemplifies both these new departures. + +It is, perhaps, the most instructive and encouraging thing in the whole +annals of progress to note how the men of the Renascence were able to +pick up the threads of the Greeks and continue their work. The texture +held good. Leonardo da Vinci, whose birth coincides with the invention +of the printing-press, is the most perfect reproduction in modern times +of the early Greek sophos, the man of universal interests and capacity. +He gave careful and admiring study to Archimedes, the greatest pure man +of science among the Greeks, the one man among them whose works, +including even his letters, have come down to us practically complete. A +little later, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, Copernicus +gained from the Pythagoreans the crude notion of the earth's movement +round a great central fire, and from it he elaborated the theory which +was to revolutionize thought. Another half-century later the works of +Archimedes were translated into Latin and for the first time printed. +They thus became well known before the time of Galileo, who also +carefully studied them. At the beginning of the seventeenth century +Galileo made the capital discoveries which established both the +Copernican theory and the science of dynamics. Galileo's death in 1642 +coincides with the birth of Sir Isaac Newton. + +Such is the sequence of the most influential names at the turning-point +of modern thought. + +Galileo's work, his experiments with falling bodies and the revelations +of his telescope, carried the strategic lines of Greek science across +the frontiers of a New World, and Newton laid down the lines of +permanent occupation and organized the conquest. Organization, the +formation of a network of lines connected as a whole, and giving access +to different parts of the world of experience, is perhaps the best image +of the growth of science in the mind of mankind. It will be seen that it +does not imply any exhaustion of the field, nor any identification of +all knowledge with exact or systematic knowledge. The process is rather +one of gradual penetration, the linking up and extension of the area of +knowledge by well-defined and connected methods of thought. No +all-embracing plan thought out beforehand by the first founders of +science, or any of their successors, can be applied systematically to +the whole range of our experience. It has not been so in the past; still +less does it seem possible in the future. For the most part the +discoverer works on steadily in his own plot, occupying the nearest +places first, and observing here and there that one of his lines runs +into some one else's. Every now and then a greater and more +comprehensive mind appears, able to treat several systems as one whole, +to survey a larger area and extend that empire of the mind which, as +Bacon tells us, is nobler than any other. + +Of such conquerors Newton was the greatest we have yet known, because he +brought together into one system more and further-reaching lines of +communication than any one else. He unified the forms of measurement +which had previously been treated as the separate subjects of geometry, +astronomy, and the newly-born science of dynamics. Celestial mechanics +embraces all three, and is a fresh and decisive proof of the commanding +influence of the heavenly bodies on human life and thought. Not by a +horoscope, but by continued and systematic thought, humanity was +unravelling its nature and destiny in the stars as well as in itself. +These are the two approaches to perfect knowledge which are converging +more and more closely in our own time. Newton's work was the longest +step yet taken on the mechanical side, and we must complete our notice +of it by the briefest possible reference to the later workers on the +same line, before turning to the sciences of life which began their more +systematic evolution with the discovery of Harvey, a contemporary of +Newton. + +The seventeenth century, with Descartes' application of algebra to +geometry, and Newton's and Leibnitz's invention of the differential and +integral calculus, improved our methods of calculation to such a point +that summary methods of vastly greater comprehensiveness and elasticity +can be applied to any problem of which the elements can be measured. The +mere improvement in the method of describing the same things (cf. e.g. a +geometrical problem as written down by Archimedes with any modern +treatise) was in itself a revolution. But the new calculus went much +farther. It enabled us to represent, in symbols which may be dealt with +arithmetically, any form of regular movement. + +As movement is universal, and the most obvious external manifestation of +life itself, the hopes of a mathematical treatment of all phenomena are +indefinitely enlarged, for all fresh laws or forms might conceivably be +expressed as differential equations. So to the vision of a Poincare the +human power of prediction appears to have no assignable theoretical +limit. + +The seventeenth century which witnessed this momentous extension of +mathematical methods, also contains the cognate foundation of scientific +physics. Accurate measurement began to be applied to the phenomena of +light and heat, the expansion of gases, the various changes in the forms +of matter apart from life. The eighteenth century which continued this +work, is also and most notably marked by the establishment of a +scientific chemistry. In this again we see a further extension of +accurate measurement: another order of things different in quality began +to be treated by a quantitative analysis. Lavoisier's is the greatest +name. He gave a clear and logical classification of the chemical +elements then known, which served as useful a purpose in that science, +as classificatory systems in botany and zoology have done in those +cases. But the crucial step which established chemistry, a step also due +to Lavoisier, was making the test of weight decisive. 'The balance was +the _ultima ratio_ of his laboratory.' His first principle was that the +total weight of all the products of a chemical process must be exactly +equal to the total weight of the substances used. From this, and rightly +disregarding the supposed weight of heat, he could proceed to the +discovery of the accurate proportions of the elements in all the +compounds he was able to analyse. + +Since then the process of mathematical synthesis in science has been +carried many stages further. The exponents of this aspect of scientific +progress, of whom we may take the late M. Henri Poincare as the leading +representative in our generation, are perfectly justified in treating +this gradual mathematical unification of knowledge with pride and +confidence. They have solid achievement on their side. It is through +science of this kind that the idea of universal order has gained its +sway in man's mind. The occasional attacks on scientific method, the +talk one sometimes hears of 'breaking the fetters of Cartesian +mechanics', seem to suggest that the great structure which Galileo, +Newton, and Descartes founded is comparable to the false Aristotelianism +which they destroyed. The suggestion is absurd: its chief excuse is the +desire to defend the autonomy of the sciences of life, about which we +have a word to say later on. But we must first complete our brief +mention of the greatest stages on the mechanical side, of which a full +and vivid account may be found in such a book as M. Poincare's _Science +et Hypothese_. + +Early in the nineteenth century a trio of discoverers, a Frenchman, a +German, and an Englishman, established the theory of the conservation of +energy. To the labours of Sadi Carnot, Mayer, and Joule is due our +knowledge of the fact that heat which, as a supposed entity, had +disturbed the physics and chemistry of the earlier centuries, was itself +another form of mechanical energy and could be measured like the rest. +Later in the century another capital step in synthesis was taken by the +foundation of astrophysics, which rests on the identity of the physics +and chemistry of the heavenly bodies with those of the earth. + +The known universe thus becomes still more one. Later researches again, +especially those of Maxwell, tend to the identification of light and +heat with electricity, and in the last stage matter as a whole seems to +be swallowed up in motion. It is found that similar equations will +express all kinds of motion; that all are really various forms of the +motion of something which the mind postulates as the thing in motion; we +have in each case to deal with wave-movements of different length. The +broad change, therefore, which has taken place since the mechanics of +Newton is the advance from the consideration of masses to that of +molecules of smaller and smaller size, and the truth of the former is +not thereby invalidated. Newton, Descartes, Fresnel, Carnot, Joule, +Mayer, Faraday, Helmholtz, Maxwell appear as one great succession of +unifiers. All have been engaged in the same work of consolidating +thought at the same time that they extended it. Their conceptions of +force, mass, matter, ether, atom, molecule have provisional validity as +the imagined objective substratum of our experience, and the fact that +we analyse these conceptions still further and sometimes discard them, +does not in any way invalidate the law or general form in which they +have enabled us to sum up our experience and predict the future. + +But now we turn to the other side. In spite of the continued progress +noted on the mechanical side, it is true that the predominant scientific +interest changed in the nineteenth century from mechanics to biology, +from matter to life, from Newton to Darwin. Darwin was born in 1809, the +year in which Lamarck, who invented the term biology, published his +_Philosophie Zoologique_. The _Origin of Species_ appeared in 1858 after +the conservation of energy had been established, and the range and +influence of evolutionary biology have grown ever since. + +Before anything can be said of the conclusions in this branch of science +one preliminary remark has to be made. From the philosophical point of +view the science of life includes all other, for man is a living animal, +and science is the work of his co-operating mind, one of the functions +of his living activity. What this involves on the philosophical side +does not concern us here, but it is necessary to indicate here the +nature of the contact between the two great divisions of science, the +mechanical and the biological, considered purely as sciences. For, +though we know that our consciousness as a function of life must in some +form come into the science of life, and is, in a sense, above it all, we +are yet able to draw conclusions, apparently of infinite scope, about +the behaviour of all living things around us and including ourselves, +just as we do about a stone or a star. And we are interested in this +chapter in seeing how this drawing of general conclusions keeps growing +with regard to the phenomena of life, just as it has grown with regard +to all other phenomena, and we have to consider what sort of difference +there is between the one class of generalizations and the other. + +For those of us who are content to rest their conclusions on the +positively known, who, while not setting any limits to the possible +extension of knowledge, are not prepared to dogmatize about it, it is +still necessary to draw a line. A dualism remains, name and fact alike +abhorrent to the completely logical philosophic mind. On the one hand +the ordinary laws of physical science are constantly extending their +sphere; on the other, the fact of life still remains unexplained by +them, and becomes in itself more and more marvellous as we investigate +it. The general position remains much as Johannes Mueller expressed it +about the middle of the last century, himself sometimes described as the +central figure in the history of modern physiology. 'Though there +appears to be something in the phenomena of living beings which cannot +be explained by ordinary mechanical, physical, or chemical laws, much +may be so explained, and we may without fear push these explanations as +far as we can, so long as we keep to the solid ground of observation and +experiment.' Since this was written the double process has gone on +apace. The chemistry and physics of living matter are being sketched, +and biologists are more and more inclined to study the mechanical +expression of the facts of life. Mr. Bateson, for instance, tells us +that the greatest advance that we can foresee will be made 'when it is +possible to connect the geometrical phenomena of development with the +chemical'. The process of applying physical laws to life follows, it +would seem, the reverse order of their original development. First the +chemistry of organic matter was investigated, then the physical +attraction of their molecules, and now their geometry is in question. +So, says Professor Bateson, the 'geometrical symmetry of living things +is the key to a knowledge of their regularity and the forces which cause +it. In the symmetry of the dividing cell the basis of that resemblance +which we call Heredity is contained'. + +But such work as this is still largely speculative and in the future. It +does not solve the secret of life. It does not affect the fact of +consciousness which we are free to conceive, if we will, as the other +side of what we call matter, evolving with it from the most rudimentary +forms into the highest known form in man, or still further into some +super-personal or universal form. This, however, is philosophy or +metaphysics. We are here concerned with the progress of science, in one +of its two great departments, i.e. knowledge about life and all its +known manifestations, which from Aristotle onwards have been subjected +to a scrutiny similar to that which has been given to the physical facts +of the universe and with results in many points similar also. But the +facts, although superficially more familiar, are infinitely more +complicated, and the scrutiny has only commenced in earnest some hundred +years ago. Considering the short space for this concentrated and +systematic study, the results are at least as wonderful as those +achieved by the physicists. Two or three points of suggestive analogy +between the courses of the two great branches of science may here be +mentioned. + +We will put first the fundamental question on which, as we have seen, no +final answer has yet been reached: What is life, and is there any +evidence of life arising from the non-living? Now this baffling and +probably unanswerable question--unanswerable, that is, in terms which go +beyond the physical concomitants of life--has played the part in biology +which the alchemists' quest played in chemistry. It led by the way to a +host of positive discoveries. Aristotle, the father of biology, believed +in spontaneous generation. He was puzzled by the case of parasites, +especially in putrefying matter. Even Harvey, who made the first great +definite discovery about the mechanism of the body, agreed with +Aristotle in this error. It was left for the minute and careful +inquirers of the nineteenth century to dispose of the myth. It was only +after centuries of inquiry that the truth was established that life, as +we know it, only arises from life. But the whole course of the inquiry +had illuminated the nature of life and had brought together facts as to +living things of all kinds, plants and animals, great and small, which +show superficially the widest difference. Illumination by unification is +here the note, as clearly as in the mathematical-physical sciences. All +living things are found to be built up from cells and each cell to be an +organism, a being, that is, with certain qualities belonging to it as a +whole, which cannot be predicated of any collection of parts not an +organism. The cell is such an organism, just as the animal is an +organism, and among its qualities as an organism is the power of growth +by assimilating material different from itself. Yet, in spite of this +assimilation and constant change, it grows and decays as one whole and +reproduces its like. + +Another point of analogy between the animate and the inanimate sphere is +that the process of study in both has been from the larger to the +smaller elements. The microscope has played at least as decisive a part +as the telescope, and it dates from about the same time, at the +beginning of the seventeenth century. Since then it has penetrated +farther and farther into the infinitesimal elements of life and matter, +and in each case there seems to be no assignable limit to our analysis. +The cell is broken up into physiological units to which almost every +investigator gives a new name. We are now confronted by the fascinating +theory of Arrhenius of an infinite universe filled with vital spores, +wafted about by radio-activity, and beginning their upward course of +evolution wherever they find a kindly soil on which to rest. To such a +vision the hopes and fears of mortal existence, catastrophes of nature +or of society, even the decay of man, seem transient and trivial, and +the infinities embrace. + +A third point, perhaps the most important in the comparison, is the way +by which the order of science has entered into our notions of life, +through a great theory, the theory of evolution or the doctrine of +descent. In this we find a solid basis for the co-ordination of facts: +it was the rise of this theory in the hands of one thinker of +unconquerable patience and love of truth which has put the study of +biology in the pre-eminent position which it now holds. But it is +necessary to consider the evolution theory as something both older and +wider than Darwin's presentation of it. Darwin's work was to suggest a +_vera causa_ for a process which earlier philosophers had imagined +almost from the beginning of abstract thought. He observed and collected +a multitude of facts which made his explanations of the change of +species--within their limits--as convincing as they are plausible. But +the idea that species change, by slow and regular steps, was an old one, +and his particular explanations, natural and sexual selection, are seen +on further reflection to have only a limited scope. + +This is no place, of course, to discuss the details of the greatest and +most vexed question in the whole science of life. But it belongs to our +argument to consider it from one or two general points of view. Its +analogies with, and its differences from, the great generalizations of +mathematical physics, are both highly instructive. The first crude +hypothesis of the gradual evolution of various vegetable and animal +forms from one another may be found in the earliest Greek thinkers, just +as Pythagoras and Aristarchus anticipated the Copernican theory. +Aristotle gave the idea a philosophic statement which only the fuller +knowledge of our own time enables us to appreciate. He traced the +gradual progression in nature from the inorganic to the organic, and +among living things from the simpler to the higher forms. But his +knowledge of the facts was insufficient: the Greeks had no microscope, +and the dissecting knife was forbidden on the human subject. Then, as +these things were gradually added to science from the seventeenth +century onwards, and the record of the rocks gave the confirmation of +palaeontology, the whole realm of living nature was gradually unfolded +before us, every form connected both in function and in history with +every other, every organ fulfilling a necessary part, either now or in +the past, and growing and changing to gain a more perfect accord with +its environment. Such is the supreme conception which now dominates +biological science much as the Newtonian theory has dominated physics +for two hundred years; and it is idle to debate whether this new idea is +different in kind or only in degree from the great law of physics. It is +a general notion or law which brings together and explains myriads of +hitherto unrelated particulars; it has been established by observation +and experiment working on a previous hypothesis; it involves +measurement, as all accurate observation must, and it gives us an +increasing power of prediction. So far, therefore, we must class it with +the great mathematical laws and dissent from M. Bergson. But seeing that +the multitudinous facts far surpass our powers of complete colligation, +that much in the vital process is still obscure, that we are conscious +in ourselves of a power of shaping circumstances which we are inclined +in various degrees to attribute to other living things, so far we +recognize a profound difference between the laws of life and the laws of +physics, and pay our respects to M. Bergson and his allies of the +neo-vitalist school. Not for the first time in history we have to seek +the truth in the reconciliation, or at least the cohabitation, of +apparent contradictories. + +To us who are concerned in tracing the progress of mankind as a whole, +and constantly find the roots of progress in the growth of the social +spirit, the development, that is, of unity of spirit and of action on a +wider and deeper scale, there is one aspect of biological truth, as the +evolutionists have lately revealed it, which is of special interest. The +living thing is an organism of which the characteristic is the constant +effort to preserve its unity. This is in fact the definition of an +organism. It only dies or suffers diminution in order to reproduce +itself, and the new creature repeats by some sort of organic memory the +same preservative acts that its parents did. We recognize life by these +manifestations. A merely material, non-living thing, such as a crystal, +cannot thus make good its loss, nor can it assimilate unlike substance +and make it a part of itself. But these things are of the nature of +life. Now mankind, as a whole, has, if our argument is correct, this +characteristic of an organism: it is bound together by more than +mechanical or accidental links. It is _one_ by the nature of its being, +and the study of mankind, the highest branch of the science of life, +rests, or should rest, upon the basis of those common functions by which +humanity is held together and distinguished from the rest of the animate +world. + +Just as in passing from the mechanical sciences to that of life, we +noticed that the general laws of the lower sphere still held good, but +that new factors not analysable into those of the former had to be +reckoned with, so in passing from the animate realm, as a whole, to man +its highest member, we find that, while animal, and subject to the +general laws of animality, he adds features which distinguish him as +another order and cannot be found elsewhere. His unity as an organism +has a progressive quality possessed by no other species. Step by step +his mind advances into the recesses of time and space, and makes the +farthest objects that his mind can reach a part of his being. His unity +of organization, of which the humblest animalcule is a simple type, goes +far beyond the preservation or even the improvement of his species: it +touches the infinite though it cannot contain it. To trace this widening +process is the true key to progress, the _idee-mere_ of history. For +while man's evolution has its practical side, like that of other +species,--the needs of nutrition, of reproduction, of adapting himself +to his environment,--with man this is the basis and not the end. The end +is, first the organization of himself as a world-being, conscious of his +unity, and then the illimitable conquest of truth and goodness as far as +his ever-growing powers extend. + +Man's reason is thus, as philosophers have always taught, his special +characteristic, and takes the place for him, on a higher plane, of the +law of organic growth common to all living things. In this we join +hands, across two thousand years, with Aristotle: he would have +understood us and used almost identical language. But the content of the +words as we use them and their applications are immeasurably greater. + +The content is the mass of knowledge which man's reason has accumulated +and partly put in order since Aristotle taught. It is now so great that +thoroughly to master a single branch is arduous labour for a lifetime +of concentrated toil, and at the end of it new discoveries will crowd +upon the worker and he will die with all his earlier notions crying for +revision. No case so patent, so conclusive, of the reality of human +unity and the paramount need of organization. The individual here can +only thrive and only be of service as a small member of a great whole, +one atom in a planet, one cell in a body. The demand which Comte raised +more than fifty years ago for another class of specialists, the +specialists in generalities, is now being taken up by men of science +themselves. But the field has now so much extended and is so much fuller +in every part, that it would seem that nothing less than a committee of +Aristotles could survey the whole. And even this is but one aspect of +the matter. Just as the genesis of science was in the daily needs of +men--the cultivators whose fields must be re-measured after the +flooding, the priests who had to fix the right hour for sacrifice--so +all through its history science has grown and in the future will grow +still more by following the suggestions of practice. It gathers strength +by contact with the world and life, and it should use its strength in +making the world more fit to live in. Thus our committee of scientific +philosophers needs to have constantly in touch with it not one but many +boards of scientific practitioners. + +The past which has given us this most wonderful of all the fruits of +time, does not satisfy us equally as to the use that has been made of +it. Our crowded slums do not proclaim the glory of Watt and Stephenson +as the heavens remind us of Kepler and Newton. Selfishness has grown fat +on ill-paid labour, and jealous nations have sharpened their weapons +with every device that science can suggest. But a sober judgement, as +well as the clearest evidence of history, dictates a more hopeful +conclusion. Industry, the twin brother of science, has vastly increased +our wealth, our comfort, and our capacity for enjoyment. Medicine, the +most human of her children, has lengthened our lives, fortified our +bodies, and alleviated our suffering. Every chapter in this volume gives +some evidence of the beneficent power of science. For religion, +government, morality, even art, are all profoundly influenced by the +knowledge that man has acquired of the world around him and his +practical conclusions from it. These do not, with the possible exception +of art, contradict the thesis of a general improvement of mankind, and +science must therefore claim a share--it would seem the decisive +share--in the result. We speak, of course, of science in the sense which +has been developed in this essay, of the bright well-ordered centre to +our knowledge which is always spreading and bringing more of the +surrounding fringe, which is also spreading, into the well-defined area. +In this sense religion, morality and government have all within historic +times come within the range of clear and well-ordered thought: and +mankind standing thus within the light, stands more firmly and with +better hope. He sees the dark spots and the weaknesses. He knows the +remedies, though his will is often unequal to applying them. And even +with this revelation of weakness and ignorance, he is on the whole +happier and readier to grapple with his fate. + +If this appears a fair diagnosis of the Western mind in the midst of its +greatest external crisis, the reason for this amazing firmness of mind +and stability of society must be sought in the structure which science +and industry combined have built around us. The savage, untutored in +astronomy, may think that an eclipse betokens the end of the world. +Science convinces him that it will pass. Just so the modern world +trained to an order of thought and of society which rests on world-wide +activities elaborated through centuries of common effort, awaits the +issue of our darkened present calmly and unmoved. The things of the mind +on which all nations have co-operated in the past will re-assert their +sway. Fundamentally this is a triumph for the scientific spirit, the +order which man has now succeeded in establishing between himself and +his surroundings. + +The country is demanding--and rightly--a stronger bias in our +educational system for teaching of a scientific kind; but teachers and +professors are not unnaturally perplexed. They see the immeasurable +scope of the new knowledge; they know the labour, often ineffective, +that has been expended in teaching the rudiments of the old +'humanities'. And now a task is propounded to them before which the old +one with all its faults seems definite, manageable and formative of +character. The classical world which has been the staple of our +education for 400 years is a finished thing and we can compass it in +thought. It lives indeed, but unconsciously, in our lives, as we go +about our business. This new world into which our youth has now to +enter, rests also on the past, but it is still more present; it grows +all round us faster than we can keep pace with its earlier stages. How +then can such a thing be used as an instrument of education where above +all something is needed of clear and definite purpose, stimulating in +itself and tending to mental growth and activity in after life? We could +not, even if we would, offer any satisfactory answer here to one of the +most troubled questions of the day. Decades of experiments will be +needed before even a tolerable solution can be reached. But the argument +pursued in this and other essays may suggest a line of approach. This +must lie in a reconciliation between science and history, or rather in +the recognition that science rightly understood is the key to history, +and that the history best worth study is the record of man's collective +thought in face of the infinite complexities, the barriers and byways, +the lights and shadows of life and nature. From the study of man's +approach to knowledge and unity in history each new-coming student may +shape his own. He sees a unity of thought not wholly unattainable, a +foundation laid beneath the storms of time. To a mind thus trained +should come an eagerness to carry on the conquests of the past and to +apply the lessons gained to the amelioration of the present. + +This we may hope from the well-disposed. But for all, the contemplation +of a universe where man's mind has worked for ages in unravelling its +secrets and describing its wonders, must bring a sense of reverence as +well as trust. It is no dry category of abstract truths to which we turn +and would have others turn, but a world as bright and splendid as the +rainbow to the savage or the forest to the poet or the heavens to the +lonely watcher on the Babylonian plain. The glories and the depths +remain, deeper and more glorious, with all the added marvels of man's +exploring thought. The seeing eye which a true education will one day +give us, may read man's history in the world we live in, and read the +world with the full illumination of a united human vision--the eyes of +us all. + + +BOOKS FOR REFERENCE + +Alcan, _De la methode dans les Sciences_. + +Mach, _History of Mechanics_, Kegan Paul. + +Thomson, _Science of Life_, Blackie. + +Thomson, _Science in the Nineteenth Century_, Chambers. + +_New Calendar of Great Men_, Macmillan. + +_The Darwin Centenary Volume._ + +Bergson, _Creative Evolution_. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[80] See Lewes, 'Aristotle, a chapter in the History of Science'. + +[81] H. Bouasse, _La Methode dans les Sciences_, Alcan. + + + + +XI + +PROGRESS IN PHILOSOPHY + +J.A. SMITH + + +To contend that there has been progress in Philosophy may seem but a +desperate endeavour. For the reproach against it of unprogressiveness is +of long standing: where other forms of human knowledge have undoubtedly +advanced, Philosophy, in modern times at any rate, has (so it is said) +remained stationary, propounding its outworn problems, its vain and +empty solutions. Because of this failure it has by common consent been +deposed from its once proud position at the head of the sciences and +obliged to confess, in the words of the Trojan queen: + + modo maxima rerum + Nunc trahor exul inops. + +The charge of unprogressiveness is not made against it by its foes +alone; the truth of it is admitted by some of its best friends. If +Voltaire exclaims 'O metaphysique, metaphysique, nous sommes aussi +avances qu'aux temps des Druides', Kant sadly admits the fact, sets +himself to diagnose its cause, and if possible to discover or devise a +remedy. Yet we must remember that it was philosophers who first descried +those currents in the world of events which the non-philosophic, +borrowing the name from them, call Progress, who first attempted to +determine their direction and the possible goal of their convergence, +and laboured to clear their own and others' minds in regard to the +meaning, to capture which the name was thrown out as a net into the +ocean of experience. Nor must we forget that it was in their own chosen +field--the world of human thoughts and actions--that they from the +beginning seemed to themselves to find the surest evidence of the +reality of Progress. While the world that surrounded and hemmed them and +their fellows in might or must be regarded as unchanging and +unchangeable, doomed for ever to reproduce and monotonously reiterate +whatsoever it had once done and been, the mind or spirit of Man in its +own realm seemed capable of going beyond all its past achievements and +rising to new heights, not merely here and there or in isolated +instances but in such numbers or masses as to raise for long periods of +history the general level of human efficiency and welfare. It is true +that many of those who noted these advances or profited by them did not +always admit that they took place in, or were due to the agency of, +Philosophy. The advances were most often credited to other powers and +the new territory claimed by their representatives. The contributions +made by Philosophy to the general improvement of human life were and are +obscure, difficult to trace, easily missed or forgotten. It came about +that the philosopher was misconceived as one indifferent to ordinary +human interests and disdainful of the more obvious advantages secured by +others, pressing and urging forward and upward into a cloudland where +the light was too dim for the eyes of man and the paths too uncertain +for his feet. Unsatisfied with the region where Man had learned by the +slow and painful lessons of experience to build himself a habitable city +he dreamed of something higher, aspiring to explore beyond and above +where the light of that experience shone and illuminated. Perhaps the +main idea that the name of Philosophy now to most suggests is that of a +Utopian ideal of knowledge so wide and so high that it must be by sane +and sober minds pronounced for ever set beyond the reach of human +faculty, an ideal which perhaps we cannot help forming and which +constantly tempts us forward like a mirage, but which like a mirage +leads us into waste and barren places, so much so that it is no small +part of human wisdom to resist its subtle seductions and to confine our +efforts to the pursuit of such ends as we may reasonably regard as well +within the compass of our powers of thought and action. It is folly, we +are told, to adventure ourselves upon the uncharted seas into which +philosophers invite us, to waste our lives and perhaps break our hearts +in the vain search for a knowledge that is for ever denied us. After +all, there is much that we can know, and in the knowledge of which we +can better the estate of Man, relieving him from many of his most +pressing terrors and distresses. To cherish other hopes is to deceive +ourselves to our own and our fellows' undoing, to refuse them our help +and fail to play our part in the common business of mankind. There is +surely in the world enough suffering and sorrow and sin to engage all +our energies in dealing with them, nor are our endeavours to do so so +plainly fruitless as to discourage from perseverance in them. Where in +this task our hearts do faint and fail, are there not other means than +the discredited nostrum of Philosophy to revive our hopes and recruit +our forces? It was only, we are sometimes reminded, in the darkest days +of human history that men turned desperately to Philosophy for comfort +and consolation--how surely and demonstrably, we are told, in vain! When +other duties are so urgent and immediate, have we even the right to +consume our energies otherwise than in their direct discharge? And is it +not presumption to ask for any further light than that which is +vouchsafed to us in the ordinary course of experience or, if that is +insufficient, in and by Religion? + +Much in this plea for a final relinquishment of aid from Philosophy in +the furtherance of human progress is plausible and more than plausible. +Yet the hope or, if you will, the dream of attaining some form or kind +or degree of knowledge which the sciences do not and cannot supply and +perhaps deny to be possible, some steadiness and firmness of assurance +other and beyond the confidence of religious faith, is not yet extinct, +is perhaps inextinguishable, and though it often takes extravagant and +even morbid and repulsive forms, still haunts and tantalizes many, nor +these the least wise or sane of our kind, so that they count all the +labour they spend upon its search worth all the pains. Not for +themselves alone do they seek it; they view themselves as not alone in +the quest, but engaged in a matter of universally human moment. In the +measure in which they count themselves to have attained any result they +do not hoard it or grudge it to others. The notion of philosophic truth +as something to be shared and enjoyed only by a few--as what is called +'esoteric'--is no longer in vogue and is indeed felt to involve an +essential self-contradiction; rather it is conceived as something the +value of which is assured and enhanced by being imparted. Those who +believe themselves to be by nature or (it may be) accident appointed to +the office of its quest, by no means feel that they are thereby divided +from their fellows as a peculiar people or a privileged and exclusive +priesthood, but much rather as fellow servants enlisted and engaged in +the public service of mankind. Least of all do they believe that their +efforts are foredoomed to inevitable failure, that progress therein is +not to be looked for, or that they and their predecessors have hitherto +made no advance towards what they and, as they also believe, all men +sought and still seek. To them the history of Philosophy for say the +last two thousand years is not the dreary and dispiriting narrative of +repeated error and defeat, but the record of a slow but secure and +steady advance in which, as nowhere else, the mind of Man celebrates and +enjoys triumphs over the mightiest obstacles, kindling itself to an +ever-brightening flame. Reviewing its own past in history the spirit of +Philosophy sees its own inner light, which is its act and its essence, +constantly increasing, spreading ever wider into the circumambient dark, +and touching far-off and hitherto undiscovered peaks with the fire of a +coming dawn. In place of the starlight of Science or the moonlight of +Religion it sees a sun arise flooding the world with light and warmth +and life. High hopes, high claims; but can they be made good, or even +rationally entertained? Suffice it here that they be openly avowed and +proclaimed to be laid up in the heart of the philosophic spirit, +'dreaming', and yet with waking eyes, 'of things to come'. Or rather +shall we not say, seeing that its eyes are unsealed and the vision +therefore no dream, beholding a present--an ever-present--Reality? + +It was Philosophy, or philosophers, as I have said, that first discerned +the fact of Progress, named it, and divined its lineaments. To +Philosophy the name and notion of Progress belongs as of right--the +right of first occupation. Merely to have invented a name for the fact +is no small service, for thus the fact was fixed for further study and +examination. But with the name Philosophy gave us the idea, the notion, +and therewith the fact began to be understood and to become amenable to +further and further explanation. To this further explanation Philosophy +gave notable assistance. To 'elaborate our concepts' has been said to be +the whole business of Philosophy, that is, to arrest the vague and +shifting meanings that float before our minds loosely attached to the +words of ordinary careless speech, to fix their outlines, +distinguishing, defining, ordering and organizing until each mass of +meaning is improved and refined into a thought worthy to be called a +notion, a fit member of the world of mind, a seat and source of +intellectual light. In this work Philosophy proceeds and succeeds simply +by reflecting on whatever meaning it has in whatever manner already +acquired; it employs no strange apparatus or recondite methods, only +continues more thoughtfully and conscientiously to use the familiar +means by which the earlier simpler meanings were appropriated and +developed, following the beaten tracks of the mind's native and +spontaneous movement. Much more rarely than the sciences has it recourse +to a technical vocabulary, being content to express itself in ordinary +words though using them and their collocations with a careful delicacy +and painstaking adroitness. To follow it in these uses demands an +effort, for nothing is perhaps more difficult than to force our thoughts +to run counter to our customary heedless use of words and to learn to +employ them even for a short time with a steady precision of +significance. Yet unless this effort is resolutely made we must remain +the easy prey of manifold confusions and errors which trip us in the +dark. Our words degrade into tokens which experience will not +cash--tangles of symbols which we cannot retranslate. + +But Philosophy is more than the attempt to refine and subtilize our +ordinary words so as to fit them for the higher service of +interpretative thought, more even than the endeavour to improve the +stock of ideas no matter how come by, by which we interpret to ourselves +whatever it imports us to understand. All this it is and does, or +strives to do, but only as subsidiary to its true business and real aim. +All this it might do and do successfully, and yet make or bring about no +substantial progress in itself or elsewhere. And when progress in +Philosophy is spoken of, it is not either such improvement in language +nor such improvement in ideas that alone or mainly is meant. + +What is claimed for (or denied to it) under the name of Progress is an +advance in knowledge, knowledge clear-sighted, grounded, and assured, +knowledge of some authentic and indubitable reality. It is by the +attainment of such knowledge, by progress in and towards it, that the +claim of Philosophy to be progressive must stand or fall. To the +question whether it can make good its claim to the possession and +increase of this knowledge we must give special attention, for if +Philosophy fails in this it fails in all. + +The oldest name for the knowledge in question was simply Wisdom and, in +some ways, in spite of its apparent arrogance this is the best name for +what is sought--or missed. Yet from the beginning the name was felt not +sufficiently to distinguish what was meant from the high skill of the +cunning craftsman and the worldly wisdom of the man of affairs, the +statesman or soldier or trader. In the case of all these it was +difficult to disengage the knowledge involved from natural or trained +practical dexterity. What was desired and required was knowledge +distinguished but not divorced from practice and application--'pure +knowledge' as it was sometimes called; not divorced, I repeat, for it +was not conceived as without bearing upon the conduct of life, but still +distinguished, as furnishing light rather than profit. For good or evil +Philosophy began by considering what it sought and hoped to reach as +pre-eminently knowledge in some distinctive sense, and having so begun +it turned to reflect once more upon what it meant by so conceiving it +and to make this meaning more precise and clear. So it came to present +to itself as its aim or goal a special kind or degree of knowledge, to +be inspired and guided by the hope of that. Practical as in many ways +was the concern of ancient philosophy--its whole bent was towards the +bettering of human life--it sought to achieve this by the extension and +deepening of knowledge, and not either through the cultivation or +refinement of emotion or the organization of practical, civil or social +or philanthropic activities. It laboured--and laboured not in vain--to +further the increase of knowledge by defining to itself in advance the +kind or degree of knowledge which would accomplish the ultimate aim of +its endeavour or subserve its accomplishment. Hence we must learn to +view with a sympathetic eye its repeated essays to give precision and +detail to the conception or ideal of knowledge. + +In form the answer rendered to its request to itself for a definition, +was determined by the principle that the knowledge which was sought and +alone, if found, could satisfy, was knowledge of the real, or as it was +at first more simply expressed, of what is, or what really and veritably +is. Refusing the name of knowledge except to what had this as its +object, men turned to consider the nature of the object which stood or +could stand in this relation. With this they contrasted what we, after +them, call the phenomena, the appearances, the manifold aspects, +constantly shifting with the shifting points of view of the observer or +many observers of it, inconstant, unsteady, superficial, mirrored +through the senses and imagination, multiplied and distorted in +divergent and changing opinions, or misrepresented and even caricatured +in the turbid medium of ordinary speech, like a clouded image on the +broken waters of a rushing stream. 'It'--so at first they spoke of the +object of true or 'philosophic' knowledge--was one and single, eternal +and unchangeable, a universe or world-order of parts fixed for ever in +their external relations and inward structure. In each and all of us +there was, as it were, a tiny mirror that could be cleared so as to +reflect all this, and in so far as such reflection took place an inner +light was kindled in each which was a lamp to his path. Knowing--for to +know was so to reflect the world as it really was--knowing, man came to +self-possession and self-satisfaction--to peace and joy--and was even +'on this bank and shoal of time' raised beyond the reach of all +accidents and evils of mortal existence--looking around and down upon +all that could harm or hurt him and seeing it to be in its law-abiding +orderliness and eternal changelessness the embodiment of good. So +viewing it, man learned to feel the Universe his true home, and was +inspired not only with awe but with a high loyalty and public spirit. +'The poet says "Dear City of Cecrops", and shall I not say "Dear City of +God"?' + +The knowledge thus reached or believed to be attainable was more and +more discriminated from what was offered or supplied by Art or Science +or Religion, though it was still often confused with each and all of +them. As opposed to that of Art, it was not direct or immediate vision +flashed as it were upon the inner eye in moments of inspiration or +excitement; as opposed to that of Science, it was a knowledge that +pierced below the surface and the seeming of Nature and History; as +opposed to that of Religion (which was rather faith than knowledge), it +was sober, unimaginative, cleansed of emotional accompaniment and +admixture, the 'dry light' of the wise soul. True to the principle which +I have stated, ancient Philosophy proclaimed that the only knowledge in +the end worth having was knowledge of Fact--of what lay behind all +seeming however fair--Fact unmodified and unmodifiable by human wish or +will; it bade us know the world in which we live and move and have our +being, know it as it is truly and in itself, and knowing it love it, +loyally acquiescing in its purposes and subserving its ends. In all this +there was progress (was there not?) to a view, to a truth (how else +shall we speak of it?) which has always, when apprehended, begotten a +high temper in heroic hearts. Surely in having reached in thought so +high and so far the mind of man had progressed in knowledge and in +wisdom. + +But now a change took place, from which we must date the rise or birth +of modern philosophy. Hitherto on the whole the mind of man had looked +outward and sought knowledge of what lay or seemed to lie outside +itself. So looking and gazing ever deeper it had encountered a spectacle +of admirable and awe-compelling order, yet one which for that very +reason seemed appallingly remote from, if not alien to, all human +businesses and concerns. Now it turned inward and found within itself +not only matter of more immediate or pressing interest, but a world that +compelled attention, excited curiosity, rewarded study. Slowly and +gradually the knowledge of this, the inner world--the world of the +thinker's self--became the central object of philosophic reflection. The +knowledge that was most required--that was all-important and +indispensable (so man began explicitly to realize)--was knowledge of the +Self, not of the outer world that at best could never be more than +known, but of the self that knew or could know it, that could both know +and be known. Henceforward what is studied is not knowledge of +reality--of any and every reality--or of external reality, but knowledge +of the Self which can know as well as be known. And the process by which +it is sought is reflection, for the self-knowledge is not the knowledge +of other selves, but the knowledge of just that Self which knows itself +and no other. Thus the knowledge sought is once more and now finally +distinguished from the knowledge offered or supplied by Art or Science +or Religion: not by Art, for the Self cannot appear and has no seeming +nor can it any way be pictured or described or imagined; not by +Science, for it lies beyond and beneath and behind all observation, nor +can it be counted or measured or weighed; not by Religion, for knowledge +of it comes from within and the disclosure of its nature is by the +self-witness of the Self to its self, not by revelation of any other to +it. Thus there is disclosed the slowly-won and slowly-revealed secret of +modern Philosophy, that the knowledge which is indispensable, which is +necessary as the consummation and key-stone of all other knowledge, is +knowledge of the knowing-self, self-knowledge, or, as it is sometimes +more technically called, self-consciousness, with the corollary that +this knowledge cannot be won by any methods known to or specially +characteristic of Science or Art or Religion. To become self-conscious, +to progress in self-consciousness is the end, and the way or means to it +is by reflection--the special method of Philosophy. + +This is the step in advance made by the modern spirit beyond all +discoveries of the ancients; it is the truth by the apprehension of +which the modern spirit and its world is made what it is. Not outside us +lies Truth or the Truth: Truth dwelleth in the inner man--_in interiore +hominis habitat veritas_. Is this not progress, progress in wisdom, and +to what else can we ascribe the advance save to Philosophy? + +It was one of the earliest utterances of modern Philosophy, and one +which it has never found reason to retract, that the Self which knows +can and does know itself better than aught else whatsoever, and in that +knowledge can without end make confident and sure-footed advance. To +itself the Self is the most certain and the most knowable of all +realities--with this it is most acquainted, this it has light in itself +to explore, of this it can confidently foresee and foretell the method +of advance to further and further knowledge. It knows not only its +existence but its essence, its nature, and it knows by what procedure, +by what ordered effort or exercise of will it can progress to height +beyond height of its self-knowledge. I say, it knows it, but it also +knows that that knowledge cannot be attained all at once or taken +complete and ready-made, for it _is_ itself a progress, a self-created +and self-determined progress, and on that condition progress alone is or +is real. For it to be is not to be at the beginning or at the end of +this process, but to be always coming to be, coming to be what it is not +and yet also what it has in it to be. Of nothing else is Progress so +intimately the essence and very being; if we ask 'What progresses or +evolves?', the most certain answer is 'The spirit which is in man, and +what it progresses in, is knowledge of itself, which is wisdom'. +Speaking of and for Philosophy I venture to maintain that nothing is +more certain than that that spirit which has created it has grown, is +growing, and will ever grow in wisdom, and that by reflection upon +itself and its history--nor can the gates of darkness and error prevail +against the irresistible march of its triumphant progress. + +As we look back the history of Philosophy seems strewn with the debris +of outworn or outlived errors, but out of them all emerges this clear +and assured truth, that in self-knowledge lies the master-light of all +our seeing, inexhaustibly casting its rays into the retreating shadow +world that now surrounds us, melting all mists and dispelling all +clouds, and that the way to it is unveiled, mapped and charted in +advance so that henceforward we can walk sure-footedly therein. Yet that +does not mean that the work of Philosophy is done, that it can fold its +hands and sit down, for only in the seeking is its prize found and there +is no goal or end other than the process itself. For this too is its +discovery, that not by, but in, endless reflection is the Truth +concerning it known, the Truth that each generation must ever anew win +and earn it for itself. The result is not without the process, nor the +end without the means: the fact _is_ the process and other fact there is +none. In other forms of so-called 'knowledge' we can sever the +conclusion from its premisses, and the result can be given without the +process, but with self-knowledge it is not so and no generation, or +individual, can communicate it ready-made to another, but can only point +the way and bid others help themselves. And if this, so put, seems hard +doctrine, I can only remind you that to philosophize has always meant +'to think by and for oneself'. + +It is perhaps more necessary to formulate the warning that what is here +called self-knowledge and pronounced to constitute the very essence of +the spirit that is in man, is far removed from what sometimes bears its +name, the extended and minute acquaintance by the individual mind with +its individual peculiarities or idiosyncrasies, its weaknesses and +vanities, its whims and eccentricities; nor is it to be confused with +the still wider acquaintance with those that make up our common human +nature in all its folly and frailty which is sometimes called 'knowledge +of human nature'; no, nor with such knowledge as psychological science, +with its methods of observation and induction and experiment, offers or +supplies. It is knowledge of something that lies far deeper within +us--'the inward man', which is not merely alike or akin but is the same +in all of us; beneath all our differences, strong against all our +weaknesses, wise against all our follies, what each of us rightly calls +his true self and yet what is not his alone, but all men's also. As we +reflect upon it duly, what discloses or reveals itself to us is a self +which is both our very own and yet common or universal, the self of each +and yet the self of all. The more we get to apprehend and understand it, +the more we become and know ourselves, not so much as being but as +becoming one with one another; the differences that sunder us in +feeling and thought and action melting away like mist. The removal of +these differences is just the unveiling of it, in which it at once comes +to be and to be known. In coming to know it we create it. The unity of +the spirit thus becomes and is known as indubitable fact, or rather (I +must repeat) not as fact, as if it were or were anything before being +known, but as something which is ever more and more coming to be, in the +measure in which it is coming to be known--known to itself. For this is +the hard lesson of modern philosophy, that our inmost nature and most +genuine self is not aught ready-made or given, but something which is +created in and by the process of our coming to know it, which progresses +in existence and substantiality and value as our knowledge of it +progresses in width and depth and self-assurance. The process is one of +creative--self-creative--evolution, in which each advance deposits a +result which prescribes the next step and supplies all the conditions +for it, and so constantly furnishes all that is required for an endless +progress in reality and worth. This is the process in which the spirit +of man capitalizes and substantiates its activities, committing its +gains to secure custody, amassing and using them for its +self-enrichment--in which it depends on no other than itself and is +sovereign master of its future and its fate. This is the way in which +selves are made, or rather, make themselves. + +This is the discovery of modern Philosophy, the now patent secret which +it offers for the interpretation of all mysteries and the solving of all +problems--and it offers it with unquestioning assurance, for it has +explored the ground and has awakened to the true method of progress +within it. And as I have said or implied, to the reflective mind regress +is impossible, it cannot go back upon itself, and with due tenderness +and gratitude it has set behind it the things of its unreflective +childhood. It stands on the stable foundation of the witness of the +spirit within us to itself, to its own nature, its own powers and its +own rights; it knows itself as the knower, the interpreter, the teacher, +and therefore the master and maker of itself. Yet we must not identify +or confuse this our deeper or deepest self which we thus create with the +separate selves or souls which each of us is; it is not any one of them +nor all of them together, unless we give to the word 'together' a new +and more pregnant sense than it has yet come to bear. It is not the +'tribal' or 'collective' or 'social' self, for it is not made by +congregation or collection or association, but by some far more intimate +unification than is signified by any of these terms, namely by coming +together in and by knowledge. It is the spirit which is in us all and in +which we all are, which is more yet not other than we, without which we +are nothing and do nothing and yet which is veritably the spirit of man, +the immortal hero of all the tragedy and comedy--the whole drama--of +human history; it is of this spirit as it is by it, that Philosophy has +in repeated and resolute reflection come to know the nature and the +method of its progress. Such knowledge has come into the world and +prevails more widely and more potently than ever before; possessed in +fullness by but a few, it is open and available to all and radiates as +from a beacon light over the whole field of human experience; at that +fire every man can light his candle. This is the light in which alone +the record of man's thoughts and achievements can be construed and which +exhibits them as steps and stages on that triumphant march to higher and +higher levels such as alone we can rightly name Progress. Where else +than in History, and, above all, in the History of Knowledge, is +Progress manifested, and in that where more certainly than in the +unretreating and unrevoked advance towards a deeper, a truer, a wiser +knowledge of itself by the spirit that is in and is, Man? + +Yes, such knowledge, truth and wisdom now exists and is securely ours, +though to inherit it each generation and each individual must win it +afresh and having won it must develop and promote it, or it ceases not +only to work but to be. For it exists only as it is made or rather only +in the act and fact of its progress, and so for it not to progress is at +once to return to impotence and nothingness. And it is we who maintain +it in being, maintaining it by endless reiterated efforts of reflection, +and so maintaining it we maintain ourselves, resting or relying upon it +and using it as a source of strength and a fulcrum or a platform for +further effort. Upon self-knowledge in this sense all other 'knowledge' +reposes; upon it and the knowledge of other selves and the world, which +flows from it, depends the possibility of all practical advance. In the +dark all progress is impossible. + +But since this discovery was made and made good, the spirit of +Philosophy has not stood still; it has gone on, and is still going on, +to extend and deepen and secure its conquests. Once more it has turned +from its fruitful and enlightening concentration on the inner self and +its life to review what lies or seems to lie around and outside it. It +finds that those who have stayed, or fallen, behind its audacious but +justified advance in self-knowledge, still cherish a view of what is +external to this (the true or real self so now made patent), thoughts or +fancies which misconceive and misrepresent it--thoughts persisted in +against the feebler protesting voices of Art and Religion and so held +precariously and unstably though apparently grounded upon the authority +of Science. To the unphilosophic or not yet philosophic mind the spirit +of man, already in imagination multiplied and segregated into individual +'souls', appears to be surrounded with an environment of alien +character, often harsh to man's emotions, often rebellious or +untractable to his purposes, often impenetrable to his understanding, +and in a word indifferent or hostile to his ideals and aspirations after +progress and good. Nay, the individual souls seem to act towards one +another separately and collectively as such hindrances, and again, each +individual soul seems to be encrusted with insuperable impediments. Even +the light within is enclosed in an opaque screen which prevents or +counteracts its outflow, so that the spirit within is as it were +entombed or imprisoned. 'Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems us in,' we +cannot communicate with one another or join with one another in thought +or deed; and the hope of progress seems defeated by the recalcitrant +matter that shell upon shell encases us. The world of our bodies, of the +bodies and spirits of others, and all the vast _compages_ of things and +forces which we call 'Nature' blinds and baffles us, mocks our hopes and +breaks our hearts. How idle to dream that amidst and against all this +neutrality or hostility any substantial or secure advance can be made! + +In answer to all these thoughts, these doubts and fears, Philosophy is +beginning with increasing boldness to speak a word, not of mere comfort +and consolation, but of secure and confident wisdom. All this so-called +'external' nature and environment is not hostile or alien to the self or +spirit which is in man, it is akin and allied to it as we now know it to +be. Whatever is real and not merely apparent in History or Nature is +rational, is of the same stuff and character as that which is within us. +It too is spiritual, the appearance and embodiment of what is one in +nature and mode of being with what lies deepest and is most potent in +us. So far as it is not that, it is appearance and not reality, woven +like a dream by imagination or endowed with an unstable and shifting +quasi-reality by our thoughts and suppositions and fancies about we +know not what. Not that it is an illusion, still less a delusion, rather +what it is is the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual +reality, a symbol beautiful, orderly, awe-inspiring yet mutilated, +partial, confused, of something deeper and more real, the expression, +the face and gesture, of a spirit that, as ours does, knows itself, its +own profound being and meaning, and does what it does in the light of +such knowledge, a spirit which above all progresses endlessly towards +and in a richer and fuller knowledge of itself. What we call +Fact--historical or natural--is essentially such an expression, on the +one hand a finished expression, set in the past and therefore for ever +beyond the possibility of change and so of progress, an exhausted or +dead expression, on the other hand a passing into the light of what was +before unknown even to the expresser's self, an act by which was made +and secured a self-discovery or self-revelation, a creative act of +self-knowledge and so significant and interpretable. This double +character of events in History and Nature is dimly descried in what we +specially call 'nature', but comes more fully into view in the sphere of +human history, where each step is at once a deed and a discovery, a +contribution to the constitution of the world of fact and a fulguration +of the light within illuminating facts as the condition of its own +inexhaustible continuance. The world of Fact, artistic or aesthetic, +scientific, moral, political, economic, is what the spirit builds round +itself, creating it out of its own substance, while it itself in +creating it grows within, evolving out of itself into itself and +advancing in knowledge or wisdom and power. And out of its now securely +won self-knowledge it declares that it--itself--is the source and spring +of all real fact whatsoever, which is its self-created expression, made +by it in its own interests, and for its own good, the better and better +to know itself. Nothing is or can be alien, still less hostile to it, +for 'in wisdom has it made them all'. Looking back and around it +re-reads in all fact the results of its own power of self-expression. +Nothing is but what it has made. + +All this might perhaps have been put very simply by saying that ever +since man has set himself to know his own mind in the right way, he has +succeeded better and better, and that in knowing his own mind he has +come to know and is still coming to know all else beside, including all +that at first sight seems other than, or even counter to, his own mind. +He has learned what manner of being he is, how that being has been made +and how it continues to be made and developed, and again, how in the +course of its self-creation and self-advance it deposits itself in +'fact' and reflecting on that fact rises beyond and above itself in +knowledge and power. He is mind or spirit, and what lies behind and +around him is spiritual. As he reflects upon this the meaning of it +becomes ever more clear and distinct, ordered and organized, and at the +same time more substantial, more real, more lively and potent. In +becoming known what was before dead and dark and threatening or +obstructive or hostile is made transparent, alive, utilisable, +contributing to the constantly growing self that knows and is known. +Here is the growing point of reality, the _fons emanationis_ of truth +and worth and being, evidencing its power not as it were in increase of +bulk, but in the enhancing of value. And surely here is Progress, which +consists not in mere enlargement or expansion but in the heightening of +forces to a new power--in a word, in their elevation to a more +spiritual, a more intelligent and therefore more potent, level. + +To the artistic eye the universe presents itself as a vast and moving +spectacle, to the scientific mind as the theatre of forces which repeat +their work with a mechanical uniformity or perhaps fatally run down to +a predestined and predictable final arrest, to the devout or religious +soul as the constant efflux of a beneficent will, unweariedly kind, +caring for the humblest of its creatures, august, worshipful, deserving +of endless adoration and love, while to the philosophic mind it is known +and ever more to be known as the self-expression of a mind in essence +one with all minds that know it in knowing themselves, know it as the +work or product of a mind engaged or absorbed in knowing itself, and so +creating itself and all that is requisite that it may learn more and +more what is hidden or stored from all eternity within its plenitude. At +least we may say that the conception of a Mind which in order to know +itself creates the conditions of such knowledge, which wills to learn +whatever can be learned of itself from whatever it does, supplies the +best pattern or original after which to model our vaguer and more +blurred conceptions of progressive existence and being elsewhere. It +furnishes to us an ideal of a progress which realizes or maintains and +advances itself, for it is independent upon external conditions. The +Progress of Philosophy or of Wisdom is a palmary instance of progress +achieved out of the internal resources of that which progresses. And +after this pattern we least untruly and least unworthily conceive the +mode of that eternal and universal Progress which is the life of the +Whole within and as part of which we live. + +The aim of Philosophy is not edification but the possession and +enjoyment of Truth, and the Truth may wear an aspect which, while it +enlightens, also blinds or even at first appals and paralyses. And +certainly Reality or Philosophy as has come to know it and proclaims it +to be, is not such as either directly to warm our hearts or stimulate +our energies. Not to do either has Philosophy come into the world, nor +so does it help to bring Progress about; nor does it offer prizes to +those who pursue either moral improvement or business success, nor +again does it increase that information concerning 'nature' and men +which is the condition of the one and the other, yet to those who love +Truth and who will buy no good at the sacrifice of it, what it offers is +enough, and to progress towards and in it is for them worth all the +world beside; it is, if not the only real progress, that in the absence +of which all other progress is without worth or substance or reality. In +the end, if any advance anywhere is claimed or asserted, must we not +ask: Is the claim founded on truth, is the good or profit seemingly +attained a (or the) true good? To whom or to what is it good? Can we +stop short of the endeavour to assure ourselves beyond question or doubt +that we are right in what answers we render? And where or by what means +can we reach this save by turning inward on meditation or reflection, +that is by philosophizing? [Greek: Ei philosopheteon philosopheteon, ei +de me, philosopheteon; pantos ara philosopheteon]. Thither the mind of +man has always turned when the burden of the mystery of its nature and +fate has weighed all but intolerably upon it, and turning has never +found itself betrayed, but from knowledge of itself has drawn fresh hope +and strength to resume the uninterrupted march of Progress which is its +life and its history, its being, its self-formation, in courage moving +forwards in and towards the light. It is as if such light were not +merely the condition of its welfare, but the food on which it lived, the +stuff which it transmuted into substance and energy, out of it making, +maintaining and building its very self. So under whatever name, whether +we call what we are doing Philosophy or something else, the search for +more and more light upon ourselves and our world is the most +indispensable activity to which the leagued and co-operative powers of +Man can be devoted. Fortunately it is also that in which success or +failure depends most certainly upon ourselves and in which Progress can +with most confidence be looked for. In it we cannot fail if we will to +take sufficient trouble; the means to it are open and available; it is +our fault if we do not employ them and profit by them. If we have less +wisdom than we might have, it is never any one's fault but our own. The +door of the treasure-house of Wisdom stands ever open. + + +BOOKS FOR REFERENCE + +C. C. J. Webb, _History of Philosophy_ (Home University Library). + +Burnet, _History of Greek Philosophy_. + +E. J. Bevan, _Stoics and Sceptics_. + +Hoeffding, _History of Modern Philosophy_ (translated). + +Royce, _The Spirit of Philosophy_. + +Merz, _History of European Thought in the Nineteenth Century_. + + + + +XII + +PROGRESS AS AN IDEAL OF ACTION + +J. A. SMITH + + +Throughout this course of lectures, now come to its close, we have +together been engaged in a theoretical inquiry. We have been looking +mainly towards the past, to something therefore for ever and in its very +nature set beyond the possibility of alteration by us or indeed at all. +'What is done not even God can make to be undone.' Were it otherwise it +could not be fact or reality and so not capable of being theorized or +studied. In the words of our programme we have analysed what is involved +in the conception of Progress, shown when it became prominent in the +consciousness of mankind and how far the idea has been realized--that is +has become fact--in the different departments of life. We have taken +Progress as a fact, something accomplished, and have attempted so taking +it to explain or understand it. We have not indeed assumed that it is +confined to the past, but have at times enlarged our consideration so as +to recognize its continuance in the present and to justify the hope of +its persistence in the future. Some of us would perhaps go further and +hold that it has, by these and similar reflections, come to be part of +our assured knowledge that it must so continue and persist. But however +we have widened our purview, what we call Progress has remained to us a +course or movement which still presents the appearance of a fact which +is largely, if not wholly, independent of us--a fact because independent +of us--to which we can occupy no other attitude than that of interested +spectators, interested and concerned, moved or conditioned by it but not +active or co-operative in it. So far as it is in process of realization +in the vast theatre of nature, inorganic or organic, dead or living, +that surrounds us, it pursues its course in virtue of powers not ours +and unamenable to our control. And even when we view it within the +closer environment of human history its current seems to carry us +irresistibly with it. Its existence is indeed of very practical concern +to us, but apparently all we can do is to come to know it, and knowing +it to allow for it as or among the set conditions of our self-originated +or self-governed actions if such actions there be. + +The clearer we have become as to the nature of Progress, the more it +would appear that it must be for us, because it is in itself, a fact to +be recognized in theory, taken into account and reckoned with. It is or +it is not, comes to be or does not come to be, and what we have first +and foremost to seek, is light upon its existence and character as it is +or occurs. Light, we hope, has been cast upon it. We have learned that +in its inmost essence and to its utmost bounds Reality--what lies +outside and around us--is not fixed, rigid, immobile, was not and is not +and cannot be as the ancient or mediaeval mind feigned or fabled, +something beyond the reach of time and change--static or stationary--but +is itself a process of ceaseless alteration. We have learned also to be +dissatisfied with the compromise which, while acknowledging such +alteration, all but withdraws it in effect by asserting it to be either +in gross or in detail a process of mere repetition. The system of laws +which science had taught us to consider as the truth of nature is itself +now known to be caught in the evolutionary process, and to be undergoing +a constant modification. As in the modern state, so in Nature, the +legislative power is not exhausted but incessantly embodies itself in +novel forms. Nature itself--_natura naturans_--is now conceived, and +rightly conceived, as a power not bound to laws other than those which +it makes for or imposes on itself, and as in its operations at least +analogous to a will self-determined, self-governing, creative of the +ways and means by which its purpose or purposes are achieved. What that +purpose is we have begun to apprehend, and to see its various processes +as converging or co-operating towards its fulfilment. In the +mythological language which even Science is still obliged to use, we now +speak of Nature as 'selecting' or 'devising', and we ascribe to it a +large freedom of choice wisely used. We can already at least define the +process as guided towards a greater variety and fullness and harmony of +life, or (with a larger courage) as pointed towards a heightening or +potentiation of life. So defining its goal we can sympathize with and +welcome the successful efforts made toward it, and so feel ourselves at +heart one with the power that carries on the process in its aspirations +and its efforts. But still, we cannot help feeling, it and all its ways +lie outside us, and to us it remains an alien or foreign power. I +venture to repeat my contention that this is so just because, however +much we come to learn of its ways, we do not feel that we are coming to +understand it any better, getting inside it, as we do get inside and +understand human nature. Its progress is a change, perhaps a betterment, +in our environment--in externals--and takes place very largely whether +we will and act or no. The larger our acquaintance with it, the more +does its action seem to encroach upon the domain within which our +volitions and acts can make any difference. Even in social life we seem +in the grip and grasp of forces which carry us towards evil or good +whether we will or no. _Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt._ The +whole known universe outside and around us presents to us the spectacle +of what has been called a _de facto_ teleology, and just because it is +so, and so widely and deeply so, it leaves little or no room for us to +set up our ideals within it and to work for their realization. The fact +that the laws which prevail in it are modifiable and modified makes no +difference; they modify themselves, and in their different forms still +constrain us. And no matter how increasingly beneficent they may in +their action appear, they are still despotic and we unfree. The rule of +laws which Science discovers encroaches upon our liberties and +privacies. What we had hitherto thought our very own, the movement of +our impulses and desires and imaginations, are reported by science to be +subject to 'laws of association', and we are borne onwards even if also +at times upwards on an irresistible flood. We remain bound by the iron +necessity of a fate that invades our inmost being--which will not let us +anywhere securely alone. I repeat that it matters not how certainly the +trend of the tide, which sets everywhere around and outside us, is +towards what is good or best for us, it still is the case that it +presents itself as neither asking for from us nor permitting to us the +formation of any ideals of ours nor any prospect of securing them by our +efforts. Were the fact of Progress established and conclusively shown to +be all-pervasive and eternal, it still would bear to us the aspect of a +paternal government which did good to and for us, but all the more left +less and less to ourselves. + +This will doubtless be pronounced an exaggeration, and we may weakly +refuse to face the impression naturally consequent upon the progress we +have made in the ascertainment of the facts concerning the world in +which we live. But does not the impression exist? The hateful and +desolating impression made on us earlier by the thought of a 'block' +universe, once for all and rigidly fixed in unalterable and uniform +subjection to eternal and omnipresent law, has dissolved like the +baseless fabric of a vision. And why? Just because being found +intolerable it was faced and put to the question. Now that there has +been substituted for it the spectacle of a universe necessarily or +fatally evolving--or, as we have said, progressing--does it not, while +still evoking the old awe or reverence, do anything but still daunt and +dishearten us? What is our part, we ask, our very own part within all +this? What can we within it do? And the answer, that it is ours, if we +will, to enter into and live in the contemplation of all this no longer +appeals to us. In such a progressive universe we can no longer feel +ourselves 'at home'. In it our active nature would seem to exist only to +be disappointed and rebuffed. + +The only progress which we can care for is the progress which we +ourselves bring about, or can believe that we bring about, in ourselves +or our fellows or in the world immediately around us. So long as what is +so named is something devised and executed by a power not our own--not +the same as our own--it may call out from us gratitude and reverence, +but the spectacle of the reality of such Progress cannot exercise the +attractive force nor, so far as it is realized, beget that creative joy +which accompanies even humble acts in which we set an ideal of our own +before ourselves, and see it through our efforts emerge into actual +existence. A practical ideal must be through and through of our own +making. It must be devised by us and set to ourselves for our pursuit, +and its coming to be, or be real, must be our doing. The very idea of it +must be our own, not given or prescribed, still less imposed, and the +process towards it must be our doing too. That there should, on their +view of it, ever be protest and rebellion against its tyrannous demands +appears to me reasonable and right, and those who make it to be guarding +the immediate jewel of man's nature. We should, we might say, if this +were the whole truth about the universe, acknowledge ourselves as its +sons bound to gratitude and obedience because of the fatherly care for +us, but it would be an essential complement to our family loyalty that +we should insist upon and make good our claims to be grown-up sons and +fellow citizens, declining to pronounce it wholly good, if those claims +were denied to us. Now all these conditions seem to make straight +against the possibility of regarding Progress, in the view of it we have +hitherto taken, as an ideal of our action. + +In view of this character of the known fact of Progress, so discouraging +and disabling to our active or practical nature, certain suggestions +have been made which are thought to relieve us from these effects. It is +said sometimes that this fatal--if beneficent or beneficial, still +fatal--progress leaves as it were certain interstices in the universe +within which it loses its constraining force, petty provinces but +sufficient, where man is master and determines all events, from which +even, it is sometimes conceded, some obscure but important influences +are permitted to flow, modifying his immediate surroundings, little +sanctuaries where the spirit that is in him and is his devises and +realizes ideals of its own. But the notion of such sacrosanct and +inviolable autonomies is being steadily undermined, and they are felt, +as science becomes more dominant over our imaginations and emotions, to +be no more than eddies in the universal stream, only apparently distinct +and self-maintained, means made and broken for its purpose, really +products and instruments of the world-progress. At any rate, it has been +denied that they can rightfully be thought to stand outside it or +themselves to exercise any effect upon their fortunes and their fate, +still less upon their environment. Another suggestion fully and frankly +acknowledges this, but though denying to us any power to affect either +the form or the direction of the currents on which we are borne along, +declares still open to us the possibility of affecting their speed, and +bids us find satisfaction in the thought that by taking thought or +resolve we can hasten or delay their and the universal movement. Still +another view, abandoning even that hope, proclaims one last choice open +to us, namely, that of sullen submission to, or glad and loyal +acquiescence in, its irresistible sway. But surely all these suggestions +are idle, and but for a moment conceal or postpone the inevitable +conclusion that if Progress was, is and must or will be, that is, is +necessary, what we think or do makes no difference, and can make no +difference to or in it. Whether or no we convert the fact into an ideal, +whether or no we set it before as our aim and exert ourselves to work +for it, it goes on its way all the same. Either then it is not a fact, +never was, and never will be a fact, or it is no possible ideal for +which we can act. To be or become a fact, it must be independent of our +action or our consent or our liking; if it is not all these it is not an +ideal of action, or at any rate not so for us. I must repeat that what +is or can be an ideal of action for us must be wholly and solely of our +making, the very thought of it self-begotten in our mind, every step to +its actual existence the self-created deed of our will. Not that either +idea or act comes into being in a void or without suggestion and +assistance from without us, but still so that the initiative lies in +what we think or do, and so that without us it is unreal and impossible. +It is enough, indeed, that we should be contributory, but the ideal must +be such that without our irreplaceable co-operation it must fail. The +only Progress in which we can take an active interest or make an ideal +of action, is one which we conceive and execute, and that the fact we +call Progress is not. + +So far we have found much argument to show that what we have hitherto +called Progress is not and cannot be an ideal of action, or at least of +our action. And now we must face another argument more plain and +apparently fatal, indeed, specially or peculiarly fatal. For the very +notion of Progress is of a process which continues without end, or we +have the dilemma that it is either endless or runs to an end in which +there is no longer Progress but something else. In either case it is not +itself an end or the end, and whatever an ideal of action is, it must be +an end--something beyond which there is nothing, which has no Beyond at +all. To set before oneself as an ideal of action what one certainly +knows to be incapable of attainment or accomplishment, incapable of +coming to an end--that is surely futile and vain. Without a best, better +or better-and-better has no meaning, and when the best is reached +Progress is no more. + +The objection may be put in various ways, as thus. What we seek or want +or work for, is to be satisfied, and satisfaction is a state, not a +process or a progress. Or again, acting is a process of seeking, seeking +and striving for something, and surely the seeking cannot itself be the +object of the search. Or once more, what we act for is, as we must +conceive it, something complete, finished, perfect, but Progress is +essentially something incomplete, unfinished, imperfect. We all feel +this, and at times at least the thought that what we seek flies ever +before, affrights and paralyses: recoiling from such a prospect, we set +before our imaginations as the reward or result of our labours, not +movement but rest, not creation or production but consumption and +fruition. We dream of one day coming to participate in a life or +experience so good that there is no change from less good to more good +possible within it, and which, if it can be said to progress at all, +only, in Milton's magnificent words, 'progresses the dateless and +irrevoluble circle of its own perfections, joining inseparable hands +with joy and bliss in over-measure for ever'. Once this ideal has +presented itself to our hopes or desires, it degrades by comparison with +it to a second-best, the former ideal of endless development from lower +to higher. What we want and seek is to be there, to have done with +getting there. 'Here is the house of fulfilment of craving, this is the +cup with the roses around it.' Compared with this, how disconsolate a +prospect is that 'of the sea that hath no shore beyond it, set in all +the sea'--the endless voyage or quest. Not Progress is or can be the +end, but achievement and the enjoyment of it. The progress is towards +and for the end; the end is the supreme good and the progress is only +good because of it, because it is on the way that leads to it, the way +we are content to travel only because it leads there. Once more, and on +still surer grounds, we must pronounce what we have come to know as +Progress to be no possible ideal of action. What draws us on is the hope +of something to be attained in and by the progress. To take Progress, +which on the one hand is a fact and on the other is an incomplete fact, +to be the end of our striving and our doing is to acquiesce in a +self-contradiction. + +Yet the counter-ideal of a state in which we shall simply rest from our +labours and sit down to enjoy the fruits of them does not promise +satisfaction either, and so cannot be the end or ideal. Our desire and +our endeavour is not for a moveless, changeless, undeveloping +perfection. In fact, so often as the dream of such a state attained has +presented itself, it has to thoughtful minds appeared anything but +attractive or desirable. Our desire is to go on, and for that we are +willing to pay a price--nay, it is for more than merely to go on, it is +to advance and increase in perfection, so much so that the ideal itself +once more slews round into its opposite and the search appears worth +more than the attainment. It seems that we were not on the other view so +wholly wrong, but must try so to frame our ideal of action as to unite +both characters and satisfy both demands at once, so that it shall be at +once a state and a movement or process, an achievement and a progress, a +rest or quiet and a striving after it, a perfection and a perfecting. +The combination at first sight appears impossible. Yet both characters +it must combine. Here again, I must confess that the idea of mere +Progress, even as achieved by our own efforts, seems to me to omit +something essential to an ideal of action--of what is worth while our +acting for. What is to be an ideal of action must have the character of +a fulfilment--something to be consumed, not merely eternally added to. +For this character of the (or any) ideal of action the best name is +fruition or enjoyment. And the defect in the conception of it as +Progress is that it seems to postpone this without a date. + +Let us put this truth which we have discovered concerning Progress in a +nutshell, hiding or disregarding the internal contradiction. What is the +nature, what is the kind of reality, which we have learned to ascribe to +Progress (for we did pronounce it real and essentially capable of being +realized)? It is that it is fact, yet fact not made but in the making; +it is just the name for what is real only through and in the process of +becoming real or being realized. Now I have already elsewhere pointed +out that while a realization which is also a reality, or a reality which +is also a realization, is in nature or what is external to us a mystery +and a puzzle, it is just when we look inwards the open secret of our +being; in our life or action regarded from within, it appears as +something which is only dark because it is so close and familiar to us +that inspection of it is difficult, not because it is in itself opaque +or unintelligible. To its exemplification or illustration there we must +turn for light upon our problem. + +Let us for the time disregard the pressure exercised upon us by the +suggestions of physical science, or even, I may add, popular and +imaginative or opinionative--which is Latin for 'dogmatic'--Religion, +and examine how Progress takes place, or is realized and real, within +our spirits, or that spirit which is within us. The inward process is +one by which that spirit is or is real only in the act or fact of being +or coming to be realized, or rather of realizing itself, and the way in +which it so becomes or makes itself real is by acknowledging its own +past, treating it as fact, recognizing its failures or imperfections +therein, projecting on the future an idea or ideal of itself, suggested +by those apprehended wants or defects, of what it might be, and using +that to supply itself with both energy and guidance, drawing from its +own past both strength and light. In all this it acts autonomously, out +of itself, and creates both the requisite light and the indispensable +force, making its very limitations into new sources and reservoirs of +both. + +We do not sufficiently note and hold and use the indubitable truth that, +in contradistinction to what we call Nature, the forces of the spirit +reinforce and re-create themselves in their use, are in their use not +consumed but reinvigorated, not dissipated or degraded but recollected +and elevated, not expended but enhanced. There is in the realm of spirit +which is our nature and our world no law of either the conservation or +the degradation of energy. We must not allow ourselves to be brow-beaten +by arguments drawn from the obscurer region of physical and external +nature. We know ourselves to be energies or energizing powers which +increase and do not waste by exercise. That is what we ought to mean by +saying that we are wills and not forces, spiritual not physical or +natural beings. If need be to confirm ourselves in this knowledge, let +us think of what takes place, has taken place in the advance of +knowledge, and particularly of the most important kind of knowledge, +viz. self-knowledge, how we make it by our reflection upon what we have +already in respect of it achieved, recognize how it or we have fallen +short or over-shot our mark, define what is required to make good its +deficiencies, and find ourselves thereby already in actual possession of +the preconceived supplement. The real, the fact, what is attained or +accomplished in and by us, prescribes and facilitates, or rather +supplies, its own missing complement of perfection. The process carries +itself on, the progress realizes itself, the ideal translates itself +into the fact or actuality: it accomplishes itself and yet it is the +doing of our very self, of the spirit within us. All this is not merely +our doing, it is our being, it is the process by which we make our +minds, our souls, our very selves or self. + +That man is essentially an, or rather the, ideal-forming animal (or +rather spirit) has long been noted, and also that the formation of +ideals is an indispensable factor in his progress, which is his life and +very being. But all the same, this is sometimes put in such a way as to +make action, or at least human action, a dispensable accident in the +universe, an ineffective and unsubstantial unreality, while at the same +time those who put it thus, profess to see through the illusion and to +enjoy moments of insight which recognize its nullity. This way of +putting it in my judgement intolerably misconceives and misrepresents +the truth. + +Our ideals of action must be self-made or self-begotten, but yet they +must be congruent with known fact; but the manner of such congruence is +hard to see, hard to express. Ideals cannot be themselves facts, and +therefore cannot be known, but on the other hand they cannot be mere +imaginations or suppositions or beliefs, still less, of course, +illusions or delusions. They are not visionary, and the apprehension of +them is a sort or degree of perception. They point beyond themselves to +some higher fact which is not cognizable by our senses or perhaps our +understanding, but which is yet genuinely cognizable and so in some high +sense fact. Yet they are not, as we envisage them, the fact to which +they point, but a substitute for or representative of that--an +anticipation of or prevision of it, a symbol of a fact. Their own kind +or degree of reality is sometimes called 'validity'--a term I do not +like: it might be more simply named 'rightness' with the connotation of +a certain incumbency and imperativeness as well as of an appeal or +adjustment to our nature as we know it; or perhaps all we can say is +that their reality--it seems a paradox that an ideal should possess +'reality'--consists in their suggestiveness of modes of action and their +applicability to it, all this being supported by the conception of a +state of affairs beyond and around us which makes it 'right'. + +If all this is so, Progress as an ideal of action cannot be precisely +identical with Progress as a fact or object of actual or possible +knowledge. We can never know what we are aiming at. But though +different, the two are and must be congruent, and this may be enough to +justify us in using the one name for the two. Unless there were Progress +as fact everywhere and always in the universe--outside us--in Nature and +History, and unless we took ourselves genuinely to apprehend this, we +could not form the practical ideal of Progress, or at least the ideal +could not be right. But the difference remains, and we must be prepared +for and allow for it; though we can use the knowledge we obtain of the +fact of Progress to control and guide our formulation of the practical +ideal, we cannot identify the one with the other. Our imagining and our +supposing of what is best for or obligatory upon us to do or work for, +must go on under conditions--the conditions of what we know as to the +nature of ourselves and our surroundings--and yet under these conditions +has a very large liberty or autonomy. + +The Progress which is to serve as a practical ideal is not and cannot be +the Progress that we know, but must be the result of imagination or +supposition, and it is high and necessary wisdom to trust our +imaginations and aspirations. The forms which it rightly takes cannot be +determined by what we have learned in or from the past; it cometh not +with observation, and the sources of experience cannot of themselves +supply us with it, and though it comes in and with experience, it does +not come from or out of it. Yet it is due to an impression made upon us +by the Universe as we by our faculties apprehend it, and is not merely +subjective or of subjective origin. Begotten of the imagination, it is +appearance, not ultimate reality, and it cannot be thought out or wholly +evacuated of mystery and perplexity. Is this not involved in the +language we use of it, proclaiming it practical and therefore not +theoretical? + +Nevertheless, while I must acknowledge this insuperable difference +between the Progress we can make our end or ideal and the Progress we +believe that in ourselves and around us we apprehend, I still would lay +renewed stress upon the congruence and affinity of the two, and urge +that the perception of the one--the Progress without us--and the pursuit +of the other--the Progress within us--support and fertilize each the +other. The more we know or can learn of the one the more effectively do +we pursue the other, and conversely. The light and the fruits are bound +together: the theory and the practice of Progress cannot be dissevered +without the ruin of both. + +The ideal of Progress which we present to ourselves is and must be one +which is partly determined or limited by past achievement and partly +enlarged by the study of what powers higher than our own have +accomplished and are accomplishing. The formation of it must move +constantly between a respect for what has been achieved and a worship, +so to speak, for what is far better than anything that yet has been or +become fact, and therefore incumbent or imperative upon us. + +The mode and manner of the Progress which is achieved in the Universe +has become in various ways clearer to us and opens out undreamt-of +possibilities, and our assurance of its reality is ever more and more +confirmed, while on the other hand its actual or past results at the +lower level of nature have grown and are growing more familiar. We see +that Progress is the essential and therefore eternal form of life and +spiritual being, which endows it everywhere with worth and substance. +With this comes the conviction that the source of all this lies inward, +in that inwardness where our true selves lie and springs from the very +nature of that. The spirit which is within us is not other than the +spirit which upholds and maintains the whole Universe and works after +the same fashion. And with regard to this its manner of working, we have +learned that it proceeds by taking account of its own past achievements, +imagining or conceiving for itself tasks relevant to these but not +limited by them, and finds in that the conditions and stimulus to their +actualization. It is our business to imitate this procedure and so to +contribute to the advance of the whole. No work so done is or can be +lost. We are justified in supposing that in so doing we are leagued +together in effective co-operation with one another and with all other +forces at work in the whole. In and through us, though not in and +through us only, Progress goes on, drawing us along with it. Inner and +outer Progress, free allegiance and loyal subjection concur and do not +clash, and the world in which we live and act appears to us as it is--a +city of God which is also a self-governed and self-administered city of +free men. + +But above all, what it prescribes to us is the duty--another name for +'the ideal of action'--to seek first light as to the true nature of our +world and ourselves, dismissing and disregarding all appearance, however +charming or seductive. Unless we learn to see Progress as universal and +omnipresent and omnipotent, we shall set before ourselves ideals of +action which are false and treacherous. We must exert ourselves not +merely to apprehend, but to dwell in the apprehension and vision of it. + +And if there were no other reason, we should know it for the right +ideal--this command first to seek light--because it is the hardest thing +that can be asked of us or that we can ask of ourselves. But what is +thus asked is not mere Faith and Hope, but a loyal adherence to the +knowledge which is within us. + +Is this not the hardest? To-day, when over there in France and Flanders, +and indeed almost all over Europe, as in a sort of Devil's smithy, men +are busied in the most horrid self-destruction. The accumulated stores +of age-long and patient industry are being consumed and annihilated; the +works and monuments of civilized life are laid low: all physical and +intellectual energies are bent to the service of destruction. The very +surface of the kindly and fertile earth is seamed and scarred and +wasted. And the human beings who live and move in this inferno, are +jerked like puppets hither and thither by the operation of passions to +which we dare not venture to give names, lest we be found either not +condemning what defiles and imbrutes our nature or denying our meed of +praise and gratitude to what ennobles it. All this portentous activity +and business flows from no other fount and is fed by no other spring +than the spirit which is within us, that spirit which has created that +wealth, material, artistic, spiritual, which it is so busily engaged in +wrecking and undoing. It is still as of old, making History, making it +in the old fashion with the old ends in view and by the exercise of its +old familiar powers. And if in this tragic scene or episode we cannot +still read the features of Progress, our theory is a baseless dream, and +we can frame no valid or 'right' ideal of action. For except to an +environment known to be still, because always, the work and +self-expression of a spirit akin to, and indeed identical with our own, +and except as knowing ourselves to be still, because always, in all our +ways of working its vehicles and instruments, we can neither define nor +realize any ideals of action at all. This war is not an accident, nor an +outburst of subterranean natural forces, but the act and deed of human +will, and being so it cannot be merely evil. + +What, then, can we read not into, but out of, the tragic spectacle now +being enacted, not merely before but in, through, and by us? Unless we +have all along been mistaken, the victims of mere delusion and error, +here, too, there has been and still is Progress. Primarily and +principally what is taking place, is a tremendous revelation of the +potencies which in our nature--in that which makes us men--have escaped +our notice and therefore, because unseen or ignored, working in the +dark, have not yet been drawn upon and utilized. There has been and +still is going on, an enormous increase of self-knowledge. At first +sight this seems wholly an opening up of undreamt-of evil. Side by side +there has come to us a parallel revelation of undreamt-of good. I must +bear witness to my conviction that we are beholding a tremendous inrush +or uprush of good into man and his world. But what I wish to dwell upon +is the growing and ever-confirmed revelation of an intimate relation or +connexion between the two which is the very spring of Progress, viz. +that the supply of good is not only adequate and more than adequate to +the utmost demand made upon it, in the combating of the evil, and that +for this reason, that while on the one hand the evil that impedes or +counter-works the good is itself of spiritual origin, its existence and +power is conditioned by the law that it must evoke and stimulate the +very power which it attempts to crush and defeat. This is, as I have +said, the now discovered and known spring of Progress both within and +without us, that whatsoever is evil, evil just because it is enacted and +does not merely occur, passes within the reach of knowledge and +understanding, and in the measure that it passes into the light, not +merely loses its sting and its force, but is convertible and converted +into a strengthening condition of that which in its first appearance it +seemed merely to thwart. Even regress is seen to be a necessary incident +in progress, and the seasons which we call periods of decadence to be +occasions in which the spirit progresses in secret, recruiting itself +not by idleness or rest, but genuinely refreshing and recreating itself. + +The view here suggested is no sentimental optimism. The drama of the +universe is no comedy or even melodrama, but a tragedy or epic of +heroism, and more especially is this the character of the history of the +spirit which is in Man and is Man. The evil we enact is real evil, the +only real evil, the checks which our disobedience or disloyalty imposes +upon the course of good, are genuine retardations or frustrations; +nevertheless they are not wholly evil, for nothing is such, but are the +means which the spirit that has begotten them, utilizes in its eternal +Progress and wins out of them a richness, a complex and varied harmony +to which they are compelled to contribute. Our ideal of action must +therefore in principle acknowledge as essential, what I have called the +'tragic' character suggested by the spectacle of the war, the fear and +agony which we imagine in Nature and comprehendingly discern in human +history. The Progress which we can achieve or contribute to--which we +can make our ideal of action--is one which cannot rightly be conceived +otherwise than in its essence a victory over evil, and that it may be +evil, it must come and be done in the dark. For the spirit in +progressing deposits what, being abandoned by it, corrupts into venomous +evil, but except in meeting and combating that, it cannot progress. And +it can only combat it by getting to know it, for in darkness and +ignorance it can make no secure advance. + +It has been profoundly said that to know all is to forgive all. Let us +rather say that in coming to know its own past, the Spirit which is in +Man can without undoing it--that it cannot--make it contributory to its +own wealth of being, can, as I have said, utilize it for its own +purposes, which are summed up in the knowing of itself. There is and can +be nothing in its deeds which it cannot know, and so digest and +assimilate and absorb into its own substance. + +In this interpretation of the meaning--the veiled but not hidden meaning +of what has taken place and is taking place in the world--or rather in +us and enacted by us, I seem to myself not to be expressing any private +imagination or supposition which may or may not be so, but a certainty +that it must be so. Either it is so or 'the pillared firmament is +rottenness and earth's base built on stubble'. And this means that +everywhere and always, but most specially and centrally and potently in +man's spirit, there is Progress, in spite of checks and hindrances which +come from within it, a constant if chequered advance in true worth or +value. And that knowledge I build on grounded and reasoned hope that it +will and must continue--how, I do not know, but can only surmise and +conjecture and imagine. + +To the question, What, then, ought we to do? I can only reply first and +foremost, Labour to retain this truth, fostering and developing it, +verifying it as we have been doing in all the varied departments of +human experience, exercising our imaginations while at the same time +sobering and controlling them by the light that comes from it. If we are +true to it and do not through slackness forget and lose it, we shall +find arising spontaneously out of the depths of our self worthy and +feasible ideals of action, the pursuit of which will not betray us or +leave us without an ever-growing assurance that in bending and directing +all our powers to their realization we are the agents of that Progress +which is the source of all being and all worth whatsoever. If we will to +learn from our own past, we can convert anything that is evil in it into +an occasion, an opportunity, a means to good which without it were not +possible. Thus we can even do what seems utterly impossible, for we can +without forgetting or ignoring or denying, forgive ourselves even the +evil which we have done. Yes, even the darkest and worst evil, the +disloyalty to ourselves, to the best and deepest within us, which all +but achieved the impossibility of finally defeating the march of +Progress. For the basis and ground of our belief in the reality, and +therefore the eternity, of Progress lies in this, that the now known +nature of the Spirit which is in Man and not in Man alone, is that it +can heal any wounds that it can inflict upon itself, can find in its own +errors and failures, in its own mistakes and misdeeds, if it only will, +the materials of richer and fuller and worthier life. + + +--------------------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Notes | + | | + | Page 26: Opening and closing quotes added to "Beg humbly | + | that he unlock the door." | + | Page 89: _Suma Theologica_ _sic_ | + | Page 92: course amended to coarse | + | Page 165: preventible amended to preventable | + | Page 299: missing word "is" added ("so far as it is | + | realized") | + | | + | The footnote number is for footnote 81 is missing in the | + | original text. The location of the number that has been | + | added is only an assumption. | + | | + | Discrepancies between the Table of Contents and chapter | + | headings ("Government"/"Progress in Government"; | + | "Industry"/"Progress in Industry"; "Art"/"Progress in Art"; | + | "Science"/"Progress in Science" and "Philosophy"/"Progress | + | in Philosophy") have been retained. | + +--------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Progress and History, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PROGRESS AND HISTORY *** + +***** This file should be named 27948.txt or 27948.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/9/4/27948/ + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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