Initial commitHEADmain

7 files changed, 15150 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d7b82bc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+*.txt text eol=lf
+*.htm text eol=lf
+*.html text eol=lf
+*.md text eol=lf
diff --git a/75294-0.txt b/75294-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4507cac
--- /dev/null
+++ b/75294-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,6165 @@
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75294 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s Note: Italics are enclosed in _underscores_. Additional
+notes will be found near the end of this ebook.
+
+
+
+
+BOOKS BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT
+
+PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
+
+
+  AFRICAN GAME TRAILS. An account of the African Wanderings of an
+    American Hunter-Naturalist.
+    Illustrated. Large 8vo                             $4.00 _net_
+
+  OUTDOOR PASTIMES OF AN AMERICAN HUNTER.
+    New Edition. Illustrated. 8vo                      $3.00 _net_
+
+  HISTORY AS LITERATURE and Other Essays.
+    12mo                                               $1.50 _net_
+
+  OLIVER CROMWELL. Illustrated. 8vo                    $2.00 _net_
+
+  THE ROUGH RIDERS. Illustrated. 8vo                   $1.50 _net_
+
+  THE ROOSEVELT BOOK. Selections from the Writings of Theodore
+    Roosevelt. 16mo                                 50 cents _net_
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  THE ELKHORN EDITION. Complete Works of Theodore Roosevelt. 26 volumes.
+    Illustrated. 8vo. Sold by subscription.
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY AS LITERATURE
+
+AND OTHER ESSAYS
+
+
+
+
+                         HISTORY AS LITERATURE
+                            AND OTHER ESSAYS
+
+                                   BY
+                           THEODORE ROOSEVELT
+
+                                NEW YORK
+                        CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
+                                  1913
+
+
+
+
+                          Copyright, 1913, by
+                        CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
+
+
+                       Published September, 1913
+                      Reprinted in December, 1913
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+In this volume I have gathered certain addresses I made before the
+American Historical Association, the University of Oxford, the
+University of Berlin, and the Sorbonne at Paris, together with six
+essays I wrote for _The Outlook_, and one that I wrote for _The
+Century_.
+
+In these addresses and essays I have discussed not merely literary but
+also historical and scientific subjects, for my thesis is that the
+domain of literature must be ever more widely extended over the domains
+of history and science. There is nothing which in this preface I can
+say to elaborate or emphasize what I have said on this subject in the
+essays themselves.
+
+                                                     THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
+
+  SAGAMORE HILL,
+  _July 4, 1913_.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                                PAGE
+  HISTORY AS LITERATURE                            1
+
+  BIOLOGICAL ANALOGIES IN HISTORY                 37
+
+  THE WORLD MOVEMENT                              95
+
+  CITIZENSHIP IN A REPUBLIC                      135
+
+  THE THRALDOM OF NAMES                          175
+
+  PRODUCTIVE SCHOLARSHIP                         195
+
+  DANTE AND THE BOWERY                           217
+
+  THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY      231
+
+  THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH IN A REVERENT SPIRIT      245
+
+  THE ANCIENT IRISH SAGAS                        275
+
+  AN ART EXHIBITION                              301
+
+    ⁂ Three chapters, “Biological Analogies in History,” “The World
+    Movement,” and “Citizenship in a Republic,” were included in the
+    volume entitled “African and European Addresses.”
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY AS LITERATURE
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY AS LITERATURE[1]
+
+
+There has been much discussion as to whether history should not
+henceforth be treated as a branch of science rather than of literature.
+As with most such discussions, much of the matter in dispute has
+referred merely to terminology. Moreover, as regards part of the
+discussion, the minds of the contestants have not met, the propositions
+advanced by the two sides being neither mutually incompatible nor
+mutually relevant. There is, however, a real basis for conflict in so
+far as science claims exclusive possession of the field.
+
+    [1] Annual address of the president of the American Historical
+        Association delivered at Boston, December 27, 1912.
+
+There was a time--we see it in the marvellous dawn of Hellenic
+life--when history was distinguished neither from poetry, from
+mythology, nor from the first dim beginnings of science. There was a
+more recent time, at the opening of Rome’s brief period of literary
+splendor, when poetry was accepted by a great scientific philosopher
+as the appropriate vehicle for teaching the lessons of science and
+philosophy. There was a more recent time still--the time of Holland’s
+leadership in arms and arts--when one of the two or three greatest
+world painters put his genius at the service of anatomists.
+
+In each case the steady growth of specialization has rendered such
+combination now impossible. Virgil left history to Livy; and when
+Tacitus had become possible Lucan was a rather absurd anachronism. The
+elder Darwin, when he endeavored to combine the functions of scientist
+and poet, may have thought of Lucretius as a model; but the great
+Darwin was incapable of such a mistake. The surgeons of to-day would
+prefer the services of a good photographer to those of Rembrandt--even
+were those of Rembrandt available. No one would now dream of combining
+the history of the Trojan War with a poem on the wrath of Achilles.
+Beowulf’s feats against the witch who dwelt under the water would not
+now be mentioned in the same matter-of-fact way that a Frisian or
+Frankish raid is mentioned. We are long past the stage when we would
+accept as parts of the same epic Siegfried’s triumphs over dwarf and
+dragon, and even a distorted memory of the historic Hunnish king in
+whose feast-hall the Burgundian heroes held their last revel and made
+their death fight. We read of the loves of the Hound of Muirthemne and
+Emer the Fair without attributing to the chariot-riding heroes who
+“fought over the ears of their horses” and to their fierce lady-loves
+more than a symbolic reality. The Roland of the Norman trouvères, the
+Roland who blew the ivory horn at Roncesvalles, is to our minds wholly
+distinct from the actual Warden of the Marches who fell in a rear-guard
+skirmish with the Pyrenean Basques.
+
+As regards philosophy, as distinguished from material science and from
+history, the specialization has been incomplete. Poetry is still used
+as a vehicle for the teaching of philosophy. Goethe was as profound
+a thinker as Kant. He has influenced the thought of mankind far more
+deeply than Kant because he was also a great poet. Robert Browning
+was a real philosopher, and his writings have had a hundredfold the
+circulation and the effect of those of any similar philosopher who
+wrote in prose, just because, and only because, what he wrote was not
+merely philosophy but literature. The form in which he wrote challenged
+attention and provoked admiration. That part of his work which some of
+us--which I myself, for instance--most care for is merely poetry. But
+in that part of his work which has exercised most attraction and has
+given him the widest reputation, the poetry, the form of expression,
+bears to the thought expressed much the same relation that the
+expression of Lucretius bears to the thought of Lucretius. As regards
+this, the great mass of his product, he is primarily a philosopher,
+whose writings surpass in value those of other similar philosophers
+precisely because they are not only philosophy but literature. In other
+words, Browning the philosopher is read by countless thousands to whom
+otherwise philosophy would be a sealed book, for exactly the same
+reason that Macaulay the historian is read by countless thousands to
+whom otherwise history would be a sealed book; because both Browning’s
+works and Macaulay’s works are material additions to the great sum
+of English literature. Philosophy is a science just as history is
+a science. There is need in one case as in the other for vivid and
+powerful presentation of scientific matter in literary form.
+
+This does not mean that there is the like need in the two cases.
+History can never be truthfully presented if the presentation is purely
+emotional. It can never be truthfully or usefully presented unless
+profound research, patient, laborious, painstaking, has preceded the
+presentation. No amount of self-communion and of pondering on the soul
+of mankind, no gorgeousness of literary imagery, can take the place of
+cool, serious, widely extended study. The vision of the great historian
+must be both wide and lofty. But it must be sane, clear, and based on
+full knowledge of the facts and of their interrelations. Otherwise
+we get merely a splendid bit of serious romance-writing, like
+Carlyle’s “French Revolution.” Many hard-working students, alive to the
+deficiencies of this kind of romance-writing, have grown to distrust
+not only all historical writing that is romantic, but all historical
+writing that is vivid. They feel that complete truthfulness must never
+be sacrificed to color. In this they are right. They also feel that
+complete truthfulness is incompatible with color. In this they are
+wrong. The immense importance of full knowledge of a mass of dry facts
+and gray details has so impressed them as to make them feel that the
+dryness and the grayness are in themselves meritorious.
+
+These students have rendered invaluable service to history. They are
+right in many of their contentions. They see how literature and science
+have specialized. They realize that scientific methods are as necessary
+to the proper study of history as to the proper study of astronomy
+or zoology. They know that in many, perhaps in most, of its forms,
+literary ability is divorced from the restrained devotion to the actual
+fact which is as essential to the historian as to the scientist. They
+know that nowadays science ostentatiously disclaims any connection with
+literature. They feel that if this is essential for science, it is no
+less essential for history.
+
+There is much truth in all these contentions. Nevertheless, taking them
+all together, they do not indicate what these hard-working students
+believed that they indicate. Because history, science, and literature
+have all become specialized, the theory now is that science is
+definitely severed from literature and that history must follow suit.
+Not only do I refuse to accept this as true for history, but I do not
+even accept it as true for science.
+
+Literature may be defined as that which has permanent interest because
+both of its substance and its form, aside from the mere technical
+value that inheres in a special treatise for specialists. For a great
+work of literature there is the same demand now that there always
+has been; and in any great work of literature the first element is
+great imaginative power. The imaginative power demanded for a great
+historian is different from that demanded for a great poet; but it is
+no less marked. Such imaginative power is in no sense incompatible with
+minute accuracy. On the contrary, very accurate, very real and vivid,
+presentation of the past can come only from one in whom the imaginative
+gift is strong. The industrious collector of dead facts bears to such
+a man precisely the relation that a photographer bears to Rembrandt.
+There are innumerable books, that is, innumerable volumes of printed
+matter between covers, which are excellent for their own purposes, but
+in which imagination would be as wholly out of place as in the blue
+prints of a sewer system or in the photographs taken to illustrate a
+work on comparative osteology. But the vitally necessary sewer system
+does not take the place of the cathedral of Rheims or of the Parthenon;
+no quantity of photographs will ever be equivalent to one Rembrandt;
+and the greatest mass of data, although indispensable to the work of a
+great historian, is in no shape or way a substitute for that work.
+
+History, taught for a directly and immediately useful purpose to pupils
+and the teachers of pupils, is one of the necessary features of a sound
+education in democratic citizenship. A book containing such sound
+teaching, even if without any literary quality, may be as useful to the
+student and as creditable to the writer as a similar book on medicine.
+I am not slighting such a book when I say that, once it has achieved
+its worthy purpose, it can be permitted to lapse from human memory as a
+good book on medicine, which has outlived its usefulness, lapses from
+memory. But the historical work which does possess literary quality may
+be a permanent contribution to the sum of man’s wisdom, enjoyment, and
+inspiration. The writer of such a book must add wisdom to knowledge,
+and the gift of expression to the gift of imagination.
+
+It is a shallow criticism to assert that imagination tends to
+inaccuracy. Only a distorted imagination tends to inaccuracy. Vast and
+fundamental truths can be discerned and interpreted only by one whose
+imagination is as lofty as the soul of a Hebrew prophet. When we say
+that the great historian must be a man of imagination, we use the word
+as we use it when we say that the great statesman must be a man of
+imagination. Moreover, together with imagination must go the power of
+expression. The great speeches of statesmen and the great writings of
+historians can live only if they possess the deathless quality that
+inheres in all great literature. The greatest literary historian must
+of necessity be a master of the science of history, a man who has at
+his finger-tips all the accumulated facts from the treasure-houses of
+the dead past. But he must also possess the power to marshal what is
+dead so that before our eyes it lives again.
+
+Many learned people seem to feel that the quality of readableness in a
+book is one which warrants suspicion. Indeed, not a few learned people
+seem to feel that the fact that a book is interesting is proof that it
+is shallow. This is particularly apt to be the attitude of scientific
+men. Very few great scientists have written interestingly, and these
+few have usually felt apologetic about it. Yet sooner or later the time
+will come when the mighty sweep of modern scientific discovery will be
+placed, by scientific men with the gift of expression, at the service
+of intelligent and cultivated laymen. Such service will be inestimable.
+Another writer of “Canterbury Tales,” another singer of “Paradise
+Lost,” could not add more to the sum of literary achievement than the
+man who may picture to us the phases of the age-long history of life on
+this globe, or make vivid before our eyes the tremendous march of the
+worlds through space.
+
+Indeed, I believe that already science has owed more than it suspects
+to the unconscious literary power of some of its representatives.
+Scientific writers of note had grasped the fact of evolution long
+before Darwin and Huxley; and the theories advanced by these men
+to explain evolution were not much more unsatisfactory, as full
+explanations, than the theory of natural selection itself. Yet, where
+their predecessors had created hardly a ripple, Darwin and Huxley
+succeeded in effecting a complete revolution in the thought of the age,
+a revolution as great as that caused by the discovery of the truth
+about the solar system. I believe that the chief explanation of the
+difference was the very simple one that what Darwin and Huxley wrote
+was interesting to read. Every cultivated man soon had their volumes
+in his library, and they still keep their places on our book-shelves.
+But Lamarck and Cope are only to be found in the libraries of a few
+special students. If they had possessed a gift of expression akin to
+Darwin’s, the doctrine of evolution would not in the popular mind have
+been confounded with the doctrine of natural selection and a juster
+estimate than at present would obtain as to the relative merits of
+the explanations of evolution championed by the different scientific
+schools.
+
+Do not misunderstand me. In the field of historical research an
+immense amount can be done by men who have no literary power whatever.
+Moreover, the most painstaking and laborious research, covering long
+periods of years, is necessary in order to accumulate the material
+for any history worth writing at all. There are important by-paths of
+history, moreover, which hardly admit of treatment that would make
+them of interest to any but specialists. All this I fully admit. In
+particular I pay high honor to the patient and truthful investigator.
+He does an indispensable work. My claim is merely that such work should
+not exclude the work of the great master who can use the materials
+gathered, who has the gift of vision, the quality of the seer, the
+power himself to see what has happened and to make what he has seen
+clear to the vision of others. My only protest is against those who
+believe that the extension of the activities of the most competent
+mason and most energetic contractor will supply the lack of great
+architects. If, as in the Middle Ages, the journeymen builders are
+themselves artists, why this is the best possible solution of the
+problem. But if they are not artists, then their work, however much it
+represents of praiseworthy industry, and of positive usefulness, does
+not take the place of the work of a great artist.
+
+Take a concrete example. It is only of recent years that the importance
+of inscriptions has been realized. To the present-day scholar they
+are invaluable. Even to the layman, some of them turn the past into
+the present with startling clearness. The least imaginative is moved
+by the simple inscription on the Etruscan sarcophagus: “I, the great
+lady”; a lady so haughty that no other human being was allowed to rest
+near her; and yet now nothing remains but this proof of the pride of
+the nameless one. Or the inscription in which Queen Hatshepsu recounts
+her feats and her magnificence, and ends by adjuring the onlooker,
+when overcome by the recital, not to say “how wonderful” but “how like
+her!”--could any picture of a living queen be more intimately vivid?
+With such inscriptions before us the wonder is that it took us so long
+to realize their worth. Not unnaturally this realization, when it did
+come, was followed by the belief that inscriptions would enable us to
+dispense with the great historians of antiquity. This error is worse
+than the former. Where the inscriptions give us light on what would
+otherwise be darkness, we must be profoundly grateful; but we must not
+confound the lesser light with the greater. We could better afford to
+lose every Greek inscription that has ever been found than the chapter
+in which Thucydides tells of the Athenian failure before Syracuse.
+Indeed, few inscriptions teach us as much history as certain forms of
+literature that do not consciously aim at teaching history at all. The
+inscriptions of Hellenistic Greece in the third century before our era
+do not, all told, give us so lifelike a view of the ordinary life of
+the ordinary men and women who dwelt in the great Hellenistic cities of
+the time, as does the fifteenth idyl of Theocritus.
+
+This does not mean that good history can be unscientific. So far from
+ignoring science, the great historian of the future can do nothing
+unless he is steeped in science. He can never equal what has been done
+by the great historians of the past unless he writes not merely with
+full knowledge, but with an intensely vivid consciousness, of all that
+of which they were necessarily ignorant. He must accept what we now
+know to be man’s place in nature. He must realize that man has been
+on this earth for a period of such incalculable length that, from the
+standpoint of the student of his development through time, what our
+ancestors used to call “antiquity” is almost indistinguishable from the
+present day. If our conception of history takes in the beast-like man
+whose sole tool and weapon was the stone fist-hatchet, and his advanced
+successors, the man who etched on bone pictures of the mammoth, the
+reindeer, and the wild horse, in what is now France, and the man who
+painted pictures of bison in the burial caves of what is now Spain;
+if we also conceive in their true position our “contemporaneous
+ancestors,” the savages who are now no more advanced than the
+cave-dwellers of a hundred thousand or two hundred thousand years
+back, then we shall accept Thothmes and Cæsar, Alfred and Washington,
+Timoleon and Lincoln, Homer and Shakespeare, Pythagoras and Emerson, as
+all nearly contemporaneous in time and in culture.
+
+The great historian of the future will have easy access to innumerable
+facts patiently gathered by tens of thousands of investigators, whereas
+the great historian of the past had very few facts, and often had to
+gather most of these himself. The great historian of the future can not
+be excused if he fails to draw on the vast storehouses of knowledge
+that have been accumulated, if he fails to profit by the wisdom and
+work of other men, which are now the common property of all intelligent
+men. He must use the instruments which the historians of the past did
+not have ready to hand. Yet even with these instruments he can not do
+as good work as the best of the elder historians unless he has vision
+and imagination, the power to grasp what is essential and to reject the
+infinitely more numerous non-essentials, the power to embody ghosts, to
+put flesh and blood on dry bones, to make dead men living before our
+eyes. In short, he must have the power to take the science of history
+and turn it into literature.
+
+Those who wish history to be treated as a purely utilitarian science
+often decry the recital of the mighty deeds of the past, the deeds
+which always have aroused, and for a long period to come are likely
+to arouse, most interest. These men say that we should study not the
+unusual but the usual. They say that we profit most by laborious
+research into the drab monotony of the ordinary, rather than by
+fixing our eyes on the purple patches that break it. Beyond all
+question the great historian of the future must keep ever in mind
+the relative importance of the usual and the unusual. If he is a
+really great historian, if he possesses the highest imaginative and
+literary quality, he will be able to interest us in the gray tints of
+the general landscape no less than in the flame hues of the jutting
+peaks. It is even more essential to have such quality in writing of the
+commonplace than in writing of the exceptional. Otherwise no profit
+will come from study of the ordinary; for writings are useless unless
+they are read, and they can not be read unless they are readable.
+Furthermore, while doing full justice to the importance of the usual,
+of the commonplace, the great historian will not lose sight of the
+importance of the heroic.
+
+It is hard to tell just what it is that is most important to know. The
+wisdom of one generation may seem the folly of the next. This is just
+as true of the wisdom of the dry-as-dusts as of the wisdom of those who
+write interestingly. Moreover, while the value of the by-products of
+knowledge does not readily yield itself to quantitative expression, it
+is none the less real. A utilitarian education should undoubtedly be
+the foundation of all education. But it is far from advisable, it is
+far from wise, to have it the end of all education. Technical training
+will more and more be accepted as the prime factor in our educational
+system, a factor as essential for the farmer, the blacksmith, the
+seamstress, and the cook, as for the lawyer, the doctor, the engineer,
+and the stenographer. For similar reasons the purely practical and
+technical lessons of history, the lessons that help us to grapple
+with our immediate social and industrial problems, will also receive
+greater emphasis than ever before. But if we are wise we will no
+more permit this practical training to exclude knowledge of that
+part of literature which is history than of that part of literature
+which is poetry. Side by side with the need for the perfection of the
+individual in the technic of his special calling goes the need of broad
+human sympathy, and the need of lofty and generous emotion in that
+individual. Only thus can the citizenship of the modern state rise
+level to the complex modern social needs.
+
+No technical training, no narrowly utilitarian study of any kind will
+meet this second class of needs. In part they can best be met by a
+training that will fit men and women to appreciate, and therefore to
+profit by, great poetry and those great expressions of the historian
+and the statesman which rivet our interest and stir our souls. Great
+thoughts match and inspire heroic deeds. The same reasons that make the
+Gettysburg speech and the Second Inaugural impress themselves on men’s
+minds far more deeply than technical treatises on the constitutional
+justification of slavery or of secession, apply to fitting descriptions
+of the great battle and the great contest which occasioned the two
+speeches. The tense epic of the Gettysburg fight, the larger epic of
+the whole Civil War, when truthfully and vividly portrayed, will always
+have, and ought always to have, an attraction, an interest, that can
+not be roused by the description of the same number of hours or years
+of ordinary existence. There are supreme moments in which intensity
+and not duration is the all-important element. History which is not
+professedly utilitarian, history which is didactic only as great
+poetry is unconsciously didactic, may yet possess that highest form
+of usefulness, the power to thrill the souls of men with stories of
+strength and craft and daring, and to lift them out of their common
+selves to the heights of high endeavor.
+
+The greatest historian should also be a great moralist. It is no
+proof of impartiality to treat wickedness and goodness as on the
+same level. But of course the obsession of purposeful moral teaching
+may utterly defeat its own aim. Moreover, unfortunately, the avowed
+teacher of morality, when he writes history, sometimes goes very far
+wrong indeed. It often happens that the man who can be of real help in
+inspiring others by his utterances on abstract principles is wholly
+unable to apply his own principles to concrete cases. Carlyle offers
+an instance in point. Very few men have ever been a greater source of
+inspiration to other ardent souls than was Carlyle when he confined
+himself to preaching morality in the abstract. Moreover, his theory
+bade him treat history as offering material to support that theory.
+But not only was he utterly unable to distinguish either great virtues
+or great vices when he looked abroad on contemporary life--as witness
+his attitude toward our own Civil War--but he was utterly unable to
+apply his own principles concretely in history. His “Frederick the
+Great” is literature of a high order. It may, with reservations, even
+be accepted as history. But the “morality” therein jubilantly upheld
+is shocking to any man who takes seriously Carlyle’s other writings
+in which he lays down principles of conduct. In his “Frederick the
+Great” he was not content to tell the facts. He was not content to
+announce his admiration. He wished to square himself with his theories,
+and to reconcile what he admired, both with the actual fact and with
+his previously expressed convictions on morality. He could only do so
+by refusing to face the facts and by using words with meanings that
+shifted to meet his own mental emergencies. He pretended to discern
+morality where no vestige of it existed. He tortured the facts to
+support his views. The “morality” he praised had no connection with
+morality as understood in the New Testament. It was the kind of archaic
+morality observed by the Danites in their dealings with the people of
+Laish. The sermon of the Mormon bishop in Owen Wister’s “Pilgrim on
+the Gila” sets forth the only moral lessons which it was possible for
+Carlyle truthfully to draw from the successes he described.
+
+History must not be treated as something set off by itself. It should
+not be treated as a branch of learning bound to the past by the
+shackles of an iron conservatism. It is neither necessary rigidly to
+mark the limits of the province of history, nor to treat of all that is
+within that province, nor to exclude any subject within that province
+from treatment, nor yet to treat different methods of dealing with the
+same subject as mutually exclusive. Every writer and every reader has
+his own needs, to meet himself or to be met by others. Among a great
+multitude of thoughtful people there is room for the widest possible
+variety of appeals. Let each man fearlessly choose what is of real
+importance and interest to him personally, reverencing authority, but
+not in a superstitious spirit, because he must needs reverence liberty
+even more.
+
+There is an infinite variety of subjects to treat, and no need to
+estimate their relative importance. Because one man is interested in
+the history of finance, it does not mean that another is wrong in being
+interested in the history of war. One man’s need is met by exhaustive
+tables of statistics; another’s by the study of the influence exerted
+on national life by the great orators, the Websters and Burkes, or
+by the poets, the Tyrtæuses and Körners, who in crises utter what is
+in the nation’s heart. There is need of the study of the historical
+workings of representative government. There is no less need of the
+study of the economic changes produced by the factory system. Because
+we study with profit what Thorold Rogers wrote of prices we are not
+debarred from also profiting by Mahan’s studies of naval strategy.
+One man finds what is of most importance to his own mind and heart
+in tracing the effect upon humanity of the spread of malaria along
+the shores of the Ægean; or the effect of the Black Death on the
+labor-market of mediæval Europe; or the profound influence upon the
+development of the African continent of the fatal diseases borne by
+the bites of insects, which close some districts to human life and
+others to the beasts without which humanity rests at the lowest stage
+of savagery. One man sees the events from one view-point, one from
+another. Yet another can combine both. We can be stirred by Thayer’s
+study of Cavour without abating our pleasure in the younger Trevelyan’s
+volumes on Garibaldi. Because we revel in Froissart, or Joinville, or
+Villehardouin, there is no need that we should lack interest in the
+books that attempt the more difficult task of tracing the economic
+changes in the status of peasant, mechanic, and burgher during the
+thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
+
+History must welcome the entrance upon its domain of every science. As
+James Harvey Robinson in his “New History” has said:
+
+“The bounds of all departments of human research and speculation
+are inherently provisional, indefinite, and fluctuating; moreover,
+the lines of demarcation are hopelessly interlaced, for real men
+and the real universe in which they live are so intricate as to
+defy all attempts even of the most patient and subtle German to
+establish satisfactorily and permanently the _Begriff und Wesen_ of
+any artificially delimited set of natural phenomena, whether words,
+thoughts, deeds, forces, animals, plants, or stars. Each so-called
+science or discipline is ever and always dependent on other sciences
+and disciplines. It draws its life from them, and to them it owes,
+consciously or unconsciously, a great part of its chances of progress.”
+
+Elsewhere this writer dwells on the need of understanding the genetic
+side of history, if we are to grasp the real meaning of, and grapple
+most effectively with, the phenomena of our present-day lives; for that
+which is can be dealt with best if we realize at least in part from
+what a tangled web of causation it has sprung.
+
+The work of the archæologist, the work of the anthropologist, the work
+of the palæo-ethnologist--out of all these a great literary historian
+may gather material indispensable for his use. He, and we, ought fully
+to acknowledge our debt to the collectors of these indispensable
+facts. The investigator in any line may do work which puts us all
+under lasting obligations to him, even though he be totally deficient
+in the art of literary expression, that is, totally deficient in the
+ability to convey vivid and lifelike pictures to others of the past
+whose secrets he has laid bare. I would give no scanty or grudging
+acknowledgment to the deeds of such a man. He does a lasting service;
+whereas the man who tries to make literary expression cover his
+ignorance or misreading of facts renders less than no service. But the
+service done is immeasurably increased in value when the man arises who
+from his study of a myriad dead fragments is able to paint some living
+picture of the past.
+
+This is why the record as great writers preserve it has a value
+immeasurably beyond what is merely lifeless. Such a record pulses with
+immortal life. It may recount the deed or the thought of a hero at some
+supreme moment. It may be merely the portrayal of homely every-day
+life. This matters not, so long as in either event the genius of the
+historian enables him to paint in colors that do not fade. The cry of
+the Ten Thousand when they first saw the sea still stirs the hearts
+of men. The ruthless death scene between Jehu and Jezebel; wicked
+Ahab, smitten by the chance arrow, and propped in his chariot until
+he died at sundown; Josiah, losing his life because he would not heed
+the Pharaoh’s solemn warning, and mourned by all the singing men and
+all the singing women--the fates of these kings and of this king’s
+daughter, are part of the common stock of knowledge of mankind. They
+were petty rulers of petty principalities; yet, compared with them,
+mighty conquerors, who added empire to empire, Shalmaneser and Sargon,
+Amenhotep and Rameses, are but shadows; for the deeds and the deaths
+of the kings of Judah and Israel are written in words that, once read,
+can not be forgotten. The Peloponnesian War bulks of unreal size to-day
+because it once seemed thus to bulk to a master mind. Only a great
+historian can fittingly deal with a very great subject; yet because the
+qualities of chief interest in human history can be shown on a small
+field no less than on a large one, some of the greatest historians have
+treated subjects that only their own genius rendered great.
+
+So true is this that if great events lack a great historian, and a
+great poet writes about them, it is the poet who fixes them in the mind
+of mankind, so that in after-time importance the real has become the
+shadow and the shadow the reality. Shakespeare has definitely fixed
+the character of the Richard III of whom ordinary men think and speak.
+Keats forgot even the right name of the man who first saw the Pacific
+Ocean; yet it is his lines which leap to our minds when we think of the
+“wild surmise” felt by the indomitable explorer-conqueror from Spain
+when the vast new sea burst on his vision.
+
+When, however, the great historian has spoken, his work will never be
+undone. No poet can ever supersede what Napier wrote of the storming
+of Badajoz, of the British infantry at Albuera, and of the light
+artillery at Fuentes d’Oñoro. After Parkman had written of Montcalm and
+Wolfe there was left for other writers only what Fitzgerald left for
+other translators of Omar Khayyam. Much new light has been thrown on
+the history of the Byzantine Empire by the many men who have studied
+it of recent years; we read each new writer with pleasure and profit;
+and after reading each we take down a volume of Gibbon, with renewed
+thankfulness that a great writer was moved to do a great task.
+
+The greatest of future archæologists will be the great historian who
+instead of being a mere antiquarian delver in dust-heaps has the genius
+to reconstruct for us the immense panorama of the past. He must possess
+knowledge. He must possess that without which knowledge is of so little
+use, wisdom. What he brings from the charnel-house he must use with
+such potent wizardry that we shall see the life that was and not the
+death that is. For remember that the past was life just as much as the
+present is life. Whether it be Egypt, or Mesopotamia, or Scandinavia
+with which he deals, the great historian, if the facts permit him,
+will put before us the men and women as they actually lived so that
+we shall recognize them for what they were, living beings. Men like
+Maspero, Breasted, and Weigall have already begun this work for the
+countries of the Nile and the Euphrates. For Scandinavia the groundwork
+was laid long ago in the “Heimskringla” and in such sagas as those of
+Burnt Njal and Gisli Soursop. Minute descriptions of mummies and of
+the furniture of tombs help us as little to understand the Egypt of
+the mighty days, as to sit inside the tomb of Mount Vernon would help
+us to see Washington the soldier leading to battle his scarred and
+tattered veterans, or Washington the statesman, by his serene strength
+of character, rendering it possible for his countrymen to establish
+themselves as one great nation.
+
+The great historian must be able to paint for us the life of the plain
+people, the ordinary men and women, of the time of which he writes.
+He can do this only if he possesses the highest kind of imagination.
+Collections of figures no more give us a picture of the past than the
+reading of a tariff report on hides or woollens gives us an idea of
+the actual lives of the men and women who live on ranches or work in
+factories. The great historian will in as full measure as possible
+present to us the every-day life of the men and women of the age which
+he describes. Nothing that tells of this life will come amiss to him.
+The instruments of their labor and the weapons of their warfare, the
+wills that they wrote, the bargains that they made, and the songs that
+they sang when they feasted and made love: he must use them all. He
+must tell us of the toil of the ordinary man in ordinary times, and of
+the play by which that ordinary toil was broken. He must never forget
+that no event stands out entirely isolated. He must trace from its
+obscure and humble beginnings each of the movements that in its hour of
+triumph has shaken the world.
+
+Yet he must not forget that the times that are extraordinary
+need especial portrayal. In the revolt against the old tendency
+of historians to deal exclusively with the spectacular and the
+exceptional, to treat only of war and oratory and government, many
+modern writers have gone to the opposite extreme. They fail to realize
+that in the lives of nations as in the lives of men there are hours so
+fraught with weighty achievement, with triumph or defeat, with joy or
+sorrow, that each such hour may determine all the years that are to
+come thereafter, or may outweigh all the years that have gone before.
+In the writings of our historians, as in the lives of our ordinary
+citizens, we can neither afford to forget that it is the ordinary
+every-day life which counts most; nor yet that seasons come when
+ordinary qualities count for but little in the face of great contending
+forces of good and of evil, the outcome of whose strife determines
+whether the nation shall walk in the glory of the morning or in the
+gloom of spiritual death.
+
+The historian must deal with the days of common things, and deal with
+them so that they shall interest us in reading of them as our own
+common things interest us as we live among them. He must trace the
+changes that come almost unseen, the slow and gradual growth that
+transforms for good or for evil the children and grandchildren so that
+they stand high above or far below the level on which their forefathers
+stood. He must also trace the great cataclysms that interrupt and
+divert this gradual development. He can no more afford to be blind to
+one class of phenomena than to the other. He must ever remember that
+while the worst offence of which he can be guilty is to write vividly
+and inaccurately, yet that unless he writes vividly he can not write
+truthfully; for no amount of dull, painstaking detail will sum up as
+the whole truth unless the genius is there to paint the truth.
+
+There can be no better illustration of what I mean than is afforded by
+the history of Russia during the last thousand years. The historian
+must trace the growth of the earliest Slav communities of the forest
+and the steppe, the infiltration of Scandinavian invaders who gave them
+their first power of mass action, and the slow, chaotic development
+of the little communes into barbarous cities and savage princedoms.
+In later Russian history he must show us priest and noble, merchant
+and serf, changing slowly from the days when Ivan the Terrible warred
+against Bátory, the Magyar king of Poland, until the present moment,
+when with half-suspicious eyes the people of the Czar watch their
+remote Bulgarian kinsmen standing before the last European stronghold
+of the Turk. During all these centuries there were multitudes of
+wars, foreign and domestic, any or all of which were of little moment
+compared to the slow working of the various forces that wrought in
+the times of peace. But there was one period of storm and overthrow
+so terrible that it affected profoundly for all time the whole growth
+of the Russian people, in inmost character no less than in external
+dominion. Early in the thirteenth century the genius of Jenghiz Khan
+stirred the Mongol horsemen of the mid-Asian pastures to a movement as
+terrible to civilization as the lava flow of a volcano to the lands
+around the volcano’s foot. When that century opened, the Mongols were
+of no more weight in the world than the Touaregs of the Sahara are
+to-day. Long before the century had closed they had ridden from the
+Yellow Sea to the Adriatic and the Persian Gulf. They had crushed
+Christian and Moslem and Buddhist alike beneath the iron cruelty of
+their sway. They had conquered China as their successors conquered
+India. They sacked Baghdad, the seat of the Caliph. In mid-Europe their
+presence for a moment caused the same horror to fall on the warring
+adherents of the Pope and the Kaiser. To Europe they were a scourge so
+frightful, so irresistible, that the people cowered before them as if
+they had been demons. No European army of that day, of any nation, was
+able to look them in the face on a stricken field. Bestial in their
+lives, irresistible in battle, merciless in victory, they trampled the
+lands over which they rode into bloody mire beneath the hoofs of their
+horses. The squat, slit-eyed, brawny horse-bowmen drew a red furrow
+across Hungary, devastated Poland, and in Silesia overthrew the banded
+chivalry of Germany. But it was in Russia that they did their worst.
+They not merely conquered Russia, but held the Russians as cowering
+and abject serfs for two centuries. Every feeble effort at resistance
+was visited with such bloodthirsty vengeance that finally no Russian
+ventured ever to oppose them at all. But the princes of the cities soon
+found that the beast-like fury of the conquerors when their own desires
+were thwarted, was only equalled by their beast-like indifference to
+all that was done among the conquered people themselves, and that they
+were ever ready to hire themselves out to aid each Russian against his
+brother. Under this régime the Russian who rose was the Russian who
+with cringing servility to his Tartar overlords combined ferocious and
+conscienceless greed in the treatment of his fellow Russians. Moscow
+came to the front by using the Tartar to help conquer the other Russian
+cities, paying as a price abject obedience to all Tartar demands. In
+the long run the fierce and pliant cunning of the conquered people
+proved too much for the short-sighted and arrogant brutality of the
+conquerors. The Tartar power, the Mongolian power, waned. Russia became
+united, threw off the yoke, and herself began a career of aggression
+at the expense of her former conquerors. But the reconquest of racial
+independence, vitally necessary though it was to Russia, had been paid
+for by the establishment of a despotism Asiatic rather than European in
+its spirit and working.
+
+The true historian will bring the past before our eyes as if it were
+the present. He will make us see as living men the hard-faced archers
+of Agincourt, and the war-worn spearmen who followed Alexander down
+beyond the rim of the known world. We shall hear grate on the coast
+of Britain the keels of the Low-Dutch sea-thieves whose children’s
+children were to inherit unknown continents. We shall thrill to the
+triumphs of Hannibal. Gorgeous in our sight will rise the splendor
+of dead cities, and the might of the elder empires of which the very
+ruins crumbled to dust ages ago. Along ancient trade-routes, across
+the world’s waste spaces, the caravans shall move; and the admirals of
+uncharted seas shall furrow the oceans with their lonely prows. Beyond
+the dim centuries we shall see the banners float above armed hosts. We
+shall see conquerors riding forward to victories that have changed the
+course of time. We shall listen to the prophecies of forgotten seers.
+Ours shall be the dreams of dreamers who dreamed greatly, who saw in
+their vision peaks so lofty that never yet have they been reached by
+the sons and daughters of men. Dead poets shall sing to us the deeds
+of men of might and the love and the beauty of women. We shall see
+the dancing girls of Memphis. The scent of the flowers in the Hanging
+Gardens of Babylon will be heavy to our senses. We shall sit at feast
+with the kings of Nineveh when they drink from ivory and gold. With
+Queen Maeve in her sun-parlor we shall watch the nearing chariots of
+the champions. For us the war-horns of King Olaf shall wail across the
+flood, and the harps sound high at festivals in forgotten halls. The
+frowning strongholds of the barons of old shall rise before us, and
+the white palace-castles from whose windows Syrian princes once looked
+across the blue Ægean. We shall know the valor of the two-sworded
+Samurai. Ours shall be the hoary wisdom and the strange, crooked folly
+of the immemorial civilizations which tottered to a living death in
+India and in China. We shall see the terrible horsemen of Timur the
+Lame ride over the roof of the world; we shall hear the drums beat as
+the armies of Gustavus and Frederick and Napoleon drive forward to
+victory. Ours shall be the woe of burgher and peasant, and ours the
+stern joy when freemen triumph and justice comes to her own. The agony
+of the galley-slaves shall be ours, and the rejoicing when the wicked
+are brought low and the men of evil days have their reward. We shall
+see the glory of triumphant violence, and the revel of those who do
+wrong in high places; and the broken-hearted despair that lies beneath
+the glory and the revel. We shall also see the supreme righteousness
+of the wars for freedom and justice, and know that the men who fell in
+these wars made all mankind their debtors.
+
+Some day the historians will tell us of these things. Some day, too,
+they will tell our children of the age and the land in which we now
+live. They will portray the conquest of the continent. They will show
+the slow beginnings of settlement, the growth of the fishing and
+trading towns on the seacoast, the hesitating early ventures into the
+Indian-haunted forest. Then they will show the backwoodsmen, with their
+long rifles and their light axes, making their way with labor and peril
+through the wooded wilderness to the Mississippi; and then the endless
+march of the white-topped wagon-trains across plain and mountain to the
+coast of the greatest of the five great oceans. They will show how the
+land which the pioneers won slowly and with incredible hardship was
+filled in two generations by the overflow from the countries of western
+and central Europe. The portentous growth of the cities will be shown,
+and the change from a nation of farmers to a nation of business men and
+artisans, and all the far-reaching consequences of the rise of the new
+industrialism. The formation of a new ethnic type in this melting-pot
+of the nations will be told. The hard materialism of our age will
+appear, and also the strange capacity for lofty idealism which must
+be reckoned with by all who would understand the American character.
+A people whose heroes are Washington and Lincoln, a peaceful people
+who fought to a finish one of the bloodiest of wars, waged solely for
+the sake of a great principle and a noble idea, surely possess an
+emergency-standard far above mere money-getting.
+
+Those who tell the Americans of the future what the Americans of
+to-day and of yesterday have done, will perforce tell much that is
+unpleasant. This is but saying that they will describe the arch-typical
+civilization of this age. Nevertheless, when the tale is finally told,
+I believe that it will show that the forces working for good in our
+national life outweigh the forces working for evil, and that, with many
+blunders and shortcomings, with much halting and turning aside from the
+path, we shall yet in the end prove our faith by our works, and show in
+our lives our belief that righteousness exalteth a nation.
+
+
+
+
+BIOLOGICAL ANALOGIES IN HISTORY
+
+
+
+
+BIOLOGICAL ANALOGIES IN HISTORY[2]
+
+
+An American who, in response to such an invitation as I have received,
+speaks in this university of ancient renown, can not but feel with
+peculiar vividness the interest and charm of his surroundings, fraught
+as they are with a thousand associations. Your great universities, and
+all the memories that make them great, are living realities in the
+minds of scores of thousands of men who have never seen them and who
+dwell across the seas in other lands. Moreover, these associations
+are no stronger in the men of English stock than in those who are
+not. My people have been for eight generations in America; but in one
+thing I am like the Americans of to-morrow, rather than like many of
+the Americans of to-day; for I have in my veins the blood of men who
+came from many different European races. The ethnic make-up of our
+people is slowly changing, so that constantly the race tends to become
+more and more akin to that of those Americans who like myself are
+of the old stock but not mainly of English stock. Yet I think that,
+as time goes by, mutual respect, understanding, and sympathy among
+the English-speaking peoples grow greater and not less. Any of my
+ancestors, Hollander or Huguenot, Scotchman or Irishman, who had come
+to Oxford in “the spacious days of great Elizabeth,” would have felt
+far more alien than I, their descendant, now feel. Common heirship in
+the things of the spirit makes a closer bond than common heirship in
+the things of the body.
+
+    [2] Delivered at Oxford, June 7, 1910. This was the Romanes
+        Lecture for 1910, and has been published by the Oxford
+        University Press, with whose permission it is included in
+        this volume.
+
+More than ever before in the world’s history we of to-day seek to
+penetrate the causes of the mysteries that surround not only mankind
+but all life, both in the present and the past. We search, we peer, we
+see things dimly; here and there we get a ray of clear vision, as we
+look before and after. We study the tremendous procession of the ages,
+from the immemorial past when in “cramp elf and saurian forms” the
+creative forces “swathed their too-much power,” down to the yesterday,
+a few score thousand years distant only, when the history of man became
+the overwhelming fact in the history of life on this planet; and
+studying we see strange analogies in the phenomena of life and death,
+of birth, growth, and change, between those physical groups of animal
+life which we designate as species, forms, races, and the highly
+complex and composite entities which rise before our minds when we
+speak of nations and civilizations.
+
+It is this study which has given science its present-day prominence.
+In the world of intellect, doubtless, the most marked features in the
+history of the past century have been the extraordinary advances in
+scientific knowledge and investigation, and in the position held by the
+men of science with reference to those engaged in other pursuits. I
+am not now speaking of applied science; of the science, for instance,
+which, having revolutionized transportation on the earth and the
+water, is now on the brink of carrying it into the air; of the science
+that finds its expression in such extraordinary achievements as the
+telephone and the telegraph; of the sciences which have so accelerated
+the velocity of movement in social and industrial conditions--for
+the changes in the mechanical appliances of ordinary life during the
+last three generations have been greater than in all the preceding
+generations since history dawned. I speak of the science which has
+no more direct bearing upon the affairs of our every-day life than
+literature or music, painting or sculpture, poetry or history. A
+hundred years ago the ordinary man of cultivation had to know something
+of these last subjects; but the probabilities were rather against his
+having any but the most superficial scientific knowledge. At present
+all this has changed, thanks to the interest taken in scientific
+discoveries, the large circulation of scientific books, and the
+rapidity with which ideas originating among students of the most
+advanced and abstruse sciences become, at least partially, domiciled in
+the popular mind.
+
+Another feature of the change, of the growth in the position of
+science in the eyes of every one, and of the greatly increased respect
+naturally resulting for scientific methods, has been a certain
+tendency for scientific students to encroach on other fields. This
+is particularly true of the field of historical study. Not only have
+scientific men insisted upon the necessity of considering the history
+of man, especially in its early stages, in connection with what biology
+shows to be the history of life, but furthermore there has arisen
+a demand that history shall itself be treated as a science. Both
+positions are in their essence right; but as regards each position, the
+more arrogant among the invaders of the new realm of knowledge take an
+attitude to which it is not necessary to assent. As regards the latter
+of the two positions, that which would treat history henceforth merely
+as one branch of scientific study, we must of course cordially agree
+that accuracy in recording facts and appreciation of their relative
+worth and interrelationship are just as necessary in historical
+study as in any other kind of study. The fact that a book, though
+interesting, is untrue, of course removes it at once from the category
+of history, however much it may still deserve to retain a place in the
+always desirable group of volumes which deal with entertaining fiction.
+But the converse also holds, at least to the extent of permitting us to
+insist upon what would seem to be the elementary fact that a book which
+is written to be read should be readable. This rather obvious truth
+seems to have been forgotten by some of the more zealous scientific
+historians, who apparently hold that the worth of a historical book
+is directly in proportion to the impossibility of reading it, save as
+a painful duty. Now I am willing that history shall be treated as a
+branch of science, but only on condition that it also remains a branch
+of literature; and, furthermore, I believe that as the field of science
+encroaches on the field of literature there should be a corresponding
+encroachment of literature upon science; and I hold that one of the
+great needs, which can only be met by very able men whose culture is
+broad enough to include literature as well as science, is the need of
+books for scientific laymen. We need a literature of science which
+shall be readable. So far from doing away with the school of great
+historians, the school of Polybius and Tacitus, Gibbon and Macaulay,
+we need merely that the future writers of history, without losing the
+qualities which have made these men great, shall also utilize the
+new facts and new methods which science has put at their disposal.
+Dryness is not in itself a measure of value. No “scientific” treatise
+about St. Louis will displace Joinville, for the very reason that
+Joinville’s place is in both history and literature; no minute study
+of the Napoleonic wars will teach us more than Marbot--and Marbot is
+as interesting as Walter Scott. Moreover, certain at least of the
+branches of science should likewise be treated by masters in the art of
+presentment, so that the layman interested in science, no less than the
+layman interested in history, shall have on his shelves classics which
+can be read. Whether this wish be or be not capable of realization,
+it assuredly remains true that the great historian of the future must
+essentially represent the ideal striven after by the great historians
+of the past. The industrious collector of facts occupies an honorable,
+but not an exalted, position, and the scientific historian who produces
+books which are not literature must rest content with the honor,
+substantial, but not of the highest type, that belongs to him who
+gathers material which some time some great master shall arise to use.
+
+Yet, while freely conceding all that can be said of the masters of
+literature, we must insist upon the historian of mankind working in the
+scientific spirit, and using the treasure-houses of science. He who
+would fully treat of man must know at least something of biology, of
+the science that treats of living, breathing things; and especially of
+that science of evolution which is inseparably connected with the great
+name of Darwin. Of course, there is no exact parallelism between the
+birth, growth, and death of species in the animal world, and the birth,
+growth, and death of societies in the world of man. Yet there is a
+certain parallelism. There are strange analogies; it may be that there
+are homologies.
+
+How far the resemblances between the two sets of phenomena are
+more than accidental, how far biology can be used as an aid in the
+interpretation of human history, we can not at present say. The
+historian should never forget, what the highest type of scientific man
+is always teaching us to remember, that willingness to admit ignorance
+is a prime factor in developing wisdom out of knowledge. Wisdom is
+advanced by research which enables us to add to knowledge; and,
+moreover, the way for wisdom is made ready when men who record facts of
+vast but unknown import, if asked to explain their full significance,
+are willing frankly to answer that they do not know. The research which
+enables us to add to the sum of complete knowledge stands first;
+but second only stands the research which, while enabling us clearly
+to pose the problem, also requires us to say that with our present
+knowledge we can offer no complete solution.
+
+Let me illustrate what I mean by an instance or two taken from one of
+the most fascinating branches of world-history, the history of the
+higher forms of life, of mammalian life, on this globe.
+
+Geologists and astronomers are not agreed as to the length of time
+necessary for the changes that have taken place. At any rate, many
+hundreds of thousands of years, some millions of years, have passed
+by since in the eocene, at the beginning of the tertiary period, we
+find the traces of an abundant, varied, and highly developed mammalian
+life on the land masses out of which have grown the continents as
+we see them to-day. The ages swept by, until, with the advent of
+man substantially in the physical shape in which we now know him,
+we also find a mammalian fauna not essentially different in kind,
+though widely differing in distribution, from that of the present day.
+Throughout this immense period form succeeds form, type succeeds type,
+in obedience to laws of evolution, of progress and retrogression, of
+development and death, which we as yet understand only in the most
+imperfect manner. As knowledge increases our wisdom is often turned
+into foolishness, and many of the phenomena of evolution which seemed
+clearly explicable to the learned master of science who founded these
+lectures, to us nowadays seem far less satisfactorily explained. The
+scientific men of most note now differ widely in their estimates of the
+relative parts played in evolution by natural selection, by mutation,
+by the inheritance of acquired characteristics; and we study their
+writings with a growing impression that there are forces at work which
+our blinded eyes wholly fail to apprehend; and where this is the case
+the part of wisdom is to say that we believe we have such and such
+partial explanations, but that we are not warranted in saying that we
+have the whole explanation. In tracing the history of the development
+of faunal life during this period, the age of mammals, there are some
+facts which are clearly established, some great and sweeping changes
+for which we can with certainty ascribe reasons. There are other facts
+as to which we grope in the dark, and vast changes, vast catastrophes,
+of which we can give no adequate explanation.
+
+Before illustrating these types, let us settle one or two matters of
+terminology. In the changes, the development and extinction, of species
+we must remember that such expressions as “a new species,” or as “a
+species becoming extinct,” are each commonly and indiscriminately
+used to express totally different and opposite meanings. Of course
+the “new” species is not new in the sense that its ancestors appeared
+later on the globe’s surface than those of any old species tottering to
+extinction. Phylogenetically, each animal now living must necessarily
+trace its ancestral descent back through countless generations, through
+eons of time, to the early stages of the appearance of life on the
+globe. All that we mean by a “new” species is that from some cause, or
+set of causes, one of these ancestral stems slowly or suddenly develops
+into a form unlike any that has preceded it; so that, while in one form
+of life the ancestral type is continuously repeated and the old species
+continues to exist, in another form of life there is a deviation from
+the ancestral type and a new species appears.
+
+Similarly, “extinction of species” is a term which has two entirely
+different meanings. The type may become extinct by dying out and
+leaving no descendants. Or it may die out because as the generations
+go by there is change, slow or swift, until a new form is produced.
+Thus in one case the line of life comes to an end. In the other case it
+changes into something different. The huge titanothere, and the small
+three-toed horse, both existed at what may roughly be called the same
+period of the world’s history, back in the middle of the mammalian age.
+Both are extinct in the sense that each has completely disappeared
+and that nothing like either is to be found in the world to-day. But
+whereas all the individual titanotheres finally died out, leaving no
+descendants, a number of the three-toed horses did leave descendants,
+and these descendants, constantly changing as the ages went by, finally
+developed into the highly specialized one-toed horses, asses, and
+zebras of to-day.
+
+The analogy between the facts thus indicated and certain facts in
+the development of human societies is striking. A further analogy
+is supplied by a very curious tendency often visible in cases of
+intense and extreme specialization. When an animal form becomes
+highly specialized, the type at first, because of its specialization,
+triumphs over its allied rivals and its enemies, and attains a great
+development; until in many cases the specialization becomes so extreme
+that from some cause unknown to us, or at which we merely guess, it
+disappears. The new species which mark a new era commonly come from the
+less specialized types, the less distinctive, dominant, and striking
+types, of the preceding era.
+
+When dealing with the changes, cataclysmic or gradual, which divide one
+period of paleontological history from another, we can sometimes assign
+causes, and again we can not even guess at them. In the case of single
+species, or of faunas of very restricted localities, the explanation
+is often self-evident. A comparatively slight change in the amount
+of moisture in the climate, with the attendant change in vegetation,
+might readily mean the destruction of a group of huge herbivores with
+a bodily size such that they needed a vast quantity of food, and with
+teeth so weak or so peculiar that but one or two kinds of plants could
+furnish this food. Again, we now know that the most deadly foes of the
+higher forms of life are various lower forms of life, such as insects,
+or microscopic creatures conveyed into the blood by insects. There
+are districts in South America where many large animals, wild and
+domestic, can not live because of the presence either of certain ticks
+or of certain baleful flies. In Africa there is a terrible genus of
+poison fly, each species acting as the host of microscopic creatures
+which are deadly to certain of the higher vertebrates. One of these
+species, though harmless to man, is fatal to all domestic animals,
+and this although harmless to the closely related wild kinsfolk of
+these animals. Another is fatal to man himself, being the cause of
+the “sleeping-sickness” which in many large districts has killed out
+the entire population. Of course the development or the extension
+of the range of any such insects, and any one of many other causes
+which we see actually at work around us, would readily account for
+the destruction of some given species or even for the destruction of
+several species in a limited area of country.
+
+When whole faunal groups die out over large areas, the question is
+different, and may or may not be susceptible of explanation with the
+knowledge we actually possess. In the old arctogæal continent, for
+instance, in what is now Europe, Asia, and North America, the glacial
+period made a complete, but of course explicable, change in the faunal
+life of the region. At one time the continent held a rich and varied
+fauna. Then a period of great cold supervened, and a different fauna
+succeeded the first. The explanation of the change is obvious.
+
+But in many other cases we can not so much as hazard a guess at why
+a given change occurred. One of the most striking instances of these
+inexplicable changes is that afforded by the history of South America
+toward the close of the tertiary period. For ages South America had
+been an island by itself, cut off from North America at the very
+time that the latter was at least occasionally in land communication
+with Asia. During this time a very peculiar fauna grew up in South
+America, some of the types resembling nothing now existing, while
+others are recognizable as ancestral forms of the ant-eaters, sloths,
+and armadillos of to-day. It was a peculiar and diversified mammalian
+fauna, of, on the whole, rather small species, and without any
+representatives of the animals with which man has been most familiar
+during his career on this earth.
+
+Toward the end of the tertiary period there was an upheaval of land
+between this old South American island and North America, near what
+is now the Isthmus of Panama, thereby making a bridge across which
+the teeming animal life of the northern continent had access to this
+queer southern continent. There followed an inrush of huge, or swift,
+or formidable creatures which had attained their development in the
+fierce competition of the arctogæal realm. Elephants, camels, horses,
+tapirs, swine, sabre-toothed tigers, big cats, wolves, bears, deer,
+crowded into South America, warring each against the other incomers
+and against the old long-existing forms. A riot of life followed. Not
+only was the character of the South American fauna totally changed by
+the invasion of these creatures from the north, which soon swarmed over
+the continent, but it was also changed through the development wrought
+in the old inhabitants by the severe competition to which they were
+exposed. Many of the smaller or less capable types died out. Others
+developed enormous bulk or complete armor protection, and thereby saved
+themselves from the new beasts. In consequence, South America soon
+became populated with various new species of mastodons, sabre-toothed
+tigers, camels, horses, deer, cats, wolves, hooved creatures of strange
+shapes, and some of them of giant size, all of these being descended
+from the immigrant types; and side by side with them there grew up
+large autochthonous ungulates, giant ground-sloths well-nigh as large
+as elephants, and armored creatures as bulky as an ox but structurally
+of the armadillo or ant-eater type; and some of these latter not only
+held their own, but actually in their turn wandered north over the
+isthmus and invaded North America. A fauna as varied as that of Africa
+to-day, as abundant in species and individuals, even more noteworthy,
+because of its huge size or odd type, and because of the terrific
+prowess of the more formidable flesh-eaters, was thus developed in
+South America, and flourished for a period which human history would
+call very long indeed, but which geologically was short.
+
+Then, for no reason that we can assign, destruction fell on this
+fauna. All the great and terrible creatures died out, the same fate
+befalling the changed representatives of the old autochthonous fauna
+and the descendants of the migrants that had come down from the north.
+Ground-sloth and glyptodon, sabre-tooth, horse and mastodon, and all
+the associated animals of large size vanished, and South America,
+though still retaining its connection with North America, once again
+became a land with a mammalian life small and weak compared to that
+of North America and the Old World. Its fauna is now marked, for
+instance, by the presence of medium-sized deer and cats, fox-like
+wolves, and small camel-like creatures, as well as by the presence of
+small armadillos, sloths, and ant-eaters. In other words, it includes
+diminutive representatives of the giants of the preceding era, both
+of the giants among the older forms of mammalia, and of the giants
+among the new and intrusive kinds. The change was wide-spread and
+extraordinary, and with our present means of information it is wholly
+inexplicable. There was no ice age, and it is hard to imagine any cause
+which would account for the extinction of so many species of huge
+or moderate size, while smaller representatives, and here and there
+medium-sized representatives, of many of them were left.
+
+Now as to all of these phenomena in the evolution of species, there
+are, if not homologies, at least certain analogies, in the history
+of human societies, in the history of the rise to prominence, of the
+development and change, of the temporary dominance, and death or
+transformation, of the groups of varying kind which form races or
+nations. Here, as in biology, it is necessary to keep in mind that we
+use each of the words “birth” and “death,” “youth” and “age,” often
+very loosely, and sometimes as denoting either one of two totally
+different conceptions. Of course, in one sense there is no such thing
+as an “old” or a “young” nation, any more than there is an “old” or
+“young” family. Phylogenetically, the line of ancestral descent must be
+of exactly the same length for every existing individual, and for every
+group of individuals, whether forming a family or a nation. All that
+can properly be meant by the terms “new” and “young” is that in a given
+line of descent there has suddenly come a period of rapid change. This
+change may arise either from a new development or transformation of the
+old elements, or else from a new grouping of these elements with other
+and varied elements; so that the words “new” nation or “young” nation
+may have a real difference of significance in one case from what they
+have in another.
+
+As in biology, so in human history, a new form may result from the
+specialization of a long-existing, and hitherto very slowly changing,
+generalized or non-specialized form; as, for instance, occurs when
+a barbaric race from a variety of causes suddenly develops a more
+complex cultivation and civilization. This is what occurred, for
+instance, in western Europe during the centuries of the Teutonic and,
+later, the Scandinavian ethnic overflows from the north. All the
+modern countries of western Europe are descended from the states
+created by these northern invaders. When first created they would be
+called “new” or “young” states in the sense that part or all of the
+people composing them were descended from races that hitherto had not
+been civilized, and that therefore, for the first time, entered on
+the career of civilized communities. In the southern part of western
+Europe the new states thus formed consisted in bulk of the inhabitants
+already in the land under the Roman Empire; and it was here that the
+new kingdoms first took shape. Through a reflex action their influence
+then extended back into the cold forests from which the invaders had
+come, and Germany and Scandinavia witnessed the rise of communities
+with essentially the same civilization as their southern neighbors;
+though in those communities, unlike the southern communities, there
+was no infusion of new blood, so that the new civilized nations which
+gradually developed were composed entirely of members of the same races
+which in the same regions had for ages lived the life of a slowly
+changing barbarism. The same was true of the Slavs and the Slavonized
+Finns of eastern Europe, when an infiltration of Scandinavian leaders
+from the north, and an infiltration of Byzantine culture from the
+south, joined to produce the changes which have gradually, out of the
+little Slav communities of the forest and the steppe, formed the
+mighty Russian Empire of to-day.
+
+Again, the new form may represent merely a splitting off from a
+long-established, highly developed, and specialized nation. In this
+case the nation is usually spoken of as a “young,” and is correctly
+spoken of as a “new,” nation; but the term should always be used with a
+clear sense of the difference between what is described in such case,
+and what is described by the same term in speaking of a civilized
+nation just developed from barbarism. Carthage and Syracuse were new
+cities compared to Tyre and Corinth; but the Greek or Phœnician race
+was in every sense of the word as old in the new city as in the old
+city. So, nowadays, Victoria or Manitoba is a new community compared
+with England or Scotland; but the ancestral type of civilization and
+culture is as old in one case as in the other. I of course do not mean
+for a moment that great changes are not produced by the mere fact that
+the old civilized race is suddenly placed in surroundings where it has
+again to go through the work of taming the wilderness, a work finished
+many centuries before in the original home of the race; I merely mean
+that the ancestral history is the same in each case. We can rightly use
+the phrase “a new people,” in speaking of Canadians or Australians,
+Americans or Africanders. But we use it in an entirely different sense
+from that in which we use it when speaking of such communities as those
+founded by the Northmen and their descendants during that period of
+astonishing growth which saw the descendants of the Norse sea-thieves
+conquer and transform Normandy, Sicily, and the British Islands; we use
+it in an entirely different sense from that in which we use it when
+speaking of the new states that grew up around Warsaw, Kief, Novgorod,
+and Moscow, as the wild savages of the steppes and the marshy forests
+struggled haltingly and stumblingly upward to become builders of cities
+and to form stable governments. The kingdoms of Charlemagne and Alfred
+were “new,” compared to the empire on the Bosphorus; they were also
+in every way different; their lines of ancestral descent had nothing
+in common with that of the polyglot realm which paid tribute to the
+Cæsars of Byzantium; their social problems and after-time history were
+totally different. This is not true of those “new” nations which spring
+direct from old nations. Brazil, the Argentine, the United States,
+are all “new” nations, compared with the nations of Europe; but, with
+whatever changes in detail, their civilization is nevertheless of the
+general European type, as shown in Portugal, Spain, and England. The
+differences between these “new” American and these “old” European
+nations are not as great as those which separate the “new” nations
+one from another, and the “old” nations one from another. There are in
+each case very real differences between the new and the old nation;
+differences both for good and for evil; but in each case there is the
+same ancestral history to reckon with, the same type of civilization,
+with its attendant benefits and shortcomings; and, after the pioneer
+stages are passed, the problems to be solved, in spite of superficial
+differences, are in their essence the same; they are those that
+confront all civilized peoples, not those that confront only peoples
+struggling from barbarism into civilization.
+
+So, when we speak of the “death” of a tribe, a nation, or a
+civilization, the term may be used for either one of two totally
+different processes, the analogy with what occurs in biological
+history being complete. Certain tribes of savages--the Tasmanians, for
+instance, and various little clans of American Indians--have within
+the last century or two completely died out; all of the individuals
+have perished, leaving no descendants, and the blood has disappeared.
+Certain other tribes of Indians have as tribes disappeared or are
+now disappearing; but their blood remains, being absorbed into the
+veins of the white intruders, or of the black men introduced by those
+white intruders; so that in reality they are merely being transformed
+into something absolutely different from what they were. In the
+United States, in the new State of Oklahoma, the Creeks, Cherokees,
+Chickasaws, Delawares, and other tribes are in process of absorption
+into the mass of the white population; when the State was admitted a
+couple of years ago, one of the two senators, and three of the five
+representatives in Congress, were partly of Indian blood. In but a
+few years these Indian tribes will have disappeared as completely as
+those that have actually died out; but the disappearance will be by
+absorption and transformation into the mass of the American population.
+
+A like wide diversity in fact may be covered in the statement that
+a civilization has “died out.” The nationality and culture of
+the wonderful city-builders of the lower Mesopotamian Plain have
+completely disappeared, and, though doubtless certain influences dating
+therefrom are still at work, they are in such changed and hidden form
+as to be unrecognizable. But the disappearance of the Roman Empire
+was of no such character. There was complete change, far-reaching
+transformation, and at one period a violent dislocation; but it would
+not be correct to speak either of the blood or the culture of Old
+Rome as extinct. We are not yet in a position to dogmatize as to the
+permanence or evanescence of the various strains of blood that go to
+make up every civilized nationality; but it is reasonably certain
+that the blood of the old Roman still flows through the veins of the
+modern Italian; and though there has been much intermixture, from
+many different foreign sources--from foreign conquerors and from
+foreign slaves--yet it is probable that the Italian type of to-day
+finds its dominant ancestral type in the ancient Latin. As for the
+culture, the civilization of Rome, this is even more true. It has
+suffered a complete transformation, partly by natural growth, partly
+by absorption of totally alien elements, such as a Semitic religion,
+and certain Teutonic governmental and social customs; but the process
+was not one of extinction, but one of growth and transformation, both
+from within and by the accretion of outside elements. In France and
+Spain the inheritance of Latin blood is small; but the Roman culture
+which was forced on those countries has been tenaciously retained by
+them, throughout all their subsequent ethnical and political changes,
+as the basis on which their civilizations have been built. Moreover,
+the permanent spreading of Roman influence was not limited to Europe.
+It has extended to and over half of that New World which was not even
+dreamed of during the thousand years of brilliant life between the
+birth and the death of pagan Rome. This New World was discovered by
+one Italian, and its mainland first reached and named by another;
+and in it, over a territory many times the size of Trajan’s empire,
+the Spanish, French, and Portuguese adventurers founded, beside the
+Saint Lawrence and the Amazon, along the flanks of the Andes, and in
+the shadow of the snow-capped volcanoes of Mexico, from the Rio Grande
+to the Straits of Magellan, communities, now flourishing and growing
+apace, which in speech and culture, and even as regards one strain in
+their blood, are the lineal heirs of the ancient Latin civilization.
+When we speak of the disappearance, the passing away, of ancient
+Babylon or Nineveh, and of ancient Rome, we are using the same terms to
+describe totally different phenomena.
+
+The anthropologist and historian of to-day realize much more clearly
+than their predecessors of a couple of generations back, how artificial
+most great nationalities are, and how loose is the terminology usually
+employed to describe them. There is an element of unconscious and
+rather pathetic humor in the simplicity of half a century ago which
+spoke of the Aryan and the Teuton with reverential admiration, as
+if the words denoted, not merely something definite, but something
+ethnologically sacred; the writers having much the same pride and
+faith in their own and their fellow countrymen’s purity of descent
+from these imaginary Aryan or Teutonic ancestors that was felt a
+few generations earlier by the various noble families who traced
+their lineage direct to Odin, Æneas, or Noah. Nowadays, of course,
+all students recognize that there may not be, and often is not, the
+slightest connection between kinship in blood and kinship in tongue. In
+America we find three races, white, red, and black, and three tongues,
+English, French, and Spanish, mingled in such a way that the lines
+of cleavage of race continually run at right angles to the lines of
+cleavage of speech; there being communities practically of pure blood
+of each race found speaking each language. Aryan and Teutonic are
+terms having very distinct linguistic meanings; but whether they have
+any such ethnical meanings as were formerly attributed to them is so
+doubtful, that we can not even be sure whether the ancestors of most
+of those we call Teutons originally spoke an Aryan tongue at all. The
+term Celtic, again, is perfectly clear when used linguistically; but
+when used to describe a race it means almost nothing until we find out
+which one of several totally different terminologies the writer or
+speaker is adopting. If, for instance, the term is used to designate
+the short-headed, medium-sized type common throughout middle Europe,
+from east to west, it denotes something entirely different from what
+is meant when the name is applied to the tall, yellow-haired opponents
+of the Romans and the later Greeks; while, if used to designate any
+modern nationality, it becomes about as loose and meaningless as the
+term Anglo-Saxon itself.
+
+Most of the great societies which have developed a high civilization
+and have played a dominant part in the world have been--and
+are--artificial; not merely in social structure, but in the sense of
+including totally different race types. A great nation rarely belongs
+to any one race, though its citizens generally have one essentially
+national speech. Yet the curious fact remains that these great
+artificial societies acquire such unity that in each one all the
+parts feel a subtle sympathy, and move or cease to move, go forward
+or go back, all together, in response to some stir or throbbing, very
+powerful, and yet not to be discerned by our senses. National unity is
+far more apt than race unity to be a fact to reckon with; until indeed
+we come to race differences as fundamental as those which divide from
+one another the half-dozen great ethnic divisions of mankind, when they
+become so important that differences of nationality, speech, and creed
+sink into littleness.
+
+An ethnological map of Europe in which the peoples were divided
+according to their physical and racial characteristics, such as
+stature, coloration, and shape of head, would bear no resemblance
+whatever to a map giving the political divisions, the nationalities,
+of Europe; while, on the contrary, a linguistic map would show a
+general correspondence between speech and nationality. The northern
+Frenchman is in blood and physical type more nearly allied to his
+German-speaking neighbor than to the Frenchman of the Mediterranean
+seaboard; and the latter, in his turn, is nearer to the Catalan than
+to the man who dwells beside the Channel or along the tributaries of
+the Rhine. But in essential characteristics, in the qualities that
+tell in the make-up of a nationality, all these kinds of Frenchmen
+feel keenly that they are one, and are different from all outsiders,
+their differences dwindling into insignificance compared with the
+extraordinary, artificially produced resemblances which bring them
+together and wall them off from the outside world. The same is true
+when we compare the German who dwells where the Alpine springs of the
+Danube and the Rhine interlace, with the physically different German
+of the Baltic lands. The same is true of Kentishman, Cornishman, and
+Yorkshireman in England.
+
+In dealing, not with groups of human beings in simple and primitive
+relations, but with highly complex, highly specialized, civilized, or
+semi-civilized societies, there is need of great caution in drawing
+analogies with what has occurred in the development of the animal
+world. Yet even in these cases it is curious to see how some of the
+phenomena in the growth and disappearance of these complex, artificial
+groups of human beings resemble what has happened in myriads of
+instances in the history of life on this planet.
+
+Why do great artificial empires, whose citizens are knit by a bond of
+speech and culture much more than by a bond of blood, show periods of
+extraordinary growth, and again of sudden or lingering decay? In some
+cases we can answer readily enough; in other cases we can not as yet
+even guess what the proper answer should be. If in any such case the
+centrifugal forces overcome the centripetal, the nation will of course
+fly to pieces, and the reason for its failure to become a dominant
+force is patent to every one. The minute that the spirit which finds
+its healthy development in local self-government, and is the antidote
+to the dangers of an extreme centralization, develops into mere
+particularism, into inability to combine effectively for achievement of
+a common end, then it is hopeless to expect great results. Poland and
+certain republics of the Western Hemisphere are the standard examples
+of failure of this kind; and the United States would have ranked with
+them, and her name would have become a byword of derision, if the
+forces of union had not triumphed in the Civil War. So, the growth of
+soft luxury after it has reached a certain point becomes a national
+danger patent to all. Again, it needs but little of the vision of a
+seer to foretell what must happen in any community if the average woman
+ceases to become the mother of a family of healthy children, if the
+average man loses the will and the power to work up to old age and to
+fight whenever the need arises. If the homely commonplace virtues die
+out, if strength of character vanishes in graceful self-indulgence, if
+the virile qualities atrophy, then the nation has lost what no material
+prosperity can offset.
+
+But there are plenty of other phenomena wholly or partially
+inexplicable. It is easy to see why Rome trended downward when great
+slave-tilled farms spread over what had once been a countryside of
+peasant proprietors, when greed and luxury and sensuality ate like
+acids into the fibre of the upper classes, while the mass of the
+citizens grew to depend not upon their own exertions, but upon the
+state, for their pleasures and their very livelihood. But this does not
+explain why the forward movement stopped at different times, so far as
+different matters were concerned; at one time as regards literature,
+at another time as regards architecture, at another time as regards
+city-building. There is nothing mysterious about Rome’s dissolution
+at the time of the barbarian invasions; apart from the impoverishment
+and depopulation of the empire, its fall would be quite sufficiently
+explained by the mere fact that the average citizen had lost the
+fighting edge--an essential even under a despotism, and therefore far
+more essential in free, self-governing communities, such as those of
+the English-speaking peoples of to-day. The mystery is rather that out
+of the chaos and corruption of Roman society during the last days of
+the oligarchic republic, there should have sprung an empire able to
+hold things with reasonable steadiness for three or four centuries. But
+why, for instance, should the higher kinds of literary productiveness
+have ceased about the beginning of the second century, whereas the
+following centuries witnessed a great outbreak of energy in the shape
+of city-building in the provinces, not only in western Europe, but in
+Africa? We can not even guess why the springs of one kind of energy
+dried up, while there was yet no cessation of another kind.
+
+Take another and smaller instance, that of Holland. For a period
+covering a little more than the seventeenth century, Holland, like some
+of the Italian city-states at an earlier period, stood on the dangerous
+heights of greatness, beside nations so vastly her superior in
+territory and population as to make it inevitable that sooner or later
+she must fall from the glorious and perilous eminence to which she
+had been raised by her own indomitable soul. Her fall came; it could
+not have been indefinitely postponed; but it came far quicker than it
+needed to come, because of shortcomings on her part to which both Great
+Britain and the United States would be wise to pay heed. Her government
+was singularly ineffective, the decentralization being such as often to
+permit the separatist, the particularist, spirit of the provinces to
+rob the central authority of all efficiency. This was bad enough. But
+the fatal weakness was that so common in rich, peace-loving societies,
+where men hate to think of war as possible, and try to justify their
+own reluctance to face it either by high-sounding moral platitudes,
+or else by a philosophy of short-sighted materialism. The Dutch were
+very wealthy. They grew to believe that they could hire others to do
+their fighting for them on land; and on sea, where they did their own
+fighting, and fought very well, they refused in time of peace to make
+ready fleets so efficient as either to insure them against the peace
+being broken or else to give them the victory when war came. To be
+opulent and unarmed is to secure ease in the present at the almost
+certain cost of disaster in the future.
+
+It is therefore easy to see why Holland lost when she did her position
+among the powers; but it is far more difficult to explain why at the
+same time there should have come at least a partial loss of position in
+the world of art and letters. Some spark of divine fire burnt itself
+out in the national soul. As the line of great statesmen, of great
+warriors, by land and sea, came to an end, so the line of the great
+Dutch painters ended. The loss of pre-eminence in the schools followed
+the loss of pre-eminence in camp and in council chamber.
+
+In the little republic of Holland, as in the great empire of Rome, it
+was not death which came, but transformation. Both Holland and Italy
+teach us that races that fall may rise again. In Holland, as in the
+Scandinavian kingdoms of Norway and Sweden, there was in a sense no
+decadence at all. There was nothing analogous to what has befallen so
+many countries: no lowering of the general standard of well-being, no
+general loss of vitality, no depopulation. What happened was, first
+a flowering time, in which the country’s men of action and men of
+thought gave it a commanding position among the nations of the day;
+then this period of command passed, and the state revolved in an eddy,
+aside from the sweep of the mighty current of world life; and yet the
+people themselves in their internal relations remained substantially
+unchanged, and in many fields of endeavor have now recovered themselves
+and play again a leading part.
+
+In Italy, where history is recorded for a far longer time, the course
+of affairs was different. When the Roman Empire that was really
+Roman went down in ruin, there followed an interval of centuries
+when the gloom was almost unrelieved. Every form of luxury and
+frivolity, of contemptuous repugnance for serious work, of enervating
+self-indulgence, every form of vice and weakness which we regard as
+most ominous in the civilization of to-day, had been at work throughout
+Italy for generations. The nation had lost all patriotism. It had
+ceased to bring forth fighters or workers, had ceased to bring forth
+men of mark of any kind; and the remnant of the Italian people cowered
+in helpless misery among the horsehoofs of the barbarians, as the wild
+northern bands rode in to take the land for a prey and the cities for
+a spoil. It was one of the great cataclysms of history; but in the end
+it was seen that what came had been in part change and growth. It was
+not all mere destruction. Not only did Rome leave a vast heritage of
+language, culture, law, ideas, to all the modern world; but the people
+of Italy kept the old blood as the chief strain in their veins. In a
+few centuries came a wonderful new birth for Italy. Then for four or
+five hundred years there was a growth of many little city-states which,
+in their energy both in peace and war, in their fierce, fervent life,
+in the high quality of their men of arts and letters, and in their
+utter inability to combine so as to preserve order among themselves or
+to repel outside invasion, can not unfairly be compared with classic
+Greece. Again Italy fell, and the land was ruled by Spaniard or
+Frenchman or Austrian; and again, in the nineteenth century, there came
+for the third time a wonderful new birth.
+
+Contrast this persistence of the old type in its old home, and in
+certain lands which it had conquered, with its utter disappearance
+in certain other lands where it was intrusive, but where it at one
+time seemed as firmly established as in Italy--certainly as in Spain
+or Gaul. No more curious example of the growth and disappearance of
+a national type can be found than in the case of the Greco-Roman
+dominion in Western Asia and North Africa. All told it extended over
+nearly a thousand years, from the days of Alexander till after the
+time of Heraclius. Throughout these lands there yet remain the ruins
+of innumerable cities which tell how firmly rooted that dominion must
+once have been. The overshadowing and far-reaching importance of what
+occurred is sufficiently shown by the familiar fact that the New
+Testament was written in Greek; while to the early Christians, North
+Africa seemed as much a Latin land as Sicily or the valley of the Po.
+The intrusive peoples and their culture flourished in the lands for a
+period twice as long as that which has elapsed since, with the voyage
+of Columbus, modern history may fairly be said to have begun; and then
+they withered like dry grass before the flame of the Arab invasion,
+and their place knew them no more. They overshadowed the ground; they
+vanished; and the old types reappeared in their old homes, with beside
+them a new type, the Arab.
+
+Now, as to all these changes we can at least be sure of the main facts.
+We know that the Hollander remains in Holland, though the greatness
+of Holland has passed; we know that the Latin blood remains in Italy,
+whether to a greater or less extent; and that the Latin culture has
+died out in the African realm it once won, while it has lasted in Spain
+and France, and thence has extended itself to continents beyond the
+ocean. We may not know the causes of the facts, save partially; but
+the facts themselves we do know. But there are other cases in which
+we are at present ignorant even of the facts; we do not know what the
+changes really were, still less the hidden causes and meaning of these
+changes. Much remains to be found out before we can speak with any
+certainty as to whether some changes mean the actual dying out or the
+mere transformation of types. It is, for instance, astonishing how
+little permanent change in the physical make-up of the people seems to
+have been worked in Europe by the migrations of the races in historic
+times. A tall, fair-haired, long-skulled race penetrates to some
+southern country and establishes a commonwealth. The generations pass.
+There is no violent revolution, no break in continuity of history,
+nothing in the written records to indicate an epoch-making change at
+any given moment; and yet after a time we find that the old type has
+reappeared and that the people of the locality do not substantially
+differ in physical form from the people of other localities that did
+not suffer such an invasion. Does this mean that gradually the children
+of the invaders have dwindled and died out; or, as the blood is mixed
+with the ancient blood, has there been a change, part reversion and
+part assimilation, to the ancient type in its old surroundings? Do
+tint of skin, eyes and hair, shape of skull, and stature change in the
+new environment, so as to be like those of the older people who dwelt
+in this environment? Do the intrusive races, without change of blood,
+tend under the pressure of their new surroundings to change in type
+so as to resemble the ancient peoples of the land? Or, as the strains
+mingled, has the new strain dwindled and vanished, from causes as yet
+obscure? Has the blood of the Lombard practically disappeared from
+Italy, and of the Visigoth from Spain, or does it still flow in large
+populations where the old physical type has once more become dominant?
+Here in England, the long-skulled men of the long barrows, the
+short-skulled men of the round barrows--have they blended, or has one
+or the other type actually died out; or are they merged in some older
+race which they seemingly supplanted, or have they adopted the tongue
+and civilization of some later race which seemingly destroyed them?
+We can not say. We do not know which of the widely different stocks
+now speaking Aryan tongues represents in physical characteristics the
+ancient Aryan type, nor where the type originated, nor how or why it
+imposed its language on other types, nor how much or how little mixture
+of blood accompanied the change of tongue.
+
+The phenomena of national growth and decay, both of those which can
+and those which can not be explained, have been peculiarly in evidence
+during the four centuries that have gone by since the discovery of
+America and the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope. These have been the
+four centuries of by far the most intense and constantly accelerating
+rapidity of movement and development that the world has yet seen. The
+movement has covered all the fields of human activity. It has witnessed
+an altogether unexampled spread of civilized mankind over the world, as
+well as an altogether unexampled advance in man’s dominion over nature;
+and this together with a literary and artistic activity to be matched
+in but one previous epoch. This period of extension and development
+has been that of one race, the so-called white race, or, to speak more
+accurately, the group of peoples living in Europe, who undoubtedly have
+a certain kinship of blood, who profess the Christian religion, and
+trace back their culture to Greece and Rome.
+
+The memories of men are short, and it is easy to forget how brief is
+this period of unquestioned supremacy of the so-called white race.
+It is but a thing of yesterday. During the thousand years which went
+before the opening of this era of European supremacy, the attitude of
+Asia and Africa, of Hun and Mongol, Turk and Tartar, Arab and Moor, had
+on the whole been that of successful aggression against Europe. More
+than a century went by after the voyages of Columbus before the mastery
+in war began to pass from the Asiatic to the European. During that time
+Europe produced no generals or conquerors able to stand comparison with
+Selim and Solyman, Baber and Akbar. Then the European advance gathered
+momentum; until at the present time peoples of European blood hold
+dominion over all America and Australia and the islands of the sea,
+over most of Africa, and the major half of Asia. Much of this world
+conquest is merely political, and such a conquest is always likely in
+the long run to vanish. But very much of it represents not a merely
+political, but an ethnic conquest; the intrusive people having either
+exterminated or driven out the conquered peoples, or else having
+imposed upon them its tongue, law, culture, and religion, together
+with a strain of its blood. During this period substantially all of
+the world achievements worth remembering are to be credited to the
+people of European descent. The first exception of any consequence is
+the wonderful rise of Japan within the last generation--a phenomenon
+unexampled in history; for both in blood and in culture the Japanese
+line of ancestral descent is as remote as possible from ours; and yet
+Japan, while hitherto keeping most of what was strongest in her ancient
+character and traditions, has assimilated with curious completeness
+most of the characteristics that have given power and leadership to the
+West.
+
+During this period of intense and feverish activity among the peoples
+of European stock, first one and then another has taken the lead.
+The movement began with Spain and Portugal. Their flowering-time was
+as brief as it was wonderful. The gorgeous pages of their annals are
+illumined by the figures of warriors, explorers, statesmen, poets,
+and painters. Then their days of greatness ceased. Many partial
+explanations can be given, but something remains behind, some hidden
+force for evil, some hidden source of weakness upon which we can not
+lay our hands. Yet there are many signs that in the New World, after
+centuries of arrested growth, the peoples of Spanish and Portuguese
+stock are entering upon another era of development, and there are other
+signs that this is true also in the Iberian peninsula itself.
+
+About the time that the first brilliant period of the leadership of the
+Iberian peoples was drawing to a close, at the other end of Europe, in
+the land of melancholy steppe and melancholy forest, the Slav turned in
+his troubled sleep and stretched out his hand to grasp leadership and
+dominion. Since then almost every nation of Europe has at one time or
+another sought a place in the movement of expansion; but for the last
+three centuries the great phenomenon of mankind has been the growth of
+the English-speaking peoples and their spread over the world’s waste
+spaces.
+
+Comparison is often made between the empire of Britain and the
+empire of Rome. When judged relatively to the effect on all modern
+civilization, the empire of Rome is of course the more important,
+simply because all the nations of Europe and their offshoots in other
+continents trace back their culture either to the earlier Rome by
+the Tiber, or the later Rome by the Bosphorus. The empire of Rome
+is the most stupendous fact in lay history; no empire later in time
+can be compared with it. But this is merely another way of saying
+that the nearer the source the more important becomes any deflection
+of the stream’s current. Absolutely, comparing the two empires one
+with the other in point of actual achievement, and disregarding the
+immensely increased effect on other civilizations which inhered in the
+older empire because it antedated the younger by a couple of thousand
+years, there is little to choose between them as regards the wide and
+abounding interest and importance of their careers.
+
+In the world of antiquity each great empire rose when its predecessor
+had already crumbled. By the time that Rome loomed large over the
+horizon of history, there were left for her to contend with only
+decaying civilizations and raw barbarism. When she conquered Pyrrhus,
+she strove against the strength of but one of the many fragments into
+which Alexander’s kingdom had fallen. When she conquered Carthage,
+she overthrew a foe against whom for two centuries the single Greek
+city of Syracuse had contended on equal terms; it was not the Sepoy
+armies of the Carthaginian plutocracy, but the towering genius of the
+House of Barca, which rendered the struggle forever memorable. It was
+the distance and the desert, rather than the Parthian horse-bowmen,
+that set bounds to Rome in the east; and on the north her advance was
+curbed by the vast reaches of marshy woodland, rather than by the
+tall barbarians who dwelt therein. During the long generations of her
+greatness, and until the sword dropped from her withered hand, the
+Parthian was never a menace of aggression, and the German threatened
+her but to die.
+
+On the contrary, the great expansion of England has occurred, the great
+empire of Britain has been achieved, during the centuries that have
+also seen mighty military nations rise and flourish on the continent
+of Europe. It is as if Rome, while creating and keeping the empire she
+won between the days of Scipio and the days of Trajan, had at the same
+time held her own with the Nineveh of Sargon and Tiglath, the Egypt of
+Thothmes and Rameses, and the kingdoms of Persia and Macedon in the red
+flush of their warrior-dawn. The empire of Britain is vaster in space,
+in population, in wealth, in wide variety of possession, in a history
+of multiplied and manifold achievement of every kind, than even the
+glorious empire of Rome. Yet, unlike Rome, Britain has won dominion in
+every clime, has carried her flag by conquest and settlement to the
+uttermost ends of the earth, at the very time that haughty and powerful
+rivals, in their abounding youth or strong maturity, were eager to
+set bounds to her greatness, and to tear from her what she had won
+afar. England has peopled continents with her children, has swayed
+the destinies of teeming myriads of alien race, has ruled ancient
+monarchies, and wrested from all corners the right to the world’s waste
+spaces, while at home she has held her own before nations, each of
+military power comparable to Rome’s at her zenith.
+
+Rome fell by attack from without only because the ills within her own
+borders had grown incurable. What is true of your country, my hearers,
+is true of my own; while we should be vigilant against foes from
+without, yet we need never really fear them so long as we safeguard
+ourselves against the enemies within our own households; and these
+enemies are our own passions and follies. Free peoples can escape
+being mastered by others only by being able to master themselves. We
+Americans and you people of the British Isles alike need ever to keep
+in mind that, among the many qualities indispensable to the success of
+a great democracy, and second only to a high and stern sense of duty,
+of moral obligation, are self-knowledge and self-mastery. You, my
+hosts, and I may not agree in all our views; some of you would think
+me a very radical democrat--as, for the matter of that, I am--and my
+theory of imperialism would probably suit the anti-imperialists as
+little as it would suit a certain type of forcible-feeble imperialist.
+But there are some points on which we must all agree if we think
+soundly. The precise form of government, democratic or otherwise, is
+the instrument, the tool, with which we work. It is important to have
+a good tool. But, even if it is the best possible, it is only a tool.
+No implement can ever take the place of the guiding intelligence that
+wields it. A very bad tool will ruin the work of the best craftsman;
+but a good tool in bad hands is no better. In the last analysis the
+all-important factor in national greatness is national character.
+
+There are questions which we of the great civilized nations are ever
+tempted to ask of the future. Is our time of growth drawing to an
+end? Are we as nations soon to come under the rule of that great law
+of death which is itself but part of the great law of life? None can
+tell. Forces that we can see, and other forces that are hidden or that
+can but dimly be apprehended, are at work all around us, both for good
+and for evil. The growth in luxury, in love of ease, in taste for
+vapid and frivolous excitement, is both evident and unhealthy. The
+most ominous sign is the diminution in the birth-rate, in the rate of
+natural increase, now to a larger or lesser degree shared by most of
+the civilized nations of central and western Europe, of America and
+Australia--a diminution so great that, if it continues for the next
+century at the rate which has obtained for the last twenty-five years,
+all the more highly civilized peoples will be stationary or else
+have begun to go backward in population, while many of them will have
+already gone very far backward.
+
+There is much that should give us concern for the future. But there
+is much also which should give us hope. No man is more apt to be
+mistaken than the prophet of evil. After the French Revolution in
+1830 Niebuhr hazarded the guess that all civilization was about to go
+down with a crash, that we were all about to share the fall of third-
+and fourth-century Rome--a respectable, but painfully overworked,
+comparison. The fears once expressed by the followers of Malthus as to
+the future of the world have proved groundless as regards the civilized
+portion of the world; it is strange indeed to look back at Carlyle’s
+prophecies of some seventy years ago, and then think of the teeming
+life of achievement, the life of conquest of every kind, and of noble
+effort crowned by success, which has been ours for the two generations
+since he complained to High Heaven that all the tales had been told and
+all the songs sung, and that all the deeds really worth doing had been
+done. I believe with all my heart that a great future remains for us;
+but whether it does or does not, our duty is not altered. However the
+battle may go, the soldier worthy of the name will with utmost vigor
+do his allotted task, and bear himself as valiantly in defeat as in
+victory. Come what will, we belong to peoples who have not yielded
+to the craven fear of being great. In the ages that have gone by, the
+great nations, the nations that have expanded and that have played a
+mighty part in the world, have in the end grown old and weakened and
+vanished; but so have the nations whose only thought was to avoid all
+danger, all effort, who would risk nothing, and who therefore gained
+nothing. In the end, the same fate may overwhelm all alike; but the
+memory of the one type perishes with it, while the other leaves its
+mark deep on the history of all the future of mankind.
+
+A nation that seemingly dies may be born again; and even though in
+the physical sense it die utterly, it may yet hand down a history of
+heroic achievement, and for all time to come may profoundly influence
+the nations that arise in its place by the impress of what it has
+done. Best of all is it to do our part well, and at the same time to
+see our blood live young and vital in men and women fit to take up
+the task as we lay it down; for so shall our seed inherit the earth.
+But if this, which is best, is denied us, then at least it is ours to
+remember that if we choose we can be torch-bearers, as our fathers were
+before us. The torch has been handed on from nation to nation, from
+civilization to civilization, throughout all recorded time, from the
+dim years before history dawned down to the blazing splendor of this
+teeming century of ours. It dropped from the hands of the coward and
+the sluggard, of the man wrapped in luxury or love of ease, the man
+whose soul was eaten away by self-indulgence; it has been kept alight
+only by those who were mighty of heart and cunning of hand. What they
+worked at, provided it was worth doing at all, was of less matter than
+how they worked, whether in the realm of the mind or the realm of the
+body. If their work was good, if what they achieved was of substance,
+then high success was really theirs.
+
+In the first part of this lecture I drew certain analogies between what
+has occurred to forms of animal life through the procession of the ages
+on this planet, and what has occurred and is occurring to the great
+artificial civilizations which have gradually spread over the world’s
+surface during the thousands of years that have elapsed since cities
+of temples and palaces first rose beside the Nile and the Euphrates,
+and the harbors of Minoan Crete bristled with the masts of the Ægean
+craft. But of course the parallel is true only in the roughest and most
+general way. Moreover, even between the civilizations of to-day and
+the civilizations of ancient times there are differences so profound
+that we must be cautious in drawing any conclusions for the present
+based on what has happened in the past. While freely admitting all
+of our follies and weaknesses of to-day, it is yet mere perversity to
+refuse to realize the incredible advance that has been made in ethical
+standards. I do not believe that there is the slightest necessary
+connection between any weakening of virile force and this advance in
+the moral standard, this growth of the sense of obligation to one’s
+neighbor and of reluctance to do that neighbor wrong. We need have
+scant patience with that silly cynicism which insists that kindliness
+of character only accompanies weakness of character. On the contrary,
+just as in private life many of the men of strongest character are
+the very men of loftiest and most exalted morality, so I believe that
+in national life, as the ages go by, we shall find that the permanent
+national types will more and more tend to become those in which,
+though intellect stands high, character stands higher; in which rugged
+strength and courage, rugged capacity to resist wrongful aggression
+by others, will go hand in hand with a lofty scorn of doing wrong
+to others. This is the type of Timoleon, of Hampden, of Washington,
+and Lincoln. These were as good men, as disinterested and unselfish
+men, as ever served a state; and they were also as strong men as ever
+founded or saved a state. Surely such examples prove that there is
+nothing Utopian in our effort to combine justice and strength in the
+same nation. The really high civilizations must themselves supply the
+antidote to the self-indulgence and love of ease which they tend to
+produce.
+
+Every modern civilized nation has many and terrible problems to
+solve within its own borders, problems that arise not merely from
+juxtaposition of poverty and riches, but especially from the
+self-consciousness of both poverty and riches. Each nation must deal
+with these matters in its own fashion, and yet the spirit in which the
+problem is approached must ever be fundamentally the same. It must
+be a spirit of broad humanity, of brotherly kindness, of acceptance
+of responsibility, one for each and each for all, and at the same
+time a spirit as remote as the poles from every form of weakness and
+sentimentality. As in war to pardon the coward is to do cruel wrong
+to the brave man whose life his cowardice jeopardizes, so in civil
+affairs it is revolting to every principle of justice to give to the
+lazy, the vicious, or even the feeble or dull-witted a reward which
+is really the robbery of what braver, wiser, abler men have earned.
+The only effective way to help any man is to help him to help himself;
+and the worst lesson to teach him is that he can be permanently
+helped at the expense of some one else. True liberty shows itself to
+best advantage in protecting the rights of others, and especially
+of minorities. Privilege should not be tolerated because it is to
+the advantage of a minority; nor yet because it is to the advantage
+of a majority. No doctrinaire theories of vested rights or freedom
+of contract can stand in the way of our cutting out abuses from the
+body politic. Just as little can we afford to follow the doctrinaires
+of an impossible--and incidentally of a highly undesirable--social
+revolution which, in destroying individual rights--including property
+rights--and the family, would destroy the two chief agents in the
+advance of mankind, and the two chief reasons why either the advance
+or the preservation of mankind is worth while. It is an evil and a
+dreadful thing to be callous to sorrow and suffering and blind to our
+duty to do all things possible for the betterment of social conditions.
+But it is an unspeakably foolish thing to strive for this betterment
+by means so destructive that they would leave no social conditions to
+better. In dealing with all these social problems, with the intimate
+relations of the family, with wealth in private use and business use,
+with labor, with poverty, the one prime necessity is to remember that,
+though hardness of heart is a great evil, it is no greater an evil than
+softness of head.
+
+But in addition to these problems, the most intimate and important
+of all, and which to a larger or less degree affect all the modern
+nations somewhat alike, we of the great nations that have expanded,
+that are now in complicated relations with one another and with alien
+races, have special problems and special duties of our own. You belong
+to a nation which possesses the greatest empire upon which the sun has
+ever shone. I belong to a nation which is trying, on a scale hitherto
+unexampled, to work out the problems of government for, of, and by the
+people, while at the same time doing the international duty of a great
+Power. But there are certain problems which both of us have to solve,
+and as to which our standards should be the same. The Englishman, the
+man of the British Isles, in his various homes across the seas, and
+the American, both at home and abroad, are brought into contact with
+utterly alien peoples, some with a civilization more ancient than our
+own, others still in, or having but recently arisen from, the barbarism
+which our people left behind ages ago. The problems that arise are
+of well-nigh inconceivable difficulty. They can not be solved by the
+foolish sentimentality of stay-at-home people, with little patent
+recipes and those cut-and-dried theories of the political nursery which
+have such limited applicability amid the crash of elemental forces.
+Neither can they be solved by the raw brutality of the men who, whether
+at home or on the rough frontier of civilization, adopt might as the
+only standard of right in dealing with other men, and treat alien races
+only as subjects for exploitation.
+
+No hard-and-fast rule can be drawn as applying to all alien races,
+because they differ from one another far more widely than some of
+them differ from us. But there are one or two rules which must not
+be forgotten. In the long run there can be no justification for
+one race managing or controlling another unless the management and
+control are exercised in the interest and for the benefit of that
+other race. This is what our peoples have in the main done, and must
+continue in the future in even greater degree to do, in India, Egypt,
+and the Philippines alike. In the next place, as regards every race,
+everywhere, at home or abroad, we can not afford to deviate from the
+great rule of righteousness which bids us treat each man on his worth
+as a man. He must not be sentimentally favored because he belongs to a
+given race; he must not be given immunity in wrong-doing or permitted
+to cumber the ground, or given other privileges which would be denied
+to the vicious and unfit among ourselves. On the other hand, where he
+acts in a way which would entitle him to respect and reward if he was
+one of our own stock, he is just as entitled to that respect and reward
+if he comes of another stock, even though that other stock produces a
+much smaller proportion of men of his type than does our own. This has
+nothing to do with social intermingling, with what is called social
+equality. It has to do merely with the question of doing to each man
+and each woman that elementary justice which will permit him or her
+to gain from life the reward which should always accompany thrift,
+sobriety, self-control, respect for the rights of others, and hard
+and intelligent work to a given end. To more than such just treatment
+no man is entitled, and less than such just treatment no man should
+receive.
+
+The other type of duty is the international duty, the duty owed by
+one nation to another. I hold that the laws of morality which should
+govern individuals in their dealings one with the other, are just
+as binding concerning nations in their dealings one with the other.
+The application of the moral law must be different in the two cases,
+because in one case it has, and in the other it has not, the sanction
+of a civil law with force behind it. The individual can depend for his
+rights upon the courts, which themselves derive their force from the
+police power of the state. The nation can depend upon nothing of the
+kind; and therefore, as things are now, it is the highest duty of the
+most advanced and freest peoples to keep themselves in such a state
+of readiness as to forbid to any barbarism or despotism the hope of
+arresting the progress of the world by striking down the nations that
+lead in that progress. It would be foolish indeed to pay heed to the
+unwise persons who desire disarmament to be begun by the very peoples
+who, of all others, should not be left helpless before any possible
+foe. But we must reprobate quite as strongly both the leaders and
+the peoples who practise, or encourage, or condone, aggression and
+iniquity by the strong at the expense of the weak. We should tolerate
+lawlessness and wickedness neither by the weak nor by the strong;
+and both weak and strong we should in return treat with scrupulous
+fairness. The foreign policy of a great and self-respecting country
+should be conducted on exactly the same plane of honor, for insistence
+upon one’s own rights and of respect for the rights of others, that
+marks the conduct of a brave and honorable man when dealing with his
+fellows. Permit me to support this statement out of my own experience.
+For nearly eight years I was the head of a great nation, and charged
+especially with the conduct of its foreign policy; and during those
+years I took no action with reference to any other people on the face
+of the earth that I would not have felt justified in taking as an
+individual in dealing with other individuals.
+
+I believe that we of the great civilized nations of to-day have a
+right to feel that long careers of achievement lie before our several
+countries. To each of us is vouchsafed the honorable privilege of
+doing his part, however small, in that work. Let us strive hardily
+for success, even if by so doing we risk failure, spurning the poorer
+souls of small endeavor, who know neither failure nor success. Let us
+hope that our own blood shall continue in the land, that our children
+and children’s children to endless generations shall arise to take our
+places and play a mighty and dominant part in the world. But whether
+this be denied or granted by the years we shall not see, let at least
+the satisfaction be ours that we have carried onward the lighted torch
+in our own day and generation. If we do this, then, as our eyes close,
+and we go out into the darkness, and others’ hands grasp the torch, at
+least we can say that our part has been borne well and valiantly.
+
+
+
+
+THE WORLD MOVEMENT
+
+
+
+
+THE WORLD MOVEMENT[3]
+
+
+I very highly appreciate the chance to address the University of
+Berlin in the year that closes its first centenary of existence.
+It is difficult for you in the Old World fully to appreciate the
+feelings of a man who comes from a nation still in the making to a
+country with an immemorial historic past; and especially is this the
+case when that country, with its ancient past behind it, yet looks
+with proud confidence into the future, and in the present shows all
+the abounding vigor of lusty youth. Such is the case with Germany.
+More than a thousand years have passed since the Roman Empire of the
+West became in fact a German empire. Throughout mediæval times the
+Empire and the Papacy were the two central features in the history
+of the Occident. With the Ottos and the Henrys began the slow rise
+of that Western life which has shaped modern Europe, and therefore
+ultimately the whole modern world. Their task was to organize society
+and to keep it from crumbling to pieces. They were castle-builders,
+city-founders, road-makers; they battled to bring order out of the
+seething turbulence around them; and at the same time they first beat
+back heathendom and then slowly wrested from it its possessions.
+
+    [3] Delivered at the University of Berlin, May 12, 1910.
+
+After the downfall of Rome and the breaking in sunder of the Roman
+Empire, the first real crystallization of the forces that were working
+for a new uplift of civilization in western Europe was round the
+Karling house, and, above all, round the great Emperor, Karl the Great,
+the seat of whose empire was at Aachen. Under the Karlings the Arab
+and the Moor were driven back beyond the Pyrenees; the last of the old
+heathen Germans were forced into Christianity, and the Avars, wild
+horsemen from the Asian steppes, who had long held tented dominion
+in middle Europe, were utterly destroyed. With the break-up of the
+Karling empire came chaos once more, and a fresh inrush of savagery:
+Vikings from the frozen north, and new hordes of outlandish riders
+from Asia. It was the early emperors of Germany proper who quelled
+these barbarians; in their time Dane and Norseman and Magyar became
+Christians, and most of the Slav peoples as well, so that Europe began
+to take on a shape which we can recognize to-day. Since then the
+centuries have rolled by, with strange alternations of fortune, now
+well-nigh barren, and again great with German achievement in arms and
+in government, in science and the arts. The centre of power shifted
+hither and thither within German lands; the great house of Hohenzollern
+rose, the house which has at last seen Germany spring into a commanding
+position in the very forefront among the nations of mankind.
+
+To this ancient land, with its glorious past and splendid present, to
+this land of many memories and of eager hopes, I come from a young
+nation, which is by blood akin to, and yet different from, each of
+the great nations of middle and western Europe; which has inherited
+or acquired much from each, but is changing and developing every
+inheritance and acquisition into something new and strange. The German
+strain in our blood is large, for almost from the beginning there has
+been a large German element among the successive waves of newcomers
+whose children’s children have been and are being fused into the
+American nation; and I myself trace my origin to that branch of the Low
+Dutch stock which raised Holland out of the North Sea. Moreover, we
+have taken from you, not only much of the blood that runs through our
+veins, but much of the thought that shapes our minds. For generations
+American scholars have flocked to your universities, and, thanks to
+the wise foresight of his Imperial Majesty the present Emperor, the
+intimate and friendly connection between the two countries is now in
+every way closer than it has ever been before.
+
+Germany is pre-eminently a country in which the world movement of
+to-day in all of its multitudinous aspects is plainly visible. The life
+of this university covers the period during which that movement has
+spread until it is felt throughout every continent, while its velocity
+has been constantly accelerating, so that the face of the world has
+changed, and is now changing, as never before. It is therefore fit and
+appropriate here to speak on this subject.
+
+When, in the slow procession of the ages, man was developed on this
+planet, the change worked by his appearance was at first slight.
+Further ages passed while he groped and struggled by infinitesimal
+degrees upward through the lower grades of savagery; for the general
+law is that life which is advanced and complex, whatever its nature,
+changes more quickly than simpler and less advanced forms. The life
+of savages changes and advances with extreme slowness, and groups
+of savages influence one another but little. The first rudimentary
+beginnings of that complex life of communities which we call
+civilization marked a period when man had already long been by far
+the most important creature on the planet. The history of the living
+world had become, in fact, the history of man, and therefore something
+totally different in kind as well as in degree from what it had been
+before. There are interesting analogies between what has gone on in the
+development of life generally and what has gone on in the development
+of human society. [These I have discussed in the preceding chapter.]
+But the differences are profound, and go to the root of things.
+
+Throughout their early stages the movements of civilization--for,
+properly speaking, there was no one movement--were very slow, were
+local in space, and were partial in the sense that each developed along
+but few lines. Of the numberless years that covered these early stages
+we have no record. They were the years that saw such extraordinary
+discoveries and inventions as fire, and the wheel, and the bow, and
+the domestication of animals. So local were these inventions that at
+the present day there yet linger savage tribes, still fixed in the
+half-bestial life of an infinitely remote past, who know none of them
+except fire--and the discovery and use of fire may have marked, not
+the beginning of civilization, but the beginning of the savagery which
+separated man from brute.
+
+Even after civilization and culture had achieved a relatively high
+position, they were still purely local, and from this fact subject to
+violent shocks. Modern research has shown the existence in prehistoric
+or, at least, protohistoric times of many peoples who, in given
+localities, achieved a high and peculiar culture, a culture that
+was later so completely destroyed that it is difficult to say what,
+if any, traces it left on the subsequent cultures out of which we
+have developed our own, while it is also difficult to say exactly
+how much any one of these cultures influenced any other. In many
+cases, as where invaders with weapons of bronze or iron conquered
+the neolithic peoples, the higher civilization completely destroyed
+the lower civilization, or barbarism, with which it came in contact.
+In other cases, while superiority in culture gave its possessors at
+the beginning a marked military and governmental superiority over
+the neighboring peoples, yet sooner or later there accompanied it a
+certain softness or enervating quality which left the cultured folk at
+the mercy of the stark and greedy neighboring tribes, in whose savage
+souls cupidity gradually overcame terror and awe. Then the people that
+had been struggling upward would be engulfed, and the levelling waves
+of barbarism wash over them. But we are not yet in position to speak
+definitely on these matters. It is only the researches of recent years
+that have enabled us so much as to guess at the course of events in
+prehistoric Greece; while as yet we can hardly even hazard a guess as
+to how, for instance, the Hallstadt culture rose and fell, or as to
+the history and fate of the builders of those strange ruins of which
+Stonehenge is the type.
+
+The first civilizations which left behind them clear records rose in
+that hoary historic past which geologically is part of the immediate
+present--and which is but a span’s length from the present, even when
+compared only with the length of time that man has lived on this
+planet. These first civilizations were those which rose in Mesopotamia
+and the Nile valley some six or eight thousand years ago. As far
+as we can see, they were well-nigh independent centres of cultural
+development, and our knowledge is not such at present as to enable us
+to connect either with the early cultural movements, in southwestern
+Europe on the one hand, or in India on the other, or with that Chinese
+civilization which has been so profoundly affected by Indian influences.
+
+Compared with the civilizations with which we are best acquainted, the
+striking features in the Mesopotamian and Nilotic civilizations were
+the length of time they endured and their comparative changelessness.
+The kings, priests, and peoples who dwelt by the Nile or Euphrates
+are found thinking much the same thoughts, doing much the same deeds,
+leaving at least very similar records, while time passes in tens of
+centuries. Of course there was change; of course there were action
+and reaction in influence between them and their neighbors; and the
+movement of change, of development, material, mental, spiritual,
+was much faster than anything that had occurred during the eons of
+mere savagery. But in contradistinction to modern times the movement
+was very slow indeed; and, moreover, in each case it was strongly
+localized, while the field of endeavor was narrow. There were certain
+conquests by man over nature; there were certain conquests in the
+domain of pure intellect; there were certain extensions which spread
+the area of civilized mankind. But it would be hard to speak of it as a
+“world movement” at all, for by far the greater part of the habitable
+globe was not only unknown, but its existence unguessed at, so far as
+peoples with any civilization whatsoever were concerned.
+
+With the downfall of these ancient civilizations there sprang into
+prominence those peoples with whom our own cultural history may be
+said to begin. Those ideas and influences in our lives which we can
+consciously trace back at all are in the great majority of instances to
+be traced to the Jew, the Greek, or the Roman; and the ordinary man,
+when he speaks of the nations of antiquity, has in mind specifically
+these three peoples--although, judged even by the history of which we
+have record, theirs is a very modern antiquity indeed.
+
+The case of the Jew was quite exceptional. His was a small nation, of
+little more consequence than the sister nations of Moab and Damascus,
+until all three, and the other petty states of the country, fell under
+the yoke of the alien. Then he survived, while all his fellows died.
+In the spiritual domain he contributed a religion which has been the
+most potent of all factors in its effect on the subsequent history of
+mankind; but none of his other contributions compare with the legacies
+left us by the Greek and the Roman.
+
+The Greco-Roman world saw a civilization far more brilliant, far more
+varied and intense, than any that had gone before it, and one that
+affected a far larger share of the world’s surface. For the first
+time there began to be something which at least foreshadowed a “world
+movement” in the sense that it affected a considerable portion of
+the world’s surface and that it represented what was incomparably
+the most important of all that was happening in world history at the
+time. In breadth and depth the field of intellectual interest had
+greatly broadened at the same time that the physical area affected by
+the civilization had similarly extended. Instead of a civilization
+affecting only one river valley or one nook of the Mediterranean, there
+was a civilization which directly or indirectly influenced mankind
+from the Desert of Sahara to the Baltic, from the Atlantic Ocean to
+the westernmost mountain chains that spring from the Himalayas.
+Throughout most of this region there began to work certain influences
+which, though with widely varying intensity, did nevertheless tend to
+affect a large portion of mankind. In many of the forms of science,
+in almost all the forms of art, there was great activity. In addition
+to great soldiers there were great administrators and statesmen whose
+concern was with the fundamental questions of social and civil life.
+Nothing like the width and variety of intellectual achievement and
+understanding had ever before been known; and for the first time we
+come across great intellectual leaders, great philosophers and writers,
+whose works are a part of all that is highest in modern thought, whose
+writings are as alive to-day as when they were first issued; and there
+were others of even more daring and original temper, a philosopher like
+Democritus, a poet like Lucretius, whose minds leaped ahead through the
+centuries and saw what none of their contemporaries saw, but who were
+so hampered by their surroundings that it was physically impossible for
+them to leave to the later world much concrete addition to knowledge.
+The civilization was one of comparatively rapid change, viewed by
+the standard of Babylon and Memphis. There was incessant movement;
+and, moreover, the whole system went down with a crash to seeming
+destruction after a period short compared with that covered by the
+reigns of a score of Egyptian dynasties, or with the time that elapsed
+between a Babylonian defeat by Elam and a war sixteen centuries later
+which fully avenged it.
+
+This civilization flourished with brilliant splendor. Then it fell. In
+its northern seats it was overwhelmed by a wave of barbarism from among
+those half-savage peoples from whom you and I, my hearers, trace our
+descent. In the south and east it was destroyed later, but far more
+thoroughly, by invaders of an utterly different type. Both conquests
+were of great importance; but it was the northern conquest which in its
+ultimate effects was of by far the greatest importance.
+
+With the advent of the Dark Ages the movement of course ceased, and
+it did not begin anew for many centuries; while a thousand years
+passed before it was once more in full swing, so far as European
+civilization, so far as the world civilization of to-day, is concerned.
+During all those centuries the civilized world, in our acceptation
+of the term, was occupied, as its chief task, in slowly climbing
+back to the position from which it had fallen after the age of the
+Antonines. Of course a general statement like this must be accepted
+with qualifications. There is no hard-and-fast line between one age or
+period and another, and in no age is either progress or retrogression
+universal in all things. There were many points in which the Middle
+Ages, because of the simple fact that they were Christian, surpassed
+the brilliant pagan civilization of the past; and there are some
+points in which the civilization that succeeded them has sunk below
+the level of the ages which saw such mighty masterpieces of poetry,
+of architecture--especially cathedral architecture--and of serene
+spiritual and forceful lay leadership. But they were centuries of
+violence, rapine, and cruel injustice; and truth was so little heeded
+that the noble and daring spirits who sought it, especially in its
+scientific form, did so in deadly peril of the fagot and the halter.
+
+During this period there were several very important extra-European
+movements, one or two of which deeply affected Europe. Islam arose,
+and conquered far and wide, uniting fundamentally different races
+into a brotherhood of feeling which Christianity has never been able
+to rival, and at the time of the Crusades profoundly influencing
+European culture. It produced a civilization of its own, brilliant and
+here and there useful, but hopelessly limited when compared with the
+civilization of which we ourselves are the heirs. The great cultured
+peoples of southeastern and eastern Asia continued their checkered
+development totally unaffected by, and without knowledge of, any
+European influence.
+
+Throughout the whole period there came against Europe, out of the
+unknown wastes of central Asia, an endless succession of strange and
+terrible conqueror races whose mission was mere destruction--Hun
+and Avar, Mongol, Tartar, and Turk. These fierce and squalid tribes
+of warrior horsemen flailed mankind with red scourges, wasted and
+destroyed, and then vanished from the ground they had overrun. But in
+no way worth noting did they count in the advance of mankind.
+
+At last, a little over four hundred years ago, the movement toward
+a world civilization took up its interrupted march. The beginning
+of the modern movement may roughly be taken as synchronizing with
+the discovery of printing, and with that series of bold sea ventures
+which culminated in the discovery of America; and, after these two
+epochal feats had begun to produce their full effects in material
+and intellectual life, it became inevitable that civilization should
+thereafter differ not only in degree but even in kind from all that
+had gone before. Immediately after the voyages of Columbus and Vasco
+da Gama there began a tremendous religious ferment; the awakening of
+intellect went hand in hand with the moral uprising; the great names
+of Copernicus, Bruno, Kepler, and Galileo show that the mind of man
+was breaking the fetters that had cramped it; and for the first time
+experimentation was used as a check upon observation and theorization.
+Since then, century by century, the changes have increased in rapidity
+and complexity, and have attained their maximum in both respects
+during the century just past. Instead of being directed by one or
+two dominant peoples, as was the case with all similar movements of
+the past, the new movement was shared by many different nations.
+From every standpoint it has been of infinitely greater moment than
+anything hitherto seen. Not in one but in many different peoples there
+has been extraordinary growth in wealth, in population, in power of
+organization, and in mastery over mechanical activity and natural
+resources. All of this has been accompanied and signalized by an
+immense outburst of energy and restless initiative. The result is as
+varied as it is striking.
+
+In the first place, representatives of this civilization, by their
+conquest of space, were enabled to spread into all the practically
+vacant continents, while at the same time, by their triumphs in
+organization and mechanical invention, they acquired an unheard-of
+military superiority as compared with their former rivals. To these
+two facts is primarily due the further fact that for the first time
+there is really something that approaches a world civilization, a
+world movement. The spread of the European peoples since the days of
+Ferdinand the Catholic and Ivan the Terrible has been across every
+sea and over every continent. In places the conquests have been
+ethnic; that is, there has been a new wandering of the peoples, and
+new commonwealths have sprung up in which the people are entirely
+or mainly of European blood. This is what happened in the temperate
+and subtropical regions of the Western Hemisphere, in Australia, in
+portions of northern Asia and southern Africa. In other places the
+conquest has been purely political, the Europeans representing for
+the most part merely a small caste of soldiers and administrators,
+as in most of tropical Asia and Africa, and in much of tropical
+America. Finally, here and there instances occur where there has
+been no conquest at all, but where an alien people is profoundly and
+radically changed by the mere impact of Western civilization. The most
+extraordinary instance of this, of course, is Japan; for Japan’s growth
+and change during the last half-century has been in many ways the
+most striking phenomenon of all history. Intensely proud of her past
+history, intensely loyal to certain of her past traditions, she has yet
+with a single effort wrenched herself free from all hampering ancient
+ties, and with a bound has taken her place among the leading civilized
+nations of mankind.
+
+There are, of course, many grades between these different types of
+influence, but the net outcome of what has occurred during the last
+four centuries is that civilization of the European type now exercises
+a more or less profound effect over practically the entire world. There
+are nooks and corners to which it has not yet penetrated; but there is
+at present no large space of territory in which the general movement
+of civilized activity does not make itself more or less felt. This
+represents something wholly different from what has ever hitherto been
+seen. In the greatest days of Roman dominion the influence of Rome was
+felt over only a relatively small portion of the world’s surface. Over
+much the larger part of the world the process of change and development
+was absolutely unaffected by anything that occurred in the Roman
+Empire; and those communities the play of whose influence was felt in
+action and reaction, and in interaction, among themselves, were grouped
+immediately around the Mediterranean. Now, however, the whole world is
+bound together as never before; the bonds are sometimes those of hatred
+rather than love, but they are bonds nevertheless.
+
+Frowning or hopeful, every man of leadership in any line of thought
+or effort must now look beyond the limits of his own country. The
+student of sociology may live in Berlin or Saint Petersburg, Rome or
+London, or he may live in Melbourne or San Francisco or Buenos Ayres;
+but in whatever city he lives, he must pay heed to the studies of men
+who live in each of the other cities. When in America we study labor
+problems and attempt to deal with subjects such as life-insurance
+for wage-workers, we turn to see what you do here in Germany, and
+we also turn to see what the far-off commonwealth of New Zealand is
+doing. When a great German scientist is warring against the most
+dreaded enemies of mankind, creatures of infinitesimal size which
+the microscope reveals in his blood, he may spend his holidays of
+study in central Africa or in eastern Asia; and he must know what is
+accomplished in the laboratories of Tokio, just as he must know the
+details of that practical application of science which has changed
+the Isthmus of Panama from a death-trap into what is almost a health
+resort. Every progressive in China is striving to introduce Western
+methods of education and administration, and hundreds of European
+and American books are now translated into Chinese. The influence of
+European governmental principles is strikingly illustrated by the fact
+that admiration for them has broken down the iron barriers of Moslem
+conservatism, so that their introduction has become a burning question
+in Turkey and Persia; while the very unrest, the impatience of European
+or American control, in India, Egypt, or the Philippines, takes the
+form of demanding that the government be assimilated more closely to
+what it is in England or the United States. The deeds and works of
+any great statesman, the preachings of any great ethical, social, or
+political teacher, now find echoes in both hemispheres and in every
+continent. From a new discovery in science to a new method of combating
+or applying socialism, there is no movement of note which can take
+place in any part of the globe without powerfully affecting masses of
+people in Europe, America, and Australia, in Asia and Africa. For weal
+or for woe, the peoples of mankind are knit together far closer than
+ever before.
+
+So much for the geographical side of the expansion of modern
+civilization. But only a few of the many and intense activities of
+modern civilization have found their expression on this side. The
+movement has been just as striking in its conquest over natural forces,
+in its searching inquiry into and about the soul of things.
+
+The conquest over Nature has included an extraordinary increase
+in every form of knowledge of the world we live in, and also an
+extraordinary increase in the power of utilizing the forces of Nature.
+In both directions the advance has been very great during the past
+four or five centuries, and in both directions it has gone on with
+ever-increasing rapidity during the last century. After the great
+age of Rome had passed, the boundaries of knowledge shrank, and in
+many cases it was not until well-nigh our own times that her domain
+was once again pushed beyond the ancient landmarks. About the year
+150 A. D., Ptolemy, the geographer, published his map of central
+Africa and the sources of the Nile, and this map was more accurate
+than any which we had as late as 1850 A. D. More was known of physical
+science, and more of the truth about the physical world was guessed
+at, in the days of Pliny, than was known or guessed until the modern
+movement began. The case was the same as regards military science. At
+the close of the Middle Ages the weapons were what they had always
+been--sword, shield, bow, spear; and any improvement in them was more
+than offset by the loss in knowledge of military organization, in the
+science of war, and in military leadership since the days of Hannibal
+and Cæsar. A hundred years ago, when this university was founded,
+the methods of transportation did not differ in the essentials from
+what they had been among the highly civilized nations of antiquity.
+Travellers and merchandise went by land in wheeled vehicles or on
+beasts of burden, and by sea in boats propelled by sails or by oars;
+and news was conveyed as it always had been conveyed. What improvements
+there had been had been in degree only and not in kind; and in some
+respects there had been retrogression rather than advance. There
+were many parts of Europe where the roads were certainly worse than
+the old Roman post-roads; and the Mediterranean Sea, for instance,
+was by no means as well policed as in the days of Trajan. Now steam
+and electricity have worked a complete revolution; and the resulting
+immensely increased ease of communication has in its turn completely
+changed all the physical questions of human life. A voyage from Egypt
+to England was nearly as serious an affair in the eighteenth century as
+in the second; and the news communications between the two lands were
+not materially improved. A graduate of your university to-day can go
+to mid-Asia or mid-Africa with far less consciousness of performing a
+feat of note than would have been the case a hundred years ago with a
+student who visited Sicily and Andalusia. Moreover, the invention and
+use of machinery run by steam or electricity have worked a revolution
+in industry as great as the revolution in transportation; so that here
+again the difference between ancient and modern civilization is one not
+merely of degree but of kind. In many vital respects the huge modern
+city differs more from all preceding cities than any of these differed
+one from the other; and the giant factory town is of and by itself one
+of the most formidable problems of modern life.
+
+Steam and electricity have given the race dominion over land and
+water such as it never had before; and now the conquest of the air
+is directly impending. As books preserve thought through time, so
+the telegraph and the telephone transmit it through the space they
+annihilate, and therefore minds are swayed one by another without
+regard to the limitations of space and time which formerly forced
+each community to work in comparative isolation. It is the same with
+the body as with the brain. The machinery of the factory and the
+farm enormously multiplies bodily skill and vigor. Countless trained
+intelligences are at work to teach us how to avoid or counteract the
+effects of waste. Of course some of the agents in the modern scientific
+development of natural resources deal with resources of such a kind
+that their development means their destruction, so that exploitation
+on a grand scale means an intense rapidity of development purchased at
+the cost of a speedy exhaustion. The enormous and constantly increasing
+output of coal and iron necessarily means the approach of the day when
+our children’s children, or their children’s children, shall dwell in
+an ironless age--and, later on, in an age without coal--and will have
+to try to invent or develop new sources for the production of heat and
+use of energy. But as regards many another natural resource, scientific
+civilization teaches us how to preserve it through use. The best use of
+field and forest will leave them decade by decade, century by century,
+more fruitful; and we have barely begun to use the indestructible power
+that comes from harnessed water. The conquests of surgery, of medicine,
+the conquests in the entire field of hygiene and sanitation, have been
+literally marvellous; the advances in the past century or two have been
+over more ground than was covered during the entire previous history of
+the human race.
+
+The advances in the realm of pure intellect have been of equal note,
+and they have been both intensive and extensive. Great virgin fields of
+learning and wisdom have been discovered by the few, and at the same
+time knowledge has spread among the many to a degree never dreamed of
+before. Old men among us have seen in their own generation the rise of
+the first rational science of the evolution of life. The astronomer and
+the chemist, the psychologist and the historian, and all their brethren
+in many different fields of wide endeavor, work with a training and
+knowledge and method which are in effect instruments of precision,
+differentiating their labors from the labors of their predecessors as
+the rifle is differentiated from the bow.
+
+The play of new forces is as evident in the moral and spiritual world
+as in the world of the mind and the body. Forces for good and forces
+for evil are everywhere evident, each acting with a hundred- or a
+thousandfold the intensity with which it acted in former ages. Over the
+whole earth the swing of the pendulum grows more and more rapid, the
+mainspring coils and spreads at a rate constantly quickening, the whole
+world movement is of constantly accelerating velocity.
+
+In this movement there are signs of much that bodes ill. The machinery
+is so highly geared, the tension and strain are so great, the effort
+and the output have alike so increased, that there is cause to dread
+the ruin that would come from any great accident, from any breakdown,
+and also the ruin that may come from the mere wearing out of the
+machine itself. The only previous civilization with which our modern
+civilization can be in any way compared is that period of Greco-Roman
+civilization extending, say, from the Athens of Themistocles to the
+Rome of Marcus Aurelius. Many of the forces and tendencies which were
+then at work are at work now. Knowledge, luxury, and refinement,
+wide material conquests, territorial administration on a vast
+scale, an increase in the mastery of mechanical appliances and in
+applied science--all these mark our civilization as they marked the
+wonderful civilization that flourished in the Mediterranean lands
+twenty centuries ago; and they preceded the downfall of the older
+civilization. Yet the differences are many, and some of them are
+quite as striking as the similarities. The single fact that the old
+civilization was based upon slavery shows the chasm that separates the
+two. Let me point out one further and very significant difference in
+the development of the two civilizations, a difference so obvious that
+it is astonishing that it has not been dwelt upon by men of letters.
+
+One of the prime dangers of civilization has always been its tendency
+to cause the loss of virile fighting virtues, of the fighting edge.
+When men get too comfortable and lead too luxurious lives, there is
+always danger lest the softness eat like an acid into their manliness
+of fibre. The barbarian, because of the very conditions of his life,
+is forced to keep and develop certain hardy qualities which the man
+of civilization tends to lose, whether he be clerk, factory hand,
+merchant, or even a certain type of farmer. Now, I will not assert that
+in modern civilized society these tendencies have been wholly overcome;
+but there has been a much more successful effort to overcome them than
+was the case in the early civilizations. This is curiously shown by the
+military history of the Greco-Roman period as compared with the history
+of the last four or five centuries here in Europe and among nations of
+European descent. In the Grecian and Roman military history the change
+was steadily from a citizen army to an army of mercenaries. In the days
+of the early greatness of Athens, Thebes, and Sparta, in the days when
+the Roman republic conquered what world it knew, the armies were filled
+with citizen soldiers. But gradually the citizens refused to serve in
+the armies, or became unable to render good service. The Greek states
+described by Polybius, with but few exceptions, hired others to do
+their fighting for them. The Romans of the days of Augustus had utterly
+ceased to furnish any cavalry, and were rapidly ceasing to furnish any
+infantry, to the legions and cohorts. When the civilization came to
+an end, there were no longer citizens in the ranks of the soldiers.
+The change from the citizen army to the army of mercenaries had been
+completed.
+
+Now the exact reverse has been the case with us in modern times. A few
+centuries ago the mercenary soldier was the principal figure in most
+armies, and in great numbers of cases the mercenary soldier was an
+alien. In the wars of religion in France, in the Thirty Years’ War in
+Germany, in the wars that immediately thereafter marked the beginning
+of the break-up of the great Polish kingdom, the regiments and brigades
+of foreign soldiers formed a striking and leading feature in every
+army. Too often the men of the country in which the fighting took place
+played merely the ignoble part of victims, the burghers and peasants
+appearing in but limited numbers in the mercenary armies by which they
+were plundered. Gradually this has all changed, until now practically
+every army is a citizen army, and the mercenary has almost disappeared,
+while the army exists on a vaster scale than ever before in history.
+This is so among the military monarchies of Europe. In our own Civil
+War of the United States the same thing occurred, peaceful people as
+we are. At that time more than two generations had passed since the
+war of independence. During the whole of that period the people had
+been engaged in no life-and-death struggle; and yet, when the Civil War
+broke out, and after some costly and bitter lessons at the beginning,
+the fighting spirit of the people was shown to better advantage than
+ever before. The war was peculiarly a war for a principle, a war
+waged by each side for an ideal, and while faults and shortcomings
+were plentiful among the combatants, there was comparatively little
+sordidness of motive or conduct. In such a giant struggle, where across
+the warp of so many interests is shot the woof of so many purposes,
+dark strands and bright, strands sombre and brilliant, are always
+intertwined; inevitably there was corruption here and there in the
+Civil War; but all the leaders on both sides and the great majority of
+the enormous masses of fighting men wholly disregarded, and were wholly
+uninfluenced by, pecuniary considerations. There were, of course,
+foreigners who came over to serve as soldiers of fortune for money or
+for love of adventure; but the foreign-born citizens served in much
+the same proportion, and from the same motives, as the native-born.
+Taken as a whole, it was, even more than the Revolutionary War, a true
+citizens’ fight, and the armies of Grant and Lee were as emphatically
+citizen armies as the Athenian, Theban, or Spartan armies in the great
+age of Greece, or as a Roman army in the days of the republic.
+
+Another striking contrast in the course of modern civilization
+as compared with the later stages of the Greco-Roman or classic
+civilization is to be found in the relations of wealth and politics.
+In classic times, as the civilization advanced toward its zenith,
+politics became a recognized means of accumulating great wealth. Cæsar
+was again and again on the verge of bankruptcy; he spent an enormous
+fortune; and he recouped himself by the money which he made out of his
+political-military career. Augustus established imperial Rome on firm
+foundations by the use he made of the huge fortune he had acquired
+by plunder. What a contrast is offered by the careers of Washington
+and Lincoln! There were a few exceptions in ancient days; but the
+immense majority of the Greeks and the Romans, as their civilizations
+culminated, accepted money-making on a large scale as one of the
+incidents of a successful public career. Now all of this is in sharp
+contrast to what has happened within the last two or three centuries.
+During this time there has been a steady growth away from the theory
+that money-making is permissible in an honorable public career. In this
+respect the standard has been constantly elevated, and things which
+statesmen had no hesitation in doing three centuries or two centuries
+ago, and which did not seriously hurt a public career even a century
+ago, are now utterly impossible. Wealthy men still exercise a large,
+and sometimes an improper, influence in politics, but it is apt to be
+an indirect influence; and in the advanced states the mere suspicion
+that the wealth of public men is obtained or added to as an incident
+of their public careers will bar them from public life. Speaking
+generally, wealth may very greatly influence modern political life,
+but it is not acquired in political life. The colonial administrators,
+German or American, French or English, of this generation lead careers
+which, as compared with the careers of other men of like ability,
+show too little rather than too much regard for money-making; and
+literally a world scandal would be caused by conduct which a Roman
+proconsul would have regarded as moderate, and which would not have
+been especially uncommon even in the administration of England a
+century and a half ago. On the whole, the great statesmen of the last
+few generations have been either men of moderate means or, if men of
+wealth, men whose wealth was diminished rather than increased by their
+public services.
+
+I have dwelt on these points merely because it is well to emphasize
+in the most emphatic fashion the fact that in many respects there is
+a complete lack of analogy between the civilization of to-day and
+the only other civilization in any way comparable to it, that of the
+ancient Greco-Roman lands. There are, of course, many points in which
+the analogy is close, and in some of these points the resemblances
+are as ominous as they are striking. But most striking of all is the
+fact that in point of physical extent, of wide diversity of interest,
+and of extreme velocity of movement, the present civilization can be
+compared to nothing that has ever gone before. It is now literally a
+world movement, and the movement is growing ever more rapid and is
+ever reaching into new fields. Any considerable influence exerted at
+one point is certain to be felt with greater or less effect at almost
+every other point. Every path of activity open to the human intellect
+is followed with an eagerness and success never hitherto dreamed of. We
+have established complete liberty of conscience, and, in consequence,
+a complete liberty for mental activity. All free and daring souls have
+before them a well-nigh limitless opening for endeavor of any kind.
+
+Hitherto every civilization that has arisen has been able to develop
+only a comparatively few activities; that is, its field of endeavor has
+been limited in kind as well as in locality. There have, of course,
+been great movements, but they were of practically only one form of
+activity; and, although usually this set in motion other kinds of
+activities, such was not always the case. The great religious movements
+have been the preeminent examples of this type. But they are not the
+only ones. Such peoples as the Mongols and the Phœnicians, at almost
+opposite poles of cultivation, have represented movements in which one
+element, military or commercial, so overshadowed all other elements
+that the movement died out chiefly because it was one-sided. The
+extraordinary outburst of activity among the Mongols of the thirteenth
+century was almost purely a military movement, without even any great
+administrative side; and it was therefore well-nigh purely a movement
+of destruction. The individual prowess and hardihood of the Mongols,
+and the perfection of their military organization rendered their
+armies incomparably superior to those of any European, or any other
+Asiatic, power of that day. They conquered from the Yellow Sea to the
+Persian Gulf and the Adriatic; they seized the imperial throne of
+China; they slew the Caliph in Bagdad; they founded dynasties in India.
+The fanaticism of Christianity and the fanaticism of Mohammedanism
+were alike powerless against them. The valor of the bravest fighting
+men in Europe was impotent to check them. They trampled Russia into
+bloody mire beneath the hoofs of their horses; they drew red furrows
+of destruction across Poland and Hungary; they overthrew with ease
+any force from western Europe that dared encounter them. Yet they
+had no root of permanence; their work was mere evil while it lasted,
+and it did not last long; and when they vanished they left hardly a
+trace behind them. So the extraordinary Phœnician civilization was
+almost purely a mercantile, a business civilization, and though it
+left an impress on the life that came after, this impress was faint
+indeed compared to that left, for instance, by the Greeks with their
+many-sided development. Yet the Greek civilization itself fell because
+this many-sided development became too exclusively one of intellect, at
+the expense of character, at the expense of the fundamental qualities
+which fit men to govern both themselves and others. When the Greek lost
+the sterner virtues, when his soldiers lost the fighting edge, and his
+statesmen grew corrupt, while the people became a faction-torn and
+pleasure-loving rabble, then the doom of Greece was at hand, and not
+all their cultivation, their intellectual brilliancy, their artistic
+development, their adroitness in speculative science, could save the
+Hellenic peoples as they bowed before the sword of the iron Roman.
+
+What is the lesson to us to-day? Are we to go the way of the older
+civilizations? The immense increase in the area of civilized activity
+to-day, so that it is nearly coterminous with the world’s surface;
+the immense increase in the multitudinous variety of its activities;
+the immense increase in the velocity of the world movement--are all
+these to mean merely that the crash will be all the more complete and
+terrible when it comes? We can not be certain that the answer will be
+in the negative; but of this we can be certain, that we shall not go
+down in ruin unless we deserve and earn our end. There is no necessity
+for us to fall; we can hew out our destiny for ourselves, if only we
+have the wit and the courage and the honesty.
+
+Personally, I do not believe that our civilization will fall. I think
+that on the whole we have grown better and not worse. I think that on
+the whole the future holds more for us than even the great past has
+held. But, assuredly, the dreams of golden glory in the future will not
+come true unless, high of heart and strong of hand, by our own mighty
+deeds we make them come true. We can not afford to develop any one set
+of qualities, any one set of activities, at the cost of seeing others,
+equally necessary, atrophied. Neither the military efficiency of the
+Mongol, the extraordinary business ability of the Phœnician, nor the
+subtle and polished intellect of the Greek availed to avert destruction.
+
+We, the men of to-day and of the future, need many qualities if we
+are to do our work well. We need, first of all and most important of
+all, the qualities which stand at the base of individual, of family
+life, the fundamental and essential qualities--the homely, every-day,
+all-important virtues. If the average man will not work, if he has not
+in him the will and the power to be a good husband and father; if the
+average woman is not a good housewife, a good mother of many healthy
+children, then the state will topple, will go down, no matter what may
+be its brilliance of artistic development or material achievement. But
+these homely qualities are not enough. There must, in addition, be that
+power of organization, that power of working in common for a common
+end, which the German people have shown in such signal fashion during
+the last half-century. Moreover, the things of the spirit are even
+more important than the things of the body. We can well do without the
+hard intolerance and arid intellectual barrenness of what was worst in
+the theological systems of the past, but there has never been greater
+need of a high and fine religious spirit than at the present time. So,
+while we can laugh good-humoredly at some of the pretensions of modern
+philosophy in its various branches, it would be worse than folly on
+our part to ignore our need of intellectual leadership. Your own great
+Frederick once said that if he wished to punish a province he would
+leave it to be governed by philosophers; the sneer had in it an element
+of justice; and yet no one better than the great Frederick knew the
+value of philosophers, the value of men of science, men of letters,
+men of art. It would be a bad thing indeed to accept Tolstoi as a
+guide in social and moral matters; but it would also be a bad thing
+not to have Tolstoi, not to profit by the lofty side of his teachings.
+There are plenty of scientific men whose hard arrogance, whose cynical
+materialism, whose dogmatic intolerance, put them on a level with the
+bigoted mediæval ecclesiasticism which they denounce. Yet our debt to
+scientific men is incalculable, and our civilization of to-day would
+have reft from it all that which most highly distinguishes it if the
+work of the great masters of science during the past four centuries
+were now undone or forgotten. Never has philanthropy, humanitarianism,
+seen such development as now; and though we must all beware of the
+folly, and the viciousness no worse than folly, which marks the
+believer in the perfectibility of man when his heart runs away with
+his head, or when vanity usurps the place of conscience, yet we must
+remember also that it is only by working along the lines laid down by
+the philanthropists, by the lovers of mankind, that we can be sure
+of lifting our civilization to a higher and more permanent plane of
+well-being than was ever attained by any preceding civilization. Unjust
+war is to be abhorred; but woe to the nation that does not make ready
+to hold its own in time of need against all who would harm it! And woe
+thrice over to the nation in which the average man loses the fighting
+edge, loses the power to serve as a soldier if the day of need should
+arise!
+
+It is no impossible dream to build up a civilization in which morality,
+ethical development, and a true feeling of brotherhood shall all alike
+be divorced from false sentimentality, and from the rancorous and evil
+passions which, curiously enough, so often accompany professions of
+sentimental attachment to the rights of man; in which a high material
+development in the things of the body shall be achieved without
+subordination of the things of the soul; in which there shall be a
+genuine desire for peace and justice without loss of those virile
+qualities without which no love of peace or justice shall avail any
+race; in which the fullest development of scientific research, the
+great distinguishing feature of our present civilization, shall
+yet not imply a belief that intellect can ever take the place of
+character--for, from the standpoint of the nation as of the individual,
+it is character that is the one vital possession.
+
+Finally, this world movement of civilization, this movement which
+is now felt throbbing in every corner of the globe, should bind the
+nations of the world together while yet leaving unimpaired that love
+of country in the individual citizen which in the present stage of
+the world’s progress is essential to the world’s well-being. You, my
+hearers, and I who speak to you, belong to different nations. Under
+modern conditions the books we read, the news sent by telegraph to
+our newspapers, the strangers we meet, half of the things we hear and
+do each day, all tend to bring us into touch with other peoples. Each
+people can do justice to itself only if it does justice to others; but
+each people can do its part in the world movement for all only if it
+first does its duty within its own household. The good citizen must be
+a good citizen of his own country first before he can with advantage
+be a citizen of the world at large. I wish you well. I believe in you
+and your future. I admire and wonder at the extraordinary greatness
+and variety of your achievements in so many and such widely different
+fields; and my admiration and regard are all the greater, and not the
+less, because I am so profound a believer in the institutions and the
+people of my own land.
+
+
+
+
+CITIZENSHIP IN A REPUBLIC
+
+
+
+
+CITIZENSHIP IN A REPUBLIC[4]
+
+
+Strange and impressive associations rise in the mind of a man from
+the New World who speaks before this august body in this ancient
+institution of learning. Before his eyes pass the shadows of mighty
+kings and warlike nobles, of great masters of law and theology; through
+the shining dust of the dead centuries he sees crowded figures that
+tell of the power and learning and splendor of times gone by; and he
+sees also the innumerable host of humble students to whom clerkship
+meant emancipation, to whom it was well-nigh the only outlet from the
+dark thraldom of the Middle Ages.
+
+    [4] Delivered at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910.
+
+This was the most famous university of mediæval Europe at a time when
+no one dreamed that there was a New World to discover. Its services
+to the cause of human knowledge already stretched far back into the
+remote past at the time when my forefathers, three centuries ago,
+were among the sparse bands of traders, ploughmen, wood-choppers,
+and fisherfolk who, in hard struggle with the iron unfriendliness of
+the Indian-haunted land, were laying the foundations of what has
+now become the giant republic of the West. To conquer a continent,
+to tame the shaggy roughness of wild nature, means grim warfare;
+and the generations engaged in it can not keep, still less add to,
+the stores of garnered wisdom which once were theirs, and which are
+still in the hands of their brethren who dwell in the old land. To
+conquer the wilderness means to wrest victory from the same hostile
+forces with which mankind struggled in the immemorial infancy of our
+race. The primeval conditions must be met by primeval qualities which
+are incompatible with the retention of much that has been painfully
+acquired by humanity as through the ages it has striven upward toward
+civilization. In conditions so primitive there can be but a primitive
+culture. At first only the rudest schools can be established, for no
+others would meet the needs of the hard-driven, sinewy folk who thrust
+forward the frontier in the teeth of savage man and savage nature; and
+many years elapse before any of these schools can develop into seats of
+higher learning and broader culture.
+
+The pioneer days pass; the stump-dotted clearings expand into vast
+stretches of fertile farmland; the stockaded clusters of log cabins
+change into towns; the hunters of game, the fellers of trees, the rude
+frontier traders and tillers of the soil, the men who wander all their
+lives long through the wilderness as the heralds and harbingers of an
+oncoming civilization, themselves vanish before the civilization for
+which they have prepared the way. The children of their successors and
+supplanters, and then their children and children’s children, change
+and develop with extraordinary rapidity. The conditions accentuate
+vices and virtues, energy and ruthlessness, all the good qualities
+and all the defects of an intense individualism, self-reliant,
+self-centred, far more conscious of its rights than of its duties, and
+blind to its own shortcomings. To the hard materialism of the frontier
+days succeeds the hard materialism of an industrialism even more
+intense and absorbing than that of the older nations; although these
+themselves have likewise already entered on the age of a complex and
+predominantly industrial civilization.
+
+As the country grows, its people, who have won success in so many
+lines, turn back to try to recover the possessions of the mind and the
+spirit, which perforce their fathers threw aside in order better to
+wage the first rough battles for the continent their children inherit.
+The leaders of thought and of action grope their way forward to a new
+life, realizing, sometimes dimly, sometimes clear-sightedly, that the
+life of material gain, whether for a nation or an individual, is of
+value only as a foundation, only as there is added to it the uplift
+that comes from devotion to loftier ideals. The new life thus sought
+can in part be developed afresh from what is round about in the New
+World; but it can be developed in full only by freely drawing upon
+the treasure-houses of the Old World, upon the treasures stored in
+the ancient abodes of wisdom and learning, such as this where I speak
+to-day. It is a mistake for any nation merely to copy another; but it
+is an even greater mistake, it is a proof of weakness in any nation,
+not to be anxious to learn from another, and willing and able to adapt
+that learning to the new national conditions and make it fruitful and
+productive therein. It is for us of the New World to sit at the feet of
+the Gamaliel of the Old; then, if we have the right stuff in us, we can
+show that Paul in his turn can become a teacher as well as a scholar.
+
+To-day I shall speak to you on the subject of individual citizenship,
+the one subject of vital importance to you, my hearers, and to
+me and my countrymen, because you and we are citizens of great
+democratic republics. A democratic republic such as each of ours--an
+effort to realize in its full sense government by, of, and for
+the people--represents the most gigantic of all possible social
+experiments, the one fraught with greatest possibilities alike for good
+and for evil. The success of republics like yours and like ours means
+the glory, and our failure the despair, of mankind; and for you and for
+us the question of the quality of the individual citizen is supreme.
+Under other forms of government, under the rule of one man or of a very
+few men, the quality of the rulers is all-important. If, under such
+governments, the quality of the rulers is high enough, then the nation
+may for generations lead a brilliant career, and add substantially to
+the sum of world achievement, no matter how low the quality of the
+average citizen; because the average citizen is an almost negligible
+quantity in working out the final results of that type of national
+greatness.
+
+But with you and with us the case is different. With you here, and
+with us in my own home, in the long run, success or failure will be
+conditioned upon the way in which the average man, the average woman,
+does his or her duty, first in the ordinary, every-day affairs of life,
+and next in those great occasional crises which call for the heroic
+virtues. The average citizen must be a good citizen if our republics
+are to succeed. The stream will not permanently rise higher than
+the main source; and the main source of national power and national
+greatness is found in the average citizenship of the nation. Therefore
+it behooves us to do our best to see that the standard of the average
+citizen is kept high; and the average can not be kept high unless the
+standard of the leaders is very much higher.
+
+It is well if a large proportion of the leaders in any republic, in
+any democracy, are, as a matter of course, drawn from the classes
+represented in this audience to-day; but only provided that those
+classes possess the gifts of sympathy with plain people and of
+devotion to great ideals. You and those like you have received special
+advantages; you have all of you had the opportunity for mental
+training; many of you have had leisure; most of you have had a chance
+for the enjoyment of life far greater than comes to the majority of
+your fellows. To you and your kind much has been given, and from you
+much should be expected. Yet there are certain failings against which
+it is especially incumbent that both men of trained and cultivated
+intellect, and men of inherited wealth and position, should especially
+guard themselves, because to these failings they are especially liable;
+and if yielded to, their--your--chances of useful service are at an end.
+
+Let the man of learning, the man of lettered leisure, beware of that
+queer and cheap temptation to pose to himself and to others as the
+cynic, as the man who has outgrown emotions and beliefs, the man to
+whom good and evil are as one. The poorest way to face life is to face
+it with a sneer. There are many men who feel a kind of twisted pride
+in cynicism; there are many who confine themselves to criticism of
+the way others do what they themselves dare not even attempt. There
+is no more unhealthy being, no man less worthy of respect, than he
+who either really holds, or feigns to hold, an attitude of sneering
+disbelief toward all that is great and lofty, whether in achievement
+or in that noble effort which, even if it fails, comes second to
+achievement. A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to
+criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an
+intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s
+realities--all these are marks, not, as the possessor would fain think,
+of superiority, but of weakness. They mark the men unfit to bear
+their part manfully in the stern strife of living, who seek, in the
+affectation of contempt for the achievements of others, to hide from
+others and from themselves their own weakness. The rôle is easy; there
+is none easier, save only the rôle of the man who sneers alike at both
+criticism and performance.
+
+It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the
+strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done
+them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the
+arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives
+valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is
+no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive
+to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions;
+who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end
+the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails,
+at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be
+with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
+Shame on the man of cultivated taste who permits refinement to develop
+into a fastidiousness that unfits him for doing the rough work of a
+workaday world. Among the free peoples who govern themselves there is
+but a small field of usefulness open for the men of cloistered life who
+shrink from contact with their fellows. Still less room is there for
+those who deride or slight what is done by those who actually bear the
+brunt of the day; nor yet for those others who always profess that they
+would like to take action, if only the conditions of life were not what
+they actually are. The man who does nothing cuts the same sordid figure
+in the pages of history, whether he be cynic, or fop, or voluptuary.
+There is little use for the being whose tepid soul knows nothing of the
+great and generous emotion, of the high pride, the stern belief, the
+lofty enthusiasm, of the men who quell the storm and ride the thunder.
+Well for these men if they succeed; well also, though not so well, if
+they fail, given only that they have nobly ventured, and have put forth
+all their heart and strength. It is war-worn Hotspur, spent with hard
+fighting, he of the many errors and the valiant end, over whose memory
+we love to linger, not over the memory of the young lord who “but for
+the vile guns would have been a soldier.”
+
+France has taught many lessons to other nations: surely one of the
+most important is the lesson her whole history teaches, that a high
+artistic and literary development is compatible with notable leadership
+in arms and statecraft. The brilliant gallantry of the French soldier
+has for many centuries been proverbial; and during these same centuries
+at every court in Europe the “freemasons of fashion” have treated the
+French tongue as their common speech; while every artist and man of
+letters, and every man of science able to appreciate that marvellous
+instrument of precision, French prose, has turned toward France for aid
+and inspiration. How long the leadership in arms and letters has lasted
+is curiously illustrated by the fact that the earliest masterpiece in a
+modern tongue is the splendid French epic which tells of Roland’s doom
+and the vengeance of Charlemagne when the lords of the Frankish host
+were stricken at Roncesvalles.
+
+Let those who have, keep, let those who have not, strive to attain, a
+high standard of cultivation and scholarship. Yet let us remember that
+these stand second to certain other things. There is need of a sound
+body, and even more need of a sound mind. But above mind and above
+body stands character--the sum of those qualities which we mean when
+we speak of a man’s force and courage, of his good faith and sense of
+honor. I believe in exercise for the body, always provided that we
+keep in mind that physical development is a means and not an end. I
+believe, of course, in giving to all the people a good education. But
+the education must contain much besides book-learning in order to be
+really good. We must ever remember that no keenness and subtleness of
+intellect, no polish, no cleverness, in any way make up for the lack
+of the great solid qualities. Self-restraint, self-mastery, common
+sense, the power of accepting individual responsibility and yet of
+acting in conjunction with others, courage and resolution--these are
+the qualities which mark a masterful people. Without them no people can
+control itself, or save itself from being controlled from the outside.
+I speak to a brilliant assemblage; I speak in a great university which
+represents the flower of the highest intellectual development; I pay
+all homage to intellect, and to elaborate and specialized training
+of the intellect; and yet I know I shall have the assent of all of
+you present when I add that more important still are the commonplace,
+every-day qualities and virtues.
+
+Such ordinary, every-day qualities include the will and the power to
+work, to fight at need, and to have plenty of healthy children. The
+need that the average man shall work is so obvious as hardly to warrant
+insistence. There are a few people in every country so born that they
+can lead lives of leisure. These fill a useful function if they make
+it evident that leisure does not mean idleness; for some of the most
+valuable work needed by civilization is essentially non-remunerative
+in its character, and of course the people who do this work should in
+large part be drawn from those to whom remuneration is an object of
+indifference. But the average man must earn his own livelihood. He
+should be trained to do so, and he should be trained to feel that he
+occupies a contemptible position if he does not do so; that he is not
+an object of envy if he is idle, at whichever end of the social scale
+he stands, but an object of contempt, an object of derision.
+
+In the next place, the good man should be both a strong and a brave
+man; that is, he should be able to fight, he should be able to serve
+his country as a soldier, if the need arises. There are well-meaning
+philosophers who declaim against the unrighteousness of war. They are
+right only if they lay all their emphasis upon the unrighteousness.
+War is a dreadful thing, and unjust war is a crime against humanity.
+But it is such a crime because it is unjust, not because it is war. The
+choice must ever be in favor of righteousness, and this whether the
+alternative be peace or whether the alternative be war. The question
+must not be merely, Is there to be peace or war? The question must be,
+Is the right to prevail? Are the great laws of righteousness once more
+to be fulfilled? And the answer from a strong and virile people must
+be, “Yes,” whatever the cost. Every honorable effort should always be
+made to avoid war, just as every honorable effort should always be
+made by the individual in private life to keep out of a brawl, to keep
+out of trouble; but no self-respecting individual, no self-respecting
+nation, can or ought to submit to wrong.
+
+Finally, even more important than ability to work, even more important
+than ability to fight at need, is it to remember that the chief of
+blessings for any nation is that it shall leave its seed to inherit
+the land. It was the crown of blessings in Biblical times; and it is
+the crown of blessings now. The greatest of all curses is the curse of
+sterility, and the severest of all condemnations should be that visited
+upon wilful sterility. The first essential in any civilization is that
+the man and the woman shall be father and mother of healthy children,
+so that the race shall increase and not decrease. If this is not so,
+if through no fault of the society there is failure to increase, it
+is a great misfortune. If the failure is due to deliberate and wilful
+fault, then it is not merely a misfortune, it is one of those crimes of
+ease and self-indulgence, of shrinking from pain and effort and risk,
+which in the long run Nature punishes more heavily than any other. If
+we of the great republics, if we, the free people who claim to have
+emancipated ourselves from the thraldom of wrong and error, bring down
+on our heads the curse that comes upon the wilfully barren, then it
+will be an idle waste of breath to prattle of our achievements, to
+boast of all that we have done. No refinement of life, no delicacy
+of taste, no material progress, no sordid heaping up of riches, no
+sensuous development of art and literature, can in any way compensate
+for the loss of the great fundamental virtues; and of these great
+fundamental virtues the greatest is the race’s power to perpetuate the
+race.
+
+Character must show itself in the man’s performance both of the duty
+he owes himself and of the duty he owes the state. The man’s foremost
+duty is owed to himself and his family; and he can do this duty only by
+earning money, by providing what is essential to material well-being;
+it is only after this has been done that he can hope to build a higher
+superstructure on the solid material foundation; it is only after this
+has been done that he can help in movements for the general well-being.
+He must pull his own weight first, and only after this can his surplus
+strength be of use to the general public. It is not good to excite that
+bitter laughter which expresses contempt; and contempt is what we feel
+for the being whose enthusiasm to benefit mankind is such that he is a
+burden to those nearest him; who wishes to do great things for humanity
+in the abstract, but who can not keep his wife in comfort or educate
+his children.
+
+Nevertheless, while laying all stress on this point, while not merely
+acknowledging but insisting upon the fact that there must be a basis of
+material well-being for the individual as for the nation, let us with
+equal emphasis insist that this material well-being represents nothing
+but the foundation, and that the foundation, though indispensable,
+is worthless unless upon it is raised the superstructure of a higher
+life. That is why I decline to recognize the mere multimillionaire,
+the man of mere wealth, as an asset of value to any country; and
+especially as not an asset to my own country. If he has earned or uses
+his wealth in a way that makes him of real benefit, of real use--and
+such is often the case--why, then he does become an asset of worth.
+But it is the way in which it has been earned or used, and not the
+mere fact of wealth, that entitles him to the credit. There is need
+in business, as in most other forms of human activity, of the great
+guiding intelligences. Their places can not be supplied by any number
+of lesser intelligences. It is a good thing that they should have ample
+recognition, ample reward. But we must not transfer our admiration to
+the reward instead of to the deed rewarded; and if what should be the
+reward exists without the service having been rendered, then admiration
+will come only from those who are mean of soul. The truth is that,
+after a certain measure of tangible material success or reward has
+been achieved, the question of increasing it becomes of constantly
+less importance compared to other things that can be done in life. It
+is a bad thing for a nation to raise and to admire a false standard
+of success; and there can be no falser standard than that set by the
+deification of material well-being in and for itself. The man who, for
+any cause for which he is himself accountable, has failed to support
+himself and those for whom he is responsible, ought to feel that he
+has fallen lamentably short in his prime duty. But the man who, having
+far surpassed the limit of providing for the wants, both of body and
+mind, of himself and of those depending upon him, then piles up a
+great fortune, for the acquisition or retention of which he returns
+no corresponding benefit to the nation as a whole, should himself be
+made to feel that, so far from being a desirable, he is an unworthy,
+citizen of the community; that he is to be neither admired nor envied;
+that his right-thinking fellow countrymen put him low in the scale of
+citizenship, and leave him to be consoled by the admiration of those
+whose level of purpose is even lower than his own.
+
+My position as regards the moneyed interests can be put in a few
+words. In every civilized society property rights must be carefully
+safeguarded; ordinarily, and in the great majority of cases, human
+rights and property rights are fundamentally and in the long run
+identical; but when it clearly appears that there is a real conflict
+between them, human rights must have the upper hand, for property
+belongs to man and not man to property.
+
+In fact, it is essential to good citizenship clearly to understand that
+there are certain qualities which we in a democracy are prone to admire
+in and of themselves, which ought by rights to be judged admirable
+or the reverse solely from the standpoint of the use made of them.
+Foremost among these I should include two very distinct gifts--the
+gift of money-making and the gift of oratory. Money-making, the money
+touch, I have spoken of above. It is a quality which in a moderate
+degree is essential. It may be useful when developed to a very great
+degree, but only if accompanied and controlled by other qualities; and
+without such control the possessor tends to develop into one of the
+least attractive types produced by a modern industrial democracy. So it
+is with the orator. It is highly desirable that a leader of opinion in
+a democracy should be able to state his views clearly and convincingly.
+But all that the oratory can do of value to the community is to enable
+the man thus to explain himself; if it enables the orator to persuade
+his hearers to put false values on things, it merely makes him a
+power for mischief. Some excellent public servants have not the gift
+at all, and must rely upon their deeds to speak for them; and unless
+the oratory does represent genuine conviction based on good common
+sense and able to be translated into efficient performance, then the
+better the oratory the greater the damage to the public it deceives.
+Indeed, it is a sign of marked political weakness in any commonwealth
+if the people tend to be carried away by mere oratory, if they tend
+to value words in and for themselves, as divorced from the deeds for
+which they are supposed to stand. The phrase-maker, the phrase-monger,
+the ready talker, however great his power, whose speech does not make
+for courage, sobriety, and right understanding, is simply a noxious
+element in the body politic, and it speaks ill for the public if he
+has influence over them. To admire the gift of oratory without regard
+to the moral quality behind the gift is to do wrong to the republic.
+
+Of course all that I say of the orator applies with even greater
+force to the orator’s latter-day and more influential brother, the
+journalist. The power of the journalist is great, but he is entitled
+neither to respect nor admiration because of that power unless it is
+used aright. He can do, and he often does, great good. He can do, and
+he often does, infinite mischief. All journalists, all writers, for
+the very reason that they appreciate the vast possibilities of their
+profession, should bear testimony against those who deeply discredit
+it. Offences against taste and morals, which are bad enough in a
+private citizen, are infinitely worse if made into instruments for
+debauching the community through a newspaper. Mendacity, slander,
+sensationalism, inanity, vapid triviality, all are potent factors for
+the debauchery of the public mind and conscience. The excuse advanced
+for vicious writing, that the public demands it and that the demand
+must be supplied, can no more be admitted than if it were advanced by
+the purveyors of food who sell poisonous adulterations.
+
+In short, the good citizen in a republic must realize that he ought
+to possess two sets of qualities, and that neither avails without the
+other. He must have those qualities which make for efficiency; and
+he must also have those qualities which direct the efficiency into
+channels for the public good. He is useless if he is inefficient. There
+is nothing to be done with that type of citizen of whom all that can be
+said is that he is harmless. Virtue which is dependent upon a sluggish
+circulation is not impressive. There is little place in active life
+for the timid good man. The man who is saved by weakness from robust
+wickedness is likewise rendered immune from the robuster virtues. The
+good citizen in a republic must first of all be able to hold his own.
+He is no good citizen unless he has the ability which will make him
+work hard and which at need will make him fight hard. The good citizen
+is not a good citizen unless he is an efficient citizen.
+
+But if a man’s efficiency is not guided and regulated by a moral sense,
+then the more efficient he is the worse he is, the more dangerous to
+the body politic. Courage, intellect, all the masterful qualities,
+serve but to make a man more evil if they are used merely for that
+man’s own advancement, with brutal indifference to the rights of
+others. It speaks ill for the community if the community worships these
+qualities and treats their possessors as heroes regardless of whether
+the qualities are used rightly or wrongly. It makes no difference as to
+the precise way in which this sinister efficiency is shown. It makes no
+difference whether such a man’s force and ability betray themselves in
+the career of money-maker or politician, soldier or orator, journalist
+or popular leader. If the man works for evil, then the more successful
+he is the more he should be despised and condemned by all upright and
+farseeing men. To judge a man merely by success is an abhorrent wrong;
+and if the people at large habitually so judge men, if they grow to
+condone wickedness because the wicked man triumphs, they show their
+inability to understand that in the last analysis free institutions
+rest upon the character of citizenship, and that by such admiration of
+evil they prove themselves unfit for liberty.
+
+The homely virtues of the household, the ordinary workaday virtues
+which make the woman a good housewife and housemother, which make
+the man a hard worker, a good husband and father, a good soldier at
+need, stand at the bottom of character. But of course many others must
+be added thereto if a state is to be not only free but great. Good
+citizenship is not good citizenship if exhibited only in the home.
+There remain the duties of the individual in relation to the state, and
+these duties are none too easy under the conditions which exist where
+the effort is made to carry on free government in a complex, industrial
+civilization. Perhaps the most important thing the ordinary citizen,
+and, above all, the leader of ordinary citizens, has to remember in
+political life is that he must not be a sheer doctrinaire. The closet
+philosopher, the refined and cultured individual who from his library
+tells how men ought to be governed under ideal conditions, is of no use
+in actual governmental work; and the one-sided fanatic, and still more
+the mob-leader, and the insincere man who to achieve power promises
+what by no possibility can be performed, are not merely useless but
+noxious.
+
+The citizen must have high ideals, and yet he must be able to achieve
+them in practical fashion. No permanent good comes from aspirations so
+lofty that they have grown fantastic and have become impossible and
+indeed undesirable to realize. The impracticable visionary is far less
+often the guide and precursor than he is the imbittered foe of the real
+reformer, of the man who, with stumblings and shortcomings, yet does in
+some shape, in practical fashion, give effect to the hopes and desires
+of those who strive for better things. Woe to the empty phrase-maker,
+to the empty idealist, who, instead of making ready the ground for the
+man of action, turns against him when he appears and hampers him as
+he does the work! Moreover, the preacher of ideals must remember how
+sorry and contemptible is the figure which he will cut, how great the
+damage that he will do, if he does not himself, in his own life, strive
+measurably to realize the ideals that he preaches for others. Let him
+remember also that the worth of the ideal must be largely determined
+by the success with which it can in practice be realized. We should
+abhor the so-called “practical” men whose practicality assumes the
+shape of that peculiar baseness which finds its expression in disbelief
+in morality and decency, in disregard of high standards of living and
+conduct. Such a creature is the worst enemy of the body politic. But
+only less desirable as a citizen is his nominal opponent and real ally,
+the man of fantastic vision who makes the impossible better forever the
+enemy of the possible good.
+
+We can just as little afford to follow the doctrinaires of an extreme
+individualism as the doctrinaires of an extreme socialism. Individual
+initiative, so far from being discouraged, should be stimulated;
+and yet we should remember that, as society develops and grows more
+complex, we continually find that things which once it was desirable to
+leave to individual initiative can, under the changed conditions, be
+performed with better results by common effort. It is quite impossible,
+and equally undesirable, to draw in theory a hard-and-fast line which
+shall always divide the two sets of cases. This every one who is not
+cursed with the pride of the closet philosopher will see, if he will
+only take the trouble to think about some of our commonest phenomena.
+For instance, when people live on isolated farms or in little hamlets,
+each house can be left to attend to its own drainage and water supply;
+but the mere multiplication of families in a given area produces new
+problems which, because they differ in size, are found to differ not
+only in degree but in kind from the old; and the questions of drainage
+and water supply have to be considered from the common standpoint. It
+is not a matter for abstract dogmatizing to decide when this point
+is reached; it is a matter to be tested by practical experiment.
+Much of the discussion about socialism and individualism is entirely
+pointless, because of failure to agree on terminology. It is not good
+to be the slave of names. I am a strong individualist by personal
+habit, inheritance, and conviction; but it is a mere matter of common
+sense to recognize that the state, the community, the citizens acting
+together, can do a number of things better than if they were left to
+individual action. The individualism which finds its expression in
+the abuse of physical force is checked very early in the growth of
+civilization, and we of to-day should in our turn strive to shackle
+or destroy that individualism which triumphs by greed and cunning,
+which exploits the weak by craft instead of ruling them by brutality.
+We ought to go with any man in the effort to bring about justice and
+the equality of opportunity, to turn the tool-user more and more into
+the tool-owner, to shift burdens so that they can be more equitably
+borne. The deadening effect on any race of the adoption of a logical
+and extreme socialistic system could not be overstated; it would spell
+sheer destruction; it would produce grosser wrong and outrage, fouler
+immorality, than any existing system. But this does not mean that we
+may not with great advantage adopt certain of the principles professed
+by some given set of men who happen to call themselves Socialists; to
+be afraid to do so would be to make a mark of weakness on our part.
+
+But we should not take part in acting a lie any more than in telling a
+lie. We should not say that men are equal where they are not equal, nor
+proceed upon the assumption that there is an equality where it does not
+exist; but we should strive to bring about a measurable equality, at
+least to the extent of preventing the inequality which is due to force
+or fraud. Abraham Lincoln, a man of the plain people, blood of their
+blood and bone of their bone, who all his life toiled and wrought and
+suffered for them, and at the end died for them, who always strove
+to represent them, who would never tell an untruth to or for them,
+spoke of the doctrine of equality with his usual mixture of idealism
+and sound common sense. He said (I omit what was of merely local
+significance):
+
+“I think the authors of the Declaration of Independence intended to
+include all men, but that they did not mean to declare all men equal
+_in all respects_. They did not mean to say all men were equal in
+color, size, intellect, moral development, or social capacity. They
+defined with tolerable distinctness in what they did consider all men
+created equal--equal in certain inalienable rights, among which are
+life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This they said, and this
+they meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that all
+were then actually enjoying that equality, or yet that they were about
+to confer it immediately upon them. They meant to set up a standard
+maxim for free society which should be familiar to all--constantly
+looked to, constantly labored for, and, even though never perfectly
+attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and
+deepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life
+to all people, everywhere.”
+
+We are bound in honor to refuse to listen to those men who would make
+us desist from the effort to do away with the inequality which means
+injustice; the inequality of right, of opportunity, of privilege. We
+are bound in honor to strive to bring ever nearer the day when, as far
+as is humanly possible, we shall be able to realize the ideal that each
+man shall have an equal opportunity to show the stuff that is in him by
+the way in which he renders service. There should, so far as possible,
+be equality of opportunity to render service; but just so long as there
+is inequality of service there should and must be inequality of reward.
+We may be sorry for the general, the painter, the artist, the worker in
+any profession or of any kind, whose misfortune rather than whose fault
+it is that he does his work ill. But the reward must go to the man who
+does his work well; for any other course is to create a new kind of
+privilege, the privilege of folly and weakness; and special privilege
+is injustice, whatever form it takes.
+
+To say that the thriftless, the lazy, the vicious, the incapable,
+ought to have the reward given to those who are far-sighted, capable,
+and upright, is to say what is not true and can not be true. Let us
+try to level up, but let us beware of the evil of levelling down. If
+a man stumbles, it is a good thing to help him to his feet. Every one
+of us needs a helping hand now and then. But if a man lies down, it is
+a waste of time to try to carry him; and it is a very bad thing for
+every one if we make men feel that the same reward will come to those
+who shirk their work and to those who do it.
+
+Let us, then, take into account the actual facts of life, and not be
+misled into following any proposal for achieving the millennium, for
+re-creating the golden age, until we have subjected it to hardheaded
+examination. On the other hand, it is foolish to reject a proposal
+merely because it is advanced by visionaries. If a given scheme is
+proposed, look at it on its merits, and, in considering it, disregard
+formulas. It does not matter in the least who proposes it, or why. If
+it seems good, try it. If it proves good, accept it; otherwise reject
+it. There are plenty of men calling themselves Socialists with whom,
+up to a certain point, it is quite possible to work. If the next step
+is one which both we and they wish to take, why of course take it,
+without any regard to the fact that our views as to the tenth step may
+differ. But, on the other hand, keep clearly in mind that, though it
+has been worth while to take one step, this does not in the least mean
+that it may not be highly disadvantageous to take the next. It is just
+as foolish to refuse all progress because people demanding it desire
+at some points to go to absurd extremes, as it would be to go to these
+absurd extremes simply because some of the measures advocated by the
+extremists were wise.
+
+The good citizen will demand liberty for himself, and as a matter of
+pride he will see to it that others receive the liberty which he thus
+claims as his own. Probably the best test of true love of liberty in
+any country is the way in which minorities are treated in that country.
+Not only should there be complete liberty in matters of religion and
+opinion, but complete liberty for each man to lead his life as he
+desires, provided only that in so doing he does not wrong his neighbor.
+Persecution is bad because it is persecution, and without reference to
+which side happens at the moment to be the persecutor and which the
+persecuted. Class hatred is bad in just the same way, and without any
+regard to the individual who, at a given time, substitutes loyalty to a
+class for loyalty to the nation, or substitutes hatred of men because
+they happen to come in a certain social category, for judgment awarded
+them according to their conduct. Remember always that the same measure
+of condemnation should be extended to the arrogance which would look
+down upon or crush any man because he is poor and to the envy and
+hatred which would destroy a man because he is wealthy. The overbearing
+brutality of the man of wealth or power, and the envious and hateful
+malice directed against wealth or power, are really at root merely
+different manifestations of the same quality, merely the two sides of
+the same shield. The man who, if born to wealth and power, exploits
+and ruins his less fortunate brethren is at heart the same as the
+greedy and violent demagogue who excites those who have not property to
+plunder those who have. The gravest wrong upon his country is inflicted
+by that man, whatever his station, who seeks to make his countrymen
+divide primarily on the line that separates class from class,
+occupation from occupation, men of more wealth from men of less wealth,
+instead of remembering that the only safe standard is that which judges
+each man on his worth as a man, whether he be rich or poor, without
+regard to his profession or to his station in life. Such is the only
+true democratic test, the only test that can with propriety be applied
+in a republic. There have been many republics in the past, both in what
+we call antiquity and in what we call the Middle Ages. They fell, and
+the prime factor in their fall was the fact that the parties tended to
+divide along the line that separates wealth from poverty. It made no
+difference which side was successful; it made no difference whether
+the republic fell under the rule of an oligarchy or the rule of a mob.
+In either case, when once loyalty to a class had been substituted for
+loyalty to the republic, the end of the republic was at hand. There is
+no greater need to-day than the need to keep ever in mind the fact that
+the cleavage between right and wrong, between good citizenship and bad
+citizenship, runs at right angles to, and not parallel with, the lines
+of cleavage between class and class, between occupation and occupation.
+Ruin looks us in the face if we judge a man by his position instead of
+judging him by his conduct in that position.
+
+In a republic, to be successful we must learn to combine intensity
+of conviction with a broad tolerance of difference of conviction.
+Wide differences of opinion in matters of religious, political, and
+social belief must exist if conscience and intellect alike are not
+to be stunted, if there is to be room for healthy growth. Bitter
+internecine hatreds, based on such differences, are signs, not of
+earnestness of belief, but of that fanaticism which, whether religious
+or anti-religious, democratic or anti-democratic, is itself but a
+manifestation of the gloomy bigotry which has been the chief factor in
+the downfall of so many, many nations.
+
+Of one man in especial, beyond any one else, the citizens of a republic
+should beware, and that is of the man who appeals to them to support
+him on the ground that he is hostile to other citizens of the republic,
+that he will secure for those who elect him, in one shape or another,
+profit at the expense of other citizens of the republic. It makes no
+difference whether he appeals to class hatred or class interest, to
+religious or anti-religious prejudice. The man who makes such an appeal
+should always be presumed to make it for the sake of furthering his own
+interest. The very last thing that an intelligent and self-respecting
+member of a democratic community should do is to reward any public man
+because that public man says he will get the private citizen something
+to which this private citizen is not entitled, or will gratify some
+emotion or animosity which this private citizen ought not to possess.
+Let me illustrate this by one anecdote from my own experience. A number
+of years ago I was engaged in cattle-ranching on the great plains of
+the western United States. There were no fences. The cattle wandered
+free, the ownership of each being determined by the brand; the calves
+were branded with the brand of the cows they followed. If on the
+round-up an animal was passed by, the following year it would appear as
+an unbranded yearling, and was then called a maverick. By the custom
+of the country these mavericks were branded with the brand of the man
+on whose range they were found. One day I was riding the range with a
+newly hired cowboy, and we came upon a maverick. We roped and threw it;
+then we built a little fire, took out a cinch-ring, heated it at the
+fire; and the cowboy started to put on the brand. I said to him, “It
+is So-and-so’s brand,” naming the man on whose range we happened to be.
+He answered: “That’s all right, boss; I know my business.” In another
+moment I said to him: “Hold on, you are putting on my brand!” To which
+he answered: “That’s all right; I always put on the boss’s brand.” I
+answered: “Oh, very well. Now you go straight back to the ranch and
+get what is owing to you; I don’t need you any longer.” He jumped up
+and said: “Why, what’s the matter? I was putting on your brand.” And
+I answered: “Yes, my friend, and if you will steal _for_ me you will
+steal _from_ me.”
+
+Now, the same principle which applies in private life applies also in
+public life. If a public man tries to get your vote by saying that
+he will do something wrong _in_ your interest, you can be absolutely
+certain that if ever it becomes worth his while he will do something
+wrong _against_ your interest.
+
+So much for the citizenship of the individual in his relations to
+his family, to his neighbor, to the state. There remain duties of
+citizenship which the state, the aggregation of all the individuals,
+owes in connection with other states, with other nations. Let me say at
+once that I am no advocate of a foolish cosmopolitanism. I believe that
+a man must be a good patriot before he can be, and as the only possible
+way of being, a good citizen of the world. Experience teaches us that
+the average man who protests that his international feeling swamps his
+national feeling, that he does not care for his country because he
+cares so much for mankind, in actual practice proves himself the foe of
+mankind; that the man who says that he does not care to be a citizen of
+any one country, because he is a citizen of the world, is in very fact
+usually an exceedingly undesirable citizen of whatever corner of the
+world he happens at the moment to be in. In the dim future all moral
+needs and moral standards may change; but at present, if a man can
+view his own country and all other countries from the same level with
+tepid indifference, it is wise to distrust him, just as it is wise to
+distrust the man who can take the same dispassionate view of his wife
+and his mother. However broad and deep a man’s sympathies, however
+intense his activities, he need have no fear that they will be cramped
+by love of his native land.
+
+Now, this does not mean in the least that a man should not wish to do
+good outside of his native land. On the contrary, just as I think that
+the man who loves his family is more apt to be a good neighbor than
+the man who does not, so I think that the most useful member of the
+family of nations is normally a strongly patriotic nation. So far from
+patriotism being inconsistent with a proper regard for the rights of
+other nations, I hold that the true patriot, who is as jealous of the
+national honor as a gentleman is of his own honor, will be careful
+to see that the nation neither inflicts nor suffers wrong, just as a
+gentleman scorns equally to wrong others or to suffer others to wrong
+him. I do not for one moment admit that political morality is different
+from private morality, that a promise made on the stump differs from a
+promise made in private life. I do not for one moment admit that a man
+should act deceitfully as a public servant in his dealings with other
+nations, any more than that he should act deceitfully in his dealings
+as a private citizen with other private citizens. I do not for one
+moment admit that a nation should treat other nations in a different
+spirit from that in which an honorable man would treat other men.
+
+In practically applying this principle to the two sets of cases there
+is, of course, a great practical difference to be taken into account.
+We speak of international law; but international law is something
+wholly different from private or municipal law, and the capital
+difference is that there is a sanction for the one and no sanction for
+the other; that there is an outside force which compels individuals to
+obey the one, while there is no such outside force to compel obedience
+as regards the other. International law will, I believe, as the
+generations pass, grow stronger and stronger until in some way or other
+there develops the power to make it respected. But as yet it is only
+in the first formative period. As yet, as a rule, each nation is of
+necessity obliged to judge for itself in matters of vital importance
+between it and its neighbors, and actions must of necessity, where this
+is the case, be different from what they are where, as among private
+citizens, there is an outside force whose action is all-powerful and
+must be invoked in any crisis of importance. It is the duty of wise
+statesmen, gifted with the power of looking ahead, to try to encourage
+and build up every movement which will substitute or tend to substitute
+some other agency for force in the settlement of international
+disputes. It is the duty of every honest statesman to try to guide the
+nation so that it shall not wrong any other nation. But as yet the
+great civilized peoples, if they are to be true to themselves and to
+the cause of humanity and civilization, must keep ever in mind that
+in the last resort they must possess both the will and the power to
+resent wrong-doing from others. The men who sanely believe in a lofty
+morality preach righteousness; but they do not preach weakness, whether
+among private citizens or among nations. We believe that our ideals
+should be high, but not so high as to make it impossible measurably to
+realize them. We sincerely and earnestly believe in peace; but if peace
+and justice conflict, we scorn the man who would not stand for justice
+though the whole world came in arms against him.
+
+And now, my hosts, a word in parting. You and I belong to the only two
+republics among the great powers of the world. The ancient friendship
+between France and the United States has been, on the whole, a sincere
+and disinterested friendship. A calamity to you would be a sorrow to
+us. But it would be more than that. In the seething turmoil of the
+history of humanity certain nations stand out as possessing a peculiar
+power or charm, some special gift of beauty or wisdom or strength,
+which puts them among the immortals, which makes them rank forever
+with the leaders of mankind. France is one of these nations. For her
+to sink would be a loss to all the world. There are certain lessons of
+brilliance and of generous gallantry that she can teach better than any
+of her sister nations. When the French peasantry sang of Malbrook, it
+was to tell how the soul of this warrior-foe took flight upward through
+the laurels he had won. Nearly seven centuries ago, Froissart, writing
+of a time of dire disaster, said that the realm of France was never so
+stricken that there were not left men who would valiantly fight for
+it. You have had a great past. I believe that you will have a great
+future. Long may you carry yourselves proudly as citizens of a nation
+which bears a leading part in the teaching and uplifting of mankind.
+
+
+
+
+THE THRALDOM OF NAMES
+
+
+
+
+THE THRALDOM OF NAMES
+
+
+It behooves our people never to fall under the thraldom of names,
+and least of all to be misled by designing people who appeal to the
+reverence for, or antipathy toward, a given name in order to achieve
+some alien purpose. Of course such misuse of names is as old as the
+history of what we understand when we speak of civilized mankind. The
+rule of a mob may be every whit as tyrannical and oppressive as the
+rule of a single individual, whether or not called a dictator; and
+the rule of an oligarchy, whether this oligarchy is a plutocracy or a
+bureaucracy, or any other small set of powerful men, may in its turn
+be just as sordid and just as bloodthirsty as that of a mob. But the
+apologists for the mob or oligarchy or dictator, in justifying the
+tyranny, use different words. The mob leaders usually state that all
+that they are doing is necessary in order to advance the cause of
+“liberty,” while the dictator and the oligarchy are usually defended
+upon the ground that the course they follow is absolutely necessary
+so as to secure “order.” Many excellent people are taken in by the
+use of the word “liberty” at the one time, and the use of the word
+“order” at the other, and ignore the simple fact that despotism is
+despotism, tyranny tyranny, oppression oppression, whether committed
+by one individual or by many individuals, by a state or by a private
+corporation.
+
+Moreover, tyranny exercised on behalf of one set of people is very apt
+in the long run to damage especially the representatives of that very
+class by the violence of the reaction which it invites. The course of
+the second republic in France was such, with its mobs, its bloody civil
+tumults, its national workshops, its bitter factional divisions, as
+to invite and indeed insure its overthrow and the establishment of a
+dictatorship; while it is needless to mention the innumerable instances
+in which the name of order has been invoked to sanction tyranny, until
+there has finally come a reaction so violent that both the tyranny
+and all public order have disappeared together. The second empire in
+France led straight up to the Paris Commune; and nothing so well shows
+how far the French people had advanced in fitness for self-government
+as the fact that the hideous atrocities of the Commune, which rendered
+it imperative that it should be rigorously repressed, nevertheless did
+not produce another violent reaction, but left the French republic
+standing, and the French people as resolute in their refusal to be
+ruled by a king as by a mob.
+
+Of course when a great crisis actually comes, no matter how much
+people may have been misled by names, they promptly awaken to their
+unimportance. To the individual who suffered under the guillotine at
+Paris, or in the drownings in the Loire, or to the individual who a
+century before was expelled from his beloved country, or tortured, or
+sent to the galleys, it made no difference whatever that one set of
+acts was performed under Robespierre and Danton and Marat in the name
+of liberty and reason and the rights of the people, or that the other
+was performed in the name of order and authority and religion by the
+direction of the great monarch. Tyranny and cruelty were tyranny and
+cruelty just as much in one case as in the other, and just as much when
+those guilty of them used one shibboleth as when they used another. All
+forms of tyranny and cruelty must alike be condemned by honest men.
+
+We in this country have been very fortunate. Thanks to the teaching
+and the practice of the men whom we most revere as leaders, of the
+men like Washington and Lincoln, we have hitherto escaped the twin
+gulfs of despotism and mob rule, and we have never been in any danger
+from the worst forms of religious bitterness. But we should therefore
+be all the more careful, as we deal with our industrial and social
+problems, not to fall into mistakes similar to those which have brought
+lasting disaster on less fortunately situated peoples. We have achieved
+democracy in politics just because we have been able to steer a middle
+course between the rule of the mob and the rule of the dictator. We
+shall achieve industrial democracy because we shall steer a similar
+middle course between the extreme individualist and the Socialist,
+between the demagogue who attacks all wealth and who can see no wrong
+done anywhere unless it is perpetrated by a man of wealth, and the
+apologist for the plutocracy who rails against so much as a restatement
+of the eighth commandment upon the ground that it will “hurt business.”
+
+First and foremost, we must stand firmly on a basis of good sound
+ethics. We intend to do what is right for the ample and sufficient
+reason that it is right. If business is hurt by the stem exposure
+of crookedness and the result of efforts to punish the crooked
+man, then business must be hurt, even though good men are involved
+in the hurting, until it so adjusts itself that it is possible to
+prosecute wrong-doing without stampeding the business community into
+a terror-struck defence of the wrong-doers and an angry assault upon
+those who have exposed them. On the other hand, we must beware, above
+all things, of being misled by wicked or foolish men who would condone
+homicide and violence, and apologize for the dynamiter and the assassin
+because, forsooth, they choose to take the ground that crime is no
+crime if the wicked man happens also to have been a shiftless and
+unthrifty or lazy man who has never amassed property. It is essential
+that we should wrest the control of the government out of the hands of
+rich men who use it for unhealthy purposes, and should keep it out of
+their hands; and to this end the first requisite is to provide means
+adequately to deal with corporations, which are essential to modern
+business, but which, under the decisions of the courts, and because
+of the short-sightedness of the public, have become the chief factors
+in political and business debasement. But it would be just as bad to
+put the control of the government into the hands of demagogues and
+visionaries who seek to pander to ignorance and prejudice by penalizing
+thrift and business enterprise, and ruining all men of means, with,
+as an attendant result, the ruin of the entire community. The tyranny
+of politicians with a bureaucracy behind them and a mass of ignorant
+people supporting them would be just as insufferable as the tyranny of
+big corporations. The tyranny would be the same in each case, and it
+would make no more difference that one was called individualism and the
+other collectivism than it made in French history whether tyranny was
+exercised in the name of the Commune or of the Emperor, of a committee
+of national safety, or of a king.
+
+The sinister and adroit reactionary, the sinister and violent radical,
+are alike in this, that each works in the end for the destruction of
+the cause that he professedly champions. If the one is left to his
+own devices he will make such an exhibition of brutal and selfish
+greed as to utterly discredit the entire system of government by
+individual initiative; and if the other is allowed to work his will
+he, in his turn, will make men so loathe interference and control by
+the state that any abuses connected with the untrammelled control of
+all business by private individuals will seem small by comparison. We
+can not afford to be empirical. We must judge each case on its merits.
+It is absolutely indispensable to foster the spirit of individual
+initiative, of self-reliance, of self-help; but this does not mean that
+we are to refuse to face facts and to recognize that the growth of our
+complex civilization necessitates an increase in the exercise of the
+functions of the state. It has been shown beyond power of refutation
+that unrestricted individualism, for instance, means the destruction
+of our forests and our water supply. The dogma of “individualism” can
+not be permitted to interfere with the duty of a great city to see
+that householders, small as well as big, live in decent and healthy
+buildings, drink good water, and have the streets adequately lighted
+and kept clean. Individual initiative, the reign of individualism, may
+be crushed out just as effectively by the unchecked growth of private
+monopoly, if the state does not interfere at all, as it would be
+crushed out under communism, or as it would disappear, together with
+everything else that makes life worth living, if we adopted the tenets
+of the extreme Socialists.
+
+In 1896 the party of discontent met with a smashing defeat for the very
+reason that, together with legitimate attacks on real abuses, they
+combined wholly illegitimate advocacy even of the methods of dealing
+with these real abuses, and in addition stood for abuses of their own
+which, in far-reaching damage, would have cast quite into the shade
+the effects of the abuses against which they warred. It was essential
+both to the material and moral progress of the country that these
+forces should be beaten; and beaten they were, overwhelmingly. But the
+genuine ethical revolt against these forces was aided by a very ugly
+materialism, and this materialism at one time claimed the victory as
+exclusively its own, and advanced it as a warrant and license for the
+refusal to interfere with any misdeeds on the part of men of wealth.
+What such an attitude meant was set forth as early as 1896 by an
+English visitor, the journalist Steevens, a man of marked insight. Mr.
+Steevens did not see with entire clearness of vision into the complex
+American character; it would have been marvellous if a stranger of his
+slight experience here could so have seen; but it would be difficult to
+put certain important facts more clearly than he put them. Immediately
+after the election he wrote as follows (I condense slightly):
+
+“In the United States legal organization of industry has been left
+wholly wanting. Little is done by the state. All is left to the
+initiative of the individual. The apparent negligence is explained
+partly by the American horror of retarding mechanical progress, and
+partly by their reliance on competition. They have cast overboard the
+law as the safeguard of individual rights, and have put themselves
+under the protection of competition, and of it alone. Now a trust
+in its exacter acceptation is the flat negation of competition. It
+is certain that commercial concerns make frequent, powerful, and
+successful combinations to override the public interest. All such
+corporations are left unfettered in a way that to an Englishman appears
+almost a return to savagery. The defencelessness of individual liberty
+against the encroachment of the railway companies, tramway companies,
+nuisance-committing manure companies, and the like, is little less than
+horrible. Where regulating acts are proposed, the companies unite to
+oppose them; where such acts exist, they bribe corrupt officials to
+ignore them. When they want any act for themselves, it can always be
+bought for cash. [This is of course a gross exaggeration; and allusion
+should have been made to the violent and demagogic attacks upon
+corporations, which are even more common than and are quite as noxious
+as acts of oppression by corporations.] They maintain their own members
+in the legislative bodies--pocket assemblymen, pocket representatives,
+pocket senators. In the name of individual freedom and industrial
+progress they have become the tyrants of the whole community. Lawless
+greed on one side and lawless brutality on the other--the outlook
+frowns. On the wisdom of the rulers of the country in salving or
+imbittering these antagonisms--still more, on the fortune of the people
+in either modifying or hardening their present conviction that to get
+dollars is the one end of life--it depends whether the future of the
+United States is to be of eminent beneficence or unspeakable disaster.
+It may stretch out the light of liberty to the whole world. It may
+become the devil’s drill-ground where the cohorts of anarchy will
+furnish themselves against the social Armageddon.”
+
+Mr. Steevens here clearly points out, what every one ought to
+recognize, that if individualism is left absolutely uncontrolled as
+a modern business condition the curious result will follow that all
+power of individual achievement and individual effort in the average
+man will be crushed out just as effectively as if the state took
+absolute control of everything. It would be easy to name several big
+corporations each one of which has within its sphere crushed out all
+competition so as to make, not only its rivals, but its customers as
+dependent upon it as if the government had assumed complete charge of
+the product. It would, in my judgment, be a very unhealthy thing for
+the government thus to assume complete charge; but it is even more
+unhealthy to permit a private monopoly thus to assume it. The simple
+truth is that the defenders of the theory of unregulated lawlessness
+in the business world are either insincere or blind to the facts when
+they speak of their system as permitting a healthy individualism and
+individual initiative. On the contrary, it crushes out individualism,
+save in a very few able and powerful men who tend to become dictators
+in the business world precisely as in the old days a Spanish-American
+president tended to become a dictator in the political world.
+
+Moreover, where there is absolute lawlessness, absolute failure by the
+state to control or supervise these great corporations, the inevitable
+result is to favor, among these very able men of business, the man who
+is unscrupulous and cunning. The unscrupulous big man who gets complete
+control of a given forest tract, or of a network of railways which
+alone give access to a certain region, or who, in combination with his
+fellows, acquires control of a certain industry, may crush out in the
+great mass of citizens affected all individual initiative quite as much
+as it would be crushed out by state control. The very reason why we
+object to state ownership, that it puts a stop to individual initiative
+and to the healthy development of personal responsibility, is the
+reason why we object to an unsupervised, unchecked monopolistic control
+in private hands. We urge control and supervision by the nation as an
+antidote to the movement for state socialism. Those who advocate total
+lack of regulation, those who advocate lawlessness in the business
+world, themselves give the strongest impulse to what I believe would be
+the deadening movement toward unadulterated state socialism.
+
+There must be law to control the big men, and therefore especially
+the big corporations, in the industrial world in the interest of
+our industrial democracy of to-day. This law must be efficient, and
+therefore it must be administered by executive officers and not by
+lawsuits in the courts. If this is not done the agitation to increase
+out of all measure the share of the government in this work will
+receive an enormous impetus. The movement for government control of the
+great business corporations is no more a movement against liberty than
+a movement to put a stop to violence is a movement against liberty.
+On the contrary, in each case alike it is a movement for liberty; in
+the one case a movement on behalf of the hard-working man of small
+means, just as in the other case it is a movement on behalf of the
+peaceable citizen who does not wish a “liberty” which puts him at the
+mercy of any rowdy who is stronger than he is. The huge, irresponsible
+corporation which demands liberty from the supervision of government
+agents stands on the same ground as the less dangerous criminal of the
+streets who wishes liberty from police interference.
+
+But there is an even more important lesson for us Americans to learn,
+and this also is touched upon in what I have quoted above. It is
+not true, as Mr. Steevens says, that Americans feel that the one
+end of life is to get dollars; but the statement contains a very
+unpleasant element of truth. The hard materialism of greed is just as
+objectionable as the hard materialism of brutality, and the greed of
+the “haves” is just as objectionable as the greed of the “have-nots,”
+and no more so. The envious and sinister creature who declaims against
+a great corporation because he really desires himself to enjoy what
+in hard, selfish, brutal fashion the head of that great corporation
+enjoys, offers a spectacle which is both sad and repellent. The brutal
+arrogance and grasping greed of the one man are in reality the same
+thing as the bitter envy and hatred and grasping greed of the other.
+That kind of “have” and that kind of “have-not” stand on the same
+eminence of infamy. It is as important for the one as for the other
+to learn the lesson of the true relations of life. Of course, the
+first duty of any man is to pay his own way, to be able to earn his
+own livelihood, to support himself and his wife and his children and
+those dependent upon him. He must be able to give those for whom it is
+his duty to care food and clothing, shelter, medicine, an education,
+a legitimate chance for reasonable and healthy amusements, and the
+opportunity to acquire the knowledge and power which will fit them in
+their turn to do good work in the world. When once a man has reached
+this point, which, of course, will vary greatly under different
+conditions, then he has reached the point where other things become
+immensely more important than adding to his wealth. It is emphatically
+right, indeed, I am tempted to say, it is emphatically the first duty
+of each American, “to get dollars,” as Mr. Steevens contemptuously
+phrased it; for this is only another way of saying that it is his first
+duty to earn his own living. But it is not his only duty, by a great
+deal; and after the living has been earned getting dollars should come
+far behind many other duties.
+
+Yet another thing. No movement ever has done or ever will do good in
+this country, where assault is made, not upon evil wherever found,
+but simply upon evil as it happens to be found in a particular class.
+The big newspaper, owned or controlled in Wall Street, which is
+everlastingly preaching about the iniquity of laboring men, which is
+quite willing to hound politicians for their misdeeds, but which with
+raving fury defends all the malefactors of great wealth, stands on an
+exact level with, and neither above nor below, that other newspaper
+whose whole attack is upon men of wealth, which declines to condemn,
+or else condemns in apologetic, perfunctory, and wholly inefficient
+manner, outrages committed by labor. This is the kind of paper which
+by torrents of foul abuse seeks to stir up a bitter class hatred
+against every man of means simply because he is a man of means, against
+every man of wealth, whether he is an honest man who by industry and
+ability has honorably won his wealth, and who honorably spends it, or
+a man whose wealth represents robbery and whose life represents either
+profligacy or at best an inane, useless, and tasteless extravagance.
+This country can not afford to let its conscience grow warped and
+twisted, as it must grow if it takes either one of these two positions.
+We must draw the line, not on wealth nor on poverty, but on conduct. We
+must stand for the good citizen because he is a good citizen, whether
+he be rich or whether he be poor, and we must mercilessly attack the
+man who does evil, wholly without regard to whether the evil is done
+in high or low places, whether it takes the form of homicidal violence
+among members of a federation of miners, or of unscrupulous craft and
+greed in the head of some great Wall Street corporation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The best lesson that any people can learn is that there is no patent
+cure-all which will make the body politic perfect, and that any man
+who is able glibly to answer every question as to how to deal with the
+evils of the body politic is at best a foolish visionary and at worst
+an evil-minded quack. Neither doctrinaire socialism nor unrestricted
+individualism nor any other ism will bring about the millennium.
+Collectivism and individualism must be used as supplementary, not
+as antagonistic, philosophies. In the last analysis the welfare of
+a nation depends on its having throughout a healthy development. A
+healthy social system must of necessity represent the sum of very
+many moral, intellectual, and economic forces, and each such force
+must depend in its turn partly upon the whole system; and all these
+many forces are needed to develop a high grade of character in the
+individual men and women who make up the nation. No individual man
+could be kept healthy by living in accordance with a plan which took
+cognizance only of one set of muscles or set of organs; his health must
+depend upon his general bodily vigor, that is, upon the general care
+which affects hundreds of different organs according to their hundreds
+of needs. Society is, of course, infinitely more complex than the human
+body. The influences that tell upon it are countless; they are closely
+interwoven, interdependent, and each is acted upon by many others.
+It is pathetically absurd, when such are the conditions, to believe
+that some one simple panacea for all evils can be found. Slowly, with
+infinite difficulty, with bitter disappointments, with stumblings and
+haltings, we are working our way upward and onward. In this progress
+something can be done by continually striving to improve the social
+system, now here, now there. Something more can be done by the resolute
+effort for a many-sided higher life. This life must largely come
+to each individual from within, by his own effort, but toward the
+attainment of it each of us can help many others. Such a life must
+represent the struggle for a higher and broader humanity, to be shown
+not merely in the dealings of each of us within the realm of the
+state, but even more by the dealings of each of us in the more intimate
+realm of the family; for the life of the state rests and must ever rest
+upon the life of the family.
+
+In one of Lowell’s biting satires he holds up to special scorn the
+smug, conscienceless creature who refuses to consider the morality
+of any question of social ethics by remarking that “they didn’t know
+everything down in Judee.” It is to be wished that some of those
+who preach and practise a gospel of mere materialism and greed, and
+who speak as if the heaping up of wealth by the community or by the
+individual were in itself the be-all and end-all of life, would learn
+from the most widely read and oldest of books that true wisdom which
+teaches that it is well to have neither great poverty nor great riches.
+Worst of all is it to have great poverty and great riches side by side
+in constant contrast. Nevertheless, even this contrast can be accepted
+if men are convinced that the riches are accumulated as the result of
+great service rendered to the people as a whole, and if their use is
+regulated in the interest of the whole community.
+
+The movement for social and industrial reform has for two of its prime
+objects the prevention of the accumulation of wealth save by honest
+service to the country, and the supervision and regulation of its
+business use, and the determination of how it shall be taxed, and
+on what terms inherited, even when acquired and used honestly. This
+movement is a healthy movement. It aims to replace sullen discontent,
+restless pessimism, and evil preparation for revolution, by an
+aggressive, healthy determination to get to the bottom of our troubles
+and remedy them. To halt in the movement, as those blinded men wish
+who care only for the immediate relief from all obstacles which would
+thwart their getting what is not theirs, would work wide-reaching
+damage. Such a halt would turn away the energies of the energetic and
+forceful men who desire to reform matters from a legitimate object into
+the channel of bitter and destructive agitation.
+
+
+
+
+PRODUCTIVE SCHOLARSHIP
+
+
+
+
+PRODUCTIVE SCHOLARSHIP[5]
+
+
+What counts in a man or in a nation is not what the man or the nation
+can do, but what he or it actually does. Scholarship that consists
+in mere learning, but finds no expression in production, may be of
+interest and value to the individual, just as ability to shoot well
+at clay pigeons may be of interest and value to him, but it ranks no
+higher unless it finds expression in achievement. From the standpoint
+of the nation, and from the broader standpoint of mankind, scholarship
+is of worth chiefly when it is productive, when the scholar not merely
+receives or acquires, but gives.
+
+    [5] “The Mediæval Mind.” By Henry Osborn Taylor.
+
+        “The Life and Times of Cavour.” By William Roscoe Thayer.
+
+Of course there is much production by scholarly men which is not,
+strictly speaking, scholarship; any more than the men themselves,
+despite their scholarly tastes and attributes, would claim to be
+scholars in the technical or purely erudite sense. The exceedingly
+valuable and extensive work of Edward Cope comes under the head of
+science, and represents original investigation and original thought
+concerning what that investigation showed; yet if the word scholarship
+is used broadly, his work must certainly be called productive
+scientific scholarship. General Alexander’s capital “Memoirs of a
+Confederate” show that a man who is a first-class citizen as well as
+a first-class fighting man may also combine the true scholar’s power
+of research and passion for truth with the ability to see clearly and
+to state clearly what he has seen. Mr. Hannis Taylor’s history of “The
+Origin and Growth of the American Constitution” and General Francis V.
+Greene’s history of the American Revolution could have been written
+only by scholars. Such altogether delightful volumes of essays as Mr.
+Crothers’s “Gentle Reader,” “Pardoner’s Wallet,” and “Among Friends”
+may not, in the strictest sense of the word, represent scholarship
+any more than the “Essays of Elia” represent scholarship; but they
+represent more than scholarship, and they could have been written
+only by a man of scholarly attributes. The same thing is true of Mr.
+Maurice Egan, now our Minister to Denmark--who so well upholds the
+tradition which has always identified American men of letters with
+American diplomacy--in his essays in Comparative Literature, named, as
+I think not altogether happily, from the first essay, “The Ghost in
+Hamlet.” Mr. Egan writes not merely with charm but as no one but a man
+of scholarly attributes could write--and, by the way, his dedication
+to Archbishop John Lancaster Spalding is a dedication to a man whose
+lofty spiritual teachings have been expressed in singularly beautiful
+English. In its most perfect expression scholarship must utter itself
+with literary charm and distinction; although, I am sorry to say, the
+professional scholars sometimes actually distrust scholarship which is
+able thus to bring forth wisdom divorced from pedantry and dryness.
+As an example, Gilbert Murray’s “Rise of the Greek Epic” not only
+shows profound scholarship and the profound scholarly instinct which
+can alone profit by the mere erudition of scholarship, but is also so
+delightfully written as to be as interesting as the most interesting
+novel; and, curiously enough, this very fact, coupled with the fact
+that Mr. Murray’s translations of Euripides and Aristophanes are so
+attractive, has tended to excite distrust of him in the minds of
+worthy scholars whose productions are themselves free from all taint
+of interest, from all taint of literary charm. Professor Lounsbury’s
+extraordinary scholarship has been fully appreciated only by the best
+scholars; and this partly because of the very fact of his many-sided
+development in the field of intellectual endeavor.
+
+But I speak now of works of scholarship in the more conventional sense,
+of works which show scholarship such as Lea showed in his history of
+the Inquisition, such as Child showed in his studies of English ballad
+poetry.
+
+Mr. Taylor’s study of “The Mediæval Mind” is a noteworthy
+contribution--I am tempted to say the most noteworthy of recent
+contributions--to the best kind of productive scholarship. His
+erudition is extraordinary in breadth and depth, his grasp of the
+subject no less marked than his power of conveying to others what
+he has thus grasped. He is not only faithful to the truth in large
+things, he is accurate in small matters also; and where he makes use
+of any statement he always shows that there is justification for it;
+although, by the way, I can only guess at his reason for calling Attila
+a “Turanian”--a word which carries a pleasant flavor of pre-Victorian
+ethnology, and might just about as appropriately be applied to
+Tecumseh. As he expressly states, Mr. Taylor is not concerned with the
+brutalities of mediæval life, nor with the lower grades of ignorance
+and superstition which abounded in the Middle Ages, but with the more
+informed and constructive spirit of the mediæval time. There is, of
+course, no hard and sharp line to be drawn between mediæval time and,
+on the one hand, what is “ancient” and, on the other hand, what is
+“modern”; but for his purposes he treats the twelfth and thirteenth
+centuries as showing the culmination of the mediæval spirit in its
+most characteristic form; although he also incidentally touches on
+things that occurred in the fourteenth century, and of course covers
+the slow upward movement through the Dark Ages (as to which he does
+rather less than justice to the Carolingian revival of learning), when
+men were groping in the black abyss into which civilization so rapidly
+slid after the close of the second century. His mastery of the facts
+is well-nigh perfect, and he handles them with singular sympathy. In
+such chapters as “The Spotted Actuality” he makes it evident that he
+has constantly before his own mind the whole picture. The ordinary
+reader, however, needs to remember that it is no part of Mr. Taylor’s
+purpose to present this whole picture, but merely to make a study
+somewhat analogous to what a study of the intellect of the nineteenth
+century would be if it dealt exclusively with the thought of the
+various universities of Europe and America and of circles like that of
+Emerson at Concord and Goethe at Weimar. Indeed, this comparison is
+hardly accurate, for the universities of the nineteenth century had a
+far closer connection with the living thought of the day than was true
+of the universities of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The latter
+(like their feeble survivals in the Spanish-speaking countries) much
+more closely resembled the ordinary type of Mohammedan university of
+the present day, such a university as the big Mohammedan university at
+Cairo, than they resembled any modern university worth calling such,
+or, indeed, any ancient university of living and creative force.
+
+The schoolmen of the Middle Ages and the universities in which they
+flourished are well worth such study as that which Mr. Taylor gives
+them, if only because they represented what regarded itself as the
+highest spiritual and intellectual teaching of the time, and because
+they symbolized the forces which manifested themselves with infinitely
+more permanent value in that wonderful cathedral architecture which was
+one of the two culminating architectural movements of all time--the
+other, of course, being the classical Greek. But the greatest
+mediæval effect upon the thought of after time was produced, not by
+the schoolmen, but by works which they would hardly have treated as
+serious at all--by the Roland Song, the “Nibelungenlied,” the Norse
+and Irish sagas, the Arthurian Cycle, including “Parsifal”; and modern
+literature, on its historical side, may be said to have begun with
+Villehardouin and Joinville. None of the leaders of the schools are
+to-day living forces in the sense that is true of the nameless writers
+who built up the stories of the immortal death fights in the Pyrenean
+pass and in the hall of Etzel, or of the search for the Holy Grail.
+There are keen intellects still influenced by Thomas Aquinas; but
+all the writings of all the most famous doctors of the schools taken
+together had no such influence on the religious thought of mankind
+as two books produced long afterward, with no conception of their
+far-reaching importance, by the obscure and humble authors of the
+“Imitation of Christ” and the “Pilgrim’s Progress.” In the thirteenth
+century the spiritual life in action, as apart from dogma, and as lived
+with the earnest desire to follow in the footsteps of the Christ,
+reached, in the person of Saint Francis of Assisi, as lofty a pinnacle
+of realized idealism as humanity has ever attained. But among those
+who, instead of trying simply to live up to their spiritual impulses,
+endeavored to deal authoritatively in the schools with spiritual and
+intellectual interests, the complementary tyranny and servility in all
+such spiritual and intellectual matters were such as we can now hardly
+imagine to ourselves. The one really great scientific investigator,
+Roger Bacon, who actually did put as an ideal before himself the honest
+search for truth, was imprisoned for years in consequence; and this in
+spite of the fact that his avowals of abject submission to theological
+authority and unquestioning adherence to dogma were such as we of
+to-day can with difficulty understand.
+
+At first sight such an attitude in the intellectual world seems
+incompatible with the turbulent and lawless insistence on the right of
+each individual to do whatever he saw fit in the political and social
+world which characterized the seething life of the time. But, as Mr.
+Taylor points out, the minute that a man in the Middle Ages began to be
+free in any real sense he tended to become an outlaw; and, moreover,
+the men who were most intolerant of restraint in matters physical
+and material made no demands whatever for intellectual or spiritual
+freedom. The ordinary knight or nobleman, the typical “man of action”
+of the period, promptly resented any attempt to interfere with his
+brutal passions or coarse appetites; but, as he had neither special
+interest nor deep conviction in merely intellectual matters, he was
+entirely willing to submit to guidance concerning them. The attitude
+of the great baron of the highest class is amusingly shown by a
+conversation that Joinville records as having occurred between himself
+and King Louis the Saint. Among the questions which King Louis one
+day propounded to Joinville, in the interests of the higher morality,
+was whether Joinville would rather have leprosy or commit a mortal
+sin; to which Joinville responded with cordial frankness that he would
+rather commit thirty mortal sins than have leprosy. Now, in addition
+to being a most delightful chronicler, Joinville was an exceptionally
+well-behaved and religious baron, standing far above the average, and
+he was very careful to perform every obligation laid upon him by those
+whom he regarded as his spiritual advisers. The fact simply was that
+he had no idea of the need for spiritual or intellectual independence
+in the sense that a modern man has need for such independence,
+because he took only a superficial interest in anything concerned
+with intellectual inquiry. To harry a heretic or a Jew was not only
+a duty but a pleasure, and no effort whatever was needed to refrain
+from intellectual inquiry which presented to him not the slightest
+attraction; but leprosy was something tangible, something real, and the
+instant that the real came into collision with even the most insistent
+supposed spiritual obligation the rugged old baron went into immediate
+revolt.
+
+The whole way of looking at life was so different from ours that only a
+thoroughly sympathetic and understanding writer like Mr. Taylor can set
+it forth in a manner that shall be sympathetic and yet not revolt us.
+One of his most delightful chapters is that on “The Heart of Heloise.”
+The qualities that Heloise displayed are those which eternally appeal
+to what is high and fine in human life; as for her lover, Abelard, it
+is possible to pardon the abject creature only by scornfully condemning
+the age which imposed upon him the rules of conduct in accordance with
+which he lived.
+
+Mr. Thayer’s “Life of Cavour” is another first-rate example of
+productive scholarship. It is much more than a mere biography.
+The three greatest and most influential statesmen, in purpose and
+achievement, since the close of the Napoleonic epoch were Lincoln,
+Bismarck, and Cavour; and any account of either of them must
+necessarily be an account of the most vitally important things that
+happened to mankind during the period when each was playing his
+greatest part. An adequate biography of either must therefore be a
+permanent addition to history; such a biography could be written only
+by a scholar and writer of altogether exceptional attainments; and such
+a biography has been furnished by Mr. Thayer. Mr. Thayer is already
+well known as the author of various volumes dealing with Italy, all
+of them representing work worth doing, and all of them leading up to
+and making ready the way for the really notable history which he has
+now written. There are other books which should be read in connection
+with it; the younger Trevelyan’s brilliant studies of Garibaldi and
+the Italian revolutionists of 1848 and the dozen years immediately
+succeeding, and De La Gorce’s profoundly interesting histories of the
+Second Empire and the Second Republic in France, which contain the
+most powerful presentment of the period from the anti-revolutionary
+standpoint. Cavour not only did more than any other one man for
+Italian unity and independence, but he symbolized the movement as
+neither Garibaldi the Paladin, nor Mazzini the Republican, nor even
+King Victor Emmanuel symbolized it. As Mr. Thayer describes Cavour’s
+career it is not only of interest in itself, but it is of interest
+as showing that vast and complex aggregate of contradictory forces
+through whose warring chaos every great leader who fights for the
+well-being of mankind must force his way to triumph. Cavour had to
+contend against foes within just as much as against foes without. He
+had to hold the balance between the unreasoning reactionary and the
+unreasoning revolutionist, just exactly as on a larger or smaller scale
+all leaders in the forward movement of mankind must ever do. Mr. Thayer
+has set forth in masterly fashion the task to which the great statesman
+addressed himself and the manner in which that task was performed; his
+book is absorbingly interesting to the general reader, and should be of
+profit not merely to the special student but to every active politician
+who is in politics for any of the reasons which alone render it really
+worth while to be a politician at all. Mr. Thayer is devoted to his
+hero, as he ought to be; and he is a stanch partisan; but his obvious
+purpose is to be fair, and the principles of liberty to which he pins
+his faith are those upon which American governmental policy must always
+rest--although it is not necessary to follow him in all his views, as
+when he suddenly treats free trade from the fetichistic standpoint
+instead of as an economic expedient to be judged on its merits in any
+given case. Every man interested not only in the realities but in
+the possibilities of political advance should study this book; and,
+in addition to its intrinsic worth and interest, it is an example of
+the kind of productive scholarship which adds to the sum of American
+achievement.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Anything that Professor Lounsbury writes is certain to be interesting.
+Any collection by him of the writings of others is also certain to be
+interesting. Probably when Mr. Lounsbury is doing what he himself is
+willing to accept as work, it is both so profound and so erudite that
+we laymen can do little but admire it from a distance. Fortunately,
+however, he is also willing to do what he regards as play, such as a
+Life of Fenimore Cooper, or a study of English adapted to the needs of
+those who are not scholars; and all of his writing of this lighter kind
+adds markedly to the sum of enjoyment of laymen who are fond of reading.
+
+The two volumes before me illustrate the good that can be done by
+people of cultivation who at our different universities provide the
+means needed to foster productive scholarship--for, unfortunately,
+productive scholarship in this country is apt to be unremunerative. The
+slender volume on the early literary career of Robert Browning[6] is
+based on four lectures delivered at the University of Virginia under
+the terms of the Barbour-Page Foundation, a foundation due to the
+wisdom and generosity of Mrs. Thomas Nelson Page. The “Yale Book of
+American Verse”[7] is published by the Yale University Press under the
+auspices of the Elizabethan Club of Yale University, a club founded by
+Mr. Alexander Smith Cochran. It is the kind of club the possession of
+which every real university in the country must envy Yale.
+
+    [6] “The Early Literary Career of Robert Browning.” By Thomas
+        R. Lounsbury.
+
+    [7] “Yale Book of American Verse.” Collected by Thomas R.
+        Lounsbury.
+
+This study of Browning particularly appeals to any man who, although
+devoted to Browning, yet does not care for the pieces that some of the
+Browning clubs especially delight in. Browning’s great poems, those
+which will last as long as English literature lasts, are given their
+full meed of praise by Professor Lounsbury. The other poems, those
+which especially excite the interest of the average Browning society,
+are treated very amusingly and on the whole very justly. Professor
+Lounsbury insists that these “poems” will not permanently last, because
+they are essentially formless, and therefore not poetry at all,
+and indeed not literature. He holds that the attraction such poems
+exercise on certain people is the attraction of the unintelligible. Mr.
+Lounsbury’s writings are always full of delicious touches, and he is
+sometimes at his best in this little volume, as, for instance, where
+he says: “In fact, commentaries on Browning generally bear a close
+resemblance to fog-horns. They proclaim the existence of fog, but they
+do not disperse it.” One of his main contentions is that fundamentally
+the interest in those poems of Browning which are both very long and
+very obscure does not differ in kind from that displayed in guessing
+the answers to riddles or, to use a more dignified comparison, from
+that employed in the solution of difficult mathematical problems.
+
+I think, however, that for the admiration of these rather obscure
+philosophical poems of Browning there is a reason upon which Mr.
+Lounsbury has not touched. He says truly that the men who admire
+Browning are very apt to be men not especially drawn to writers in whom
+lofty speculations have found their fitting counterpart in clearness
+and beauty of expression; and he instances Wordsworth and Tennyson as
+poets to be enjoyed only by men and women who have a certain degree
+of fondness for literature as literature. Now, I think it is true of
+Browning (as it is true of Walt Whitman) that many of the people who
+labor longest and hardest to master his meaning are entirely mistaken
+in thinking that they enjoy him as a poet. But I do not think that Mr.
+Lounsbury’s explanation that they prize him only as a puzzle fully
+accounts for the enjoyment of many of these men or the profit they
+derive from their study. The fact is that Browning does represent
+very deep thought, very real philosophy--mixed, of course, with much
+thought that is not deep at all but only obscure, and much would-be
+philosophy that has no meaning whatsoever. In an instance that came to
+my own knowledge, a class of college boys in a course of literature,
+after carefully studying Browning for a couple of months, and after
+then taking up Tennyson, unanimously abandoned Tennyson and insisted
+on returning to the study of Browning. These hard-working, intelligent
+boys were not all of them merely interested in puzzles. They were not
+all of them blind to poetry as such. They did care to a certain extent
+for form, but primarily they were interested in the great problems of
+life, they were interested in great and noble thoughts. Doubtless many
+of them rather enjoyed having to dig out the thought from involved
+language. But probably a greater number felt a larger enjoyment in
+finding lofty thought expressed in language which was even more lofty
+than obscure.
+
+It is true that as a poet Browning is formless. But the poets who are
+great philosophers are few in number, and great philosophers who have
+any gift of expression whatever or any sense of form, or whose writings
+so much as approach the outer hem of literature, are even fewer in
+number. Browning the philosopher is not more deep than many other
+philosophers, and in form and expression he is inferior to many poets.
+But he is a philosopher, and he has form and expression. The philosophy
+he writes is literature, even though hardly in the highest sense poetic
+literature. Therefore he appeals to men who are primarily interested
+in his writings as philosophy, but who do derive a certain pleasure
+from form or expression; who, without being conscious of it, do like to
+have the writings they read resemble literature. These men are given
+by Browning something that no other poet and no other philosopher can
+give them; and I do not think that these men receive full justice at
+Mr. Lounsbury’s hands. Moreover, as compared to Tennyson or Longfellow,
+or any other of the more conventional poets--and I am extremely fond
+of these conventional poets--there is far more in Browning, even in
+Browning’s simpler and more understandable and formal poems, that
+gives expression to certain deep and complex emotions. There are many
+poets whom we habitually read far more often than Browning, and who
+minister better to our more primitive needs and emotions. There are
+very few whose lines come so naturally to us in certain great crises of
+the soul which are also crises of the intellect.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+“The Yale Book of American Verse” is an excellent anthology, and
+the preface is one of the best things about it. In this preface Mr.
+Lounsbury quite unconsciously shows why he appeals to so many men to
+whom a college professor who is nothing more than a college professor
+does not readily appeal. He mentions that on the march to Gettysburg
+he picked up a torn piece of newspaper containing certain verses
+which have always remained in his mind, and which he includes in this
+collection of verse. This is the only hint in Professor Lounsbury’s
+writings that he fought in the Civil War. A professor of English
+literature in a great university who in his youth fought at Gettysburg
+must necessarily have something in him that speaks not only to scholars
+but to men.
+
+This anthology includes hymns as well as secular poems. The collection
+is good in itself, as I have already said, and, moreover, to all real
+lovers of anthologies it will also seem good because each of them will
+take much satisfaction in wondering why certain of his or her favorite
+poems have been left out and why certain other poems have been put in.
+I suppose every man who cares for poetry at all at times wishes that he
+could compile an anthology for his own purposes. I certainly so feel.
+I would like to compile two anthologies, one of hymns and one of those
+poems which our ancestors designated quite ruthlessly as “profane,” in
+opposition to sacred. I should not expect any one else to read either
+of my collections. I should not wish the edition to consist of more
+than one copy. But I would like, purely for my own use, to own that
+copy! In the anthology of hymns, for instance, besides all the great
+hymns, from Bernard of Morlais to Cowper and Wesley and Bishop Heber, I
+would like to put in some hymns as to which I know nothing except that
+I like them. Every Christmas Eve in our own church at Oyster Bay, for
+instance, the children sing a hymn beginning “It’s Christmas Eve on the
+River, it’s Christmas Eve on the Bay.” Of course the hymn has come to
+us from somewhere else, but I do not know from where; and the average
+native of our village firmly believes that it is indigenous to our
+own soil--which it can not be, unless it deals in hyperbole, for the
+nearest approach to a river in our neighborhood is the village pond.
+
+As for the “profane” anthology, I think I should like to make one
+consisting of several volumes. Even Mr. Lounsbury’s volume of American
+verse, though it contains some specimens of verse I would not have
+included, omits others which I certainly should put in. And then, think
+of the many, many volumes that would be needed to include the English
+poems, and the French poems, and the German poems from the Bard of
+the Dimbovitza, and all the other poems which no human being could
+make up his mind to see any anthology leave out! I fear that a perfect
+anthology of the kind that fills my dreams would be as large as the
+various rather dismal series of volumes which contain, as we are told,
+“the world’s best literature”--and doubtless would be as unsatisfactory.
+
+Meanwhile, as all this represents an unattainable dream, we have
+reason to be glad that Mr. Lounsbury’s particular anthology has been
+published.
+
+
+
+
+DANTE AND THE BOWERY
+
+
+
+
+DANTE AND THE BOWERY
+
+
+It is the conventional thing to praise Dante because he of set purpose
+“used the language of the market-place,” so as to be understanded
+of the common people; but we do not in practice either admire or
+understand a man who writes in the language of our own market-place.
+It must be the Florentine market-place of the thirteenth century--not
+Fulton Market of to-day. What infinite use Dante would have made
+of the Bowery! Of course, he could have done it only because not
+merely he himself, the great poet, but his audience also, would have
+accepted it as natural. The nineteenth century was more apt than the
+thirteenth to boast of itself as being the greatest of the centuries;
+but, save as regards purely material objects, ranging from locomotives
+to bank buildings, it did not wholly believe in its boasting. A
+nineteenth-century poet, when trying to illustrate some point he was
+making, obviously felt uncomfortable in mentioning nineteenth-century
+heroes if he also referred to those of classic times, lest he
+should be suspected of instituting comparisons between them. A
+thirteenth-century poet was not in the least troubled by any such
+misgivings, and quite simply illustrated his point by allusions to any
+character in history or romance, ancient or contemporary, that happened
+to occur to him.
+
+Of all the poets of the nineteenth century, Walt Whitman was the only
+one who dared use the Bowery--that is, use anything that was striking
+and vividly typical of the humanity around him--as Dante used the
+ordinary humanity of his day; and even Whitman was not quite natural
+in doing so, for he always felt that he was defying the conventions
+and prejudices of his neighbors, and his self-consciousness made him a
+little defiant. Dante was not defiant of conventions: the conventions
+of his day did not forbid him to use human nature just as he saw it,
+no less than human nature as he read about it. The Bowery is one of
+the great highways of humanity, a highway of seething life, of varied
+interest, of fun, of work, of sordid and terrible tragedy; and it is
+haunted by demons as evil as any that stalk through the pages of the
+“Inferno.” But no man of Dante’s art and with Dante’s soul would write
+of it nowadays; and he would hardly be understood if he did. Whitman
+wrote of homely things and every-day men, and of their greatness, but
+his art was not equal to his power and his purpose; and, even as it
+was, he, the poet, by set intention, of the democracy, is not known to
+the people as widely as he should be known; and it is only the few--the
+men like Edward FitzGerald, John Burroughs, and W. E. Henley--who prize
+him as he ought to be prized.
+
+Nowadays, at the outset of the twentieth century, cultivated people
+would ridicule the poet who illustrated fundamental truths, as Dante
+did six hundred years ago, by examples drawn alike from human nature as
+he saw it around him and from human nature as he read of it. I suppose
+that this must be partly because we are so self-conscious as always
+to read a comparison into any illustration, forgetting the fact that
+no comparison is implied between two men, in the sense of estimating
+their relative greatness or importance, when the career of each of them
+is chosen merely to illustrate some given quality that both possess.
+It is also probably due to the fact that an age in which the critical
+faculty is greatly developed often tends to develop a certain querulous
+inability to understand the fundamental truths which less critical ages
+accept as a matter of course. To such critics it seems improper, and
+indeed ludicrous, to illustrate human nature by examples chosen alike
+from the Brooklyn Navy Yard or Castle Garden and the Piræus, alike from
+Tammany and from the Roman mob organized by the foes or friends of
+Cæsar. To Dante such feeling itself would have been inexplicable.
+
+Dante dealt with those tremendous qualities of the human soul which
+dwarf all differences in outward and visible form and station, and
+therefore he illustrated what he meant by any example that seemed to
+him apt. Only the great names of antiquity had been handed down, and
+so, when he spoke of pride or violence or flattery, and wished to
+illustrate his thesis by an appeal to the past, he could speak only
+of great and prominent characters; but in the present of his day most
+of the men he knew, or knew of, were naturally people of no permanent
+importance--just as is the case in the present of our own day. Yet the
+passions of these men were the same as those of the heroes of old,
+godlike or demoniac; and so he unhesitatingly used his contemporaries,
+or his immediate predecessors, to illustrate his points, without
+regard to their prominence or lack of prominence. He was not concerned
+with the differences in their fortunes and careers, with their heroic
+proportions or lack of such proportions; he was a mystic whose
+imagination soared so high and whose thoughts plumbed so deeply the far
+depths of our being that he was also quite simply a realist; for the
+eternal mysteries were ever before his mind, and, compared to them, the
+differences between the careers of the mighty masters of mankind and
+the careers of even very humble people seemed trivial. If we translate
+his comparisons into the terms of our day, we are apt to feel amused
+over this trait of his, until we go a little deeper and understand
+that we are ourselves to blame, because we have lost the faculty simply
+and naturally to recognize that the essential traits of humanity are
+shown alike by big men and by little men, in the lives that are now
+being lived and in those that are long ended.
+
+Probably no two characters in Dante impress the ordinary reader more
+than Farinata and Capaneus: the man who raises himself waist-high from
+out his burning sepulchre, unshaken by torment, and the man who, with
+scornful disdain, refuses to brush from his body the falling flames;
+the great souls--magnanimous, Dante calls them--whom no torture, no
+disaster, no failure of the most absolute kind could force to yield
+or to bow before the dread powers that had mastered them. Dante has
+created these men, has made them permanent additions to the great
+figures of the world; they are imaginary only in the sense that
+Achilles and Ulysses are imaginary--that is, they are now as real as
+the figures of any men that ever lived. One of them was a mythical
+hero in a mythical feat, the other a second-rate faction leader in a
+faction-ridden Italian city of the thirteenth century, whose deeds have
+not the slightest importance aside from what Dante’s mention gives.
+Yet the two men are mentioned as naturally as Alexander and Cæsar are
+mentioned. Evidently they are dwelt upon at length because Dante
+felt it his duty to express a peculiar horror for that fierce pride
+which could defy its overlord, while at the same time, and perhaps
+unwillingly, he could not conceal a certain shuddering admiration for
+the lofty courage on which this evil pride was based.
+
+The point I wish to make is the simplicity with which Dante illustrated
+one of the principles on which he lays most stress, by the example
+of a man who was of consequence only in the history of the parochial
+politics of Florence. Farinata will now live forever as a symbol of
+the soul; yet as an historical figure he is dwarfed beside any one
+of hundreds of the leaders in our own Revolution and Civil War. Tom
+Benton, of Missouri, and Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, were opposed
+to one another with a bitterness which surpassed that which rived
+asunder Guelph from Ghibellin, or black Guelph from white Guelph. They
+played mighty parts in a tragedy more tremendous than any which any
+mediæval city ever witnessed or could have witnessed. Each possessed an
+iron will and undaunted courage, physical and moral; each led a life of
+varied interest and danger, and exercised a power not possible in the
+career of the Florentine. One, the champion of the Union, fought for
+his principles as unyieldingly as the other fought for what he deemed
+right in trying to break up the Union. Each was a colossal figure.
+Each, when the forces against which he fought overcame him--for in his
+latter years Benton saw the cause of disunion triumph in Missouri,
+just as Jefferson Davis lived to see the cause of union triumph in
+the Nation--fronted an adverse fate with the frowning defiance, the
+high heart, and the stubborn will which Dante has commemorated for all
+time in his hero who “held hell in great scorn.” Yet a modern poet who
+endeavored to illustrate such a point by reference to Benton and Davis
+would be uncomfortably conscious that his audience would laugh at him.
+He would feel ill at ease, and therefore would convey the impression
+of being ill at ease, exactly as he would feel that he was posing, was
+forced and unnatural, if he referred to the deeds of the evil heroes
+of the Paris Commune as he would without hesitation refer to the many
+similar but smaller leaders of riots in the Roman forum.
+
+Dante speaks of a couple of French troubadours, or of a local Sicilian
+poet, just as he speaks of Euripides; and quite properly, for they
+illustrate as well what he has to teach; but we of to-day could not
+possibly speak of a couple of recent French poets or German novelists
+in the same connection without having an uncomfortable feeling that
+we ought to defend ourselves from possible misapprehension; and
+therefore we could not speak of them naturally. When Dante wishes to
+assail those guilty of crimes of violence, he in one stanza speaks
+of the torments inflicted by divine justice on Attila (coupling him
+with Pyrrhus and Sextus Pompey--a sufficiently odd conjunction in
+itself, by the way), and in the next stanza mentions the names of a
+couple of local highwaymen who had made travel unsafe in particular
+neighborhoods. The two highwaymen in question were by no means as
+important as Jesse James and Billy the Kid; doubtless they were far
+less formidable fighting men, and their adventures were less striking
+and varied. Yet think of the way we should feel if a great poet should
+now arise who would incidentally illustrate the ferocity of the human
+heart by allusions both to the terrible Hunnish “scourge of God” and
+to the outlaws who in our own times defied justice in Missouri and New
+Mexico!
+
+When Dante wishes to illustrate the fierce passions of the human
+heart, he may speak of Lycurgus, or of Saul; or he may speak of two
+local contemporary captains, victor or vanquished in obscure struggles
+between Guelph and Ghibellin; men like Jacopo del Cassero or Buonconte,
+whom he mentions as naturally as he does Cyrus or Rehoboam. He is
+entirely right! What one among our own writers, however, would be able
+simply and naturally to mention Ulrich Dahlgren, or Custer, or Morgan,
+or Raphael Semmes, or Marion, or Sumter, as illustrating the qualities
+shown by Hannibal, or Rameses, or William the Conqueror, or by Moses or
+Hercules? Yet the Guelph and Ghibellin captains of whom Dante speaks
+were in no way as important as these American soldiers of the second or
+third rank. Dante saw nothing incongruous in treating at length of the
+qualities of all of them; he was not thinking of comparing the genius
+of the unimportant local leader with the genius of the great sovereign
+conquerors of the past--he was thinking only of the qualities of
+courage and daring and of the awful horror of death; and when we deal
+with what is elemental in the human soul it matters but little whose
+soul we take. In the same way he mentions a couple of spendthrifts of
+Padua and Siena, who come to violent ends, just as in the preceding
+canto he had dwelt upon the tortures undergone by Dionysius and Simon
+de Montfort, guarded by Nessus and his fellow centaurs. For some reason
+he hated the spendthrifts in question as the Whigs of Revolutionary
+South Carolina and New York hated Tarleton, Kruger, Saint Leger, and De
+Lancey; and to him there was nothing incongruous in drawing a lesson
+from one couple of offenders more than from another. (It would, by the
+way, be outside my present purpose to speak of the rather puzzling
+manner in which Dante confounds his own hatreds with those of heaven,
+and, for instance, shows a vindictive enjoyment in putting his personal
+opponent Filippo Argenti in hell, for no clearly adequate reason.)
+
+When he turns from those whom he is glad to see in hell toward those
+for whom he cares, he shows the same delightful power of penetrating
+through the externals into the essentials. Cato and Manfred illustrate
+his point no better than Belacqua, a contemporary Florentine maker of
+citherns. Alas! what poet to-day would dare to illustrate his argument
+by introducing Steinway in company with Cato and Manfred! Yet again,
+when examples of love are needed, he draws them from the wedding-feast
+at Cana, from the actions of Pylades and Orestes, and from the life
+of a kindly, honest comb-dealer of Siena who had just died. Could
+we now link together Peter Cooper and Pylades, without feeling a
+sense of incongruity? He couples Priscian with a politician of local
+note who had written an encyclopædia and a lawyer of distinction
+who had lectured at Bologna and Oxford; we could not now with such
+fine unconsciousness bring Evarts and one of the compilers of the
+Encyclopædia Britannica into a like comparison.
+
+When Dante deals with the crimes which he most abhorred, simony and
+barratry, he flails offenders of his age who were of the same type as
+those who in our days flourish by political or commercial corruption;
+and he names his offenders, both those just dead and those still
+living, and puts them, popes and politicians alike, in hell. There have
+been trust magnates and politicians and editors and magazine-writers
+in our own country whose lives and deeds were no more edifying than
+those of the men who lie in the third and the fifth chasm of the eighth
+circle of the Inferno; yet for a poet to name those men would be
+condemned as an instance of shocking taste.
+
+One age expresses itself naturally in a form that would be unnatural,
+and therefore undesirable, in another age. We do not express ourselves
+nowadays in epics at all; and we keep the emotions aroused in us by
+what is good or evil in the men of the present in a totally different
+compartment from that which holds our emotions concerning what was
+good or evil in the men of the past. An imitation of the letter of the
+times past, when the spirit has wholly altered, would be worse than
+useless; and the very qualities that help to make Dante’s poem immortal
+would, if copied nowadays, make the copyist ridiculous. Nevertheless,
+it would be a good thing if we could, in some measure, achieve the
+mighty Florentine’s high simplicity of soul, at least to the extent of
+recognizing in those around us the eternal qualities which we admire
+or condemn in the men who wrought good or evil at any stage in the
+world’s previous history. Dante’s masterpiece is one of the supreme
+works of art that the ages have witnessed; but he would have been
+the last to wish that it should be treated only as a work of art, or
+worshipped only for art’s sake, without reference to the dread lessons
+it teaches mankind.
+
+
+
+
+THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
+
+
+
+
+THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY[8]
+
+
+Mr. H. S. Chamberlain’s work on “The Foundations of the Nineteenth
+Century” is a noteworthy book in more ways than one. It is written by
+an Englishman who has been educated on the Continent, and has lived
+there until he is much more German than English. Previously he had
+written a book in French, while this particular book was written in
+German, and has only recently been translated into English. Adequately
+to review the book, or rather to write an adequate essay suggested by
+it, would need the space that would have been taken by an old-time
+Quarterly or Edinburgh Reviewer a century or fourscore years ago. I
+have called the book “noteworthy,” and this it certainly is. It ranks
+with Buckle’s “History of Civilization,” and still more with Gobineau’s
+“Inégalité des Races Humaines,” for its brilliancy and suggestiveness
+and also for its startling inaccuracies and lack of judgment. A
+witty English critic once remarked of Mitford that he had all the
+qualifications of an historian--violent partiality and extreme wrath.
+Mr. Chamberlain certainly possesses these qualifications in excess,
+and, combined with a queer vein of the erratic in his temperament, they
+almost completely offset the value of his extraordinary erudition,
+extending into widely varied fields, and of his occasionally really
+brilliant inspiration. He is, however, always entertaining; which is
+of itself no mean merit, in view of the fact that most serious writers
+seem unable to regard themselves as serious unless they are also dull.
+
+    [8] “The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century.” By Houston
+        Stewart Chamberlain. A translation from the German, by
+        John Lees. With an introduction by Lord Redesdale. In two
+        volumes.
+
+Mr. Chamberlain’s thesis is that the nineteenth century, and therefore
+the twentieth and all future centuries, depend for everything in them
+worth mentioning and preserving upon the Teutonic branch of the Aryan
+race. He holds that there is no such thing as a general progress of
+mankind, that progress is only for those whom he calls the Teutons,
+and that when they mix with or are intruded upon by alien and, as he
+regards them, lower races, the result is fatal. Much that he says
+regarding the prevalent loose and sloppy talk about the general
+progress of humanity, the equality and identity of races, and the like,
+is not only perfectly true, but is emphatically worth considering by a
+generation accustomed, as its forefathers for the preceding generations
+were accustomed, to accept as true and useful thoroughly pernicious
+doctrines taught by well-meaning and feeble-minded sentimentalists; but
+Mr. Chamberlain himself is quite as fantastic an extremist as any of
+those whom he derides, and an extremist whose doctrines are based upon
+foolish hatred is even more unlovely than an extremist whose doctrines
+are based upon foolish benevolence. Mr. Chamberlain’s hatreds cover a
+wide gamut. They include Jews, Darwinists, the Roman Catholic Church,
+the people of southern Europe, Peruvians, Semites, and an odd variety
+of literary men and historians.[9] To this sufficiently incongruous
+collection of antipathies he adds a much smaller selection of violent
+attachments, ranging from imaginary primitive Teutons and Aryans to
+Immanuel Kant, and Indian theology, metaphysics, and philosophy--he
+draws sharp distinctions between all three, and I merely use them to
+indicate his admiration for the Indian habit of thought, an admiration
+which goes hand in hand with and accentuates his violent hatred for
+what most sane people regard as the far nobler thought contained, for
+instance, in the Old Testament. He continually contradicts himself, or
+at least uses words in such diametrically opposite senses as to convey
+the effect of contradiction; and so it would be possible to choose
+phrases of his which contradict what is here said; but I think that I
+give a correct impression of his teaching as a whole.
+
+    [9] Some of his antipathies appeal to the present writer;
+        I much enjoy his irrelevant and hearty denunciation of
+        the folly of treating the comparatively trivial Latin
+        literature as of such peculiar importance as to entitle it
+        to be grouped in grotesque association with the magnificent
+        Greek literature under the unmeaning title of “classic.”
+
+As he touches lightly on an infinitely varied range of subjects, it
+would be possible to choose almost at random passages to justify what
+is said above. Take, for instance, his dogmatic assertions concerning
+faith and works. He frantically condemns the doctrine of salvation
+by works and frantically exalts the doctrine of salvation by faith.
+Much that he says about both doctrines must be taken in so mystical
+and involved a sense that it contains little real meaning to ordinary
+men. Yet he is also capable of expressing, on this very subject, noble
+thought in a lofty manner. In one of his sudden lapses into brilliant
+sanity he emphasizes the fact that Saint Francis of Assisi was faith
+incorporate and yet the special apostle of good works; and that Martin
+Luther, the advocate of redemption by faith, consecrated his life and
+revealed to others the secret of good works--“free works done only to
+please God, not for the sake of piety.”
+
+Unfortunately, these brilliant lapses into sanity are fixed in a
+matrix of fairly bedlamite passion and non-sanity. Mr. Chamberlain
+jeers with reason at the Roman Curia because until 1822 it kept on
+the Index all books which taught that the earth went round the sun;
+but really such action is not much worse than that of a man professing
+to write a book like this at the outset of the twentieth century
+who takes the attitude Mr. Chamberlain does toward the teaching of
+Darwin. The acceptance of the fundamental truths of evolution are
+quite as necessary to sound scientific thought as the acceptance of
+the fundamental truths concerning the solar system; and the attempt
+that Mr. Chamberlain in one place makes to draw a distinction between
+them is fantastic. Again, take what Mr. Chamberlain says of Aryans and
+Teutons. He bursts the flood-gates of scorn when he deals with persons
+who idealize humanity, or, as he styles it, “so-called humanity”; and
+he says: “For this humanity about which man has philosophized to such
+an extent suffers from the serious defect that it does not exist at
+all. History reveals to us a great number of various human beings, but
+no such thing as humanity”; yet on this very page he attributes the
+history of the growth of our civilization to its “Teutonic” character,
+and he uses the word “Teuton” as well as the word “Aryan” with as utter
+a looseness and vagueness as ever any philanthropist or revolutionist
+used the word “humanity.” All that he says in derision of such a forced
+use of the word “humanity” could with a much greater percentage of
+truthfulness be said as regards the words and ideas symbolized by
+Teutonism and Aryanism as Mr. Chamberlain uses these terms. Indeed,
+as he uses them they amount to little more than expressions of his
+personal likes and dislikes. His statement of the raceless chaos into
+which the Roman Empire finally lapsed is, on the whole, just, and, to
+use the words continually coming to one’s mind in dealing with him,
+both brilliant and suggestive. But in his anxiety to claim everything
+good for Aryans and Teutons he finally reduces himself to the position
+of insisting that wherever he sees a man whom he admires he must
+postulate for him Aryan, and, better still, Teutonic blood. He likes
+David, so he promptly makes him an Aryan Amorite. He likes Michael
+Angelo, and Dante, and Leonardo da Vinci, and he instantly says that
+they are Teutons; but he does not like Napoleon, and so he says that
+Napoleon is a true representative of the raceless chaos. The noted
+Italians in question, he states, were all of German origin, descended
+from the Germans who had conquered Italy in the sixth century. Now,
+of course, if Mr. Chamberlain is willing to be serious with himself,
+he must know perfectly well that even by the time of Dante seven or
+eight centuries had passed, and by the time of the other great Italians
+he mentions eight or ten centuries had passed, since the Germanic
+invasion. In other words, these great Italians were separated from
+the days of the Gothic and Lombard invasions by the distance which
+separates modern England from the Norman invasion; and his thesis has
+just about as much substance as would be contained in the statement
+that Wellington, Nelson, Turner, Wordsworth, and Tennyson excelled in
+their several spheres because they were all pure-blood descendants of
+the motley crew that came in with William the Conqueror. The different
+ethnic elements which entered into the Italy of the seventh century
+were in complete solution by the thirteenth, and it would have been
+quite as impossible to trace them to their several original strains
+as nowadays to trace in the average Englishman the various strains of
+blood from his Norman, Saxon, Celtic, and Scandinavian ancestors. Nor
+does Mr. Chamberlain mind believing two incompatible things in the
+quickest possible succession if they happen to suit his philosophy of
+the moment. Generally, when he speaks of the Teuton he thinks of the
+tall, long-headed man of the north; although, because of some crank
+in his mind, he puts in the proviso that he may have black as well as
+blond hair. The round-skulled man of middle Europe he usually condemns;
+but if his mind happens to run with approbation toward the Tyrolese,
+for instance, he at once forgets what ethnic division of Europeans
+it is to which they belong, and accepts them as typical Teutons. He
+greatly admires the teaching of the Apostle Paul, and so he endeavors
+to persuade himself that the Apostle Paul was not really a Jew; but
+he does not like the teachings of the Epistle of James on the subject
+of good works (teachings for which I have a peculiar sympathy, by the
+way), and accordingly he says that James was a pure Jew.
+
+Fundamentally, very many of Mr. Chamberlain’s ideas are true and
+noble. I admire the morality with which he condemns the intolerance
+of Calvin and Luther no less strongly than the intolerance of their
+Roman opponents, and yet his acceptance of the fact that they could not
+have done their great work if there had not been in their characters
+an alloy which made it possible for actual humanity to accept their
+teaching. But even his sense of morality is as curiously capricious
+as that of Carlyle himself, and as little trustworthy. He glories in
+the pointless and wanton barbarity of the destruction of Carthage in
+the Third Punic War as saving Europe from the Afro-Asiatic peril--pure
+nonsense, of course, for Carthage was then no more dangerous to Rome
+than Corinth was, and the sacks of the two cities stand on a par as
+regards any importance in their after effects. Perhaps his attitude
+toward Byron is more practically mischievous, or at least shows a
+much less desirable trait of character. He says that the personality
+of Byron “has something repulsive in it for every thorough Teuton,
+because we nowhere encounter in it the idea of duty,” which makes him
+“unsympathetic, un-Teutonic”; but he adds that Teutons do not object
+in the least to his licentiousness, and, on the contrary, see in it “a
+proof of genuine race”! Really, this reconciliation of a high ideal
+of duty with gross licentiousness would be infamous if it were not so
+unspeakably comic. On the next page, by the way, Mr. Chamberlain says
+that Louis XIV was anti-Teutonic in his persecution of the Protestants,
+but a thorough Teuton when he defended the liberties of the Gallican
+church against Rome! Now such intellectual antics as these, and the
+haphazard use of any kind of a name (without the least reference to
+its ordinary use, provided Mr. Chamberlain has taken a fancy to it)
+to represent or symbolize any individual or attribute of which he
+approves, makes it very difficult to accept the book as having any
+serious merit whatever. Yet interspersed with innumerable pages which
+at best are those of an able man whose mind is not quite sound, and at
+worst lose their brilliancy without their irrationality, there are many
+pages of deep thought and lofty morality based upon wide learning and
+wide literary and even scientific knowledge. There could be no more
+unsafe book to follow implicitly, and few books of such pretensions
+more ludicrously unsound; and yet it is a book which students and
+scholars, and men who, though neither students nor scholars, are yet
+deeply interested in life, must have on their book-shelves. Much
+the same criticism should be passed upon him that he himself passes
+upon John Fiske, to whose great work, “The History of the Discovery
+of America,” he gives deserved and unstinted praise, but at whom he
+rails for solemnly, and, as Mr. Chamberlain says, with more than Papal
+pretensions to infallibility, setting forth complete patent solutions
+for all the problems connected not merely with the origin but with
+the destiny of man. Mr. Chamberlain differentiates sharply between
+the admirable work Fiske did in such a book as that treating of the
+discovery of America and the work he did when he ventured to dogmatize
+loosely, after the manner of Darwin’s successors in the ’70s and ’80s,
+upon a scanty collection of facts very imperfectly understood. But Mr.
+Chamberlain himself would have done far better if in his book he had
+copied the methods and modesty of Fiske at his best--the methods and
+modesty of such books as Sutherland’s “Origin and Growth of the Moral
+Instinct”--and had refrained from taking an attitude of cock-sureness
+concerning problems which at present no one can more than imperfectly
+understand. He is unwise to follow Brougham’s example and make
+omniscience his foible.
+
+Yet, after all is said, a man who can write such a really beautiful
+and solemn appreciation of true Christianity, of true acceptance of
+Christ’s teachings and personality, as Mr. Chamberlain has done, a man
+who can sketch as vividly as he has sketched the fundamental facts of
+the Roman empire in the first three centuries of our era, a man who can
+warn us as clearly as he has warned about some of the pressing dangers
+which threaten our social fabric because of indulgence in a morbid and
+false sentimentality, a man, in short, who has produced in this one
+book materials for half a dozen excellent books on utterly diverse
+subjects, represents an influence to be reckoned with and seriously to
+be taken into account.
+
+
+
+
+THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH IN A REVERENT SPIRIT
+
+
+
+
+THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH IN A REVERENT SPIRIT
+
+
+There is superstition in science quite as much as there is superstition
+in theology, and it is all the more dangerous because those suffering
+from it are profoundly convinced that they are freeing themselves from
+all superstition. No grotesque repulsiveness of mediæval superstition,
+even as it survived into nineteenth-century Spain and Naples, could
+be much more intolerant, much more destructive of all that is fine in
+morality, in the spiritual sense, and indeed in civilization itself,
+than that hard dogmatic materialism of to-day which often not merely
+calls itself scientific but arrogates to itself the sole right to use
+the term. If these pretensions affected only scientific men themselves,
+it would be a matter of small moment, but unfortunately they tend
+gradually to affect the whole people, and to establish a very dangerous
+standard of private and public conduct in the public mind.
+
+This tendency is dangerous everywhere, but nowhere more dangerous
+than among the nations in which the movement toward an unshackled
+materialism is helped by the reaction against the deadly thraldom of
+political and clerical absolutism. The first of the books mentioned
+below[10] is written by a Montevideo gentleman of distinction. Under
+the rather fanciful title of “The Death of the Swan” it deals with
+the shortcomings of Latin civilization, accepts whole-heartedly the
+doctrines of pure materialism as a remedy for these shortcomings, and
+draws lessons from the success of the Northern races, and especially
+of our own countrymen, which I, for one, am unwilling to have drawn.
+The author feels that the civilization of France, Italy, and Spain is
+going down, and that it owes its decadence to submission to an outworn
+governmental and ecclesiastical tyranny, and especially to the futility
+of its ideals in government, religion, and the whole art of living, a
+futility so wrong-headed and far-reaching as to have turned aside the
+people from all that makes for real efficiency and success. In his
+revolt against sentimentality, mock humanitarianism, and hypocrisy the
+author advocates frank egotism and brutality as rules of conduct for
+both individuals and nations; and in his revolt against the theological
+tyranny and superstition from which the Spanish peoples in the Old and
+New Worlds have suffered so much in the past he advocates implicit
+obedience to the revolting creed which would treat gold and force as
+the true and only gods for human guidance; and this he does in the
+name of science and enlightenment and of exact and correct thinking.
+He speaks with admiration of certain American qualities, confounding
+in curious fashion the use and abuse of great but dangerous traits.
+He fails to see that the line of separation between the school of
+Washington and of Lincoln and the school of the prophets of brutal
+force, as expressed in the deification of either Mars or Mammon, is
+as sharp as that which distinguishes both of these schools from the
+apostles of the silly sentimentalism which he justly condemns. He sees
+that the really great Americans were thoroughly practical men; but
+he is blind to the fact that they were also lofty idealists. It was
+precisely because they were both idealists and practical men that they
+made their mark deep in history. He sees that they abhorred bigotry
+and superstition; he does not see that they were sundered as far from
+the men who attack all religion and all order as from the men who
+uphold either governmental or religious tyranny. It was the fact that
+Washington and Lincoln refused to carry good policies to bad extremes,
+and at the same time refused to be frightened out of supporting good
+policies because they might lead to bad extremes, that made them of
+such far-reaching usefulness.
+
+    [10] “La Mort du Cygne.” By Carlos Reyles. Translation from
+    Spanish into French by Alfred de Bengoechea.
+
+    “Thoughts of a Catholic Anatomist.” By Thomas Dwight, M.D.
+
+    “The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.” By Henry Osborn
+    Taylor.
+
+    “Some Neglected Factors in Evolution.” By Henry M. Bernard.
+
+    “The World of Life.” By Alfred Russel Wallace.
+
+    “William James.” By Émile Boutroux.
+
+    “Science et Religion.” By Émile Boutroux.
+
+    “Science and Religion.” By Émile Boutroux. Translation into
+    English by Jonathan Nield.
+
+    “Creative Evolution.” By Henri Bergson. Authorized translation
+    by Arthur Mitchell.
+
+    “The Varieties of Religious Experience.” By William James.
+
+    “Time and Free Will.” By Henri Bergson. Translation by F. L.
+    Pogson.
+
+    “From Epicurus to Christ.” By William De Witt Hyde.
+
+    “The Sixth Sense.” By Bishop Charles H. Brent.
+
+    I need hardly say that I am not attempting to review these
+    books in even the briefest and most epitomized fashion. I use
+    them only to illustrate certain phases, good and bad, in the
+    search for truth; as, for instance, the harm that comes from
+    seeking to apply, universally, truth as apprehended by the
+    mere materialist, the futility of trying to check this harm
+    by invoking the spirit of reactionary mediævalism, and the
+    fundamental agreement reached by truth-seekers of the highest
+    type, both scientific and religious.
+
+Dr. Dwight’s book is very largely a protest against the materialistic
+philosophy which has produced such conceptions of life, and against
+these conceptions of life themselves. With this protest we must all
+heartily sympathize; unfortunately, it is impossible to have such
+sympathy with the reactionary spirit in which he makes his protest.
+There is much that is true in the assault he makes; but in his zeal
+to show where the leaders of the modern advance have been guilty of
+shortcomings he tends to assume positions which would put an instant
+stop to any honest effort to advance at all, and would plunge us back
+into the cringing and timid ignorance of the Dark Ages. Apparently
+the ideal after which Dr. Dwight strives is that embodied in the man
+of the Middle Ages of whom Professor Henry Osborn Taylor in one of
+his profound and able studies has said: “The mediæval man was not
+spiritually self-reliant, his character was not consciously wrought by
+its own strength of mind and purpose. Subject to bursts of unrestraint,
+he yet showed no intelligent desire for liberty.”
+
+Dr. Dwight holds that there is an ominous parallelism between the lines
+of thought of the materialistic scientists of to-day and those of
+the French Revolution. Strongly though he disapproves of much of the
+thought of modern science, he disapproves even more strongly of the
+Revolution. In speaking of the similarities between them he says:
+
+“Among the characters of the Revolution we meet all kinds of company.
+There are the honest men anxious for reform, the protesters against
+what they conceived to be religious oppression, the dreamy idealists
+without definite plan, the ranting orators of the ‘mountain,’ fanatics
+and demagogues at once, the wily ones who make a living from the more
+or less sincere promulgation of revolutionary doctrines and who find
+legalized plunder very profitable, the army of those who for fear or
+for favor prefer to be on the winning side and follow the fashionable
+doctrines without an examination which most of them are incompetent
+to make, and finally the mob of the _sans-culottes_ rejoicing in the
+overthrow of law, order, and decency.”
+
+This is true, although it does not contain by any means the whole
+truth; moreover, the parallelism with the scientific movement of the
+present day undoubtedly in part obtains. Yet the saying which Dr.
+Dwight quotes with approval from Herbert Spencer applies to what he
+himself attempts; to destroy the case of one’s opponents and to justify
+one’s own case are two very different things. At present we are in
+greater danger of suffering in things spiritual from a wrong-headed
+scientific materialism than from religious bigotry and intolerance;
+just as at present we are threatened rather by what is vicious among
+the ideas that triumphed in the Revolution than we are from what is
+vicious in the ideas that it overthrew. But this is merely because
+victorious evil necessarily contains more menace than defeated evil;
+and it will not do to forget the other side, nor to let our protest
+against the evil of the present drive us into championship of the
+evil of the past. The excesses of the French Revolution were not only
+hideous in themselves, but were fraught with a menace to civilization
+which has lasted until our time and which has found its most vicious
+expression in the Paris Commune of 1871 and its would-be imitators
+here and in other lands. Nevertheless, there was hope for mankind in
+the French Revolution, and there was none in the system against which
+it was a protest, a system which had reached its highest development
+in Spain. Better the terrible flame of the French Revolution than the
+worse than Stygian hopelessness of the tyranny--physical, intellectual,
+spiritual--which brooded over the Spain of that day. So it is with the
+modern scientific movement. There is very much in it to regret; there
+is much that is misdirected and wrong; and Dr. Dwight is quite right
+in the protest he makes against Haeckel and to a less extent against
+Weismann, and against the intolerant arrogance and fanatical dogmatism
+which the scientists of their school display to as great an extent as
+ever did any of the ecclesiastics against whom they profess to be in
+revolt. The experience of our sister republic of France has shown us
+that not only scientists but politicians, professing to be radical in
+their liberalism, may in actual fact show a bigoted intolerance of
+the most extreme kind in their attacks on religion; and bigotry and
+intolerance are at least as objectionable when anti-religious as when
+nominally religious. But in his entirely proper protest against these
+men and their like Dr. Dwight is less than just to Darwin and to many
+another seeker after truth, and he fails to recognize the obligation
+under which he and those like him have been put by the fearless
+pioneers of the new movement. The debt of mankind to the modern
+scientific movement is incalculable; the evil that has accompanied it
+has been real; but the good has much outweighed the evil. It is only
+the triumph of the movement led by the men against whom Dr. Dwight
+protests that has rendered it possible for books such as Dr. Dwight’s
+to be published with the approval--as in his case--of the orthodox
+thought of the church to which the writer belongs.
+
+The most significant feature of his book is the advance it marks in
+the distance which orthodoxy has travelled. He grudgingly admits the
+doctrine of evolution, although--quite rightly, and in true scientific
+spirit, by the way--he insists most strongly upon the fact that we
+are as yet groping in the dark as we essay to explain its causes or
+show its significance; and he is again quite right in holding up as
+an example to the dogmatists of modern science what Roger Bacon said
+in the thirteenth century: “The first essential for advancement in
+knowledge is for men to be willing to say, ‘We do not know.’” He,
+of course, treats of the solar system, the law of gravitation, and
+the like as every other educated man now treats of them. Now, all of
+this represents a great advance. A half-century ago no recognized
+authorities of any church would have treated an evolutionist as an
+orthodox man. A century ago Dr. Dwight would not have been permitted to
+print his book as orthodox if it had even contained the statement that
+the earth goes round the sun. In the days of Leonardo da Vinci popular
+opinion sustained the church authorities in their refusal to allow that
+extraordinary man to dissect dead bodies, and the use of antitoxin
+would unquestionably have been considered a very dangerous heresy from
+all standpoints. In their generations Copernicus and Galileo were held
+to be dangerous opponents of orthodoxy, just as Darwin was held to be
+when he brought out his “Origin of Species,” just as Mendel’s work
+would have been held if Darwin’s far greater work had not distracted
+attention from him. The discovery of the circulation of the blood was
+at the time thought by many worthy people to be in contradiction of
+what was taught in Holy Writ; and the men who first felt their way
+toward the discovery of the law of gravitation made as many blunders
+and opened themselves to assault on as many points as was the case with
+those who first felt their way to the establishment of the doctrine
+of evolution. The Dr. Dwights of to-day can write with the freedom
+they do only because of the triumph of the ideas of those scientific
+innovators of the past whom the Dr. Dwights of their day emphatically
+condemned.
+
+But when Dr. Dwight attacks the loose generalizations, absurd
+dogmatism, and ludicrous assumption of omniscient wisdom of not a few
+of the so-called leaders of modern science, he is not only right but
+renders a real service. The claims of certain so-called scientific
+men as to “science overthrowing religion” are as baseless as the
+fears of certain sincerely religious men on the same subject. The
+establishment of the doctrine of evolution in our time offers no more
+justification for upsetting religious beliefs than the discovery of
+the facts concerning the solar system a few centuries ago. Any faith
+sufficiently robust to stand the--surely very slight--strain of
+admitting that the world is not flat and does move round the sun need
+have no apprehensions on the score of evolution, and the materialistic
+scientists who gleefully hail the discovery of the principle of
+evolution as establishing their dreary creed might with just as much
+propriety rest it upon the discovery of the principle of gravitation.
+Science and religion, and the relations between them, are affected by
+one only as they are affected by the other. Genuine harm has been done
+by the crass materialism of men like Haeckel, a materialism which,
+in its unscientific assumptions and in its utter insufficiency to
+explain all the phenomena it professes to explain, has been exposed
+in masterly fashion by such really great thinkers--such masters not
+only of philosophy but of material science--as William James, Émile
+Boutroux, and Henri Bergson. It is worth while to quote the remarks
+of Alfred Russel Wallace, the veteran evolutionist: “With Professor
+Haeckel’s dislike of the dogmas of theologians and their claims as to
+the absolute knowledge of the nature and attributes of the inscrutable
+mind that is the power within and behind and around nature many of
+us have the greatest sympathy; but we have none with his unfounded
+dogmatism of combined negation and omniscience, and more especially
+when this assumption of superior knowledge seems to be put forward to
+conceal his real ignorance of the nature of life itself.” Dr. Dwight
+is emphatically right when he denies that science (using the word, as
+he does, as meaning merely the science of material things) has taught
+“a new and sufficient gospel,” or that, to use his own words, there
+is any truth “in the boast of infidel science that she and she alone
+has all that is worth having.” He could go even further than he does
+in refuting the queer optimism of those evolutionists who insist that
+evolution in the human race necessarily means progress; for every true
+evolutionist must admit the possibility of retrogression no less
+than of progress, and exactly as species of animals have sunk after
+having risen, so in the history of mankind it has again and again
+happened that races of men, and whole civilizations, have sunk after
+having risen. In so far as Dr. Dwight’s view of religion is that it
+is the gospel of duty and of human service, his view is emphatically
+right; and surely when the doctrine of the gospel of works is taken to
+mean the gospel of service to mankind, and not merely the performance
+of a barren ceremonial, it must command the respect, and I hope the
+adherence, of all devout men of every creed, and even of those who
+adhere to no creed of recognized orthodoxy.
+
+In the same way I heartily sympathize with his condemnation of the men
+who stridently proclaim that “science has disposed of religion,” and
+with his condemnation of the scientific men who would try to teach
+the community that there is no real meaning to the words “right”
+and “wrong,” and who therefore deny free-will and accountability.
+Even as sound a thinker as Mr. Bernard, whose book is rightly, as he
+calls it, “an essay in constructive biology,” who in his theory of
+group development has opened a new biological and even sociological
+field of capital importance, who explicitly recognizes the psychical
+accompaniment of physical force as something distinct from it, and
+whose final chapter on the integration of the human aggregate shows
+that he has a far nobler view of life than any mere materialist
+can have, yet falls into the great mistake of denying freedom of
+the will, merely because he with his finite material intelligence
+can not understand it. Dr. Dwight is right in his attitude toward
+the scientific men who thus assume that there is no freedom of the
+will because on a material basis it is not explicable. Whenever any
+so-called scientific men develop, as an abstract proposition, a theory
+in accordance with which it would be quite impossible to conduct
+the affairs of mankind for so much as twenty-four hours, the wise
+attitude of really scientific men would be to reject that theory,
+instead of following the example of the, I fear not wholly imaginary,
+scientist who, when told that the facts did not fit in with his
+theory, answered: “So much the worse for the facts.” M. Bergson, in
+his “Creative Evolution,” has brought out with convincing clearness
+the great truth that the human brain, so able to deal with purely
+material things, and with sciences, such as geometry, in which thought
+is concerned only with unorganized matter, works under necessarily
+narrow limitations--limitations in reality very, very narrow, and never
+to be made really broad by mere intellect--when it comes to grasping
+any part of the great principle of life. Reason can deal effectively
+only with certain categories. True wisdom must necessarily refuse to
+allow reason to assume a sway outside of its limitations; and where
+experience plainly proves that the intellect has reasoned wrongly,
+then it is the part of wisdom to accept the teachings of experience,
+and bid reason be humble--just as under like conditions it would
+bid theology be humble. A certain school of Greek philosophers was
+able to prove logically that there was not, and could not be, any
+such thing as motion, and that, even if there were, it was quite
+impossible logically for a pursuing creature ever to overtake a fleeing
+creature which was going at inferior speed; but all that was really
+accomplished by this teaching was to prove the need of much greater
+intellectual humility on the part of those who believed that they were
+capable of thinking out an explanation for everything. Mr. Bernard
+ought not to have been caught in such a dilemma, because of the very
+fact that he does not cast in his lot with the crass materialists;
+for he admits that there are many things we do not know, that there
+is much which our intelligence--necessarily functioning in material
+fashion--can not understand. It is just as idle for a man to try to
+explain everything in the moral and spiritual world by that which he
+is able to apprehend of the material world as it would be for a polyp
+to try to explain the higher emotions of mankind in terms of polyp
+materialism. Not only would it be quite impossible to conduct even
+the lowest form of civil society without practical acknowledgment of
+free-will and accountability--an acknowledgment always made in practice
+by every single individual of those who deny it in theory--but even
+in their writings the very men who deny free-will and accountability
+inevitably and continually use language which has no meaning except on
+the supposition that both of them exist. Mr. Bernard, for instance,
+on the same page on which he denies freedom of the will, makes an
+impatient plea for just laws, and explains that by “just laws” he
+means laws that are in accordance with the highest conceptions of
+human relationships; he complains that the legal idea of justice is
+invariably far behind that of our psychic perceptions; and elsewhere,
+as on page 457, he speaks of the “duties” of man and of his “moral
+perceptions,” and on page 473 he asks for perfection of the community,
+so that “social life worked out by the highest wisdom of mankind will
+at once rise to a newer and higher physical and psychic level.” All
+of this is meaningless if there are no such things as freedom of the
+will and accountability; and its goes to show that even a profound and
+original thinker, if he has dwelt too long in the realms where the
+pure materialist is king, needs to pay heed to M. Bergson’s pregnant
+saying that “pure reasoning needs to be supervised by common sense,
+which is an altogether different thing.” A part, and an essential part,
+of the same truth is expressed by Mr. Taylor when he paraphrases Saint
+Augustine in insisting that “the truths of love are as valid as the
+truths of reason.”
+
+Dr. Dwight and the many men whose habits of thought are similar to his
+perform a real service when they keep people from being led astray by
+the mischievous dogmas of those who would give to each passing and
+evanescent phase of materialistic scientific thought a dogmatic value;
+and our full acknowledgment of this service does not in the least
+hinder us from also realizing and acknowledging that the advance in
+scientific discovery, which has been and will be of such priceless
+worth to mankind, can not be made by men of this type, but only by the
+bolder, more self-reliant spirits, by men whose unfettered freedom of
+soul and intellect yields complete fealty only to the great cause of
+truth, and will not be hindered by any outside control in the search
+to attain it. A brake is often a useful and sometimes an indispensable
+piece of equipment of a wagon; but it is never as important as the
+wheels. As the University of Wisconsin declared when Dr. Richard T.
+Ely was tried for economic heresy: “In all lines of investigation the
+investigator must be absolutely free to follow the paths of truth
+wherever they may lead.”
+
+It is always a difficult thing to state a position which has two sides
+with such clearness as to bring it home to the hearers. In the world
+of politics it is easy to appeal to the unreasoning reactionary, and
+no less easy to appeal to the unreasoning advocate of change, but
+difficult to get people to show for the cause of sanity and progress
+combined the zeal so easily aroused against sanity by one set of
+extremists and against progress by another set of extremists. So in
+the world of the intellect it is easy to take the position of the hard
+materialists who rail against religion, and easy also to take the
+position of those whose zeal for orthodoxy makes them distrust all
+action by men of independent mind in the search for scientific truth;
+but it is not so easy to make it understood that we both acknowledge
+our inestimable debt to the great masters of science, and yet are
+keenly alive to their errors and decline to surrender our judgment to
+theirs when they go wrong. It is imperative to realize how very grave
+their errors are, and how foolish we should be to abandon our adherence
+to the old ideals of duty toward God and man without better security
+than the more radical among the new prophets can offer us. The very
+blindest of those new scientific prophets are those whose complacency
+is greatest in their belief that the material key is that which
+unlocks all the mysteries of the universe, and that the finite mind of
+man can, not merely understand, but pass supercilious judgment upon,
+these mysteries. Mr. Wallace stands in honorable contrast to the men
+of this stamp. No one has criticised with greater incisiveness what he
+properly calls “the vague, incomprehensible, and offensive assertions
+of the biologists of the school of Haeckel.” He shows his scientific
+superiority to these men by his entire realization of the limitations
+of the human intelligence, by his realization of the folly of thinking
+that we have explained what we are simply unable to understand when
+we use such terms as “infinity of time” and “infinity of space” to
+cover our ignorance; and he stands not far away from the school of
+MM. Boutroux and Bergson, and, old man though he is, comes near the
+attitude of the more serious among the younger present-day scientific
+investigators--of the stamp of Professor Osborn, of the American
+Museum of Natural History--in his readiness to acknowledge that the
+materialistic and mechanical explanations of the causes of evolution
+have broken down, and that science itself furnishes an overwhelming
+argument for “creative power, directive mind, and ultimate purpose” in
+the process of evolution.
+
+The law of evolution is as unconditionally accepted by every serious
+man of science to-day as is the law of gravitation; and it is no more
+and no less foolish to regard one than the other as antagonistic to
+religion. To reject either on Biblical grounds stands on a par with
+insisting, on the same grounds, that geological science must reconcile
+itself--and astronomy as well--to a universe only six thousand years
+old. The type of theologian who takes such a position occupies much the
+same intellectual level with the strutting materialists of the Haeckel
+type. To all men of this kind I most cordially commend a capital book,
+“Evolution and Dogma,” by the Rev. J. A. Zahm, one-time professor of
+physics at the University of Notre Dame, in Indiana.
+
+The great distinguishing feature of the centuries immediately past
+has been the extraordinary growth in man’s knowledge of, and power
+to understand and command, his own physical nature and his physical
+surroundings in the universe. It is this growth which so sharply
+distinguishes modern civilization, the civilization which we may
+roughly date as beginning about the time of Columbus’s voyage, from all
+preceding civilizations; and it has not only immeasurably increased
+man’s power over nature, but, when rightly understood, has also
+measurably added to his inner dignity and worth, and to his power and
+command over things spiritual no less than material. This conquest
+could have been achieved only by men who dared to follow wherever their
+longing for the truth led them, and who were masters of their own
+consciences, and as little servile to the past as to the present. But
+no such movement for the uplifting of mankind ever has taken place,
+or ever will or can take place, without being fraught also with great
+dangers to mankind. Our hope lies in progress, for if we try to remain
+stationary we shall surely go backward; and yet as soon as we leave the
+ground on which we stand in order to advance there is always danger
+that we shall plunge into some abyss.
+
+Naturally, the men who have taken the lead in these extraordinary
+material discoveries have often tended to think that there is nothing
+to discover or to believe in except what is material. Much of the
+growth in our understanding of nature has been due to men whose high
+abilities were nevertheless rigidly limited in certain directions.
+Our knowledge of solar systems so inconceivably remote that the
+remoteness is itself unreal to our senses; our knowledge of animate
+and inanimate forces working on a scale so infinitesimal and yet so
+powerful as to be almost impossible for our imaginations to grasp; our
+knowledge of the eons through which life has existed on this planet;
+the extraordinary advances in knowledge denoted by the establishment
+of such doctrines as those of gravitation and of evolution; in short,
+the whole enormous incredible advance in knowledge of the physical
+universe and of man’s physical place in that universe, has been due to
+the labor of students whose special tastes and abilities lay in the
+direction of dealing with what is purely material. Their astounding
+success, and the far-reaching, indeed the stupendous, importance of
+their achievements, have naturally tended to make those among them
+who possess genuine but narrow ability, whose minds are keen but not
+broad, assume an attitude of hard, arrogant, boastful, self-sufficient
+materialism: a mental attitude which glorifies and exalts its own
+grievous shortcomings and its inability to perceive anything outside
+the realm of the body. This attitude is as profoundly repellent as
+that of the civil and ecclesiastical reactionaries, the foes of
+all progress, against whom these men profess to be in revolt; and,
+moreover, it is an attitude which is itself as profoundly unscientific
+as any of the anti-scientific attitudes which it condemns. The
+universal truth can never be even imperfectly understood or apprehended
+unless we have the widest possible knowledge of our physical
+surroundings, and unless we fearlessly endeavor to find out just
+what the facts and the teachings of these physical surroundings are;
+but neither will it ever be understood if the physical and material
+explanations of life are accepted as all-sufficient. By none is this
+more clearly recognized than by the most acute and far-sighted of the
+investigators into physical conditions. Says Mr. Bernard: “There are
+psychic elements wholly different in kind from the physical elements
+... [they] constitute, in a way impossible to define, a new character,
+quality, element--or shall we at once boldly borrow a term from
+mathematics and call it a new ‘dimension’ of our environment, hitherto
+three-dimensional? These various mental conditions lead us to believe
+that at any moment, while being driven through this three-dimensional
+environment, we may also be plunged into a psychic condition which
+hangs like an atmosphere over our particular physical surroundings.”
+
+Not only every truly religious, but every truly scientific, man must
+turn with relief from the narrowness of a shut-in materialism to the
+profound and lofty thought contained in the writings of William James,
+of his biographer, M. Émile Boutroux, and of another philosopher of
+the same school, M. Bergson. M. Boutroux’s study of William James
+gives in brief form--and with a charm of style and expression possible
+only for those who work with that delicate instrument of precision,
+French prose--the views which men of this stamp hold; and be it
+remembered that, like James, they are thoroughly scientific men,
+steeped in the teachings of material science, who acknowledge no
+outside limitation upon them in their search for truth. They have a
+far keener understanding of the world of matter than has been attained
+by the purely materialistic scientists, just because, in addition,
+they also understand that outside of the purely physical lies the
+psychic, and that the realm of religion stands outside even of the
+purely psychic. M. Boutroux’s book on “Science and Religion” has been
+translated into English--and we owe a real debt of gratitude to Messrs.
+Nield and Mitchell for their excellent translations of MM. Boutroux
+and Bergson. There is much talk of the conflict between science and
+religion. The inherent absurdity of such talk has never been better
+expressed than by M. Boutroux when he says that such opposition “is
+the result of our defining both science and religion in an artificial
+manner by, on the one hand, identifying science with physical science,
+and, on the other hand, assuming that religion consists in the dogmas
+which merely symbolize it.” M. Boutroux’s book, like M. Bergson’s
+“Creative Evolution,” must be read in its entirety; mere extracts and
+condensations can not show the profound philosophical acumen with
+which these men go to the heart of things, and prove that science
+itself, if correctly understood, renders absurd the harsh and futile
+dogmatism of many of those who pride themselves upon being, above all
+things, scientific. For, as these writers point out, the work of the
+scientist is conditioned upon the existence of the free determination
+of a spirit which, dominating the scientific spirit, believes also in
+an æsthetic and moral ideal. They see the material, the physical body,
+in its relation to other physical bodies; and back of and beyond the
+physical they see life itself, consciousness, which is to be conceived
+of as something always dynamic and never static, as a “stream of
+consciousness,” a “becoming.”
+
+As M. Boutroux finely says, religion gives to the individual his
+value and treats him as an end in himself, no less than treating
+him from the standpoint of his duties to other individuals. This
+philosophy is founded on a wide and sympathetic understanding of
+the facts of the material world, a frank acceptance of evolution
+and of all else that modern science has ever taught; and so those
+who profess it are in a position of impregnable strength when they
+point out that all this in no shape or way interferes with religion
+and with Christianity, because, as they hold, evolution in religion
+has merely tended to disengage it from its own gross and material
+wrapping, and to leave unfettered the spirit which is its essence.
+To them Christianity, the greatest of the religious creations which
+humanity has seen, rests upon what Christ himself teaches; for, as M.
+Boutroux phrases it, the performance of duty is faith in action, faith
+in its highest expression, for duty gives no other reason, and need
+give no other reason, for its existence than “its own incorruptible
+disinterestedness.” The idea thus expressed is at bottom based on
+the same truth to which expression is given by Mr. Taylor when he
+says: “The love of God means not despising but honoring self; and for
+Christians on earth the true love of God must show itself in doing
+earth’s duties and living out earth’s full life, and not in abandoning
+all for dreams, though the dreams be of heaven.” To men such as William
+James and these two French philosophers physical science, if properly
+studied, shows conclusively its own limitations, shows conclusively
+that beyond the material world lies a vast series of phenomena which
+all material knowledge is powerless to explain, so that science
+itself teaches that outside of materialism lie the forces of a wholly
+different world, a world ordered by religion--religion which, says M.
+Boutroux, must, if loyal to itself, work according to its own nature
+as a spiritual activity, striving to transform men from within and not
+from without, by persuasion, by example, by love, by prayer, by the
+communion of souls, not by restraint or policy; and such a religion
+has nothing to fear from the progress of science, for the spirit to
+which it is loyal is the faith in duty, the search for what is for the
+universal good and for the universal love, the secret springs of all
+high and beneficent activity.
+
+It is striking to see how these two gifted Frenchmen, by their own
+road, reach substantially the same conclusion which, by a wholly
+different method, and indeed in treating religion from a wholly
+different standpoint, is also reached by the president of Bowdoin
+College. Mr. Hyde’s short volume combines in high degree a lofty
+nobility of ethical concept with the most practical and straightforward
+common-sense treatment of the ways in which this concept should be
+realized in practice. Each of us must prescribe for himself in these
+matters, and one man’s need will not be wholly met by what does meet
+another’s; personally, this book of President Hyde’s gives me something
+that no other book does, and means to me very, very much.
+
+We must all strive to keep as our most precious heritage the liberty
+each to worship his God as to him seems best, and, as part of this
+liberty, freely either to exercise it or to surrender it, in a greater
+or less degree, each according to his own beliefs and convictions,
+without infringing on the beliefs and convictions of others. But the
+professors of the varying creeds, the men who rely upon authority,
+and those who in different measures profess the theory of individual
+liberty, can and must work together, with mutual respect and with
+self-respect, for certain principles which lie deep at the base of
+every healthy social system. As Bishop Brent says: “The only setting
+for any one part of the truth is all the rest of the truth. The only
+relationship big enough for any one man is all the rest of mankind.”
+Abbot Charles, of Saint Leo Abbey, in Florida, has recently put the
+case for friendly agreement among good men of varying views, when
+he summed up a notably fine address in defence--as he truly says,
+_friendly_ defence--of his own church by enunciating the plea for
+“true peace founded on justice,” worked out in accordance with what
+he properly calls one of the “dearest blessings that heaven can give,
+the spirit that springs from religious liberty.” However widely
+many earnest and high-minded men of science and many earnest and
+high-minded men of religious convictions may from one side or the other
+disagree with the teachings of the earnest and high-minded students of
+philosophy whom I have quoted, yet surely we can all be in agreement
+with the fundamentals on which their philosophy is based. Surely we
+must all recognize the search for truth as an imperative duty; and we
+ought all of us likewise to recognize that this search for truth should
+be carried on, not only fearlessly, but also with reverence, with
+humility of spirit, and with full recognition of our own limitations
+both of the mind and the soul. We must stand equally against tyranny
+and against irreverence in all things of the spirit, with the firm
+conviction that we can all work together for a higher social and
+individual life if only, whatever form of creed we profess, we make the
+doing of duty and the love of our fellow men two of the prime articles
+in our universal faith. To those who deny the ethical obligation
+implied in such a faith we who acknowledge the obligation are aliens;
+and we are brothers to all those who do acknowledge it, whatever their
+creed or system of philosophy.
+
+
+
+
+THE ANCIENT IRISH SAGAS
+
+
+
+
+THE ANCIENT IRISH SAGAS
+
+
+Next to developing original writers in its own time, the most fortunate
+thing, from the literary standpoint, which can befall any people is
+to have revealed to it some new treasure-house of literature. This
+treasure-house may be stored with the writings of another people in
+the present, or else with the writings of a buried past. But a few
+generations ago, in that innocent age when Blackstone could speak of
+the “Goths, Huns, Franks, and Vandals”--incongruous gathering--as
+“Celtic” tribes, the long-vanished literatures of the ancestors of
+the present European nations, the epics, the sagas, the stories in
+verse or prose, were hardly known to, or regarded by, their educated
+and cultivated descendants. Gradually, and chiefly in the nineteenth
+century, these forgotten literatures, or fragments of them, were
+one by one recovered. They are various in merit and interest, in
+antiquity and extent--“Beowulf,” the Norse sagas, the “Kalevala,”
+the “Nibelungenlied,” the “Song of Roland,” the Arthurian cycle of
+romances. In some there is but one great poem; in some all the
+poems or stories are of one type; in others, as in the case of the
+Norse sagas, a wide range of history, myth, and personal biography
+is covered. In our own day there has at last come about a popular
+revival of interest in the wealth of poems and tales to be found in the
+ancient Celtic, and especially in the ancient Erse, manuscripts--the
+whole forming a body of prose and poetry of great and well-nigh unique
+interest from every standpoint, which in some respects can be matched
+only by the Norse sagas, and which has some striking beauties the like
+of which are not to be found even in these Norse sagas.
+
+For many decades German, French, Irish, and English students have
+worked over the ancient Celtic texts, and recently many of the
+more striking and more beautiful stories have been reproduced or
+paraphrased in popular form by writers like Lady Gregory and Miss
+Hull, Lady Gregory showing in her prose something of the charm which
+her countrywoman Emily Lawless shows in her poems “With the Wild
+Geese.” It is greatly to be regretted that America should have done so
+little either in the way of original study and research in connection
+with the early Celtic literature, or in the way of popularizing and
+familiarizing that literature, and it is much to be desired that,
+wherever possible, chairs of Celtic should be established in our
+leading universities. Moreover, in addition to the scholar’s work
+which is especially designed for students, there must ultimately be
+done the additional work which puts the results of the scholarship at
+the disposal of the average layman. This has largely been done for
+the Norse sagas. William Morris has translated the “Heimskringla”
+into language which, while not exactly English, can nevertheless be
+understood without difficulty--which is more than can be said for his
+translation of “Beowulf”--and which has a real, though affectedly
+archaic, beauty. Dasent has translated the “Younger Edda,” the “Njala
+Saga,” and the “Saga of Gisli the Outlaw.” It is pleasant for Americans
+to feel that it was Longfellow who, in his “Saga of King Olaf,”
+rendered one of the most striking of the old Norse tales into a great
+poem.
+
+It is difficult to speak with anything like exactness of the relative
+ages of these primitive literatures. Doubtless in each case the
+earliest manuscripts that have come down to us are themselves based
+upon far earlier ones which have been destroyed, and doubtless, when
+they were first written down, the tales had themselves been recited,
+and during the course of countless recitations had been changed and
+added to and built upon, for a period of centuries. Sometimes, as in
+the “Song of Roland,” we know at least in bare outline the historical
+incident which for some reason impressed the popular imagination
+until around it there grew up a great epic, of which the facts have
+been twisted completely out of shape. In other instances, as in the
+“Nibelungenlied,” a tale, adaptable in its outlines to many different
+peoples, was adapted to the geography of a particular people, and to
+what that people at least thought was history; thus the Rhine becomes
+the great river of the “Nibelungenlied,” and in the second part of
+the epic the revenge of Krimhild becomes connected with dim memories
+of Attila’s vast and evanescent empire. The “Song of Roland” and the
+“Nibelungenlied” were much later than the earliest English, Norse, and
+Irish poems. Very roughly, it may perhaps be said that, in the earliest
+forms at which we can guess, the Irish sagas were produced, or at least
+were in healthy life, at about the time when “Beowulf” was a live saga,
+and two or three centuries or thereabouts before the early Norse sagas
+took a shape which we would recognize as virtually akin to that they
+now have.
+
+These Celtic sagas are conveniently, though somewhat artificially,
+arranged in cycles. In some ways the most interesting of these is the
+Cuchulain cycle, although until very recently it was far less known
+than the Ossianic cycle--the cycle which tells of the deeds of Finn and
+the Fianna. The poems which tell of the mighty feats of Cuchulain, and
+of the heroes whose life-threads were interwoven with his, date back
+to a purely pagan Ireland--an Ireland cut off from all connection with
+the splendid and slowly dying civilization of Rome, an Ireland in which
+still obtained ancient customs that had elsewhere vanished even from
+the memory of man.
+
+Thus the heroes of the Cuchulain sagas still fought in chariots driven
+each by a charioteer who was also the stanch friend and retainer of
+the hero. Now, at one time war chariots had held the first place in
+the armies of all the powerful empires in the lands adjoining the
+Mediterranean and stretching eastward beyond the Tigris. Strange
+African tribes had used them north and south of the Atlas Mountains.
+When the mighty, conquering kings of Egypt made their forays into
+Syria, and there encountered the Hittite hosts, the decisive feature in
+each battle was the shock between the hundreds of chariots arrayed on
+each side. The tyranny of Sisera rested on his nine hundred chariots of
+iron. The Homeric heroes were “tamers of horses,” which were not ridden
+in battle, but driven in the war chariots. That mysterious people,
+the Etruscans, of whose race and speech we know nothing, originally
+fought in chariots. But in the period of Greek and Roman splendor
+the war chariot had already passed away. It had seemingly never been
+characteristic of the wild Teuton tribes; but among the western Celts
+it lingered long. Cæsar encountered it among the hostile tribes when he
+made his famous raid into Britain; and in Ireland it lasted later still.
+
+The customs of the heroes and people of the Erin of Cuchulain’s time
+were as archaic as the chariots in which they rode to battle. The
+sagas contain a wealth of material for the historian. They show us a
+land where the men were herdsmen, tillers of the soil, hunters, bards,
+seers, but, above all, warriors. Erin was a world to herself. Her
+people at times encountered the peoples of Britain or of Continental
+Europe, whether in trade or in piracy; but her chief interest, her
+overwhelming interest, lay in what went on within her own borders.
+There was a high king of shadowy power, whose sway was vaguely
+recognized as extending over the island, but whose practical supremacy
+was challenged on every hand by whatever king or under-king felt the
+fierce whim seize him. There were chiefs and serfs; there were halls
+and fortresses; there were huge herds of horses and cattle and sheep
+and swine. The kings and queens, the great lords and their wives, the
+chiefs and the famous fighting men, wore garments crimson and blue and
+green and saffron, plain or checkered, and plaid and striped. They had
+rings and clasps and torques of gold and silver, urns and mugs and
+troughs and vessels of iron and silver. They played chess by the fires
+in their great halls, and they feasted and drank and quarrelled within
+them, and the women had sun-parlors of their own.
+
+Among the most striking of the tales are those of the “Fate of the Sons
+of Usnach,” telling of Deirdrè’s life and love and her lamentation for
+her slain lover; of the “Wooing of Emer” by Cuchulain; of the “Feast
+of Bricriu”; and of the famous Cattle-Spoil of Cooley, the most famous
+romance of ancient Ireland, the story of the great raid for the Dun
+Bull of Cooley. But there are many others of almost equal interest;
+such as the story of MacDatho’s pig, with its Gargantuan carouse of the
+quarrelsome champions; and the tale of the siege of Howth.
+
+In these tales, which in so many points are necessarily like the
+similar tales that have come down from the immemorial past of the
+peoples of kindred race, there are also striking peculiarities that
+hedge them apart. The tales are found in many versions, which for the
+most part have been enlarged by pedantic scribes of aftertime, who
+often made them prolix and tedious, and added grotesque and fantastic
+exaggerations of their own to the barbaric exaggerations already in
+them, doing much what Saxo Grammaticus did for the Scandinavian tales.
+They might have been woven into some great epic, or at least have
+taken far more definite and connected shape, if the history of Ireland
+had developed along lines similar to those of the other nations of west
+Europe. But her history was broken by terrible national tragedies and
+calamities. To the scourge of the vikings succeeded the Anglo-Norman
+conquest, with all its ruinous effects on the growth of the national
+life. The early poems of the Erse bards could not develop as those
+other early lays developed which afterward became the romances of
+Arthur and Roland and Siegfried. They remain primitive, as “Beowulf” is
+primitive, as, in less measure, “Gisli the Outlaw” is primitive.
+
+The heroes are much like those of the early folk of kindred
+stock everywhere. They are huge, splendid barbarians, sometimes
+yellow-haired, sometimes black- or brown-haired, and their chief title
+to glory is found in their feats of bodily prowess. Among the feats
+often enumerated or referred to are the ability to leap like a salmon,
+to run like a stag, to hurl great rocks incredible distances, to toss
+the wheel, and, like the Norse berserkers, when possessed with the fury
+of battle, to grow demoniac with fearsome rage. This last feat was
+especially valued, and was recognized as the “heroes’ fury.” As with
+most primitive peoples, the power to shout loudly was much prized, and
+had a distinct place of respect, under the title of “mad roar,” in
+any list of a given hero’s exhibitions of strength or agility; just as
+Stentor’s voice was regarded by his comrades as a valuable military
+asset. So, when the slaughter begins in Etzel’s hall, the writer of the
+Nibelung lay dwells with admiration on the vast strength of Diederick,
+as shown by the way in which his voice rang like a bison horn,
+resounding within and without the walls. Many of the feats chronicled
+of the early Erse heroes are now wholly unintelligible to us; we can
+not even be sure what they were, still less why they should have been
+admired.
+
+Among the heroes stood the men of wisdom, as wisdom was in the early
+world, a vulpine wisdom of craft and cunning and treachery and
+double-dealing. Druids, warlocks, sorcerers, magicians, witches appear,
+now as friends, now as unfriends, of the men of might. Fiercely the
+heroes fought and wide they wandered; yet their fights and their
+wanderings were not very different from those that we read about in
+many other primitive tales. There is the usual incredible variety of
+incidents and character, and, together with the variety, an endless
+repetition. But these Erse tales differ markedly from the early Norse
+and Teutonic stories in more than one particular. A vein of the
+supernatural and a vein of the romantic run through them and relieve
+their grimness and harshness in a way very different from anything
+to be found in the Teutonic. Of course the supernatural element often
+takes as grim a form in early Irish as in early Norse or German; the
+Goddess with red eyebrows who on stricken fields wooed the Erse heroes
+from life did not differ essentially from the Valkyrie; and there
+were land and water demons in Ireland as terrible as those against
+which Beowulf warred. But, in addition, there is in the Irish tales
+an unearthliness free from all that is monstrous and horrible; and
+their unearthly creatures could become in aftertime the fairies of the
+moonlight and the greenwood, so different from the trolls and gnomes
+and misshapen giants bequeathed to later generations by the Norse
+mythology.
+
+Still more striking is the difference between the women in the Irish
+sagas and those, for instance, of the Norse sagas. Their heirs of the
+spirit are the Arthurian heroines, and the heroines of the romances of
+the Middle Ages. In the “Song of Roland”--rather curiously, considering
+that it is the first great piece of French literature--woman plays
+absolutely no part at all; there is not a female figure which is
+more than a name, or which can be placed beside Roland and Oliver,
+Archbishop Turpin and the traitor Ganelon, and Charlemagne, the mighty
+emperor of the “barbe fleurie.” The heroines of the early Norse and
+German stories are splendid and terrible, fit to be the mothers of a
+mighty race, as stern and relentless as their lovers and husbands. But
+it would be hard indeed to find among them a heroine who would appeal
+to our modern ideas as does Emer, the beloved of Cuchulain, or Dierdrè,
+the sweetheart of the fated son of Usnach. Emer and Deirdrè have
+the charm, the power of inspiring and returning romantic love, that
+belonged to the ladies whose lords were the knights of the Round Table,
+though of course this does not mean that they lacked some very archaic
+tastes and attributes.
+
+Emer, the daughter of Forgall the Wily, who was wooed by Cuchulain,
+had the “six gifts of a girl”--beauty, and a soft voice, and sweet
+speech, and wisdom, and needlework, and chastity. In their wooing the
+hero and heroine spoke to one another in riddles, those delights of the
+childhood of peoples. She set him journeys to go and feats to perform,
+which he did in the manner of later knight errants. After long courting
+and many hardships, he took Emer to wife, and she was true to him and
+loved him and gloried in him and watched over him until the day he went
+out to meet his death. All this was in a spirit which we would find
+natural in a heroine of modern or of mediæval times--a spirit which it
+would be hard to match either among the civilizations of antiquity, or
+in early barbarisms other than the Erse.
+
+So it was with Deirdrè, the beautiful girl who forsook her betrothed,
+the Over-King of Ulster, for the love of Naisi, and fled with him and
+his two brothers across the waters to Scotland. At last they returned
+to Ireland, and there Deirdrè’s lover and his two brothers were slain
+by the treachery of the king whose guests they were. Many versions of
+the Songs of Deirdrè have come down to us, of her farewell to Alba and
+her lament over her slain lover; for during centuries this tragedy
+of Deirdrè, together with the tragical fate of the Children of Lir
+and the tragical fate of the Children of Tuirenn, were known as the
+“Three Sorrowful Tales of Erin.” None has better retained its vitality
+down to the present day. Even to us, reading the songs in an alien
+age and tongue, they are very beautiful. Deirdrè sings wistfully of
+her Scottish abiding-place, with its pleasant, cuckoo-haunted groves,
+and its cliffs, and the white sand on the beaches. She tells of her
+lover’s single infidelity, when he came enamoured of the daughter of a
+Scottish lord, and Deirdrè, broken-hearted, put off to sea in a boat,
+indifferent whether she should live or die; whereupon the two brothers
+of her lover swam after her and brought her back, to find him very
+repentant and swearing a threefold oath that never again would he prove
+false to her until he should go to the hosts of the dead. She dwells
+constantly on the unfailing tenderness of the three heroes; for her
+lover’s two brothers cared for her as he did:
+
+      “Much hardship would I take,
+      Along with the three heroes;
+      I would endure without house, without fire,
+      It is not I that would be gloomy.
+
+      “Their three shields and their spears
+      Were often a bed for me.
+      Put their three hard swords
+      Over the grave, O young man!”
+
+For the most part, in her songs, Deirdrè dwells on the glories and
+beauties of the three warriors, the three dragons, the three champions
+of the Red Branch, the three that used to break every onrush, the three
+hawks, the three darlings of the women of Erin, the three heroes who
+were not good at homage. She sings of their splendor in the foray, of
+their nobleness as they returned to their home, to bring fagots for the
+fire, to bear in an ox or a boar for the table; sweet though the pipes
+and flutes and horns were in the house of the king, sweeter yet was it
+to hearken to the songs sung by the sons of Usnach, for “like the sound
+of the wave was the voice of Naisi.”
+
+There were other Irish heroines of a more common barbarian type. Such
+was the famous warrior-queen, Meave, tall and beautiful, with her
+white face and yellow hair, terrible in her battle chariot when she
+drove at full speed into the press of fighting men, and “fought over
+the ears of the horses.” Her virtues were those of a warlike barbarian
+king, and she claimed the like large liberty in morals. Her husband was
+Ailill, the Connaught king, and, as Meave carefully explained to him in
+what the old Erse bards called a “bolster conversation,” their marriage
+was literally a partnership wherein she demanded from her husband an
+exact equality of treatment according to her own views and on her own
+terms; the three essential qualities upon which she insisted being that
+he should be brave, generous, and completely devoid of jealousy!
+
+Fair-haired Queen Meave was a myth, a goddess, and her memory changed
+and dwindled until at last she reappeared as Queen Mab of fairyland.
+But among the ancient Celts her likeness was the likeness of many a
+historic warrior queen. The descriptions given of her by the first
+writers or compilers of the famous romances of the foray for the Dun
+Bull of Cooley almost exactly match the descriptions given by the Latin
+historian of the British Queen Boadicea, tall and terrible-faced, her
+long, yellow hair flowing to her hips, spear in hand, golden collar on
+neck, her brightly colored mantle fastened across her breast with a
+brooch.
+
+Not only were some of Meave’s deeds of a rather startling kind, but
+even Emer and Deirdrè at times showed traits that to a modern reader
+may seem out of place, in view of what has been said of them above.
+But we must remember the surroundings, and think of what even the real
+women of history were, throughout European lands, until a far later
+period. In the “Heimskringla” we read of Queen Sigrid, the wisest of
+women, who grew tired of the small kings who came to ask her hand, a
+request which she did not regard them as warranted to make either by
+position or extent of dominion. So one day when two kings had thus come
+to woo her, she lodged them in a separate wooden house, with all their
+company, and feasted them until they were all very drunk, and fell
+asleep; then in the middle of the night she had her men fall on them
+with fire and sword, burn those who stayed within the hall and slay
+those who broke out. The incident is mentioned in the saga without the
+slightest condemnation; on the contrary, it evidently placed the queen
+on a higher social level than before, for, in concluding the account,
+the saga mentions that Sigrid said “that she would weary these small
+kings of coming from other lands to woo her; so she was called Sigrid
+Haughty thereafter.” Now, Sigrid was an historical character who lived
+many hundred years after the time of Emer and Deirdrè and Meave, and
+the simplicity with which her deed was chronicled at the time, and
+regarded afterward, should reconcile us to some of the feats recorded
+of those shadowy Erse predecessors of hers, who were separated from her
+by an interval of time as great as that which separates her from us.
+
+The story of the “Feast of Bricriu of the Bitter Tongue” is one of the
+most interesting of the tales of the Cuchulain cycle. In all this cycle
+of tales, Bricriu appears as the cunning, malevolent mischief-maker,
+dreaded for his biting satire and his power of setting by the ears the
+boastful, truculent, reckless, and marvellously short-tempered heroes
+among whom he lived. He has points of resemblance to Thersites, to Sir
+Kay, of the Arthurian romances, and to Conan, of the Ossianic cycle of
+Celtic sagas. This story is based upon the custom of the “champion’s
+portion,” which at a feast was allotted to the bravest man. It was a
+custom which lasted far down into historic times, and was recognized
+in the Brehon laws, where a heavy fine was imposed upon any person who
+stole it from the one to whom it belonged. The story in its present
+form, like all of these stories, is doubtless somewhat changed from
+the story as it was originally recited among the pre-Christian Celts
+of Ireland, but it still commemorates customs of the most primitive
+kind, many of them akin to those of all the races of Aryan tongue in
+their earlier days. The queens cause their maids to heat water for
+the warriors’ baths when they return from war, and similarly made
+ready to greet their guests, as did the Homeric heroines. The feasts
+were Homeric feasts. The heroes boasted and sulked and fought as did
+the Greeks before Troy. At their feasts, when the pork and beef, the
+wheaten cakes and honey, had been eaten, and the beer, and sometimes
+the wine of Gaul, had been drunk in huge quantities, the heroes,
+vainglorious and quarrelsome, were always apt to fight. Thus in the
+three houses which together made up the palace of the high king at
+Emain Macha, it was necessary that the arms of the heroes should all
+be kept in one place, so that they could not attack one another at the
+feasts. These three houses of the palace were the Royal House, in which
+the high king himself had his bronzed and jewelled room; the Speckled
+House, where the swords, the shields, and the spears of the heroes were
+kept; and the House of the Red Branch, where not only the weapons, but
+the heads of the beaten enemies were stored; and it was in connection
+with this last grewsome house that the heroes in the train of the High
+King Conchubar took their name of the “Heroes of the Red Branch.”
+
+When Bricriu gave his feast, he prepared for it by building a
+spacious house even handsomer than the House of the Red Branch; and
+it is described in great detail, as fashioned after “Tara’s Mead
+Hall,” and of great strength and magnificence; and it was stocked with
+quilts and blankets and beds and pillows, as well as with abundance
+of meat and drink. Then he invited the high king and all the nobles
+of Ulster to come to the feast. An amusing touch in the saga is the
+frank consternation of the heroes who were thus asked. They felt
+themselves helpless before the wiles of Bricriu, and at first refused
+outright to go, because they were sure that he would contrive to set
+them to fighting with one another; and they went at all only after
+they had taken hostages from Bricriu and had arranged that he should
+himself leave the feast-hall as soon as the feast was spread. But
+their precautions were in vain, and Bricriu had no trouble in bringing
+about a furious dispute among the three leading chiefs, Loigaire the
+Triumphant, Conall the Victorious, and Cuchulain. He promised to each
+the champion’s portion, on condition that each should claim it. Nor
+did he rest here, but produced what the saga calls “the war of words
+of the women of Ulster,” by persuading the three wives of the three
+heroes that each should tread first into the banquet-hall. Each of the
+ladies, in whose minds he thus raised visions of social precedence,
+had walked away from the palace with half a hundred women in her
+train, when they all three met. The saga describes how they started to
+return to the hall together, walking evenly, gracefully, and easily
+at first, and then with quicker steps, until, when they got near the
+house, they raised their robes “to the round of the leg” and ran at
+full speed. When they got to the hall the doors were shut, and, as they
+stood outside, each wife chanted her own perfections, but, above all,
+the valor and ferocious prowess of her husband, scolding one another as
+did Brunhild and Krimhild in the quarrel that led to Siegfried’s death
+at the hands of Hagen. Each husband, as in duty bound, helped his wife
+into the hall, and the bickering which had already taken place about
+the champion’s portion was renewed. At last it was settled that the
+three rivals should drive in their chariots to the home of Ailill and
+Meave, who should adjudge between them; and the judgment given, after
+testing their prowess in many ways, and especially in encounters with
+demons and goblins, was finally in favor of Cuchulain.
+
+One of the striking parts of the tale is that in which the three
+champions, following one another, arrive at the palace of Meave. The
+daughter of Meave goes to the sun-parlor over the high porch of the
+hold, and from there she is told by the queen to describe in turn each
+chariot and the color of the horses and how the hero looks and how the
+chariot courses. The girl obeys, and describes in detail each chariot
+as it comes up, and the queen in each case recognizes the champion from
+the description and speaks words of savage praise of each in turn.
+Loigaire, a fair man, driving two fiery dapple-grays, in a wickerwork
+chariot with silver-mounted yoke, is chanted by the queen as:
+
+      “A fury of war, a fire of judgment,
+      A flame of vengeance; in mien a hero,
+      In face a champion, in heart a dragon;
+      The long knife of proud victories which will hew us to pieces,
+      The all-noble, red-handed Loigaire.”
+
+Conall is described as driving a roan and a bay, in a chariot with two
+bright wheels of bronze, he himself fair, in face white and red, his
+mantle blue and crimson, and Meave describes him as:
+
+      “A wolf among cattle; battle on battle,
+      Exploit on exploit, head upon head he heaps”;
+
+and says that if he is excited to rage he will cut up her people
+
+      “As a trout on red sandstone is cut.”
+
+Then Cuchulain is described, driving at a gallop a dapple-gray and a
+dark-gray, in a chariot with iron wheels and a bright silver pole. The
+hero himself is a dark, melancholy man, the comeliest of the men of
+Erin, in a crimson tunic, with gold-hilted sword, a blood-red spear,
+and over his shoulders a crimson shield rimmed with silver and gold.
+Meave, on hearing the description, chants the hero as:
+
+      “An ocean in fury, a whale that rageth, a fragment of flame and
+          fire;
+      A bear majestic, a grandly moving billow,
+      A beast in maddening ire:
+      In the crash of glorious battle through the hostile foe he leaps,
+      His shout the fury of doom;
+      A terrible bear, he is death to the herd of cattle,
+      Feat upon feat, head upon head he heaps:
+      Laud ye the hearty one, he who is victor fully.”
+
+Bricriu lost his life as a sequel of the great raid for the Dun Bull
+of Cooley. This was undertaken by Queen Meave as the result of the
+“bolster conversation,” the curtain quarrel, between her and Ailill as
+to which of the two, husband or wife, had the more treasure. To settle
+the dispute, they compared their respective treasures, beginning with
+their wooden and iron vessels, going on with their rings and bracelets
+and brooches and fine clothes, and ending with their flocks of sheep,
+and herds of swine, horses, and cattle. The tally was even for both
+sides until they came to the cattle, when it appeared that Ailill had
+a huge, white-horned bull with which there was nothing of Meave’s to
+compare. The chagrined queen learned from a herald that in Cooley there
+was a dun or brown bull which, it was asserted, was even larger and
+more formidable.
+
+Meave announces that by fair means or foul the dun bull shall be hers,
+and she raises her hosts. A great war ensues, in which Cuchulain
+distinguishes himself above all others. All the heroes gather to the
+fight, and a special canto is devoted to the fate of a very old man,
+Iliach, a chief of Ulster, who resolves to attack the foe and avenge
+Ulster’s honor on them. “Whether, then, I fall or come out of it, is
+all one,” he said. The saga tells how his withered and wasted old
+horses, which fed on the shore by his little fort, were harnessed to
+the ancient chariot, which had long lost its cushions. Into it he got,
+mother-naked, with his sword and his pair of blunt, rusty spears, and
+great throwing-stones heaped at his feet; and thus he attacked the
+hosts of Meave and fought till his death. In the Cuchulain sagas the
+heroes frequently fight with stones; and the practice obtained until
+much later days, for in Olaf’s death-battle with the ships of Hakon
+his men were cleared from the decks of the Long Serpent by dexterously
+hurled stones as well as by spears.
+
+Partly by cunning, Meave gets the dun bull upon which she had set her
+heart. Then comes in a thoroughly Erse touch. It appears that the two
+bulls have lived many lives in different forms, and always in hostility
+to each other, since the days when their souls were the souls of two
+swineherds, who quarrelled and fought to the death. Now the two great
+bulls renew their ancient fight. Bricriu is forced out to witness it,
+and is trampled to death by the beasts. At last the white-homed bull is
+slain, and the dun, raging and destroying, goes back to his home, where
+he too dies. And this, says the saga, in ending, is the tale of the Dun
+Bull of Cooley and the Driving of the Cattle-Herd by Meave and Ailill,
+and their war with Ulster.
+
+The Erse tales have suffered from many causes. Taken as a mass, they
+did not develop as the sagas and the epics of certain other nations
+developed; but they possess extraordinary variety and beauty, and in
+their mysticism, their devotion to and appreciation of natural beauty,
+their exaltation of the glorious courage of men and of the charm and
+devotion of women, in all the touches that tell of a long-vanished
+life, they possess a curious attraction of their own. They deserve the
+research which can be given only by the lifelong effort of trained
+scholars; they should be studied for their poetry, as countless
+scholars have studied those early literatures; moreover, they should be
+studied as Victor Bérard has studied the “Odyssey,” for reasons apart
+from their poetical worth; and finally they deserve to be translated
+and adapted so as to become a familiar household part of that
+literature which all the English-speaking peoples possess in common.
+
+
+
+
+AN ART EXHIBITION
+
+
+
+
+AN ART EXHIBITION
+
+
+The recent “International Exhibition of Modern Art” in New York was
+really noteworthy. Messrs. Davies, Kuhn, Gregg, and their fellow
+members of the Association of American Painters and Sculptors did a
+work of very real value in securing such an exhibition of the works of
+both foreign and native painters and sculptors. Primarily their purpose
+was to give the public a chance to see what has recently been going on
+abroad. No similar collection of the works of European “moderns” has
+ever been exhibited in this country. The exhibitors were quite right
+as to the need of showing to our people in this manner the art forces
+which of late have been at work in Europe, forces which can not be
+ignored.
+
+This does not mean that I in the least accept the view that these men
+take of the European extremists whose pictures were here exhibited. It
+is true, as the champions of these extremists say, that there can be
+no life without change, no development without change, and that to be
+afraid of what is different or unfamiliar is to be afraid of life. It
+is no less true, however, that change may mean death and not life, and
+retrogression instead of development. Probably we err in treating most
+of these pictures seriously. It is likely that many of them represent
+in the painters the astute appreciation of the power to make folly
+lucrative which the late P. T. Barnum showed with his faked mermaid.
+There are thousands of people who will pay small sums to look at a
+faked mermaid; and now and then one of this kind with enough money will
+buy a Cubist picture, or a picture of a misshapen nude woman, repellent
+from every standpoint.
+
+In some ways it is the work of the American painters and sculptors
+which is of most interest in this collection, and a glance at this
+work must convince any one of the real good that is coming out of the
+new movements, fantastic though many of the developments of these new
+movements are. There was one note entirely absent from the exhibition,
+and that was the note of the commonplace. There was not a touch of
+simpering, self-satisfied conventionality anywhere in the exhibition.
+Any sculptor or painter who had in him something to express and the
+power of expressing it found the field open to him. He did not have
+to be afraid because his work was not along ordinary lines. There was
+no stunting or dwarfing, no requirement that a man whose gift lay in
+new directions should measure up or down to stereotyped and fossilized
+standards.
+
+For all of this there can be only hearty praise. But this does not
+in the least mean that the extremists whose paintings and pictures
+were represented are entitled to any praise, save, perhaps, that they
+have helped to break fetters. Probably in any reform movement, any
+progressive movement, in any field of life, the penalty for avoiding
+the commonplace is a liability to extravagance. It is vitally necessary
+to move forward and to shake off the dead hand, often the fossilized
+dead hand, of the reactionaries; and yet we have to face the fact
+that there is apt to be a lunatic fringe among the votaries of any
+forward movement. In this recent art exhibition the lunatic fringe
+was fully in evidence, especially in the rooms devoted to the Cubists
+and the Futurists, or Near-Impressionists. I am not entirely certain
+which of the two latter terms should be used in connection with some
+of the various pictures and representations of plastic art--and,
+frankly, it is not of the least consequence. The Cubists are entitled
+to the serious attention of all who find enjoyment in the colored
+puzzle-pictures of the Sunday newspapers. Of course there is no reason
+for choosing the cube as a symbol, except that it is probably less
+fitted than any other mathematical expression for any but the most
+formal decorative art. There is no reason why people should not call
+themselves Cubists, or Octagonists, or Parallelopipedonists, or Knights
+of the Isosceles Triangle, or Brothers of the Cosine, if they so
+desire; as expressing anything serious and permanent, one term is as
+fatuous as another. Take the picture which for some reason is called
+“A Naked Man Going Down Stairs.” There is in my bathroom a really good
+Navajo rug which, on any proper interpretation of the Cubist theory,
+is a far more satisfactory and decorative picture. Now, if, for some
+inscrutable reason, it suited somebody to call this rug a picture of,
+say, “A Well-Dressed Man Going Up a Ladder,” the name would fit the
+facts just about as well as in the case of the Cubist picture of the
+“Naked Man Going Down Stairs.” From the standpoint of terminology each
+name would have whatever merit inheres in a rather cheap straining
+after effect; and from the standpoint of decorative value, of
+sincerity, and of artistic merit, the Navajo rug is infinitely ahead of
+the picture.
+
+As for many of the human figures in the pictures of the Futurists,
+they show that the school would be better entitled to the name of
+the “Past-ists.” I was interested to find that a man of scientific
+attainments who had likewise looked at the pictures had been struck,
+as I was, by their resemblance to the later work of the palæolithic
+artists of the French and Spanish caves. There are interesting samples
+of the strivings for the representation of the human form among
+artists of many different countries and times, all in the same stage
+of palæolithic culture, to be found in a recent number of the “Revue
+d’Ethnographie.” The palæolithic artist was able to portray the bison,
+the mammoth, the reindeer, and the horse with spirit and success,
+while he still stumbled painfully in the effort to portray man. This
+stumbling effort in his case represented progress, and he was entitled
+to great credit for it. Forty thousand years later, when entered into
+artificially and deliberately, it represents only a smirking pose of
+retrogression, and is not praiseworthy. So with much of the sculpture.
+A family group of precisely the merit that inheres in a structure made
+of the wooden blocks in a nursery is not entitled to be reproduced in
+marble. Admirers speak of the kneeling female figure by Lehmbruck--I
+use “female” advisedly, for although obviously mammalian it is not
+especially human--as “full of lyric grace,” as “tremendously sincere,”
+and “of a jewel-like preciousness.” I am not competent to say whether
+these words themselves represent sincerity or merely a conventional
+jargon; it is just as easy to be conventional about the fantastic as
+about the commonplace. In any event one might as well speak of the
+“lyric grace” of a praying mantis, which adopts much the same attitude;
+and why a deformed pelvis should be called “sincere,” or a tibia of
+giraffe-like length “precious,” seems to a reasonably sane view of the
+pictures of Matisse a question of pathological rather than artistic
+significance. This figure and the absurd portrait head of some young
+lady have the merit that inheres in extravagant caricature. It is a
+merit, but it is not a high merit. It entitles these pieces to stand in
+sculpture where nonsense rhymes stand in literature and the sketches of
+Aubrey Beardsley in pictorial art. These modern sculptured caricatures
+in no way approach the gargoyles of Gothic cathedrals, probably
+because the modern artists are too self-conscious and make themselves
+ridiculous by pretentiousness. The makers of the gargoyles knew very
+well that the gargoyles did not represent what was most important in
+the Gothic cathedrals. They stood for just a little point of grotesque
+reaction against, and relief from, the tremendous elemental vastness
+and grandeur of the Houses of God. They were imps, sinister and comic,
+grim and yet futile, and they fitted admirably into the framework of
+the theology that found its expression in the towering and wonderful
+piles which they ornamented.
+
+Very little of the work of the extremists among the European “moderns”
+seems to be good in and for itself; nevertheless it has certainly
+helped any number of American artists to do work that is original
+and serious; and this not only in painting but in sculpture. I wish
+the exhibition had contained some of the work of the late Marcius
+Symonds; very few people knew or cared for it while he lived; but
+not since Turner has there been another man on whose canvas glowed
+so much of that unearthly “light that never was on land or sea.” But
+the exhibition contained so much of extraordinary merit that it is
+ungrateful even to mention an omission. To name the pictures one would
+like to possess--and the bronzes and tanagras and plasters--would
+mean to make a catalogue of indefinite length. One of the most
+striking pictures was the “Terminal Yards”--the seeing eye was there,
+and the cunning hand. I should like to mention all the pictures of
+the president of the association, Arthur B. Davies. As first-class
+decorative work of an entirely new type, the very unexpected pictures
+of Sheriff Bob Chandler have a merit all their own. The “Arizona
+Desert,” the “Canadian Night,” the group of girls on the roof of a New
+York tenement-house, the studies in the Bronx Zoo, the “Heracles,”
+the studies for the Utah monument, the little group called “Gossip,”
+which has something of the quality of the famous fifteenth idyl of
+Theocritus, the “Pelf,” with its grim suggestiveness--these and a
+hundred others are worthy of study, each of them; I am naming at random
+those which at the moment I happen to recall. I am not speaking of
+the acknowledged masters, of Whistler, Puvis de Chavannes, Monet; nor
+of John’s children; nor of Cézanne’s old woman with a rosary; nor of
+Redon’s marvellous color-pieces--a worthy critic should speak of these.
+All I am trying to do is to point out why a layman is grateful to those
+who arranged this exhibition.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s Notes
+
+
+Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
+predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
+were not changed.
+
+Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
+marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
+unbalanced.
+
+The illustration near the front of the book is the publisher’s logo.
+
+Page 219: “understanded” was printed that way.
+
+Page 287: “knight errants” was printed that way.
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75294 ***
diff --git a/75294-h/75294-h.htm b/75294-h/75294-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8cf5ef0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/75294-h/75294-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,8968 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html>
+<html lang="en">
+<head>
+    <meta charset="UTF-8">
+    <title>
+      History as Literature and Other Essays | Project Gutenberg
+    </title>
+    <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover">
+    <style> /* <![CDATA[ */
+
+body {
+    margin-left: 2.5em;
+    margin-right: 2.5em;
+}
+.x-ebookmaker body {margin: 0;}
+.x-ebookmaker-drop {color: inherit;}
+
+h1, h2 {
+    text-align: center;
+    clear: both;
+    margin-top: 2.5em;
+    margin-bottom: 1em;
+    word-spacing: .2em;
+}
+
+h1 {line-height: 1;}
+
+h2.chap {margin-bottom: 0;}
+h2+p {margin-top: 1.5em;}
+.x-ebookmaker h1, .x-ebookmaker .chapter, .x-ebookmaker .section {page-break-before: always;}
+.x-ebookmaker h1.nobreak, .x-ebookmaker h2.nobreak, .x-ebookmaker .nobreak {page-break-before: avoid; padding-top: 0;}
+
+.transnote h2 {
+    margin-top: .5em;
+    margin-bottom: 1em;
+}
+
+p {
+    text-indent: 1.75em;
+    margin-top: .51em;
+    margin-bottom: .24em;
+    text-align: justify;
+}
+.x-ebookmaker p {
+    margin-top: .5em;
+    margin-bottom: .25em;
+}
+
+.center p, p.center {text-align: center; text-indent: 0;}
+
+.p4 {margin-top: 4em;}
+
+.in0 {text-indent: 0;}
+.in05 {padding-left: .75em;}
+
+.xsmall  {font-size: 60%;}
+.small   {font-size: 70%;}
+.smaller {font-size: 85%;}
+.larger  {font-size: 125%;}
+.xxlarge {font-size: 200%;}
+.vspace  {line-height: 1.7;}
+
+p.drop-cap {text-indent: 0;}
+p.drop-cap:first-letter {
+  float: left;
+  margin: .04em .35em 0 0;
+  font-size: 350%;
+  line-height:0.7em;
+  text-indent: 0;
+  clear: both;
+}
+p.drop-cap.i .smcap1 {margin-left: -.6em;}
+p.drop-cap .smcap1 {margin-left: -1.1em;}
+p.drop-cap.b .smcap1 {margin-left: -1.4em;}
+p.drop-cap.al .smcap1  {margin-left: -1.8em;}
+p .smcap1 {font-size: 1em;}
+.smcap1 {text-transform: uppercase;}
+
+.x-ebookmaker-2 p.drop-cap {text-indent: 1.75em; margin-bottom: .24em;}
+.x-ebookmaker-2 p.drop-cap:first-letter {
+  float: none;
+  font-size: 100%;
+  margin-left: 0;
+  margin-right: 0;
+  text-indent: 1.75em;
+}
+
+.x-ebookmaker-2 p.drop-cap.i .smcap1,
+  .x-ebookmaker-2 p.drop-cap .smcap1,
+  .x-ebookmaker-2 p.drop-cap.b .smcap1,
+  .x-ebookmaker-2 p.drop-cap.al .smcap1 {margin-left: 0;}
+.x-ebookmaker-2 p.drop-cap {text-indent: 0;}
+.x-ebookmaker-2 p .smcap1 {font-size: 1em;}
+.x-ebookmaker-2 .smcap1 {font-variant: normal;}
+
+.center   {text-align: center;}
+
+.right   {text-align: right; margin-right: 2em;}
+
+.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
+
+hr {width: 33%; margin: 4em auto 4em auto; clear: both;}
+hr.narrow {width: 10em; margin: 1em auto 1em auto;}
+
+.x-ebookmaker hr {
+    margin-top: .1em;
+    margin-bottom: .1em;
+    visibility: hidden;
+    color: white;
+    width: .01em;
+    display: none;
+}
+
+.tb {
+    text-align: center;
+    padding-top: .76em;
+    padding-bottom: .24em;
+    letter-spacing: 1.5em;
+    margin-right: -1.5em;
+}
+
+.x-ebookmaker .tb {letter-spacing: 1.25em; margin-right: -1.25em;}
+
+table {
+    margin-left: auto;
+    margin-right: auto;
+    max-width: 80%;
+    border-collapse: collapse;
+}
+.x-ebookmaker table {width: auto; max-width: 90%; margin: 1em auto 1em auto;}
+
+.tdl {
+    text-align: left;
+    vertical-align: top;
+    padding-right: 0;
+    padding-left: 1.5em;
+    text-indent: -1.5em;
+}
+.x-ebookmaker .tdl {
+    padding-left: 1em;
+    text-indent: -1em;
+    padding-right: 0;
+}
+
+.tdc {text-align: center;}
+
+.tdr {
+    text-align: right;
+    vertical-align: bottom;
+    padding-left: .3em;
+    white-space: nowrap;
+}
+#toc td {padding-bottom: .5em;}
+#toc .xsmall td {padding-bottom: 0;}
+#toc td.tpad {padding-top: 1em;}
+#toc .tdl.tpad {padding-left: 0; text-indent: .5em; text-align: justify;}
+
+.pagenum {
+  position: absolute;
+  right: .25em;
+  text-indent: 0;
+  text-align: right;
+  font-size: 70%;
+  font-weight: normal;
+  font-variant: normal;
+  font-style: normal;
+  letter-spacing: normal;
+  line-height: normal;
+  color: #acacac;
+  border: .0625em solid #acacac;
+  background: #ffffff;
+  padding: .0625em .125em;
+}
+
+.figcenter   {
+    margin: 2em auto 2em auto;
+    text-align: center;
+    page-break-inside: avoid;
+}
+
+img {
+    padding: 1em 0 0 0;
+    max-width: 100%;
+    height: auto;
+}
+
+.footnote {
+    border: thin dashed black;
+    margin: 1.5em 10%;
+    padding: .5em 1em .5em 1.5em;
+}
+
+.footnote {font-size: .95em;}
+.footnote p {text-indent: 1em;}
+.footnote p.in0 {text-indent: 0;}
+
+.fnanchor, .footnote .label {
+    vertical-align: 60%;
+    line-height: .7;
+    font-size: smaller;
+    text-decoration: none;
+}
+.fnanchor {font-weight: bold; font-size: .8em;}
+.footnote .label {font-size: .8em;}
+h2 .fnanchor {font-size: .5em; vertical-align: text-top;}
+
+a.ref {text-decoration: none;}
+
+.poetry-container {
+    margin: 1.5em auto;
+    text-align: center;
+    font-size: 98%;
+    display: flex;
+    justify-content: center;
+}
+
+.poetry {display: block; text-align: left; margin-left: 0;}
+.x-ebookmaker .poetry {margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;}
+.poetry .stanza {padding: 0.5em 0; page-break-inside: avoid;}
+.poetry .verse  {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;}
+
+.poetry .indentq  {text-indent: -3.45em;}
+.poetry .indent0  {text-indent: -3em;}
+
+.x-ebookmaker .poetry .tb {text-align: left; padding-left: 2em;}
+
+.transnote {
+    border: .3em double gray;
+    font-family: sans-serif, serif;
+    margin-left: 5%;
+    margin-right: 5%;
+    margin-top: 4em;
+    margin-bottom: 2em;
+    padding: 1em;
+}
+.x-ebookmaker .transnote {
+    page-break-before: always;
+    page-break-after: always;
+    margin-left: 2%;
+    margin-right: 2%;
+    margin-top: 1em;
+    margin-bottom: 1em;
+    padding: .5em;
+}
+
+.wspace {word-spacing: .3em;}
+
+.pagenum br {display: none; visibility: hidden;}
+
+.illowe7 {width: 5em;}
+
+    /* ]]> */ </style>
+</head>
+
+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75294 ***</div>
+
+<div class="section">
+<p class="p4 center larger wspace">BOOKS BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT</p>
+
+<p class="center wspace">PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS</p>
+
+<hr class="narrow">
+
+<div>
+<table id="tbooks">
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl">AFRICAN GAME TRAILS. An account of the African Wanderings of an American Hunter-Naturalist.<br>Illustrated. Large 8vo</td>
+  <td class="tdr">$4.00 <i>net</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl">OUTDOOR PASTIMES OF AN AMERICAN HUNTER.<br>New Edition. Illustrated. 8vo</td>
+  <td class="tdr">$3.00 <i>net</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl">HISTORY AS LITERATURE and Other Essays.<br>12mo</td>
+  <td class="tdr">$1.50 <i>net</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl">OLIVER CROMWELL. Illustrated. 8vo</td>
+  <td class="tdr">$2.00 <i>net</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl">THE ROUGH RIDERS. Illustrated. 8vo</td>
+  <td class="tdr">$1.50 <i>net</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl">THE ROOSEVELT BOOK. Selections from the Writings of Theodore Roosevelt. 16mo</td>
+  <td class="tdr">50 cents <i>net</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdc" colspan="2"><hr class="narrow"></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">THE ELKHORN EDITION. Complete Works of Theodore Roosevelt. 26 volumes. Illustrated. 8vo. Sold by subscription.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<div>                                                                                                                                                                                                                           </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter section">
+<h1 class="nobreak">HISTORY AS LITERATURE<br>
+
+<span class="small">AND OTHER ESSAYS</span></h1>
+<div>                                                                                                                                                                                                                           </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter section">
+<p class="center xxlarge vspace">
+HISTORY AS LITERATURE<br>
+<span class="smaller">AND OTHER ESSAYS</span></p>
+
+<p class="p4 center vspace">BY<br>
+<span class="larger wspace">THEODORE ROOSEVELT</span></p>
+
+<p class="p4 center wspace">NEW YORK<br>
+<span class="larger">CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS</span><br>
+1913
+</p>
+<div>                                                                                                                                                                                                                           </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter section">
+<p class="center">
+Copyright, 1913, by<br>
+CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS<br>
+
+Published September, 1913<br>
+Reprinted in December, 1913
+</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowe7" id="i_logo">
+  <img src="images/i_logo.png" alt="Publisher's logo">
+</figure>
+<div>                                                                                                                                                                                                                           </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter section">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="PREFACE">PREFACE</h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">In</span> this volume I have gathered certain addresses
+I made before the American Historical Association,
+the University of Oxford, the University of
+Berlin, and the Sorbonne at Paris, together with
+six essays I wrote for <i>The Outlook</i>, and one that
+I wrote for <i>The Century</i>.</p>
+
+<p>In these addresses and essays I have discussed
+not merely literary but also historical and scientific
+subjects, for my thesis is that the domain of
+literature must be ever more widely extended over
+the domains of history and science. There is
+nothing which in this preface I can say to elaborate
+or emphasize what I have said on this subject
+in the essays themselves.</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<span class="smcap">Theodore Roosevelt.</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="in0 smaller">
+<span class="smcap">Sagamore Hill</span>,<br>
+<i class="in05">July 4, 1913</i>.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter section">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<table id="toc">
+<tr class="xsmall">
+  <td class="tdl"></td>
+  <td class="tdr">PAGE</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">History as Literature</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_1">1</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Biological Analogies in History</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_37">37</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The World Movement</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_95">95</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Citizenship in a Republic</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_135">135</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Thraldom of Names</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_175">175</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Productive Scholarship</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_195">195</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Dante and the Bowery</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_217">217</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_231">231</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Search for Truth in a Reverent Spirit</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_245">245</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Ancient Irish Sagas</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_275">275</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">An Art Exhibition</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_301">301</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl tpad" colspan="2"><span class="smaller">⁂ Three chapters, “Biological Analogies in History,” “The World
+Movement,” and “Citizenship in a Republic,” were included in the volume
+entitled “African and European Addresses.”</span></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1"></span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><span class="larger">HISTORY AS LITERATURE</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">3</span></p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="HISTORY_AS_LITERATURE" title="HISTORY AS LITERATURE"><span id="toclink_1"></span>HISTORY AS LITERATURE<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">1</a></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">There</span> has been much discussion as to
+whether history should not henceforth be
+treated as a branch of science rather than
+of literature. As with most such discussions,
+much of the matter in dispute has referred merely
+to terminology. Moreover, as regards part of the
+discussion, the minds of the contestants have not
+met, the propositions advanced by the two sides
+being neither mutually incompatible nor mutually
+relevant. There is, however, a real basis for conflict
+in so far as science claims exclusive possession
+of the field.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">1</a> Annual address of the president of the American Historical Association
+delivered at Boston, December 27, 1912.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>There was a time—we see it in the marvellous
+dawn of Hellenic life—when history was distinguished
+neither from poetry, from mythology, nor
+from the first dim beginnings of science. There
+was a more recent time, at the opening of Rome’s
+brief period of literary splendor, when poetry
+was accepted by a great scientific philosopher as
+the appropriate vehicle for teaching the lessons of
+science and philosophy. There was a more recent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">4</span>
+time still—the time of Holland’s leadership in
+arms and arts—when one of the two or three greatest
+world painters put his genius at the service of
+anatomists.</p>
+
+<p>In each case the steady growth of specialization
+has rendered such combination now impossible.
+Virgil left history to Livy; and when Tacitus had
+become possible Lucan was a rather absurd anachronism.
+The elder Darwin, when he endeavored
+to combine the functions of scientist and poet,
+may have thought of Lucretius as a model; but
+the great Darwin was incapable of such a mistake.
+The surgeons of to-day would prefer the services of
+a good photographer to those of Rembrandt—even
+were those of Rembrandt available. No
+one would now dream of combining the history of
+the Trojan War with a poem on the wrath of
+Achilles. Beowulf’s feats against the witch who
+dwelt under the water would not now be mentioned
+in the same matter-of-fact way that a
+Frisian or Frankish raid is mentioned. We are
+long past the stage when we would accept as parts
+of the same epic Siegfried’s triumphs over dwarf
+and dragon, and even a distorted memory of the
+historic Hunnish king in whose feast-hall the Burgundian
+heroes held their last revel and made
+their death fight. We read of the loves of the
+Hound of Muirthemne and Emer the Fair without
+attributing to the chariot-riding heroes who<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">5</span>
+“fought over the ears of their horses” and to
+their fierce lady-loves more than a symbolic reality.
+The Roland of the Norman trouvères, the Roland
+who blew the ivory horn at Roncesvalles, is to our
+minds wholly distinct from the actual Warden of
+the Marches who fell in a rear-guard skirmish with
+the Pyrenean Basques.</p>
+
+<p>As regards philosophy, as distinguished from
+material science and from history, the specialization
+has been incomplete. Poetry is still used as
+a vehicle for the teaching of philosophy. Goethe
+was as profound a thinker as Kant. He has influenced
+the thought of mankind far more deeply
+than Kant because he was also a great poet.
+Robert Browning was a real philosopher, and his
+writings have had a hundredfold the circulation
+and the effect of those of any similar philosopher
+who wrote in prose, just because, and only because,
+what he wrote was not merely philosophy
+but literature. The form in which he wrote challenged
+attention and provoked admiration. That
+part of his work which some of us—which I myself,
+for instance—most care for is merely poetry.
+But in that part of his work which has exercised
+most attraction and has given him the widest
+reputation, the poetry, the form of expression,
+bears to the thought expressed much the same relation
+that the expression of Lucretius bears to
+the thought of Lucretius. As regards this, the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">6</span>
+great mass of his product, he is primarily a philosopher,
+whose writings surpass in value those of
+other similar philosophers precisely because they
+are not only philosophy but literature. In other
+words, Browning the philosopher is read by countless
+thousands to whom otherwise philosophy
+would be a sealed book, for exactly the same reason
+that Macaulay the historian is read by countless
+thousands to whom otherwise history would
+be a sealed book; because both Browning’s works
+and Macaulay’s works are material additions to
+the great sum of English literature. Philosophy
+is a science just as history is a science. There is
+need in one case as in the other for vivid and powerful
+presentation of scientific matter in literary
+form.</p>
+
+<p>This does not mean that there is the like need
+in the two cases. History can never be truthfully
+presented if the presentation is purely emotional.
+It can never be truthfully or usefully presented
+unless profound research, patient, laborious, painstaking,
+has preceded the presentation. No
+amount of self-communion and of pondering on
+the soul of mankind, no gorgeousness of literary
+imagery, can take the place of cool, serious, widely
+extended study. The vision of the great historian
+must be both wide and lofty. But it must be
+sane, clear, and based on full knowledge of the
+facts and of their interrelations. Otherwise we<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">7</span>
+get merely a splendid bit of serious romance-writing,
+like Carlyle’s “French Revolution.” Many
+hard-working students, alive to the deficiencies
+of this kind of romance-writing, have grown to
+distrust not only all historical writing that is
+romantic, but all historical writing that is vivid.
+They feel that complete truthfulness must never
+be sacrificed to color. In this they are right.
+They also feel that complete truthfulness is incompatible
+with color. In this they are wrong.
+The immense importance of full knowledge of
+a mass of dry facts and gray details has so impressed
+them as to make them feel that the dryness
+and the grayness are in themselves meritorious.</p>
+
+<p>These students have rendered invaluable service
+to history. They are right in many of their
+contentions. They see how literature and science
+have specialized. They realize that scientific
+methods are as necessary to the proper study of
+history as to the proper study of astronomy or
+zoology. They know that in many, perhaps in
+most, of its forms, literary ability is divorced from
+the restrained devotion to the actual fact which
+is as essential to the historian as to the scientist.
+They know that nowadays science ostentatiously
+disclaims any connection with literature. They
+feel that if this is essential for science, it is no less
+essential for history.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">8</span></p>
+
+<p>There is much truth in all these contentions.
+Nevertheless, taking them all together, they do
+not indicate what these hard-working students
+believed that they indicate. Because history,
+science, and literature have all become specialized,
+the theory now is that science is definitely
+severed from literature and that history must follow
+suit. Not only do I refuse to accept this as
+true for history, but I do not even accept it as
+true for science.</p>
+
+<p>Literature may be defined as that which has
+permanent interest because both of its substance
+and its form, aside from the mere technical value
+that inheres in a special treatise for specialists.
+For a great work of literature there is the same
+demand now that there always has been; and in
+any great work of literature the first element is
+great imaginative power. The imaginative power
+demanded for a great historian is different from
+that demanded for a great poet; but it is no less
+marked. Such imaginative power is in no sense
+incompatible with minute accuracy. On the contrary,
+very accurate, very real and vivid, presentation
+of the past can come only from one in
+whom the imaginative gift is strong. The industrious
+collector of dead facts bears to such a
+man precisely the relation that a photographer
+bears to Rembrandt. There are innumerable
+books, that is, innumerable volumes of printed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">9</span>
+matter between covers, which are excellent for
+their own purposes, but in which imagination
+would be as wholly out of place as in the blue
+prints of a sewer system or in the photographs
+taken to illustrate a work on comparative osteology.
+But the vitally necessary sewer system
+does not take the place of the cathedral of Rheims
+or of the Parthenon; no quantity of photographs
+will ever be equivalent to one Rembrandt; and
+the greatest mass of data, although indispensable
+to the work of a great historian, is in no shape or
+way a substitute for that work.</p>
+
+<p>History, taught for a directly and immediately
+useful purpose to pupils and the teachers of pupils,
+is one of the necessary features of a sound education
+in democratic citizenship. A book containing
+such sound teaching, even if without any
+literary quality, may be as useful to the student
+and as creditable to the writer as a similar book
+on medicine. I am not slighting such a book
+when I say that, once it has achieved its worthy
+purpose, it can be permitted to lapse from human
+memory as a good book on medicine, which has
+outlived its usefulness, lapses from memory. But
+the historical work which does possess literary
+quality may be a permanent contribution to the
+sum of man’s wisdom, enjoyment, and inspiration.
+The writer of such a book must add wisdom
+to knowledge, and the gift of expression to the
+gift of imagination.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">10</span></p>
+
+<p>It is a shallow criticism to assert that imagination
+tends to inaccuracy. Only a distorted imagination
+tends to inaccuracy. Vast and fundamental
+truths can be discerned and interpreted only by
+one whose imagination is as lofty as the soul of a
+Hebrew prophet. When we say that the great
+historian must be a man of imagination, we use
+the word as we use it when we say that the great
+statesman must be a man of imagination. Moreover,
+together with imagination must go the power
+of expression. The great speeches of statesmen
+and the great writings of historians can live only
+if they possess the deathless quality that inheres
+in all great literature. The greatest literary historian
+must of necessity be a master of the science
+of history, a man who has at his finger-tips all the
+accumulated facts from the treasure-houses of the
+dead past. But he must also possess the power to
+marshal what is dead so that before our eyes it
+lives again.</p>
+
+<p>Many learned people seem to feel that the quality
+of readableness in a book is one which warrants
+suspicion. Indeed, not a few learned people
+seem to feel that the fact that a book is
+interesting is proof that it is shallow. This is
+particularly apt to be the attitude of scientific
+men. Very few great scientists have written interestingly,
+and these few have usually felt
+apologetic about it. Yet sooner or later the time
+will come when the mighty sweep of modern<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">11</span>
+scientific discovery will be placed, by scientific
+men with the gift of expression, at the service of
+intelligent and cultivated laymen. Such service
+will be inestimable. Another writer of “Canterbury
+Tales,” another singer of “Paradise Lost,”
+could not add more to the sum of literary achievement
+than the man who may picture to us the
+phases of the age-long history of life on this
+globe, or make vivid before our eyes the tremendous
+march of the worlds through space.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, I believe that already science has owed
+more than it suspects to the unconscious literary
+power of some of its representatives. Scientific
+writers of note had grasped the fact of evolution
+long before Darwin and Huxley; and the theories
+advanced by these men to explain evolution were
+not much more unsatisfactory, as full explanations,
+than the theory of natural selection itself. Yet,
+where their predecessors had created hardly a
+ripple, Darwin and Huxley succeeded in effecting
+a complete revolution in the thought of the age,
+a revolution as great as that caused by the discovery
+of the truth about the solar system. I
+believe that the chief explanation of the difference
+was the very simple one that what Darwin and
+Huxley wrote was interesting to read. Every cultivated
+man soon had their volumes in his library,
+and they still keep their places on our book-shelves.
+But Lamarck and Cope are only to be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">12</span>
+found in the libraries of a few special students.
+If they had possessed a gift of expression akin to
+Darwin’s, the doctrine of evolution would not in
+the popular mind have been confounded with the
+doctrine of natural selection and a juster estimate
+than at present would obtain as to the relative
+merits of the explanations of evolution championed
+by the different scientific schools.</p>
+
+<p>Do not misunderstand me. In the field of historical
+research an immense amount can be done
+by men who have no literary power whatever.
+Moreover, the most painstaking and laborious research,
+covering long periods of years, is necessary
+in order to accumulate the material for any history
+worth writing at all. There are important
+by-paths of history, moreover, which hardly admit
+of treatment that would make them of interest
+to any but specialists. All this I fully
+admit. In particular I pay high honor to the
+patient and truthful investigator. He does an
+indispensable work. My claim is merely that
+such work should not exclude the work of the
+great master who can use the materials gathered,
+who has the gift of vision, the quality of the seer,
+the power himself to see what has happened and
+to make what he has seen clear to the vision of
+others. My only protest is against those who believe
+that the extension of the activities of the
+most competent mason and most energetic contractor<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">13</span>
+will supply the lack of great architects.
+If, as in the Middle Ages, the journeymen builders
+are themselves artists, why this is the best possible
+solution of the problem. But if they are not
+artists, then their work, however much it represents
+of praiseworthy industry, and of positive
+usefulness, does not take the place of the work of a
+great artist.</p>
+
+<p>Take a concrete example. It is only of recent
+years that the importance of inscriptions has been
+realized. To the present-day scholar they are invaluable.
+Even to the layman, some of them
+turn the past into the present with startling clearness.
+The least imaginative is moved by the simple
+inscription on the Etruscan sarcophagus: “I,
+the great lady”; a lady so haughty that no other
+human being was allowed to rest near her; and
+yet now nothing remains but this proof of the
+pride of the nameless one. Or the inscription in
+which Queen Hatshepsu recounts her feats and
+her magnificence, and ends by adjuring the onlooker,
+when overcome by the recital, not to say
+“how wonderful” but “how like her!”—could any
+picture of a living queen be more intimately
+vivid? With such inscriptions before us the wonder
+is that it took us so long to realize their worth.
+Not unnaturally this realization, when it did come,
+was followed by the belief that inscriptions would
+enable us to dispense with the great historians of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">14</span>
+antiquity. This error is worse than the former.
+Where the inscriptions give us light on what
+would otherwise be darkness, we must be profoundly
+grateful; but we must not confound the
+lesser light with the greater. We could better
+afford to lose every Greek inscription that has
+ever been found than the chapter in which Thucydides
+tells of the Athenian failure before Syracuse.
+Indeed, few inscriptions teach us as much history
+as certain forms of literature that do not
+consciously aim at teaching history at all. The
+inscriptions of Hellenistic Greece in the third
+century before our era do not, all told, give us
+so lifelike a view of the ordinary life of the ordinary
+men and women who dwelt in the great Hellenistic
+cities of the time, as does the fifteenth idyl
+of Theocritus.</p>
+
+<p>This does not mean that good history can be
+unscientific. So far from ignoring science, the
+great historian of the future can do nothing unless
+he is steeped in science. He can never equal
+what has been done by the great historians of the
+past unless he writes not merely with full knowledge,
+but with an intensely vivid consciousness,
+of all that of which they were necessarily ignorant.
+He must accept what we now know to be man’s
+place in nature. He must realize that man has
+been on this earth for a period of such incalculable
+length that, from the standpoint of the student<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">15</span>
+of his development through time, what our ancestors
+used to call “antiquity” is almost indistinguishable
+from the present day. If our conception
+of history takes in the beast-like man whose
+sole tool and weapon was the stone fist-hatchet,
+and his advanced successors, the man who etched
+on bone pictures of the mammoth, the reindeer,
+and the wild horse, in what is now France, and
+the man who painted pictures of bison in the
+burial caves of what is now Spain; if we also conceive
+in their true position our “contemporaneous
+ancestors,” the savages who are now no more
+advanced than the cave-dwellers of a hundred
+thousand or two hundred thousand years back,
+then we shall accept Thothmes and Cæsar, Alfred
+and Washington, Timoleon and Lincoln, Homer
+and Shakespeare, Pythagoras and Emerson, as all
+nearly contemporaneous in time and in culture.</p>
+
+<p>The great historian of the future will have easy
+access to innumerable facts patiently gathered by
+tens of thousands of investigators, whereas the
+great historian of the past had very few facts,
+and often had to gather most of these himself. The
+great historian of the future can not be excused if
+he fails to draw on the vast storehouses of knowledge
+that have been accumulated, if he fails to
+profit by the wisdom and work of other men,
+which are now the common property of all intelligent
+men. He must use the instruments which<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">16</span>
+the historians of the past did not have ready to
+hand. Yet even with these instruments he can
+not do as good work as the best of the elder historians
+unless he has vision and imagination, the
+power to grasp what is essential and to reject the
+infinitely more numerous non-essentials, the power
+to embody ghosts, to put flesh and blood on dry
+bones, to make dead men living before our eyes.
+In short, he must have the power to take the
+science of history and turn it into literature.</p>
+
+<p>Those who wish history to be treated as a purely
+utilitarian science often decry the recital of the
+mighty deeds of the past, the deeds which always
+have aroused, and for a long period to come are
+likely to arouse, most interest. These men say
+that we should study not the unusual but the
+usual. They say that we profit most by laborious
+research into the drab monotony of the ordinary,
+rather than by fixing our eyes on the purple
+patches that break it. Beyond all question the
+great historian of the future must keep ever in
+mind the relative importance of the usual and the
+unusual. If he is a really great historian, if he
+possesses the highest imaginative and literary
+quality, he will be able to interest us in the gray
+tints of the general landscape no less than in the
+flame hues of the jutting peaks. It is even more
+essential to have such quality in writing of the
+commonplace than in writing of the exceptional.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">17</span>
+Otherwise no profit will come from study of the
+ordinary; for writings are useless unless they are
+read, and they can not be read unless they are
+readable. Furthermore, while doing full justice
+to the importance of the usual, of the commonplace,
+the great historian will not lose sight of the
+importance of the heroic.</p>
+
+<p>It is hard to tell just what it is that is most important
+to know. The wisdom of one generation
+may seem the folly of the next. This is just as
+true of the wisdom of the dry-as-dusts as of the
+wisdom of those who write interestingly. Moreover,
+while the value of the by-products of knowledge
+does not readily yield itself to quantitative
+expression, it is none the less real. A utilitarian
+education should undoubtedly be the foundation
+of all education. But it is far from advisable,
+it is far from wise, to have it the end of all education.
+Technical training will more and more be
+accepted as the prime factor in our educational
+system, a factor as essential for the farmer, the
+blacksmith, the seamstress, and the cook, as for
+the lawyer, the doctor, the engineer, and the stenographer.
+For similar reasons the purely practical
+and technical lessons of history, the lessons
+that help us to grapple with our immediate social
+and industrial problems, will also receive greater
+emphasis than ever before. But if we are wise
+we will no more permit this practical training to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">18</span>
+exclude knowledge of that part of literature which
+is history than of that part of literature which is
+poetry. Side by side with the need for the perfection
+of the individual in the technic of his
+special calling goes the need of broad human sympathy,
+and the need of lofty and generous emotion
+in that individual. Only thus can the citizenship
+of the modern state rise level to the complex
+modern social needs.</p>
+
+<p>No technical training, no narrowly utilitarian
+study of any kind will meet this second class of
+needs. In part they can best be met by a training
+that will fit men and women to appreciate,
+and therefore to profit by, great poetry and those
+great expressions of the historian and the statesman
+which rivet our interest and stir our souls.
+Great thoughts match and inspire heroic deeds.
+The same reasons that make the Gettysburg speech
+and the Second Inaugural impress themselves on
+men’s minds far more deeply than technical
+treatises on the constitutional justification of
+slavery or of secession, apply to fitting descriptions
+of the great battle and the great contest
+which occasioned the two speeches. The tense
+epic of the Gettysburg fight, the larger epic of the
+whole Civil War, when truthfully and vividly
+portrayed, will always have, and ought always to
+have, an attraction, an interest, that can not be
+roused by the description of the same number of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">19</span>
+hours or years of ordinary existence. There are
+supreme moments in which intensity and not
+duration is the all-important element. History
+which is not professedly utilitarian, history which
+is didactic only as great poetry is unconsciously
+didactic, may yet possess that highest form of
+usefulness, the power to thrill the souls of men with
+stories of strength and craft and daring, and to
+lift them out of their common selves to the heights
+of high endeavor.</p>
+
+<p>The greatest historian should also be a great
+moralist. It is no proof of impartiality to treat
+wickedness and goodness as on the same level.
+But of course the obsession of purposeful moral
+teaching may utterly defeat its own aim. Moreover,
+unfortunately, the avowed teacher of morality,
+when he writes history, sometimes goes very
+far wrong indeed. It often happens that the man
+who can be of real help in inspiring others by his
+utterances on abstract principles is wholly unable
+to apply his own principles to concrete cases.
+Carlyle offers an instance in point. Very few men
+have ever been a greater source of inspiration to
+other ardent souls than was Carlyle when he confined
+himself to preaching morality in the abstract.
+Moreover, his theory bade him treat history as
+offering material to support that theory. But
+not only was he utterly unable to distinguish
+either great virtues or great vices when he looked<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">20</span>
+abroad on contemporary life—as witness his attitude
+toward our own Civil War—but he was
+utterly unable to apply his own principles concretely
+in history. His “Frederick the Great” is
+literature of a high order. It may, with reservations,
+even be accepted as history. But the
+“morality” therein jubilantly upheld is shocking
+to any man who takes seriously Carlyle’s other
+writings in which he lays down principles of conduct.
+In his “Frederick the Great” he was not
+content to tell the facts. He was not content to
+announce his admiration. He wished to square
+himself with his theories, and to reconcile what
+he admired, both with the actual fact and with
+his previously expressed convictions on morality.
+He could only do so by refusing to face the facts
+and by using words with meanings that shifted to
+meet his own mental emergencies. He pretended
+to discern morality where no vestige of it existed.
+He tortured the facts to support his views. The
+“morality” he praised had no connection with
+morality as understood in the New Testament.
+It was the kind of archaic morality observed by
+the Danites in their dealings with the people of
+Laish. The sermon of the Mormon bishop in
+Owen Wister’s “Pilgrim on the Gila” sets forth
+the only moral lessons which it was possible for
+Carlyle truthfully to draw from the successes he
+described.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">21</span></p>
+
+<p>History must not be treated as something set
+off by itself. It should not be treated as a branch
+of learning bound to the past by the shackles
+of an iron conservatism. It is neither necessary
+rigidly to mark the limits of the province of history,
+nor to treat of all that is within that province, nor
+to exclude any subject within that province from
+treatment, nor yet to treat different methods of
+dealing with the same subject as mutually exclusive.
+Every writer and every reader has his
+own needs, to meet himself or to be met by others.
+Among a great multitude of thoughtful people
+there is room for the widest possible variety of
+appeals. Let each man fearlessly choose what is
+of real importance and interest to him personally,
+reverencing authority, but not in a superstitious
+spirit, because he must needs reverence liberty
+even more.</p>
+
+<p>There is an infinite variety of subjects to treat,
+and no need to estimate their relative importance.
+Because one man is interested in the history of
+finance, it does not mean that another is wrong
+in being interested in the history of war. One
+man’s need is met by exhaustive tables of statistics;
+another’s by the study of the influence
+exerted on national life by the great orators, the
+Websters and Burkes, or by the poets, the Tyrtæuses
+and Körners, who in crises utter what is
+in the nation’s heart. There is need of the study
+of the historical workings of representative government.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">22</span>
+There is no less need of the study of
+the economic changes produced by the factory
+system. Because we study with profit what
+Thorold Rogers wrote of prices we are not debarred
+from also profiting by Mahan’s studies of
+naval strategy. One man finds what is of most
+importance to his own mind and heart in tracing
+the effect upon humanity of the spread of malaria
+along the shores of the Ægean; or the effect of
+the Black Death on the labor-market of mediæval
+Europe; or the profound influence upon the development
+of the African continent of the fatal
+diseases borne by the bites of insects, which close
+some districts to human life and others to the
+beasts without which humanity rests at the lowest
+stage of savagery. One man sees the events
+from one view-point, one from another. Yet another
+can combine both. We can be stirred by
+Thayer’s study of Cavour without abating our
+pleasure in the younger Trevelyan’s volumes on
+Garibaldi. Because we revel in Froissart, or Joinville,
+or Villehardouin, there is no need that we
+should lack interest in the books that attempt the
+more difficult task of tracing the economic changes
+in the status of peasant, mechanic, and burgher
+during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.</p>
+
+<p>History must welcome the entrance upon its
+domain of every science. As James Harvey Robinson
+in his “New History” has said:</p>
+
+<p>“The bounds of all departments of human research<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">23</span>
+and speculation are inherently provisional,
+indefinite, and fluctuating; moreover, the lines of
+demarcation are hopelessly interlaced, for real
+men and the real universe in which they live are
+so intricate as to defy all attempts even of the
+most patient and subtle German to establish satisfactorily
+and permanently the <i lang="de">Begriff und Wesen</i>
+of any artificially delimited set of natural phenomena,
+whether words, thoughts, deeds, forces, animals,
+plants, or stars. Each so-called science
+or discipline is ever and always dependent on
+other sciences and disciplines. It draws its life
+from them, and to them it owes, consciously or
+unconsciously, a great part of its chances of progress.”</p>
+
+<p>Elsewhere this writer dwells on the need of
+understanding the genetic side of history, if we
+are to grasp the real meaning of, and grapple most
+effectively with, the phenomena of our present-day
+lives; for that which is can be dealt with
+best if we realize at least in part from what a
+tangled web of causation it has sprung.</p>
+
+<p>The work of the archæologist, the work of the
+anthropologist, the work of the palæo-ethnologist—out
+of all these a great literary historian may
+gather material indispensable for his use. He, and
+we, ought fully to acknowledge our debt to the
+collectors of these indispensable facts. The investigator
+in any line may do work which puts us<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">24</span>
+all under lasting obligations to him, even though
+he be totally deficient in the art of literary expression,
+that is, totally deficient in the ability to convey
+vivid and lifelike pictures to others of the
+past whose secrets he has laid bare. I would give
+no scanty or grudging acknowledgment to the
+deeds of such a man. He does a lasting service;
+whereas the man who tries to make literary expression
+cover his ignorance or misreading of facts
+renders less than no service. But the service done
+is immeasurably increased in value when the man
+arises who from his study of a myriad dead fragments
+is able to paint some living picture of the
+past.</p>
+
+<p>This is why the record as great writers preserve
+it has a value immeasurably beyond what is
+merely lifeless. Such a record pulses with immortal
+life. It may recount the deed or the
+thought of a hero at some supreme moment. It
+may be merely the portrayal of homely every-day
+life. This matters not, so long as in either event
+the genius of the historian enables him to paint in
+colors that do not fade. The cry of the Ten
+Thousand when they first saw the sea still stirs
+the hearts of men. The ruthless death scene between
+Jehu and Jezebel; wicked Ahab, smitten by
+the chance arrow, and propped in his chariot until
+he died at sundown; Josiah, losing his life because
+he would not heed the Pharaoh’s solemn warning,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">25</span>
+and mourned by all the singing men and all the
+singing women—the fates of these kings and of
+this king’s daughter, are part of the common stock
+of knowledge of mankind. They were petty rulers
+of petty principalities; yet, compared with them,
+mighty conquerors, who added empire to empire,
+Shalmaneser and Sargon, Amenhotep and Rameses,
+are but shadows; for the deeds and the deaths of
+the kings of Judah and Israel are written in words
+that, once read, can not be forgotten. The Peloponnesian
+War bulks of unreal size to-day because
+it once seemed thus to bulk to a master
+mind. Only a great historian can fittingly deal
+with a very great subject; yet because the qualities
+of chief interest in human history can be
+shown on a small field no less than on a large one,
+some of the greatest historians have treated subjects
+that only their own genius rendered great.</p>
+
+<p>So true is this that if great events lack a great
+historian, and a great poet writes about them, it is
+the poet who fixes them in the mind of mankind,
+so that in after-time importance the real has become
+the shadow and the shadow the reality.
+Shakespeare has definitely fixed the character of
+the Richard III of whom ordinary men think and
+speak. Keats forgot even the right name of the
+man who first saw the Pacific Ocean; yet it is
+his lines which leap to our minds when we think
+of the “wild surmise” felt by the indomitable<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">26</span>
+explorer-conqueror from Spain when the vast new
+sea burst on his vision.</p>
+
+<p>When, however, the great historian has spoken,
+his work will never be undone. No poet can
+ever supersede what Napier wrote of the storming
+of Badajoz, of the British infantry at Albuera,
+and of the light artillery at Fuentes d’Oñoro.
+After Parkman had written of Montcalm and
+Wolfe there was left for other writers only what
+Fitzgerald left for other translators of Omar
+Khayyam. Much new light has been thrown on
+the history of the Byzantine Empire by the many
+men who have studied it of recent years; we read
+each new writer with pleasure and profit; and
+after reading each we take down a volume of
+Gibbon, with renewed thankfulness that a great
+writer was moved to do a great task.</p>
+
+<p>The greatest of future archæologists will be the
+great historian who instead of being a mere antiquarian
+delver in dust-heaps has the genius
+to reconstruct for us the immense panorama of
+the past. He must possess knowledge. He must
+possess that without which knowledge is of so
+little use, wisdom. What he brings from the
+charnel-house he must use with such potent wizardry
+that we shall see the life that was and not
+the death that is. For remember that the past
+was life just as much as the present is life. Whether
+it be Egypt, or Mesopotamia, or Scandinavia with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">27</span>
+which he deals, the great historian, if the facts
+permit him, will put before us the men and women
+as they actually lived so that we shall recognize
+them for what they were, living beings. Men like
+Maspero, Breasted, and Weigall have already begun
+this work for the countries of the Nile and
+the Euphrates. For Scandinavia the groundwork
+was laid long ago in the “Heimskringla” and in
+such sagas as those of Burnt Njal and Gisli
+Soursop. Minute descriptions of mummies and of
+the furniture of tombs help us as little to understand
+the Egypt of the mighty days, as to sit
+inside the tomb of Mount Vernon would help us
+to see Washington the soldier leading to battle
+his scarred and tattered veterans, or Washington
+the statesman, by his serene strength of character,
+rendering it possible for his countrymen to
+establish themselves as one great nation.</p>
+
+<p>The great historian must be able to paint for
+us the life of the plain people, the ordinary men
+and women, of the time of which he writes. He
+can do this only if he possesses the highest kind of
+imagination. Collections of figures no more give
+us a picture of the past than the reading of a
+tariff report on hides or woollens gives us an idea
+of the actual lives of the men and women who live
+on ranches or work in factories. The great historian
+will in as full measure as possible present
+to us the every-day life of the men and women of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">28</span>
+the age which he describes. Nothing that tells
+of this life will come amiss to him. The instruments
+of their labor and the weapons of their warfare,
+the wills that they wrote, the bargains that
+they made, and the songs that they sang when
+they feasted and made love: he must use them all.
+He must tell us of the toil of the ordinary man in
+ordinary times, and of the play by which that
+ordinary toil was broken. He must never forget
+that no event stands out entirely isolated. He
+must trace from its obscure and humble beginnings
+each of the movements that in its hour of
+triumph has shaken the world.</p>
+
+<p>Yet he must not forget that the times that are
+extraordinary need especial portrayal. In the
+revolt against the old tendency of historians to
+deal exclusively with the spectacular and the exceptional,
+to treat only of war and oratory and
+government, many modern writers have gone to
+the opposite extreme. They fail to realize that
+in the lives of nations as in the lives of men there
+are hours so fraught with weighty achievement,
+with triumph or defeat, with joy or sorrow, that
+each such hour may determine all the years that
+are to come thereafter, or may outweigh all the
+years that have gone before. In the writings of
+our historians, as in the lives of our ordinary
+citizens, we can neither afford to forget that it
+is the ordinary every-day life which counts most;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">29</span>
+nor yet that seasons come when ordinary qualities
+count for but little in the face of great contending
+forces of good and of evil, the outcome of whose
+strife determines whether the nation shall walk
+in the glory of the morning or in the gloom of
+spiritual death.</p>
+
+<p>The historian must deal with the days of common
+things, and deal with them so that they shall
+interest us in reading of them as our own common
+things interest us as we live among them. He
+must trace the changes that come almost unseen,
+the slow and gradual growth that transforms for
+good or for evil the children and grandchildren so
+that they stand high above or far below the level
+on which their forefathers stood. He must also
+trace the great cataclysms that interrupt and divert
+this gradual development. He can no more
+afford to be blind to one class of phenomena than
+to the other. He must ever remember that while
+the worst offence of which he can be guilty is to
+write vividly and inaccurately, yet that unless he
+writes vividly he can not write truthfully; for no
+amount of dull, painstaking detail will sum up as
+the whole truth unless the genius is there to paint
+the truth.</p>
+
+<p>There can be no better illustration of what I
+mean than is afforded by the history of Russia
+during the last thousand years. The historian
+must trace the growth of the earliest Slav communities<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">30</span>
+of the forest and the steppe, the infiltration
+of Scandinavian invaders who gave them
+their first power of mass action, and the slow,
+chaotic development of the little communes into
+barbarous cities and savage princedoms. In later
+Russian history he must show us priest and
+noble, merchant and serf, changing slowly from
+the days when Ivan the Terrible warred against
+Bátory, the Magyar king of Poland, until the
+present moment, when with half-suspicious eyes
+the people of the Czar watch their remote Bulgarian
+kinsmen standing before the last European
+stronghold of the Turk. During all these centuries
+there were multitudes of wars, foreign and
+domestic, any or all of which were of little moment
+compared to the slow working of the various forces
+that wrought in the times of peace. But there
+was one period of storm and overthrow so terrible
+that it affected profoundly for all time the
+whole growth of the Russian people, in inmost
+character no less than in external dominion.
+Early in the thirteenth century the genius of
+Jenghiz Khan stirred the Mongol horsemen of the
+mid-Asian pastures to a movement as terrible to
+civilization as the lava flow of a volcano to the
+lands around the volcano’s foot. When that century
+opened, the Mongols were of no more weight
+in the world than the Touaregs of the Sahara are
+to-day. Long before the century had closed they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">31</span>
+had ridden from the Yellow Sea to the Adriatic
+and the Persian Gulf. They had crushed Christian
+and Moslem and Buddhist alike beneath the
+iron cruelty of their sway. They had conquered
+China as their successors conquered India. They
+sacked Baghdad, the seat of the Caliph. In mid-Europe
+their presence for a moment caused the
+same horror to fall on the warring adherents of
+the Pope and the Kaiser. To Europe they were a
+scourge so frightful, so irresistible, that the people
+cowered before them as if they had been demons.
+No European army of that day, of any nation,
+was able to look them in the face on a stricken
+field. Bestial in their lives, irresistible in battle,
+merciless in victory, they trampled the lands over
+which they rode into bloody mire beneath the
+hoofs of their horses. The squat, slit-eyed, brawny
+horse-bowmen drew a red furrow across Hungary,
+devastated Poland, and in Silesia overthrew the
+banded chivalry of Germany. But it was in
+Russia that they did their worst. They not
+merely conquered Russia, but held the Russians
+as cowering and abject serfs for two centuries.
+Every feeble effort at resistance was visited with
+such bloodthirsty vengeance that finally no Russian
+ventured ever to oppose them at all. But
+the princes of the cities soon found that the beast-like
+fury of the conquerors when their own desires
+were thwarted, was only equalled by their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">32</span>
+beast-like indifference to all that was done among
+the conquered people themselves, and that they
+were ever ready to hire themselves out to aid each
+Russian against his brother. Under this régime
+the Russian who rose was the Russian who with
+cringing servility to his Tartar overlords combined
+ferocious and conscienceless greed in the
+treatment of his fellow Russians. Moscow came
+to the front by using the Tartar to help conquer
+the other Russian cities, paying as a price abject
+obedience to all Tartar demands. In the long
+run the fierce and pliant cunning of the conquered
+people proved too much for the short-sighted and
+arrogant brutality of the conquerors. The Tartar
+power, the Mongolian power, waned. Russia
+became united, threw off the yoke, and herself
+began a career of aggression at the expense of her
+former conquerors. But the reconquest of racial
+independence, vitally necessary though it was to
+Russia, had been paid for by the establishment
+of a despotism Asiatic rather than European in its
+spirit and working.</p>
+
+<p>The true historian will bring the past before
+our eyes as if it were the present. He will make
+us see as living men the hard-faced archers of
+Agincourt, and the war-worn spearmen who followed
+Alexander down beyond the rim of the
+known world. We shall hear grate on the coast
+of Britain the keels of the Low-Dutch sea-thieves<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">33</span>
+whose children’s children were to inherit unknown
+continents. We shall thrill to the triumphs of
+Hannibal. Gorgeous in our sight will rise the
+splendor of dead cities, and the might of the elder
+empires of which the very ruins crumbled to dust
+ages ago. Along ancient trade-routes, across the
+world’s waste spaces, the caravans shall move;
+and the admirals of uncharted seas shall furrow
+the oceans with their lonely prows. Beyond the
+dim centuries we shall see the banners float above
+armed hosts. We shall see conquerors riding
+forward to victories that have changed the course
+of time. We shall listen to the prophecies of forgotten
+seers. Ours shall be the dreams of dreamers
+who dreamed greatly, who saw in their vision peaks
+so lofty that never yet have they been reached
+by the sons and daughters of men. Dead poets
+shall sing to us the deeds of men of might and
+the love and the beauty of women. We shall see
+the dancing girls of Memphis. The scent of the
+flowers in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon will be
+heavy to our senses. We shall sit at feast with the
+kings of Nineveh when they drink from ivory and
+gold. With Queen Maeve in her sun-parlor we
+shall watch the nearing chariots of the champions.
+For us the war-horns of King Olaf shall wail
+across the flood, and the harps sound high at
+festivals in forgotten halls. The frowning strongholds
+of the barons of old shall rise before us, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">34</span>
+the white palace-castles from whose windows
+Syrian princes once looked across the blue Ægean.
+We shall know the valor of the two-sworded
+Samurai. Ours shall be the hoary wisdom and
+the strange, crooked folly of the immemorial civilizations
+which tottered to a living death in
+India and in China. We shall see the terrible
+horsemen of Timur the Lame ride over the roof
+of the world; we shall hear the drums beat as the
+armies of Gustavus and Frederick and Napoleon
+drive forward to victory. Ours shall be the woe
+of burgher and peasant, and ours the stern joy
+when freemen triumph and justice comes to her
+own. The agony of the galley-slaves shall be
+ours, and the rejoicing when the wicked are
+brought low and the men of evil days have their
+reward. We shall see the glory of triumphant
+violence, and the revel of those who do wrong in
+high places; and the broken-hearted despair that
+lies beneath the glory and the revel. We shall
+also see the supreme righteousness of the wars
+for freedom and justice, and know that the men
+who fell in these wars made all mankind their
+debtors.</p>
+
+<p>Some day the historians will tell us of these
+things. Some day, too, they will tell our children
+of the age and the land in which we now live.
+They will portray the conquest of the continent.
+They will show the slow beginnings of settlement,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">35</span>
+the growth of the fishing and trading towns on
+the seacoast, the hesitating early ventures into
+the Indian-haunted forest. Then they will show
+the backwoodsmen, with their long rifles and their
+light axes, making their way with labor and peril
+through the wooded wilderness to the Mississippi;
+and then the endless march of the white-topped
+wagon-trains across plain and mountain to the
+coast of the greatest of the five great oceans. They
+will show how the land which the pioneers won
+slowly and with incredible hardship was filled in
+two generations by the overflow from the countries
+of western and central Europe. The portentous
+growth of the cities will be shown, and the change
+from a nation of farmers to a nation of business
+men and artisans, and all the far-reaching consequences
+of the rise of the new industrialism. The
+formation of a new ethnic type in this melting-pot
+of the nations will be told. The hard materialism
+of our age will appear, and also the strange capacity
+for lofty idealism which must be reckoned
+with by all who would understand the American
+character. A people whose heroes are Washington
+and Lincoln, a peaceful people who fought to
+a finish one of the bloodiest of wars, waged solely
+for the sake of a great principle and a noble idea,
+surely possess an emergency-standard far above
+mere money-getting.</p>
+
+<p>Those who tell the Americans of the future<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">36</span>
+what the Americans of to-day and of yesterday
+have done, will perforce tell much that is unpleasant.
+This is but saying that they will describe
+the arch-typical civilization of this age.
+Nevertheless, when the tale is finally told, I believe
+that it will show that the forces working for
+good in our national life outweigh the forces
+working for evil, and that, with many blunders and
+shortcomings, with much halting and turning
+aside from the path, we shall yet in the end prove
+our faith by our works, and show in our lives
+our belief that righteousness exalteth a nation.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">37</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">39</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak">BIOLOGICAL ANALOGIES IN HISTORY</h2>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="BIOLOGICAL_ANALOGIES_IN_HISTORY" title="BIOLOGICAL ANALOGIES IN HISTORY"><span id="toclink_37"></span>BIOLOGICAL ANALOGIES IN HISTORY<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">2</a></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap al"><span class="smcap1">An</span> American who, in response to such an invitation
+as I have received, speaks in this
+university of ancient renown, can not but
+feel with peculiar vividness the interest and charm
+of his surroundings, fraught as they are with a
+thousand associations. Your great universities,
+and all the memories that make them great, are
+living realities in the minds of scores of thousands
+of men who have never seen them and who dwell
+across the seas in other lands. Moreover, these
+associations are no stronger in the men of English
+stock than in those who are not. My people
+have been for eight generations in America; but
+in one thing I am like the Americans of to-morrow,
+rather than like many of the Americans of
+to-day; for I have in my veins the blood of men
+who came from many different European races.
+The ethnic make-up of our people is slowly changing,
+so that constantly the race tends to become
+more and more akin to that of those Americans<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">40</span>
+who like myself are of the old stock but not
+mainly of English stock. Yet I think that, as
+time goes by, mutual respect, understanding, and
+sympathy among the English-speaking peoples
+grow greater and not less. Any of my ancestors,
+Hollander or Huguenot, Scotchman or Irishman,
+who had come to Oxford in “the spacious days
+of great Elizabeth,” would have felt far more
+alien than I, their descendant, now feel. Common
+heirship in the things of the spirit makes a
+closer bond than common heirship in the things of
+the body.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">2</a> Delivered at Oxford, June 7, 1910. This was the Romanes
+Lecture for 1910, and has been published by the Oxford University
+Press, with whose permission it is included in this volume.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>More than ever before in the world’s history
+we of to-day seek to penetrate the causes of the
+mysteries that surround not only mankind but
+all life, both in the present and the past. We
+search, we peer, we see things dimly; here and
+there we get a ray of clear vision, as we look before
+and after. We study the tremendous procession
+of the ages, from the immemorial past
+when in “cramp elf and saurian forms” the creative
+forces “swathed their too-much power,”
+down to the yesterday, a few score thousand years
+distant only, when the history of man became the
+overwhelming fact in the history of life on this
+planet; and studying we see strange analogies
+in the phenomena of life and death, of birth,
+growth, and change, between those physical
+groups of animal life which we designate as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">41</span>
+species, forms, races, and the highly complex and
+composite entities which rise before our minds
+when we speak of nations and civilizations.</p>
+
+<p>It is this study which has given science its
+present-day prominence. In the world of intellect,
+doubtless, the most marked features in the
+history of the past century have been the extraordinary
+advances in scientific knowledge and
+investigation, and in the position held by the
+men of science with reference to those engaged in
+other pursuits. I am not now speaking of applied
+science; of the science, for instance, which,
+having revolutionized transportation on the earth
+and the water, is now on the brink of carrying it
+into the air; of the science that finds its expression
+in such extraordinary achievements as the
+telephone and the telegraph; of the sciences
+which have so accelerated the velocity of movement
+in social and industrial conditions—for the
+changes in the mechanical appliances of ordinary
+life during the last three generations have been
+greater than in all the preceding generations
+since history dawned. I speak of the science
+which has no more direct bearing upon the affairs
+of our every-day life than literature or music,
+painting or sculpture, poetry or history. A hundred
+years ago the ordinary man of cultivation
+had to know something of these last subjects;
+but the probabilities were rather against his having<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">42</span>
+any but the most superficial scientific knowledge.
+At present all this has changed, thanks
+to the interest taken in scientific discoveries, the
+large circulation of scientific books, and the rapidity
+with which ideas originating among students
+of the most advanced and abstruse sciences become,
+at least partially, domiciled in the popular
+mind.</p>
+
+<p>Another feature of the change, of the growth
+in the position of science in the eyes of every
+one, and of the greatly increased respect naturally
+resulting for scientific methods, has been a certain
+tendency for scientific students to encroach
+on other fields. This is particularly true of the
+field of historical study. Not only have scientific
+men insisted upon the necessity of considering
+the history of man, especially in its early stages,
+in connection with what biology shows to be the
+history of life, but furthermore there has arisen
+a demand that history shall itself be treated as a
+science. Both positions are in their essence right;
+but as regards each position, the more arrogant
+among the invaders of the new realm of knowledge
+take an attitude to which it is not necessary to
+assent. As regards the latter of the two positions,
+that which would treat history henceforth
+merely as one branch of scientific study, we must
+of course cordially agree that accuracy in recording
+facts and appreciation of their relative worth<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">43</span>
+and interrelationship are just as necessary in historical
+study as in any other kind of study. The
+fact that a book, though interesting, is untrue,
+of course removes it at once from the category
+of history, however much it may still deserve to
+retain a place in the always desirable group of
+volumes which deal with entertaining fiction.
+But the converse also holds, at least to the extent
+of permitting us to insist upon what would seem
+to be the elementary fact that a book which is
+written to be read should be readable. This
+rather obvious truth seems to have been forgotten
+by some of the more zealous scientific historians,
+who apparently hold that the worth of a historical
+book is directly in proportion to the impossibility
+of reading it, save as a painful duty.
+Now I am willing that history shall be treated as
+a branch of science, but only on condition that
+it also remains a branch of literature; and, furthermore,
+I believe that as the field of science
+encroaches on the field of literature there should
+be a corresponding encroachment of literature
+upon science; and I hold that one of the great
+needs, which can only be met by very able men
+whose culture is broad enough to include literature
+as well as science, is the need of books for
+scientific laymen. We need a literature of science
+which shall be readable. So far from doing
+away with the school of great historians, the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">44</span>
+school of Polybius and Tacitus, Gibbon and Macaulay,
+we need merely that the future writers
+of history, without losing the qualities which
+have made these men great, shall also utilize the
+new facts and new methods which science has
+put at their disposal. Dryness is not in itself a
+measure of value. No “scientific” treatise about
+St. Louis will displace Joinville, for the very reason
+that Joinville’s place is in both history and
+literature; no minute study of the Napoleonic
+wars will teach us more than Marbot—and Marbot
+is as interesting as Walter Scott. Moreover,
+certain at least of the branches of science should
+likewise be treated by masters in the art of presentment,
+so that the layman interested in science,
+no less than the layman interested in history, shall
+have on his shelves classics which can be read.
+Whether this wish be or be not capable of realization,
+it assuredly remains true that the great historian
+of the future must essentially represent the
+ideal striven after by the great historians of the
+past. The industrious collector of facts occupies
+an honorable, but not an exalted, position, and
+the scientific historian who produces books which
+are not literature must rest content with the honor,
+substantial, but not of the highest type, that belongs
+to him who gathers material which some
+time some great master shall arise to use.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, while freely conceding all that can be said<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">45</span>
+of the masters of literature, we must insist upon
+the historian of mankind working in the scientific
+spirit, and using the treasure-houses of science.
+He who would fully treat of man must know at
+least something of biology, of the science that
+treats of living, breathing things; and especially
+of that science of evolution which is inseparably
+connected with the great name of Darwin. Of
+course, there is no exact parallelism between the
+birth, growth, and death of species in the animal
+world, and the birth, growth, and death of societies
+in the world of man. Yet there is a certain
+parallelism. There are strange analogies; it may
+be that there are homologies.</p>
+
+<p>How far the resemblances between the two sets
+of phenomena are more than accidental, how far
+biology can be used as an aid in the interpretation
+of human history, we can not at present say. The
+historian should never forget, what the highest
+type of scientific man is always teaching us to
+remember, that willingness to admit ignorance is
+a prime factor in developing wisdom out of knowledge.
+Wisdom is advanced by research which
+enables us to add to knowledge; and, moreover,
+the way for wisdom is made ready when men who
+record facts of vast but unknown import, if asked
+to explain their full significance, are willing
+frankly to answer that they do not know. The
+research which enables us to add to the sum of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">46</span>
+complete knowledge stands first; but second only
+stands the research which, while enabling us
+clearly to pose the problem, also requires us to
+say that with our present knowledge we can offer
+no complete solution.</p>
+
+<p>Let me illustrate what I mean by an instance
+or two taken from one of the most fascinating
+branches of world-history, the history of the higher
+forms of life, of mammalian life, on this globe.</p>
+
+<p>Geologists and astronomers are not agreed as
+to the length of time necessary for the changes
+that have taken place. At any rate, many hundreds
+of thousands of years, some millions of
+years, have passed by since in the eocene, at the
+beginning of the tertiary period, we find the
+traces of an abundant, varied, and highly developed
+mammalian life on the land masses out of
+which have grown the continents as we see them
+to-day. The ages swept by, until, with the advent
+of man substantially in the physical shape in
+which we now know him, we also find a mammalian
+fauna not essentially different in kind, though
+widely differing in distribution, from that of the
+present day. Throughout this immense period
+form succeeds form, type succeeds type, in obedience
+to laws of evolution, of progress and retrogression,
+of development and death, which we as
+yet understand only in the most imperfect manner.
+As knowledge increases our wisdom is often<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">47</span>
+turned into foolishness, and many of the phenomena
+of evolution which seemed clearly explicable
+to the learned master of science who founded these
+lectures, to us nowadays seem far less satisfactorily
+explained. The scientific men of most note
+now differ widely in their estimates of the relative
+parts played in evolution by natural selection, by
+mutation, by the inheritance of acquired characteristics;
+and we study their writings with a
+growing impression that there are forces at work
+which our blinded eyes wholly fail to apprehend;
+and where this is the case the part of wisdom is
+to say that we believe we have such and such partial
+explanations, but that we are not warranted
+in saying that we have the whole explanation.
+In tracing the history of the development of
+faunal life during this period, the age of mammals,
+there are some facts which are clearly established,
+some great and sweeping changes for
+which we can with certainty ascribe reasons.
+There are other facts as to which we grope in the
+dark, and vast changes, vast catastrophes, of which
+we can give no adequate explanation.</p>
+
+<p>Before illustrating these types, let us settle
+one or two matters of terminology. In the
+changes, the development and extinction, of
+species we must remember that such expressions
+as “a new species,” or as “a species becoming
+extinct,” are each commonly and indiscriminately<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">48</span>
+used to express totally different and opposite
+meanings. Of course the “new” species is
+not new in the sense that its ancestors appeared
+later on the globe’s surface than those of any old
+species tottering to extinction. Phylogenetically,
+each animal now living must necessarily trace its
+ancestral descent back through countless generations,
+through eons of time, to the early stages of
+the appearance of life on the globe. All that
+we mean by a “new” species is that from some
+cause, or set of causes, one of these ancestral
+stems slowly or suddenly develops into a form
+unlike any that has preceded it; so that, while in
+one form of life the ancestral type is continuously
+repeated and the old species continues to exist,
+in another form of life there is a deviation from
+the ancestral type and a new species appears.</p>
+
+<p>Similarly, “extinction of species” is a term
+which has two entirely different meanings. The
+type may become extinct by dying out and leaving
+no descendants. Or it may die out because
+as the generations go by there is change, slow
+or swift, until a new form is produced. Thus in
+one case the line of life comes to an end. In
+the other case it changes into something different.
+The huge titanothere, and the small three-toed
+horse, both existed at what may roughly be called
+the same period of the world’s history, back in
+the middle of the mammalian age. Both are<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">49</span>
+extinct in the sense that each has completely disappeared
+and that nothing like either is to be
+found in the world to-day. But whereas all the
+individual titanotheres finally died out, leaving no
+descendants, a number of the three-toed horses
+did leave descendants, and these descendants, constantly
+changing as the ages went by, finally developed
+into the highly specialized one-toed horses,
+asses, and zebras of to-day.</p>
+
+<p>The analogy between the facts thus indicated
+and certain facts in the development of human
+societies is striking. A further analogy is supplied
+by a very curious tendency often visible in
+cases of intense and extreme specialization. When
+an animal form becomes highly specialized, the
+type at first, because of its specialization, triumphs
+over its allied rivals and its enemies, and attains
+a great development; until in many cases the
+specialization becomes so extreme that from some
+cause unknown to us, or at which we merely
+guess, it disappears. The new species which
+mark a new era commonly come from the less
+specialized types, the less distinctive, dominant,
+and striking types, of the preceding era.</p>
+
+<p>When dealing with the changes, cataclysmic
+or gradual, which divide one period of paleontological
+history from another, we can sometimes
+assign causes, and again we can not even guess at
+them. In the case of single species, or of faunas<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">50</span>
+of very restricted localities, the explanation is
+often self-evident. A comparatively slight change
+in the amount of moisture in the climate, with
+the attendant change in vegetation, might readily
+mean the destruction of a group of huge herbivores
+with a bodily size such that they needed a
+vast quantity of food, and with teeth so weak or
+so peculiar that but one or two kinds of plants
+could furnish this food. Again, we now know
+that the most deadly foes of the higher forms of
+life are various lower forms of life, such as insects,
+or microscopic creatures conveyed into the
+blood by insects. There are districts in South
+America where many large animals, wild and domestic,
+can not live because of the presence either
+of certain ticks or of certain baleful flies. In
+Africa there is a terrible genus of poison fly, each
+species acting as the host of microscopic creatures
+which are deadly to certain of the higher vertebrates.
+One of these species, though harmless to
+man, is fatal to all domestic animals, and this
+although harmless to the closely related wild kinsfolk
+of these animals. Another is fatal to man
+himself, being the cause of the “sleeping-sickness”
+which in many large districts has killed out
+the entire population. Of course the development
+or the extension of the range of any such
+insects, and any one of many other causes which
+we see actually at work around us, would readily<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">51</span>
+account for the destruction of some given species
+or even for the destruction of several species in a
+limited area of country.</p>
+
+<p>When whole faunal groups die out over large
+areas, the question is different, and may or may
+not be susceptible of explanation with the knowledge
+we actually possess. In the old arctogæal
+continent, for instance, in what is now Europe,
+Asia, and North America, the glacial period made
+a complete, but of course explicable, change in
+the faunal life of the region. At one time the
+continent held a rich and varied fauna. Then a
+period of great cold supervened, and a different
+fauna succeeded the first. The explanation of the
+change is obvious.</p>
+
+<p>But in many other cases we can not so much
+as hazard a guess at why a given change occurred.
+One of the most striking instances of these inexplicable
+changes is that afforded by the history of
+South America toward the close of the tertiary
+period. For ages South America had been an
+island by itself, cut off from North America at
+the very time that the latter was at least occasionally
+in land communication with Asia. During
+this time a very peculiar fauna grew up in South
+America, some of the types resembling nothing
+now existing, while others are recognizable as
+ancestral forms of the ant-eaters, sloths, and armadillos
+of to-day. It was a peculiar and diversified<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">52</span>
+mammalian fauna, of, on the whole, rather small
+species, and without any representatives of the
+animals with which man has been most familiar
+during his career on this earth.</p>
+
+<p>Toward the end of the tertiary period there
+was an upheaval of land between this old South
+American island and North America, near what
+is now the Isthmus of Panama, thereby making a
+bridge across which the teeming animal life of the
+northern continent had access to this queer southern
+continent. There followed an inrush of huge,
+or swift, or formidable creatures which had attained
+their development in the fierce competition
+of the arctogæal realm. Elephants, camels, horses,
+tapirs, swine, sabre-toothed tigers, big cats,
+wolves, bears, deer, crowded into South America,
+warring each against the other incomers and
+against the old long-existing forms. A riot of
+life followed. Not only was the character of the
+South American fauna totally changed by the
+invasion of these creatures from the north, which
+soon swarmed over the continent, but it was also
+changed through the development wrought in the
+old inhabitants by the severe competition to
+which they were exposed. Many of the smaller
+or less capable types died out. Others developed
+enormous bulk or complete armor protection, and
+thereby saved themselves from the new beasts.
+In consequence, South America soon became populated<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">53</span>
+with various new species of mastodons,
+sabre-toothed tigers, camels, horses, deer, cats,
+wolves, hooved creatures of strange shapes, and
+some of them of giant size, all of these being descended
+from the immigrant types; and side by
+side with them there grew up large autochthonous
+ungulates, giant ground-sloths well-nigh as large
+as elephants, and armored creatures as bulky as
+an ox but structurally of the armadillo or ant-eater
+type; and some of these latter not only
+held their own, but actually in their turn wandered
+north over the isthmus and invaded North America.
+A fauna as varied as that of Africa to-day,
+as abundant in species and individuals, even more
+noteworthy, because of its huge size or odd type,
+and because of the terrific prowess of the more formidable
+flesh-eaters, was thus developed in South
+America, and flourished for a period which human
+history would call very long indeed, but which
+geologically was short.</p>
+
+<p>Then, for no reason that we can assign, destruction
+fell on this fauna. All the great and terrible
+creatures died out, the same fate befalling the
+changed representatives of the old autochthonous
+fauna and the descendants of the migrants that
+had come down from the north. Ground-sloth
+and glyptodon, sabre-tooth, horse and mastodon,
+and all the associated animals of large size vanished,
+and South America, though still retaining<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">54</span>
+its connection with North America, once again became
+a land with a mammalian life small and
+weak compared to that of North America and
+the Old World. Its fauna is now marked, for
+instance, by the presence of medium-sized deer
+and cats, fox-like wolves, and small camel-like
+creatures, as well as by the presence of small
+armadillos, sloths, and ant-eaters. In other words,
+it includes diminutive representatives of the giants
+of the preceding era, both of the giants among the
+older forms of mammalia, and of the giants among
+the new and intrusive kinds. The change was
+wide-spread and extraordinary, and with our present
+means of information it is wholly inexplicable.
+There was no ice age, and it is hard to imagine
+any cause which would account for the extinction
+of so many species of huge or moderate size, while
+smaller representatives, and here and there
+medium-sized representatives, of many of them
+were left.</p>
+
+<p>Now as to all of these phenomena in the evolution
+of species, there are, if not homologies, at
+least certain analogies, in the history of human
+societies, in the history of the rise to prominence,
+of the development and change, of the temporary
+dominance, and death or transformation, of the
+groups of varying kind which form races or nations.
+Here, as in biology, it is necessary to keep in
+mind that we use each of the words “birth” and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">55</span>
+“death,” “youth” and “age,” often very loosely,
+and sometimes as denoting either one of two totally
+different conceptions. Of course, in one
+sense there is no such thing as an “old” or a
+“young” nation, any more than there is an “old”
+or “young” family. Phylogenetically, the line of
+ancestral descent must be of exactly the same
+length for every existing individual, and for every
+group of individuals, whether forming a family or
+a nation. All that can properly be meant by the
+terms “new” and “young” is that in a given line
+of descent there has suddenly come a period of
+rapid change. This change may arise either from
+a new development or transformation of the old
+elements, or else from a new grouping of these
+elements with other and varied elements; so that
+the words “new” nation or “young” nation may
+have a real difference of significance in one case
+from what they have in another.</p>
+
+<p>As in biology, so in human history, a new form
+may result from the specialization of a long-existing,
+and hitherto very slowly changing, generalized
+or non-specialized form; as, for instance,
+occurs when a barbaric race from a variety of
+causes suddenly develops a more complex cultivation
+and civilization. This is what occurred, for
+instance, in western Europe during the centuries
+of the Teutonic and, later, the Scandinavian ethnic
+overflows from the north. All the modern countries<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">56</span>
+of western Europe are descended from the
+states created by these northern invaders. When
+first created they would be called “new” or
+“young” states in the sense that part or all of
+the people composing them were descended from
+races that hitherto had not been civilized, and
+that therefore, for the first time, entered on the
+career of civilized communities. In the southern
+part of western Europe the new states thus formed
+consisted in bulk of the inhabitants already in
+the land under the Roman Empire; and it was
+here that the new kingdoms first took shape.
+Through a reflex action their influence then extended
+back into the cold forests from which the
+invaders had come, and Germany and Scandinavia
+witnessed the rise of communities with essentially
+the same civilization as their southern
+neighbors; though in those communities, unlike
+the southern communities, there was no infusion
+of new blood, so that the new civilized nations
+which gradually developed were composed entirely
+of members of the same races which in the same
+regions had for ages lived the life of a slowly changing
+barbarism. The same was true of the Slavs
+and the Slavonized Finns of eastern Europe,
+when an infiltration of Scandinavian leaders from
+the north, and an infiltration of Byzantine culture
+from the south, joined to produce the changes
+which have gradually, out of the little Slav communities<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">57</span>
+of the forest and the steppe, formed the
+mighty Russian Empire of to-day.</p>
+
+<p>Again, the new form may represent merely a
+splitting off from a long-established, highly developed,
+and specialized nation. In this case the
+nation is usually spoken of as a “young,” and is
+correctly spoken of as a “new,” nation; but the
+term should always be used with a clear sense of
+the difference between what is described in such
+case, and what is described by the same term in
+speaking of a civilized nation just developed from
+barbarism. Carthage and Syracuse were new
+cities compared to Tyre and Corinth; but the
+Greek or Phœnician race was in every sense of the
+word as old in the new city as in the old city.
+So, nowadays, Victoria or Manitoba is a new community
+compared with England or Scotland; but
+the ancestral type of civilization and culture is as
+old in one case as in the other. I of course do not
+mean for a moment that great changes are not
+produced by the mere fact that the old civilized
+race is suddenly placed in surroundings where it
+has again to go through the work of taming the
+wilderness, a work finished many centuries before
+in the original home of the race; I merely mean
+that the ancestral history is the same in each case.
+We can rightly use the phrase “a new people,” in
+speaking of Canadians or Australians, Americans
+or Africanders. But we use it in an entirely different<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">58</span>
+sense from that in which we use it when
+speaking of such communities as those founded by
+the Northmen and their descendants during that
+period of astonishing growth which saw the descendants
+of the Norse sea-thieves conquer and
+transform Normandy, Sicily, and the British Islands;
+we use it in an entirely different sense from
+that in which we use it when speaking of the new
+states that grew up around Warsaw, Kief, Novgorod,
+and Moscow, as the wild savages of the
+steppes and the marshy forests struggled haltingly
+and stumblingly upward to become builders of
+cities and to form stable governments. The kingdoms
+of Charlemagne and Alfred were “new,”
+compared to the empire on the Bosphorus; they
+were also in every way different; their lines of
+ancestral descent had nothing in common with
+that of the polyglot realm which paid tribute to
+the Cæsars of Byzantium; their social problems
+and after-time history were totally different. This
+is not true of those “new” nations which spring
+direct from old nations. Brazil, the Argentine,
+the United States, are all “new” nations, compared
+with the nations of Europe; but, with whatever
+changes in detail, their civilization is nevertheless
+of the general European type, as shown
+in Portugal, Spain, and England. The differences
+between these “new” American and these “old”
+European nations are not as great as those which<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">59</span>
+separate the “new” nations one from another,
+and the “old” nations one from another. There
+are in each case very real differences between the
+new and the old nation; differences both for good
+and for evil; but in each case there is the same
+ancestral history to reckon with, the same type
+of civilization, with its attendant benefits and
+shortcomings; and, after the pioneer stages are
+passed, the problems to be solved, in spite of
+superficial differences, are in their essence the
+same; they are those that confront all civilized
+peoples, not those that confront only peoples
+struggling from barbarism into civilization.</p>
+
+<p>So, when we speak of the “death” of a tribe,
+a nation, or a civilization, the term may be used
+for either one of two totally different processes,
+the analogy with what occurs in biological history
+being complete. Certain tribes of savages—the
+Tasmanians, for instance, and various little clans
+of American Indians—have within the last century
+or two completely died out; all of the individuals
+have perished, leaving no descendants,
+and the blood has disappeared. Certain other
+tribes of Indians have as tribes disappeared or are
+now disappearing; but their blood remains, being
+absorbed into the veins of the white intruders, or
+of the black men introduced by those white intruders;
+so that in reality they are merely being
+transformed into something absolutely different<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">60</span>
+from what they were. In the United States, in
+the new State of Oklahoma, the Creeks, Cherokees,
+Chickasaws, Delawares, and other tribes
+are in process of absorption into the mass of the
+white population; when the State was admitted
+a couple of years ago, one of the two senators,
+and three of the five representatives in Congress,
+were partly of Indian blood. In but a few years
+these Indian tribes will have disappeared as completely
+as those that have actually died out; but
+the disappearance will be by absorption and transformation
+into the mass of the American population.</p>
+
+<p>A like wide diversity in fact may be covered
+in the statement that a civilization has “died
+out.” The nationality and culture of the wonderful
+city-builders of the lower Mesopotamian Plain
+have completely disappeared, and, though doubtless
+certain influences dating therefrom are still
+at work, they are in such changed and hidden form
+as to be unrecognizable. But the disappearance
+of the Roman Empire was of no such character.
+There was complete change, far-reaching transformation,
+and at one period a violent dislocation;
+but it would not be correct to speak either of the
+blood or the culture of Old Rome as extinct. We
+are not yet in a position to dogmatize as to the
+permanence or evanescence of the various strains
+of blood that go to make up every civilized nationality;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">61</span>
+but it is reasonably certain that the
+blood of the old Roman still flows through the
+veins of the modern Italian; and though there has
+been much intermixture, from many different
+foreign sources—from foreign conquerors and from
+foreign slaves—yet it is probable that the Italian
+type of to-day finds its dominant ancestral type
+in the ancient Latin. As for the culture, the civilization
+of Rome, this is even more true. It has
+suffered a complete transformation, partly by
+natural growth, partly by absorption of totally
+alien elements, such as a Semitic religion, and
+certain Teutonic governmental and social customs;
+but the process was not one of extinction, but one
+of growth and transformation, both from within
+and by the accretion of outside elements. In
+France and Spain the inheritance of Latin blood
+is small; but the Roman culture which was forced
+on those countries has been tenaciously retained by
+them, throughout all their subsequent ethnical
+and political changes, as the basis on which their
+civilizations have been built. Moreover, the permanent
+spreading of Roman influence was not
+limited to Europe. It has extended to and over
+half of that New World which was not even
+dreamed of during the thousand years of brilliant
+life between the birth and the death of pagan
+Rome. This New World was discovered by one
+Italian, and its mainland first reached and named<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">62</span>
+by another; and in it, over a territory many times
+the size of Trajan’s empire, the Spanish, French,
+and Portuguese adventurers founded, beside the
+Saint Lawrence and the Amazon, along the flanks
+of the Andes, and in the shadow of the snow-capped
+volcanoes of Mexico, from the Rio Grande to the
+Straits of Magellan, communities, now flourishing
+and growing apace, which in speech and culture,
+and even as regards one strain in their blood,
+are the lineal heirs of the ancient Latin civilization.
+When we speak of the disappearance, the
+passing away, of ancient Babylon or Nineveh, and
+of ancient Rome, we are using the same terms to
+describe totally different phenomena.</p>
+
+<p>The anthropologist and historian of to-day realize
+much more clearly than their predecessors of
+a couple of generations back, how artificial most
+great nationalities are, and how loose is the
+terminology usually employed to describe them.
+There is an element of unconscious and rather
+pathetic humor in the simplicity of half a century
+ago which spoke of the Aryan and the Teuton
+with reverential admiration, as if the words denoted,
+not merely something definite, but something
+ethnologically sacred; the writers having
+much the same pride and faith in their own and
+their fellow countrymen’s purity of descent from
+these imaginary Aryan or Teutonic ancestors that
+was felt a few generations earlier by the various<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">63</span>
+noble families who traced their lineage direct to
+Odin, Æneas, or Noah. Nowadays, of course,
+all students recognize that there may not be, and
+often is not, the slightest connection between kinship
+in blood and kinship in tongue. In America
+we find three races, white, red, and black,
+and three tongues, English, French, and Spanish,
+mingled in such a way that the lines of cleavage
+of race continually run at right angles to the lines
+of cleavage of speech; there being communities
+practically of pure blood of each race found speaking
+each language. Aryan and Teutonic are
+terms having very distinct linguistic meanings;
+but whether they have any such ethnical meanings
+as were formerly attributed to them is so doubtful,
+that we can not even be sure whether the ancestors
+of most of those we call Teutons originally
+spoke an Aryan tongue at all. The term Celtic,
+again, is perfectly clear when used linguistically;
+but when used to describe a race it means almost
+nothing until we find out which one of several
+totally different terminologies the writer or
+speaker is adopting. If, for instance, the term is
+used to designate the short-headed, medium-sized
+type common throughout middle Europe, from
+east to west, it denotes something entirely different
+from what is meant when the name is applied
+to the tall, yellow-haired opponents of the Romans
+and the later Greeks; while, if used to designate<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">64</span>
+any modern nationality, it becomes about
+as loose and meaningless as the term Anglo-Saxon
+itself.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the great societies which have developed
+a high civilization and have played a
+dominant part in the world have been—and are—artificial;
+not merely in social structure, but
+in the sense of including totally different race
+types. A great nation rarely belongs to any one
+race, though its citizens generally have one essentially
+national speech. Yet the curious fact
+remains that these great artificial societies acquire
+such unity that in each one all the parts feel a
+subtle sympathy, and move or cease to move, go
+forward or go back, all together, in response to
+some stir or throbbing, very powerful, and yet not
+to be discerned by our senses. National unity is
+far more apt than race unity to be a fact to reckon
+with; until indeed we come to race differences as
+fundamental as those which divide from one
+another the half-dozen great ethnic divisions of
+mankind, when they become so important that
+differences of nationality, speech, and creed sink
+into littleness.</p>
+
+<p>An ethnological map of Europe in which the
+peoples were divided according to their physical
+and racial characteristics, such as stature, coloration,
+and shape of head, would bear no resemblance
+whatever to a map giving the political divisions,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">65</span>
+the nationalities, of Europe; while, on the
+contrary, a linguistic map would show a general
+correspondence between speech and nationality.
+The northern Frenchman is in blood and physical
+type more nearly allied to his German-speaking
+neighbor than to the Frenchman of the Mediterranean
+seaboard; and the latter, in his turn, is
+nearer to the Catalan than to the man who dwells
+beside the Channel or along the tributaries of the
+Rhine. But in essential characteristics, in the
+qualities that tell in the make-up of a nationality,
+all these kinds of Frenchmen feel keenly that they
+are one, and are different from all outsiders, their
+differences dwindling into insignificance compared
+with the extraordinary, artificially produced resemblances
+which bring them together and wall
+them off from the outside world. The same is
+true when we compare the German who dwells
+where the Alpine springs of the Danube and the
+Rhine interlace, with the physically different German
+of the Baltic lands. The same is true of
+Kentishman, Cornishman, and Yorkshireman in
+England.</p>
+
+<p>In dealing, not with groups of human beings
+in simple and primitive relations, but with highly
+complex, highly specialized, civilized, or semi-civilized
+societies, there is need of great caution
+in drawing analogies with what has occurred in
+the development of the animal world. Yet even<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">66</span>
+in these cases it is curious to see how some of the
+phenomena in the growth and disappearance of
+these complex, artificial groups of human beings
+resemble what has happened in myriads of instances
+in the history of life on this planet.</p>
+
+<p>Why do great artificial empires, whose citizens
+are knit by a bond of speech and culture much
+more than by a bond of blood, show periods of
+extraordinary growth, and again of sudden or
+lingering decay? In some cases we can answer
+readily enough; in other cases we can not as yet
+even guess what the proper answer should be.
+If in any such case the centrifugal forces overcome
+the centripetal, the nation will of course fly to
+pieces, and the reason for its failure to become
+a dominant force is patent to every one. The
+minute that the spirit which finds its healthy development
+in local self-government, and is the
+antidote to the dangers of an extreme centralization,
+develops into mere particularism, into inability
+to combine effectively for achievement of
+a common end, then it is hopeless to expect great
+results. Poland and certain republics of the Western
+Hemisphere are the standard examples of
+failure of this kind; and the United States would
+have ranked with them, and her name would have
+become a byword of derision, if the forces of union
+had not triumphed in the Civil War. So, the
+growth of soft luxury after it has reached a certain<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">67</span>
+point becomes a national danger patent to all.
+Again, it needs but little of the vision of a seer to
+foretell what must happen in any community if
+the average woman ceases to become the mother
+of a family of healthy children, if the average man
+loses the will and the power to work up to old age
+and to fight whenever the need arises. If the
+homely commonplace virtues die out, if strength
+of character vanishes in graceful self-indulgence,
+if the virile qualities atrophy, then the nation has
+lost what no material prosperity can offset.</p>
+
+<p>But there are plenty of other phenomena wholly
+or partially inexplicable. It is easy to see why
+Rome trended downward when great slave-tilled
+farms spread over what had once been a countryside
+of peasant proprietors, when greed and luxury
+and sensuality ate like acids into the fibre of
+the upper classes, while the mass of the citizens
+grew to depend not upon their own exertions, but
+upon the state, for their pleasures and their very
+livelihood. But this does not explain why the
+forward movement stopped at different times, so
+far as different matters were concerned; at one
+time as regards literature, at another time as regards
+architecture, at another time as regards
+city-building. There is nothing mysterious about
+Rome’s dissolution at the time of the barbarian
+invasions; apart from the impoverishment and
+depopulation of the empire, its fall would be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">68</span>
+quite sufficiently explained by the mere fact that
+the average citizen had lost the fighting edge—an
+essential even under a despotism, and therefore
+far more essential in free, self-governing communities,
+such as those of the English-speaking
+peoples of to-day. The mystery is rather that
+out of the chaos and corruption of Roman society
+during the last days of the oligarchic republic,
+there should have sprung an empire able to hold
+things with reasonable steadiness for three or
+four centuries. But why, for instance, should the
+higher kinds of literary productiveness have
+ceased about the beginning of the second century,
+whereas the following centuries witnessed a great
+outbreak of energy in the shape of city-building
+in the provinces, not only in western Europe, but
+in Africa? We can not even guess why the springs
+of one kind of energy dried up, while there was yet
+no cessation of another kind.</p>
+
+<p>Take another and smaller instance, that of
+Holland. For a period covering a little more
+than the seventeenth century, Holland, like some
+of the Italian city-states at an earlier period, stood
+on the dangerous heights of greatness, beside
+nations so vastly her superior in territory and population
+as to make it inevitable that sooner or
+later she must fall from the glorious and perilous
+eminence to which she had been raised by her own
+indomitable soul. Her fall came; it could not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">69</span>
+have been indefinitely postponed; but it came far
+quicker than it needed to come, because of shortcomings
+on her part to which both Great Britain
+and the United States would be wise to pay heed.
+Her government was singularly ineffective, the
+decentralization being such as often to permit
+the separatist, the particularist, spirit of the provinces
+to rob the central authority of all efficiency.
+This was bad enough. But the fatal weakness
+was that so common in rich, peace-loving societies,
+where men hate to think of war as possible, and
+try to justify their own reluctance to face it either
+by high-sounding moral platitudes, or else by
+a philosophy of short-sighted materialism. The
+Dutch were very wealthy. They grew to believe
+that they could hire others to do their fighting
+for them on land; and on sea, where they did
+their own fighting, and fought very well, they refused
+in time of peace to make ready fleets so
+efficient as either to insure them against the peace
+being broken or else to give them the victory
+when war came. To be opulent and unarmed is
+to secure ease in the present at the almost certain
+cost of disaster in the future.</p>
+
+<p>It is therefore easy to see why Holland lost
+when she did her position among the powers; but
+it is far more difficult to explain why at the same
+time there should have come at least a partial loss
+of position in the world of art and letters. Some<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">70</span>
+spark of divine fire burnt itself out in the national
+soul. As the line of great statesmen, of
+great warriors, by land and sea, came to an end,
+so the line of the great Dutch painters ended.
+The loss of pre-eminence in the schools followed
+the loss of pre-eminence in camp and in council
+chamber.</p>
+
+<p>In the little republic of Holland, as in the great
+empire of Rome, it was not death which came, but
+transformation. Both Holland and Italy teach
+us that races that fall may rise again. In Holland,
+as in the Scandinavian kingdoms of Norway
+and Sweden, there was in a sense no decadence
+at all. There was nothing analogous to what has
+befallen so many countries: no lowering of the
+general standard of well-being, no general loss of
+vitality, no depopulation. What happened was,
+first a flowering time, in which the country’s men
+of action and men of thought gave it a commanding
+position among the nations of the day; then this
+period of command passed, and the state revolved
+in an eddy, aside from the sweep of the mighty
+current of world life; and yet the people themselves
+in their internal relations remained substantially
+unchanged, and in many fields of endeavor have
+now recovered themselves and play again a leading
+part.</p>
+
+<p>In Italy, where history is recorded for a far
+longer time, the course of affairs was different.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">71</span>
+When the Roman Empire that was really Roman
+went down in ruin, there followed an interval of
+centuries when the gloom was almost unrelieved.
+Every form of luxury and frivolity, of contemptuous
+repugnance for serious work, of enervating
+self-indulgence, every form of vice and weakness
+which we regard as most ominous in the civilization
+of to-day, had been at work throughout Italy
+for generations. The nation had lost all patriotism.
+It had ceased to bring forth fighters or
+workers, had ceased to bring forth men of mark
+of any kind; and the remnant of the Italian people
+cowered in helpless misery among the horsehoofs
+of the barbarians, as the wild northern bands
+rode in to take the land for a prey and the cities
+for a spoil. It was one of the great cataclysms of
+history; but in the end it was seen that what came
+had been in part change and growth. It was not
+all mere destruction. Not only did Rome leave
+a vast heritage of language, culture, law, ideas, to
+all the modern world; but the people of Italy
+kept the old blood as the chief strain in their veins.
+In a few centuries came a wonderful new birth
+for Italy. Then for four or five hundred years
+there was a growth of many little city-states
+which, in their energy both in peace and war, in
+their fierce, fervent life, in the high quality of their
+men of arts and letters, and in their utter inability
+to combine so as to preserve order among themselves<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">72</span>
+or to repel outside invasion, can not unfairly
+be compared with classic Greece. Again
+Italy fell, and the land was ruled by Spaniard or
+Frenchman or Austrian; and again, in the nineteenth
+century, there came for the third time a
+wonderful new birth.</p>
+
+<p>Contrast this persistence of the old type in its
+old home, and in certain lands which it had conquered,
+with its utter disappearance in certain
+other lands where it was intrusive, but where it
+at one time seemed as firmly established as in
+Italy—certainly as in Spain or Gaul. No more
+curious example of the growth and disappearance
+of a national type can be found than in the case
+of the Greco-Roman dominion in Western Asia
+and North Africa. All told it extended over
+nearly a thousand years, from the days of Alexander
+till after the time of Heraclius. Throughout
+these lands there yet remain the ruins of innumerable
+cities which tell how firmly rooted that dominion
+must once have been. The overshadowing
+and far-reaching importance of what occurred
+is sufficiently shown by the familiar fact that the
+New Testament was written in Greek; while to
+the early Christians, North Africa seemed as
+much a Latin land as Sicily or the valley of the
+Po. The intrusive peoples and their culture flourished
+in the lands for a period twice as long as
+that which has elapsed since, with the voyage of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">73</span>
+Columbus, modern history may fairly be said to
+have begun; and then they withered like dry
+grass before the flame of the Arab invasion, and
+their place knew them no more. They overshadowed
+the ground; they vanished; and the
+old types reappeared in their old homes, with
+beside them a new type, the Arab.</p>
+
+<p>Now, as to all these changes we can at least
+be sure of the main facts. We know that the
+Hollander remains in Holland, though the greatness
+of Holland has passed; we know that the
+Latin blood remains in Italy, whether to a greater
+or less extent; and that the Latin culture has
+died out in the African realm it once won, while
+it has lasted in Spain and France, and thence has
+extended itself to continents beyond the ocean.
+We may not know the causes of the facts, save
+partially; but the facts themselves we do know.
+But there are other cases in which we are at present
+ignorant even of the facts; we do not know
+what the changes really were, still less the hidden
+causes and meaning of these changes. Much remains
+to be found out before we can speak with
+any certainty as to whether some changes mean
+the actual dying out or the mere transformation
+of types. It is, for instance, astonishing how
+little permanent change in the physical make-up
+of the people seems to have been worked in Europe
+by the migrations of the races in historic<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">74</span>
+times. A tall, fair-haired, long-skulled race penetrates
+to some southern country and establishes
+a commonwealth. The generations pass. There
+is no violent revolution, no break in continuity of
+history, nothing in the written records to indicate
+an epoch-making change at any given moment;
+and yet after a time we find that the old type has
+reappeared and that the people of the locality do
+not substantially differ in physical form from the
+people of other localities that did not suffer such
+an invasion. Does this mean that gradually the
+children of the invaders have dwindled and died
+out; or, as the blood is mixed with the ancient
+blood, has there been a change, part reversion and
+part assimilation, to the ancient type in its old
+surroundings? Do tint of skin, eyes and hair,
+shape of skull, and stature change in the new
+environment, so as to be like those of the older
+people who dwelt in this environment? Do the
+intrusive races, without change of blood, tend
+under the pressure of their new surroundings to
+change in type so as to resemble the ancient peoples
+of the land? Or, as the strains mingled,
+has the new strain dwindled and vanished, from
+causes as yet obscure? Has the blood of the
+Lombard practically disappeared from Italy, and
+of the Visigoth from Spain, or does it still flow
+in large populations where the old physical type
+has once more become dominant? Here in England,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">75</span>
+the long-skulled men of the long barrows,
+the short-skulled men of the round barrows—have
+they blended, or has one or the other type actually
+died out; or are they merged in some older
+race which they seemingly supplanted, or have
+they adopted the tongue and civilization of some
+later race which seemingly destroyed them? We
+can not say. We do not know which of the widely
+different stocks now speaking Aryan tongues
+represents in physical characteristics the ancient
+Aryan type, nor where the type originated, nor
+how or why it imposed its language on other types,
+nor how much or how little mixture of blood accompanied
+the change of tongue.</p>
+
+<p>The phenomena of national growth and decay,
+both of those which can and those which can not
+be explained, have been peculiarly in evidence
+during the four centuries that have gone by since
+the discovery of America and the rounding of the
+Cape of Good Hope. These have been the four
+centuries of by far the most intense and constantly
+accelerating rapidity of movement and development
+that the world has yet seen. The movement
+has covered all the fields of human activity.
+It has witnessed an altogether unexampled spread
+of civilized mankind over the world, as well as
+an altogether unexampled advance in man’s dominion
+over nature; and this together with a
+literary and artistic activity to be matched in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">76</span>
+but one previous epoch. This period of extension
+and development has been that of one race, the
+so-called white race, or, to speak more accurately,
+the group of peoples living in Europe, who undoubtedly
+have a certain kinship of blood, who
+profess the Christian religion, and trace back
+their culture to Greece and Rome.</p>
+
+<p>The memories of men are short, and it is easy
+to forget how brief is this period of unquestioned
+supremacy of the so-called white race. It is but
+a thing of yesterday. During the thousand years
+which went before the opening of this era of European
+supremacy, the attitude of Asia and Africa,
+of Hun and Mongol, Turk and Tartar, Arab and
+Moor, had on the whole been that of successful
+aggression against Europe. More than a century
+went by after the voyages of Columbus before
+the mastery in war began to pass from the Asiatic
+to the European. During that time Europe produced
+no generals or conquerors able to stand
+comparison with Selim and Solyman, Baber and
+Akbar. Then the European advance gathered
+momentum; until at the present time peoples of
+European blood hold dominion over all America
+and Australia and the islands of the sea, over most
+of Africa, and the major half of Asia. Much of
+this world conquest is merely political, and such
+a conquest is always likely in the long run to
+vanish. But very much of it represents not a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">77</span>
+merely political, but an ethnic conquest; the intrusive
+people having either exterminated or
+driven out the conquered peoples, or else having
+imposed upon them its tongue, law, culture, and
+religion, together with a strain of its blood. During
+this period substantially all of the world
+achievements worth remembering are to be credited
+to the people of European descent. The
+first exception of any consequence is the wonderful
+rise of Japan within the last generation—a
+phenomenon unexampled in history; for both in
+blood and in culture the Japanese line of ancestral
+descent is as remote as possible from ours;
+and yet Japan, while hitherto keeping most of
+what was strongest in her ancient character and
+traditions, has assimilated with curious completeness
+most of the characteristics that have given
+power and leadership to the West.</p>
+
+<p>During this period of intense and feverish activity
+among the peoples of European stock, first
+one and then another has taken the lead. The
+movement began with Spain and Portugal. Their
+flowering-time was as brief as it was wonderful.
+The gorgeous pages of their annals are illumined
+by the figures of warriors, explorers, statesmen,
+poets, and painters. Then their days of greatness
+ceased. Many partial explanations can be
+given, but something remains behind, some hidden
+force for evil, some hidden source of weakness<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">78</span>
+upon which we can not lay our hands. Yet there
+are many signs that in the New World, after centuries
+of arrested growth, the peoples of Spanish
+and Portuguese stock are entering upon another
+era of development, and there are other signs that
+this is true also in the Iberian peninsula itself.</p>
+
+<p>About the time that the first brilliant period
+of the leadership of the Iberian peoples was drawing
+to a close, at the other end of Europe, in the
+land of melancholy steppe and melancholy forest,
+the Slav turned in his troubled sleep and stretched
+out his hand to grasp leadership and dominion.
+Since then almost every nation of Europe has at
+one time or another sought a place in the movement
+of expansion; but for the last three centuries
+the great phenomenon of mankind has been
+the growth of the English-speaking peoples and
+their spread over the world’s waste spaces.</p>
+
+<p>Comparison is often made between the empire
+of Britain and the empire of Rome. When
+judged relatively to the effect on all modern civilization,
+the empire of Rome is of course the more
+important, simply because all the nations of Europe
+and their offshoots in other continents trace
+back their culture either to the earlier Rome by
+the Tiber, or the later Rome by the Bosphorus.
+The empire of Rome is the most stupendous fact
+in lay history; no empire later in time can be
+compared with it. But this is merely another<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">79</span>
+way of saying that the nearer the source the more
+important becomes any deflection of the stream’s
+current. Absolutely, comparing the two empires
+one with the other in point of actual achievement,
+and disregarding the immensely increased effect
+on other civilizations which inhered in the older
+empire because it antedated the younger by a
+couple of thousand years, there is little to choose
+between them as regards the wide and abounding
+interest and importance of their careers.</p>
+
+<p>In the world of antiquity each great empire
+rose when its predecessor had already crumbled.
+By the time that Rome loomed large over the
+horizon of history, there were left for her to contend
+with only decaying civilizations and raw
+barbarism. When she conquered Pyrrhus, she
+strove against the strength of but one of the many
+fragments into which Alexander’s kingdom had
+fallen. When she conquered Carthage, she overthrew
+a foe against whom for two centuries the
+single Greek city of Syracuse had contended on
+equal terms; it was not the Sepoy armies of the
+Carthaginian plutocracy, but the towering genius
+of the House of Barca, which rendered the struggle
+forever memorable. It was the distance and
+the desert, rather than the Parthian horse-bowmen,
+that set bounds to Rome in the east; and
+on the north her advance was curbed by the vast
+reaches of marshy woodland, rather than by the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">80</span>
+tall barbarians who dwelt therein. During the
+long generations of her greatness, and until the
+sword dropped from her withered hand, the Parthian
+was never a menace of aggression, and the
+German threatened her but to die.</p>
+
+<p>On the contrary, the great expansion of England
+has occurred, the great empire of Britain
+has been achieved, during the centuries that have
+also seen mighty military nations rise and flourish
+on the continent of Europe. It is as if Rome,
+while creating and keeping the empire she won between
+the days of Scipio and the days of Trajan,
+had at the same time held her own with the Nineveh
+of Sargon and Tiglath, the Egypt of Thothmes
+and Rameses, and the kingdoms of Persia and
+Macedon in the red flush of their warrior-dawn.
+The empire of Britain is vaster in space, in population,
+in wealth, in wide variety of possession, in
+a history of multiplied and manifold achievement
+of every kind, than even the glorious empire of
+Rome. Yet, unlike Rome, Britain has won dominion
+in every clime, has carried her flag by conquest
+and settlement to the uttermost ends of
+the earth, at the very time that haughty and
+powerful rivals, in their abounding youth or
+strong maturity, were eager to set bounds to her
+greatness, and to tear from her what she had won
+afar. England has peopled continents with her
+children, has swayed the destinies of teeming<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">81</span>
+myriads of alien race, has ruled ancient monarchies,
+and wrested from all corners the right to
+the world’s waste spaces, while at home she has
+held her own before nations, each of military
+power comparable to Rome’s at her zenith.</p>
+
+<p>Rome fell by attack from without only because
+the ills within her own borders had grown incurable.
+What is true of your country, my
+hearers, is true of my own; while we should be
+vigilant against foes from without, yet we need
+never really fear them so long as we safeguard
+ourselves against the enemies within our own
+households; and these enemies are our own passions
+and follies. Free peoples can escape being
+mastered by others only by being able to master
+themselves. We Americans and you people of
+the British Isles alike need ever to keep in mind
+that, among the many qualities indispensable to
+the success of a great democracy, and second only
+to a high and stern sense of duty, of moral obligation,
+are self-knowledge and self-mastery.
+You, my hosts, and I may not agree in all our
+views; some of you would think me a very
+radical democrat—as, for the matter of that, I
+am—and my theory of imperialism would probably
+suit the anti-imperialists as little as it would
+suit a certain type of forcible-feeble imperialist.
+But there are some points on which we must all
+agree if we think soundly. The precise form of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">82</span>
+government, democratic or otherwise, is the instrument,
+the tool, with which we work. It is
+important to have a good tool. But, even if it
+is the best possible, it is only a tool. No implement
+can ever take the place of the guiding intelligence
+that wields it. A very bad tool will
+ruin the work of the best craftsman; but a good
+tool in bad hands is no better. In the last analysis
+the all-important factor in national greatness is
+national character.</p>
+
+<p>There are questions which we of the great
+civilized nations are ever tempted to ask of the
+future. Is our time of growth drawing to an
+end? Are we as nations soon to come under the
+rule of that great law of death which is itself
+but part of the great law of life? None can tell.
+Forces that we can see, and other forces that are
+hidden or that can but dimly be apprehended, are
+at work all around us, both for good and for evil.
+The growth in luxury, in love of ease, in taste for
+vapid and frivolous excitement, is both evident
+and unhealthy. The most ominous sign is the diminution
+in the birth-rate, in the rate of natural
+increase, now to a larger or lesser degree shared
+by most of the civilized nations of central and
+western Europe, of America and Australia—a
+diminution so great that, if it continues for the
+next century at the rate which has obtained for
+the last twenty-five years, all the more highly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">83</span>
+civilized peoples will be stationary or else have begun
+to go backward in population, while many of
+them will have already gone very far backward.</p>
+
+<p>There is much that should give us concern for
+the future. But there is much also which should
+give us hope. No man is more apt to be mistaken
+than the prophet of evil. After the French
+Revolution in 1830 Niebuhr hazarded the guess
+that all civilization was about to go down with a
+crash, that we were all about to share the fall of
+third- and fourth-century Rome—a respectable,
+but painfully overworked, comparison. The fears
+once expressed by the followers of Malthus as to
+the future of the world have proved groundless
+as regards the civilized portion of the world; it
+is strange indeed to look back at Carlyle’s prophecies
+of some seventy years ago, and then think
+of the teeming life of achievement, the life of
+conquest of every kind, and of noble effort crowned
+by success, which has been ours for the two generations
+since he complained to High Heaven that
+all the tales had been told and all the songs sung,
+and that all the deeds really worth doing had been
+done. I believe with all my heart that a great
+future remains for us; but whether it does or does
+not, our duty is not altered. However the battle
+may go, the soldier worthy of the name will with
+utmost vigor do his allotted task, and bear himself
+as valiantly in defeat as in victory. Come<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">84</span>
+what will, we belong to peoples who have not
+yielded to the craven fear of being great. In the
+ages that have gone by, the great nations, the
+nations that have expanded and that have played
+a mighty part in the world, have in the end
+grown old and weakened and vanished; but so
+have the nations whose only thought was to avoid
+all danger, all effort, who would risk nothing, and
+who therefore gained nothing. In the end, the
+same fate may overwhelm all alike; but the
+memory of the one type perishes with it, while
+the other leaves its mark deep on the history of
+all the future of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>A nation that seemingly dies may be born
+again; and even though in the physical sense it
+die utterly, it may yet hand down a history of
+heroic achievement, and for all time to come may
+profoundly influence the nations that arise in its
+place by the impress of what it has done. Best
+of all is it to do our part well, and at the same
+time to see our blood live young and vital in men
+and women fit to take up the task as we lay it
+down; for so shall our seed inherit the earth.
+But if this, which is best, is denied us, then at
+least it is ours to remember that if we choose we
+can be torch-bearers, as our fathers were before
+us. The torch has been handed on from nation
+to nation, from civilization to civilization, throughout
+all recorded time, from the dim years before<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">85</span>
+history dawned down to the blazing splendor of
+this teeming century of ours. It dropped from
+the hands of the coward and the sluggard, of the
+man wrapped in luxury or love of ease, the man
+whose soul was eaten away by self-indulgence; it
+has been kept alight only by those who were
+mighty of heart and cunning of hand. What they
+worked at, provided it was worth doing at all,
+was of less matter than how they worked, whether
+in the realm of the mind or the realm of the body.
+If their work was good, if what they achieved
+was of substance, then high success was really
+theirs.</p>
+
+<p>In the first part of this lecture I drew certain
+analogies between what has occurred to forms of
+animal life through the procession of the ages on
+this planet, and what has occurred and is occurring
+to the great artificial civilizations which have
+gradually spread over the world’s surface during
+the thousands of years that have elapsed since
+cities of temples and palaces first rose beside the
+Nile and the Euphrates, and the harbors of Minoan
+Crete bristled with the masts of the Ægean
+craft. But of course the parallel is true only in
+the roughest and most general way. Moreover,
+even between the civilizations of to-day and the
+civilizations of ancient times there are differences
+so profound that we must be cautious in
+drawing any conclusions for the present based on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">86</span>
+what has happened in the past. While freely
+admitting all of our follies and weaknesses of to-day,
+it is yet mere perversity to refuse to realize
+the incredible advance that has been made in
+ethical standards. I do not believe that there is
+the slightest necessary connection between any
+weakening of virile force and this advance in the
+moral standard, this growth of the sense of obligation
+to one’s neighbor and of reluctance to
+do that neighbor wrong. We need have scant patience
+with that silly cynicism which insists that
+kindliness of character only accompanies weakness
+of character. On the contrary, just as in
+private life many of the men of strongest character
+are the very men of loftiest and most exalted
+morality, so I believe that in national life,
+as the ages go by, we shall find that the permanent
+national types will more and more tend to become
+those in which, though intellect stands high, character
+stands higher; in which rugged strength
+and courage, rugged capacity to resist wrongful
+aggression by others, will go hand in hand with a
+lofty scorn of doing wrong to others. This is the
+type of Timoleon, of Hampden, of Washington,
+and Lincoln. These were as good men, as disinterested
+and unselfish men, as ever served a
+state; and they were also as strong men as ever
+founded or saved a state. Surely such examples
+prove that there is nothing Utopian in our effort<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">87</span>
+to combine justice and strength in the same nation.
+The really high civilizations must themselves
+supply the antidote to the self-indulgence
+and love of ease which they tend to produce.</p>
+
+<p>Every modern civilized nation has many and
+terrible problems to solve within its own borders,
+problems that arise not merely from juxtaposition
+of poverty and riches, but especially
+from the self-consciousness of both poverty and
+riches. Each nation must deal with these matters
+in its own fashion, and yet the spirit in which
+the problem is approached must ever be fundamentally
+the same. It must be a spirit of broad
+humanity, of brotherly kindness, of acceptance
+of responsibility, one for each and each for all,
+and at the same time a spirit as remote as the
+poles from every form of weakness and sentimentality.
+As in war to pardon the coward is
+to do cruel wrong to the brave man whose life
+his cowardice jeopardizes, so in civil affairs it is
+revolting to every principle of justice to give to
+the lazy, the vicious, or even the feeble or dull-witted
+a reward which is really the robbery of
+what braver, wiser, abler men have earned. The
+only effective way to help any man is to help him
+to help himself; and the worst lesson to teach him
+is that he can be permanently helped at the expense
+of some one else. True liberty shows itself
+to best advantage in protecting the rights of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">88</span>
+others, and especially of minorities. Privilege
+should not be tolerated because it is to the advantage
+of a minority; nor yet because it is to
+the advantage of a majority. No doctrinaire
+theories of vested rights or freedom of contract
+can stand in the way of our cutting out abuses
+from the body politic. Just as little can we afford
+to follow the doctrinaires of an impossible—and
+incidentally of a highly undesirable—social revolution
+which, in destroying individual rights—including
+property rights—and the family, would
+destroy the two chief agents in the advance of
+mankind, and the two chief reasons why either
+the advance or the preservation of mankind is
+worth while. It is an evil and a dreadful thing
+to be callous to sorrow and suffering and blind to
+our duty to do all things possible for the betterment
+of social conditions. But it is an unspeakably
+foolish thing to strive for this betterment by
+means so destructive that they would leave no
+social conditions to better. In dealing with all
+these social problems, with the intimate relations
+of the family, with wealth in private use and
+business use, with labor, with poverty, the one
+prime necessity is to remember that, though hardness
+of heart is a great evil, it is no greater an evil
+than softness of head.</p>
+
+<p>But in addition to these problems, the most
+intimate and important of all, and which to a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">89</span>
+larger or less degree affect all the modern nations
+somewhat alike, we of the great nations that have
+expanded, that are now in complicated relations
+with one another and with alien races, have
+special problems and special duties of our own.
+You belong to a nation which possesses the greatest
+empire upon which the sun has ever shone. I
+belong to a nation which is trying, on a scale
+hitherto unexampled, to work out the problems
+of government for, of, and by the people, while at
+the same time doing the international duty of a
+great Power. But there are certain problems
+which both of us have to solve, and as to which
+our standards should be the same. The Englishman,
+the man of the British Isles, in his various
+homes across the seas, and the American, both at
+home and abroad, are brought into contact with
+utterly alien peoples, some with a civilization
+more ancient than our own, others still in, or
+having but recently arisen from, the barbarism
+which our people left behind ages ago. The problems
+that arise are of well-nigh inconceivable
+difficulty. They can not be solved by the foolish
+sentimentality of stay-at-home people, with little
+patent recipes and those cut-and-dried theories
+of the political nursery which have such limited
+applicability amid the crash of elemental forces.
+Neither can they be solved by the raw brutality
+of the men who, whether at home or on the rough<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">90</span>
+frontier of civilization, adopt might as the only
+standard of right in dealing with other men, and
+treat alien races only as subjects for exploitation.</p>
+
+<p>No hard-and-fast rule can be drawn as applying
+to all alien races, because they differ from one
+another far more widely than some of them differ
+from us. But there are one or two rules which
+must not be forgotten. In the long run there
+can be no justification for one race managing or
+controlling another unless the management and
+control are exercised in the interest and for the
+benefit of that other race. This is what our peoples
+have in the main done, and must continue in
+the future in even greater degree to do, in India,
+Egypt, and the Philippines alike. In the next
+place, as regards every race, everywhere, at home
+or abroad, we can not afford to deviate from the
+great rule of righteousness which bids us treat
+each man on his worth as a man. He must not
+be sentimentally favored because he belongs to a
+given race; he must not be given immunity in
+wrong-doing or permitted to cumber the ground,
+or given other privileges which would be denied
+to the vicious and unfit among ourselves. On the
+other hand, where he acts in a way which would
+entitle him to respect and reward if he was one of
+our own stock, he is just as entitled to that respect
+and reward if he comes of another stock,
+even though that other stock produces a much<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">91</span>
+smaller proportion of men of his type than does
+our own. This has nothing to do with social
+intermingling, with what is called social equality.
+It has to do merely with the question of doing to
+each man and each woman that elementary justice
+which will permit him or her to gain from
+life the reward which should always accompany
+thrift, sobriety, self-control, respect for the rights
+of others, and hard and intelligent work to a
+given end. To more than such just treatment no
+man is entitled, and less than such just treatment
+no man should receive.</p>
+
+<p>The other type of duty is the international
+duty, the duty owed by one nation to another.
+I hold that the laws of morality which should
+govern individuals in their dealings one with the
+other, are just as binding concerning nations in
+their dealings one with the other. The application
+of the moral law must be different in the two
+cases, because in one case it has, and in the other
+it has not, the sanction of a civil law with force
+behind it. The individual can depend for his
+rights upon the courts, which themselves derive
+their force from the police power of the state.
+The nation can depend upon nothing of the kind;
+and therefore, as things are now, it is the highest
+duty of the most advanced and freest peoples
+to keep themselves in such a state of readiness
+as to forbid to any barbarism or despotism the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">92</span>
+hope of arresting the progress of the world by
+striking down the nations that lead in that progress.
+It would be foolish indeed to pay heed
+to the unwise persons who desire disarmament to
+be begun by the very peoples who, of all others,
+should not be left helpless before any possible foe.
+But we must reprobate quite as strongly both the
+leaders and the peoples who practise, or encourage,
+or condone, aggression and iniquity by the
+strong at the expense of the weak. We should
+tolerate lawlessness and wickedness neither by the
+weak nor by the strong; and both weak and strong
+we should in return treat with scrupulous fairness.
+The foreign policy of a great and self-respecting
+country should be conducted on exactly
+the same plane of honor, for insistence upon
+one’s own rights and of respect for the rights of
+others, that marks the conduct of a brave and
+honorable man when dealing with his fellows.
+Permit me to support this statement out of my
+own experience. For nearly eight years I was
+the head of a great nation, and charged especially
+with the conduct of its foreign policy; and during
+those years I took no action with reference
+to any other people on the face of the earth that
+I would not have felt justified in taking as an individual
+in dealing with other individuals.</p>
+
+<p>I believe that we of the great civilized nations
+of to-day have a right to feel that long careers of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">93</span>
+achievement lie before our several countries. To
+each of us is vouchsafed the honorable privilege
+of doing his part, however small, in that work.
+Let us strive hardily for success, even if by so doing
+we risk failure, spurning the poorer souls of small
+endeavor, who know neither failure nor success.
+Let us hope that our own blood shall continue
+in the land, that our children and children’s children
+to endless generations shall arise to take our
+places and play a mighty and dominant part in
+the world. But whether this be denied or granted
+by the years we shall not see, let at least the satisfaction
+be ours that we have carried onward the
+lighted torch in our own day and generation. If
+we do this, then, as our eyes close, and we go
+out into the darkness, and others’ hands grasp the
+torch, at least we can say that our part has been
+borne well and valiantly.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">95</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">97</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak">THE WORLD MOVEMENT</h2>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_WORLD_MOVEMENT" title="THE WORLD MOVEMENT"><span id="toclink_95"></span>THE WORLD MOVEMENT<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">3</a></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap i"><span class="smcap1">I</span> very highly appreciate the chance to address
+the University of Berlin in the year
+that closes its first centenary of existence.
+It is difficult for you in the Old World fully to appreciate
+the feelings of a man who comes from a
+nation still in the making to a country with an
+immemorial historic past; and especially is this
+the case when that country, with its ancient past
+behind it, yet looks with proud confidence into
+the future, and in the present shows all the abounding
+vigor of lusty youth. Such is the case with
+Germany. More than a thousand years have
+passed since the Roman Empire of the West became
+in fact a German empire. Throughout
+mediæval times the Empire and the Papacy were
+the two central features in the history of the Occident.
+With the Ottos and the Henrys began the
+slow rise of that Western life which has shaped
+modern Europe, and therefore ultimately the
+whole modern world. Their task was to organize
+society and to keep it from crumbling to pieces.
+They were castle-builders, city-founders, road-makers;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">98</span>
+they battled to bring order out of the
+seething turbulence around them; and at the
+same time they first beat back heathendom and
+then slowly wrested from it its possessions.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">3</a> Delivered at the University of Berlin, May 12, 1910.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>After the downfall of Rome and the breaking
+in sunder of the Roman Empire, the first real
+crystallization of the forces that were working
+for a new uplift of civilization in western Europe
+was round the Karling house, and, above all,
+round the great Emperor, Karl the Great, the seat
+of whose empire was at Aachen. Under the
+Karlings the Arab and the Moor were driven back
+beyond the Pyrenees; the last of the old heathen
+Germans were forced into Christianity, and the
+Avars, wild horsemen from the Asian steppes,
+who had long held tented dominion in middle
+Europe, were utterly destroyed. With the break-up
+of the Karling empire came chaos once more,
+and a fresh inrush of savagery: Vikings from the
+frozen north, and new hordes of outlandish riders
+from Asia. It was the early emperors of Germany
+proper who quelled these barbarians; in their
+time Dane and Norseman and Magyar became
+Christians, and most of the Slav peoples as well,
+so that Europe began to take on a shape which
+we can recognize to-day. Since then the centuries
+have rolled by, with strange alternations of
+fortune, now well-nigh barren, and again great
+with German achievement in arms and in government,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">99</span>
+in science and the arts. The centre
+of power shifted hither and thither within German
+lands; the great house of Hohenzollern rose,
+the house which has at last seen Germany spring
+into a commanding position in the very forefront
+among the nations of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>To this ancient land, with its glorious past and
+splendid present, to this land of many memories
+and of eager hopes, I come from a young nation,
+which is by blood akin to, and yet different from,
+each of the great nations of middle and western
+Europe; which has inherited or acquired much
+from each, but is changing and developing every
+inheritance and acquisition into something new
+and strange. The German strain in our blood is
+large, for almost from the beginning there has
+been a large German element among the successive
+waves of newcomers whose children’s children
+have been and are being fused into the American
+nation; and I myself trace my origin to
+that branch of the Low Dutch stock which raised
+Holland out of the North Sea. Moreover, we
+have taken from you, not only much of the blood
+that runs through our veins, but much of the
+thought that shapes our minds. For generations
+American scholars have flocked to your universities,
+and, thanks to the wise foresight of his
+Imperial Majesty the present Emperor, the intimate
+and friendly connection between the two<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">100</span>
+countries is now in every way closer than it has
+ever been before.</p>
+
+<p>Germany is pre-eminently a country in which
+the world movement of to-day in all of its multitudinous
+aspects is plainly visible. The life of
+this university covers the period during which
+that movement has spread until it is felt throughout
+every continent, while its velocity has been
+constantly accelerating, so that the face of the
+world has changed, and is now changing, as never
+before. It is therefore fit and appropriate here
+to speak on this subject.</p>
+
+<p>When, in the slow procession of the ages, man
+was developed on this planet, the change worked
+by his appearance was at first slight. Further
+ages passed while he groped and struggled by
+infinitesimal degrees upward through the lower
+grades of savagery; for the general law is that
+life which is advanced and complex, whatever its
+nature, changes more quickly than simpler and
+less advanced forms. The life of savages changes
+and advances with extreme slowness, and groups
+of savages influence one another but little. The
+first rudimentary beginnings of that complex life
+of communities which we call civilization marked
+a period when man had already long been by far
+the most important creature on the planet. The
+history of the living world had become, in fact,
+the history of man, and therefore something<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">101</span>
+totally different in kind as well as in degree from
+what it had been before. There are interesting
+analogies between what has gone on in the development
+of life generally and what has gone on in the
+development of human society. [These I have discussed
+in the preceding chapter.] But the differences
+are profound, and go to the root of things.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout their early stages the movements
+of civilization—for, properly speaking, there was
+no one movement—were very slow, were local
+in space, and were partial in the sense that each
+developed along but few lines. Of the numberless
+years that covered these early stages we have no
+record. They were the years that saw such extraordinary
+discoveries and inventions as fire,
+and the wheel, and the bow, and the domestication
+of animals. So local were these inventions
+that at the present day there yet linger savage
+tribes, still fixed in the half-bestial life of an infinitely
+remote past, who know none of them
+except fire—and the discovery and use of fire may
+have marked, not the beginning of civilization, but
+the beginning of the savagery which separated
+man from brute.</p>
+
+<p>Even after civilization and culture had achieved
+a relatively high position, they were still purely
+local, and from this fact subject to violent shocks.
+Modern research has shown the existence in prehistoric
+or, at least, protohistoric times of many<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">102</span>
+peoples who, in given localities, achieved a high
+and peculiar culture, a culture that was later so
+completely destroyed that it is difficult to say
+what, if any, traces it left on the subsequent cultures
+out of which we have developed our own,
+while it is also difficult to say exactly how much
+any one of these cultures influenced any other.
+In many cases, as where invaders with weapons
+of bronze or iron conquered the neolithic peoples,
+the higher civilization completely destroyed the
+lower civilization, or barbarism, with which it
+came in contact. In other cases, while superiority
+in culture gave its possessors at the beginning
+a marked military and governmental superiority
+over the neighboring peoples, yet sooner or later
+there accompanied it a certain softness or enervating
+quality which left the cultured folk at the
+mercy of the stark and greedy neighboring tribes,
+in whose savage souls cupidity gradually overcame
+terror and awe. Then the people that had
+been struggling upward would be engulfed, and
+the levelling waves of barbarism wash over them.
+But we are not yet in position to speak definitely
+on these matters. It is only the researches of
+recent years that have enabled us so much as to
+guess at the course of events in prehistoric Greece;
+while as yet we can hardly even hazard a guess
+as to how, for instance, the Hallstadt culture rose
+and fell, or as to the history and fate of the builders<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">103</span>
+of those strange ruins of which Stonehenge is
+the type.</p>
+
+<p>The first civilizations which left behind them
+clear records rose in that hoary historic past which
+geologically is part of the immediate present—and
+which is but a span’s length from the present, even
+when compared only with the length of time that
+man has lived on this planet. These first civilizations
+were those which rose in Mesopotamia
+and the Nile valley some six or eight thousand
+years ago. As far as we can see, they were well-nigh
+independent centres of cultural development,
+and our knowledge is not such at present as to
+enable us to connect either with the early cultural
+movements, in southwestern Europe on the one
+hand, or in India on the other, or with that
+Chinese civilization which has been so profoundly
+affected by Indian influences.</p>
+
+<p>Compared with the civilizations with which
+we are best acquainted, the striking features in
+the Mesopotamian and Nilotic civilizations were
+the length of time they endured and their comparative
+changelessness. The kings, priests, and
+peoples who dwelt by the Nile or Euphrates are
+found thinking much the same thoughts, doing
+much the same deeds, leaving at least very similar
+records, while time passes in tens of centuries.
+Of course there was change; of course there were
+action and reaction in influence between them<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">104</span>
+and their neighbors; and the movement of change,
+of development, material, mental, spiritual, was
+much faster than anything that had occurred
+during the eons of mere savagery. But in contradistinction
+to modern times the movement was
+very slow indeed; and, moreover, in each case it
+was strongly localized, while the field of endeavor
+was narrow. There were certain conquests by
+man over nature; there were certain conquests
+in the domain of pure intellect; there were certain
+extensions which spread the area of civilized mankind.
+But it would be hard to speak of it as a
+“world movement” at all, for by far the greater
+part of the habitable globe was not only unknown,
+but its existence unguessed at, so far as peoples
+with any civilization whatsoever were concerned.</p>
+
+<p>With the downfall of these ancient civilizations
+there sprang into prominence those peoples
+with whom our own cultural history may be said
+to begin. Those ideas and influences in our lives
+which we can consciously trace back at all are in
+the great majority of instances to be traced to
+the Jew, the Greek, or the Roman; and the ordinary
+man, when he speaks of the nations of
+antiquity, has in mind specifically these three
+peoples—although, judged even by the history of
+which we have record, theirs is a very modern antiquity
+indeed.</p>
+
+<p>The case of the Jew was quite exceptional.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">105</span>
+His was a small nation, of little more consequence
+than the sister nations of Moab and Damascus,
+until all three, and the other petty states of the
+country, fell under the yoke of the alien. Then
+he survived, while all his fellows died. In the
+spiritual domain he contributed a religion which
+has been the most potent of all factors in its effect
+on the subsequent history of mankind; but none
+of his other contributions compare with the legacies
+left us by the Greek and the Roman.</p>
+
+<p>The Greco-Roman world saw a civilization far
+more brilliant, far more varied and intense, than
+any that had gone before it, and one that affected
+a far larger share of the world’s surface. For the
+first time there began to be something which at
+least foreshadowed a “world movement” in the
+sense that it affected a considerable portion of the
+world’s surface and that it represented what was
+incomparably the most important of all that was
+happening in world history at the time. In
+breadth and depth the field of intellectual interest
+had greatly broadened at the same time
+that the physical area affected by the civilization
+had similarly extended. Instead of a civilization
+affecting only one river valley or one nook of the
+Mediterranean, there was a civilization which directly
+or indirectly influenced mankind from the
+Desert of Sahara to the Baltic, from the Atlantic
+Ocean to the westernmost mountain chains that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">106</span>
+spring from the Himalayas. Throughout most of
+this region there began to work certain influences
+which, though with widely varying intensity, did
+nevertheless tend to affect a large portion of mankind.
+In many of the forms of science, in almost
+all the forms of art, there was great activity. In
+addition to great soldiers there were great administrators
+and statesmen whose concern was
+with the fundamental questions of social and
+civil life. Nothing like the width and variety of
+intellectual achievement and understanding had
+ever before been known; and for the first time
+we come across great intellectual leaders, great
+philosophers and writers, whose works are a part
+of all that is highest in modern thought, whose
+writings are as alive to-day as when they were
+first issued; and there were others of even more
+daring and original temper, a philosopher like
+Democritus, a poet like Lucretius, whose minds
+leaped ahead through the centuries and saw what
+none of their contemporaries saw, but who were
+so hampered by their surroundings that it was
+physically impossible for them to leave to the
+later world much concrete addition to knowledge.
+The civilization was one of comparatively rapid
+change, viewed by the standard of Babylon and
+Memphis. There was incessant movement; and,
+moreover, the whole system went down with a
+crash to seeming destruction after a period short<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">107</span>
+compared with that covered by the reigns of a
+score of Egyptian dynasties, or with the time that
+elapsed between a Babylonian defeat by Elam
+and a war sixteen centuries later which fully
+avenged it.</p>
+
+<p>This civilization flourished with brilliant splendor.
+Then it fell. In its northern seats it was
+overwhelmed by a wave of barbarism from among
+those half-savage peoples from whom you and I,
+my hearers, trace our descent. In the south and
+east it was destroyed later, but far more thoroughly,
+by invaders of an utterly different type.
+Both conquests were of great importance; but
+it was the northern conquest which in its ultimate
+effects was of by far the greatest importance.</p>
+
+<p>With the advent of the Dark Ages the movement
+of course ceased, and it did not begin anew
+for many centuries; while a thousand years passed
+before it was once more in full swing, so far as
+European civilization, so far as the world civilization
+of to-day, is concerned. During all those
+centuries the civilized world, in our acceptation
+of the term, was occupied, as its chief task, in
+slowly climbing back to the position from which
+it had fallen after the age of the Antonines. Of
+course a general statement like this must be accepted
+with qualifications. There is no hard-and-fast
+line between one age or period and another,
+and in no age is either progress or retrogression<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">108</span>
+universal in all things. There were many points
+in which the Middle Ages, because of the simple
+fact that they were Christian, surpassed the brilliant
+pagan civilization of the past; and there
+are some points in which the civilization that succeeded
+them has sunk below the level of the ages
+which saw such mighty masterpieces of poetry, of
+architecture—especially cathedral architecture—and
+of serene spiritual and forceful lay leadership.
+But they were centuries of violence, rapine, and
+cruel injustice; and truth was so little heeded
+that the noble and daring spirits who sought it,
+especially in its scientific form, did so in deadly
+peril of the fagot and the halter.</p>
+
+<p>During this period there were several very important
+extra-European movements, one or two
+of which deeply affected Europe. Islam arose,
+and conquered far and wide, uniting fundamentally
+different races into a brotherhood of feeling which
+Christianity has never been able to rival, and at
+the time of the Crusades profoundly influencing
+European culture. It produced a civilization of
+its own, brilliant and here and there useful, but
+hopelessly limited when compared with the civilization
+of which we ourselves are the heirs. The
+great cultured peoples of southeastern and eastern
+Asia continued their checkered development totally
+unaffected by, and without knowledge of,
+any European influence.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">109</span></p>
+
+<p>Throughout the whole period there came
+against Europe, out of the unknown wastes of
+central Asia, an endless succession of strange and
+terrible conqueror races whose mission was mere
+destruction—Hun and Avar, Mongol, Tartar, and
+Turk. These fierce and squalid tribes of warrior
+horsemen flailed mankind with red scourges,
+wasted and destroyed, and then vanished from
+the ground they had overrun. But in no way
+worth noting did they count in the advance of
+mankind.</p>
+
+<p>At last, a little over four hundred years ago,
+the movement toward a world civilization took
+up its interrupted march. The beginning of the
+modern movement may roughly be taken as synchronizing
+with the discovery of printing, and
+with that series of bold sea ventures which culminated
+in the discovery of America; and, after
+these two epochal feats had begun to produce
+their full effects in material and intellectual life,
+it became inevitable that civilization should
+thereafter differ not only in degree but even in
+kind from all that had gone before. Immediately
+after the voyages of Columbus and Vasco da
+Gama there began a tremendous religious ferment;
+the awakening of intellect went hand in hand
+with the moral uprising; the great names of
+Copernicus, Bruno, Kepler, and Galileo show that
+the mind of man was breaking the fetters that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">110</span>
+had cramped it; and for the first time experimentation
+was used as a check upon observation
+and theorization. Since then, century by century,
+the changes have increased in rapidity and
+complexity, and have attained their maximum in
+both respects during the century just past. Instead
+of being directed by one or two dominant
+peoples, as was the case with all similar movements
+of the past, the new movement was shared
+by many different nations. From every standpoint
+it has been of infinitely greater moment than
+anything hitherto seen. Not in one but in many
+different peoples there has been extraordinary
+growth in wealth, in population, in power of
+organization, and in mastery over mechanical
+activity and natural resources. All of this has
+been accompanied and signalized by an immense
+outburst of energy and restless initiative. The
+result is as varied as it is striking.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, representatives of this civilization,
+by their conquest of space, were enabled
+to spread into all the practically vacant continents,
+while at the same time, by their triumphs
+in organization and mechanical invention, they
+acquired an unheard-of military superiority as
+compared with their former rivals. To these two
+facts is primarily due the further fact that for the
+first time there is really something that approaches
+a world civilization, a world movement. The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">111</span>
+spread of the European peoples since the days of
+Ferdinand the Catholic and Ivan the Terrible has
+been across every sea and over every continent.
+In places the conquests have been ethnic; that is,
+there has been a new wandering of the peoples,
+and new commonwealths have sprung up in which
+the people are entirely or mainly of European
+blood. This is what happened in the temperate
+and subtropical regions of the Western Hemisphere,
+in Australia, in portions of northern Asia
+and southern Africa. In other places the conquest
+has been purely political, the Europeans representing
+for the most part merely a small caste of
+soldiers and administrators, as in most of tropical
+Asia and Africa, and in much of tropical America.
+Finally, here and there instances occur where
+there has been no conquest at all, but where an
+alien people is profoundly and radically changed
+by the mere impact of Western civilization. The
+most extraordinary instance of this, of course, is
+Japan; for Japan’s growth and change during the
+last half-century has been in many ways the most
+striking phenomenon of all history. Intensely
+proud of her past history, intensely loyal to certain
+of her past traditions, she has yet with a
+single effort wrenched herself free from all hampering
+ancient ties, and with a bound has taken
+her place among the leading civilized nations of
+mankind.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">112</span></p>
+
+<p>There are, of course, many grades between these
+different types of influence, but the net outcome
+of what has occurred during the last four centuries
+is that civilization of the European type now
+exercises a more or less profound effect over practically
+the entire world. There are nooks and
+corners to which it has not yet penetrated; but
+there is at present no large space of territory in
+which the general movement of civilized activity
+does not make itself more or less felt. This represents
+something wholly different from what has
+ever hitherto been seen. In the greatest days of
+Roman dominion the influence of Rome was felt
+over only a relatively small portion of the world’s
+surface. Over much the larger part of the world
+the process of change and development was absolutely
+unaffected by anything that occurred in the
+Roman Empire; and those communities the play
+of whose influence was felt in action and reaction,
+and in interaction, among themselves, were
+grouped immediately around the Mediterranean.
+Now, however, the whole world is bound together
+as never before; the bonds are sometimes those
+of hatred rather than love, but they are bonds
+nevertheless.</p>
+
+<p>Frowning or hopeful, every man of leadership
+in any line of thought or effort must now look
+beyond the limits of his own country. The student
+of sociology may live in Berlin or Saint Petersburg,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">113</span>
+Rome or London, or he may live in Melbourne
+or San Francisco or Buenos Ayres; but in
+whatever city he lives, he must pay heed to the
+studies of men who live in each of the other cities.
+When in America we study labor problems and
+attempt to deal with subjects such as life-insurance
+for wage-workers, we turn to see what you
+do here in Germany, and we also turn to see what
+the far-off commonwealth of New Zealand is
+doing. When a great German scientist is warring
+against the most dreaded enemies of mankind,
+creatures of infinitesimal size which the microscope
+reveals in his blood, he may spend his holidays
+of study in central Africa or in eastern Asia;
+and he must know what is accomplished in the
+laboratories of Tokio, just as he must know the
+details of that practical application of science
+which has changed the Isthmus of Panama from
+a death-trap into what is almost a health resort.
+Every progressive in China is striving to introduce
+Western methods of education and administration,
+and hundreds of European and American books
+are now translated into Chinese. The influence
+of European governmental principles is strikingly
+illustrated by the fact that admiration for them
+has broken down the iron barriers of Moslem conservatism,
+so that their introduction has become
+a burning question in Turkey and Persia; while
+the very unrest, the impatience of European or<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">114</span>
+American control, in India, Egypt, or the Philippines,
+takes the form of demanding that the government
+be assimilated more closely to what it is
+in England or the United States. The deeds and
+works of any great statesman, the preachings of
+any great ethical, social, or political teacher, now
+find echoes in both hemispheres and in every continent.
+From a new discovery in science to a
+new method of combating or applying socialism,
+there is no movement of note which can take
+place in any part of the globe without powerfully
+affecting masses of people in Europe, America,
+and Australia, in Asia and Africa. For weal or
+for woe, the peoples of mankind are knit together
+far closer than ever before.</p>
+
+<p>So much for the geographical side of the expansion
+of modern civilization. But only a few
+of the many and intense activities of modern
+civilization have found their expression on this
+side. The movement has been just as striking in
+its conquest over natural forces, in its searching
+inquiry into and about the soul of things.</p>
+
+<p>The conquest over Nature has included an extraordinary
+increase in every form of knowledge
+of the world we live in, and also an extraordinary
+increase in the power of utilizing the forces of
+Nature. In both directions the advance has been
+very great during the past four or five centuries,
+and in both directions it has gone on with ever-increasing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">115</span>
+rapidity during the last century. After
+the great age of Rome had passed, the boundaries
+of knowledge shrank, and in many cases it was
+not until well-nigh our own times that her domain
+was once again pushed beyond the ancient landmarks.
+About the year 150 A.&nbsp;D., Ptolemy, the
+geographer, published his map of central Africa
+and the sources of the Nile, and this map was more
+accurate than any which we had as late as 1850
+A.&nbsp;D. More was known of physical science, and
+more of the truth about the physical world was
+guessed at, in the days of Pliny, than was known or
+guessed until the modern movement began. The
+case was the same as regards military science. At
+the close of the Middle Ages the weapons were
+what they had always been—sword, shield, bow,
+spear; and any improvement in them was more
+than offset by the loss in knowledge of military
+organization, in the science of war, and in military
+leadership since the days of Hannibal and Cæsar.
+A hundred years ago, when this university was
+founded, the methods of transportation did not
+differ in the essentials from what they had been
+among the highly civilized nations of antiquity.
+Travellers and merchandise went by land in
+wheeled vehicles or on beasts of burden, and by
+sea in boats propelled by sails or by oars; and
+news was conveyed as it always had been conveyed.
+What improvements there had been had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">116</span>
+been in degree only and not in kind; and in some
+respects there had been retrogression rather than
+advance. There were many parts of Europe where
+the roads were certainly worse than the old
+Roman post-roads; and the Mediterranean Sea,
+for instance, was by no means as well policed as
+in the days of Trajan. Now steam and electricity
+have worked a complete revolution; and
+the resulting immensely increased ease of communication
+has in its turn completely changed all the
+physical questions of human life. A voyage from
+Egypt to England was nearly as serious an affair
+in the eighteenth century as in the second; and
+the news communications between the two lands
+were not materially improved. A graduate of
+your university to-day can go to mid-Asia or
+mid-Africa with far less consciousness of performing
+a feat of note than would have been the
+case a hundred years ago with a student who
+visited Sicily and Andalusia. Moreover, the invention
+and use of machinery run by steam or
+electricity have worked a revolution in industry
+as great as the revolution in transportation; so
+that here again the difference between ancient
+and modern civilization is one not merely of
+degree but of kind. In many vital respects the
+huge modern city differs more from all preceding
+cities than any of these differed one from the
+other; and the giant factory town is of and by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">117</span>
+itself one of the most formidable problems of
+modern life.</p>
+
+<p>Steam and electricity have given the race dominion
+over land and water such as it never
+had before; and now the conquest of the air is
+directly impending. As books preserve thought
+through time, so the telegraph and the telephone
+transmit it through the space they annihilate,
+and therefore minds are swayed one by another
+without regard to the limitations of space and
+time which formerly forced each community to
+work in comparative isolation. It is the same
+with the body as with the brain. The machinery
+of the factory and the farm enormously multiplies
+bodily skill and vigor. Countless trained intelligences
+are at work to teach us how to avoid
+or counteract the effects of waste. Of course
+some of the agents in the modern scientific development
+of natural resources deal with resources
+of such a kind that their development means their
+destruction, so that exploitation on a grand scale
+means an intense rapidity of development purchased
+at the cost of a speedy exhaustion. The
+enormous and constantly increasing output of
+coal and iron necessarily means the approach of
+the day when our children’s children, or their
+children’s children, shall dwell in an ironless age—and,
+later on, in an age without coal—and will
+have to try to invent or develop new sources for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">118</span>
+the production of heat and use of energy. But
+as regards many another natural resource, scientific
+civilization teaches us how to preserve it
+through use. The best use of field and forest will
+leave them decade by decade, century by century,
+more fruitful; and we have barely begun to use the
+indestructible power that comes from harnessed
+water. The conquests of surgery, of medicine,
+the conquests in the entire field of hygiene and
+sanitation, have been literally marvellous; the
+advances in the past century or two have been
+over more ground than was covered during the
+entire previous history of the human race.</p>
+
+<p>The advances in the realm of pure intellect
+have been of equal note, and they have been both
+intensive and extensive. Great virgin fields of
+learning and wisdom have been discovered by
+the few, and at the same time knowledge has
+spread among the many to a degree never dreamed
+of before. Old men among us have seen in their
+own generation the rise of the first rational science
+of the evolution of life. The astronomer and
+the chemist, the psychologist and the historian,
+and all their brethren in many different fields of
+wide endeavor, work with a training and knowledge
+and method which are in effect instruments
+of precision, differentiating their labors from the
+labors of their predecessors as the rifle is differentiated
+from the bow.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">119</span></p>
+
+<p>The play of new forces is as evident in the moral
+and spiritual world as in the world of the mind
+and the body. Forces for good and forces for
+evil are everywhere evident, each acting with a
+hundred- or a thousandfold the intensity with
+which it acted in former ages. Over the whole
+earth the swing of the pendulum grows more and
+more rapid, the mainspring coils and spreads at
+a rate constantly quickening, the whole world
+movement is of constantly accelerating velocity.</p>
+
+<p>In this movement there are signs of much that
+bodes ill. The machinery is so highly geared, the
+tension and strain are so great, the effort and the
+output have alike so increased, that there is cause
+to dread the ruin that would come from any great
+accident, from any breakdown, and also the ruin
+that may come from the mere wearing out of the
+machine itself. The only previous civilization
+with which our modern civilization can be in any
+way compared is that period of Greco-Roman
+civilization extending, say, from the Athens of
+Themistocles to the Rome of Marcus Aurelius.
+Many of the forces and tendencies which were
+then at work are at work now. Knowledge, luxury,
+and refinement, wide material conquests,
+territorial administration on a vast scale, an increase
+in the mastery of mechanical appliances
+and in applied science—all these mark our civilization
+as they marked the wonderful civilization<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">120</span>
+that flourished in the Mediterranean lands twenty
+centuries ago; and they preceded the downfall
+of the older civilization. Yet the differences are
+many, and some of them are quite as striking
+as the similarities. The single fact that the old
+civilization was based upon slavery shows the
+chasm that separates the two. Let me point out
+one further and very significant difference in the
+development of the two civilizations, a difference
+so obvious that it is astonishing that it has not
+been dwelt upon by men of letters.</p>
+
+<p>One of the prime dangers of civilization has
+always been its tendency to cause the loss of
+virile fighting virtues, of the fighting edge. When
+men get too comfortable and lead too luxurious
+lives, there is always danger lest the softness eat
+like an acid into their manliness of fibre. The
+barbarian, because of the very conditions of his
+life, is forced to keep and develop certain hardy
+qualities which the man of civilization tends to
+lose, whether he be clerk, factory hand, merchant,
+or even a certain type of farmer. Now, I
+will not assert that in modern civilized society
+these tendencies have been wholly overcome; but
+there has been a much more successful effort to
+overcome them than was the case in the early
+civilizations. This is curiously shown by the
+military history of the Greco-Roman period as
+compared with the history of the last four or five<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">121</span>
+centuries here in Europe and among nations of
+European descent. In the Grecian and Roman
+military history the change was steadily from a
+citizen army to an army of mercenaries. In the
+days of the early greatness of Athens, Thebes,
+and Sparta, in the days when the Roman republic
+conquered what world it knew, the armies were
+filled with citizen soldiers. But gradually the
+citizens refused to serve in the armies, or became
+unable to render good service. The Greek states
+described by Polybius, with but few exceptions,
+hired others to do their fighting for them. The
+Romans of the days of Augustus had utterly
+ceased to furnish any cavalry, and were rapidly
+ceasing to furnish any infantry, to the legions and
+cohorts. When the civilization came to an end,
+there were no longer citizens in the ranks of the
+soldiers. The change from the citizen army to the
+army of mercenaries had been completed.</p>
+
+<p>Now the exact reverse has been the case with
+us in modern times. A few centuries ago the
+mercenary soldier was the principal figure in most
+armies, and in great numbers of cases the mercenary
+soldier was an alien. In the wars of religion
+in France, in the Thirty Years’ War in
+Germany, in the wars that immediately thereafter
+marked the beginning of the break-up of
+the great Polish kingdom, the regiments and
+brigades of foreign soldiers formed a striking and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">122</span>
+leading feature in every army. Too often the
+men of the country in which the fighting took
+place played merely the ignoble part of victims,
+the burghers and peasants appearing in but limited
+numbers in the mercenary armies by which
+they were plundered. Gradually this has all
+changed, until now practically every army is a
+citizen army, and the mercenary has almost disappeared,
+while the army exists on a vaster scale
+than ever before in history. This is so among
+the military monarchies of Europe. In our own
+Civil War of the United States the same thing
+occurred, peaceful people as we are. At that
+time more than two generations had passed since
+the war of independence. During the whole of
+that period the people had been engaged in no
+life-and-death struggle; and yet, when the Civil
+War broke out, and after some costly and bitter
+lessons at the beginning, the fighting spirit of the
+people was shown to better advantage than ever
+before. The war was peculiarly a war for a
+principle, a war waged by each side for an ideal,
+and while faults and shortcomings were plentiful
+among the combatants, there was comparatively
+little sordidness of motive or conduct. In such
+a giant struggle, where across the warp of so many
+interests is shot the woof of so many purposes,
+dark strands and bright, strands sombre and brilliant,
+are always intertwined; inevitably there<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">123</span>
+was corruption here and there in the Civil War;
+but all the leaders on both sides and the great
+majority of the enormous masses of fighting men
+wholly disregarded, and were wholly uninfluenced
+by, pecuniary considerations. There were, of
+course, foreigners who came over to serve as
+soldiers of fortune for money or for love of adventure;
+but the foreign-born citizens served in
+much the same proportion, and from the same
+motives, as the native-born. Taken as a whole,
+it was, even more than the Revolutionary War, a
+true citizens’ fight, and the armies of Grant and
+Lee were as emphatically citizen armies as the
+Athenian, Theban, or Spartan armies in the great
+age of Greece, or as a Roman army in the days of
+the republic.</p>
+
+<p>Another striking contrast in the course of
+modern civilization as compared with the later
+stages of the Greco-Roman or classic civilization
+is to be found in the relations of wealth and
+politics. In classic times, as the civilization advanced
+toward its zenith, politics became a recognized
+means of accumulating great wealth.
+Cæsar was again and again on the verge of bankruptcy;
+he spent an enormous fortune; and he
+recouped himself by the money which he made out
+of his political-military career. Augustus established
+imperial Rome on firm foundations by
+the use he made of the huge fortune he had acquired<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">124</span>
+by plunder. What a contrast is offered by
+the careers of Washington and Lincoln! There
+were a few exceptions in ancient days; but the
+immense majority of the Greeks and the Romans,
+as their civilizations culminated, accepted money-making
+on a large scale as one of the incidents of
+a successful public career. Now all of this is in
+sharp contrast to what has happened within the
+last two or three centuries. During this time
+there has been a steady growth away from the
+theory that money-making is permissible in an
+honorable public career. In this respect the
+standard has been constantly elevated, and things
+which statesmen had no hesitation in doing three
+centuries or two centuries ago, and which did not
+seriously hurt a public career even a century ago,
+are now utterly impossible. Wealthy men still
+exercise a large, and sometimes an improper, influence
+in politics, but it is apt to be an indirect
+influence; and in the advanced states the mere
+suspicion that the wealth of public men is obtained
+or added to as an incident of their public
+careers will bar them from public life. Speaking
+generally, wealth may very greatly influence modern
+political life, but it is not acquired in political
+life. The colonial administrators, German or
+American, French or English, of this generation
+lead careers which, as compared with the careers
+of other men of like ability, show too little rather<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">125</span>
+than too much regard for money-making; and
+literally a world scandal would be caused by
+conduct which a Roman proconsul would have
+regarded as moderate, and which would not have
+been especially uncommon even in the administration
+of England a century and a half ago. On
+the whole, the great statesmen of the last few
+generations have been either men of moderate
+means or, if men of wealth, men whose wealth
+was diminished rather than increased by their
+public services.</p>
+
+<p>I have dwelt on these points merely because it
+is well to emphasize in the most emphatic fashion
+the fact that in many respects there is a complete
+lack of analogy between the civilization of to-day
+and the only other civilization in any way comparable
+to it, that of the ancient Greco-Roman
+lands. There are, of course, many points in which
+the analogy is close, and in some of these points
+the resemblances are as ominous as they are striking.
+But most striking of all is the fact that in
+point of physical extent, of wide diversity of
+interest, and of extreme velocity of movement,
+the present civilization can be compared to nothing
+that has ever gone before. It is now literally
+a world movement, and the movement is growing
+ever more rapid and is ever reaching into
+new fields. Any considerable influence exerted at
+one point is certain to be felt with greater or less<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">126</span>
+effect at almost every other point. Every path of
+activity open to the human intellect is followed
+with an eagerness and success never hitherto
+dreamed of. We have established complete liberty
+of conscience, and, in consequence, a complete
+liberty for mental activity. All free and
+daring souls have before them a well-nigh limitless
+opening for endeavor of any kind.</p>
+
+<p>Hitherto every civilization that has arisen has
+been able to develop only a comparatively few
+activities; that is, its field of endeavor has been
+limited in kind as well as in locality. There have,
+of course, been great movements, but they were
+of practically only one form of activity; and,
+although usually this set in motion other kinds of
+activities, such was not always the case. The
+great religious movements have been the preeminent
+examples of this type. But they are not
+the only ones. Such peoples as the Mongols and
+the Phœnicians, at almost opposite poles of cultivation,
+have represented movements in which
+one element, military or commercial, so overshadowed
+all other elements that the movement
+died out chiefly because it was one-sided. The
+extraordinary outburst of activity among the
+Mongols of the thirteenth century was almost
+purely a military movement, without even any
+great administrative side; and it was therefore
+well-nigh purely a movement of destruction.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">127</span>
+The individual prowess and hardihood of the
+Mongols, and the perfection of their military organization
+rendered their armies incomparably
+superior to those of any European, or any other
+Asiatic, power of that day. They conquered from
+the Yellow Sea to the Persian Gulf and the Adriatic;
+they seized the imperial throne of China;
+they slew the Caliph in Bagdad; they founded
+dynasties in India. The fanaticism of Christianity
+and the fanaticism of Mohammedanism
+were alike powerless against them. The valor
+of the bravest fighting men in Europe was impotent
+to check them. They trampled Russia into
+bloody mire beneath the hoofs of their horses;
+they drew red furrows of destruction across Poland
+and Hungary; they overthrew with ease any
+force from western Europe that dared encounter
+them. Yet they had no root of permanence;
+their work was mere evil while it lasted, and it
+did not last long; and when they vanished they
+left hardly a trace behind them. So the extraordinary
+Phœnician civilization was almost purely
+a mercantile, a business civilization, and though
+it left an impress on the life that came after, this
+impress was faint indeed compared to that left,
+for instance, by the Greeks with their many-sided
+development. Yet the Greek civilization itself
+fell because this many-sided development became
+too exclusively one of intellect, at the expense<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">128</span>
+of character, at the expense of the fundamental
+qualities which fit men to govern both
+themselves and others. When the Greek lost the
+sterner virtues, when his soldiers lost the fighting
+edge, and his statesmen grew corrupt, while the
+people became a faction-torn and pleasure-loving
+rabble, then the doom of Greece was at hand, and
+not all their cultivation, their intellectual brilliancy,
+their artistic development, their adroitness
+in speculative science, could save the Hellenic
+peoples as they bowed before the sword of
+the iron Roman.</p>
+
+<p>What is the lesson to us to-day? Are we to
+go the way of the older civilizations? The immense
+increase in the area of civilized activity
+to-day, so that it is nearly coterminous with the
+world’s surface; the immense increase in the
+multitudinous variety of its activities; the immense
+increase in the velocity of the world movement—are
+all these to mean merely that the
+crash will be all the more complete and terrible
+when it comes? We can not be certain that the
+answer will be in the negative; but of this we can
+be certain, that we shall not go down in ruin unless
+we deserve and earn our end. There is no necessity
+for us to fall; we can hew out our destiny for
+ourselves, if only we have the wit and the courage
+and the honesty.</p>
+
+<p>Personally, I do not believe that our civilization<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">129</span>
+will fall. I think that on the whole we have
+grown better and not worse. I think that on
+the whole the future holds more for us than even
+the great past has held. But, assuredly, the
+dreams of golden glory in the future will not come
+true unless, high of heart and strong of hand, by
+our own mighty deeds we make them come true.
+We can not afford to develop any one set of
+qualities, any one set of activities, at the cost of
+seeing others, equally necessary, atrophied. Neither
+the military efficiency of the Mongol, the extraordinary
+business ability of the Phœnician, nor
+the subtle and polished intellect of the Greek
+availed to avert destruction.</p>
+
+<p>We, the men of to-day and of the future, need
+many qualities if we are to do our work well.
+We need, first of all and most important of all,
+the qualities which stand at the base of individual,
+of family life, the fundamental and essential qualities—the
+homely, every-day, all-important virtues.
+If the average man will not work, if he has
+not in him the will and the power to be a good
+husband and father; if the average woman is not
+a good housewife, a good mother of many healthy
+children, then the state will topple, will go down,
+no matter what may be its brilliance of artistic
+development or material achievement. But these
+homely qualities are not enough. There must,
+in addition, be that power of organization, that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">130</span>
+power of working in common for a common end,
+which the German people have shown in such
+signal fashion during the last half-century. Moreover,
+the things of the spirit are even more important
+than the things of the body. We can
+well do without the hard intolerance and arid intellectual
+barrenness of what was worst in the
+theological systems of the past, but there has
+never been greater need of a high and fine religious
+spirit than at the present time. So, while we can
+laugh good-humoredly at some of the pretensions
+of modern philosophy in its various branches, it
+would be worse than folly on our part to ignore
+our need of intellectual leadership. Your own
+great Frederick once said that if he wished to
+punish a province he would leave it to be governed
+by philosophers; the sneer had in it an element
+of justice; and yet no one better than the great
+Frederick knew the value of philosophers, the
+value of men of science, men of letters, men of
+art. It would be a bad thing indeed to accept
+Tolstoi as a guide in social and moral matters;
+but it would also be a bad thing not to have Tolstoi,
+not to profit by the lofty side of his teachings.
+There are plenty of scientific men whose hard
+arrogance, whose cynical materialism, whose dogmatic
+intolerance, put them on a level with the
+bigoted mediæval ecclesiasticism which they denounce.
+Yet our debt to scientific men is incalculable,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">131</span>
+and our civilization of to-day would have
+reft from it all that which most highly distinguishes
+it if the work of the great masters of
+science during the past four centuries were now
+undone or forgotten. Never has philanthropy,
+humanitarianism, seen such development as now;
+and though we must all beware of the folly, and
+the viciousness no worse than folly, which marks
+the believer in the perfectibility of man when his
+heart runs away with his head, or when vanity
+usurps the place of conscience, yet we must remember
+also that it is only by working along the
+lines laid down by the philanthropists, by the
+lovers of mankind, that we can be sure of lifting
+our civilization to a higher and more permanent
+plane of well-being than was ever attained by any
+preceding civilization. Unjust war is to be abhorred;
+but woe to the nation that does not make
+ready to hold its own in time of need against all
+who would harm it! And woe thrice over to the
+nation in which the average man loses the fighting
+edge, loses the power to serve as a soldier if the
+day of need should arise!</p>
+
+<p>It is no impossible dream to build up a civilization
+in which morality, ethical development,
+and a true feeling of brotherhood shall all alike
+be divorced from false sentimentality, and from
+the rancorous and evil passions which, curiously
+enough, so often accompany professions of sentimental<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">132</span>
+attachment to the rights of man; in which
+a high material development in the things of the
+body shall be achieved without subordination of
+the things of the soul; in which there shall be a
+genuine desire for peace and justice without loss
+of those virile qualities without which no love of
+peace or justice shall avail any race; in which
+the fullest development of scientific research, the
+great distinguishing feature of our present civilization,
+shall yet not imply a belief that intellect
+can ever take the place of character—for, from
+the standpoint of the nation as of the individual,
+it is character that is the one vital possession.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, this world movement of civilization,
+this movement which is now felt throbbing in
+every corner of the globe, should bind the nations
+of the world together while yet leaving
+unimpaired that love of country in the individual
+citizen which in the present stage of the world’s
+progress is essential to the world’s well-being.
+You, my hearers, and I who speak to you, belong
+to different nations. Under modern conditions
+the books we read, the news sent by telegraph to
+our newspapers, the strangers we meet, half of
+the things we hear and do each day, all tend to
+bring us into touch with other peoples. Each
+people can do justice to itself only if it does justice
+to others; but each people can do its part in
+the world movement for all only if it first does<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">133</span>
+its duty within its own household. The good
+citizen must be a good citizen of his own country
+first before he can with advantage be a citizen of
+the world at large. I wish you well. I believe
+in you and your future. I admire and wonder at
+the extraordinary greatness and variety of your
+achievements in so many and such widely different
+fields; and my admiration and regard are all the
+greater, and not the less, because I am so profound
+a believer in the institutions and the people
+of my own land.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">135</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">137</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak">CITIZENSHIP IN A REPUBLIC</h2>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CITIZENSHIP_IN_A_REPUBLIC" title="CITIZENSHIP IN A REPUBLIC"><span id="toclink_135"></span>CITIZENSHIP IN A REPUBLIC<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">4</a></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap b"><span class="smcap1">Strange</span> and impressive associations rise in
+the mind of a man from the New World
+who speaks before this august body in this
+ancient institution of learning. Before his eyes
+pass the shadows of mighty kings and warlike
+nobles, of great masters of law and theology;
+through the shining dust of the dead centuries
+he sees crowded figures that tell of the power
+and learning and splendor of times gone by; and
+he sees also the innumerable host of humble students
+to whom clerkship meant emancipation,
+to whom it was well-nigh the only outlet from the
+dark thraldom of the Middle Ages.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">4</a> Delivered at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>This was the most famous university of mediæval
+Europe at a time when no one dreamed that
+there was a New World to discover. Its services
+to the cause of human knowledge already stretched
+far back into the remote past at the time when my
+forefathers, three centuries ago, were among the
+sparse bands of traders, ploughmen, wood-choppers,
+and fisherfolk who, in hard struggle with the iron
+unfriendliness of the Indian-haunted land, were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">138</span>
+laying the foundations of what has now become
+the giant republic of the West. To conquer a
+continent, to tame the shaggy roughness of wild
+nature, means grim warfare; and the generations
+engaged in it can not keep, still less add to, the
+stores of garnered wisdom which once were theirs,
+and which are still in the hands of their brethren
+who dwell in the old land. To conquer the
+wilderness means to wrest victory from the same
+hostile forces with which mankind struggled in
+the immemorial infancy of our race. The primeval
+conditions must be met by primeval qualities
+which are incompatible with the retention of much
+that has been painfully acquired by humanity
+as through the ages it has striven upward toward
+civilization. In conditions so primitive
+there can be but a primitive culture. At first
+only the rudest schools can be established, for no
+others would meet the needs of the hard-driven,
+sinewy folk who thrust forward the frontier in the
+teeth of savage man and savage nature; and many
+years elapse before any of these schools can develop
+into seats of higher learning and broader
+culture.</p>
+
+<p>The pioneer days pass; the stump-dotted clearings
+expand into vast stretches of fertile farmland;
+the stockaded clusters of log cabins change
+into towns; the hunters of game, the fellers of
+trees, the rude frontier traders and tillers of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">139</span>
+soil, the men who wander all their lives long
+through the wilderness as the heralds and harbingers
+of an oncoming civilization, themselves
+vanish before the civilization for which they have
+prepared the way. The children of their successors
+and supplanters, and then their children
+and children’s children, change and develop with
+extraordinary rapidity. The conditions accentuate
+vices and virtues, energy and ruthlessness,
+all the good qualities and all the defects of an
+intense individualism, self-reliant, self-centred, far
+more conscious of its rights than of its duties,
+and blind to its own shortcomings. To the hard
+materialism of the frontier days succeeds the hard
+materialism of an industrialism even more intense
+and absorbing than that of the older nations;
+although these themselves have likewise already
+entered on the age of a complex and predominantly
+industrial civilization.</p>
+
+<p>As the country grows, its people, who have won
+success in so many lines, turn back to try to recover
+the possessions of the mind and the spirit,
+which perforce their fathers threw aside in order
+better to wage the first rough battles for the
+continent their children inherit. The leaders of
+thought and of action grope their way forward
+to a new life, realizing, sometimes dimly, sometimes
+clear-sightedly, that the life of material gain,
+whether for a nation or an individual, is of value<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">140</span>
+only as a foundation, only as there is added to it
+the uplift that comes from devotion to loftier
+ideals. The new life thus sought can in part be
+developed afresh from what is round about in
+the New World; but it can be developed in full
+only by freely drawing upon the treasure-houses
+of the Old World, upon the treasures stored in
+the ancient abodes of wisdom and learning, such
+as this where I speak to-day. It is a mistake for
+any nation merely to copy another; but it is an
+even greater mistake, it is a proof of weakness in
+any nation, not to be anxious to learn from another,
+and willing and able to adapt that learning
+to the new national conditions and make it fruitful
+and productive therein. It is for us of the
+New World to sit at the feet of the Gamaliel of
+the Old; then, if we have the right stuff in us,
+we can show that Paul in his turn can become a
+teacher as well as a scholar.</p>
+
+<p>To-day I shall speak to you on the subject of
+individual citizenship, the one subject of vital
+importance to you, my hearers, and to me and
+my countrymen, because you and we are citizens
+of great democratic republics. A democratic
+republic such as each of ours—an effort to realize
+in its full sense government by, of, and for the
+people—represents the most gigantic of all possible
+social experiments, the one fraught with
+greatest possibilities alike for good and for evil.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">141</span>
+The success of republics like yours and like ours
+means the glory, and our failure the despair, of
+mankind; and for you and for us the question of
+the quality of the individual citizen is supreme.
+Under other forms of government, under the rule
+of one man or of a very few men, the quality of
+the rulers is all-important. If, under such governments,
+the quality of the rulers is high enough,
+then the nation may for generations lead a brilliant
+career, and add substantially to the sum of
+world achievement, no matter how low the quality
+of the average citizen; because the average citizen
+is an almost negligible quantity in working out the
+final results of that type of national greatness.</p>
+
+<p>But with you and with us the case is different.
+With you here, and with us in my own home, in
+the long run, success or failure will be conditioned
+upon the way in which the average man, the
+average woman, does his or her duty, first in the
+ordinary, every-day affairs of life, and next in
+those great occasional crises which call for the
+heroic virtues. The average citizen must be a
+good citizen if our republics are to succeed. The
+stream will not permanently rise higher than the
+main source; and the main source of national
+power and national greatness is found in the average
+citizenship of the nation. Therefore it behooves
+us to do our best to see that the standard
+of the average citizen is kept high; and the average<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">142</span>
+can not be kept high unless the standard of
+the leaders is very much higher.</p>
+
+<p>It is well if a large proportion of the leaders
+in any republic, in any democracy, are, as a
+matter of course, drawn from the classes represented
+in this audience to-day; but only provided
+that those classes possess the gifts of sympathy
+with plain people and of devotion to great ideals.
+You and those like you have received special advantages;
+you have all of you had the opportunity
+for mental training; many of you have had
+leisure; most of you have had a chance for the
+enjoyment of life far greater than comes to the
+majority of your fellows. To you and your kind
+much has been given, and from you much should
+be expected. Yet there are certain failings against
+which it is especially incumbent that both men
+of trained and cultivated intellect, and men of
+inherited wealth and position, should especially
+guard themselves, because to these failings they
+are especially liable; and if yielded to, their—your—chances
+of useful service are at an end.</p>
+
+<p>Let the man of learning, the man of lettered
+leisure, beware of that queer and cheap temptation
+to pose to himself and to others as the cynic,
+as the man who has outgrown emotions and beliefs,
+the man to whom good and evil are as one.
+The poorest way to face life is to face it with a
+sneer. There are many men who feel a kind of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">143</span>
+twisted pride in cynicism; there are many who
+confine themselves to criticism of the way others
+do what they themselves dare not even attempt.
+There is no more unhealthy being, no man less
+worthy of respect, than he who either really holds,
+or feigns to hold, an attitude of sneering disbelief
+toward all that is great and lofty, whether
+in achievement or in that noble effort which,
+even if it fails, comes second to achievement.
+A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness
+to criticise work which the critic himself never
+tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which
+will not accept contact with life’s realities—all
+these are marks, not, as the possessor would fain
+think, of superiority, but of weakness. They
+mark the men unfit to bear their part manfully
+in the stern strife of living, who seek, in the
+affectation of contempt for the achievements of
+others, to hide from others and from themselves
+their own weakness. The rôle is easy; there is
+none easier, save only the rôle of the man who
+sneers alike at both criticism and performance.</p>
+
+<p>It is not the critic who counts; not the man
+who points out how the strong man stumbles, or
+where the doer of deeds could have done them
+better. The credit belongs to the man who is
+actually in the arena, whose face is marred by
+dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly;
+who errs, and comes short again and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">144</span>
+again, because there is no effort without error and
+shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do
+the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the
+great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy
+cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph
+of high achievement, and who at the worst,
+if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so
+that his place shall never be with those cold and
+timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
+Shame on the man of cultivated taste who permits
+refinement to develop into a fastidiousness
+that unfits him for doing the rough work of a
+workaday world. Among the free peoples who
+govern themselves there is but a small field of
+usefulness open for the men of cloistered life who
+shrink from contact with their fellows. Still
+less room is there for those who deride or slight
+what is done by those who actually bear the
+brunt of the day; nor yet for those others who
+always profess that they would like to take action,
+if only the conditions of life were not what they
+actually are. The man who does nothing cuts
+the same sordid figure in the pages of history,
+whether he be cynic, or fop, or voluptuary. There
+is little use for the being whose tepid soul knows
+nothing of the great and generous emotion, of
+the high pride, the stern belief, the lofty enthusiasm,
+of the men who quell the storm and ride the
+thunder. Well for these men if they succeed;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">145</span>
+well also, though not so well, if they fail, given
+only that they have nobly ventured, and have put
+forth all their heart and strength. It is war-worn
+Hotspur, spent with hard fighting, he of
+the many errors and the valiant end, over whose
+memory we love to linger, not over the memory
+of the young lord who “but for the vile guns
+would have been a soldier.”</p>
+
+<p>France has taught many lessons to other nations:
+surely one of the most important is the
+lesson her whole history teaches, that a high
+artistic and literary development is compatible
+with notable leadership in arms and statecraft.
+The brilliant gallantry of the French soldier has
+for many centuries been proverbial; and during
+these same centuries at every court in Europe the
+“freemasons of fashion” have treated the French
+tongue as their common speech; while every artist
+and man of letters, and every man of science able
+to appreciate that marvellous instrument of precision,
+French prose, has turned toward France
+for aid and inspiration. How long the leadership
+in arms and letters has lasted is curiously
+illustrated by the fact that the earliest masterpiece
+in a modern tongue is the splendid French
+epic which tells of Roland’s doom and the vengeance
+of Charlemagne when the lords of the
+Frankish host were stricken at Roncesvalles.</p>
+
+<p>Let those who have, keep, let those who have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">146</span>
+not, strive to attain, a high standard of cultivation
+and scholarship. Yet let us remember that
+these stand second to certain other things. There
+is need of a sound body, and even more need of a
+sound mind. But above mind and above body
+stands character—the sum of those qualities
+which we mean when we speak of a man’s force
+and courage, of his good faith and sense of honor.
+I believe in exercise for the body, always provided
+that we keep in mind that physical development
+is a means and not an end. I believe, of
+course, in giving to all the people a good education.
+But the education must contain much besides
+book-learning in order to be really good. We
+must ever remember that no keenness and subtleness
+of intellect, no polish, no cleverness, in
+any way make up for the lack of the great solid
+qualities. Self-restraint, self-mastery, common
+sense, the power of accepting individual responsibility
+and yet of acting in conjunction with
+others, courage and resolution—these are the
+qualities which mark a masterful people. Without
+them no people can control itself, or save itself
+from being controlled from the outside. I
+speak to a brilliant assemblage; I speak in a great
+university which represents the flower of the highest
+intellectual development; I pay all homage to
+intellect, and to elaborate and specialized training
+of the intellect; and yet I know I shall have the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">147</span>
+assent of all of you present when I add that more
+important still are the commonplace, every-day
+qualities and virtues.</p>
+
+<p>Such ordinary, every-day qualities include the
+will and the power to work, to fight at need, and
+to have plenty of healthy children. The need
+that the average man shall work is so obvious as
+hardly to warrant insistence. There are a few
+people in every country so born that they can lead
+lives of leisure. These fill a useful function if
+they make it evident that leisure does not mean
+idleness; for some of the most valuable work
+needed by civilization is essentially non-remunerative
+in its character, and of course the people
+who do this work should in large part be drawn
+from those to whom remuneration is an object of
+indifference. But the average man must earn his
+own livelihood. He should be trained to do so,
+and he should be trained to feel that he occupies
+a contemptible position if he does not do so; that
+he is not an object of envy if he is idle, at whichever
+end of the social scale he stands, but an object
+of contempt, an object of derision.</p>
+
+<p>In the next place, the good man should be both
+a strong and a brave man; that is, he should be
+able to fight, he should be able to serve his country
+as a soldier, if the need arises. There are well-meaning
+philosophers who declaim against the
+unrighteousness of war. They are right only if<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">148</span>
+they lay all their emphasis upon the unrighteousness.
+War is a dreadful thing, and unjust war is
+a crime against humanity. But it is such a
+crime because it is unjust, not because it is war.
+The choice must ever be in favor of righteousness,
+and this whether the alternative be peace or
+whether the alternative be war. The question
+must not be merely, Is there to be peace or war?
+The question must be, Is the right to prevail?
+Are the great laws of righteousness once more to
+be fulfilled? And the answer from a strong and
+virile people must be, “Yes,” whatever the cost.
+Every honorable effort should always be made to
+avoid war, just as every honorable effort should
+always be made by the individual in private life
+to keep out of a brawl, to keep out of trouble;
+but no self-respecting individual, no self-respecting
+nation, can or ought to submit to wrong.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, even more important than ability to
+work, even more important than ability to fight
+at need, is it to remember that the chief of blessings
+for any nation is that it shall leave its seed
+to inherit the land. It was the crown of blessings
+in Biblical times; and it is the crown of blessings
+now. The greatest of all curses is the curse of
+sterility, and the severest of all condemnations
+should be that visited upon wilful sterility. The
+first essential in any civilization is that the man
+and the woman shall be father and mother of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">149</span>
+healthy children, so that the race shall increase
+and not decrease. If this is not so, if through
+no fault of the society there is failure to increase,
+it is a great misfortune. If the failure is due
+to deliberate and wilful fault, then it is not merely
+a misfortune, it is one of those crimes of ease and
+self-indulgence, of shrinking from pain and effort
+and risk, which in the long run Nature punishes
+more heavily than any other. If we of the great
+republics, if we, the free people who claim to
+have emancipated ourselves from the thraldom of
+wrong and error, bring down on our heads the
+curse that comes upon the wilfully barren, then
+it will be an idle waste of breath to prattle of
+our achievements, to boast of all that we have
+done. No refinement of life, no delicacy of taste,
+no material progress, no sordid heaping up of
+riches, no sensuous development of art and literature,
+can in any way compensate for the loss of
+the great fundamental virtues; and of these great
+fundamental virtues the greatest is the race’s
+power to perpetuate the race.</p>
+
+<p>Character must show itself in the man’s performance
+both of the duty he owes himself and
+of the duty he owes the state. The man’s foremost
+duty is owed to himself and his family; and
+he can do this duty only by earning money, by
+providing what is essential to material well-being;
+it is only after this has been done that he can hope<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">150</span>
+to build a higher superstructure on the solid material
+foundation; it is only after this has been
+done that he can help in movements for the general
+well-being. He must pull his own weight
+first, and only after this can his surplus strength
+be of use to the general public. It is not good to
+excite that bitter laughter which expresses contempt;
+and contempt is what we feel for the
+being whose enthusiasm to benefit mankind is
+such that he is a burden to those nearest him;
+who wishes to do great things for humanity in the
+abstract, but who can not keep his wife in comfort
+or educate his children.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, while laying all stress on this
+point, while not merely acknowledging but insisting
+upon the fact that there must be a basis
+of material well-being for the individual as for
+the nation, let us with equal emphasis insist that
+this material well-being represents nothing but
+the foundation, and that the foundation, though
+indispensable, is worthless unless upon it is raised
+the superstructure of a higher life. That is why
+I decline to recognize the mere multimillionaire,
+the man of mere wealth, as an asset of value to
+any country; and especially as not an asset to
+my own country. If he has earned or uses his
+wealth in a way that makes him of real benefit, of
+real use—and such is often the case—why, then
+he does become an asset of worth. But it is the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">151</span>
+way in which it has been earned or used, and not
+the mere fact of wealth, that entitles him to the
+credit. There is need in business, as in most other
+forms of human activity, of the great guiding intelligences.
+Their places can not be supplied by
+any number of lesser intelligences. It is a good
+thing that they should have ample recognition,
+ample reward. But we must not transfer our
+admiration to the reward instead of to the deed
+rewarded; and if what should be the reward
+exists without the service having been rendered,
+then admiration will come only from those who
+are mean of soul. The truth is that, after a certain
+measure of tangible material success or reward
+has been achieved, the question of increasing
+it becomes of constantly less importance compared
+to other things that can be done in life. It is a
+bad thing for a nation to raise and to admire a
+false standard of success; and there can be no
+falser standard than that set by the deification
+of material well-being in and for itself. The man
+who, for any cause for which he is himself accountable,
+has failed to support himself and those
+for whom he is responsible, ought to feel that he
+has fallen lamentably short in his prime duty.
+But the man who, having far surpassed the limit
+of providing for the wants, both of body and mind,
+of himself and of those depending upon him, then
+piles up a great fortune, for the acquisition or<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">152</span>
+retention of which he returns no corresponding
+benefit to the nation as a whole, should himself
+be made to feel that, so far from being a desirable,
+he is an unworthy, citizen of the community;
+that he is to be neither admired nor envied; that
+his right-thinking fellow countrymen put him low
+in the scale of citizenship, and leave him to be
+consoled by the admiration of those whose level
+of purpose is even lower than his own.</p>
+
+<p>My position as regards the moneyed interests
+can be put in a few words. In every civilized
+society property rights must be carefully safeguarded;
+ordinarily, and in the great majority
+of cases, human rights and property rights are
+fundamentally and in the long run identical; but
+when it clearly appears that there is a real conflict
+between them, human rights must have the
+upper hand, for property belongs to man and not
+man to property.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, it is essential to good citizenship clearly
+to understand that there are certain qualities
+which we in a democracy are prone to admire in
+and of themselves, which ought by rights to be
+judged admirable or the reverse solely from the
+standpoint of the use made of them. Foremost
+among these I should include two very distinct
+gifts—the gift of money-making and the gift of
+oratory. Money-making, the money touch, I
+have spoken of above. It is a quality which in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">153</span>
+a moderate degree is essential. It may be useful
+when developed to a very great degree, but
+only if accompanied and controlled by other
+qualities; and without such control the possessor
+tends to develop into one of the least attractive
+types produced by a modern industrial democracy.
+So it is with the orator. It is highly desirable
+that a leader of opinion in a democracy should be
+able to state his views clearly and convincingly.
+But all that the oratory can do of value to the
+community is to enable the man thus to explain
+himself; if it enables the orator to persuade his
+hearers to put false values on things, it merely
+makes him a power for mischief. Some excellent
+public servants have not the gift at all, and must
+rely upon their deeds to speak for them; and unless
+the oratory does represent genuine conviction
+based on good common sense and able to be translated
+into efficient performance, then the better
+the oratory the greater the damage to the public
+it deceives. Indeed, it is a sign of marked political
+weakness in any commonwealth if the people
+tend to be carried away by mere oratory, if they
+tend to value words in and for themselves, as
+divorced from the deeds for which they are supposed
+to stand. The phrase-maker, the phrase-monger,
+the ready talker, however great his power,
+whose speech does not make for courage, sobriety,
+and right understanding, is simply a noxious element<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">154</span>
+in the body politic, and it speaks ill for the
+public if he has influence over them. To admire
+the gift of oratory without regard to the moral
+quality behind the gift is to do wrong to the republic.</p>
+
+<p>Of course all that I say of the orator applies
+with even greater force to the orator’s latter-day
+and more influential brother, the journalist. The
+power of the journalist is great, but he is entitled
+neither to respect nor admiration because of that
+power unless it is used aright. He can do, and
+he often does, great good. He can do, and he
+often does, infinite mischief. All journalists, all
+writers, for the very reason that they appreciate
+the vast possibilities of their profession, should
+bear testimony against those who deeply discredit
+it. Offences against taste and morals, which are
+bad enough in a private citizen, are infinitely
+worse if made into instruments for debauching
+the community through a newspaper. Mendacity,
+slander, sensationalism, inanity, vapid triviality,
+all are potent factors for the debauchery of
+the public mind and conscience. The excuse advanced
+for vicious writing, that the public demands
+it and that the demand must be supplied,
+can no more be admitted than if it were advanced
+by the purveyors of food who sell poisonous adulterations.</p>
+
+<p>In short, the good citizen in a republic must<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">155</span>
+realize that he ought to possess two sets of qualities,
+and that neither avails without the other.
+He must have those qualities which make for
+efficiency; and he must also have those qualities
+which direct the efficiency into channels for the
+public good. He is useless if he is inefficient.
+There is nothing to be done with that type of
+citizen of whom all that can be said is that he is
+harmless. Virtue which is dependent upon a
+sluggish circulation is not impressive. There is
+little place in active life for the timid good man.
+The man who is saved by weakness from robust
+wickedness is likewise rendered immune from the
+robuster virtues. The good citizen in a republic
+must first of all be able to hold his own. He is
+no good citizen unless he has the ability which
+will make him work hard and which at need will
+make him fight hard. The good citizen is not a
+good citizen unless he is an efficient citizen.</p>
+
+<p>But if a man’s efficiency is not guided and regulated
+by a moral sense, then the more efficient
+he is the worse he is, the more dangerous to the
+body politic. Courage, intellect, all the masterful
+qualities, serve but to make a man more evil
+if they are used merely for that man’s own advancement,
+with brutal indifference to the rights
+of others. It speaks ill for the community if the
+community worships these qualities and treats
+their possessors as heroes regardless of whether<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">156</span>
+the qualities are used rightly or wrongly. It
+makes no difference as to the precise way in which
+this sinister efficiency is shown. It makes no
+difference whether such a man’s force and ability
+betray themselves in the career of money-maker
+or politician, soldier or orator, journalist or popular
+leader. If the man works for evil, then the
+more successful he is the more he should be despised
+and condemned by all upright and farseeing
+men. To judge a man merely by success
+is an abhorrent wrong; and if the people at large
+habitually so judge men, if they grow to condone
+wickedness because the wicked man triumphs,
+they show their inability to understand
+that in the last analysis free institutions rest upon
+the character of citizenship, and that by such admiration
+of evil they prove themselves unfit for
+liberty.</p>
+
+<p>The homely virtues of the household, the ordinary
+workaday virtues which make the woman
+a good housewife and housemother, which make
+the man a hard worker, a good husband and
+father, a good soldier at need, stand at the bottom
+of character. But of course many others must
+be added thereto if a state is to be not only free
+but great. Good citizenship is not good citizenship
+if exhibited only in the home. There remain
+the duties of the individual in relation to the
+state, and these duties are none too easy under<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">157</span>
+the conditions which exist where the effort is
+made to carry on free government in a complex,
+industrial civilization. Perhaps the most important
+thing the ordinary citizen, and, above all,
+the leader of ordinary citizens, has to remember
+in political life is that he must not be a sheer
+doctrinaire. The closet philosopher, the refined
+and cultured individual who from his library tells
+how men ought to be governed under ideal conditions,
+is of no use in actual governmental work;
+and the one-sided fanatic, and still more the mob-leader,
+and the insincere man who to achieve
+power promises what by no possibility can be
+performed, are not merely useless but noxious.</p>
+
+<p>The citizen must have high ideals, and yet he
+must be able to achieve them in practical fashion.
+No permanent good comes from aspirations so
+lofty that they have grown fantastic and have
+become impossible and indeed undesirable to realize.
+The impracticable visionary is far less often
+the guide and precursor than he is the imbittered
+foe of the real reformer, of the man who, with
+stumblings and shortcomings, yet does in some
+shape, in practical fashion, give effect to the
+hopes and desires of those who strive for better
+things. Woe to the empty phrase-maker, to the
+empty idealist, who, instead of making ready the
+ground for the man of action, turns against him
+when he appears and hampers him as he does the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">158</span>
+work! Moreover, the preacher of ideals must remember
+how sorry and contemptible is the figure
+which he will cut, how great the damage that he
+will do, if he does not himself, in his own life,
+strive measurably to realize the ideals that he
+preaches for others. Let him remember also
+that the worth of the ideal must be largely determined
+by the success with which it can in
+practice be realized. We should abhor the so-called
+“practical” men whose practicality assumes
+the shape of that peculiar baseness which
+finds its expression in disbelief in morality and
+decency, in disregard of high standards of living
+and conduct. Such a creature is the worst enemy
+of the body politic. But only less desirable as a
+citizen is his nominal opponent and real ally, the
+man of fantastic vision who makes the impossible
+better forever the enemy of the possible good.</p>
+
+<p>We can just as little afford to follow the doctrinaires
+of an extreme individualism as the
+doctrinaires of an extreme socialism. Individual
+initiative, so far from being discouraged, should
+be stimulated; and yet we should remember that,
+as society develops and grows more complex, we
+continually find that things which once it was
+desirable to leave to individual initiative can,
+under the changed conditions, be performed with
+better results by common effort. It is quite impossible,
+and equally undesirable, to draw in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">159</span>
+theory a hard-and-fast line which shall always
+divide the two sets of cases. This every one who
+is not cursed with the pride of the closet philosopher
+will see, if he will only take the trouble to
+think about some of our commonest phenomena.
+For instance, when people live on isolated farms
+or in little hamlets, each house can be left to attend
+to its own drainage and water supply; but
+the mere multiplication of families in a given area
+produces new problems which, because they differ
+in size, are found to differ not only in degree but
+in kind from the old; and the questions of drainage
+and water supply have to be considered from
+the common standpoint. It is not a matter for
+abstract dogmatizing to decide when this point
+is reached; it is a matter to be tested by practical
+experiment. Much of the discussion about socialism
+and individualism is entirely pointless, because
+of failure to agree on terminology. It is
+not good to be the slave of names. I am a strong
+individualist by personal habit, inheritance, and
+conviction; but it is a mere matter of common
+sense to recognize that the state, the community,
+the citizens acting together, can do a number of
+things better than if they were left to individual
+action. The individualism which finds its expression
+in the abuse of physical force is checked
+very early in the growth of civilization, and we
+of to-day should in our turn strive to shackle or<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">160</span>
+destroy that individualism which triumphs by
+greed and cunning, which exploits the weak by
+craft instead of ruling them by brutality. We
+ought to go with any man in the effort to bring
+about justice and the equality of opportunity, to
+turn the tool-user more and more into the tool-owner,
+to shift burdens so that they can be more
+equitably borne. The deadening effect on any
+race of the adoption of a logical and extreme socialistic
+system could not be overstated; it would
+spell sheer destruction; it would produce grosser
+wrong and outrage, fouler immorality, than any
+existing system. But this does not mean that
+we may not with great advantage adopt certain
+of the principles professed by some given set of
+men who happen to call themselves Socialists; to
+be afraid to do so would be to make a mark of
+weakness on our part.</p>
+
+<p>But we should not take part in acting a lie any
+more than in telling a lie. We should not say
+that men are equal where they are not equal, nor
+proceed upon the assumption that there is an
+equality where it does not exist; but we should
+strive to bring about a measurable equality, at
+least to the extent of preventing the inequality
+which is due to force or fraud. Abraham Lincoln,
+a man of the plain people, blood of their
+blood and bone of their bone, who all his life
+toiled and wrought and suffered for them, and at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">161</span>
+the end died for them, who always strove to represent
+them, who would never tell an untruth to
+or for them, spoke of the doctrine of equality with
+his usual mixture of idealism and sound common
+sense. He said (I omit what was of merely local
+significance):</p>
+
+<p>“I think the authors of the Declaration of Independence
+intended to include all men, but that
+they did not mean to declare all men equal <em>in all
+respects</em>. They did not mean to say all men were
+equal in color, size, intellect, moral development,
+or social capacity. They defined with tolerable
+distinctness in what they did consider all men
+created equal—equal in certain inalienable rights,
+among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
+happiness. This they said, and this they meant.
+They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth
+that all were then actually enjoying that equality,
+or yet that they were about to confer it immediately
+upon them. They meant to set up a standard
+maxim for free society which should be
+familiar to all—constantly looked to, constantly
+labored for, and, even though never perfectly attained,
+constantly approximated, and thereby constantly
+spreading and deepening its influence, and
+augmenting the happiness and value of life to all
+people, everywhere.”</p>
+
+<p>We are bound in honor to refuse to listen to
+those men who would make us desist from the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">162</span>
+effort to do away with the inequality which means
+injustice; the inequality of right, of opportunity,
+of privilege. We are bound in honor to strive to
+bring ever nearer the day when, as far as is humanly
+possible, we shall be able to realize the
+ideal that each man shall have an equal opportunity
+to show the stuff that is in him by the
+way in which he renders service. There should,
+so far as possible, be equality of opportunity to
+render service; but just so long as there is inequality
+of service there should and must be inequality
+of reward. We may be sorry for the
+general, the painter, the artist, the worker in any
+profession or of any kind, whose misfortune rather
+than whose fault it is that he does his work ill.
+But the reward must go to the man who does his
+work well; for any other course is to create a
+new kind of privilege, the privilege of folly and
+weakness; and special privilege is injustice, whatever
+form it takes.</p>
+
+<p>To say that the thriftless, the lazy, the vicious,
+the incapable, ought to have the reward given
+to those who are far-sighted, capable, and upright,
+is to say what is not true and can not be
+true. Let us try to level up, but let us beware of
+the evil of levelling down. If a man stumbles, it
+is a good thing to help him to his feet. Every
+one of us needs a helping hand now and then.
+But if a man lies down, it is a waste of time to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">163</span>
+try to carry him; and it is a very bad thing for
+every one if we make men feel that the same reward
+will come to those who shirk their work and to
+those who do it.</p>
+
+<p>Let us, then, take into account the actual facts
+of life, and not be misled into following any proposal
+for achieving the millennium, for re-creating
+the golden age, until we have subjected it
+to hardheaded examination. On the other hand,
+it is foolish to reject a proposal merely because it
+is advanced by visionaries. If a given scheme is
+proposed, look at it on its merits, and, in considering
+it, disregard formulas. It does not matter in
+the least who proposes it, or why. If it seems
+good, try it. If it proves good, accept it; otherwise
+reject it. There are plenty of men calling
+themselves Socialists with whom, up to a certain
+point, it is quite possible to work. If the next
+step is one which both we and they wish to take,
+why of course take it, without any regard to the
+fact that our views as to the tenth step may differ.
+But, on the other hand, keep clearly in mind that,
+though it has been worth while to take one step,
+this does not in the least mean that it may not be
+highly disadvantageous to take the next. It is
+just as foolish to refuse all progress because people
+demanding it desire at some points to go to
+absurd extremes, as it would be to go to these
+absurd extremes simply because some of the measures
+advocated by the extremists were wise.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">164</span></p>
+
+<p>The good citizen will demand liberty for himself,
+and as a matter of pride he will see to it
+that others receive the liberty which he thus
+claims as his own. Probably the best test of
+true love of liberty in any country is the way
+in which minorities are treated in that country.
+Not only should there be complete liberty in
+matters of religion and opinion, but complete
+liberty for each man to lead his life as he desires,
+provided only that in so doing he does not wrong
+his neighbor. Persecution is bad because it is
+persecution, and without reference to which side
+happens at the moment to be the persecutor and
+which the persecuted. Class hatred is bad in just
+the same way, and without any regard to the individual
+who, at a given time, substitutes loyalty
+to a class for loyalty to the nation, or substitutes
+hatred of men because they happen to come in a
+certain social category, for judgment awarded
+them according to their conduct. Remember always
+that the same measure of condemnation
+should be extended to the arrogance which would
+look down upon or crush any man because he is
+poor and to the envy and hatred which would
+destroy a man because he is wealthy. The overbearing
+brutality of the man of wealth or power,
+and the envious and hateful malice directed
+against wealth or power, are really at root merely
+different manifestations of the same quality,
+merely the two sides of the same shield. The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">165</span>
+man who, if born to wealth and power, exploits
+and ruins his less fortunate brethren is at heart
+the same as the greedy and violent demagogue
+who excites those who have not property to
+plunder those who have. The gravest wrong upon
+his country is inflicted by that man, whatever his
+station, who seeks to make his countrymen divide
+primarily on the line that separates class from
+class, occupation from occupation, men of more
+wealth from men of less wealth, instead of remembering
+that the only safe standard is that
+which judges each man on his worth as a man,
+whether he be rich or poor, without regard to
+his profession or to his station in life. Such is
+the only true democratic test, the only test that
+can with propriety be applied in a republic. There
+have been many republics in the past, both in
+what we call antiquity and in what we call the
+Middle Ages. They fell, and the prime factor in
+their fall was the fact that the parties tended to
+divide along the line that separates wealth from
+poverty. It made no difference which side was
+successful; it made no difference whether the republic
+fell under the rule of an oligarchy or the
+rule of a mob. In either case, when once loyalty
+to a class had been substituted for loyalty to the
+republic, the end of the republic was at hand.
+There is no greater need to-day than the need to
+keep ever in mind the fact that the cleavage between<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">166</span>
+right and wrong, between good citizenship
+and bad citizenship, runs at right angles to, and
+not parallel with, the lines of cleavage between
+class and class, between occupation and occupation.
+Ruin looks us in the face if we judge a
+man by his position instead of judging him by his
+conduct in that position.</p>
+
+<p>In a republic, to be successful we must learn
+to combine intensity of conviction with a broad
+tolerance of difference of conviction. Wide differences
+of opinion in matters of religious, political,
+and social belief must exist if conscience and intellect
+alike are not to be stunted, if there is to
+be room for healthy growth. Bitter internecine
+hatreds, based on such differences, are signs, not
+of earnestness of belief, but of that fanaticism
+which, whether religious or anti-religious, democratic
+or anti-democratic, is itself but a manifestation
+of the gloomy bigotry which has been the
+chief factor in the downfall of so many, many
+nations.</p>
+
+<p>Of one man in especial, beyond any one else,
+the citizens of a republic should beware, and
+that is of the man who appeals to them to support
+him on the ground that he is hostile to other
+citizens of the republic, that he will secure for
+those who elect him, in one shape or another,
+profit at the expense of other citizens of the republic.
+It makes no difference whether he appeals<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">167</span>
+to class hatred or class interest, to religious
+or anti-religious prejudice. The man who makes
+such an appeal should always be presumed to
+make it for the sake of furthering his own interest.
+The very last thing that an intelligent and
+self-respecting member of a democratic community
+should do is to reward any public man because
+that public man says he will get the private
+citizen something to which this private citizen is
+not entitled, or will gratify some emotion or animosity
+which this private citizen ought not to
+possess. Let me illustrate this by one anecdote
+from my own experience. A number of years ago
+I was engaged in cattle-ranching on the great
+plains of the western United States. There were
+no fences. The cattle wandered free, the ownership
+of each being determined by the brand; the
+calves were branded with the brand of the cows
+they followed. If on the round-up an animal was
+passed by, the following year it would appear as
+an unbranded yearling, and was then called a
+maverick. By the custom of the country these
+mavericks were branded with the brand of the
+man on whose range they were found. One day
+I was riding the range with a newly hired cowboy,
+and we came upon a maverick. We roped
+and threw it; then we built a little fire, took out
+a cinch-ring, heated it at the fire; and the cowboy
+started to put on the brand. I said to him,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">168</span>
+“It is So-and-so’s brand,” naming the man on
+whose range we happened to be. He answered:
+“That’s all right, boss; I know my business.”
+In another moment I said to him: “Hold on, you
+are putting on my brand!” To which he answered:
+“That’s all right; I always put on the
+boss’s brand.” I answered: “Oh, very well.
+Now you go straight back to the ranch and
+get what is owing to you; I don’t need you any
+longer.” He jumped up and said: “Why, what’s
+the matter? I was putting on your brand.” And
+I answered: “Yes, my friend, and if you will
+steal <em>for</em> me you will steal <em>from</em> me.”</p>
+
+<p>Now, the same principle which applies in private
+life applies also in public life. If a public
+man tries to get your vote by saying that he will
+do something wrong <em>in</em> your interest, you can be
+absolutely certain that if ever it becomes worth
+his while he will do something wrong <em>against</em> your
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>So much for the citizenship of the individual
+in his relations to his family, to his neighbor, to
+the state. There remain duties of citizenship
+which the state, the aggregation of all the individuals,
+owes in connection with other states,
+with other nations. Let me say at once that I
+am no advocate of a foolish cosmopolitanism. I
+believe that a man must be a good patriot before
+he can be, and as the only possible way of being, a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">169</span>
+good citizen of the world. Experience teaches us
+that the average man who protests that his international
+feeling swamps his national feeling, that
+he does not care for his country because he cares
+so much for mankind, in actual practice proves
+himself the foe of mankind; that the man who
+says that he does not care to be a citizen of any
+one country, because he is a citizen of the world,
+is in very fact usually an exceedingly undesirable
+citizen of whatever corner of the world he happens
+at the moment to be in. In the dim future
+all moral needs and moral standards may change;
+but at present, if a man can view his own country
+and all other countries from the same level
+with tepid indifference, it is wise to distrust him,
+just as it is wise to distrust the man who can
+take the same dispassionate view of his wife and
+his mother. However broad and deep a man’s
+sympathies, however intense his activities, he
+need have no fear that they will be cramped by
+love of his native land.</p>
+
+<p>Now, this does not mean in the least that a
+man should not wish to do good outside of his
+native land. On the contrary, just as I think
+that the man who loves his family is more apt to
+be a good neighbor than the man who does not,
+so I think that the most useful member of the
+family of nations is normally a strongly patriotic
+nation. So far from patriotism being inconsistent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">170</span>
+with a proper regard for the rights of
+other nations, I hold that the true patriot, who is
+as jealous of the national honor as a gentleman is
+of his own honor, will be careful to see that the
+nation neither inflicts nor suffers wrong, just as a
+gentleman scorns equally to wrong others or to
+suffer others to wrong him. I do not for one
+moment admit that political morality is different
+from private morality, that a promise made on
+the stump differs from a promise made in private
+life. I do not for one moment admit that a man
+should act deceitfully as a public servant in his
+dealings with other nations, any more than that
+he should act deceitfully in his dealings as a private
+citizen with other private citizens. I do
+not for one moment admit that a nation should
+treat other nations in a different spirit from
+that in which an honorable man would treat
+other men.</p>
+
+<p>In practically applying this principle to the two
+sets of cases there is, of course, a great practical
+difference to be taken into account. We speak
+of international law; but international law is
+something wholly different from private or municipal
+law, and the capital difference is that there
+is a sanction for the one and no sanction for the
+other; that there is an outside force which compels
+individuals to obey the one, while there is
+no such outside force to compel obedience as regards<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">171</span>
+the other. International law will, I believe,
+as the generations pass, grow stronger and stronger
+until in some way or other there develops the
+power to make it respected. But as yet it is only
+in the first formative period. As yet, as a rule,
+each nation is of necessity obliged to judge for
+itself in matters of vital importance between it
+and its neighbors, and actions must of necessity,
+where this is the case, be different from what
+they are where, as among private citizens, there
+is an outside force whose action is all-powerful
+and must be invoked in any crisis of importance.
+It is the duty of wise statesmen, gifted with the
+power of looking ahead, to try to encourage and
+build up every movement which will substitute
+or tend to substitute some other agency for force
+in the settlement of international disputes. It is
+the duty of every honest statesman to try to
+guide the nation so that it shall not wrong any
+other nation. But as yet the great civilized peoples,
+if they are to be true to themselves and to
+the cause of humanity and civilization, must keep
+ever in mind that in the last resort they must
+possess both the will and the power to resent
+wrong-doing from others. The men who sanely
+believe in a lofty morality preach righteousness;
+but they do not preach weakness, whether among
+private citizens or among nations. We believe
+that our ideals should be high, but not so high as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">172</span>
+to make it impossible measurably to realize them.
+We sincerely and earnestly believe in peace; but
+if peace and justice conflict, we scorn the man
+who would not stand for justice though the whole
+world came in arms against him.</p>
+
+<p>And now, my hosts, a word in parting. You
+and I belong to the only two republics among the
+great powers of the world. The ancient friendship
+between France and the United States has
+been, on the whole, a sincere and disinterested
+friendship. A calamity to you would be a sorrow
+to us. But it would be more than that. In
+the seething turmoil of the history of humanity
+certain nations stand out as possessing a peculiar
+power or charm, some special gift of beauty or
+wisdom or strength, which puts them among the
+immortals, which makes them rank forever with
+the leaders of mankind. France is one of these
+nations. For her to sink would be a loss to all
+the world. There are certain lessons of brilliance
+and of generous gallantry that she can teach
+better than any of her sister nations. When the
+French peasantry sang of Malbrook, it was to tell
+how the soul of this warrior-foe took flight upward
+through the laurels he had won. Nearly
+seven centuries ago, Froissart, writing of a time
+of dire disaster, said that the realm of France was
+never so stricken that there were not left men who
+would valiantly fight for it. You have had a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">173</span>
+great past. I believe that you will have a great
+future. Long may you carry yourselves proudly
+as citizens of a nation which bears a leading part
+in the teaching and uplifting of mankind.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">175</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">177</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak">THE THRALDOM OF NAMES</h2>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_THRALDOM_OF_NAMES" title="THE THRALDOM OF NAMES"><span id="toclink_175"></span>THE THRALDOM OF NAMES</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">It</span> behooves our people never to fall under
+the thraldom of names, and least of all to
+be misled by designing people who appeal to
+the reverence for, or antipathy toward, a given
+name in order to achieve some alien purpose.
+Of course such misuse of names is as old as the
+history of what we understand when we speak of
+civilized mankind. The rule of a mob may be
+every whit as tyrannical and oppressive as the
+rule of a single individual, whether or not called
+a dictator; and the rule of an oligarchy, whether
+this oligarchy is a plutocracy or a bureaucracy,
+or any other small set of powerful men, may in
+its turn be just as sordid and just as bloodthirsty
+as that of a mob. But the apologists for the mob
+or oligarchy or dictator, in justifying the tyranny,
+use different words. The mob leaders usually
+state that all that they are doing is necessary in
+order to advance the cause of “liberty,” while the
+dictator and the oligarchy are usually defended
+upon the ground that the course they follow is
+absolutely necessary so as to secure “order.”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">178</span>
+Many excellent people are taken in by the use of
+the word “liberty” at the one time, and the use
+of the word “order” at the other, and ignore the
+simple fact that despotism is despotism, tyranny
+tyranny, oppression oppression, whether committed
+by one individual or by many individuals,
+by a state or by a private corporation.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, tyranny exercised on behalf of one
+set of people is very apt in the long run to damage
+especially the representatives of that very class
+by the violence of the reaction which it invites.
+The course of the second republic in France was
+such, with its mobs, its bloody civil tumults, its
+national workshops, its bitter factional divisions,
+as to invite and indeed insure its overthrow and
+the establishment of a dictatorship; while it is
+needless to mention the innumerable instances in
+which the name of order has been invoked to
+sanction tyranny, until there has finally come a
+reaction so violent that both the tyranny and
+all public order have disappeared together. The
+second empire in France led straight up to the
+Paris Commune; and nothing so well shows how
+far the French people had advanced in fitness
+for self-government as the fact that the hideous
+atrocities of the Commune, which rendered it
+imperative that it should be rigorously repressed,
+nevertheless did not produce another violent reaction,
+but left the French republic standing,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">179</span>
+and the French people as resolute in their refusal
+to be ruled by a king as by a mob.</p>
+
+<p>Of course when a great crisis actually comes,
+no matter how much people may have been misled
+by names, they promptly awaken to their unimportance.
+To the individual who suffered under
+the guillotine at Paris, or in the drownings in the
+Loire, or to the individual who a century before
+was expelled from his beloved country, or tortured,
+or sent to the galleys, it made no difference
+whatever that one set of acts was performed
+under Robespierre and Danton and Marat in the
+name of liberty and reason and the rights of
+the people, or that the other was performed in the
+name of order and authority and religion by the
+direction of the great monarch. Tyranny and
+cruelty were tyranny and cruelty just as much
+in one case as in the other, and just as much when
+those guilty of them used one shibboleth as when
+they used another. All forms of tyranny and
+cruelty must alike be condemned by honest men.</p>
+
+<p>We in this country have been very fortunate.
+Thanks to the teaching and the practice of the
+men whom we most revere as leaders, of the men
+like Washington and Lincoln, we have hitherto
+escaped the twin gulfs of despotism and mob rule,
+and we have never been in any danger from the
+worst forms of religious bitterness. But we should
+therefore be all the more careful, as we deal with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">180</span>
+our industrial and social problems, not to fall
+into mistakes similar to those which have brought
+lasting disaster on less fortunately situated peoples.
+We have achieved democracy in politics
+just because we have been able to steer a middle
+course between the rule of the mob and the rule
+of the dictator. We shall achieve industrial democracy
+because we shall steer a similar middle
+course between the extreme individualist and the
+Socialist, between the demagogue who attacks all
+wealth and who can see no wrong done anywhere
+unless it is perpetrated by a man of wealth, and
+the apologist for the plutocracy who rails against
+so much as a restatement of the eighth commandment
+upon the ground that it will “hurt business.”</p>
+
+<p>First and foremost, we must stand firmly on a
+basis of good sound ethics. We intend to do what
+is right for the ample and sufficient reason that it
+is right. If business is hurt by the stem exposure
+of crookedness and the result of efforts to punish
+the crooked man, then business must be hurt,
+even though good men are involved in the hurting,
+until it so adjusts itself that it is possible
+to prosecute wrong-doing without stampeding the
+business community into a terror-struck defence
+of the wrong-doers and an angry assault upon
+those who have exposed them. On the other hand,
+we must beware, above all things, of being misled<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">181</span>
+by wicked or foolish men who would condone
+homicide and violence, and apologize for the dynamiter
+and the assassin because, forsooth, they
+choose to take the ground that crime is no crime
+if the wicked man happens also to have been a
+shiftless and unthrifty or lazy man who has never
+amassed property. It is essential that we should
+wrest the control of the government out of the
+hands of rich men who use it for unhealthy purposes,
+and should keep it out of their hands; and
+to this end the first requisite is to provide means
+adequately to deal with corporations, which are
+essential to modern business, but which, under
+the decisions of the courts, and because of the
+short-sightedness of the public, have become the
+chief factors in political and business debasement.
+But it would be just as bad to put the control of
+the government into the hands of demagogues
+and visionaries who seek to pander to ignorance
+and prejudice by penalizing thrift and business
+enterprise, and ruining all men of means, with, as
+an attendant result, the ruin of the entire community.
+The tyranny of politicians with a bureaucracy
+behind them and a mass of ignorant people
+supporting them would be just as insufferable
+as the tyranny of big corporations. The tyranny
+would be the same in each case, and it would make
+no more difference that one was called individualism
+and the other collectivism than it made in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">182</span>
+French history whether tyranny was exercised in
+the name of the Commune or of the Emperor, of
+a committee of national safety, or of a king.</p>
+
+<p>The sinister and adroit reactionary, the sinister
+and violent radical, are alike in this, that each
+works in the end for the destruction of the cause
+that he professedly champions. If the one is left
+to his own devices he will make such an exhibition
+of brutal and selfish greed as to utterly discredit
+the entire system of government by individual
+initiative; and if the other is allowed to work his
+will he, in his turn, will make men so loathe
+interference and control by the state that any
+abuses connected with the untrammelled control
+of all business by private individuals will seem
+small by comparison. We can not afford to be empirical.
+We must judge each case on its merits.
+It is absolutely indispensable to foster the
+spirit of individual initiative, of self-reliance, of
+self-help; but this does not mean that we are to
+refuse to face facts and to recognize that the
+growth of our complex civilization necessitates an
+increase in the exercise of the functions of the
+state. It has been shown beyond power of refutation
+that unrestricted individualism, for instance,
+means the destruction of our forests and
+our water supply. The dogma of “individualism”
+can not be permitted to interfere with the duty of
+a great city to see that householders, small as well<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">183</span>
+as big, live in decent and healthy buildings, drink
+good water, and have the streets adequately lighted
+and kept clean. Individual initiative, the reign
+of individualism, may be crushed out just as effectively
+by the unchecked growth of private
+monopoly, if the state does not interfere at all, as
+it would be crushed out under communism, or as
+it would disappear, together with everything else
+that makes life worth living, if we adopted the
+tenets of the extreme Socialists.</p>
+
+<p>In 1896 the party of discontent met with a
+smashing defeat for the very reason that, together
+with legitimate attacks on real abuses,
+they combined wholly illegitimate advocacy even
+of the methods of dealing with these real abuses,
+and in addition stood for abuses of their own
+which, in far-reaching damage, would have cast
+quite into the shade the effects of the abuses
+against which they warred. It was essential both
+to the material and moral progress of the country
+that these forces should be beaten; and beaten
+they were, overwhelmingly. But the genuine ethical
+revolt against these forces was aided by a
+very ugly materialism, and this materialism at one
+time claimed the victory as exclusively its own,
+and advanced it as a warrant and license for the
+refusal to interfere with any misdeeds on the part
+of men of wealth. What such an attitude meant
+was set forth as early as 1896 by an English<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">184</span>
+visitor, the journalist Steevens, a man of marked
+insight. Mr. Steevens did not see with entire
+clearness of vision into the complex American
+character; it would have been marvellous if a
+stranger of his slight experience here could so have
+seen; but it would be difficult to put certain important
+facts more clearly than he put them. Immediately
+after the election he wrote as follows
+(I condense slightly):</p>
+
+<p>“In the United States legal organization of industry
+has been left wholly wanting. Little is
+done by the state. All is left to the initiative of
+the individual. The apparent negligence is explained
+partly by the American horror of retarding
+mechanical progress, and partly by their reliance
+on competition. They have cast overboard
+the law as the safeguard of individual rights, and
+have put themselves under the protection of competition,
+and of it alone. Now a trust in its exacter
+acceptation is the flat negation of competition.
+It is certain that commercial concerns make
+frequent, powerful, and successful combinations
+to override the public interest. All such corporations
+are left unfettered in a way that to an Englishman
+appears almost a return to savagery.
+The defencelessness of individual liberty against
+the encroachment of the railway companies, tramway
+companies, nuisance-committing manure companies,
+and the like, is little less than horrible.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">185</span>
+Where regulating acts are proposed, the companies
+unite to oppose them; where such acts exist, they
+bribe corrupt officials to ignore them. When they
+want any act for themselves, it can always be
+bought for cash. [This is of course a gross exaggeration;
+and allusion should have been made
+to the violent and demagogic attacks upon corporations,
+which are even more common than and
+are quite as noxious as acts of oppression by corporations.]
+They maintain their own members
+in the legislative bodies—pocket assemblymen,
+pocket representatives, pocket senators. In the
+name of individual freedom and industrial progress
+they have become the tyrants of the whole
+community. Lawless greed on one side and lawless
+brutality on the other—the outlook frowns.
+On the wisdom of the rulers of the country in
+salving or imbittering these antagonisms—still
+more, on the fortune of the people in either modifying
+or hardening their present conviction that
+to get dollars is the one end of life—it depends
+whether the future of the United States is to be
+of eminent beneficence or unspeakable disaster.
+It may stretch out the light of liberty to the
+whole world. It may become the devil’s drill-ground
+where the cohorts of anarchy will furnish
+themselves against the social Armageddon.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Steevens here clearly points out, what
+every one ought to recognize, that if individualism<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">186</span>
+is left absolutely uncontrolled as a modern
+business condition the curious result will follow
+that all power of individual achievement and individual
+effort in the average man will be crushed
+out just as effectively as if the state took absolute
+control of everything. It would be easy to name
+several big corporations each one of which has
+within its sphere crushed out all competition so
+as to make, not only its rivals, but its customers
+as dependent upon it as if the government had
+assumed complete charge of the product. It
+would, in my judgment, be a very unhealthy
+thing for the government thus to assume complete
+charge; but it is even more unhealthy to permit
+a private monopoly thus to assume it. The simple
+truth is that the defenders of the theory of
+unregulated lawlessness in the business world are
+either insincere or blind to the facts when they
+speak of their system as permitting a healthy
+individualism and individual initiative. On the
+contrary, it crushes out individualism, save in a
+very few able and powerful men who tend to
+become dictators in the business world precisely
+as in the old days a Spanish-American president
+tended to become a dictator in the political world.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, where there is absolute lawlessness,
+absolute failure by the state to control or supervise
+these great corporations, the inevitable result
+is to favor, among these very able men of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">187</span>
+business, the man who is unscrupulous and cunning.
+The unscrupulous big man who gets complete
+control of a given forest tract, or of a network
+of railways which alone give access to a
+certain region, or who, in combination with his
+fellows, acquires control of a certain industry, may
+crush out in the great mass of citizens affected
+all individual initiative quite as much as it would
+be crushed out by state control. The very reason
+why we object to state ownership, that it puts a
+stop to individual initiative and to the healthy
+development of personal responsibility, is the
+reason why we object to an unsupervised, unchecked
+monopolistic control in private hands.
+We urge control and supervision by the nation
+as an antidote to the movement for state socialism.
+Those who advocate total lack of regulation,
+those who advocate lawlessness in the business
+world, themselves give the strongest impulse to
+what I believe would be the deadening movement
+toward unadulterated state socialism.</p>
+
+<p>There must be law to control the big men, and
+therefore especially the big corporations, in the
+industrial world in the interest of our industrial
+democracy of to-day. This law must be efficient,
+and therefore it must be administered by executive
+officers and not by lawsuits in the courts.
+If this is not done the agitation to increase out
+of all measure the share of the government in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">188</span>
+this work will receive an enormous impetus. The
+movement for government control of the great
+business corporations is no more a movement
+against liberty than a movement to put a stop
+to violence is a movement against liberty. On
+the contrary, in each case alike it is a movement
+for liberty; in the one case a movement on behalf
+of the hard-working man of small means, just as
+in the other case it is a movement on behalf of
+the peaceable citizen who does not wish a “liberty”
+which puts him at the mercy of any rowdy
+who is stronger than he is. The huge, irresponsible
+corporation which demands liberty from the
+supervision of government agents stands on the
+same ground as the less dangerous criminal of the
+streets who wishes liberty from police interference.</p>
+
+<p>But there is an even more important lesson for
+us Americans to learn, and this also is touched
+upon in what I have quoted above. It is not
+true, as Mr. Steevens says, that Americans feel
+that the one end of life is to get dollars; but the
+statement contains a very unpleasant element of
+truth. The hard materialism of greed is just as
+objectionable as the hard materialism of brutality,
+and the greed of the “haves” is just as objectionable
+as the greed of the “have-nots,” and
+no more so. The envious and sinister creature
+who declaims against a great corporation because
+he really desires himself to enjoy what in hard,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">189</span>
+selfish, brutal fashion the head of that great corporation
+enjoys, offers a spectacle which is both
+sad and repellent. The brutal arrogance and
+grasping greed of the one man are in reality the
+same thing as the bitter envy and hatred and
+grasping greed of the other. That kind of “have”
+and that kind of “have-not” stand on the same
+eminence of infamy. It is as important for the
+one as for the other to learn the lesson of the true
+relations of life. Of course, the first duty of any
+man is to pay his own way, to be able to earn his
+own livelihood, to support himself and his wife
+and his children and those dependent upon him.
+He must be able to give those for whom it is his
+duty to care food and clothing, shelter, medicine,
+an education, a legitimate chance for reasonable
+and healthy amusements, and the opportunity to
+acquire the knowledge and power which will fit
+them in their turn to do good work in the world.
+When once a man has reached this point, which,
+of course, will vary greatly under different conditions,
+then he has reached the point where
+other things become immensely more important
+than adding to his wealth. It is emphatically
+right, indeed, I am tempted to say, it is emphatically
+the first duty of each American, “to get
+dollars,” as Mr. Steevens contemptuously phrased
+it; for this is only another way of saying that it
+is his first duty to earn his own living. But it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">190</span>
+is not his only duty, by a great deal; and after
+the living has been earned getting dollars should
+come far behind many other duties.</p>
+
+<p>Yet another thing. No movement ever has
+done or ever will do good in this country, where assault
+is made, not upon evil wherever found, but
+simply upon evil as it happens to be found in a
+particular class. The big newspaper, owned or
+controlled in Wall Street, which is everlastingly
+preaching about the iniquity of laboring men,
+which is quite willing to hound politicians for
+their misdeeds, but which with raving fury defends
+all the malefactors of great wealth, stands
+on an exact level with, and neither above nor below,
+that other newspaper whose whole attack is
+upon men of wealth, which declines to condemn,
+or else condemns in apologetic, perfunctory, and
+wholly inefficient manner, outrages committed by
+labor. This is the kind of paper which by torrents
+of foul abuse seeks to stir up a bitter class
+hatred against every man of means simply because
+he is a man of means, against every man of
+wealth, whether he is an honest man who by industry
+and ability has honorably won his wealth,
+and who honorably spends it, or a man whose
+wealth represents robbery and whose life represents
+either profligacy or at best an inane, useless,
+and tasteless extravagance. This country can not
+afford to let its conscience grow warped and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">191</span>
+twisted, as it must grow if it takes either one of
+these two positions. We must draw the line, not
+on wealth nor on poverty, but on conduct. We
+must stand for the good citizen because he is a
+good citizen, whether he be rich or whether he
+be poor, and we must mercilessly attack the man
+who does evil, wholly without regard to whether
+the evil is done in high or low places, whether it
+takes the form of homicidal violence among members
+of a federation of miners, or of unscrupulous
+craft and greed in the head of some great Wall
+Street corporation.</p>
+
+<div class="tb">* * * * *</div>
+
+<p>The best lesson that any people can learn is
+that there is no patent cure-all which will make
+the body politic perfect, and that any man who
+is able glibly to answer every question as to how
+to deal with the evils of the body politic is at best
+a foolish visionary and at worst an evil-minded
+quack. Neither doctrinaire socialism nor unrestricted
+individualism nor any other ism will
+bring about the millennium. Collectivism and
+individualism must be used as supplementary, not
+as antagonistic, philosophies. In the last analysis
+the welfare of a nation depends on its having
+throughout a healthy development. A healthy
+social system must of necessity represent the sum
+of very many moral, intellectual, and economic
+forces, and each such force must depend in its<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">192</span>
+turn partly upon the whole system; and all these
+many forces are needed to develop a high grade
+of character in the individual men and women who
+make up the nation. No individual man could
+be kept healthy by living in accordance with a
+plan which took cognizance only of one set of
+muscles or set of organs; his health must depend
+upon his general bodily vigor, that is, upon the
+general care which affects hundreds of different
+organs according to their hundreds of needs. Society
+is, of course, infinitely more complex than
+the human body. The influences that tell upon
+it are countless; they are closely interwoven,
+interdependent, and each is acted upon by many
+others. It is pathetically absurd, when such are
+the conditions, to believe that some one simple
+panacea for all evils can be found. Slowly, with
+infinite difficulty, with bitter disappointments,
+with stumblings and haltings, we are working our
+way upward and onward. In this progress something
+can be done by continually striving to improve
+the social system, now here, now there.
+Something more can be done by the resolute
+effort for a many-sided higher life. This life must
+largely come to each individual from within, by
+his own effort, but toward the attainment of it
+each of us can help many others. Such a life
+must represent the struggle for a higher and
+broader humanity, to be shown not merely in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">193</span>
+dealings of each of us within the realm of the
+state, but even more by the dealings of each of
+us in the more intimate realm of the family; for
+the life of the state rests and must ever rest upon
+the life of the family.</p>
+
+<p>In one of Lowell’s biting satires he holds up to
+special scorn the smug, conscienceless creature
+who refuses to consider the morality of any question
+of social ethics by remarking that “they
+didn’t know everything down in Judee.” It is
+to be wished that some of those who preach and
+practise a gospel of mere materialism and greed,
+and who speak as if the heaping up of wealth by
+the community or by the individual were in itself
+the be-all and end-all of life, would learn from the
+most widely read and oldest of books that true
+wisdom which teaches that it is well to have
+neither great poverty nor great riches. Worst of
+all is it to have great poverty and great riches side
+by side in constant contrast. Nevertheless, even
+this contrast can be accepted if men are convinced
+that the riches are accumulated as the result of
+great service rendered to the people as a whole,
+and if their use is regulated in the interest of the
+whole community.</p>
+
+<p>The movement for social and industrial reform
+has for two of its prime objects the prevention of
+the accumulation of wealth save by honest service
+to the country, and the supervision and regulation<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">194</span>
+of its business use, and the determination
+of how it shall be taxed, and on what terms inherited,
+even when acquired and used honestly.
+This movement is a healthy movement. It aims
+to replace sullen discontent, restless pessimism,
+and evil preparation for revolution, by an aggressive,
+healthy determination to get to the bottom
+of our troubles and remedy them. To halt in
+the movement, as those blinded men wish who
+care only for the immediate relief from all obstacles
+which would thwart their getting what
+is not theirs, would work wide-reaching damage.
+Such a halt would turn away the energies of the
+energetic and forceful men who desire to reform
+matters from a legitimate object into the channel
+of bitter and destructive agitation.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">195</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">197</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak">PRODUCTIVE SCHOLARSHIP</h2>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="PRODUCTIVE_SCHOLARSHIP" title="PRODUCTIVE SCHOLARSHIP"><span id="toclink_195"></span>PRODUCTIVE SCHOLARSHIP<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">5</a></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">What</span> counts in a man or in a nation is
+not what the man or the nation can do,
+but what he or it actually does. Scholarship
+that consists in mere learning, but finds no
+expression in production, may be of interest and
+value to the individual, just as ability to shoot
+well at clay pigeons may be of interest and value
+to him, but it ranks no higher unless it finds expression
+in achievement. From the standpoint
+of the nation, and from the broader standpoint of
+mankind, scholarship is of worth chiefly when it
+is productive, when the scholar not merely receives
+or acquires, but gives.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">5</a> “The Mediæval Mind.” By Henry Osborn Taylor.</p>
+
+<p>“The Life and Times of Cavour.” By William Roscoe Thayer.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>Of course there is much production by scholarly
+men which is not, strictly speaking, scholarship;
+any more than the men themselves, despite their
+scholarly tastes and attributes, would claim to be
+scholars in the technical or purely erudite sense.
+The exceedingly valuable and extensive work of
+Edward Cope comes under the head of science,
+and represents original investigation and original
+thought concerning what that investigation<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">198</span>
+showed; yet if the word scholarship is used broadly,
+his work must certainly be called productive scientific
+scholarship. General Alexander’s capital
+“Memoirs of a Confederate” show that a man
+who is a first-class citizen as well as a first-class
+fighting man may also combine the true scholar’s
+power of research and passion for truth with the
+ability to see clearly and to state clearly what he
+has seen. Mr. Hannis Taylor’s history of “The
+Origin and Growth of the American Constitution”
+and General Francis V. Greene’s history of
+the American Revolution could have been written
+only by scholars. Such altogether delightful volumes
+of essays as Mr. Crothers’s “Gentle Reader,”
+“Pardoner’s Wallet,” and “Among Friends” may
+not, in the strictest sense of the word, represent
+scholarship any more than the “Essays of Elia”
+represent scholarship; but they represent more
+than scholarship, and they could have been
+written only by a man of scholarly attributes.
+The same thing is true of Mr. Maurice Egan, now
+our Minister to Denmark—who so well upholds
+the tradition which has always identified American
+men of letters with American diplomacy—in his
+essays in Comparative Literature, named, as I
+think not altogether happily, from the first essay,
+“The Ghost in Hamlet.” Mr. Egan writes not
+merely with charm but as no one but a man of
+scholarly attributes could write—and, by the way,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">199</span>
+his dedication to Archbishop John Lancaster
+Spalding is a dedication to a man whose lofty
+spiritual teachings have been expressed in singularly
+beautiful English. In its most perfect
+expression scholarship must utter itself with literary
+charm and distinction; although, I am sorry
+to say, the professional scholars sometimes actually
+distrust scholarship which is able thus to bring
+forth wisdom divorced from pedantry and dryness.
+As an example, Gilbert Murray’s “Rise of
+the Greek Epic” not only shows profound scholarship
+and the profound scholarly instinct which
+can alone profit by the mere erudition of scholarship,
+but is also so delightfully written as to be
+as interesting as the most interesting novel; and,
+curiously enough, this very fact, coupled with the
+fact that Mr. Murray’s translations of Euripides
+and Aristophanes are so attractive, has tended to
+excite distrust of him in the minds of worthy
+scholars whose productions are themselves free
+from all taint of interest, from all taint of literary
+charm. Professor Lounsbury’s extraordinary
+scholarship has been fully appreciated only by the
+best scholars; and this partly because of the very
+fact of his many-sided development in the field of
+intellectual endeavor.</p>
+
+<p>But I speak now of works of scholarship in the
+more conventional sense, of works which show
+scholarship such as Lea showed in his history of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">200</span>
+the Inquisition, such as Child showed in his
+studies of English ballad poetry.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Taylor’s study of “The Mediæval Mind”
+is a noteworthy contribution—I am tempted to
+say the most noteworthy of recent contributions—to
+the best kind of productive scholarship. His
+erudition is extraordinary in breadth and depth,
+his grasp of the subject no less marked than his
+power of conveying to others what he has thus
+grasped. He is not only faithful to the truth in
+large things, he is accurate in small matters also;
+and where he makes use of any statement he always
+shows that there is justification for it; although,
+by the way, I can only guess at his reason
+for calling Attila a “Turanian”—a word which
+carries a pleasant flavor of pre-Victorian ethnology,
+and might just about as appropriately be
+applied to Tecumseh. As he expressly states,
+Mr. Taylor is not concerned with the brutalities
+of mediæval life, nor with the lower grades of
+ignorance and superstition which abounded in the
+Middle Ages, but with the more informed and
+constructive spirit of the mediæval time. There
+is, of course, no hard and sharp line to be drawn
+between mediæval time and, on the one hand,
+what is “ancient” and, on the other hand, what
+is “modern”; but for his purposes he treats the
+twelfth and thirteenth centuries as showing the
+culmination of the mediæval spirit in its most<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">201</span>
+characteristic form; although he also incidentally
+touches on things that occurred in the fourteenth
+century, and of course covers the slow upward
+movement through the Dark Ages (as to which
+he does rather less than justice to the Carolingian
+revival of learning), when men were groping
+in the black abyss into which civilization so
+rapidly slid after the close of the second century.
+His mastery of the facts is well-nigh perfect, and
+he handles them with singular sympathy. In
+such chapters as “The Spotted Actuality” he
+makes it evident that he has constantly before
+his own mind the whole picture. The ordinary
+reader, however, needs to remember that it is
+no part of Mr. Taylor’s purpose to present this
+whole picture, but merely to make a study somewhat
+analogous to what a study of the intellect
+of the nineteenth century would be if it dealt exclusively
+with the thought of the various universities
+of Europe and America and of circles like
+that of Emerson at Concord and Goethe at Weimar.
+Indeed, this comparison is hardly accurate,
+for the universities of the nineteenth century had
+a far closer connection with the living thought
+of the day than was true of the universities of the
+twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The latter (like
+their feeble survivals in the Spanish-speaking
+countries) much more closely resembled the ordinary
+type of Mohammedan university of the present<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">202</span>
+day, such a university as the big Mohammedan
+university at Cairo, than they resembled any
+modern university worth calling such, or, indeed,
+any ancient university of living and creative force.</p>
+
+<p>The schoolmen of the Middle Ages and the
+universities in which they flourished are well
+worth such study as that which Mr. Taylor gives
+them, if only because they represented what regarded
+itself as the highest spiritual and intellectual
+teaching of the time, and because they
+symbolized the forces which manifested themselves
+with infinitely more permanent value in
+that wonderful cathedral architecture which was
+one of the two culminating architectural movements
+of all time—the other, of course, being
+the classical Greek. But the greatest mediæval
+effect upon the thought of after time was produced,
+not by the schoolmen, but by works which they
+would hardly have treated as serious at all—by
+the Roland Song, the “Nibelungenlied,” the Norse
+and Irish sagas, the Arthurian Cycle, including
+“Parsifal”; and modern literature, on its historical
+side, may be said to have begun with Villehardouin
+and Joinville. None of the leaders of
+the schools are to-day living forces in the sense
+that is true of the nameless writers who built up
+the stories of the immortal death fights in the
+Pyrenean pass and in the hall of Etzel, or of the
+search for the Holy Grail. There are keen intellects<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">203</span>
+still influenced by Thomas Aquinas; but
+all the writings of all the most famous doctors of
+the schools taken together had no such influence
+on the religious thought of mankind as two books
+produced long afterward, with no conception of
+their far-reaching importance, by the obscure and
+humble authors of the “Imitation of Christ” and
+the “Pilgrim’s Progress.” In the thirteenth century
+the spiritual life in action, as apart from
+dogma, and as lived with the earnest desire to
+follow in the footsteps of the Christ, reached, in
+the person of Saint Francis of Assisi, as lofty a
+pinnacle of realized idealism as humanity has ever
+attained. But among those who, instead of trying
+simply to live up to their spiritual impulses,
+endeavored to deal authoritatively in the schools
+with spiritual and intellectual interests, the complementary
+tyranny and servility in all such
+spiritual and intellectual matters were such as
+we can now hardly imagine to ourselves. The
+one really great scientific investigator, Roger
+Bacon, who actually did put as an ideal before
+himself the honest search for truth, was imprisoned
+for years in consequence; and this in spite
+of the fact that his avowals of abject submission
+to theological authority and unquestioning adherence
+to dogma were such as we of to-day can
+with difficulty understand.</p>
+
+<p>At first sight such an attitude in the intellectual<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">204</span>
+world seems incompatible with the turbulent and
+lawless insistence on the right of each individual
+to do whatever he saw fit in the political and
+social world which characterized the seething life
+of the time. But, as Mr. Taylor points out, the
+minute that a man in the Middle Ages began to
+be free in any real sense he tended to become an
+outlaw; and, moreover, the men who were most
+intolerant of restraint in matters physical and
+material made no demands whatever for intellectual
+or spiritual freedom. The ordinary knight
+or nobleman, the typical “man of action” of the
+period, promptly resented any attempt to interfere
+with his brutal passions or coarse appetites;
+but, as he had neither special interest nor deep
+conviction in merely intellectual matters, he was
+entirely willing to submit to guidance concerning
+them. The attitude of the great baron of the
+highest class is amusingly shown by a conversation
+that Joinville records as having occurred between
+himself and King Louis the Saint. Among
+the questions which King Louis one day propounded
+to Joinville, in the interests of the higher
+morality, was whether Joinville would rather have
+leprosy or commit a mortal sin; to which Joinville
+responded with cordial frankness that he
+would rather commit thirty mortal sins than have
+leprosy. Now, in addition to being a most delightful
+chronicler, Joinville was an exceptionally<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">205</span>
+well-behaved and religious baron, standing far
+above the average, and he was very careful to
+perform every obligation laid upon him by those
+whom he regarded as his spiritual advisers. The
+fact simply was that he had no idea of the need
+for spiritual or intellectual independence in the
+sense that a modern man has need for such independence,
+because he took only a superficial interest
+in anything concerned with intellectual
+inquiry. To harry a heretic or a Jew was not
+only a duty but a pleasure, and no effort whatever
+was needed to refrain from intellectual inquiry
+which presented to him not the slightest attraction;
+but leprosy was something tangible, something
+real, and the instant that the real came into
+collision with even the most insistent supposed
+spiritual obligation the rugged old baron went into
+immediate revolt.</p>
+
+<p>The whole way of looking at life was so different
+from ours that only a thoroughly sympathetic
+and understanding writer like Mr. Taylor
+can set it forth in a manner that shall be sympathetic
+and yet not revolt us. One of his most
+delightful chapters is that on “The Heart of
+Heloise.” The qualities that Heloise displayed
+are those which eternally appeal to what is high
+and fine in human life; as for her lover, Abelard,
+it is possible to pardon the abject creature only
+by scornfully condemning the age which imposed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">206</span>
+upon him the rules of conduct in accordance with
+which he lived.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Thayer’s “Life of Cavour” is another first-rate
+example of productive scholarship. It is
+much more than a mere biography. The three
+greatest and most influential statesmen, in purpose
+and achievement, since the close of the Napoleonic
+epoch were Lincoln, Bismarck, and Cavour;
+and any account of either of them must
+necessarily be an account of the most vitally important
+things that happened to mankind during
+the period when each was playing his greatest
+part. An adequate biography of either must therefore
+be a permanent addition to history; such
+a biography could be written only by a scholar
+and writer of altogether exceptional attainments;
+and such a biography has been furnished by
+Mr. Thayer. Mr. Thayer is already well known
+as the author of various volumes dealing with
+Italy, all of them representing work worth doing,
+and all of them leading up to and making ready
+the way for the really notable history which he
+has now written. There are other books which
+should be read in connection with it; the younger
+Trevelyan’s brilliant studies of Garibaldi and the
+Italian revolutionists of 1848 and the dozen years
+immediately succeeding, and De La Gorce’s profoundly
+interesting histories of the Second Empire
+and the Second Republic in France, which contain<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">207</span>
+the most powerful presentment of the period
+from the anti-revolutionary standpoint. Cavour
+not only did more than any other one man for
+Italian unity and independence, but he symbolized
+the movement as neither Garibaldi the Paladin,
+nor Mazzini the Republican, nor even King
+Victor Emmanuel symbolized it. As Mr. Thayer
+describes Cavour’s career it is not only of interest
+in itself, but it is of interest as showing that vast
+and complex aggregate of contradictory forces
+through whose warring chaos every great leader
+who fights for the well-being of mankind must
+force his way to triumph. Cavour had to contend
+against foes within just as much as against foes
+without. He had to hold the balance between
+the unreasoning reactionary and the unreasoning
+revolutionist, just exactly as on a larger or smaller
+scale all leaders in the forward movement of mankind
+must ever do. Mr. Thayer has set forth in
+masterly fashion the task to which the great
+statesman addressed himself and the manner in
+which that task was performed; his book is absorbingly
+interesting to the general reader, and
+should be of profit not merely to the special student
+but to every active politician who is in politics
+for any of the reasons which alone render it
+really worth while to be a politician at all. Mr.
+Thayer is devoted to his hero, as he ought to
+be; and he is a stanch partisan; but his obvious<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">208</span>
+purpose is to be fair, and the principles of liberty
+to which he pins his faith are those upon which
+American governmental policy must always rest—although
+it is not necessary to follow him in all
+his views, as when he suddenly treats free trade
+from the fetichistic standpoint instead of as an
+economic expedient to be judged on its merits in
+any given case. Every man interested not only
+in the realities but in the possibilities of political
+advance should study this book; and, in addition
+to its intrinsic worth and interest, it is an example
+of the kind of productive scholarship which adds
+to the sum of American achievement.</p>
+
+<div class="tb">* * * * *</div>
+
+<p>Anything that Professor Lounsbury writes is
+certain to be interesting. Any collection by him
+of the writings of others is also certain to be interesting.
+Probably when Mr. Lounsbury is doing
+what he himself is willing to accept as work,
+it is both so profound and so erudite that we
+laymen can do little but admire it from a distance.
+Fortunately, however, he is also willing
+to do what he regards as play, such as a Life of
+Fenimore Cooper, or a study of English adapted
+to the needs of those who are not scholars; and
+all of his writing of this lighter kind adds markedly
+to the sum of enjoyment of laymen who are fond
+of reading.</p>
+
+<p>The two volumes before me illustrate the good<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">209</span>
+that can be done by people of cultivation who at
+our different universities provide the means needed
+to foster productive scholarship—for, unfortunately,
+productive scholarship in this country is
+apt to be unremunerative. The slender volume
+on the early literary career of Robert Browning<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">6</a>
+is based on four lectures delivered at the University
+of Virginia under the terms of the Barbour-Page
+Foundation, a foundation due to the wisdom
+and generosity of Mrs. Thomas Nelson Page.
+The “Yale Book of American Verse”<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">7</a> is published
+by the Yale University Press under the
+auspices of the Elizabethan Club of Yale University,
+a club founded by Mr. Alexander Smith
+Cochran. It is the kind of club the possession of
+which every real university in the country must
+envy Yale.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">6</a> “The Early Literary Career of Robert Browning.” By Thomas
+R. Lounsbury.</p>
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">7</a> “Yale Book of American Verse.” Collected by Thomas R.
+Lounsbury.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>This study of Browning particularly appeals to
+any man who, although devoted to Browning,
+yet does not care for the pieces that some of the
+Browning clubs especially delight in. Browning’s
+great poems, those which will last as long as English
+literature lasts, are given their full meed of
+praise by Professor Lounsbury. The other poems,
+those which especially excite the interest of the
+average Browning society, are treated very amusingly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">210</span>
+and on the whole very justly. Professor
+Lounsbury insists that these “poems” will not
+permanently last, because they are essentially
+formless, and therefore not poetry at all, and indeed
+not literature. He holds that the attraction
+such poems exercise on certain people is the attraction
+of the unintelligible. Mr. Lounsbury’s
+writings are always full of delicious touches, and
+he is sometimes at his best in this little volume,
+as, for instance, where he says: “In fact, commentaries
+on Browning generally bear a close resemblance
+to fog-horns. They proclaim the existence
+of fog, but they do not disperse it.” One
+of his main contentions is that fundamentally
+the interest in those poems of Browning which
+are both very long and very obscure does not differ
+in kind from that displayed in guessing the answers
+to riddles or, to use a more dignified comparison,
+from that employed in the solution of
+difficult mathematical problems.</p>
+
+<p>I think, however, that for the admiration
+of these rather obscure philosophical poems of
+Browning there is a reason upon which Mr. Lounsbury
+has not touched. He says truly that the
+men who admire Browning are very apt to be
+men not especially drawn to writers in whom
+lofty speculations have found their fitting counterpart
+in clearness and beauty of expression; and
+he instances Wordsworth and Tennyson as poets<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">211</span>
+to be enjoyed only by men and women who have
+a certain degree of fondness for literature as
+literature. Now, I think it is true of Browning
+(as it is true of Walt Whitman) that many of the
+people who labor longest and hardest to master
+his meaning are entirely mistaken in thinking that
+they enjoy him as a poet. But I do not think
+that Mr. Lounsbury’s explanation that they prize
+him only as a puzzle fully accounts for the enjoyment
+of many of these men or the profit they derive
+from their study. The fact is that Browning
+does represent very deep thought, very real philosophy—mixed,
+of course, with much thought
+that is not deep at all but only obscure, and much
+would-be philosophy that has no meaning whatsoever.
+In an instance that came to my own
+knowledge, a class of college boys in a course of
+literature, after carefully studying Browning for
+a couple of months, and after then taking up
+Tennyson, unanimously abandoned Tennyson and
+insisted on returning to the study of Browning.
+These hard-working, intelligent boys were not all
+of them merely interested in puzzles. They were
+not all of them blind to poetry as such. They did
+care to a certain extent for form, but primarily
+they were interested in the great problems of life,
+they were interested in great and noble thoughts.
+Doubtless many of them rather enjoyed having
+to dig out the thought from involved language.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">212</span>
+But probably a greater number felt a larger enjoyment
+in finding lofty thought expressed in language
+which was even more lofty than obscure.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that as a poet Browning is formless.
+But the poets who are great philosophers are few
+in number, and great philosophers who have any
+gift of expression whatever or any sense of form,
+or whose writings so much as approach the outer
+hem of literature, are even fewer in number.
+Browning the philosopher is not more deep than
+many other philosophers, and in form and expression
+he is inferior to many poets. But he is a philosopher,
+and he has form and expression. The
+philosophy he writes is literature, even though
+hardly in the highest sense poetic literature.
+Therefore he appeals to men who are primarily
+interested in his writings as philosophy, but who
+do derive a certain pleasure from form or expression;
+who, without being conscious of it, do like
+to have the writings they read resemble literature.
+These men are given by Browning something
+that no other poet and no other philosopher can
+give them; and I do not think that these men
+receive full justice at Mr. Lounsbury’s hands.
+Moreover, as compared to Tennyson or Longfellow,
+or any other of the more conventional poets—and
+I am extremely fond of these conventional
+poets—there is far more in Browning, even in
+Browning’s simpler and more understandable and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">213</span>
+formal poems, that gives expression to certain
+deep and complex emotions. There are many
+poets whom we habitually read far more often
+than Browning, and who minister better to our
+more primitive needs and emotions. There are
+very few whose lines come so naturally to us in
+certain great crises of the soul which are also
+crises of the intellect.</p>
+
+<div class="tb">* * * * *</div>
+
+<p>“The Yale Book of American Verse” is an
+excellent anthology, and the preface is one of the
+best things about it. In this preface Mr. Lounsbury
+quite unconsciously shows why he appeals
+to so many men to whom a college professor who
+is nothing more than a college professor does not
+readily appeal. He mentions that on the march
+to Gettysburg he picked up a torn piece of newspaper
+containing certain verses which have always
+remained in his mind, and which he includes
+in this collection of verse. This is the only hint
+in Professor Lounsbury’s writings that he fought
+in the Civil War. A professor of English literature
+in a great university who in his youth fought
+at Gettysburg must necessarily have something
+in him that speaks not only to scholars but to men.</p>
+
+<p>This anthology includes hymns as well as secular
+poems. The collection is good in itself, as I have
+already said, and, moreover, to all real lovers of
+anthologies it will also seem good because each<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">214</span>
+of them will take much satisfaction in wondering
+why certain of his or her favorite poems have been
+left out and why certain other poems have been
+put in. I suppose every man who cares for poetry
+at all at times wishes that he could compile an
+anthology for his own purposes. I certainly so
+feel. I would like to compile two anthologies,
+one of hymns and one of those poems which our
+ancestors designated quite ruthlessly as “profane,”
+in opposition to sacred. I should not expect
+any one else to read either of my collections.
+I should not wish the edition to consist of more
+than one copy. But I would like, purely for my
+own use, to own that copy! In the anthology of
+hymns, for instance, besides all the great hymns,
+from Bernard of Morlais to Cowper and Wesley
+and Bishop Heber, I would like to put in some
+hymns as to which I know nothing except that
+I like them. Every Christmas Eve in our own
+church at Oyster Bay, for instance, the children
+sing a hymn beginning “It’s Christmas Eve on
+the River, it’s Christmas Eve on the Bay.” Of
+course the hymn has come to us from somewhere
+else, but I do not know from where; and the
+average native of our village firmly believes that
+it is indigenous to our own soil—which it can not
+be, unless it deals in hyperbole, for the nearest approach
+to a river in our neighborhood is the village
+pond.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">215</span></p>
+
+<p>As for the “profane” anthology, I think I
+should like to make one consisting of several volumes.
+Even Mr. Lounsbury’s volume of American
+verse, though it contains some specimens of verse
+I would not have included, omits others which I
+certainly should put in. And then, think of the
+many, many volumes that would be needed to
+include the English poems, and the French poems,
+and the German poems from the Bard of the
+Dimbovitza, and all the other poems which no
+human being could make up his mind to see any
+anthology leave out! I fear that a perfect anthology
+of the kind that fills my dreams would be
+as large as the various rather dismal series of
+volumes which contain, as we are told, “the world’s
+best literature”—and doubtless would be as unsatisfactory.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, as all this represents an unattainable
+dream, we have reason to be glad that Mr.
+Lounsbury’s particular anthology has been published.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">217</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">219</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak">DANTE AND THE BOWERY</h2>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="DANTE_AND_THE_BOWERY" title="DANTE AND THE BOWERY"><span id="toclink_217"></span>DANTE AND THE BOWERY</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">It</span> is the conventional thing to praise Dante
+because he of set purpose “used the language
+of the market-place,” so as to be understanded
+of the common people; but we do not in practice
+either admire or understand a man who writes
+in the language of our own market-place. It
+must be the Florentine market-place of the thirteenth
+century—not Fulton Market of to-day.
+What infinite use Dante would have made of the
+Bowery! Of course, he could have done it only
+because not merely he himself, the great poet,
+but his audience also, would have accepted it as
+natural. The nineteenth century was more apt
+than the thirteenth to boast of itself as being the
+greatest of the centuries; but, save as regards
+purely material objects, ranging from locomotives
+to bank buildings, it did not wholly believe in its
+boasting. A nineteenth-century poet, when trying
+to illustrate some point he was making, obviously
+felt uncomfortable in mentioning nineteenth-century
+heroes if he also referred to those
+of classic times, lest he should be suspected of
+instituting comparisons between them. A thirteenth-century<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">220</span>
+poet was not in the least troubled
+by any such misgivings, and quite simply illustrated
+his point by allusions to any character in
+history or romance, ancient or contemporary, that
+happened to occur to him.</p>
+
+<p>Of all the poets of the nineteenth century, Walt
+Whitman was the only one who dared use the
+Bowery—that is, use anything that was striking
+and vividly typical of the humanity around him—as
+Dante used the ordinary humanity of his
+day; and even Whitman was not quite natural in
+doing so, for he always felt that he was defying
+the conventions and prejudices of his neighbors,
+and his self-consciousness made him a little defiant.
+Dante was not defiant of conventions: the
+conventions of his day did not forbid him to use
+human nature just as he saw it, no less than
+human nature as he read about it. The Bowery
+is one of the great highways of humanity, a highway
+of seething life, of varied interest, of fun, of
+work, of sordid and terrible tragedy; and it is
+haunted by demons as evil as any that stalk
+through the pages of the “Inferno.” But no man
+of Dante’s art and with Dante’s soul would write
+of it nowadays; and he would hardly be understood
+if he did. Whitman wrote of homely things
+and every-day men, and of their greatness, but his
+art was not equal to his power and his purpose;
+and, even as it was, he, the poet, by set intention,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">221</span>
+of the democracy, is not known to the people as
+widely as he should be known; and it is only the
+few—the men like Edward FitzGerald, John Burroughs,
+and W.&nbsp;E. Henley—who prize him as he
+ought to be prized.</p>
+
+<p>Nowadays, at the outset of the twentieth century,
+cultivated people would ridicule the poet
+who illustrated fundamental truths, as Dante did
+six hundred years ago, by examples drawn alike
+from human nature as he saw it around him and
+from human nature as he read of it. I suppose
+that this must be partly because we are so self-conscious
+as always to read a comparison into any
+illustration, forgetting the fact that no comparison
+is implied between two men, in the sense
+of estimating their relative greatness or importance,
+when the career of each of them is chosen
+merely to illustrate some given quality that both
+possess. It is also probably due to the fact that
+an age in which the critical faculty is greatly developed
+often tends to develop a certain querulous
+inability to understand the fundamental truths
+which less critical ages accept as a matter of
+course. To such critics it seems improper, and
+indeed ludicrous, to illustrate human nature by
+examples chosen alike from the Brooklyn Navy
+Yard or Castle Garden and the Piræus, alike from
+Tammany and from the Roman mob organized
+by the foes or friends of Cæsar. To Dante such
+feeling itself would have been inexplicable.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">222</span></p>
+
+<p>Dante dealt with those tremendous qualities
+of the human soul which dwarf all differences in
+outward and visible form and station, and therefore
+he illustrated what he meant by any example
+that seemed to him apt. Only the great names
+of antiquity had been handed down, and so, when
+he spoke of pride or violence or flattery, and wished
+to illustrate his thesis by an appeal to the past,
+he could speak only of great and prominent characters;
+but in the present of his day most of the
+men he knew, or knew of, were naturally people
+of no permanent importance—just as is the case
+in the present of our own day. Yet the passions
+of these men were the same as those of the heroes
+of old, godlike or demoniac; and so he unhesitatingly
+used his contemporaries, or his immediate
+predecessors, to illustrate his points, without regard
+to their prominence or lack of prominence.
+He was not concerned with the differences in their
+fortunes and careers, with their heroic proportions
+or lack of such proportions; he was a mystic
+whose imagination soared so high and whose
+thoughts plumbed so deeply the far depths of our
+being that he was also quite simply a realist; for
+the eternal mysteries were ever before his mind,
+and, compared to them, the differences between
+the careers of the mighty masters of mankind
+and the careers of even very humble people seemed
+trivial. If we translate his comparisons into the
+terms of our day, we are apt to feel amused over<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">223</span>
+this trait of his, until we go a little deeper and
+understand that we are ourselves to blame, because
+we have lost the faculty simply and naturally
+to recognize that the essential traits of humanity
+are shown alike by big men and by little men, in
+the lives that are now being lived and in those
+that are long ended.</p>
+
+<p>Probably no two characters in Dante impress
+the ordinary reader more than Farinata and
+Capaneus: the man who raises himself waist-high
+from out his burning sepulchre, unshaken by
+torment, and the man who, with scornful disdain,
+refuses to brush from his body the falling flames;
+the great souls—magnanimous, Dante calls them—whom
+no torture, no disaster, no failure of the
+most absolute kind could force to yield or to
+bow before the dread powers that had mastered
+them. Dante has created these men, has made
+them permanent additions to the great figures of
+the world; they are imaginary only in the sense
+that Achilles and Ulysses are imaginary—that is,
+they are now as real as the figures of any men
+that ever lived. One of them was a mythical
+hero in a mythical feat, the other a second-rate
+faction leader in a faction-ridden Italian city of
+the thirteenth century, whose deeds have not the
+slightest importance aside from what Dante’s
+mention gives. Yet the two men are mentioned
+as naturally as Alexander and Cæsar are mentioned.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">224</span>
+Evidently they are dwelt upon at length
+because Dante felt it his duty to express a peculiar
+horror for that fierce pride which could defy its
+overlord, while at the same time, and perhaps unwillingly,
+he could not conceal a certain shuddering
+admiration for the lofty courage on which this
+evil pride was based.</p>
+
+<p>The point I wish to make is the simplicity with
+which Dante illustrated one of the principles on
+which he lays most stress, by the example of a
+man who was of consequence only in the history
+of the parochial politics of Florence. Farinata
+will now live forever as a symbol of the soul; yet
+as an historical figure he is dwarfed beside any one
+of hundreds of the leaders in our own Revolution
+and Civil War. Tom Benton, of Missouri,
+and Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, were opposed
+to one another with a bitterness which surpassed
+that which rived asunder Guelph from Ghibellin,
+or black Guelph from white Guelph. They played
+mighty parts in a tragedy more tremendous
+than any which any mediæval city ever witnessed
+or could have witnessed. Each possessed an iron
+will and undaunted courage, physical and moral;
+each led a life of varied interest and danger, and
+exercised a power not possible in the career of the
+Florentine. One, the champion of the Union,
+fought for his principles as unyieldingly as the
+other fought for what he deemed right in trying<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">225</span>
+to break up the Union. Each was a colossal
+figure. Each, when the forces against which he
+fought overcame him—for in his latter years Benton
+saw the cause of disunion triumph in Missouri,
+just as Jefferson Davis lived to see the cause of
+union triumph in the Nation—fronted an adverse
+fate with the frowning defiance, the high heart,
+and the stubborn will which Dante has commemorated
+for all time in his hero who “held hell in
+great scorn.” Yet a modern poet who endeavored
+to illustrate such a point by reference to
+Benton and Davis would be uncomfortably conscious
+that his audience would laugh at him. He
+would feel ill at ease, and therefore would convey
+the impression of being ill at ease, exactly as he
+would feel that he was posing, was forced and unnatural,
+if he referred to the deeds of the evil
+heroes of the Paris Commune as he would without
+hesitation refer to the many similar but
+smaller leaders of riots in the Roman forum.</p>
+
+<p>Dante speaks of a couple of French troubadours,
+or of a local Sicilian poet, just as he speaks
+of Euripides; and quite properly, for they illustrate
+as well what he has to teach; but we of to-day
+could not possibly speak of a couple of recent
+French poets or German novelists in the same
+connection without having an uncomfortable feeling
+that we ought to defend ourselves from possible
+misapprehension; and therefore we could not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">226</span>
+speak of them naturally. When Dante wishes to
+assail those guilty of crimes of violence, he in
+one stanza speaks of the torments inflicted by
+divine justice on Attila (coupling him with Pyrrhus
+and Sextus Pompey—a sufficiently odd conjunction
+in itself, by the way), and in the next stanza
+mentions the names of a couple of local highwaymen
+who had made travel unsafe in particular
+neighborhoods. The two highwaymen in question
+were by no means as important as Jesse James
+and Billy the Kid; doubtless they were far less
+formidable fighting men, and their adventures
+were less striking and varied. Yet think of the
+way we should feel if a great poet should now
+arise who would incidentally illustrate the ferocity
+of the human heart by allusions both to the
+terrible Hunnish “scourge of God” and to the
+outlaws who in our own times defied justice in
+Missouri and New Mexico!</p>
+
+<p>When Dante wishes to illustrate the fierce
+passions of the human heart, he may speak of
+Lycurgus, or of Saul; or he may speak of two
+local contemporary captains, victor or vanquished
+in obscure struggles between Guelph and Ghibellin;
+men like Jacopo del Cassero or Buonconte,
+whom he mentions as naturally as he does Cyrus
+or Rehoboam. He is entirely right! What one
+among our own writers, however, would be able
+simply and naturally to mention Ulrich Dahlgren,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">227</span>
+or Custer, or Morgan, or Raphael Semmes, or
+Marion, or Sumter, as illustrating the qualities
+shown by Hannibal, or Rameses, or William the
+Conqueror, or by Moses or Hercules? Yet the
+Guelph and Ghibellin captains of whom Dante
+speaks were in no way as important as these
+American soldiers of the second or third rank.
+Dante saw nothing incongruous in treating at
+length of the qualities of all of them; he was not
+thinking of comparing the genius of the unimportant
+local leader with the genius of the great
+sovereign conquerors of the past—he was thinking
+only of the qualities of courage and daring and of
+the awful horror of death; and when we deal with
+what is elemental in the human soul it matters
+but little whose soul we take. In the same way
+he mentions a couple of spendthrifts of Padua and
+Siena, who come to violent ends, just as in the
+preceding canto he had dwelt upon the tortures
+undergone by Dionysius and Simon de Montfort,
+guarded by Nessus and his fellow centaurs. For
+some reason he hated the spendthrifts in question
+as the Whigs of Revolutionary South Carolina
+and New York hated Tarleton, Kruger, Saint
+Leger, and De Lancey; and to him there was nothing
+incongruous in drawing a lesson from one
+couple of offenders more than from another. (It
+would, by the way, be outside my present purpose
+to speak of the rather puzzling manner in which<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">228</span>
+Dante confounds his own hatreds with those of
+heaven, and, for instance, shows a vindictive enjoyment
+in putting his personal opponent Filippo
+Argenti in hell, for no clearly adequate reason.)</p>
+
+<p>When he turns from those whom he is glad to
+see in hell toward those for whom he cares, he
+shows the same delightful power of penetrating
+through the externals into the essentials. Cato
+and Manfred illustrate his point no better than
+Belacqua, a contemporary Florentine maker of
+citherns. Alas! what poet to-day would dare
+to illustrate his argument by introducing Steinway
+in company with Cato and Manfred! Yet
+again, when examples of love are needed, he draws
+them from the wedding-feast at Cana, from the
+actions of Pylades and Orestes, and from the life
+of a kindly, honest comb-dealer of Siena who had
+just died. Could we now link together Peter
+Cooper and Pylades, without feeling a sense of
+incongruity? He couples Priscian with a politician
+of local note who had written an encyclopædia
+and a lawyer of distinction who had lectured
+at Bologna and Oxford; we could not now
+with such fine unconsciousness bring Evarts and
+one of the compilers of the Encyclopædia Britannica
+into a like comparison.</p>
+
+<p>When Dante deals with the crimes which he
+most abhorred, simony and barratry, he flails
+offenders of his age who were of the same type as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">229</span>
+those who in our days flourish by political or
+commercial corruption; and he names his offenders,
+both those just dead and those still living,
+and puts them, popes and politicians alike, in
+hell. There have been trust magnates and politicians
+and editors and magazine-writers in our
+own country whose lives and deeds were no more
+edifying than those of the men who lie in the
+third and the fifth chasm of the eighth circle of
+the Inferno; yet for a poet to name those men
+would be condemned as an instance of shocking
+taste.</p>
+
+<p>One age expresses itself naturally in a form
+that would be unnatural, and therefore undesirable,
+in another age. We do not express ourselves
+nowadays in epics at all; and we keep the emotions
+aroused in us by what is good or evil in the
+men of the present in a totally different compartment
+from that which holds our emotions
+concerning what was good or evil in the men of
+the past. An imitation of the letter of the times
+past, when the spirit has wholly altered, would be
+worse than useless; and the very qualities that
+help to make Dante’s poem immortal would, if
+copied nowadays, make the copyist ridiculous.
+Nevertheless, it would be a good thing if we could,
+in some measure, achieve the mighty Florentine’s
+high simplicity of soul, at least to the extent of
+recognizing in those around us the eternal qualities<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">230</span>
+which we admire or condemn in the men who
+wrought good or evil at any stage in the world’s
+previous history. Dante’s masterpiece is one of
+the supreme works of art that the ages have witnessed;
+but he would have been the last to wish
+that it should be treated only as a work of art, or
+worshipped only for art’s sake, without reference
+to the dread lessons it teaches mankind.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">231</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">233</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak">THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY</h2>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_FOUNDATIONS_OF_THE_NINETEENTH_CENTURY" title="THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY"><span id="toclink_231"></span>THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">8</a></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">Mr. H.&nbsp;S. Chamberlain’s</span> work on
+“The Foundations of the Nineteenth
+Century” is a noteworthy book in more
+ways than one. It is written by an Englishman
+who has been educated on the Continent, and
+has lived there until he is much more German
+than English. Previously he had written a book
+in French, while this particular book was written
+in German, and has only recently been translated
+into English. Adequately to review the book, or
+rather to write an adequate essay suggested by
+it, would need the space that would have been
+taken by an old-time Quarterly or Edinburgh Reviewer
+a century or fourscore years ago. I have
+called the book “noteworthy,” and this it certainly
+is. It ranks with Buckle’s “History of
+Civilization,” and still more with Gobineau’s
+“Inégalité des Races Humaines,” for its brilliancy
+and suggestiveness and also for its startling inaccuracies
+and lack of judgment. A witty English<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">234</span>
+critic once remarked of Mitford that he had
+all the qualifications of an historian—violent partiality
+and extreme wrath. Mr. Chamberlain
+certainly possesses these qualifications in excess,
+and, combined with a queer vein of the erratic
+in his temperament, they almost completely
+offset the value of his extraordinary erudition, extending
+into widely varied fields, and of his occasionally
+really brilliant inspiration. He is, however,
+always entertaining; which is of itself no
+mean merit, in view of the fact that most serious
+writers seem unable to regard themselves as serious
+unless they are also dull.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="label">8</a> “The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century.” By Houston
+Stewart Chamberlain. A translation from the German, by John
+Lees. With an introduction by Lord Redesdale. In two volumes.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>Mr. Chamberlain’s thesis is that the nineteenth
+century, and therefore the twentieth and all future
+centuries, depend for everything in them worth
+mentioning and preserving upon the Teutonic
+branch of the Aryan race. He holds that there
+is no such thing as a general progress of mankind,
+that progress is only for those whom he
+calls the Teutons, and that when they mix with
+or are intruded upon by alien and, as he regards
+them, lower races, the result is fatal. Much that
+he says regarding the prevalent loose and sloppy
+talk about the general progress of humanity, the
+equality and identity of races, and the like, is
+not only perfectly true, but is emphatically worth
+considering by a generation accustomed, as its
+forefathers for the preceding generations were accustomed,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">235</span>
+to accept as true and useful thoroughly
+pernicious doctrines taught by well-meaning and
+feeble-minded sentimentalists; but Mr. Chamberlain
+himself is quite as fantastic an extremist as
+any of those whom he derides, and an extremist
+whose doctrines are based upon foolish hatred is
+even more unlovely than an extremist whose doctrines
+are based upon foolish benevolence. Mr.
+Chamberlain’s hatreds cover a wide gamut. They
+include Jews, Darwinists, the Roman Catholic
+Church, the people of southern Europe, Peruvians,
+Semites, and an odd variety of literary
+men and historians.<a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">9</a> To this sufficiently incongruous
+collection of antipathies he adds a much
+smaller selection of violent attachments, ranging
+from imaginary primitive Teutons and Aryans
+to Immanuel Kant, and Indian theology, metaphysics,
+and philosophy—he draws sharp distinctions
+between all three, and I merely use them
+to indicate his admiration for the Indian habit
+of thought, an admiration which goes hand in
+hand with and accentuates his violent hatred for
+what most sane people regard as the far nobler
+thought contained, for instance, in the Old Testament.
+He continually contradicts himself, or at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">236</span>
+least uses words in such diametrically opposite
+senses as to convey the effect of contradiction;
+and so it would be possible to choose phrases of
+his which contradict what is here said; but
+I think that I give a correct impression of his
+teaching as a whole.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9" class="label">9</a> Some of his antipathies appeal to the present writer; I much
+enjoy his irrelevant and hearty denunciation of the folly of treating
+the comparatively trivial Latin literature as of such peculiar importance
+as to entitle it to be grouped in grotesque association with the
+magnificent Greek literature under the unmeaning title of “classic.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>As he touches lightly on an infinitely varied
+range of subjects, it would be possible to choose
+almost at random passages to justify what is said
+above. Take, for instance, his dogmatic assertions
+concerning faith and works. He frantically condemns
+the doctrine of salvation by works and
+frantically exalts the doctrine of salvation by
+faith. Much that he says about both doctrines
+must be taken in so mystical and involved a sense
+that it contains little real meaning to ordinary
+men. Yet he is also capable of expressing, on this
+very subject, noble thought in a lofty manner.
+In one of his sudden lapses into brilliant sanity he
+emphasizes the fact that Saint Francis of Assisi
+was faith incorporate and yet the special apostle
+of good works; and that Martin Luther, the advocate
+of redemption by faith, consecrated his
+life and revealed to others the secret of good works—“free
+works done only to please God, not for
+the sake of piety.”</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately, these brilliant lapses into sanity
+are fixed in a matrix of fairly bedlamite passion
+and non-sanity. Mr. Chamberlain jeers with reason<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">237</span>
+at the Roman Curia because until 1822 it
+kept on the Index all books which taught that the
+earth went round the sun; but really such action
+is not much worse than that of a man professing
+to write a book like this at the outset of the twentieth
+century who takes the attitude Mr. Chamberlain
+does toward the teaching of Darwin. The
+acceptance of the fundamental truths of evolution
+are quite as necessary to sound scientific thought
+as the acceptance of the fundamental truths concerning
+the solar system; and the attempt that
+Mr. Chamberlain in one place makes to draw a
+distinction between them is fantastic. Again, take
+what Mr. Chamberlain says of Aryans and Teutons.
+He bursts the flood-gates of scorn when he
+deals with persons who idealize humanity, or, as
+he styles it, “so-called humanity”; and he says:
+“For this humanity about which man has philosophized
+to such an extent suffers from the
+serious defect that it does not exist at all. History
+reveals to us a great number of various human
+beings, but no such thing as humanity”;
+yet on this very page he attributes the history of
+the growth of our civilization to its “Teutonic”
+character, and he uses the word “Teuton” as
+well as the word “Aryan” with as utter a looseness
+and vagueness as ever any philanthropist or
+revolutionist used the word “humanity.” All that
+he says in derision of such a forced use of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">238</span>
+word “humanity” could with a much greater percentage
+of truthfulness be said as regards the
+words and ideas symbolized by Teutonism and
+Aryanism as Mr. Chamberlain uses these terms.
+Indeed, as he uses them they amount to little
+more than expressions of his personal likes and
+dislikes. His statement of the raceless chaos into
+which the Roman Empire finally lapsed is, on the
+whole, just, and, to use the words continually
+coming to one’s mind in dealing with him, both
+brilliant and suggestive. But in his anxiety to
+claim everything good for Aryans and Teutons
+he finally reduces himself to the position of insisting
+that wherever he sees a man whom he admires
+he must postulate for him Aryan, and, better still,
+Teutonic blood. He likes David, so he promptly
+makes him an Aryan Amorite. He likes Michael
+Angelo, and Dante, and Leonardo da Vinci, and
+he instantly says that they are Teutons; but he
+does not like Napoleon, and so he says that Napoleon
+is a true representative of the raceless chaos.
+The noted Italians in question, he states, were all
+of German origin, descended from the Germans
+who had conquered Italy in the sixth century.
+Now, of course, if Mr. Chamberlain is willing to
+be serious with himself, he must know perfectly
+well that even by the time of Dante seven or
+eight centuries had passed, and by the time of the
+other great Italians he mentions eight or ten centuries<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">239</span>
+had passed, since the Germanic invasion.
+In other words, these great Italians were separated
+from the days of the Gothic and Lombard
+invasions by the distance which separates modern
+England from the Norman invasion; and his
+thesis has just about as much substance as would
+be contained in the statement that Wellington,
+Nelson, Turner, Wordsworth, and Tennyson excelled
+in their several spheres because they were
+all pure-blood descendants of the motley crew
+that came in with William the Conqueror. The
+different ethnic elements which entered into the
+Italy of the seventh century were in complete
+solution by the thirteenth, and it would have been
+quite as impossible to trace them to their several
+original strains as nowadays to trace in the
+average Englishman the various strains of blood
+from his Norman, Saxon, Celtic, and Scandinavian
+ancestors. Nor does Mr. Chamberlain mind
+believing two incompatible things in the quickest
+possible succession if they happen to suit his philosophy
+of the moment. Generally, when he
+speaks of the Teuton he thinks of the tall, long-headed
+man of the north; although, because of
+some crank in his mind, he puts in the proviso
+that he may have black as well as blond hair.
+The round-skulled man of middle Europe he
+usually condemns; but if his mind happens to
+run with approbation toward the Tyrolese, for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">240</span>
+instance, he at once forgets what ethnic division
+of Europeans it is to which they belong, and accepts
+them as typical Teutons. He greatly admires
+the teaching of the Apostle Paul, and so he
+endeavors to persuade himself that the Apostle
+Paul was not really a Jew; but he does not like
+the teachings of the Epistle of James on the subject
+of good works (teachings for which I have a
+peculiar sympathy, by the way), and accordingly
+he says that James was a pure Jew.</p>
+
+<p>Fundamentally, very many of Mr. Chamberlain’s
+ideas are true and noble. I admire the
+morality with which he condemns the intolerance
+of Calvin and Luther no less strongly than the intolerance
+of their Roman opponents, and yet his
+acceptance of the fact that they could not have
+done their great work if there had not been in
+their characters an alloy which made it possible
+for actual humanity to accept their teaching.
+But even his sense of morality is as curiously capricious
+as that of Carlyle himself, and as little
+trustworthy. He glories in the pointless and
+wanton barbarity of the destruction of Carthage
+in the Third Punic War as saving Europe from the
+Afro-Asiatic peril—pure nonsense, of course, for
+Carthage was then no more dangerous to Rome
+than Corinth was, and the sacks of the two cities
+stand on a par as regards any importance in their
+after effects. Perhaps his attitude toward Byron<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">241</span>
+is more practically mischievous, or at least shows
+a much less desirable trait of character. He says
+that the personality of Byron “has something repulsive
+in it for every thorough Teuton, because
+we nowhere encounter in it the idea of duty,”
+which makes him “unsympathetic, un-Teutonic”;
+but he adds that Teutons do not object in the
+least to his licentiousness, and, on the contrary,
+see in it “a proof of genuine race”! Really, this
+reconciliation of a high ideal of duty with gross
+licentiousness would be infamous if it were not
+so unspeakably comic. On the next page, by the
+way, Mr. Chamberlain says that Louis XIV was
+anti-Teutonic in his persecution of the Protestants,
+but a thorough Teuton when he defended
+the liberties of the Gallican church against Rome!
+Now such intellectual antics as these, and the
+haphazard use of any kind of a name (without
+the least reference to its ordinary use, provided
+Mr. Chamberlain has taken a fancy to it) to represent
+or symbolize any individual or attribute of
+which he approves, makes it very difficult to
+accept the book as having any serious merit whatever.
+Yet interspersed with innumerable pages
+which at best are those of an able man whose
+mind is not quite sound, and at worst lose their
+brilliancy without their irrationality, there are
+many pages of deep thought and lofty morality
+based upon wide learning and wide literary and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">242</span>
+even scientific knowledge. There could be no
+more unsafe book to follow implicitly, and few
+books of such pretensions more ludicrously unsound;
+and yet it is a book which students and
+scholars, and men who, though neither students
+nor scholars, are yet deeply interested in life, must
+have on their book-shelves. Much the same criticism
+should be passed upon him that he himself
+passes upon John Fiske, to whose great work,
+“The History of the Discovery of America,” he
+gives deserved and unstinted praise, but at whom
+he rails for solemnly, and, as Mr. Chamberlain
+says, with more than Papal pretensions to infallibility,
+setting forth complete patent solutions
+for all the problems connected not merely with
+the origin but with the destiny of man. Mr.
+Chamberlain differentiates sharply between the
+admirable work Fiske did in such a book as that
+treating of the discovery of America and the work
+he did when he ventured to dogmatize loosely,
+after the manner of Darwin’s successors in the
+’70s and ’80s, upon a scanty collection of facts
+very imperfectly understood. But Mr. Chamberlain
+himself would have done far better if in
+his book he had copied the methods and modesty
+of Fiske at his best—the methods and modesty of
+such books as Sutherland’s “Origin and Growth
+of the Moral Instinct”—and had refrained from
+taking an attitude of cock-sureness concerning<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">243</span>
+problems which at present no one can more than
+imperfectly understand. He is unwise to follow
+Brougham’s example and make omniscience his
+foible.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, after all is said, a man who can write such
+a really beautiful and solemn appreciation of true
+Christianity, of true acceptance of Christ’s teachings
+and personality, as Mr. Chamberlain has
+done, a man who can sketch as vividly as he has
+sketched the fundamental facts of the Roman
+empire in the first three centuries of our era, a
+man who can warn us as clearly as he has warned
+about some of the pressing dangers which threaten
+our social fabric because of indulgence in a morbid
+and false sentimentality, a man, in short, who
+has produced in this one book materials for half
+a dozen excellent books on utterly diverse subjects,
+represents an influence to be reckoned with
+and seriously to be taken into account.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">245</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">247</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak">THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH IN A REVERENT SPIRIT</h2>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_SEARCH_FOR_TRUTH_IN_A_REVERENT_SPIRIT" title="THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH IN A REVERENT SPIRIT"><span id="toclink_245"></span>THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH IN A REVERENT SPIRIT</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">There</span> is superstition in science quite as
+much as there is superstition in theology,
+and it is all the more dangerous because
+those suffering from it are profoundly convinced
+that they are freeing themselves from all superstition.
+No grotesque repulsiveness of mediæval
+superstition, even as it survived into nineteenth-century
+Spain and Naples, could be much more
+intolerant, much more destructive of all that is
+fine in morality, in the spiritual sense, and indeed
+in civilization itself, than that hard dogmatic
+materialism of to-day which often not merely
+calls itself scientific but arrogates to itself the
+sole right to use the term. If these pretensions
+affected only scientific men themselves, it would
+be a matter of small moment, but unfortunately
+they tend gradually to affect the whole people, and
+to establish a very dangerous standard of private
+and public conduct in the public mind.</p>
+
+<p>This tendency is dangerous everywhere, but
+nowhere more dangerous than among the nations
+in which the movement toward an unshackled<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">248</span>
+materialism is helped by the reaction against the
+deadly thraldom of political and clerical absolutism.
+The first of the books mentioned below<a id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">10</a> is
+written by a Montevideo gentleman of distinction.
+Under the rather fanciful title of “The Death of
+the Swan” it deals with the shortcomings of Latin
+civilization, accepts whole-heartedly the doctrines
+of pure materialism as a remedy for these shortcomings,
+and draws lessons from the success of the
+Northern races, and especially of our own countrymen,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">249</span>
+which I, for one, am unwilling to have drawn.
+The author feels that the civilization of France,
+Italy, and Spain is going down, and that it owes
+its decadence to submission to an outworn governmental
+and ecclesiastical tyranny, and especially
+to the futility of its ideals in government,
+religion, and the whole art of living, a futility so
+wrong-headed and far-reaching as to have turned
+aside the people from all that makes for real
+efficiency and success. In his revolt against sentimentality,
+mock humanitarianism, and hypocrisy
+the author advocates frank egotism and
+brutality as rules of conduct for both individuals
+and nations; and in his revolt against the theological
+tyranny and superstition from which the
+Spanish peoples in the Old and New Worlds have
+suffered so much in the past he advocates implicit
+obedience to the revolting creed which would treat
+gold and force as the true and only gods for
+human guidance; and this he does in the name of
+science and enlightenment and of exact and correct
+thinking. He speaks with admiration of certain
+American qualities, confounding in curious
+fashion the use and abuse of great but dangerous
+traits. He fails to see that the line of separation
+between the school of Washington and of Lincoln
+and the school of the prophets of brutal force,
+as expressed in the deification of either Mars or
+Mammon, is as sharp as that which distinguishes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">250</span>
+both of these schools from the apostles of the silly
+sentimentalism which he justly condemns. He
+sees that the really great Americans were thoroughly
+practical men; but he is blind to the fact
+that they were also lofty idealists. It was precisely
+because they were both idealists and practical
+men that they made their mark deep in
+history. He sees that they abhorred bigotry and
+superstition; he does not see that they were sundered
+as far from the men who attack all religion
+and all order as from the men who uphold
+either governmental or religious tyranny. It was
+the fact that Washington and Lincoln refused to
+carry good policies to bad extremes, and at the
+same time refused to be frightened out of supporting
+good policies because they might lead to bad
+extremes, that made them of such far-reaching
+usefulness.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10" class="label">10</a> “La Mort du Cygne.” By Carlos Reyles. Translation from
+Spanish into French by Alfred de Bengoechea.</p>
+
+<p>“Thoughts of a Catholic Anatomist.” By Thomas Dwight, M.D.</p>
+
+<p>“The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.” By Henry Osborn
+Taylor.</p>
+
+<p>“Some Neglected Factors in Evolution.” By Henry M. Bernard.</p>
+
+<p>“The World of Life.” By Alfred Russel Wallace.</p>
+
+<p>“William James.” By Émile Boutroux.</p>
+
+<p>“Science et Religion.” By Émile Boutroux.</p>
+
+<p>“Science and Religion.” By Émile Boutroux. Translation into
+English by Jonathan Nield.</p>
+
+<p>“Creative Evolution.” By Henri Bergson. Authorized translation
+by Arthur Mitchell.</p>
+
+<p>“The Varieties of Religious Experience.” By William James.</p>
+
+<p>“Time and Free Will.” By Henri Bergson. Translation by F.
+L. Pogson.</p>
+
+<p>“From Epicurus to Christ.” By William De Witt Hyde.</p>
+
+<p>“The Sixth Sense.” By Bishop Charles H. Brent.</p>
+
+<p>I need hardly say that I am not attempting to review these books
+in even the briefest and most epitomized fashion. I use them only
+to illustrate certain phases, good and bad, in the search for truth; as,
+for instance, the harm that comes from seeking to apply, universally,
+truth as apprehended by the mere materialist, the futility of trying
+to check this harm by invoking the spirit of reactionary mediævalism,
+and the fundamental agreement reached by truth-seekers of the highest
+type, both scientific and religious.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>Dr. Dwight’s book is very largely a protest
+against the materialistic philosophy which has
+produced such conceptions of life, and against these
+conceptions of life themselves. With this protest
+we must all heartily sympathize; unfortunately,
+it is impossible to have such sympathy
+with the reactionary spirit in which he makes his
+protest. There is much that is true in the assault
+he makes; but in his zeal to show where
+the leaders of the modern advance have been
+guilty of shortcomings he tends to assume positions<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">251</span>
+which would put an instant stop to any
+honest effort to advance at all, and would plunge
+us back into the cringing and timid ignorance of
+the Dark Ages. Apparently the ideal after which
+Dr. Dwight strives is that embodied in the man
+of the Middle Ages of whom Professor Henry
+Osborn Taylor in one of his profound and able
+studies has said: “The mediæval man was not
+spiritually self-reliant, his character was not consciously
+wrought by its own strength of mind
+and purpose. Subject to bursts of unrestraint, he
+yet showed no intelligent desire for liberty.”</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Dwight holds that there is an ominous
+parallelism between the lines of thought of the
+materialistic scientists of to-day and those of the
+French Revolution. Strongly though he disapproves
+of much of the thought of modern science,
+he disapproves even more strongly of the Revolution.
+In speaking of the similarities between them
+he says:</p>
+
+<p>“Among the characters of the Revolution we
+meet all kinds of company. There are the honest
+men anxious for reform, the protesters against
+what they conceived to be religious oppression,
+the dreamy idealists without definite plan, the
+ranting orators of the ‘mountain,’ fanatics and
+demagogues at once, the wily ones who make a
+living from the more or less sincere promulgation
+of revolutionary doctrines and who find<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">252</span>
+legalized plunder very profitable, the army of
+those who for fear or for favor prefer to be on the
+winning side and follow the fashionable doctrines
+without an examination which most of them are
+incompetent to make, and finally the mob of the
+<i lang="fr">sans-culottes</i> rejoicing in the overthrow of law,
+order, and decency.”</p>
+
+<p>This is true, although it does not contain by
+any means the whole truth; moreover, the parallelism
+with the scientific movement of the present
+day undoubtedly in part obtains. Yet the
+saying which Dr. Dwight quotes with approval
+from Herbert Spencer applies to what he himself
+attempts; to destroy the case of one’s opponents
+and to justify one’s own case are two very different
+things. At present we are in greater danger
+of suffering in things spiritual from a wrong-headed
+scientific materialism than from religious
+bigotry and intolerance; just as at present we
+are threatened rather by what is vicious among
+the ideas that triumphed in the Revolution than
+we are from what is vicious in the ideas that it
+overthrew. But this is merely because victorious
+evil necessarily contains more menace than defeated
+evil; and it will not do to forget the other
+side, nor to let our protest against the evil of the
+present drive us into championship of the evil of
+the past. The excesses of the French Revolution
+were not only hideous in themselves, but were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">253</span>
+fraught with a menace to civilization which has
+lasted until our time and which has found its
+most vicious expression in the Paris Commune of
+1871 and its would-be imitators here and in other
+lands. Nevertheless, there was hope for mankind
+in the French Revolution, and there was
+none in the system against which it was a protest,
+a system which had reached its highest development
+in Spain. Better the terrible flame of the
+French Revolution than the worse than Stygian
+hopelessness of the tyranny—physical, intellectual,
+spiritual—which brooded over the Spain of
+that day. So it is with the modern scientific
+movement. There is very much in it to regret;
+there is much that is misdirected and wrong; and
+Dr. Dwight is quite right in the protest he makes
+against Haeckel and to a less extent against
+Weismann, and against the intolerant arrogance
+and fanatical dogmatism which the scientists of
+their school display to as great an extent as ever
+did any of the ecclesiastics against whom they
+profess to be in revolt. The experience of our
+sister republic of France has shown us that not
+only scientists but politicians, professing to be
+radical in their liberalism, may in actual fact show
+a bigoted intolerance of the most extreme kind
+in their attacks on religion; and bigotry and intolerance
+are at least as objectionable when anti-religious
+as when nominally religious. But in his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">254</span>
+entirely proper protest against these men and
+their like Dr. Dwight is less than just to Darwin
+and to many another seeker after truth, and
+he fails to recognize the obligation under which he
+and those like him have been put by the fearless
+pioneers of the new movement. The debt of
+mankind to the modern scientific movement is
+incalculable; the evil that has accompanied it
+has been real; but the good has much outweighed
+the evil. It is only the triumph of the movement
+led by the men against whom Dr. Dwight protests
+that has rendered it possible for books such
+as Dr. Dwight’s to be published with the approval—as
+in his case—of the orthodox thought of the
+church to which the writer belongs.</p>
+
+<p>The most significant feature of his book is the
+advance it marks in the distance which orthodoxy
+has travelled. He grudgingly admits the doctrine
+of evolution, although—quite rightly, and in
+true scientific spirit, by the way—he insists most
+strongly upon the fact that we are as yet groping
+in the dark as we essay to explain its causes or
+show its significance; and he is again quite right
+in holding up as an example to the dogmatists of
+modern science what Roger Bacon said in the
+thirteenth century: “The first essential for advancement
+in knowledge is for men to be willing
+to say, ‘We do not know.’” He, of course, treats
+of the solar system, the law of gravitation, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">255</span>
+the like as every other educated man now treats
+of them. Now, all of this represents a great advance.
+A half-century ago no recognized authorities
+of any church would have treated an evolutionist
+as an orthodox man. A century ago Dr.
+Dwight would not have been permitted to print
+his book as orthodox if it had even contained the
+statement that the earth goes round the sun. In
+the days of Leonardo da Vinci popular opinion
+sustained the church authorities in their refusal
+to allow that extraordinary man to dissect dead
+bodies, and the use of antitoxin would unquestionably
+have been considered a very dangerous
+heresy from all standpoints. In their generations
+Copernicus and Galileo were held to be dangerous
+opponents of orthodoxy, just as Darwin was held
+to be when he brought out his “Origin of Species,”
+just as Mendel’s work would have been held if
+Darwin’s far greater work had not distracted attention
+from him. The discovery of the circulation
+of the blood was at the time thought by many
+worthy people to be in contradiction of what was
+taught in Holy Writ; and the men who first felt
+their way toward the discovery of the law of gravitation
+made as many blunders and opened themselves
+to assault on as many points as was the
+case with those who first felt their way to the
+establishment of the doctrine of evolution. The
+Dr. Dwights of to-day can write with the freedom<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">256</span>
+they do only because of the triumph of the
+ideas of those scientific innovators of the past
+whom the Dr. Dwights of their day emphatically
+condemned.</p>
+
+<p>But when Dr. Dwight attacks the loose generalizations,
+absurd dogmatism, and ludicrous assumption
+of omniscient wisdom of not a few of the
+so-called leaders of modern science, he is not only
+right but renders a real service. The claims of
+certain so-called scientific men as to “science overthrowing
+religion” are as baseless as the fears of
+certain sincerely religious men on the same subject.
+The establishment of the doctrine of evolution
+in our time offers no more justification for
+upsetting religious beliefs than the discovery of
+the facts concerning the solar system a few centuries
+ago. Any faith sufficiently robust to stand
+the—surely very slight—strain of admitting that
+the world is not flat and does move round the sun
+need have no apprehensions on the score of evolution,
+and the materialistic scientists who gleefully
+hail the discovery of the principle of evolution
+as establishing their dreary creed might with
+just as much propriety rest it upon the discovery
+of the principle of gravitation. Science and religion,
+and the relations between them, are affected
+by one only as they are affected by the other.
+Genuine harm has been done by the crass materialism
+of men like Haeckel, a materialism which, in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">257</span>
+its unscientific assumptions and in its utter insufficiency
+to explain all the phenomena it professes
+to explain, has been exposed in masterly fashion
+by such really great thinkers—such masters not
+only of philosophy but of material science—as William
+James, Émile Boutroux, and Henri Bergson.
+It is worth while to quote the remarks of Alfred
+Russel Wallace, the veteran evolutionist: “With
+Professor Haeckel’s dislike of the dogmas of theologians
+and their claims as to the absolute knowledge
+of the nature and attributes of the inscrutable
+mind that is the power within and behind and
+around nature many of us have the greatest sympathy;
+but we have none with his unfounded dogmatism
+of combined negation and omniscience, and
+more especially when this assumption of superior
+knowledge seems to be put forward to conceal his
+real ignorance of the nature of life itself.” Dr.
+Dwight is emphatically right when he denies that
+science (using the word, as he does, as meaning
+merely the science of material things) has taught
+“a new and sufficient gospel,” or that, to use his
+own words, there is any truth “in the boast of
+infidel science that she and she alone has all that
+is worth having.” He could go even further than
+he does in refuting the queer optimism of those
+evolutionists who insist that evolution in the
+human race necessarily means progress; for every
+true evolutionist must admit the possibility of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">258</span>
+retrogression no less than of progress, and exactly
+as species of animals have sunk after having
+risen, so in the history of mankind it has again
+and again happened that races of men, and whole
+civilizations, have sunk after having risen. In so
+far as Dr. Dwight’s view of religion is that it
+is the gospel of duty and of human service, his
+view is emphatically right; and surely when the
+doctrine of the gospel of works is taken to mean
+the gospel of service to mankind, and not merely
+the performance of a barren ceremonial, it must
+command the respect, and I hope the adherence,
+of all devout men of every creed, and even of
+those who adhere to no creed of recognized orthodoxy.</p>
+
+<p>In the same way I heartily sympathize with his
+condemnation of the men who stridently proclaim
+that “science has disposed of religion,” and with
+his condemnation of the scientific men who would
+try to teach the community that there is no real
+meaning to the words “right” and “wrong,” and
+who therefore deny free-will and accountability.
+Even as sound a thinker as Mr. Bernard, whose
+book is rightly, as he calls it, “an essay in constructive
+biology,” who in his theory of group development
+has opened a new biological and even
+sociological field of capital importance, who explicitly
+recognizes the psychical accompaniment
+of physical force as something distinct from it,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">259</span>
+and whose final chapter on the integration of the
+human aggregate shows that he has a far nobler
+view of life than any mere materialist can have,
+yet falls into the great mistake of denying freedom
+of the will, merely because he with his finite
+material intelligence can not understand it. Dr.
+Dwight is right in his attitude toward the scientific
+men who thus assume that there is no freedom
+of the will because on a material basis it is not
+explicable. Whenever any so-called scientific men
+develop, as an abstract proposition, a theory in accordance
+with which it would be quite impossible
+to conduct the affairs of mankind for so much
+as twenty-four hours, the wise attitude of really
+scientific men would be to reject that theory, instead
+of following the example of the, I fear not
+wholly imaginary, scientist who, when told that
+the facts did not fit in with his theory, answered:
+“So much the worse for the facts.” M. Bergson,
+in his “Creative Evolution,” has brought out with
+convincing clearness the great truth that the
+human brain, so able to deal with purely material
+things, and with sciences, such as geometry, in
+which thought is concerned only with unorganized
+matter, works under necessarily narrow limitations—limitations
+in reality very, very narrow,
+and never to be made really broad by mere intellect—when
+it comes to grasping any part of
+the great principle of life. Reason can deal effectively<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">260</span>
+only with certain categories. True wisdom
+must necessarily refuse to allow reason to assume
+a sway outside of its limitations; and where
+experience plainly proves that the intellect has
+reasoned wrongly, then it is the part of wisdom
+to accept the teachings of experience, and bid
+reason be humble—just as under like conditions
+it would bid theology be humble. A certain
+school of Greek philosophers was able to prove
+logically that there was not, and could not be,
+any such thing as motion, and that, even if there
+were, it was quite impossible logically for a pursuing
+creature ever to overtake a fleeing creature
+which was going at inferior speed; but all that
+was really accomplished by this teaching was to
+prove the need of much greater intellectual humility
+on the part of those who believed that they
+were capable of thinking out an explanation for
+everything. Mr. Bernard ought not to have been
+caught in such a dilemma, because of the very
+fact that he does not cast in his lot with the crass
+materialists; for he admits that there are many
+things we do not know, that there is much which
+our intelligence—necessarily functioning in material
+fashion—can not understand. It is just as
+idle for a man to try to explain everything in the
+moral and spiritual world by that which he is able
+to apprehend of the material world as it would
+be for a polyp to try to explain the higher emotions<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">261</span>
+of mankind in terms of polyp materialism.
+Not only would it be quite impossible to conduct
+even the lowest form of civil society without
+practical acknowledgment of free-will and accountability—an
+acknowledgment always made in
+practice by every single individual of those who
+deny it in theory—but even in their writings the
+very men who deny free-will and accountability
+inevitably and continually use language which
+has no meaning except on the supposition that
+both of them exist. Mr. Bernard, for instance,
+on the same page on which he denies freedom of
+the will, makes an impatient plea for just laws, and
+explains that by “just laws” he means laws that
+are in accordance with the highest conceptions of
+human relationships; he complains that the legal
+idea of justice is invariably far behind that of our
+psychic perceptions; and elsewhere, as on page
+457, he speaks of the “duties” of man and of his
+“moral perceptions,” and on page 473 he asks
+for perfection of the community, so that “social
+life worked out by the highest wisdom of mankind
+will at once rise to a newer and higher physical
+and psychic level.” All of this is meaningless if
+there are no such things as freedom of the will and
+accountability; and its goes to show that even a
+profound and original thinker, if he has dwelt too
+long in the realms where the pure materialist is
+king, needs to pay heed to M. Bergson’s pregnant<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">262</span>
+saying that “pure reasoning needs to be supervised
+by common sense, which is an altogether
+different thing.” A part, and an essential part,
+of the same truth is expressed by Mr. Taylor when
+he paraphrases Saint Augustine in insisting that
+“the truths of love are as valid as the truths of
+reason.”</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Dwight and the many men whose habits
+of thought are similar to his perform a real service
+when they keep people from being led astray
+by the mischievous dogmas of those who would
+give to each passing and evanescent phase of materialistic
+scientific thought a dogmatic value;
+and our full acknowledgment of this service does
+not in the least hinder us from also realizing and
+acknowledging that the advance in scientific discovery,
+which has been and will be of such priceless
+worth to mankind, can not be made by men of
+this type, but only by the bolder, more self-reliant
+spirits, by men whose unfettered freedom of soul
+and intellect yields complete fealty only to the
+great cause of truth, and will not be hindered by
+any outside control in the search to attain it. A
+brake is often a useful and sometimes an indispensable
+piece of equipment of a wagon; but it is
+never as important as the wheels. As the University
+of Wisconsin declared when Dr. Richard
+T. Ely was tried for economic heresy: “In all
+lines of investigation the investigator must be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">263</span>
+absolutely free to follow the paths of truth wherever
+they may lead.”</p>
+
+<p>It is always a difficult thing to state a position
+which has two sides with such clearness as to
+bring it home to the hearers. In the world of
+politics it is easy to appeal to the unreasoning
+reactionary, and no less easy to appeal to the
+unreasoning advocate of change, but difficult to
+get people to show for the cause of sanity and
+progress combined the zeal so easily aroused
+against sanity by one set of extremists and against
+progress by another set of extremists. So in the
+world of the intellect it is easy to take the position
+of the hard materialists who rail against religion,
+and easy also to take the position of those whose
+zeal for orthodoxy makes them distrust all action
+by men of independent mind in the search for
+scientific truth; but it is not so easy to make it
+understood that we both acknowledge our inestimable
+debt to the great masters of science, and
+yet are keenly alive to their errors and decline to
+surrender our judgment to theirs when they go
+wrong. It is imperative to realize how very grave
+their errors are, and how foolish we should be to
+abandon our adherence to the old ideals of duty
+toward God and man without better security than
+the more radical among the new prophets can
+offer us. The very blindest of those new scientific
+prophets are those whose complacency is greatest<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">264</span>
+in their belief that the material key is that which
+unlocks all the mysteries of the universe, and that
+the finite mind of man can, not merely understand,
+but pass supercilious judgment upon, these mysteries.
+Mr. Wallace stands in honorable contrast
+to the men of this stamp. No one has criticised
+with greater incisiveness what he properly calls
+“the vague, incomprehensible, and offensive assertions
+of the biologists of the school of Haeckel.”
+He shows his scientific superiority to these men by
+his entire realization of the limitations of the
+human intelligence, by his realization of the folly
+of thinking that we have explained what we are
+simply unable to understand when we use such
+terms as “infinity of time” and “infinity of
+space” to cover our ignorance; and he stands
+not far away from the school of MM. Boutroux
+and Bergson, and, old man though he is, comes
+near the attitude of the more serious among the
+younger present-day scientific investigators—of
+the stamp of Professor Osborn, of the American
+Museum of Natural History—in his readiness to
+acknowledge that the materialistic and mechanical
+explanations of the causes of evolution have
+broken down, and that science itself furnishes an
+overwhelming argument for “creative power, directive
+mind, and ultimate purpose” in the process
+of evolution.</p>
+
+<p>The law of evolution is as unconditionally accepted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">265</span>
+by every serious man of science to-day as
+is the law of gravitation; and it is no more and no
+less foolish to regard one than the other as antagonistic
+to religion. To reject either on Biblical
+grounds stands on a par with insisting, on the
+same grounds, that geological science must reconcile
+itself—and astronomy as well—to a universe
+only six thousand years old. The type of
+theologian who takes such a position occupies
+much the same intellectual level with the strutting
+materialists of the Haeckel type. To all men of
+this kind I most cordially commend a capital
+book, “Evolution and Dogma,” by the Rev. J.
+A. Zahm, one-time professor of physics at the
+University of Notre Dame, in Indiana.</p>
+
+<p>The great distinguishing feature of the centuries
+immediately past has been the extraordinary
+growth in man’s knowledge of, and power
+to understand and command, his own physical
+nature and his physical surroundings in the universe.
+It is this growth which so sharply distinguishes
+modern civilization, the civilization
+which we may roughly date as beginning about
+the time of Columbus’s voyage, from all preceding
+civilizations; and it has not only immeasurably
+increased man’s power over nature, but, when
+rightly understood, has also measurably added to
+his inner dignity and worth, and to his power and
+command over things spiritual no less than material.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">266</span>
+This conquest could have been achieved
+only by men who dared to follow wherever their
+longing for the truth led them, and who were
+masters of their own consciences, and as little
+servile to the past as to the present. But no
+such movement for the uplifting of mankind ever
+has taken place, or ever will or can take place,
+without being fraught also with great dangers to
+mankind. Our hope lies in progress, for if we try
+to remain stationary we shall surely go backward;
+and yet as soon as we leave the ground on which
+we stand in order to advance there is always
+danger that we shall plunge into some abyss.</p>
+
+<p>Naturally, the men who have taken the lead
+in these extraordinary material discoveries have
+often tended to think that there is nothing to
+discover or to believe in except what is material.
+Much of the growth in our understanding of
+nature has been due to men whose high abilities
+were nevertheless rigidly limited in certain directions.
+Our knowledge of solar systems so inconceivably
+remote that the remoteness is itself
+unreal to our senses; our knowledge of animate
+and inanimate forces working on a scale so infinitesimal
+and yet so powerful as to be almost
+impossible for our imaginations to grasp; our
+knowledge of the eons through which life has existed
+on this planet; the extraordinary advances
+in knowledge denoted by the establishment of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">267</span>
+such doctrines as those of gravitation and of evolution;
+in short, the whole enormous incredible
+advance in knowledge of the physical universe
+and of man’s physical place in that universe, has
+been due to the labor of students whose special
+tastes and abilities lay in the direction of dealing
+with what is purely material. Their astounding
+success, and the far-reaching, indeed the stupendous,
+importance of their achievements, have
+naturally tended to make those among them who
+possess genuine but narrow ability, whose minds
+are keen but not broad, assume an attitude of
+hard, arrogant, boastful, self-sufficient materialism:
+a mental attitude which glorifies and exalts its
+own grievous shortcomings and its inability to
+perceive anything outside the realm of the body.
+This attitude is as profoundly repellent as that
+of the civil and ecclesiastical reactionaries, the
+foes of all progress, against whom these men profess
+to be in revolt; and, moreover, it is an attitude
+which is itself as profoundly unscientific
+as any of the anti-scientific attitudes which it
+condemns. The universal truth can never be
+even imperfectly understood or apprehended unless
+we have the widest possible knowledge of our
+physical surroundings, and unless we fearlessly
+endeavor to find out just what the facts and the
+teachings of these physical surroundings are; but
+neither will it ever be understood if the physical<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">268</span>
+and material explanations of life are accepted as
+all-sufficient. By none is this more clearly recognized
+than by the most acute and far-sighted
+of the investigators into physical conditions. Says
+Mr. Bernard: “There are psychic elements wholly
+different in kind from the physical elements ...
+[they] constitute, in a way impossible to define, a
+new character, quality, element—or shall we at
+once boldly borrow a term from mathematics
+and call it a new ‘dimension’ of our environment,
+hitherto three-dimensional? These various mental
+conditions lead us to believe that at any moment,
+while being driven through this three-dimensional
+environment, we may also be plunged into a
+psychic condition which hangs like an atmosphere
+over our particular physical surroundings.”</p>
+
+<p>Not only every truly religious, but every truly
+scientific, man must turn with relief from the narrowness
+of a shut-in materialism to the profound
+and lofty thought contained in the writings of
+William James, of his biographer, M. Émile Boutroux,
+and of another philosopher of the same
+school, M. Bergson. M. Boutroux’s study of
+William James gives in brief form—and with a
+charm of style and expression possible only for
+those who work with that delicate instrument of
+precision, French prose—the views which men of
+this stamp hold; and be it remembered that, like
+James, they are thoroughly scientific men, steeped<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">269</span>
+in the teachings of material science, who acknowledge
+no outside limitation upon them in their
+search for truth. They have a far keener understanding
+of the world of matter than has been
+attained by the purely materialistic scientists,
+just because, in addition, they also understand
+that outside of the purely physical lies the psychic,
+and that the realm of religion stands outside even
+of the purely psychic. M. Boutroux’s book on
+“Science and Religion” has been translated into
+English—and we owe a real debt of gratitude to
+Messrs. Nield and Mitchell for their excellent
+translations of MM. Boutroux and Bergson.
+There is much talk of the conflict between science
+and religion. The inherent absurdity of such talk
+has never been better expressed than by M. Boutroux
+when he says that such opposition “is the
+result of our defining both science and religion
+in an artificial manner by, on the one hand, identifying
+science with physical science, and, on the
+other hand, assuming that religion consists in the
+dogmas which merely symbolize it.” M. Boutroux’s
+book, like M. Bergson’s “Creative Evolution,”
+must be read in its entirety; mere extracts
+and condensations can not show the profound
+philosophical acumen with which these men go
+to the heart of things, and prove that science itself,
+if correctly understood, renders absurd the
+harsh and futile dogmatism of many of those<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">270</span>
+who pride themselves upon being, above all
+things, scientific. For, as these writers point
+out, the work of the scientist is conditioned upon
+the existence of the free determination of a spirit
+which, dominating the scientific spirit, believes
+also in an æsthetic and moral ideal. They see
+the material, the physical body, in its relation to
+other physical bodies; and back of and beyond
+the physical they see life itself, consciousness,
+which is to be conceived of as something always
+dynamic and never static, as a “stream of consciousness,”
+a “becoming.”</p>
+
+<p>As M. Boutroux finely says, religion gives to
+the individual his value and treats him as an end
+in himself, no less than treating him from the
+standpoint of his duties to other individuals.
+This philosophy is founded on a wide and sympathetic
+understanding of the facts of the material
+world, a frank acceptance of evolution and of all
+else that modern science has ever taught; and
+so those who profess it are in a position of impregnable
+strength when they point out that all
+this in no shape or way interferes with religion and
+with Christianity, because, as they hold, evolution
+in religion has merely tended to disengage
+it from its own gross and material wrapping,
+and to leave unfettered the spirit which is its
+essence. To them Christianity, the greatest of
+the religious creations which humanity has seen,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">271</span>
+rests upon what Christ himself teaches; for, as
+M. Boutroux phrases it, the performance of duty
+is faith in action, faith in its highest expression,
+for duty gives no other reason, and need give no
+other reason, for its existence than “its own incorruptible
+disinterestedness.” The idea thus expressed
+is at bottom based on the same truth to
+which expression is given by Mr. Taylor when he
+says: “The love of God means not despising but
+honoring self; and for Christians on earth the
+true love of God must show itself in doing earth’s
+duties and living out earth’s full life, and not in
+abandoning all for dreams, though the dreams be
+of heaven.” To men such as William James and
+these two French philosophers physical science, if
+properly studied, shows conclusively its own
+limitations, shows conclusively that beyond the
+material world lies a vast series of phenomena
+which all material knowledge is powerless to explain,
+so that science itself teaches that outside
+of materialism lie the forces of a wholly different
+world, a world ordered by religion—religion which,
+says M. Boutroux, must, if loyal to itself, work
+according to its own nature as a spiritual activity,
+striving to transform men from within and not
+from without, by persuasion, by example, by love,
+by prayer, by the communion of souls, not by restraint
+or policy; and such a religion has nothing
+to fear from the progress of science, for the spirit<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">272</span>
+to which it is loyal is the faith in duty, the search
+for what is for the universal good and for the universal
+love, the secret springs of all high and
+beneficent activity.</p>
+
+<p>It is striking to see how these two gifted Frenchmen,
+by their own road, reach substantially the
+same conclusion which, by a wholly different
+method, and indeed in treating religion from a
+wholly different standpoint, is also reached by the
+president of Bowdoin College. Mr. Hyde’s short
+volume combines in high degree a lofty nobility
+of ethical concept with the most practical and
+straightforward common-sense treatment of the
+ways in which this concept should be realized in
+practice. Each of us must prescribe for himself
+in these matters, and one man’s need will not be
+wholly met by what does meet another’s; personally,
+this book of President Hyde’s gives me
+something that no other book does, and means
+to me very, very much.</p>
+
+<p>We must all strive to keep as our most precious
+heritage the liberty each to worship his God as to
+him seems best, and, as part of this liberty, freely
+either to exercise it or to surrender it, in a greater
+or less degree, each according to his own beliefs
+and convictions, without infringing on the beliefs
+and convictions of others. But the professors of
+the varying creeds, the men who rely upon authority,
+and those who in different measures profess<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">273</span>
+the theory of individual liberty, can and must
+work together, with mutual respect and with
+self-respect, for certain principles which lie deep
+at the base of every healthy social system. As
+Bishop Brent says: “The only setting for any one
+part of the truth is all the rest of the truth. The
+only relationship big enough for any one man is
+all the rest of mankind.” Abbot Charles, of
+Saint Leo Abbey, in Florida, has recently put the
+case for friendly agreement among good men of
+varying views, when he summed up a notably
+fine address in defence—as he truly says, <em>friendly</em>
+defence—of his own church by enunciating the
+plea for “true peace founded on justice,” worked
+out in accordance with what he properly calls one
+of the “dearest blessings that heaven can give,
+the spirit that springs from religious liberty.”
+However widely many earnest and high-minded
+men of science and many earnest and high-minded
+men of religious convictions may from one side
+or the other disagree with the teachings of the
+earnest and high-minded students of philosophy
+whom I have quoted, yet surely we can all be in
+agreement with the fundamentals on which their
+philosophy is based. Surely we must all recognize
+the search for truth as an imperative duty;
+and we ought all of us likewise to recognize that
+this search for truth should be carried on, not only
+fearlessly, but also with reverence, with humility<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">274</span>
+of spirit, and with full recognition of our own
+limitations both of the mind and the soul. We
+must stand equally against tyranny and against
+irreverence in all things of the spirit, with the
+firm conviction that we can all work together for
+a higher social and individual life if only, whatever
+form of creed we profess, we make the doing
+of duty and the love of our fellow men two of the
+prime articles in our universal faith. To those
+who deny the ethical obligation implied in such a
+faith we who acknowledge the obligation are aliens;
+and we are brothers to all those who do acknowledge
+it, whatever their creed or system of philosophy.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">275</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">277</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak">THE ANCIENT IRISH SAGAS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_ANCIENT_IRISH_SAGAS" title="THE ANCIENT IRISH SAGAS"><span id="toclink_275"></span>THE ANCIENT IRISH SAGAS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">Next</span> to developing original writers in its
+own time, the most fortunate thing, from
+the literary standpoint, which can befall
+any people is to have revealed to it some new
+treasure-house of literature. This treasure-house
+may be stored with the writings of another people
+in the present, or else with the writings of a buried
+past. But a few generations ago, in that innocent
+age when Blackstone could speak of the
+“Goths, Huns, Franks, and Vandals”—incongruous
+gathering—as “Celtic” tribes, the long-vanished
+literatures of the ancestors of the present
+European nations, the epics, the sagas, the
+stories in verse or prose, were hardly known to,
+or regarded by, their educated and cultivated
+descendants. Gradually, and chiefly in the nineteenth
+century, these forgotten literatures, or
+fragments of them, were one by one recovered.
+They are various in merit and interest, in antiquity
+and extent—“Beowulf,” the Norse sagas,
+the “Kalevala,” the “Nibelungenlied,” the “Song
+of Roland,” the Arthurian cycle of romances. In
+some there is but one great poem; in some all the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">278</span>
+poems or stories are of one type; in others, as in
+the case of the Norse sagas, a wide range of history,
+myth, and personal biography is covered.
+In our own day there has at last come about a
+popular revival of interest in the wealth of poems
+and tales to be found in the ancient Celtic, and
+especially in the ancient Erse, manuscripts—the
+whole forming a body of prose and poetry of
+great and well-nigh unique interest from every
+standpoint, which in some respects can be matched
+only by the Norse sagas, and which has some
+striking beauties the like of which are not to be
+found even in these Norse sagas.</p>
+
+<p>For many decades German, French, Irish, and
+English students have worked over the ancient
+Celtic texts, and recently many of the more striking
+and more beautiful stories have been reproduced
+or paraphrased in popular form by writers
+like Lady Gregory and Miss Hull, Lady Gregory
+showing in her prose something of the charm
+which her countrywoman Emily Lawless shows
+in her poems “With the Wild Geese.” It is greatly
+to be regretted that America should have done so
+little either in the way of original study and research
+in connection with the early Celtic literature,
+or in the way of popularizing and familiarizing
+that literature, and it is much to be desired
+that, wherever possible, chairs of Celtic should be
+established in our leading universities. Moreover,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">279</span>
+in addition to the scholar’s work which is
+especially designed for students, there must ultimately
+be done the additional work which puts
+the results of the scholarship at the disposal of
+the average layman. This has largely been done
+for the Norse sagas. William Morris has translated
+the “Heimskringla” into language which,
+while not exactly English, can nevertheless be
+understood without difficulty—which is more than
+can be said for his translation of “Beowulf”—and
+which has a real, though affectedly archaic,
+beauty. Dasent has translated the “Younger
+Edda,” the “Njala Saga,” and the “Saga of Gisli
+the Outlaw.” It is pleasant for Americans to
+feel that it was Longfellow who, in his “Saga of
+King Olaf,” rendered one of the most striking of
+the old Norse tales into a great poem.</p>
+
+<p>It is difficult to speak with anything like exactness
+of the relative ages of these primitive literatures.
+Doubtless in each case the earliest manuscripts
+that have come down to us are themselves
+based upon far earlier ones which have been destroyed,
+and doubtless, when they were first written
+down, the tales had themselves been recited,
+and during the course of countless recitations had
+been changed and added to and built upon, for a
+period of centuries. Sometimes, as in the “Song
+of Roland,” we know at least in bare outline the
+historical incident which for some reason impressed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">280</span>
+the popular imagination until around it there
+grew up a great epic, of which the facts have been
+twisted completely out of shape. In other instances,
+as in the “Nibelungenlied,” a tale, adaptable
+in its outlines to many different peoples, was
+adapted to the geography of a particular people,
+and to what that people at least thought was history;
+thus the Rhine becomes the great river of
+the “Nibelungenlied,” and in the second part of
+the epic the revenge of Krimhild becomes connected
+with dim memories of Attila’s vast and
+evanescent empire. The “Song of Roland” and
+the “Nibelungenlied” were much later than the
+earliest English, Norse, and Irish poems. Very
+roughly, it may perhaps be said that, in the earliest
+forms at which we can guess, the Irish sagas
+were produced, or at least were in healthy life,
+at about the time when “Beowulf” was a live
+saga, and two or three centuries or thereabouts
+before the early Norse sagas took a shape which
+we would recognize as virtually akin to that they
+now have.</p>
+
+<p>These Celtic sagas are conveniently, though
+somewhat artificially, arranged in cycles. In
+some ways the most interesting of these is the
+Cuchulain cycle, although until very recently it
+was far less known than the Ossianic cycle—the
+cycle which tells of the deeds of Finn and the
+Fianna. The poems which tell of the mighty<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">281</span>
+feats of Cuchulain, and of the heroes whose life-threads
+were interwoven with his, date back to a
+purely pagan Ireland—an Ireland cut off from all
+connection with the splendid and slowly dying
+civilization of Rome, an Ireland in which still
+obtained ancient customs that had elsewhere
+vanished even from the memory of man.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the heroes of the Cuchulain sagas still
+fought in chariots driven each by a charioteer
+who was also the stanch friend and retainer of
+the hero. Now, at one time war chariots had
+held the first place in the armies of all the powerful
+empires in the lands adjoining the Mediterranean
+and stretching eastward beyond the Tigris.
+Strange African tribes had used them north and
+south of the Atlas Mountains. When the mighty,
+conquering kings of Egypt made their forays into
+Syria, and there encountered the Hittite hosts,
+the decisive feature in each battle was the shock
+between the hundreds of chariots arrayed on each
+side. The tyranny of Sisera rested on his nine
+hundred chariots of iron. The Homeric heroes
+were “tamers of horses,” which were not ridden
+in battle, but driven in the war chariots. That
+mysterious people, the Etruscans, of whose race
+and speech we know nothing, originally fought in
+chariots. But in the period of Greek and Roman
+splendor the war chariot had already passed
+away. It had seemingly never been characteristic<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">282</span>
+of the wild Teuton tribes; but among the western
+Celts it lingered long. Cæsar encountered it
+among the hostile tribes when he made his famous
+raid into Britain; and in Ireland it lasted later
+still.</p>
+
+<p>The customs of the heroes and people of the
+Erin of Cuchulain’s time were as archaic as the
+chariots in which they rode to battle. The sagas
+contain a wealth of material for the historian.
+They show us a land where the men were herdsmen,
+tillers of the soil, hunters, bards, seers, but,
+above all, warriors. Erin was a world to herself.
+Her people at times encountered the peoples of
+Britain or of Continental Europe, whether in
+trade or in piracy; but her chief interest, her overwhelming
+interest, lay in what went on within
+her own borders. There was a high king of
+shadowy power, whose sway was vaguely recognized
+as extending over the island, but whose practical
+supremacy was challenged on every hand by
+whatever king or under-king felt the fierce whim
+seize him. There were chiefs and serfs; there
+were halls and fortresses; there were huge herds
+of horses and cattle and sheep and swine. The
+kings and queens, the great lords and their wives,
+the chiefs and the famous fighting men, wore garments
+crimson and blue and green and saffron,
+plain or checkered, and plaid and striped. They
+had rings and clasps and torques of gold and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">283</span>
+silver, urns and mugs and troughs and vessels of
+iron and silver. They played chess by the fires
+in their great halls, and they feasted and drank
+and quarrelled within them, and the women had
+sun-parlors of their own.</p>
+
+<p>Among the most striking of the tales are those
+of the “Fate of the Sons of Usnach,” telling of
+Deirdrè’s life and love and her lamentation for
+her slain lover; of the “Wooing of Emer” by
+Cuchulain; of the “Feast of Bricriu”; and of
+the famous Cattle-Spoil of Cooley, the most famous
+romance of ancient Ireland, the story of
+the great raid for the Dun Bull of Cooley. But
+there are many others of almost equal interest;
+such as the story of MacDatho’s pig, with its
+Gargantuan carouse of the quarrelsome champions;
+and the tale of the siege of Howth.</p>
+
+<p>In these tales, which in so many points are
+necessarily like the similar tales that have come
+down from the immemorial past of the peoples of
+kindred race, there are also striking peculiarities
+that hedge them apart. The tales are found in
+many versions, which for the most part have been
+enlarged by pedantic scribes of aftertime, who
+often made them prolix and tedious, and added
+grotesque and fantastic exaggerations of their own
+to the barbaric exaggerations already in them,
+doing much what Saxo Grammaticus did for the
+Scandinavian tales. They might have been woven<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">284</span>
+into some great epic, or at least have taken far
+more definite and connected shape, if the history
+of Ireland had developed along lines similar to
+those of the other nations of west Europe. But
+her history was broken by terrible national tragedies
+and calamities. To the scourge of the vikings
+succeeded the Anglo-Norman conquest, with
+all its ruinous effects on the growth of the national
+life. The early poems of the Erse bards could
+not develop as those other early lays developed
+which afterward became the romances of Arthur
+and Roland and Siegfried. They remain primitive,
+as “Beowulf” is primitive, as, in less measure,
+“Gisli the Outlaw” is primitive.</p>
+
+<p>The heroes are much like those of the early
+folk of kindred stock everywhere. They are huge,
+splendid barbarians, sometimes yellow-haired,
+sometimes black- or brown-haired, and their chief
+title to glory is found in their feats of bodily prowess.
+Among the feats often enumerated or referred
+to are the ability to leap like a salmon, to
+run like a stag, to hurl great rocks incredible distances,
+to toss the wheel, and, like the Norse
+berserkers, when possessed with the fury of battle,
+to grow demoniac with fearsome rage. This last
+feat was especially valued, and was recognized as
+the “heroes’ fury.” As with most primitive
+peoples, the power to shout loudly was much
+prized, and had a distinct place of respect, under<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">285</span>
+the title of “mad roar,” in any list of a given hero’s
+exhibitions of strength or agility; just as Stentor’s
+voice was regarded by his comrades as a valuable
+military asset. So, when the slaughter begins in
+Etzel’s hall, the writer of the Nibelung lay dwells
+with admiration on the vast strength of Diederick,
+as shown by the way in which his voice rang
+like a bison horn, resounding within and without
+the walls. Many of the feats chronicled of the
+early Erse heroes are now wholly unintelligible
+to us; we can not even be sure what they were,
+still less why they should have been admired.</p>
+
+<p>Among the heroes stood the men of wisdom, as
+wisdom was in the early world, a vulpine wisdom
+of craft and cunning and treachery and double-dealing.
+Druids, warlocks, sorcerers, magicians,
+witches appear, now as friends, now as unfriends,
+of the men of might. Fiercely the heroes fought
+and wide they wandered; yet their fights and their
+wanderings were not very different from those
+that we read about in many other primitive tales.
+There is the usual incredible variety of incidents
+and character, and, together with the variety, an
+endless repetition. But these Erse tales differ
+markedly from the early Norse and Teutonic
+stories in more than one particular. A vein of
+the supernatural and a vein of the romantic run
+through them and relieve their grimness and
+harshness in a way very different from anything<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">286</span>
+to be found in the Teutonic. Of course the supernatural
+element often takes as grim a form in
+early Irish as in early Norse or German; the
+Goddess with red eyebrows who on stricken fields
+wooed the Erse heroes from life did not differ essentially
+from the Valkyrie; and there were land
+and water demons in Ireland as terrible as those
+against which Beowulf warred. But, in addition,
+there is in the Irish tales an unearthliness free
+from all that is monstrous and horrible; and their
+unearthly creatures could become in aftertime the
+fairies of the moonlight and the greenwood, so
+different from the trolls and gnomes and misshapen
+giants bequeathed to later generations by
+the Norse mythology.</p>
+
+<p>Still more striking is the difference between the
+women in the Irish sagas and those, for instance,
+of the Norse sagas. Their heirs of the spirit are
+the Arthurian heroines, and the heroines of the
+romances of the Middle Ages. In the “Song of
+Roland”—rather curiously, considering that it is
+the first great piece of French literature—woman
+plays absolutely no part at all; there is not a
+female figure which is more than a name, or
+which can be placed beside Roland and Oliver,
+Archbishop Turpin and the traitor Ganelon, and
+Charlemagne, the mighty emperor of the “barbe
+fleurie.” The heroines of the early Norse and
+German stories are splendid and terrible, fit to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">287</span>
+be the mothers of a mighty race, as stern and relentless
+as their lovers and husbands. But it
+would be hard indeed to find among them a heroine
+who would appeal to our modern ideas as does
+Emer, the beloved of Cuchulain, or Dierdrè, the
+sweetheart of the fated son of Usnach. Emer and
+Deirdrè have the charm, the power of inspiring
+and returning romantic love, that belonged to the
+ladies whose lords were the knights of the Round
+Table, though of course this does not mean that
+they lacked some very archaic tastes and attributes.</p>
+
+<p>Emer, the daughter of Forgall the Wily, who
+was wooed by Cuchulain, had the “six gifts of a
+girl”—beauty, and a soft voice, and sweet speech,
+and wisdom, and needlework, and chastity. In
+their wooing the hero and heroine spoke to one
+another in riddles, those delights of the childhood
+of peoples. She set him journeys to go and feats
+to perform, which he did in the manner of later
+knight errants. After long courting and many
+hardships, he took Emer to wife, and she was
+true to him and loved him and gloried in him and
+watched over him until the day he went out to
+meet his death. All this was in a spirit which we
+would find natural in a heroine of modern or of
+mediæval times—a spirit which it would be hard
+to match either among the civilizations of antiquity,
+or in early barbarisms other than the
+Erse.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">288</span></p>
+
+<p>So it was with Deirdrè, the beautiful girl who
+forsook her betrothed, the Over-King of Ulster,
+for the love of Naisi, and fled with him and his
+two brothers across the waters to Scotland. At
+last they returned to Ireland, and there Deirdrè’s
+lover and his two brothers were slain by the
+treachery of the king whose guests they were.
+Many versions of the Songs of Deirdrè have come
+down to us, of her farewell to Alba and her lament
+over her slain lover; for during centuries this
+tragedy of Deirdrè, together with the tragical fate
+of the Children of Lir and the tragical fate of the
+Children of Tuirenn, were known as the “Three
+Sorrowful Tales of Erin.” None has better retained
+its vitality down to the present day. Even
+to us, reading the songs in an alien age and tongue,
+they are very beautiful. Deirdrè sings wistfully
+of her Scottish abiding-place, with its pleasant,
+cuckoo-haunted groves, and its cliffs, and the
+white sand on the beaches. She tells of her lover’s
+single infidelity, when he came enamoured of the
+daughter of a Scottish lord, and Deirdrè, broken-hearted,
+put off to sea in a boat, indifferent whether
+she should live or die; whereupon the two brothers
+of her lover swam after her and brought her back,
+to find him very repentant and swearing a threefold
+oath that never again would he prove false
+to her until he should go to the hosts of the dead.
+She dwells constantly on the unfailing tenderness<span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">289</span>
+of the three heroes; for her lover’s two brothers
+cared for her as he did:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indentq">“Much hardship would I take,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Along with the three heroes;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">I would endure without house, without fire,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">It is not I that would be gloomy.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indentq">“Their three shields and their spears</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Were often a bed for me.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Put their three hard swords</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Over the grave, O young man!”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>For the most part, in her songs, Deirdrè dwells
+on the glories and beauties of the three warriors,
+the three dragons, the three champions of the
+Red Branch, the three that used to break every
+onrush, the three hawks, the three darlings of
+the women of Erin, the three heroes who were
+not good at homage. She sings of their splendor
+in the foray, of their nobleness as they returned to
+their home, to bring fagots for the fire, to bear in
+an ox or a boar for the table; sweet though the
+pipes and flutes and horns were in the house of
+the king, sweeter yet was it to hearken to the songs
+sung by the sons of Usnach, for “like the sound of
+the wave was the voice of Naisi.”</p>
+
+<p>There were other Irish heroines of a more common
+barbarian type. Such was the famous warrior-queen,
+Meave, tall and beautiful, with her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">290</span>
+white face and yellow hair, terrible in her battle
+chariot when she drove at full speed into the press
+of fighting men, and “fought over the ears of the
+horses.” Her virtues were those of a warlike
+barbarian king, and she claimed the like large
+liberty in morals. Her husband was Ailill, the
+Connaught king, and, as Meave carefully explained
+to him in what the old Erse bards called
+a “bolster conversation,” their marriage was
+literally a partnership wherein she demanded from her
+husband an exact equality of treatment according
+to her own views and on her own terms; the
+three essential qualities upon which she insisted
+being that he should be brave, generous, and
+completely devoid of jealousy!</p>
+
+<p>Fair-haired Queen Meave was a myth, a goddess,
+and her memory changed and dwindled
+until at last she reappeared as Queen Mab of
+fairyland. But among the ancient Celts her likeness
+was the likeness of many a historic warrior
+queen. The descriptions given of her by the first
+writers or compilers of the famous romances of
+the foray for the Dun Bull of Cooley almost
+exactly match the descriptions given by the Latin
+historian of the British Queen Boadicea, tall and
+terrible-faced, her long, yellow hair flowing to her
+hips, spear in hand, golden collar on neck, her
+brightly colored mantle fastened across her breast
+with a brooch.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">291</span></p>
+
+<p>Not only were some of Meave’s deeds of a
+rather startling kind, but even Emer and Deirdrè
+at times showed traits that to a modern reader
+may seem out of place, in view of what has been
+said of them above. But we must remember the
+surroundings, and think of what even the real
+women of history were, throughout European
+lands, until a far later period. In the “Heimskringla”
+we read of Queen Sigrid, the wisest of
+women, who grew tired of the small kings who
+came to ask her hand, a request which she did not
+regard them as warranted to make either by position
+or extent of dominion. So one day when two
+kings had thus come to woo her, she lodged them
+in a separate wooden house, with all their company,
+and feasted them until they were all very
+drunk, and fell asleep; then in the middle of the
+night she had her men fall on them with fire and
+sword, burn those who stayed within the hall and
+slay those who broke out. The incident is mentioned
+in the saga without the slightest condemnation;
+on the contrary, it evidently placed the
+queen on a higher social level than before, for,
+in concluding the account, the saga mentions that
+Sigrid said “that she would weary these small
+kings of coming from other lands to woo her; so
+she was called Sigrid Haughty thereafter.” Now,
+Sigrid was an historical character who lived many
+hundred years after the time of Emer and Deirdrè<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">292</span>
+and Meave, and the simplicity with which her
+deed was chronicled at the time, and regarded
+afterward, should reconcile us to some of the feats
+recorded of those shadowy Erse predecessors of
+hers, who were separated from her by an interval
+of time as great as that which separates her
+from us.</p>
+
+<p>The story of the “Feast of Bricriu of the Bitter
+Tongue” is one of the most interesting of the
+tales of the Cuchulain cycle. In all this cycle of
+tales, Bricriu appears as the cunning, malevolent
+mischief-maker, dreaded for his biting satire and
+his power of setting by the ears the boastful,
+truculent, reckless, and marvellously short-tempered
+heroes among whom he lived. He has
+points of resemblance to Thersites, to Sir Kay, of
+the Arthurian romances, and to Conan, of the
+Ossianic cycle of Celtic sagas. This story is based
+upon the custom of the “champion’s portion,”
+which at a feast was allotted to the bravest man.
+It was a custom which lasted far down into historic
+times, and was recognized in the Brehon
+laws, where a heavy fine was imposed upon any
+person who stole it from the one to whom it belonged.
+The story in its present form, like all of
+these stories, is doubtless somewhat changed from
+the story as it was originally recited among the
+pre-Christian Celts of Ireland, but it still
+commemorates customs of the most primitive kind,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">293</span>
+many of them akin to those of all the races of
+Aryan tongue in their earlier days. The queens
+cause their maids to heat water for the warriors’
+baths when they return from war, and similarly
+made ready to greet their guests, as did the
+Homeric heroines. The feasts were Homeric
+feasts. The heroes boasted and sulked and fought
+as did the Greeks before Troy. At their feasts,
+when the pork and beef, the wheaten cakes and
+honey, had been eaten, and the beer, and sometimes
+the wine of Gaul, had been drunk in huge
+quantities, the heroes, vainglorious and quarrelsome,
+were always apt to fight. Thus in the three
+houses which together made up the palace of the
+high king at Emain Macha, it was necessary that
+the arms of the heroes should all be kept in one
+place, so that they could not attack one another
+at the feasts. These three houses of the palace
+were the Royal House, in which the high king
+himself had his bronzed and jewelled room; the
+Speckled House, where the swords, the shields,
+and the spears of the heroes were kept; and the
+House of the Red Branch, where not only the
+weapons, but the heads of the beaten enemies
+were stored; and it was in connection with this
+last grewsome house that the heroes in the train
+of the High King Conchubar took their name of
+the “Heroes of the Red Branch.”</p>
+
+<p>When Bricriu gave his feast, he prepared for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">294</span>
+it by building a spacious house even handsomer
+than the House of the Red Branch; and it is described
+in great detail, as fashioned after “Tara’s
+Mead Hall,” and of great strength and magnificence;
+and it was stocked with quilts and blankets
+and beds and pillows, as well as with abundance
+of meat and drink. Then he invited the
+high king and all the nobles of Ulster to come to
+the feast. An amusing touch in the saga is the
+frank consternation of the heroes who were thus
+asked. They felt themselves helpless before the
+wiles of Bricriu, and at first refused outright to
+go, because they were sure that he would contrive
+to set them to fighting with one another;
+and they went at all only after they had taken
+hostages from Bricriu and had arranged that he
+should himself leave the feast-hall as soon as the
+feast was spread. But their precautions were in
+vain, and Bricriu had no trouble in bringing about
+a furious dispute among the three leading chiefs,
+Loigaire the Triumphant, Conall the Victorious,
+and Cuchulain. He promised to each the champion’s
+portion, on condition that each should
+claim it. Nor did he rest here, but produced what
+the saga calls “the war of words of the women of
+Ulster,” by persuading the three wives of the
+three heroes that each should tread first into the
+banquet-hall. Each of the ladies, in whose minds
+he thus raised visions of social precedence, had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">295</span>
+walked away from the palace with half a hundred
+women in her train, when they all three met. The
+saga describes how they started to return to the
+hall together, walking evenly, gracefully, and
+easily at first, and then with quicker steps, until,
+when they got near the house, they raised their
+robes “to the round of the leg” and ran at full
+speed. When they got to the hall the doors were
+shut, and, as they stood outside, each wife chanted
+her own perfections, but, above all, the valor
+and ferocious prowess of her husband, scolding
+one another as did Brunhild and Krimhild in the
+quarrel that led to Siegfried’s death at the hands
+of Hagen. Each husband, as in duty bound,
+helped his wife into the hall, and the bickering
+which had already taken place about the champion’s
+portion was renewed. At last it was settled
+that the three rivals should drive in their
+chariots to the home of Ailill and Meave, who
+should adjudge between them; and the judgment
+given, after testing their prowess in many ways,
+and especially in encounters with demons and
+goblins, was finally in favor of Cuchulain.</p>
+
+<p>One of the striking parts of the tale is that in
+which the three champions, following one another,
+arrive at the palace of Meave. The daughter of
+Meave goes to the sun-parlor over the high porch
+of the hold, and from there she is told by the
+queen to describe in turn each chariot and the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">296</span>
+color of the horses and how the hero looks and how
+the chariot courses. The girl obeys, and describes
+in detail each chariot as it comes up, and
+the queen in each case recognizes the champion
+from the description and speaks words of savage
+praise of each in turn. Loigaire, a fair man,
+driving two fiery dapple-grays, in a wickerwork
+chariot with silver-mounted yoke, is chanted by
+the queen as:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indentq">“A fury of war, a fire of judgment,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">A flame of vengeance; in mien a hero,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In face a champion, in heart a dragon;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The long knife of proud victories which will hew us to pieces,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The all-noble, red-handed Loigaire.”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="in0">Conall is described as driving a roan and a bay,
+in a chariot with two bright wheels of bronze, he
+himself fair, in face white and red, his mantle blue
+and crimson, and Meave describes him as:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indentq">“A wolf among cattle; battle on battle,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Exploit on exploit, head upon head he heaps”;</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="in0">and says that if he is excited to rage he will cut
+up her people</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">“As a trout on red sandstone is cut.”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">297</span></p>
+<p class="in0">Then Cuchulain is described, driving at a gallop
+a dapple-gray and a dark-gray, in a chariot with
+iron wheels and a bright silver pole. The hero
+himself is a dark, melancholy man, the comeliest
+of the men of Erin, in a crimson tunic, with gold-hilted
+sword, a blood-red spear, and over his
+shoulders a crimson shield rimmed with silver and
+gold. Meave, on hearing the description, chants
+the hero as:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indentq">“An ocean in fury, a whale that rageth, a fragment of flame and fire;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">A bear majestic, a grandly moving billow,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">A beast in maddening ire:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In the crash of glorious battle through the hostile foe he leaps,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">His shout the fury of doom;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">A terrible bear, he is death to the herd of cattle,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Feat upon feat, head upon head he heaps:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Laud ye the hearty one, he who is victor fully.”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Bricriu lost his life as a sequel of the great raid
+for the Dun Bull of Cooley. This was undertaken
+by Queen Meave as the result of the “bolster
+conversation,” the curtain quarrel, between her
+and Ailill as to which of the two, husband or
+wife, had the more treasure. To settle the dispute,
+they compared their respective treasures,
+beginning with their wooden and iron vessels,
+going on with their rings and bracelets and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">298</span>
+brooches and fine clothes, and ending with their
+flocks of sheep, and herds of swine, horses, and
+cattle. The tally was even for both sides until
+they came to the cattle, when it appeared that
+Ailill had a huge, white-horned bull with which
+there was nothing of Meave’s to compare. The
+chagrined queen learned from a herald that in
+Cooley there was a dun or brown bull which, it
+was asserted, was even larger and more formidable.</p>
+
+<p>Meave announces that by fair means or foul
+the dun bull shall be hers, and she raises her hosts.
+A great war ensues, in which Cuchulain distinguishes
+himself above all others. All the heroes
+gather to the fight, and a special canto is devoted
+to the fate of a very old man, Iliach, a
+chief of Ulster, who resolves to attack the foe and
+avenge Ulster’s honor on them. “Whether, then,
+I fall or come out of it, is all one,” he said. The
+saga tells how his withered and wasted old horses,
+which fed on the shore by his little fort, were
+harnessed to the ancient chariot, which had long
+lost its cushions. Into it he got, mother-naked,
+with his sword and his pair of blunt, rusty spears,
+and great throwing-stones heaped at his feet;
+and thus he attacked the hosts of Meave and
+fought till his death. In the Cuchulain sagas the
+heroes frequently fight with stones; and the practice
+obtained until much later days, for in Olaf’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">299</span>
+death-battle with the ships of Hakon his men were
+cleared from the decks of the Long Serpent by
+dexterously hurled stones as well as by spears.</p>
+
+<p>Partly by cunning, Meave gets the dun bull
+upon which she had set her heart. Then comes
+in a thoroughly Erse touch. It appears that the
+two bulls have lived many lives in different forms,
+and always in hostility to each other, since the
+days when their souls were the souls of two swineherds,
+who quarrelled and fought to the death.
+Now the two great bulls renew their ancient fight.
+Bricriu is forced out to witness it, and is trampled
+to death by the beasts. At last the white-homed
+bull is slain, and the dun, raging and destroying,
+goes back to his home, where he too dies. And
+this, says the saga, in ending, is the tale of the
+Dun Bull of Cooley and the Driving of the Cattle-Herd
+by Meave and Ailill, and their war with
+Ulster.</p>
+
+<p>The Erse tales have suffered from many causes.
+Taken as a mass, they did not develop as the sagas
+and the epics of certain other nations developed;
+but they possess extraordinary variety and beauty,
+and in their mysticism, their devotion to and appreciation
+of natural beauty, their exaltation of
+the glorious courage of men and of the charm and
+devotion of women, in all the touches that tell
+of a long-vanished life, they possess a curious attraction
+of their own. They deserve the research<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">300</span>
+which can be given only by the lifelong effort of
+trained scholars; they should be studied for their
+poetry, as countless scholars have studied those
+early literatures; moreover, they should be studied
+as Victor Bérard has studied the “Odyssey,” for
+reasons apart from their poetical worth; and
+finally they deserve to be translated and adapted
+so as to become a familiar household part of that
+literature which all the English-speaking peoples
+possess in common.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">301</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">303</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak">AN ART EXHIBITION</h2>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="AN_ART_EXHIBITION" title="AN ART EXHIBITION"><span id="toclink_301"></span>AN ART EXHIBITION</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">The</span> recent “International Exhibition of
+Modern Art” in New York was really
+noteworthy. Messrs. Davies, Kuhn, Gregg,
+and their fellow members of the Association of
+American Painters and Sculptors did a work
+of very real value in securing such an exhibition
+of the works of both foreign and native
+painters and sculptors. Primarily their purpose
+was to give the public a chance to see what has
+recently been going on abroad. No similar collection
+of the works of European “moderns” has
+ever been exhibited in this country. The exhibitors
+were quite right as to the need of showing
+to our people in this manner the art forces which
+of late have been at work in Europe, forces which
+can not be ignored.</p>
+
+<p>This does not mean that I in the least accept
+the view that these men take of the European
+extremists whose pictures were here exhibited. It
+is true, as the champions of these extremists say,
+that there can be no life without change, no development
+without change, and that to be afraid
+of what is different or unfamiliar is to be afraid<span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">304</span>
+of life. It is no less true, however, that change
+may mean death and not life, and retrogression
+instead of development. Probably we err in
+treating most of these pictures seriously. It is
+likely that many of them represent in the painters
+the astute appreciation of the power to make
+folly lucrative which the late P.&nbsp;T. Barnum showed
+with his faked mermaid. There are thousands of
+people who will pay small sums to look at a faked
+mermaid; and now and then one of this kind
+with enough money will buy a Cubist picture, or a
+picture of a misshapen nude woman, repellent
+from every standpoint.</p>
+
+<p>In some ways it is the work of the American
+painters and sculptors which is of most interest
+in this collection, and a glance at this work must
+convince any one of the real good that is coming
+out of the new movements, fantastic though many
+of the developments of these new movements are.
+There was one note entirely absent from the
+exhibition, and that was the note of the commonplace.
+There was not a touch of simpering, self-satisfied
+conventionality anywhere in the exhibition.
+Any sculptor or painter who had in him
+something to express and the power of expressing
+it found the field open to him. He did not have
+to be afraid because his work was not along ordinary
+lines. There was no stunting or dwarfing,
+no requirement that a man whose gift lay in new<span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">305</span>
+directions should measure up or down to stereotyped
+and fossilized standards.</p>
+
+<p>For all of this there can be only hearty praise.
+But this does not in the least mean that the extremists
+whose paintings and pictures were represented
+are entitled to any praise, save, perhaps,
+that they have helped to break fetters. Probably
+in any reform movement, any progressive movement,
+in any field of life, the penalty for avoiding
+the commonplace is a liability to extravagance.
+It is vitally necessary to move forward and to
+shake off the dead hand, often the fossilized dead
+hand, of the reactionaries; and yet we have to
+face the fact that there is apt to be a lunatic
+fringe among the votaries of any forward movement.
+In this recent art exhibition the lunatic
+fringe was fully in evidence, especially in the
+rooms devoted to the Cubists and the Futurists,
+or Near-Impressionists. I am not entirely certain
+which of the two latter terms should be used
+in connection with some of the various pictures
+and representations of plastic art—and, frankly,
+it is not of the least consequence. The Cubists
+are entitled to the serious attention of all who find
+enjoyment in the colored puzzle-pictures of the
+Sunday newspapers. Of course there is no reason
+for choosing the cube as a symbol, except that it
+is probably less fitted than any other mathematical
+expression for any but the most formal<span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">306</span>
+decorative art. There is no reason why people
+should not call themselves Cubists, or Octagonists,
+or Parallelopipedonists, or Knights of the Isosceles
+Triangle, or Brothers of the Cosine, if they
+so desire; as expressing anything serious and permanent,
+one term is as fatuous as another. Take
+the picture which for some reason is called “A
+Naked Man Going Down Stairs.” There is in
+my bathroom a really good Navajo rug which,
+on any proper interpretation of the Cubist theory,
+is a far more satisfactory and decorative picture.
+Now, if, for some inscrutable reason, it suited
+somebody to call this rug a picture of, say, “A
+Well-Dressed Man Going Up a Ladder,” the name
+would fit the facts just about as well as in the
+case of the Cubist picture of the “Naked Man
+Going Down Stairs.” From the standpoint of terminology
+each name would have whatever merit
+inheres in a rather cheap straining after effect; and
+from the standpoint of decorative value, of sincerity,
+and of artistic merit, the Navajo rug is infinitely
+ahead of the picture.</p>
+
+<p>As for many of the human figures in the pictures
+of the Futurists, they show that the school
+would be better entitled to the name of the
+“Past-ists.” I was interested to find that a man
+of scientific attainments who had likewise looked
+at the pictures had been struck, as I was, by
+their resemblance to the later work of the palæolithic<span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">307</span>
+artists of the French and Spanish caves.
+There are interesting samples of the strivings for
+the representation of the human form among
+artists of many different countries and times, all
+in the same stage of palæolithic culture, to be
+found in a recent number of the “Revue d’Ethnographie.”
+The palæolithic artist was able to portray
+the bison, the mammoth, the reindeer, and
+the horse with spirit and success, while he still
+stumbled painfully in the effort to portray man.
+This stumbling effort in his case represented progress,
+and he was entitled to great credit for it.
+Forty thousand years later, when entered into
+artificially and deliberately, it represents only a
+smirking pose of retrogression, and is not praiseworthy.
+So with much of the sculpture. A
+family group of precisely the merit that inheres
+in a structure made of the wooden blocks in a
+nursery is not entitled to be reproduced in marble.
+Admirers speak of the kneeling female figure by
+Lehmbruck—I use “female” advisedly, for although
+obviously mammalian it is not especially
+human—as “full of lyric grace,” as “tremendously
+sincere,” and “of a jewel-like preciousness.”
+I am not competent to say whether these words
+themselves represent sincerity or merely a conventional
+jargon; it is just as easy to be conventional
+about the fantastic as about the commonplace.
+In any event one might as well speak of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">308</span>
+the “lyric grace” of a praying mantis, which
+adopts much the same attitude; and why a deformed
+pelvis should be called “sincere,” or a
+tibia of giraffe-like length “precious,” seems to a
+reasonably sane view of the pictures of Matisse
+a question of pathological rather than artistic
+significance. This figure and the absurd portrait
+head of some young lady have the merit that inheres
+in extravagant caricature. It is a merit,
+but it is not a high merit. It entitles these pieces
+to stand in sculpture where nonsense rhymes
+stand in literature and the sketches of Aubrey
+Beardsley in pictorial art. These modern sculptured
+caricatures in no way approach the gargoyles
+of Gothic cathedrals, probably because the modern
+artists are too self-conscious and make themselves
+ridiculous by pretentiousness. The makers
+of the gargoyles knew very well that the gargoyles
+did not represent what was most important in
+the Gothic cathedrals. They stood for just a little
+point of grotesque reaction against, and relief
+from, the tremendous elemental vastness and
+grandeur of the Houses of God. They were imps,
+sinister and comic, grim and yet futile, and they
+fitted admirably into the framework of the theology
+that found its expression in the towering
+and wonderful piles which they ornamented.</p>
+
+<p>Very little of the work of the extremists among
+the European “moderns” seems to be good in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">309</span>
+and for itself; nevertheless it has certainly helped
+any number of American artists to do work that
+is original and serious; and this not only in painting
+but in sculpture. I wish the exhibition had
+contained some of the work of the late Marcius
+Symonds; very few people knew or cared for it
+while he lived; but not since Turner has there
+been another man on whose canvas glowed so
+much of that unearthly “light that never was on
+land or sea.” But the exhibition contained so
+much of extraordinary merit that it is ungrateful
+even to mention an omission. To name the pictures
+one would like to possess—and the bronzes
+and tanagras and plasters—would mean to make
+a catalogue of indefinite length. One of the most
+striking pictures was the “Terminal Yards”—the
+seeing eye was there, and the cunning hand. I
+should like to mention all the pictures of the
+president of the association, Arthur B. Davies.
+As first-class decorative work of an entirely new
+type, the very unexpected pictures of Sheriff Bob
+Chandler have a merit all their own. The “Arizona
+Desert,” the “Canadian Night,” the group
+of girls on the roof of a New York tenement-house,
+the studies in the Bronx Zoo, the “Heracles,”
+the studies for the Utah monument, the little
+group called “Gossip,” which has something of
+the quality of the famous fifteenth idyl of Theocritus,
+the “Pelf,” with its grim suggestiveness—these<span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">310</span>
+and a hundred others are worthy of
+study, each of them; I am naming at random
+those which at the moment I happen to recall.
+I am not speaking of the acknowledged masters,
+of Whistler, Puvis de Chavannes, Monet; nor of
+John’s children; nor of Cézanne’s old woman with
+a rosary; nor of Redon’s marvellous color-pieces—a
+worthy critic should speak of these. All I am
+trying to do is to point out why a layman is
+grateful to those who arranged this exhibition.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter transnote">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_Notes">Transcriber’s Notes</h2>
+
+<p>Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made
+consistent when a predominant preference was found
+in the original book; otherwise they were not changed.</p>
+
+<p>Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced
+quotation marks were remedied when the change was
+obvious, and otherwise left unbalanced.</p>
+
+<p>The illustration near the front of the book is the publisher’s logo.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_219">Page 219</a>: “understanded” was printed that way.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_287">Page 287</a>: “knight errants” was printed that way.</p>
+
+<div>                                                                                                                                                                                                                           </div>
+
+</div>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75294 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
+
diff --git a/75294-h/images/cover.jpg b/75294-h/images/cover.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5204dca
--- /dev/null
+++ b/75294-h/images/cover.jpg
diff --git a/75294-h/images/i_logo.png b/75294-h/images/i_logo.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f318f76
--- /dev/null
+++ b/75294-h/images/i_logo.png
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c80eedc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #75294 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75294)