{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_75294/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_75294","id":"gutenberg_75294","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75294","summary":null,"tags":["American essays -- 20th century","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: History - Other","History -- Philosophy","Literature and history","Presidents -- United States -- Intellectual life","Presidents -- United States -- Views on history","Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919 -- Views on history","Speeches, addresses, etc., American"],"text":"Transcriber\u2019s Note: Italics are enclosed in _underscores_. Additional\nnotes will be found near the end of this ebook.\n\n\n\n\nBOOKS BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT\n\nPUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER\u2019S SONS\n\n\n  AFRICAN GAME TRAILS. An account of the African Wanderings of an\n    American Hunter-Naturalist.\n    Illustrated. Large 8vo                             $4.00 _net_\n\n  OUTDOOR PASTIMES OF AN AMERICAN HUNTER.\n    New Edition. Illustrated. 8vo                      $3.00 _net_\n\n  HISTORY AS LITERATURE and Other Essays.\n    12mo                                               $1.50 _net_\n\n  OLIVER CROMWELL. Illustrated. 8vo                    $2.00 _net_\n\n  THE ROUGH RIDERS. Illustrated. 8vo                   $1.50 _net_\n\n  THE ROOSEVELT BOOK. Selections from the Writings of Theodore\n    Roosevelt. 16mo                                 50 cents _net_\n\n         *       *       *       *       *\n\n  THE ELKHORN EDITION. Complete Works of Theodore Roosevelt. 26 volumes.\n    Illustrated. 8vo. Sold by subscription.\n\n\n\n\nHISTORY AS LITERATURE\n\nAND OTHER ESSAYS\n\n\n\n\n                         HISTORY AS LITERATURE\n                            AND OTHER ESSAYS\n\n                                   BY\n                           THEODORE ROOSEVELT\n\n                                NEW YORK\n                        CHARLES SCRIBNER\u2019S SONS\n                                  1913\n\n\n\n\n                          Copyright, 1913, by\n                        CHARLES SCRIBNER\u2019S SONS\n\n\n                       Published September, 1913\n                      Reprinted in December, 1913\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nIn this volume I have gathered certain addresses I made before the\nAmerican Historical Association, the University of Oxford, the\nUniversity of Berlin, and the Sorbonne at Paris, together with six\nessays I wrote for _The Outlook_, and one that I wrote for _The\nCentury_.\n\nIn these addresses and essays I have discussed not merely literary but\nalso historical and scientific subjects, for my thesis is that the\ndomain of literature must be ever more widely extended over the domains\nof history and science. There is nothing which in this preface I can\nsay to elaborate or emphasize what I have said on this subject in the\nessays themselves.\n\n                                                     THEODORE ROOSEVELT.\n\n  SAGAMORE HILL,\n  _July 4, 1913_.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                                PAGE\n  HISTORY AS LITERATURE                            1\n\n  BIOLOGICAL ANALOGIES IN HISTORY                 37\n\n  THE WORLD MOVEMENT                              95\n\n  CITIZENSHIP IN A REPUBLIC                      135\n\n  THE THRALDOM OF NAMES                          175\n\n  PRODUCTIVE SCHOLARSHIP                         195\n\n  DANTE AND THE BOWERY                           217\n\n  THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY      231\n\n  THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH IN A REVERENT SPIRIT      245\n\n  THE ANCIENT IRISH SAGAS                        275\n\n  AN ART EXHIBITION                              301\n\n    \u2042 Three chapters, \u201cBiological Analogies in History,\u201d \u201cThe World\n    Movement,\u201d and \u201cCitizenship in a Republic,\u201d were included in the\n    volume entitled \u201cAfrican and European Addresses.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nHISTORY AS LITERATURE\n\n\n\n\nHISTORY AS LITERATURE[1]\n\n\nThere has been much discussion as to whether history should not\nhenceforth be treated as a branch of science rather than of literature.\nAs with most such discussions, much of the matter in dispute has\nreferred merely to terminology. Moreover, as regards part of the\ndiscussion, the minds of the contestants have not met, the propositions\nadvanced by the two sides being neither mutually incompatible nor\nmutually relevant. There is, however, a real basis for conflict in so\nfar as science claims exclusive possession of the field.\n\n    [1] Annual address of the president of the American Historical\n        Association delivered at Boston, December 27, 1912.\n\nThere was a time--we see it in the marvellous dawn of Hellenic\nlife--when history was distinguished neither from poetry, from\nmythology, nor from the first dim beginnings of science. There was a\nmore recent time, at the opening of Rome\u2019s brief period of literary\nsplendor, when poetry was accepted by a great scientific philosopher\nas the appropriate vehicle for teaching the lessons of science and\nphilosophy. There was a more recent time still--the time of Holland\u2019s\nleadership in arms and arts--when one of the two or three greatest\nworld painters put his genius at the service of anatomists.\n\nIn each case the steady growth of specialization has rendered such\ncombination now impossible. Virgil left history to Livy; and when\nTacitus had become possible Lucan was a rather absurd anachronism. The\nelder Darwin, when he endeavored to combine the functions of scientist\nand poet, may have thought of Lucretius as a model; but the great\nDarwin was incapable of such a mistake. The surgeons of to-day would\nprefer the services of a good photographer to those of Rembrandt--even\nwere those of Rembrandt available. No one would now dream of combining\nthe history of the Trojan War with a poem on the wrath of Achilles.\nBeowulf\u2019s feats against the witch who dwelt under the water would not\nnow be mentioned in the same matter-of-fact way that a Frisian or\nFrankish raid is mentioned. We are long past the stage when we would\naccept as parts of the same epic Siegfried\u2019s triumphs over dwarf and\ndragon, and even a distorted memory of the historic Hunnish king in\nwhose feast-hall the Burgundian heroes held their last revel and made\ntheir death fight. We read of the loves of the Hound of Muirthemne and\nEmer the Fair without attributing to the chariot-riding heroes who\n\u201cfought over the ears of their horses\u201d and to their fierce lady-loves\nmore than a symbolic reality. The Roland of the Norman trouv\u00e8res, the\nRoland who blew the ivory horn at Roncesvalles, is to our minds wholly\ndistinct from the actual Warden of the Marches who fell in a rear-guard\nskirmish with the Pyrenean Basques.\n\nAs regards philosophy, as distinguished from material science and from\nhistory, the specialization has been incomplete. Poetry is still used\nas a vehicle for the teaching of philosophy. Goethe was as profound\na thinker as Kant. He has influenced the thought of mankind far more\ndeeply than Kant because he was also a great poet. Robert Browning\nwas a real philosopher, and his writings have had a hundredfold the\ncirculation and the effect of those of any similar philosopher who\nwrote in prose, just because, and only because, what he wrote was not\nmerely philosophy but literature. The form in which he wrote challenged\nattention and provoked admiration. That part of his work which some of\nus--which I myself, for instance--most care for is merely poetry. But\nin that part of his work which has exercised most attraction and has\ngiven him the widest reputation, the poetry, the form of expression,\nbears to the thought expressed much the same relation that the\nexpression of Lucretius bears to the thought of Lucretius. As regards\nthis, the great mass of his product, he is primarily a philosopher,\nwhose writings surpass in value those of other similar philosophers\nprecisely because they are not only philosophy but literature. In other\nwords, Browning the philosopher is read by countless thousands to whom\notherwise philosophy would be a sealed book, for exactly the same\nreason that Macaulay the historian is read by countless thousands to\nwhom otherwise history would be a sealed book; because both Browning\u2019s\nworks and Macaulay\u2019s works are material additions to the great sum\nof English literature. Philosophy is a science just as history is\na science. There is need in one case as in the other for vivid and\npowerful presentation of scientific matter in literary form.\n\nThis does not mean that there is the like need in the two cases.\nHistory can never be truthfully presented if the presentation is purely\nemotional. It can never be truthfully or usefully presented unless\nprofound research, patient, laborious, painstaking, has preceded the\npresentation. No amount of self-communion and of pondering on the soul\nof mankind, no gorgeousness of literary imagery, can take the place of\ncool, serious, widely extended study. The vision of the great historian\nmust be both wide and lofty. But it must be sane, clear, and based on\nfull knowledge of the facts and of their interrelations. Otherwise\nwe get merely a splendid bit of serious romance-writing, like\nCarlyle\u2019s \u201cFrench Revolution.\u201d Many hard-working students, alive to the\ndeficiencies of this kind of romance-writing, have grown to distrust\nnot only all historical writing that is romantic, but all historical\nwriting that is vivid. They feel that complete truthfulness must never\nbe sacrificed to color. In this they are right. They also feel that\ncomplete truthfulness is incompatible with color. In this they are\nwrong. The immense importance of full knowledge of a mass of dry facts\nand gray details has so impressed them as to make them feel that the\ndryness and the grayness are in themselves meritorious.\n\nThese students have rendered invaluable service to history. They are\nright in many of their contentions. They see how literature and science\nhave specialized. They realize that scientific methods are as necessary\nto the proper study of history as to the proper study of astronomy\nor zoology. They know that in many, perhaps in most, of its forms,\nliterary ability is divorced from the restrained devotion to the actual\nfact which is as essential to the historian as to the scientist. They\nknow that nowadays science ostentatiously disclaims any connection with\nliterature. They feel that if this is essential for science, it is no\nless essential for history.\n\nThere is much truth in all these contentions. Nevertheless, taking them\nall together, they do not indicate what these hard-working students\nbelieved that they indicate. Because history, science, and literature\nhave all become specialized, the theory now is that science is\ndefinitely severed from literature and that history must follow suit.\nNot only do I refuse to accept this as true for history, but I do not\neven accept it as true for science.\n\nLiterature may be defined as that which has permanent interest because\nboth of its substance and its form, aside from the mere technical\nvalue that inheres in a special treatise for specialists. For a great\nwork of literature there is the same demand now that there always\nhas been; and in any great work of literature the first element is\ngreat imaginative power. The imaginative power demanded for a great\nhistorian is different from that demanded for a great poet; but it is\nno less marked. Such imaginative power is in no sense incompatible with\nminute accuracy. On the contrary, very accurate, very real and vivid,\npresentation of the past can come only from one in whom the imaginative\ngift is strong. The industrious collector of dead facts bears to such\na man precisely the relation that a photographer bears to Rembrandt.\nThere are innumerable books, that is, innumerable volumes of printed\nmatter between covers, which are excellent for their own purposes, but\nin which imagination would be as wholly out of place as in the blue\nprints of a sewer system or in the photographs taken to illustrate a\nwork on comparative osteology. But the vitally necessary sewer system\ndoes not take the place of the cathedral of Rheims or of the Parthenon;\nno quantity of photographs will ever be equivalent to one Rembrandt;\nand the greatest mass of data, although indispensable to the work of a\ngreat historian, is in no shape or way a substitute for that work.\n\nHistory, taught for a directly and immediately useful purpose to pupils\nand the teachers of pupils, is one of the necessary features of a sound\neducation in democratic citizenship. A book containing such sound\nteaching, even if without any literary quality, may be as useful to the\nstudent and as creditable to the writer as a similar book on medicine.\nI am not slighting such a book when I say that, once it has achieved\nits worthy purpose, it can be permitted to lapse from human memory as a\ngood book on medicine, which has outlived its usefulness, lapses from\nmemory. But the historical work which does possess literary quality may\nbe a permanent contribution to the sum of man\u2019s wisdom, enjoyment, and\ninspiration. The writer of such a book must add wisdom to knowledge,\nand the gift of expression to the gift of imagination.\n\nIt is a shallow criticism to assert that imagination tends to\ninaccuracy. Only a distorted imagination tends to inaccuracy. Vast and\nfundamental truths can be discerned and interpreted only by one whose\nimagination is as lofty as the soul of a Hebrew prophet. When we say\nthat the great historian must be a man of imagination, we use the word\nas we use it when we say that the great statesman must be a man of\nimagination. Moreover, together with imagination must go the power of\nexpression. The great speeches of statesmen and the great writings of\nhistorians can live only if they possess the deathless quality that\ninheres in all great literature. The greatest literary historian must\nof necessity be a master of the science of history, a man who has at\nhis finger-tips all the accumulated facts from the treasure-houses of\nthe dead past. But he must also possess the power to marshal what is\ndead so that before our eyes it lives again.\n\nMany learned people seem to feel that the quality of readableness in a\nbook is one which warrants suspicion. Indeed, not a few learned people\nseem to feel that the fact that a book is interesting is proof that it\nis shallow. This is particularly apt to be the attitude of scientific\nmen. Very few great scientists have written interestingly, and these\nfew have usually felt apologetic about it. Yet sooner or later the time\nwill come when the mighty sweep of modern scientific discovery will be\nplaced, by scientific men with the gift of expression, at the service\nof intelligent and cultivated laymen. Such service will be inestimable.\nAnother writer of \u201cCanterbury Tales,\u201d another singer of \u201cParadise\nLost,\u201d could not add more to the sum of literary achievement than the\nman who may picture to us the phases of the age-long history of life on\nthis globe, or make vivid before our eyes the tremendous march of the\nworlds through space.\n\nIndeed, I believe that already science has owed more than it suspects\nto the unconscious literary power of some of its representatives.\nScientific writers of note had grasped the fact of evolution long\nbefore Darwin and Huxley; and the theories advanced by these men\nto explain evolution were not much more unsatisfactory, as full\nexplanations, than the theory of natural selection itself. Yet, where\ntheir predecessors had created hardly a ripple, Darwin and Huxley\nsucceeded in effecting a complete revolution in the thought of the age,\na revolution as great as that caused by the discovery of the truth\nabout the solar system. I believe that the chief explanation of the\ndifference was the very simple one that what Darwin and Huxley wrote\nwas interesting to read. Every cultivated man soon had their volumes\nin his library, and they still keep their places on our book-shelves.\nBut Lamarck and Cope are only to be found in the libraries of a few\nspecial students. If they had possessed a gift of expression akin to\nDarwin\u2019s, the doctrine of evolution would not in the popular mind have\nbeen confounded with the doctrine of natural selection and a juster\nestimate than at present would obtain as to the relative merits of\nthe explanations of evolution championed by the different scientific\nschools.\n\nDo not misunderstand me. In the field of historical research an\nimmense amount can be done by men who have no literary power whatever.\nMoreover, the most painstaking and laborious research, covering long\nperiods of years, is necessary in order to accumulate the material\nfor any history worth writing at all. There are important by-paths of\nhistory, moreover, which hardly admit of treatment that would make\nthem of interest to any but specialists. All this I fully admit. In\nparticular I pay high honor to the patient and truthful investigator.\nHe does an indispensable work. My claim is merely that such work should\nnot exclude the work of the great master who can use the materials\ngathered, who has the gift of vision, the quality of the seer, the\npower himself to see what has happened and to make what he has seen\nclear to the vision of others. My only protest is against those who\nbelieve that the extension of the activities of the most competent\nmason and most energetic contractor will supply the lack of great\narchitects. If, as in the Middle Ages, the journeymen builders are\nthemselves artists, why this is the best possible solution of the\nproblem. But if they are not artists, then their work, however much it\nrepresents of praiseworthy industry, and of positive usefulness, does\nnot take the place of the work of a great artist.\n\nTake a concrete example. It is only of recent years that the importance\nof inscriptions has been realized. To the present-day scholar they\nare invaluable. Even to the layman, some of them turn the past into\nthe present with startling clearness. The least imaginative is moved\nby the simple inscription on the Etruscan sarcophagus: \u201cI, the great\nlady\u201d; a lady so haughty that no other human being was allowed to rest\nnear her; and yet now nothing remains but this proof of the pride of\nthe nameless one. Or the inscription in which Queen Hatshepsu recounts\nher feats and her magnificence, and ends by adjuring the onlooker,\nwhen overcome by the recital, not to say \u201chow wonderful\u201d but \u201chow like\nher!\u201d--could any picture of a living queen be more intimately vivid?\nWith such inscriptions before us the wonder is that it took us so long\nto realize their worth. Not unnaturally this realization, when it did\ncome, was followed by the belief that inscriptions would enable us to\ndispense with the great historians of antiquity. This error is worse\nthan the former. Where the inscriptions give us light on what would\notherwise be darkness, we must be profoundly grateful; but we must not\nconfound the lesser light with the greater. We could better afford to\nlose every Greek inscription that has ever been found than the chapter\nin which Thucydides tells of the Athenian failure before Syracuse.\nIndeed, few inscriptions teach us as much history as certain forms of\nliterature that do not consciously aim at teaching history at all. The\ninscriptions of Hellenistic Greece in the third century before our era\ndo not, all told, give us so lifelike a view of the ordinary life of\nthe ordinary men and women who dwelt in the great Hellenistic cities of\nthe time, as does the fifteenth idyl of Theocritus.\n\nThis does not mean that good history can be unscientific. So far from\nignoring science, the great historian of the future can do nothing\nunless he is steeped in science. He can never equal what has been done\nby the great historians of the past unless he writes not merely with\nfull knowledge, but with an intensely vivid consciousness, of all that\nof which they were necessarily ignorant. He must accept what we now\nknow to be man\u2019s place in nature. He must realize that man has been\non this earth for a period of such incalculable length that, from the\nstandpoint of the student of his development through time, what our\nancestors used to call \u201cantiquity\u201d is almost indistinguishable from the\npresent day. If our conception of history takes in the beast-like man\nwhose sole tool and weapon was the stone fist-hatchet, and his advanced\nsuccessors, the man who etched on bone pictures of the mammoth, the\nreindeer, and the wild horse, in what is now France, and the man who\npainted pictures of bison in the burial caves of what is now Spain;\nif we also conceive in their true position our \u201ccontemporaneous\nancestors,\u201d the savages who are now no more advanced than the\ncave-dwellers of a hundred thousand or two hundred thousand years\nback, then we shall accept Thothmes and C\u00e6sar, Alfred and Washington,\nTimoleon and Lincoln, Homer and Shakespeare, Pythagoras and Emerson, as\nall nearly contemporaneous in time and in culture.\n\nThe great historian of the future will have easy access to innumerable\nfacts patiently gathered by tens of thousands of investigators, whereas\nthe great historian of the past had very few facts, and often had to\ngather most of these himself. The great historian of the future can not\nbe excused if he fails to draw on the vast storehouses of knowledge\nthat have been accumulated, if he fails to profit by the wisdom and\nwork of other men, which are now the common property of all intelligent\nmen. He must use the instruments which the historians of the past did\nnot have ready to hand. Yet even with these instruments he can not do\nas good work as the best of the elder historians unless he has vision\nand imagination, the power to grasp what is essential and to reject the\ninfinitely more numerous non-essentials, the power to embody ghosts, to\nput flesh and blood on dry bones, to make dead men living before our\neyes. In short, he must have the power to take the science of history\nand turn it into literature.\n\nThose who wish history to be treated as a purely utilitarian science\noften decry the recital of the mighty deeds of the past, the deeds\nwhich always have aroused, and for a long period to come are likely\nto arouse, most interest. These men say that we should study not the\nunusual but the usual. They say that we profit most by laborious\nresearch into the drab monotony of the ordinary, rather than by\nfixing our eyes on the purple patches that break it. Beyond all\nquestion the great historian of the future must keep ever in mind\nthe relative importance of the usual and the unusual. If he is a\nreally great historian, if he possesses the highest imaginative and\nliterary quality, he will be able to interest us in the gray tints of\nthe general landscape no less than in the flame hues of the jutting\npeaks. It is even more essential to have such quality in writing of the\ncommonplace than in writing of the exceptional. Otherwise no profit\nwill come from study of the ordinary; for writings are useless unless\nthey are read, and they can not be read unless they are readable.\nFurthermore, while doing full justice to the importance of the usual,\nof the commonplace, the great historian will not lose sight of the\nimportance of the heroic.\n\nIt is hard to tell just what it is that is most important to know. The\nwisdom of one generation may seem the folly of the next. This is just\nas true of the wisdom of the dry-as-dusts as of the wisdom of those who\nwrite interestingly. Moreover, while the value of the by-products of\nknowledge does not readily yield itself to quantitative expression, it\nis none the less real. A utilitarian education should undoubtedly be\nthe foundation of all education. But it is far from advisable, it is\nfar from wise, to have it the end of all education. Technical training\nwill more and more be accepted as the prime factor in our educational\nsystem, a factor as essential for the farmer, the blacksmith, the\nseamstress, and the cook, as for the lawyer, the doctor, the engineer,\nand the stenographer. For similar reasons the purely practical and\ntechnical lessons of history, the lessons that help us to grapple\nwith our immediate social and industrial problems, will also receive\ngreater emphasis than ever before. But if we are wise we will no\nmore permit this practical training to exclude knowledge of that\npart of literature which is history than of that part of literature\nwhich is poetry. Side by side with the need for the perfection of the\nindividual in the technic of his special calling goes the need of broad\nhuman sympathy, and the need of lofty and generous emotion in that\nindividual. Only thus can the citizenship of the modern state rise\nlevel to the complex modern social needs.\n\nNo technical training, no narrowly utilitarian study of any kind will\nmeet this second class of needs. In part they can best be met by a\ntraining that will fit men and women to appreciate, and therefore to\nprofit by, great poetry and those great expressions of the historian\nand the statesman which rivet our interest and stir our souls. Great\nthoughts match and inspire heroic deeds. The same reasons that make the\nGettysburg speech and the Second Inaugural impress themselves on men\u2019s\nminds far more deeply than technical treatises on the constitutional\njustification of slavery or of secession, apply to fitting descriptions\nof the great battle and the great contest which occasioned the two\nspeeches. The tense epic of the Gettysburg fight, the larger epic of\nthe whole Civil War, when truthfully and vividly portrayed, will always\nhave, and ought always to have, an attraction, an interest, that can\nnot be roused by the description of the same number of hours or years\nof ordinary existence. There are supreme moments in which intensity\nand not duration is the all-important element. History which is not\nprofessedly utilitarian, history which is didactic only as great\npoetry is unconsciously didactic, may yet possess that highest form\nof usefulness, the power to thrill the souls of men with stories of\nstrength and craft and daring, and to lift them out of their common\nselves to the heights of high endeavor.\n\nThe greatest historian should also be a great moralist. It is no\nproof of impartiality to treat wickedness and goodness as on the\nsame level. But of course the obsession of purposeful moral teaching\nmay utterly defeat its own aim. Moreover, unfortunately, the avowed\nteacher of morality, when he writes history, sometimes goes very far\nwrong indeed. It often happens that the man who can be of real help in\ninspiring others by his utterances on abstract principles is wholly\nunable to apply his own principles to concrete cases. Carlyle offers\nan instance in point. Very few men have ever been a greater source of\ninspiration to other ardent souls than was Carlyle when he confined\nhimself to preaching morality in the abstract. Moreover, his theory\nbade him treat history as offering material to support that theory.\nBut not only was he utterly unable to distinguish either great virtues\nor great vices when he looked abroad on contemporary life--as witness\nhis attitude toward our own Civil War--but he was utterly unable to\napply his own principles concretely in history. His \u201cFrederick the\nGreat\u201d is literature of a high order. It may, with reservations, even\nbe accepted as history. But the \u201cmorality\u201d therein jubilantly upheld\nis shocking to any man who takes seriously Carlyle\u2019s other writings\nin which he lays down principles of conduct. In his \u201cFrederick the\nGreat\u201d he was not content to tell the facts. He was not content to\nannounce his admiration. He wished to square himself with his theories,\nand to reconcile what he admired, both with the actual fact and with\nhis previously expressed convictions on morality. He could only do so\nby refusing to face the facts and by using words with meanings that\nshifted to meet his own mental emergencies. He pretended to discern\nmorality where no vestige of it existed. He tortured the facts to\nsupport his views. The \u201cmorality\u201d he praised had no connection with\nmorality as understood in the New Testament. It was the kind of archaic\nmorality observed by the Danites in their dealings with the people of\nLaish. The sermon of the Mormon bishop in Owen Wister\u2019s \u201cPilgrim on\nthe Gila\u201d sets forth the only moral lessons which it was possible for\nCarlyle truthfully to draw from the successes he described.\n\nHistory must not be treated as something set off by itself. It should\nnot be treated as a branch of learning bound to the past by the\nshackles of an iron conservatism. It is neither necessary rigidly to\nmark the limits of the province of history, nor to treat of all that is\nwithin that province, nor to exclude any subject within that province\nfrom treatment, nor yet to treat different methods of dealing with the\nsame subject as mutually exclusive. Every writer and every reader has\nhis own needs, to meet himself or to be met by others. Among a great\nmultitude of thoughtful people there is room for the widest possible\nvariety of appeals. Let each man fearlessly choose what is of real\nimportance and interest to him personally, reverencing authority, but\nnot in a superstitious spirit, because he must needs reverence liberty\neven more.\n\nThere is an infinite variety of subjects to treat, and no need to\nestimate their relative importance. Because one man is interested in\nthe history of finance, it does not mean that another is wrong in being\ninterested in the history of war. One man\u2019s need is met by exhaustive\ntables of statistics; another\u2019s by the study of the influence exerted\non national life by the great orators, the Websters and Burkes, or\nby the poets, the Tyrt\u00e6uses and K\u00f6rners, who in crises utter what is\nin the nation\u2019s heart. There is need of the study of the historical\nworkings of representative government. There is no less need of the\nstudy of the economic changes produced by the factory system. Because\nwe study with profit what Thorold Rogers wrote of prices we are not\ndebarred from also profiting by Mahan\u2019s studies of naval strategy.\nOne man finds what is of most importance to his own mind and heart\nin tracing the effect upon humanity of the spread of malaria along\nthe shores of the \u00c6gean; or the effect of the Black Death on the\nlabor-market of medi\u00e6val Europe; or the profound influence upon the\ndevelopment of the African continent of the fatal diseases borne by\nthe bites of insects, which close some districts to human life and\nothers to the beasts without which humanity rests at the lowest stage\nof savagery. One man sees the events from one view-point, one from\nanother. Yet another can combine both. We can be stirred by Thayer\u2019s\nstudy of Cavour without abating our pleasure in the younger Trevelyan\u2019s\nvolumes on Garibaldi. Because we revel in Froissart, or Joinville, or\nVillehardouin, there is no need that we should lack interest in the\nbooks that attempt the more difficult task of tracing the economic\nchanges in the status of peasant, mechanic, and burgher during the\nthirteenth and fourteenth centuries.\n\nHistory must welcome the entrance upon its domain of every science. As\nJames Harvey Robinson in his \u201cNew History\u201d has said:\n\n\u201cThe bounds of all departments of human research and speculation\nare inherently provisional, indefinite, and fluctuating; moreover,\nthe lines of demarcation are hopelessly interlaced, for real men\nand the real universe in which they live are so intricate as to\ndefy all attempts even of the most patient and subtle German to\nestablish satisfactorily and permanently the _Begriff und Wesen_ of\nany artificially delimited set of natural phenomena, whether words,\nthoughts, deeds, forces, animals, plants, or stars. Each so-called\nscience or discipline is ever and always dependent on other sciences\nand disciplines. It draws its life from them, and to them it owes,\nconsciously or unconsciously, a great part of its chances of progress.\u201d\n\nElsewhere this writer dwells on the need of understanding the genetic\nside of history, if we are to grasp the real meaning of, and grapple\nmost effectively with, the phenomena of our present-day lives; for that\nwhich is can be dealt with best if we realize at least in part from\nwhat a tangled web of causation it has sprung.\n\nThe work of the arch\u00e6ologist, the work of the anthropologist, the work\nof the pal\u00e6o-ethnologist--out of all these a great literary historian\nmay gather material indispensable for his use. He, and we, ought fully\nto acknowledge our debt to the collectors of these indispensable\nfacts. The investigator in any line may do work which puts us all\nunder lasting obligations to him, even though he be totally deficient\nin the art of literary expression, that is, totally deficient in the\nability to convey vivid and lifelike pictures to others of the past\nwhose secrets he has laid bare. I would give no scanty or grudging\nacknowledgment to the deeds of such a man. He does a lasting service;\nwhereas the man who tries to make literary expression cover his\nignorance or misreading of facts renders less than no service. But the\nservice done is immeasurably increased in value when the man arises who\nfrom his study of a myriad dead fragments is able to paint some living\npicture of the past.\n\nThis is why the record as great writers preserve it has a value\nimmeasurably beyond what is merely lifeless. Such a record pulses with\nimmortal life. It may recount the deed or the thought of a hero at some\nsupreme moment. It may be merely the portrayal of homely every-day\nlife. This matters not, so long as in either event the genius of the\nhistorian enables him to paint in colors that do not fade. The cry of\nthe Ten Thousand when they first saw the sea still stirs the hearts\nof men. The ruthless death scene between Jehu and Jezebel; wicked\nAhab, smitten by the chance arrow, and propped in his chariot until\nhe died at sundown; Josiah, losing his life because he would not heed\nthe Pharaoh\u2019s solemn warning, and mourned by all the singing men and\nall the singing women--the fates of these kings and of this king\u2019s\ndaughter, are part of the common stock of knowledge of mankind. They\nwere petty rulers of petty principalities; yet, compared with them,\nmighty conquerors, who added empire to empire, Shalmaneser and Sargon,\nAmenhotep and Rameses, are but shadows; for the deeds and the deaths\nof the kings of Judah and Israel are written in words that, once read,\ncan not be forgotten. The Peloponnesian War bulks of unreal size to-day\nbecause it once seemed thus to bulk to a master mind. Only a great\nhistorian can fittingly deal with a very great subject; yet because the\nqualities of chief interest in human history can be shown on a small\nfield no less than on a large one, some of the greatest historians have\ntreated subjects that only their own genius rendered great.\n\nSo true is this that if great events lack a great historian, and a\ngreat poet writes about them, it is the poet who fixes them in the mind\nof mankind, so that in after-time importance the real has become the\nshadow and the shadow the reality. Shakespeare has definitely fixed\nthe character of the Richard III of whom ordinary men think and speak.\nKeats forgot even the right name of the man who first saw the Pacific\nOcean; yet it is his lines which leap to our minds when we think of the\n\u201cwild surmise\u201d felt by the indomitable explorer-conqueror from Spain\nwhen the vast new sea burst on his vision.\n\nWhen, however, the great historian has spoken, his work will never be\nundone. No poet can ever supersede what Napier wrote of the storming\nof Badajoz, of the British infantry at Albuera, and of the light\nartillery at Fuentes d\u2019O\u00f1oro. After Parkman had written of Montcalm and\nWolfe there was left for other writers only what Fitzgerald left for\nother translators of Omar Khayyam. Much new light has been thrown on\nthe history of the Byzantine Empire by the many men who have studied\nit of recent years; we read each new writer with pleasure and profit;\nand after reading each we take down a volume of Gibbon, with renewed\nthankfulness that a great writer was moved to do a great task.\n\nThe greatest of future arch\u00e6ologists will be the great historian who\ninstead of being a mere antiquarian delver in dust-heaps has the genius\nto reconstruct for us the immense panorama of the past. He must possess\nknowledge. He must possess that without which knowledge is of so little\nuse, wisdom. What he brings from the charnel-house he must use with\nsuch potent wizardry that we shall see the life that was and not the\ndeath that is. For remember that the past was life just as much as the\npresent is life. Whether it be Egypt, or Mesopotamia, or Scandinavia\nwith which he deals, the great historian, if the facts permit him,\nwill put before us the men and women as they actually lived so that\nwe shall recognize them for what they were, living beings. Men like\nMaspero, Breasted, and Weigall have already begun this work for the\ncountries of the Nile and the Euphrates. For Scandinavia the groundwork\nwas laid long ago in the \u201cHeimskringla\u201d and in such sagas as those of\nBurnt Njal and Gisli Soursop. Minute descriptions of mummies and of\nthe furniture of tombs help us as little to understand the Egypt of\nthe mighty days, as to sit inside the tomb of Mount Vernon would help\nus to see Washington the soldier leading to battle his scarred and\ntattered veterans, or Washington the statesman, by his serene strength\nof character, rendering it possible for his countrymen to establish\nthemselves as one great nation.\n\nThe great historian must be able to paint for us the life of the plain\npeople, the ordinary men and women, of the time of which he writes.\nHe can do this only if he possesses the highest kind of imagination.\nCollections of figures no more give us a picture of the past than the\nreading of a tariff report on hides or woollens gives us an idea of\nthe actual lives of the men and women who live on ranches or work in\nfactories. The great historian will in as full measure as possible\npresent to us the every-day life of the men and women of the age which\nhe describes. Nothing that tells of this life will come amiss to him.\nThe instruments of their labor and the weapons of their warfare, the\nwills that they wrote, the bargains that they made, and the songs that\nthey sang when they feasted and made love: he must use them all. He\nmust tell us of the toil of the ordinary man in ordinary times, and of\nthe play by which that ordinary toil was broken. He must never forget\nthat no event stands out entirely isolated. He must trace from its\nobscure and humble beginnings each of the movements that in its hour of\ntriumph has shaken the world.\n\nYet he must not forget that the times that are extraordinary\nneed especial portrayal. In the revolt against the old tendency\nof historians to deal exclusively with the spectacular and the\nexceptional, to treat only of war and oratory and government, many\nmodern writers have gone to the opposite extreme. They fail to realize\nthat in the lives of nations as in the lives of men there are hours so\nfraught with weighty achievement, with triumph or defeat, with joy or\nsorrow, that each such hour may determine all the years that are to\ncome thereafter, or may outweigh all the years that have gone before.\nIn the writings of our historians, as in the lives of our ordinary\ncitizens, we can neither afford to forget that it is the ordinary\nevery-day life which counts most; nor yet that seasons come when\nordinary qualities count for but little in the face of great contending\nforces of good and of evil, the outcome of whose strife determines\nwhether the nation shall walk in the glory of the morning or in the\ngloom of spiritual death.\n\nThe historian must deal with the days of common things, and deal with\nthem so that they shall interest us in reading of them as our own\ncommon things interest us as we live among them. He must trace the\nchanges that come almost unseen, the slow and gradual growth that\ntransforms for good or for evil the children and grandchildren so that\nthey stand high above or far below the level on which their forefathers\nstood. He must also trace the great cataclysms that interrupt and\ndivert this gradual development. He can no more afford to be blind to\none class of phenomena than to the other. He must ever remember that\nwhile the worst offence of which he can be guilty is to write vividly\nand inaccurately, yet that unless he writes vividly he can not write\ntruthfully; for no amount of dull, painstaking detail will sum up as\nthe whole truth unless the genius is there to paint the truth.\n\nThere can be no better illustration of what I mean than is afforded by\nthe history of Russia during the last thousand years. The historian\nmust trace the growth of the earliest Slav communities of the forest\nand the steppe, the infiltration of Scandinavian invaders who gave them\ntheir first power of mass action, and the slow, chaotic development\nof the little communes into barbarous cities and savage princedoms.\nIn later Russian history he must show us priest and noble, merchant\nand serf, changing slowly from the days when Ivan the Terrible warred\nagainst B\u00e1tory, the Magyar king of Poland, until the present moment,\nwhen with half-suspicious eyes the people of the Czar watch their\nremote Bulgarian kinsmen standing before the last European stronghold\nof the Turk. During all these centuries there were multitudes of\nwars, foreign and domestic, any or all of which were of little moment\ncompared to the slow working of the various forces that wrought in\nthe times of peace. But there was one period of storm and overthrow\nso terrible that it affected profoundly for all time the whole growth\nof the Russian people, in inmost character no less than in external\ndominion. Early in the thirteenth century the genius of Jenghiz Khan\nstirred the Mongol horsemen of the mid-Asian pastures to a movement as\nterrible to civilization as the lava flow of a volcano to the lands\naround the volcano\u2019s foot. When that century opened, the Mongols were\nof no more weight in the world than the Touaregs of the Sahara are\nto-day. Long before the century had closed they had ridden from the\nYellow Sea to the Adriatic and the Persian Gulf. They had crushed\nChristian and Moslem and Buddhist alike beneath the iron cruelty of\ntheir sway. They had conquered China as their successors conquered\nIndia. They sacked Baghdad, the seat of the Caliph. In mid-Europe their\npresence for a moment caused the same horror to fall on the warring\nadherents of the Pope and the Kaiser. To Europe they were a scourge so\nfrightful, so irresistible, that the people cowered before them as if\nthey had been demons. No European army of that day, of any nation, was\nable to look them in the face on a stricken field. Bestial in their\nlives, irresistible in battle, merciless in victory, they trampled the\nlands over which they rode into bloody mire beneath the hoofs of their\nhorses. The squat, slit-eyed, brawny horse-bowmen drew a red furrow\nacross Hungary, devastated Poland, and in Silesia overthrew the banded\nchivalry of Germany. But it was in Russia that they did their worst.\nThey not merely conquered Russia, but held the Russians as cowering\nand abject serfs for two centuries. Every feeble effort at resistance\nwas visited with such bloodthirsty vengeance that finally no Russian\nventured ever to oppose them at all. But the princes of the cities soon\nfound that the beast-like fury of the conquerors when their own desires\nwere thwarted, was only equalled by their beast-like indifference to\nall that was done among the conquered people themselves, and that they\nwere ever ready to hire themselves out to aid each Russian against his\nbrother. Under this r\u00e9gime the Russian who rose was the Russian who\nwith cringing servility to his Tartar overlords combined ferocious and\nconscienceless greed in the treatment of his fellow Russians. Moscow\ncame to the front by using the Tartar to help conquer the other Russian\ncities, paying as a price abject obedience to all Tartar demands. In\nthe long run the fierce and pliant cunning of the conquered people\nproved too much for the short-sighted and arrogant brutality of the\nconquerors. The Tartar power, the Mongolian power, waned. Russia became\nunited, threw off the yoke, and herself began a career of aggression\nat the expense of her former conquerors. But the reconquest of racial\nindependence, vitally necessary though it was to Russia, had been paid\nfor by the establishment of a despotism Asiatic rather than European in\nits spirit and working.\n\nThe true historian will bring the past before our eyes as if it were\nthe present. He will make us see as living men the hard-faced archers\nof Agincourt, and the war-worn spearmen who followed Alexander down\nbeyond the rim of the known world. We shall hear grate on the coast\nof Britain the keels of the Low-Dutch sea-thieves whose children\u2019s\nchildren were to inherit unknown continents. We shall thrill to the\ntriumphs of Hannibal. Gorgeous in our sight will rise the splendor\nof dead cities, and the might of the elder empires of which the very\nruins crumbled to dust ages ago. Along ancient trade-routes, across\nthe world\u2019s waste spaces, the caravans shall move; and the admirals of\nuncharted seas shall furrow the oceans with their lonely prows. Beyond\nthe dim centuries we shall see the banners float above armed hosts. We\nshall see conquerors riding forward to victories that have changed the\ncourse of time. We shall listen to the prophecies of forgotten seers.\nOurs shall be the dreams of dreamers who dreamed greatly, who saw in\ntheir vision peaks so lofty that never yet have they been reached by\nthe sons and daughters of men. Dead poets shall sing to us the deeds\nof men of might and the love and the beauty of women. We shall see\nthe dancing girls of Memphis. The scent of the flowers in the Hanging\nGardens of Babylon will be heavy to our senses. We shall sit at feast\nwith the kings of Nineveh when they drink from ivory and gold. With\nQueen Maeve in her sun-parlor we shall watch the nearing chariots of\nthe champions. For us the war-horns of King Olaf shall wail across the\nflood, and the harps sound high at festivals in forgotten halls. The\nfrowning strongholds of the barons of old shall rise before us, and\nthe white palace-castles from whose windows Syrian princes once looked\nacross the blue \u00c6gean. We shall know the valor of the two-sworded\nSamurai. Ours shall be the hoary wisdom and the strange, crooked folly\nof the immemorial civilizations which tottered to a living death in\nIndia and in China. We shall see the terrible horsemen of Timur the\nLame ride over the roof of the world; we shall hear the drums beat as\nthe armies of Gustavus and Frederick and Napoleon drive forward to\nvictory. Ours shall be the woe of burgher and peasant, and ours the\nstern joy when freemen triumph and justice comes to her own. The agony\nof the galley-slaves shall be ours, and the rejoicing when the wicked\nare brought low and the men of evil days have their reward. We shall\nsee the glory of triumphant violence, and the revel of those who do\nwrong in high places; and the broken-hearted despair that lies beneath\nthe glory and the revel. We shall also see the supreme righteousness\nof the wars for freedom and justice, and know that the men who fell in\nthese wars made all mankind their debtors.\n\nSome day the historians will tell us of these things. Some day, too,\nthey will tell our children of the age and the land in which we now\nlive. They will portray the conquest of the continent. They will show\nthe slow beginnings of settlement, the growth of the fishing and\ntrading towns on the seacoast, the hesitating early ventures into the\nIndian-haunted forest. Then they will show the backwoodsmen, with their\nlong rifles and their light axes, making their way with labor and peril\nthrough the wooded wilderness to the Mississippi; and then the endless\nmarch of the white-topped wagon-trains across plain and mountain to the\ncoast of the greatest of the five great oceans. They will show how the\nland which the pioneers won slowly and with incredible hardship was\nfilled in two generations by the overflow from the countries of western\nand central Europe. The portentous growth of the cities will be shown,\nand the change from a nation of farmers to a nation of business men and\nartisans, and all the far-reaching consequences of the rise of the new\nindustrialism. The formation of a new ethnic type in this melting-pot\nof the nations will be told. The hard materialism of our age will\nappear, and also the strange capacity for lofty idealism which must\nbe reckoned with by all who would understand the American character.\nA people whose heroes are Washington and Lincoln, a peaceful people\nwho fought to a finish one of the bloodiest of wars, waged solely for\nthe sake of a great principle and a noble idea, surely possess an\nemergency-standard far above mere money-getting.\n\nThose who tell the Americans of the future what the Americans of\nto-day and of yesterday have done, will perforce tell much that is\nunpleasant. This is but saying that they will describe the arch-typical\ncivilization of this age. Nevertheless, when the tale is finally told,\nI believe that it will show that the forces working for good in our\nnational life outweigh the forces working for evil, and that, with many\nblunders and shortcomings, with much halting and turning aside from the\npath, we shall yet in the end prove our faith by our works, and show in\nour lives our belief that righteousness exalteth a nation.\n\n\n\n\nBIOLOGICAL ANALOGIES IN HISTORY\n\n\n\n\nBIOLOGICAL ANALOGIES IN HISTORY[2]\n\n\nAn American who, in response to such an invitation as I have received,\nspeaks in this university of ancient renown, can not but feel with\npeculiar vividness the interest and charm of his surroundings, fraught\nas they are with a thousand associations. Your great universities, and\nall the memories that make them great, are living realities in the\nminds of scores of thousands of men who have never seen them and who\ndwell across the seas in other lands. Moreover, these associations\nare no stronger in the men of English stock than in those who are\nnot. My people have been for eight generations in America; but in one\nthing I am like the Americans of to-morrow, rather than like many of\nthe Americans of to-day; for I have in my veins the blood of men who\ncame from many different European races. The ethnic make-up of our\npeople is slowly changing, so that constantly the race tends to become\nmore and more akin to that of those Americans who like myself are\nof the old stock but not mainly of English stock. Yet I think that,\nas time goes by, mutual respect, understanding, and sympathy among\nthe English-speaking peoples grow greater and not less. Any of my\nancestors, Hollander or Huguenot, Scotchman or Irishman, who had come\nto Oxford in \u201cthe spacious days of great Elizabeth,\u201d would have felt\nfar more alien than I, their descendant, now feel. Common heirship in\nthe things of the spirit makes a closer bond than common heirship in\nthe things of the body.\n\n    [2] Delivered at Oxford, June 7, 1910. This was the Romanes\n        Lecture for 1910, and has been published by the Oxford\n        University Press, with whose permission it is included in\n        this volume.\n\nMore than ever before in the world\u2019s history we of to-day seek to\npenetrate the causes of the mysteries that surround not only mankind\nbut all life, both in the present and the past. We search, we peer, we\nsee things dimly; here and there we get a ray of clear vision, as we\nlook before and after. We study the tremendous procession of the ages,\nfrom the immemorial past when in \u201ccramp elf and saurian forms\u201d the\ncreative forces \u201cswathed their too-much power,\u201d down to the yesterday,\na few score thousand years distant only, when the history of man became\nthe overwhelming fact in the history of life on this planet; and\nstudying we see strange analogies in the phenomena of life and death,\nof birth, growth, and change, between those physical groups of animal\nlife which we designate as species, forms, races, and the highly\ncomplex and composite entities which rise before our minds when we\nspeak of nations and civilizations.\n\nIt is this study which has given science its present-day prominence.\nIn the world of intellect, doubtless, the most marked features in the\nhistory of the past century have been the extraordinary advances in\nscientific knowledge and investigation, and in the position held by the\nmen of science with reference to those engaged in other pursuits. I\nam not now speaking of applied science; of the science, for instance,\nwhich, having revolutionized transportation on the earth and the\nwater, is now on the brink of carrying it into the air; of the science\nthat finds its expression in such extraordinary achievements as the\ntelephone and the telegraph; of the sciences which have so accelerated\nthe velocity of movement in social and industrial conditions--for\nthe changes in the mechanical appliances of ordinary life during the\nlast three generations have been greater than in all the preceding\ngenerations since history dawned. I speak of the science which has\nno more direct bearing upon the affairs of our every-day life than\nliterature or music, painting or sculpture, poetry or history. A\nhundred years ago the ordinary man of cultivation had to know something\nof these last subjects; but the probabilities were rather against his\nhaving any but the most superficial scientific knowledge. At present\nall this has changed, thanks to the interest taken in scientific\ndiscoveries, the large circulation of scientific books, and the\nrapidity with which ideas originating among students of the most\nadvanced and abstruse sciences become, at least partially, domiciled in\nthe popular mind.\n\nAnother feature of the change, of the growth in the position of\nscience in the eyes of every one, and of the greatly increased respect\nnaturally resulting for scientific methods, has been a certain\ntendency for scientific students to encroach on other fields. This\nis particularly true of the field of historical study. Not only have\nscientific men insisted upon the necessity of considering the history\nof man, especially in its early stages, in connection with what biology\nshows to be the history of life, but furthermore there has arisen\na demand that history shall itself be treated as a science. Both\npositions are in their essence right; but as regards each position, the\nmore arrogant among the invaders of the new realm of knowledge take an\nattitude to which it is not necessary to assent. As regards the latter\nof the two positions, that which would treat history henceforth merely\nas one branch of scientific study, we must of course cordially agree\nthat accuracy in recording facts and appreciation of their relative\nworth and interrelationship are just as necessary in historical\nstudy as in any other kind of study. The fact that a book, though\ninteresting, is untrue, of course removes it at once from the category\nof history, however much it may still deserve to retain a place in the\nalways desirable group of volumes which deal with entertaining fiction.\nBut the converse also holds, at least to the extent of permitting us to\ninsist upon what would seem to be the elementary fact that a book which\nis written to be read should be readable. This rather obvious truth\nseems to have been forgotten by some of the more zealous scientific\nhistorians, who apparently hold that the worth of a historical book\nis directly in proportion to the impossibility of reading it, save as\na painful duty. Now I am willing that history shall be treated as a\nbranch of science, but only on condition that it also remains a branch\nof literature; and, furthermore, I believe that as the field of science\nencroaches on the field of literature there should be a corresponding\nencroachment of literature upon science; and I hold that one of the\ngreat needs, which can only be met by very able men whose culture is\nbroad enough to include literature as well as science, is the need of\nbooks for scientific laymen. We need a literature of science which\nshall be readable. So far from doing away with the school of great\nhistorians, the school of Polybius and Tacitus, Gibbon and Macaulay,\nwe need merely that the future writers of history, without losing the\nqualities which have made these men great, shall also utilize the\nnew facts and new methods which science has put at their disposal.\nDryness is not in itself a measure of value. No \u201cscientific\u201d treatise\nabout St. Louis will displace Joinville, for the very reason that\nJoinville\u2019s place is in both history and literature; no minute study\nof the Napoleonic wars will teach us more than Marbot--and Marbot is\nas interesting as Walter Scott. Moreover, certain at least of the\nbranches of science should likewise be treated by masters in the art of\npresentment, so that the layman interested in science, no less than the\nlayman interested in history, shall have on his shelves classics which\ncan be read. Whether this wish be or be not capable of realization,\nit assuredly remains true that the great historian of the future must\nessentially represent the ideal striven after by the great historians\nof the past. The industrious collector of facts occupies an honorable,\nbut not an exalted, position, and the scientific historian who produces\nbooks which are not literature must rest content with the honor,\nsubstantial, but not of the highest type, that belongs to him who\ngathers material which some time some great master shall arise to use.\n\nYet, while freely conceding all that can be said of the masters of\nliterature, we must insist upon the historian of mankind working in the\nscientific spirit, and using the treasure-houses of science. He who\nwould fully treat of man must know at least something of biology, of\nthe science that treats of living, breathing things; and especially of\nthat science of evolution which is inseparably connected with the great\nname of Darwin. Of course, there is no exact parallelism between the\nbirth, growth, and death of species in the animal world, and the birth,\ngrowth, and death of societies in the world of man. Yet there is a\ncertain parallelism. There are strange analogies; it may be that there\nare homologies.\n\nHow far the resemblances between the two sets of phenomena are\nmore than accidental, how far biology can be used as an aid in the\ninterpretation of human history, we can not at present say. The\nhistorian should never forget, what the highest type of scientific man\nis always teaching us to remember, that willingness to admit ignorance\nis a prime factor in developing wisdom out of knowledge. Wisdom is\nadvanced by research which enables us to add to knowledge; and,\nmoreover, the way for wisdom is made ready when men who record facts of\nvast but unknown import, if asked to explain their full significance,\nare willing frankly to answer that they do not know. The research which\nenables us to add to the sum of complete knowledge stands first;\nbut second only stands the research which, while enabling us clearly\nto pose the problem, also requires us to say that with our present\nknowledge we can offer no complete solution.\n\nLet me illustrate what I mean by an instance or two taken from one of\nthe most fascinating branches of world-history, the history of the\nhigher forms of life, of mammalian life, on this globe.\n\nGeologists and astronomers are not agreed as to the length of time\nnecessary for the changes that have taken place. At any rate, many\nhundreds of thousands of years, some millions of years, have passed\nby since in the eocene, at the beginning of the tertiary period, we\nfind the traces of an abundant, varied, and highly developed mammalian\nlife on the land masses out of which have grown the continents as\nwe see them to-day. The ages swept by, until, with the advent of\nman substantially in the physical shape in which we now know him,\nwe also find a mammalian fauna not essentially different in kind,\nthough widely differing in distribution, from that of the present day.\nThroughout this immense period form succeeds form, type succeeds type,\nin obedience to laws of evolution, of progress and retrogression, of\ndevelopment and death, which we as yet understand only in the most\nimperfect manner. As knowledge increases our wisdom is often turned\ninto foolishness, and many of the phenomena of evolution which seemed\nclearly explicable to the learned master of science who founded these\nlectures, to us nowadays seem far less satisfactorily explained. The\nscientific men of most note now differ widely in their estimates of the\nrelative parts played in evolution by natural selection, by mutation,\nby the inheritance of acquired characteristics; and we study their\nwritings with a growing impression that there are forces at work which\nour blinded eyes wholly fail to apprehend; and where this is the case\nthe part of wisdom is to say that we believe we have such and such\npartial explanations, but that we are not warranted in saying that we\nhave the whole explanation. In tracing the history of the development\nof faunal life during this period, the age of mammals, there are some\nfacts which are clearly established, some great and sweeping changes\nfor which we can with certainty ascribe reasons. There are other facts\nas to which we grope in the dark, and vast changes, vast catastrophes,\nof which we can give no adequate explanation.\n\nBefore illustrating these types, let us settle one or two matters of\nterminology. In the changes, the development and extinction, of species\nwe must remember that such expressions as \u201ca new species,\u201d or as \u201ca\nspecies becoming extinct,\u201d are each commonly and indiscriminately\nused to express totally different and opposite meanings. Of course\nthe \u201cnew\u201d species is not new in the sense that its ancestors appeared\nlater on the globe\u2019s surface than those of any old species tottering to\nextinction. Phylogenetically, each animal now living must necessarily\ntrace its ancestral descent back through countless generations, through\neons of time, to the early stages of the appearance of life on the\nglobe. All that we mean by a \u201cnew\u201d species is that from some cause, or\nset of causes, one of these ancestral stems slowly or suddenly develops\ninto a form unlike any that has preceded it; so that, while in one form\nof life the ancestral type is continuously repeated and the old species\ncontinues to exist, in another form of life there is a deviation from\nthe ancestral type and a new species appears.\n\nSimilarly, \u201cextinction of species\u201d is a term which has two entirely\ndifferent meanings. The type may become extinct by dying out and\nleaving no descendants. Or it may die out because as the generations\ngo by there is change, slow or swift, until a new form is produced.\nThus in one case the line of life comes to an end. In the other case it\nchanges into something different. The huge titanothere, and the small\nthree-toed horse, both existed at what may roughly be called the same\nperiod of the world\u2019s history, back in the middle of the mammalian age.\nBoth are extinct in the sense that each has completely disappeared\nand that nothing like either is to be found in the world to-day. But\nwhereas all the individual titanotheres finally died out, leaving no\ndescendants, a number of the three-toed horses did leave descendants,\nand these descendants, constantly changing as the ages went by, finally\ndeveloped into the highly specialized one-toed horses, asses, and\nzebras of to-day.\n\nThe analogy between the facts thus indicated and certain facts in\nthe development of human societies is striking. A further analogy\nis supplied by a very curious tendency often visible in cases of\nintense and extreme specialization. When an animal form becomes\nhighly specialized, the type at first, because of its specialization,\ntriumphs over its allied rivals and its enemies, and attains a great\ndevelopment; until in many cases the specialization becomes so extreme\nthat from some cause unknown to us, or at which we merely guess, it\ndisappears. The new species which mark a new era commonly come from the\nless specialized types, the less distinctive, dominant, and striking\ntypes, of the preceding era.\n\nWhen dealing with the changes, cataclysmic or gradual, which divide one\nperiod of paleontological history from another, we can sometimes assign\ncauses, and again we can not even guess at them. In the case of single\nspecies, or of faunas of very restricted localities, the explanation\nis often self-evident. A comparatively slight change in the amount\nof moisture in the climate, with the attendant change in vegetation,\nmight readily mean the destruction of a group of huge herbivores with\na bodily size such that they needed a vast quantity of food, and with\nteeth so weak or so peculiar that but one or two kinds of plants could\nfurnish this food. Again, we now know that the most deadly foes of the\nhigher forms of life are various lower forms of life, such as insects,\nor microscopic creatures conveyed into the blood by insects. There\nare districts in South America where many large animals, wild and\ndomestic, can not live because of the presence either of certain ticks\nor of certain baleful flies. In Africa there is a terrible genus of\npoison fly, each species acting as the host of microscopic creatures\nwhich are deadly to certain of the higher vertebrates. One of these\nspecies, though harmless to man, is fatal to all domestic animals,\nand this although harmless to the closely related wild kinsfolk of\nthese animals. Another is fatal to man himself, being the cause of\nthe \u201csleeping-sickness\u201d which in many large districts has killed out\nthe entire population. Of course the development or the extension\nof the range of any such insects, and any one of many other causes\nwhich we see actually at work around us, would readily account for\nthe destruction of some given species or even for the destruction of\nseveral species in a limited area of country.\n\nWhen whole faunal groups die out over large areas, the question is\ndifferent, and may or may not be susceptible of explanation with the\nknowledge we actually possess. In the old arctog\u00e6al continent, for\ninstance, in what is now Europe, Asia, and North America, the glacial\nperiod made a complete, but of course explicable, change in the faunal\nlife of the region. At one time the continent held a rich and varied\nfauna. Then a period of great cold supervened, and a different fauna\nsucceeded the first. The explanation of the change is obvious.\n\nBut in many other cases we can not so much as hazard a guess at why\na given change occurred. One of the most striking instances of these\ninexplicable changes is that afforded by the history of South America\ntoward the close of the tertiary period. For ages South America had\nbeen an island by itself, cut off from North America at the very\ntime that the latter was at least occasionally in land communication\nwith Asia. During this time a very peculiar fauna grew up in South\nAmerica, some of the types resembling nothing now existing, while\nothers are recognizable as ancestral forms of the ant-eaters, sloths,\nand armadillos of to-day. It was a peculiar and diversified mammalian\nfauna, of, on the whole, rather small species, and without any\nrepresentatives of the animals with which man has been most familiar\nduring his career on this earth.\n\nToward the end of the tertiary period there was an upheaval of land\nbetween this old South American island and North America, near what\nis now the Isthmus of Panama, thereby making a bridge across which\nthe teeming animal life of the northern continent had access to this\nqueer southern continent. There followed an inrush of huge, or swift,\nor formidable creatures which had attained their development in the\nfierce competition of the arctog\u00e6al realm. Elephants, camels, horses,\ntapirs, swine, sabre-toothed tigers, big cats, wolves, bears, deer,\ncrowded into South America, warring each against the other incomers\nand against the old long-existing forms. A riot of life followed. Not\nonly was the character of the South American fauna totally changed by\nthe invasion of these creatures from the north, which soon swarmed over\nthe continent, but it was also changed through the development wrought\nin the old inhabitants by the severe competition to which they were\nexposed. Many of the smaller or less capable types died out. Others\ndeveloped enormous bulk or complete armor protection, and thereby saved\nthemselves from the new beasts. In consequence, South America soon\nbecame populated with various new species of mastodons, sabre-toothed\ntigers, camels, horses, deer, cats, wolves, hooved creatures of strange\nshapes, and some of them of giant size, all of these being descended\nfrom the immigrant types; and side by side with them there grew up\nlarge autochthonous ungulates, giant ground-sloths well-nigh as large\nas elephants, and armored creatures as bulky as an ox but structurally\nof the armadillo or ant-eater type; and some of these latter not only\nheld their own, but actually in their turn wandered north over the\nisthmus and invaded North America. A fauna as varied as that of Africa\nto-day, as abundant in species and individuals, even more noteworthy,\nbecause of its huge size or odd type, and because of the terrific\nprowess of the more formidable flesh-eaters, was thus developed in\nSouth America, and flourished for a period which human history would\ncall very long indeed, but which geologically was short.\n\nThen, for no reason that we can assign, destruction fell on this\nfauna. All the great and terrible creatures died out, the same fate\nbefalling the changed representatives of the old autochthonous fauna\nand the descendants of the migrants that had come down from the north.\nGround-sloth and glyptodon, sabre-tooth, horse and mastodon, and all\nthe associated animals of large size vanished, and South America,\nthough still retaining its connection with North America, once again\nbecame a land with a mammalian life small and weak compared to that\nof North America and the Old World. Its fauna is now marked, for\ninstance, by the presence of medium-sized deer and cats, fox-like\nwolves, and small camel-like creatures, as well as by the presence of\nsmall armadillos, sloths, and ant-eaters. In other words, it includes\ndiminutive representatives of the giants of the preceding era, both\nof the giants among the older forms of mammalia, and of the giants\namong the new and intrusive kinds. The change was wide-spread and\nextraordinary, and with our present means of information it is wholly\ninexplicable. There was no ice age, and it is hard to imagine any cause\nwhich would account for the extinction of so many species of huge\nor moderate size, while smaller representatives, and here and there\nmedium-sized representatives, of many of them were left.\n\nNow as to all of these phenomena in the evolution of species, there\nare, if not homologies, at least certain analogies, in the history\nof human societies, in the history of the rise to prominence, of the\ndevelopment and change, of the temporary dominance, and death or\ntransformation, of the groups of varying kind which form races or\nnations. Here, as in biology, it is necessary to keep in mind that we\nuse each of the words \u201cbirth\u201d and \u201cdeath,\u201d \u201cyouth\u201d and \u201cage,\u201d often\nvery loosely, and sometimes as denoting either one of two totally\ndifferent conceptions. Of course, in one sense there is no such thing\nas an \u201cold\u201d or a \u201cyoung\u201d nation, any more than there is an \u201cold\u201d or\n\u201cyoung\u201d family. Phylogenetically, the line of ancestral descent must be\nof exactly the same length for every existing individual, and for every\ngroup of individuals, whether forming a family or a nation. All that\ncan properly be meant by the terms \u201cnew\u201d and \u201cyoung\u201d is that in a given\nline of descent there has suddenly come a period of rapid change. This\nchange may arise either from a new development or transformation of the\nold elements, or else from a new grouping of these elements with other\nand varied elements; so that the words \u201cnew\u201d nation or \u201cyoung\u201d nation\nmay have a real difference of significance in one case from what they\nhave in another.\n\nAs in biology, so in human history, a new form may result from the\nspecialization of a long-existing, and hitherto very slowly changing,\ngeneralized or non-specialized form; as, for instance, occurs when\na barbaric race from a variety of causes suddenly develops a more\ncomplex cultivation and civilization. This is what occurred, for\ninstance, in western Europe during the centuries of the Teutonic and,\nlater, the Scandinavian ethnic overflows from the north. All the\nmodern countries of western Europe are descended from the states\ncreated by these northern invaders. When first created they would be\ncalled \u201cnew\u201d or \u201cyoung\u201d states in the sense that part or all of the\npeople composing them were descended from races that hitherto had not\nbeen civilized, and that therefore, for the first time, entered on\nthe career of civilized communities. In the southern part of western\nEurope the new states thus formed consisted in bulk of the inhabitants\nalready in the land under the Roman Empire; and it was here that the\nnew kingdoms first took shape. Through a reflex action their influence\nthen extended back into the cold forests from which the invaders had\ncome, and Germany and Scandinavia witnessed the rise of communities\nwith essentially the same civilization as their southern neighbors;\nthough in those communities, unlike the southern communities, there\nwas no infusion of new blood, so that the new civilized nations which\ngradually developed were composed entirely of members of the same races\nwhich in the same regions had for ages lived the life of a slowly\nchanging barbarism. The same was true of the Slavs and the Slavonized\nFinns of eastern Europe, when an infiltration of Scandinavian leaders\nfrom the north, and an infiltration of Byzantine culture from the\nsouth, joined to produce the changes which have gradually, out of the\nlittle Slav communities of the forest and the steppe, formed the\nmighty Russian Empire of to-day.\n\nAgain, the new form may represent merely a splitting off from a\nlong-established, highly developed, and specialized nation. In this\ncase the nation is usually spoken of as a \u201cyoung,\u201d and is correctly\nspoken of as a \u201cnew,\u201d nation; but the term should always be used with a\nclear sense of the difference between what is described in such case,\nand what is described by the same term in speaking of a civilized\nnation just developed from barbarism. Carthage and Syracuse were new\ncities compared to Tyre and Corinth; but the Greek or Ph\u0153nician race\nwas in every sense of the word as old in the new city as in the old\ncity. So, nowadays, Victoria or Manitoba is a new community compared\nwith England or Scotland; but the ancestral type of civilization and\nculture is as old in one case as in the other. I of course do not mean\nfor a moment that great changes are not produced by the mere fact that\nthe old civilized race is suddenly placed in surroundings where it has\nagain to go through the work of taming the wilderness, a work finished\nmany centuries before in the original home of the race; I merely mean\nthat the ancestral history is the same in each case. We can rightly use\nthe phrase \u201ca new people,\u201d in speaking of Canadians or Australians,\nAmericans or Africanders. But we use it in an entirely different sense\nfrom that in which we use it when speaking of such communities as those\nfounded by the Northmen and their descendants during that period of\nastonishing growth which saw the descendants of the Norse sea-thieves\nconquer and transform Normandy, Sicily, and the British Islands; we use\nit in an entirely different sense from that in which we use it when\nspeaking of the new states that grew up around Warsaw, Kief, Novgorod,\nand Moscow, as the wild savages of the steppes and the marshy forests\nstruggled haltingly and stumblingly upward to become builders of cities\nand to form stable governments. The kingdoms of Charlemagne and Alfred\nwere \u201cnew,\u201d compared to the empire on the Bosphorus; they were also\nin every way different; their lines of ancestral descent had nothing\nin common with that of the polyglot realm which paid tribute to the\nC\u00e6sars of Byzantium; their social problems and after-time history were\ntotally different. This is not true of those \u201cnew\u201d nations which spring\ndirect from old nations. Brazil, the Argentine, the United States,\nare all \u201cnew\u201d nations, compared with the nations of Europe; but, with\nwhatever changes in detail, their civilization is nevertheless of the\ngeneral European type, as shown in Portugal, Spain, and England. The\ndifferences between these \u201cnew\u201d American and these \u201cold\u201d European\nnations are not as great as those which separate the \u201cnew\u201d nations\none from another, and the \u201cold\u201d nations one from another. There are in\neach case very real differences between the new and the old nation;\ndifferences both for good and for evil; but in each case there is the\nsame ancestral history to reckon with, the same type of civilization,\nwith its attendant benefits and shortcomings; and, after the pioneer\nstages are passed, the problems to be solved, in spite of superficial\ndifferences, are in their essence the same; they are those that\nconfront all civilized peoples, not those that confront only peoples\nstruggling from barbarism into civilization.\n\nSo, when we speak of the \u201cdeath\u201d of a tribe, a nation, or a\ncivilization, the term may be used for either one of two totally\ndifferent processes, the analogy with what occurs in biological\nhistory being complete. Certain tribes of savages--the Tasmanians, for\ninstance, and various little clans of American Indians--have within\nthe last century or two completely died out; all of the individuals\nhave perished, leaving no descendants, and the blood has disappeared.\nCertain other tribes of Indians have as tribes disappeared or are\nnow disappearing; but their blood remains, being absorbed into the\nveins of the white intruders, or of the black men introduced by those\nwhite intruders; so that in reality they are merely being transformed\ninto something absolutely different from what they were. In the\nUnited States, in the new State of Oklahoma, the Creeks, Cherokees,\nChickasaws, Delawares, and other tribes are in process of absorption\ninto the mass of the white population; when the State was admitted a\ncouple of years ago, one of the two senators, and three of the five\nrepresentatives in Congress, were partly of Indian blood. In but a\nfew years these Indian tribes will have disappeared as completely as\nthose that have actually died out; but the disappearance will be by\nabsorption and transformation into the mass of the American population.\n\nA like wide diversity in fact may be covered in the statement that\na civilization has \u201cdied out.\u201d The nationality and culture of\nthe wonderful city-builders of the lower Mesopotamian Plain have\ncompletely disappeared, and, though doubtless certain influences dating\ntherefrom are still at work, they are in such changed and hidden form\nas to be unrecognizable. But the disappearance of the Roman Empire\nwas of no such character. There was complete change, far-reaching\ntransformation, and at one period a violent dislocation; but it would\nnot be correct to speak either of the blood or the culture of Old\nRome as extinct. We are not yet in a position to dogmatize as to the\npermanence or evanescence of the various strains of blood that go to\nmake up every civilized nationality; but it is reasonably certain\nthat the blood of the old Roman still flows through the veins of the\nmodern Italian; and though there has been much intermixture, from\nmany different foreign sources--from foreign conquerors and from\nforeign slaves--yet it is probable that the Italian type of to-day\nfinds its dominant ancestral type in the ancient Latin. As for the\nculture, the civilization of Rome, this is even more true. It has\nsuffered a complete transformation, partly by natural growth, partly\nby absorption of totally alien elements, such as a Semitic religion,\nand certain Teutonic governmental and social customs; but the process\nwas not one of extinction, but one of growth and transformation, both\nfrom within and by the accretion of outside elements. In France and\nSpain the inheritance of Latin blood is small; but the Roman culture\nwhich was forced on those countries has been tenaciously retained by\nthem, throughout all their subsequent ethnical and political changes,\nas the basis on which their civilizations have been built. Moreover,\nthe permanent spreading of Roman influence was not limited to Europe.\nIt has extended to and over half of that New World which was not even\ndreamed of during the thousand years of brilliant life between the\nbirth and the death of pagan Rome. This New World was discovered by\none Italian, and its mainland first reached and named by another;\nand in it, over a territory many times the size of Trajan\u2019s empire,\nthe Spanish, French, and Portuguese adventurers founded, beside the\nSaint Lawrence and the Amazon, along the flanks of the Andes, and in\nthe shadow of the snow-capped volcanoes of Mexico, from the Rio Grande\nto the Straits of Magellan, communities, now flourishing and growing\napace, which in speech and culture, and even as regards one strain in\ntheir blood, are the lineal heirs of the ancient Latin civilization.\nWhen we speak of the disappearance, the passing away, of ancient\nBabylon or Nineveh, and of ancient Rome, we are using the same terms to\ndescribe totally different phenomena.\n\nThe anthropologist and historian of to-day realize much more clearly\nthan their predecessors of a couple of generations back, how artificial\nmost great nationalities are, and how loose is the terminology usually\nemployed to describe them. There is an element of unconscious and\nrather pathetic humor in the simplicity of half a century ago which\nspoke of the Aryan and the Teuton with reverential admiration, as\nif the words denoted, not merely something definite, but something\nethnologically sacred; the writers having much the same pride and\nfaith in their own and their fellow countrymen\u2019s purity of descent\nfrom these imaginary Aryan or Teutonic ancestors that was felt a\nfew generations earlier by the various noble families who traced\ntheir lineage direct to Odin, \u00c6neas, or Noah. Nowadays, of course,\nall students recognize that there may not be, and often is not, the\nslightest connection between kinship in blood and kinship in tongue. In\nAmerica we find three races, white, red, and black, and three tongues,\nEnglish, French, and Spanish, mingled in such a way that the lines\nof cleavage of race continually run at right angles to the lines of\ncleavage of speech; there being communities practically of pure blood\nof each race found speaking each language. Aryan and Teutonic are\nterms having very distinct linguistic meanings; but whether they have\nany such ethnical meanings as were formerly attributed to them is so\ndoubtful, that we can not even be sure whether the ancestors of most\nof those we call Teutons originally spoke an Aryan tongue at all. The\nterm Celtic, again, is perfectly clear when used linguistically; but\nwhen used to describe a race it means almost nothing until we find out\nwhich one of several totally different terminologies the writer or\nspeaker is adopting. If, for instance, the term is used to designate\nthe short-headed, medium-sized type common throughout middle Europe,\nfrom east to west, it denotes something entirely different from what\nis meant when the name is applied to the tall, yellow-haired opponents\nof the Romans and the later Greeks; while, if used to designate any\nmodern nationality, it becomes about as loose and meaningless as the\nterm Anglo-Saxon itself.\n\nMost of the great societies which have developed a high civilization\nand have played a dominant part in the world have been--and\nare--artificial; not merely in social structure, but in the sense of\nincluding totally different race types. A great nation rarely belongs\nto any one race, though its citizens generally have one essentially\nnational speech. Yet the curious fact remains that these great\nartificial societies acquire such unity that in each one all the\nparts feel a subtle sympathy, and move or cease to move, go forward\nor go back, all together, in response to some stir or throbbing, very\npowerful, and yet not to be discerned by our senses. National unity is\nfar more apt than race unity to be a fact to reckon with; until indeed\nwe come to race differences as fundamental as those which divide from\none another the half-dozen great ethnic divisions of mankind, when they\nbecome so important that differences of nationality, speech, and creed\nsink into littleness.\n\nAn ethnological map of Europe in which the peoples were divided\naccording to their physical and racial characteristics, such as\nstature, coloration, and shape of head, would bear no resemblance\nwhatever to a map giving the political divisions, the nationalities,\nof Europe; while, on the contrary, a linguistic map would show a\ngeneral correspondence between speech and nationality. The northern\nFrenchman is in blood and physical type more nearly allied to his\nGerman-speaking neighbor than to the Frenchman of the Mediterranean\nseaboard; and the latter, in his turn, is nearer to the Catalan than\nto the man who dwells beside the Channel or along the tributaries of\nthe Rhine. But in essential characteristics, in the qualities that\ntell in the make-up of a nationality, all these kinds of Frenchmen\nfeel keenly that they are one, and are different from all outsiders,\ntheir differences dwindling into insignificance compared with the\nextraordinary, artificially produced resemblances which bring them\ntogether and wall them off from the outside world. The same is true\nwhen we compare the German who dwells where the Alpine springs of the\nDanube and the Rhine interlace, with the physically different German\nof the Baltic lands. The same is true of Kentishman, Cornishman, and\nYorkshireman in England.\n\nIn dealing, not with groups of human beings in simple and primitive\nrelations, but with highly complex, highly specialized, civilized, or\nsemi-civilized societies, there is need of great caution in drawing\nanalogies with what has occurred in the development of the animal\nworld. Yet even in these cases it is curious to see how some of the\nphenomena in the growth and disappearance of these complex, artificial\ngroups of human beings resemble what has happened in myriads of\ninstances in the history of life on this planet.\n\nWhy do great artificial empires, whose citizens are knit by a bond of\nspeech and culture much more than by a bond of blood, show periods of\nextraordinary growth, and again of sudden or lingering decay? In some\ncases we can answer readily enough; in other cases we can not as yet\neven guess what the proper answer should be. If in any such case the\ncentrifugal forces overcome the centripetal, the nation will of course\nfly to pieces, and the reason for its failure to become a dominant\nforce is patent to every one. The minute that the spirit which finds\nits healthy development in local self-government, and is the antidote\nto the dangers of an extreme centralization, develops into mere\nparticularism, into inability to combine effectively for achievement of\na common end, then it is hopeless to expect great results. Poland and\ncertain republics of the Western Hemisphere are the standard examples\nof failure of this kind; and the United States would have ranked with\nthem, and her name would have become a byword of derision, if the\nforces of union had not triumphed in the Civil War. So, the growth of\nsoft luxury after it has reached a certain point becomes a national\ndanger patent to all. Again, it needs but little of the vision of a\nseer to foretell what must happen in any community if the average woman\nceases to become the mother of a family of healthy children, if the\naverage man loses the will and the power to work up to old age and to\nfight whenever the need arises. If the homely commonplace virtues die\nout, if strength of character vanishes in graceful self-indulgence, if\nthe virile qualities atrophy, then the nation has lost what no material\nprosperity can offset.\n\nBut there are plenty of other phenomena wholly or partially\ninexplicable. It is easy to see why Rome trended downward when great\nslave-tilled farms spread over what had once been a countryside of\npeasant proprietors, when greed and luxury and sensuality ate like\nacids into the fibre of the upper classes, while the mass of the\ncitizens grew to depend not upon their own exertions, but upon the\nstate, for their pleasures and their very livelihood. But this does not\nexplain why the forward movement stopped at different times, so far as\ndifferent matters were concerned; at one time as regards literature,\nat another time as regards architecture, at another time as regards\ncity-building. There is nothing mysterious about Rome\u2019s dissolution\nat the time of the barbarian invasions; apart from the impoverishment\nand depopulation of the empire, its fall would be quite sufficiently\nexplained by the mere fact that the average citizen had lost the\nfighting edge--an essential even under a despotism, and therefore far\nmore essential in free, self-governing communities, such as those of\nthe English-speaking peoples of to-day. The mystery is rather that out\nof the chaos and corruption of Roman society during the last days of\nthe oligarchic republic, there should have sprung an empire able to\nhold things with reasonable steadiness for three or four centuries. But\nwhy, for instance, should the higher kinds of literary productiveness\nhave ceased about the beginning of the second century, whereas the\nfollowing centuries witnessed a great outbreak of energy in the shape\nof city-building in the provinces, not only in western Europe, but in\nAfrica? We can not even guess why the springs of one kind of energy\ndried up, while there was yet no cessation of another kind.\n\nTake another and smaller instance, that of Holland. For a period\ncovering a little more than the seventeenth century, Holland, like some\nof the Italian city-states at an earlier period, stood on the dangerous\nheights of greatness, beside nations so vastly her superior in\nterritory and population as to make it inevitable that sooner or later\nshe must fall from the glorious and perilous eminence to which she\nhad been raised by her own indomitable soul. Her fall came; it could\nnot have been indefinitely postponed; but it came far quicker than it\nneeded to come, because of shortcomings on her part to which both Great\nBritain and the United States would be wise to pay heed. Her government\nwas singularly ineffective, the decentralization being such as often to\npermit the separatist, the particularist, spirit of the provinces to\nrob the central authority of all efficiency. This was bad enough. But\nthe fatal weakness was that so common in rich, peace-loving societies,\nwhere men hate to think of war as possible, and try to justify their\nown reluctance to face it either by high-sounding moral platitudes,\nor else by a philosophy of short-sighted materialism. The Dutch were\nvery wealthy. They grew to believe that they could hire others to do\ntheir fighting for them on land; and on sea, where they did their own\nfighting, and fought very well, they refused in time of peace to make\nready fleets so efficient as either to insure them against the peace\nbeing broken or else to give them the victory when war came. To be\nopulent and unarmed is to secure ease in the present at the almost\ncertain cost of disaster in the future.\n\nIt is therefore easy to see why Holland lost when she did her position\namong the powers; but it is far more difficult to explain why at the\nsame time there should have come at least a partial loss of position in\nthe world of art and letters. Some spark of divine fire burnt itself\nout in the national soul. As the line of great statesmen, of great\nwarriors, by land and sea, came to an end, so the line of the great\nDutch painters ended. The loss of pre-eminence in the schools followed\nthe loss of pre-eminence in camp and in council chamber.\n\nIn the little republic of Holland, as in the great empire of Rome, it\nwas not death which came, but transformation. Both Holland and Italy\nteach us that races that fall may rise again. In Holland, as in the\nScandinavian kingdoms of Norway and Sweden, there was in a sense no\ndecadence at all. There was nothing analogous to what has befallen so\nmany countries: no lowering of the general standard of well-being, no\ngeneral loss of vitality, no depopulation. What happened was, first\na flowering time, in which the country\u2019s men of action and men of\nthought gave it a commanding position among the nations of the day;\nthen this period of command passed, and the state revolved in an eddy,\naside from the sweep of the mighty current of world life; and yet the\npeople themselves in their internal relations remained substantially\nunchanged, and in many fields of endeavor have now recovered themselves\nand play again a leading part.\n\nIn Italy, where history is recorded for a far longer time, the course\nof affairs was different. When the Roman Empire that was really\nRoman went down in ruin, there followed an interval of centuries\nwhen the gloom was almost unrelieved. Every form of luxury and\nfrivolity, of contemptuous repugnance for serious work, of enervating\nself-indulgence, every form of vice and weakness which we regard as\nmost ominous in the civilization of to-day, had been at work throughout\nItaly for generations. The nation had lost all patriotism. It had\nceased to bring forth fighters or workers, had ceased to bring forth\nmen of mark of any kind; and the remnant of the Italian people cowered\nin helpless misery among the horsehoofs of the barbarians, as the wild\nnorthern bands rode in to take the land for a prey and the cities for\na spoil. It was one of the great cataclysms of history; but in the end\nit was seen that what came had been in part change and growth. It was\nnot all mere destruction. Not only did Rome leave a vast heritage of\nlanguage, culture, law, ideas, to all the modern world; but the people\nof Italy kept the old blood as the chief strain in their veins. In a\nfew centuries came a wonderful new birth for Italy. Then for four or\nfive hundred years there was a growth of many little city-states which,\nin their energy both in peace and war, in their fierce, fervent life,\nin the high quality of their men of arts and letters, and in their\nutter inability to combine so as to preserve order among themselves or\nto repel outside invasion, can not unfairly be compared with classic\nGreece. Again Italy fell, and the land was ruled by Spaniard or\nFrenchman or Austrian; and again, in the nineteenth century, there came\nfor the third time a wonderful new birth.\n\nContrast this persistence of the old type in its old home, and in\ncertain lands which it had conquered, with its utter disappearance\nin certain other lands where it was intrusive, but where it at one\ntime seemed as firmly established as in Italy--certainly as in Spain\nor Gaul. No more curious example of the growth and disappearance of\na national type can be found than in the case of the Greco-Roman\ndominion in Western Asia and North Africa. All told it extended over\nnearly a thousand years, from the days of Alexander till after the\ntime of Heraclius. Throughout these lands there yet remain the ruins\nof innumerable cities which tell how firmly rooted that dominion must\nonce have been. The overshadowing and far-reaching importance of what\noccurred is sufficiently shown by the familiar fact that the New\nTestament was written in Greek; while to the early Christians, North\nAfrica seemed as much a Latin land as Sicily or the valley of the Po.\nThe intrusive peoples and their culture flourished in the lands for a\nperiod twice as long as that which has elapsed since, with the voyage\nof Columbus, modern history may fairly be said to have begun; and then\nthey withered like dry grass before the flame of the Arab invasion,\nand their place knew them no more. They overshadowed the ground; they\nvanished; and the old types reappeared in their old homes, with beside\nthem a new type, the Arab.\n\nNow, as to all these changes we can at least be sure of the main facts.\nWe know that the Hollander remains in Holland, though the greatness\nof Holland has passed; we know that the Latin blood remains in Italy,\nwhether to a greater or less extent; and that the Latin culture has\ndied out in the African realm it once won, while it has lasted in Spain\nand France, and thence has extended itself to continents beyond the\nocean. We may not know the causes of the facts, save partially; but\nthe facts themselves we do know. But there are other cases in which\nwe are at present ignorant even of the facts; we do not know what the\nchanges really were, still less the hidden causes and meaning of these\nchanges. Much remains to be found out before we can speak with any\ncertainty as to whether some changes mean the actual dying out or the\nmere transformation of types. It is, for instance, astonishing how\nlittle permanent change in the physical make-up of the people seems to\nhave been worked in Europe by the migrations of the races in historic\ntimes. A tall, fair-haired, long-skulled race penetrates to some\nsouthern country and establishes a commonwealth. The generations pass.\nThere is no violent revolution, no break in continuity of history,\nnothing in the written records to indicate an epoch-making change at\nany given moment; and yet after a time we find that the old type has\nreappeared and that the people of the locality do not substantially\ndiffer in physical form from the people of other localities that did\nnot suffer such an invasion. Does this mean that gradually the children\nof the invaders have dwindled and died out; or, as the blood is mixed\nwith the ancient blood, has there been a change, part reversion and\npart assimilation, to the ancient type in its old surroundings? Do\ntint of skin, eyes and hair, shape of skull, and stature change in the\nnew environment, so as to be like those of the older people who dwelt\nin this environment? Do the intrusive races, without change of blood,\ntend under the pressure of their new surroundings to change in type\nso as to resemble the ancient peoples of the land? Or, as the strains\nmingled, has the new strain dwindled and vanished, from causes as yet\nobscure? Has the blood of the Lombard practically disappeared from\nItaly, and of the Visigoth from Spain, or does it still flow in large\npopulations where the old physical type has once more become dominant?\nHere in England, the long-skulled men of the long barrows, the\nshort-skulled men of the round barrows--have they blended, or has one\nor the other type actually died out; or are they merged in some older\nrace which they seemingly supplanted, or have they adopted the tongue\nand civilization of some later race which seemingly destroyed them?\nWe can not say. We do not know which of the widely different stocks\nnow speaking Aryan tongues represents in physical characteristics the\nancient Aryan type, nor where the type originated, nor how or why it\nimposed its language on other types, nor how much or how little mixture\nof blood accompanied the change of tongue.\n\nThe phenomena of national growth and decay, both of those which can\nand those which can not be explained, have been peculiarly in evidence\nduring the four centuries that have gone by since the discovery of\nAmerica and the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope. These have been the\nfour centuries of by far the most intense and constantly accelerating\nrapidity of movement and development that the world has yet seen. The\nmovement has covered all the fields of human activity. It has witnessed\nan altogether unexampled spread of civilized mankind over the world, as\nwell as an altogether unexampled advance in man\u2019s dominion over nature;\nand this together with a literary and artistic activity to be matched\nin but one previous epoch. This period of extension and development\nhas been that of one race, the so-called white race, or, to speak more\naccurately, the group of peoples living in Europe, who undoubtedly have\na certain kinship of blood, who profess the Christian religion, and\ntrace back their culture to Greece and Rome.\n\nThe memories of men are short, and it is easy to forget how brief is\nthis period of unquestioned supremacy of the so-called white race.\nIt is but a thing of yesterday. During the thousand years which went\nbefore the opening of this era of European supremacy, the attitude of\nAsia and Africa, of Hun and Mongol, Turk and Tartar, Arab and Moor, had\non the whole been that of successful aggression against Europe. More\nthan a century went by after the voyages of Columbus before the mastery\nin war began to pass from the Asiatic to the European. During that time\nEurope produced no generals or conquerors able to stand comparison with\nSelim and Solyman, Baber and Akbar. Then the European advance gathered\nmomentum; until at the present time peoples of European blood hold\ndominion over all America and Australia and the islands of the sea,\nover most of Africa, and the major half of Asia. Much of this world\nconquest is merely political, and such a conquest is always likely in\nthe long run to vanish. But very much of it represents not a merely\npolitical, but an ethnic conquest; the intrusive people having either\nexterminated or driven out the conquered peoples, or else having\nimposed upon them its tongue, law, culture, and religion, together\nwith a strain of its blood. During this period substantially all of\nthe world achievements worth remembering are to be credited to the\npeople of European descent. The first exception of any consequence is\nthe wonderful rise of Japan within the last generation--a phenomenon\nunexampled in history; for both in blood and in culture the Japanese\nline of ancestral descent is as remote as possible from ours; and yet\nJapan, while hitherto keeping most of what was strongest in her ancient\ncharacter and traditions, has assimilated with curious completeness\nmost of the characteristics that have given power and leadership to the\nWest.\n\nDuring this period of intense and feverish activity among the peoples\nof European stock, first one and then another has taken the lead.\nThe movement began with Spain and Portugal. Their flowering-time was\nas brief as it was wonderful. The gorgeous pages of their annals are\nillumined by the figures of warriors, explorers, statesmen, poets,\nand painters. Then their days of greatness ceased. Many partial\nexplanations can be given, but something remains behind, some hidden\nforce for evil, some hidden source of weakness upon which we can not\nlay our hands. Yet there are many signs that in the New World, after\ncenturies of arrested growth, the peoples of Spanish and Portuguese\nstock are entering upon another era of development, and there are other\nsigns that this is true also in the Iberian peninsula itself.\n\nAbout the time that the first brilliant period of the leadership of the\nIberian peoples was drawing to a close, at the other end of Europe, in\nthe land of melancholy steppe and melancholy forest, the Slav turned in\nhis troubled sleep and stretched out his hand to grasp leadership and\ndominion. Since then almost every nation of Europe has at one time or\nanother sought a place in the movement of expansion; but for the last\nthree centuries the great phenomenon of mankind has been the growth of\nthe English-speaking peoples and their spread over the world\u2019s waste\nspaces.\n\nComparison is often made between the empire of Britain and the\nempire of Rome. When judged relatively to the effect on all modern\ncivilization, the empire of Rome is of course the more important,\nsimply because all the nations of Europe and their offshoots in other\ncontinents trace back their culture either to the earlier Rome by\nthe Tiber, or the later Rome by the Bosphorus. The empire of Rome\nis the most stupendous fact in lay history; no empire later in time\ncan be compared with it. But this is merely another way of saying\nthat the nearer the source the more important becomes any deflection\nof the stream\u2019s current. Absolutely, comparing the two empires one\nwith the other in point of actual achievement, and disregarding the\nimmensely increased effect on other civilizations which inhered in the\nolder empire because it antedated the younger by a couple of thousand\nyears, there is little to choose between them as regards the wide and\nabounding interest and importance of their careers.\n\nIn the world of antiquity each great empire rose when its predecessor\nhad already crumbled. By the time that Rome loomed large over the\nhorizon of history, there were left for her to contend with only\ndecaying civilizations and raw barbarism. When she conquered Pyrrhus,\nshe strove against the strength of but one of the many fragments into\nwhich Alexander\u2019s kingdom had fallen. When she conquered Carthage,\nshe overthrew a foe against whom for two centuries the single Greek\ncity of Syracuse had contended on equal terms; it was not the Sepoy\narmies of the Carthaginian plutocracy, but the towering genius of the\nHouse of Barca, which rendered the struggle forever memorable. It was\nthe distance and the desert, rather than the Parthian horse-bowmen,\nthat set bounds to Rome in the east; and on the north her advance was\ncurbed by the vast reaches of marshy woodland, rather than by the\ntall barbarians who dwelt therein. During the long generations of her\ngreatness, and until the sword dropped from her withered hand, the\nParthian was never a menace of aggression, and the German threatened\nher but to die.\n\nOn the contrary, the great expansion of England has occurred, the great\nempire of Britain has been achieved, during the centuries that have\nalso seen mighty military nations rise and flourish on the continent\nof Europe. It is as if Rome, while creating and keeping the empire she\nwon between the days of Scipio and the days of Trajan, had at the same\ntime held her own with the Nineveh of Sargon and Tiglath, the Egypt of\nThothmes and Rameses, and the kingdoms of Persia and Macedon in the red\nflush of their warrior-dawn. The empire of Britain is vaster in space,\nin population, in wealth, in wide variety of possession, in a history\nof multiplied and manifold achievement of every kind, than even the\nglorious empire of Rome. Yet, unlike Rome, Britain has won dominion in\nevery clime, has carried her flag by conquest and settlement to the\nuttermost ends of the earth, at the very time that haughty and powerful\nrivals, in their abounding youth or strong maturity, were eager to\nset bounds to her greatness, and to tear from her what she had won\nafar. England has peopled continents with her children, has swayed\nthe destinies of teeming myriads of alien race, has ruled ancient\nmonarchies, and wrested from all corners the right to the world\u2019s waste\nspaces, while at home she has held her own before nations, each of\nmilitary power comparable to Rome\u2019s at her zenith.\n\nRome fell by attack from without only because the ills within her own\nborders had grown incurable. What is true of your country, my hearers,\nis true of my own; while we should be vigilant against foes from\nwithout, yet we need never really fear them so long as we safeguard\nourselves against the enemies within our own households; and these\nenemies are our own passions and follies. Free peoples can escape\nbeing mastered by others only by being able to master themselves. We\nAmericans and you people of the British Isles alike need ever to keep\nin mind that, among the many qualities indispensable to the success of\na great democracy, and second only to a high and stern sense of duty,\nof moral obligation, are self-knowledge and self-mastery. You, my\nhosts, and I may not agree in all our views; some of you would think\nme a very radical democrat--as, for the matter of that, I am--and my\ntheory of imperialism would probably suit the anti-imperialists as\nlittle as it would suit a certain type of forcible-feeble imperialist.\nBut there are some points on which we must all agree if we think\nsoundly. The precise form of government, democratic or otherwise, is\nthe instrument, the tool, with which we work. It is important to have\na good tool. But, even if it is the best possible, it is only a tool.\nNo implement can ever take the place of the guiding intelligence that\nwields it. A very bad tool will ruin the work of the best craftsman;\nbut a good tool in bad hands is no better. In the last analysis the\nall-important factor in national greatness is national character.\n\nThere are questions which we of the great civilized nations are ever\ntempted to ask of the future. Is our time of growth drawing to an\nend? Are we as nations soon to come under the rule of that great law\nof death which is itself but part of the great law of life? None can\ntell. Forces that we can see, and other forces that are hidden or that\ncan but dimly be apprehended, are at work all around us, both for good\nand for evil. The growth in luxury, in love of ease, in taste for\nvapid and frivolous excitement, is both evident and unhealthy. The\nmost ominous sign is the diminution in the birth-rate, in the rate of\nnatural increase, now to a larger or lesser degree shared by most of\nthe civilized nations of central and western Europe, of America and\nAustralia--a diminution so great that, if it continues for the next\ncentury at the rate which has obtained for the last twenty-five years,\nall the more highly civilized peoples will be stationary or else\nhave begun to go backward in population, while many of them will have\nalready gone very far backward.\n\nThere is much that should give us concern for the future. But there\nis much also which should give us hope. No man is more apt to be\nmistaken than the prophet of evil. After the French Revolution in\n1830 Niebuhr hazarded the guess that all civilization was about to go\ndown with a crash, that we were all about to share the fall of third-\nand fourth-century Rome--a respectable, but painfully overworked,\ncomparison. The fears once expressed by the followers of Malthus as to\nthe future of the world have proved groundless as regards the civilized\nportion of the world; it is strange indeed to look back at Carlyle\u2019s\nprophecies of some seventy years ago, and then think of the teeming\nlife of achievement, the life of conquest of every kind, and of noble\neffort crowned by success, which has been ours for the two generations\nsince he complained to High Heaven that all the tales had been told and\nall the songs sung, and that all the deeds really worth doing had been\ndone. I believe with all my heart that a great future remains for us;\nbut whether it does or does not, our duty is not altered. However the\nbattle may go, the soldier worthy of the name will with utmost vigor\ndo his allotted task, and bear himself as valiantly in defeat as in\nvictory. Come what will, we belong to peoples who have not yielded\nto the craven fear of being great. In the ages that have gone by, the\ngreat nations, the nations that have expanded and that have played a\nmighty part in the world, have in the end grown old and weakened and\nvanished; but so have the nations whose only thought was to avoid all\ndanger, all effort, who would risk nothing, and who therefore gained\nnothing. In the end, the same fate may overwhelm all alike; but the\nmemory of the one type perishes with it, while the other leaves its\nmark deep on the history of all the future of mankind.\n\nA nation that seemingly dies may be born again; and even though in\nthe physical sense it die utterly, it may yet hand down a history of\nheroic achievement, and for all time to come may profoundly influence\nthe nations that arise in its place by the impress of what it has\ndone. Best of all is it to do our part well, and at the same time to\nsee our blood live young and vital in men and women fit to take up\nthe task as we lay it down; for so shall our seed inherit the earth.\nBut if this, which is best, is denied us, then at least it is ours to\nremember that if we choose we can be torch-bearers, as our fathers were\nbefore us. The torch has been handed on from nation to nation, from\ncivilization to civilization, throughout all recorded time, from the\ndim years before history dawned down to the blazing splendor of this\nteeming century of ours. It dropped from the hands of the coward and\nthe sluggard, of the man wrapped in luxury or love of ease, the man\nwhose soul was eaten away by self-indulgence; it has been kept alight\nonly by those who were mighty of heart and cunning of hand. What they\nworked at, provided it was worth doing at all, was of less matter than\nhow they worked, whether in the realm of the mind or the realm of the\nbody. If their work was good, if what they achieved was of substance,\nthen high success was really theirs.\n\nIn the first part of this lecture I drew certain analogies between what\nhas occurred to forms of animal life through the procession of the ages\non this planet, and what has occurred and is occurring to the great\nartificial civilizations which have gradually spread over the world\u2019s\nsurface during the thousands of years that have elapsed since cities\nof temples and palaces first rose beside the Nile and the Euphrates,\nand the harbors of Minoan Crete bristled with the masts of the \u00c6gean\ncraft. But of course the parallel is true only in the roughest and most\ngeneral way. Moreover, even between the civilizations of to-day and\nthe civilizations of ancient times there are differences so profound\nthat we must be cautious in drawing any conclusions for the present\nbased on what has happened in the past. While freely admitting all\nof our follies and weaknesses of to-day, it is yet mere perversity to\nrefuse to realize the incredible advance that has been made in ethical\nstandards. I do not believe that there is the slightest necessary\nconnection between any weakening of virile force and this advance in\nthe moral standard, this growth of the sense of obligation to one\u2019s\nneighbor and of reluctance to do that neighbor wrong. We need have\nscant patience with that silly cynicism which insists that kindliness\nof character only accompanies weakness of character. On the contrary,\njust as in private life many of the men of strongest character are\nthe very men of loftiest and most exalted morality, so I believe that\nin national life, as the ages go by, we shall find that the permanent\nnational types will more and more tend to become those in which,\nthough intellect stands high, character stands higher; in which rugged\nstrength and courage, rugged capacity to resist wrongful aggression\nby others, will go hand in hand with a lofty scorn of doing wrong\nto others. This is the type of Timoleon, of Hampden, of Washington,\nand Lincoln. These were as good men, as disinterested and unselfish\nmen, as ever served a state; and they were also as strong men as ever\nfounded or saved a state. Surely such examples prove that there is\nnothing Utopian in our effort to combine justice and strength in the\nsame nation. The really high civilizations must themselves supply the\nantidote to the self-indulgence and love of ease which they tend to\nproduce.\n\nEvery modern civilized nation has many and terrible problems to\nsolve within its own borders, problems that arise not merely from\njuxtaposition of poverty and riches, but especially from the\nself-consciousness of both poverty and riches. Each nation must deal\nwith these matters in its own fashion, and yet the spirit in which the\nproblem is approached must ever be fundamentally the same. It must\nbe a spirit of broad humanity, of brotherly kindness, of acceptance\nof responsibility, one for each and each for all, and at the same\ntime a spirit as remote as the poles from every form of weakness and\nsentimentality. As in war to pardon the coward is to do cruel wrong\nto the brave man whose life his cowardice jeopardizes, so in civil\naffairs it is revolting to every principle of justice to give to the\nlazy, the vicious, or even the feeble or dull-witted a reward which\nis really the robbery of what braver, wiser, abler men have earned.\nThe only effective way to help any man is to help him to help himself;\nand the worst lesson to teach him is that he can be permanently\nhelped at the expense of some one else. True liberty shows itself to\nbest advantage in protecting the rights of others, and especially\nof minorities. Privilege should not be tolerated because it is to\nthe advantage of a minority; nor yet because it is to the advantage\nof a majority. No doctrinaire theories of vested rights or freedom\nof contract can stand in the way of our cutting out abuses from the\nbody politic. Just as little can we afford to follow the doctrinaires\nof an impossible--and incidentally of a highly undesirable--social\nrevolution which, in destroying individual rights--including property\nrights--and the family, would destroy the two chief agents in the\nadvance of mankind, and the two chief reasons why either the advance\nor the preservation of mankind is worth while. It is an evil and a\ndreadful thing to be callous to sorrow and suffering and blind to our\nduty to do all things possible for the betterment of social conditions.\nBut it is an unspeakably foolish thing to strive for this betterment\nby means so destructive that they would leave no social conditions to\nbetter. In dealing with all these social problems, with the intimate\nrelations of the family, with wealth in private use and business use,\nwith labor, with poverty, the one prime necessity is to remember that,\nthough hardness of heart is a great evil, it is no greater an evil than\nsoftness of head.\n\nBut in addition to these problems, the most intimate and important\nof all, and which to a larger or less degree affect all the modern\nnations somewhat alike, we of the great nations that have expanded,\nthat are now in complicated relations with one another and with alien\nraces, have special problems and special duties of our own. You belong\nto a nation which possesses the greatest empire upon which the sun has\never shone. I belong to a nation which is trying, on a scale hitherto\nunexampled, to work out the problems of government for, of, and by the\npeople, while at the same time doing the international duty of a great\nPower. But there are certain problems which both of us have to solve,\nand as to which our standards should be the same. The Englishman, the\nman of the British Isles, in his various homes across the seas, and\nthe American, both at home and abroad, are brought into contact with\nutterly alien peoples, some with a civilization more ancient than our\nown, others still in, or having but recently arisen from, the barbarism\nwhich our people left behind ages ago. The problems that arise are\nof well-nigh inconceivable difficulty. They can not be solved by the\nfoolish sentimentality of stay-at-home people, with little patent\nrecipes and those cut-and-dried theories of the political nursery which\nhave such limited applicability amid the crash of elemental forces.\nNeither can they be solved by the raw brutality of the men who, whether\nat home or on the rough frontier of civilization, adopt might as the\nonly standard of right in dealing with other men, and treat alien races\nonly as subjects for exploitation.\n\nNo hard-and-fast rule can be drawn as applying to all alien races,\nbecause they differ from one another far more widely than some of\nthem differ from us. But there are one or two rules which must not\nbe forgotten. In the long run there can be no justification for\none race managing or controlling another unless the management and\ncontrol are exercised in the interest and for the benefit of that\nother race. This is what our peoples have in the main done, and must\ncontinue in the future in even greater degree to do, in India, Egypt,\nand the Philippines alike. In the next place, as regards every race,\neverywhere, at home or abroad, we can not afford to deviate from the\ngreat rule of righteousness which bids us treat each man on his worth\nas a man. He must not be sentimentally favored because he belongs to a\ngiven race; he must not be given immunity in wrong-doing or permitted\nto cumber the ground, or given other privileges which would be denied\nto the vicious and unfit among ourselves. On the other hand, where he\nacts in a way which would entitle him to respect and reward if he was\none of our own stock, he is just as entitled to that respect and reward\nif he comes of another stock, even though that other stock produces a\nmuch smaller proportion of men of his type than does our own. This has\nnothing to do with social intermingling, with what is called social\nequality. It has to do merely with the question of doing to each man\nand each woman that elementary justice which will permit him or her\nto gain from life the reward which should always accompany thrift,\nsobriety, self-control, respect for the rights of others, and hard\nand intelligent work to a given end. To more than such just treatment\nno man is entitled, and less than such just treatment no man should\nreceive.\n\nThe other type of duty is the international duty, the duty owed by\none nation to another. I hold that the laws of morality which should\ngovern individuals in their dealings one with the other, are just\nas binding concerning nations in their dealings one with the other.\nThe application of the moral law must be different in the two cases,\nbecause in one case it has, and in the other it has not, the sanction\nof a civil law with force behind it. The individual can depend for his\nrights upon the courts, which themselves derive their force from the\npolice power of the state. The nation can depend upon nothing of the\nkind; and therefore, as things are now, it is the highest duty of the\nmost advanced and freest peoples to keep themselves in such a state\nof readiness as to forbid to any barbarism or despotism the hope of\narresting the progress of the world by striking down the nations that\nlead in that progress. It would be foolish indeed to pay heed to the\nunwise persons who desire disarmament to be begun by the very peoples\nwho, of all others, should not be left helpless before any possible\nfoe. But we must reprobate quite as strongly both the leaders and\nthe peoples who practise, or encourage, or condone, aggression and\niniquity by the strong at the expense of the weak. We should tolerate\nlawlessness and wickedness neither by the weak nor by the strong;\nand both weak and strong we should in return treat with scrupulous\nfairness. The foreign policy of a great and self-respecting country\nshould be conducted on exactly the same plane of honor, for insistence\nupon one\u2019s own rights and of respect for the rights of others, that\nmarks the conduct of a brave and honorable man when dealing with his\nfellows. Permit me to support this statement out of my own experience.\nFor nearly eight years I was the head of a great nation, and charged\nespecially with the conduct of its foreign policy; and during those\nyears I took no action with reference to any other people on the face\nof the earth that I would not have felt justified in taking as an\nindividual in dealing with other individuals.\n\nI believe that we of the great civilized nations of to-day have a\nright to feel that long careers of achievement lie before our several\ncountries. To each of us is vouchsafed the honorable privilege of\ndoing his part, however small, in that work. Let us strive hardily\nfor success, even if by so doing we risk failure, spurning the poorer\nsouls of small endeavor, who know neither failure nor success. Let us\nhope that our own blood shall continue in the land, that our children\nand children\u2019s children to endless generations shall arise to take our\nplaces and play a mighty and dominant part in the world. But whether\nthis be denied or granted by the years we shall not see, let at least\nthe satisfaction be ours that we have carried onward the lighted torch\nin our own day and generation. If we do this, then, as our eyes close,\nand we go out into the darkness, and others\u2019 hands grasp the torch, at\nleast we can say that our part has been borne well and valiantly.\n\n\n\n\nTHE WORLD MOVEMENT\n\n\n\n\nTHE WORLD MOVEMENT[3]\n\n\nI very highly appreciate the chance to address the University of\nBerlin in the year that closes its first centenary of existence.\nIt is difficult for you in the Old World fully to appreciate the\nfeelings of a man who comes from a nation still in the making to a\ncountry with an immemorial historic past; and especially is this the\ncase when that country, with its ancient past behind it, yet looks\nwith proud confidence into the future, and in the present shows all\nthe abounding vigor of lusty youth. Such is the case with Germany.\nMore than a thousand years have passed since the Roman Empire of the\nWest became in fact a German empire. Throughout medi\u00e6val times the\nEmpire and the Papacy were the two central features in the history\nof the Occident. With the Ottos and the Henrys began the slow rise\nof that Western life which has shaped modern Europe, and therefore\nultimately the whole modern world. Their task was to organize society\nand to keep it from crumbling to pieces. They were castle-builders,\ncity-founders, road-makers; they battled to bring order out of the\nseething turbulence around them; and at the same time they first beat\nback heathendom and then slowly wrested from it its possessions.\n\n    [3] Delivered at the University of Berlin, May 12, 1910.\n\nAfter the downfall of Rome and the breaking in sunder of the Roman\nEmpire, the first real crystallization of the forces that were working\nfor a new uplift of civilization in western Europe was round the\nKarling house, and, above all, round the great Emperor, Karl the Great,\nthe seat of whose empire was at Aachen. Under the Karlings the Arab\nand the Moor were driven back beyond the Pyrenees; the last of the old\nheathen Germans were forced into Christianity, and the Avars, wild\nhorsemen from the Asian steppes, who had long held tented dominion\nin middle Europe, were utterly destroyed. With the break-up of the\nKarling empire came chaos once more, and a fresh inrush of savagery:\nVikings from the frozen north, and new hordes of outlandish riders\nfrom Asia. It was the early emperors of Germany proper who quelled\nthese barbarians; in their time Dane and Norseman and Magyar became\nChristians, and most of the Slav peoples as well, so that Europe began\nto take on a shape which we can recognize to-day. Since then the\ncenturies have rolled by, with strange alternations of fortune, now\nwell-nigh barren, and again great with German achievement in arms and\nin government, in science and the arts. The centre of power shifted\nhither and thither within German lands; the great house of Hohenzollern\nrose, the house which has at last seen Germany spring into a commanding\nposition in the very forefront among the nations of mankind.\n\nTo this ancient land, with its glorious past and splendid present, to\nthis land of many memories and of eager hopes, I come from a young\nnation, which is by blood akin to, and yet different from, each of\nthe great nations of middle and western Europe; which has inherited\nor acquired much from each, but is changing and developing every\ninheritance and acquisition into something new and strange. The German\nstrain in our blood is large, for almost from the beginning there has\nbeen a large German element among the successive waves of newcomers\nwhose children\u2019s children have been and are being fused into the\nAmerican nation; and I myself trace my origin to that branch of the Low\nDutch stock which raised Holland out of the North Sea. Moreover, we\nhave taken from you, not only much of the blood that runs through our\nveins, but much of the thought that shapes our minds. For generations\nAmerican scholars have flocked to your universities, and, thanks to\nthe wise foresight of his Imperial Majesty the present Emperor, the\nintimate and friendly connection between the two countries is now in\nevery way closer than it has ever been before.\n\nGermany is pre-eminently a country in which the world movement of\nto-day in all of its multitudinous aspects is plainly visible. The life\nof this university covers the period during which that movement has\nspread until it is felt throughout every continent, while its velocity\nhas been constantly accelerating, so that the face of the world has\nchanged, and is now changing, as never before. It is therefore fit and\nappropriate here to speak on this subject.\n\nWhen, in the slow procession of the ages, man was developed on this\nplanet, the change worked by his appearance was at first slight.\nFurther ages passed while he groped and struggled by infinitesimal\ndegrees upward through the lower grades of savagery; for the general\nlaw is that life which is advanced and complex, whatever its nature,\nchanges more quickly than simpler and less advanced forms. The life\nof savages changes and advances with extreme slowness, and groups\nof savages influence one another but little. The first rudimentary\nbeginnings of that complex life of communities which we call\ncivilization marked a period when man had already long been by far\nthe most important creature on the planet. The history of the living\nworld had become, in fact, the history of man, and therefore something\ntotally different in kind as well as in degree from what it had been\nbefore. There are interesting analogies between what has gone on in the\ndevelopment of life generally and what has gone on in the development\nof human society. [These I have discussed in the preceding chapter.]\nBut the differences are profound, and go to the root of things.\n\nThroughout their early stages the movements of civilization--for,\nproperly speaking, there was no one movement--were very slow, were\nlocal in space, and were partial in the sense that each developed along\nbut few lines. Of the numberless years that covered these early stages\nwe have no record. They were the years that saw such extraordinary\ndiscoveries and inventions as fire, and the wheel, and the bow, and\nthe domestication of animals. So local were these inventions that at\nthe present day there yet linger savage tribes, still fixed in the\nhalf-bestial life of an infinitely remote past, who know none of them\nexcept fire--and the discovery and use of fire may have marked, not\nthe beginning of civilization, but the beginning of the savagery which\nseparated man from brute.\n\nEven after civilization and culture had achieved a relatively high\nposition, they were still purely local, and from this fact subject to\nviolent shocks. Modern research has shown the existence in prehistoric\nor, at least, protohistoric times of many peoples who, in given\nlocalities, achieved a high and peculiar culture, a culture that\nwas later so completely destroyed that it is difficult to say what,\nif any, traces it left on the subsequent cultures out of which we\nhave developed our own, while it is also difficult to say exactly\nhow much any one of these cultures influenced any other. In many\ncases, as where invaders with weapons of bronze or iron conquered\nthe neolithic peoples, the higher civilization completely destroyed\nthe lower civilization, or barbarism, with which it came in contact.\nIn other cases, while superiority in culture gave its possessors at\nthe beginning a marked military and governmental superiority over\nthe neighboring peoples, yet sooner or later there accompanied it a\ncertain softness or enervating quality which left the cultured folk at\nthe mercy of the stark and greedy neighboring tribes, in whose savage\nsouls cupidity gradually overcame terror and awe. Then the people that\nhad been struggling upward would be engulfed, and the levelling waves\nof barbarism wash over them. But we are not yet in position to speak\ndefinitely on these matters. It is only the researches of recent years\nthat have enabled us so much as to guess at the course of events in\nprehistoric Greece; while as yet we can hardly even hazard a guess as\nto how, for instance, the Hallstadt culture rose and fell, or as to\nthe history and fate of the builders of those strange ruins of which\nStonehenge is the type.\n\nThe first civilizations which left behind them clear records rose in\nthat hoary historic past which geologically is part of the immediate\npresent--and which is but a span\u2019s length from the present, even when\ncompared only with the length of time that man has lived on this\nplanet. These first civilizations were those which rose in Mesopotamia\nand the Nile valley some six or eight thousand years ago. As far\nas we can see, they were well-nigh independent centres of cultural\ndevelopment, and our knowledge is not such at present as to enable us\nto connect either with the early cultural movements, in southwestern\nEurope on the one hand, or in India on the other, or with that Chinese\ncivilization which has been so profoundly affected by Indian influences.\n\nCompared with the civilizations with which we are best acquainted, the\nstriking features in the Mesopotamian and Nilotic civilizations were\nthe length of time they endured and their comparative changelessness.\nThe kings, priests, and peoples who dwelt by the Nile or Euphrates\nare found thinking much the same thoughts, doing much the same deeds,\nleaving at least very similar records, while time passes in tens of\ncenturies. Of course there was change; of course there were action\nand reaction in influence between them and their neighbors; and the\nmovement of change, of development, material, mental, spiritual,\nwas much faster than anything that had occurred during the eons of\nmere savagery. But in contradistinction to modern times the movement\nwas very slow indeed; and, moreover, in each case it was strongly\nlocalized, while the field of endeavor was narrow. There were certain\nconquests by man over nature; there were certain conquests in the\ndomain of pure intellect; there were certain extensions which spread\nthe area of civilized mankind. But it would be hard to speak of it as a\n\u201cworld movement\u201d at all, for by far the greater part of the habitable\nglobe was not only unknown, but its existence unguessed at, so far as\npeoples with any civilization whatsoever were concerned.\n\nWith the downfall of these ancient civilizations there sprang into\nprominence those peoples with whom our own cultural history may be\nsaid to begin. Those ideas and influences in our lives which we can\nconsciously trace back at all are in the great majority of instances to\nbe traced to the Jew, the Greek, or the Roman; and the ordinary man,\nwhen he speaks of the nations of antiquity, has in mind specifically\nthese three peoples--although, judged even by the history of which we\nhave record, theirs is a very modern antiquity indeed.\n\nThe case of the Jew was quite exceptional. His was a small nation, of\nlittle more consequence than the sister nations of Moab and Damascus,\nuntil all three, and the other petty states of the country, fell under\nthe yoke of the alien. Then he survived, while all his fellows died.\nIn the spiritual domain he contributed a religion which has been the\nmost potent of all factors in its effect on the subsequent history of\nmankind; but none of his other contributions compare with the legacies\nleft us by the Greek and the Roman.\n\nThe Greco-Roman world saw a civilization far more brilliant, far more\nvaried and intense, than any that had gone before it, and one that\naffected a far larger share of the world\u2019s surface. For the first\ntime there began to be something which at least foreshadowed a \u201cworld\nmovement\u201d in the sense that it affected a considerable portion of\nthe world\u2019s surface and that it represented what was incomparably\nthe most important of all that was happening in world history at the\ntime. In breadth and depth the field of intellectual interest had\ngreatly broadened at the same time that the physical area affected by\nthe civilization had similarly extended. Instead of a civilization\naffecting only one river valley or one nook of the Mediterranean, there\nwas a civilization which directly or indirectly influenced mankind\nfrom the Desert of Sahara to the Baltic, from the Atlantic Ocean to\nthe westernmost mountain chains that spring from the Himalayas.\nThroughout most of this region there began to work certain influences\nwhich, though with widely varying intensity, did nevertheless tend to\naffect a large portion of mankind. In many of the forms of science,\nin almost all the forms of art, there was great activity. In addition\nto great soldiers there were great administrators and statesmen whose\nconcern was with the fundamental questions of social and civil life.\nNothing like the width and variety of intellectual achievement and\nunderstanding had ever before been known; and for the first time we\ncome across great intellectual leaders, great philosophers and writers,\nwhose works are a part of all that is highest in modern thought, whose\nwritings are as alive to-day as when they were first issued; and there\nwere others of even more daring and original temper, a philosopher like\nDemocritus, a poet like Lucretius, whose minds leaped ahead through the\ncenturies and saw what none of their contemporaries saw, but who were\nso hampered by their surroundings that it was physically impossible for\nthem to leave to the later world much concrete addition to knowledge.\nThe civilization was one of comparatively rapid change, viewed by\nthe standard of Babylon and Memphis. There was incessant movement;\nand, moreover, the whole system went down with a crash to seeming\ndestruction after a period short compared with that covered by the\nreigns of a score of Egyptian dynasties, or with the time that elapsed\nbetween a Babylonian defeat by Elam and a war sixteen centuries later\nwhich fully avenged it.\n\nThis civilization flourished with brilliant splendor. Then it fell. In\nits northern seats it was overwhelmed by a wave of barbarism from among\nthose half-savage peoples from whom you and I, my hearers, trace our\ndescent. In the south and east it was destroyed later, but far more\nthoroughly, by invaders of an utterly different type. Both conquests\nwere of great importance; but it was the northern conquest which in its\nultimate effects was of by far the greatest importance.\n\nWith the advent of the Dark Ages the movement of course ceased, and\nit did not begin anew for many centuries; while a thousand years\npassed before it was once more in full swing, so far as European\ncivilization, so far as the world civilization of to-day, is concerned.\nDuring all those centuries the civilized world, in our acceptation\nof the term, was occupied, as its chief task, in slowly climbing\nback to the position from which it had fallen after the age of the\nAntonines. Of course a general statement like this must be accepted\nwith qualifications. There is no hard-and-fast line between one age or\nperiod and another, and in no age is either progress or retrogression\nuniversal in all things. There were many points in which the Middle\nAges, because of the simple fact that they were Christian, surpassed\nthe brilliant pagan civilization of the past; and there are some\npoints in which the civilization that succeeded them has sunk below\nthe level of the ages which saw such mighty masterpieces of poetry,\nof architecture--especially cathedral architecture--and of serene\nspiritual and forceful lay leadership. But they were centuries of\nviolence, rapine, and cruel injustice; and truth was so little heeded\nthat the noble and daring spirits who sought it, especially in its\nscientific form, did so in deadly peril of the fagot and the halter.\n\nDuring this period there were several very important extra-European\nmovements, one or two of which deeply affected Europe. Islam arose,\nand conquered far and wide, uniting fundamentally different races\ninto a brotherhood of feeling which Christianity has never been able\nto rival, and at the time of the Crusades profoundly influencing\nEuropean culture. It produced a civilization of its own, brilliant and\nhere and there useful, but hopelessly limited when compared with the\ncivilization of which we ourselves are the heirs. The great cultured\npeoples of southeastern and eastern Asia continued their checkered\ndevelopment totally unaffected by, and without knowledge of, any\nEuropean influence.\n\nThroughout the whole period there came against Europe, out of the\nunknown wastes of central Asia, an endless succession of strange and\nterrible conqueror races whose mission was mere destruction--Hun\nand Avar, Mongol, Tartar, and Turk. These fierce and squalid tribes\nof warrior horsemen flailed mankind with red scourges, wasted and\ndestroyed, and then vanished from the ground they had overrun. But in\nno way worth noting did they count in the advance of mankind.\n\nAt last, a little over four hundred years ago, the movement toward\na world civilization took up its interrupted march. The beginning\nof the modern movement may roughly be taken as synchronizing with\nthe discovery of printing, and with that series of bold sea ventures\nwhich culminated in the discovery of America; and, after these two\nepochal feats had begun to produce their full effects in material\nand intellectual life, it became inevitable that civilization should\nthereafter differ not only in degree but even in kind from all that\nhad gone before. Immediately after the voyages of Columbus and Vasco\nda Gama there began a tremendous religious ferment; the awakening of\nintellect went hand in hand with the moral uprising; the great names\nof Copernicus, Bruno, Kepler, and Galileo show that the mind of man\nwas breaking the fetters that had cramped it; and for the first time\nexperimentation was used as a check upon observation and theorization.\nSince then, century by century, the changes have increased in rapidity\nand complexity, and have attained their maximum in both respects\nduring the century just past. Instead of being directed by one or\ntwo dominant peoples, as was the case with all similar movements of\nthe past, the new movement was shared by many different nations.\nFrom every standpoint it has been of infinitely greater moment than\nanything hitherto seen. Not in one but in many different peoples there\nhas been extraordinary growth in wealth, in population, in power of\norganization, and in mastery over mechanical activity and natural\nresources. All of this has been accompanied and signalized by an\nimmense outburst of energy and restless initiative. The result is as\nvaried as it is striking.\n\nIn the first place, representatives of this civilization, by their\nconquest of space, were enabled to spread into all the practically\nvacant continents, while at the same time, by their triumphs in\norganization and mechanical invention, they acquired an unheard-of\nmilitary superiority as compared with their former rivals. To these\ntwo facts is primarily due the further fact that for the first time\nthere is really something that approaches a world civilization, a\nworld movement. The spread of the European peoples since the days of\nFerdinand the Catholic and Ivan the Terrible has been across every\nsea and over every continent. In places the conquests have been\nethnic; that is, there has been a new wandering of the peoples, and\nnew commonwealths have sprung up in which the people are entirely\nor mainly of European blood. This is what happened in the temperate\nand subtropical regions of the Western Hemisphere, in Australia, in\nportions of northern Asia and southern Africa. In other places the\nconquest has been purely political, the Europeans representing for\nthe most part merely a small caste of soldiers and administrators,\nas in most of tropical Asia and Africa, and in much of tropical\nAmerica. Finally, here and there instances occur where there has\nbeen no conquest at all, but where an alien people is profoundly and\nradically changed by the mere impact of Western civilization. The most\nextraordinary instance of this, of course, is Japan; for Japan\u2019s growth\nand change during the last half-century has been in many ways the\nmost striking phenomenon of all history. Intensely proud of her past\nhistory, intensely loyal to certain of her past traditions, she has yet\nwith a single effort wrenched herself free from all hampering ancient\nties, and with a bound has taken her place among the leading civilized\nnations of mankind.\n\nThere are, of course, many grades between these different types of\ninfluence, but the net outcome of what has occurred during the last\nfour centuries is that civilization of the European type now exercises\na more or less profound effect over practically the entire world. There\nare nooks and corners to which it has not yet penetrated; but there is\nat present no large space of territory in which the general movement\nof civilized activity does not make itself more or less felt. This\nrepresents something wholly different from what has ever hitherto been\nseen. In the greatest days of Roman dominion the influence of Rome was\nfelt over only a relatively small portion of the world\u2019s surface. Over\nmuch the larger part of the world the process of change and development\nwas absolutely unaffected by anything that occurred in the Roman\nEmpire; and those communities the play of whose influence was felt in\naction and reaction, and in interaction, among themselves, were grouped\nimmediately around the Mediterranean. Now, however, the whole world is\nbound together as never before; the bonds are sometimes those of hatred\nrather than love, but they are bonds nevertheless.\n\nFrowning or hopeful, every man of leadership in any line of thought\nor effort must now look beyond the limits of his own country. The\nstudent of sociology may live in Berlin or Saint Petersburg, Rome or\nLondon, or he may live in Melbourne or San Francisco or Buenos Ayres;\nbut in whatever city he lives, he must pay heed to the studies of men\nwho live in each of the other cities. When in America we study labor\nproblems and attempt to deal with subjects such as life-insurance\nfor wage-workers, we turn to see what you do here in Germany, and\nwe also turn to see what the far-off commonwealth of New Zealand is\ndoing. When a great German scientist is warring against the most\ndreaded enemies of mankind, creatures of infinitesimal size which\nthe microscope reveals in his blood, he may spend his holidays of\nstudy in central Africa or in eastern Asia; and he must know what is\naccomplished in the laboratories of Tokio, just as he must know the\ndetails of that practical application of science which has changed\nthe Isthmus of Panama from a death-trap into what is almost a health\nresort. Every progressive in China is striving to introduce Western\nmethods of education and administration, and hundreds of European\nand American books are now translated into Chinese. The influence of\nEuropean governmental principles is strikingly illustrated by the fact\nthat admiration for them has broken down the iron barriers of Moslem\nconservatism, so that their introduction has become a burning question\nin Turkey and Persia; while the very unrest, the impatience of European\nor American control, in India, Egypt, or the Philippines, takes the\nform of demanding that the government be assimilated more closely to\nwhat it is in England or the United States. The deeds and works of\nany great statesman, the preachings of any great ethical, social, or\npolitical teacher, now find echoes in both hemispheres and in every\ncontinent. From a new discovery in science to a new method of combating\nor applying socialism, there is no movement of note which can take\nplace in any part of the globe without powerfully affecting masses of\npeople in Europe, America, and Australia, in Asia and Africa. For weal\nor for woe, the peoples of mankind are knit together far closer than\never before.\n\nSo much for the geographical side of the expansion of modern\ncivilization. But only a few of the many and intense activities of\nmodern civilization have found their expression on this side. The\nmovement has been just as striking in its conquest over natural forces,\nin its searching inquiry into and about the soul of things.\n\nThe conquest over Nature has included an extraordinary increase\nin every form of knowledge of the world we live in, and also an\nextraordinary increase in the power of utilizing the forces of Nature.\nIn both directions the advance has been very great during the past\nfour or five centuries, and in both directions it has gone on with\never-increasing rapidity during the last century. After the great\nage of Rome had passed, the boundaries of knowledge shrank, and in\nmany cases it was not until well-nigh our own times that her domain\nwas once again pushed beyond the ancient landmarks. About the year\n150 A.\u00a0D., Ptolemy, the geographer, published his map of central\nAfrica and the sources of the Nile, and this map was more accurate\nthan any which we had as late as 1850 A.\u00a0D. More was known of physical\nscience, and more of the truth about the physical world was guessed\nat, in the days of Pliny, than was known or guessed until the modern\nmovement began. The case was the same as regards military science. At\nthe close of the Middle Ages the weapons were what they had always\nbeen--sword, shield, bow, spear; and any improvement in them was more\nthan offset by the loss in knowledge of military organization, in the\nscience of war, and in military leadership since the days of Hannibal\nand C\u00e6sar. A hundred years ago, when this university was founded,\nthe methods of transportation did not differ in the essentials from\nwhat they had been among the highly civilized nations of antiquity.\nTravellers and merchandise went by land in wheeled vehicles or on\nbeasts of burden, and by sea in boats propelled by sails or by oars;\nand news was conveyed as it always had been conveyed. What improvements\nthere had been had been in degree only and not in kind; and in some\nrespects there had been retrogression rather than advance. There\nwere many parts of Europe where the roads were certainly worse than\nthe old Roman post-roads; and the Mediterranean Sea, for instance,\nwas by no means as well policed as in the days of Trajan. Now steam\nand electricity have worked a complete revolution; and the resulting\nimmensely increased ease of communication has in its turn completely\nchanged all the physical questions of human life. A voyage from Egypt\nto England was nearly as serious an affair in the eighteenth century as\nin the second; and the news communications between the two lands were\nnot materially improved. A graduate of your university to-day can go\nto mid-Asia or mid-Africa with far less consciousness of performing a\nfeat of note than would have been the case a hundred years ago with a\nstudent who visited Sicily and Andalusia. Moreover, the invention and\nuse of machinery run by steam or electricity have worked a revolution\nin industry as great as the revolution in transportation; so that here\nagain the difference between ancient and modern civilization is one not\nmerely of degree but of kind. In many vital respects the huge modern\ncity differs more from all preceding cities than any of these differed\none from the other; and the giant factory town is of and by itself one\nof the most formidable problems of modern life.\n\nSteam and electricity have given the race dominion over land and\nwater such as it never had before; and now the conquest of the air\nis directly impending. As books preserve thought through time, so\nthe telegraph and the telephone transmit it through the space they\nannihilate, and therefore minds are swayed one by another without\nregard to the limitations of space and time which formerly forced\neach community to work in comparative isolation. It is the same with\nthe body as with the brain. The machinery of the factory and the\nfarm enormously multiplies bodily skill and vigor. Countless trained\nintelligences are at work to teach us how to avoid or counteract the\neffects of waste. Of course some of the agents in the modern scientific\ndevelopment of natural resources deal with resources of such a kind\nthat their development means their destruction, so that exploitation\non a grand scale means an intense rapidity of development purchased at\nthe cost of a speedy exhaustion. The enormous and constantly increasing\noutput of coal and iron necessarily means the approach of the day when\nour children\u2019s children, or their children\u2019s children, shall dwell in\nan ironless age--and, later on, in an age without coal--and will have\nto try to invent or develop new sources for the production of heat and\nuse of energy. But as regards many another natural resource, scientific\ncivilization teaches us how to preserve it through use. The best use of\nfield and forest will leave them decade by decade, century by century,\nmore fruitful; and we have barely begun to use the indestructible power\nthat comes from harnessed water. The conquests of surgery, of medicine,\nthe conquests in the entire field of hygiene and sanitation, have been\nliterally marvellous; the advances in the past century or two have been\nover more ground than was covered during the entire previous history of\nthe human race.\n\nThe advances in the realm of pure intellect have been of equal note,\nand they have been both intensive and extensive. Great virgin fields of\nlearning and wisdom have been discovered by the few, and at the same\ntime knowledge has spread among the many to a degree never dreamed of\nbefore. Old men among us have seen in their own generation the rise of\nthe first rational science of the evolution of life. The astronomer and\nthe chemist, the psychologist and the historian, and all their brethren\nin many different fields of wide endeavor, work with a training and\nknowledge and method which are in effect instruments of precision,\ndifferentiating their labors from the labors of their predecessors as\nthe rifle is differentiated from the bow.\n\nThe play of new forces is as evident in the moral and spiritual world\nas in the world of the mind and the body. Forces for good and forces\nfor evil are everywhere evident, each acting with a hundred- or a\nthousandfold the intensity with which it acted in former ages. Over the\nwhole earth the swing of the pendulum grows more and more rapid, the\nmainspring coils and spreads at a rate constantly quickening, the whole\nworld movement is of constantly accelerating velocity.\n\nIn this movement there are signs of much that bodes ill. The machinery\nis so highly geared, the tension and strain are so great, the effort\nand the output have alike so increased, that there is cause to dread\nthe ruin that would come from any great accident, from any breakdown,\nand also the ruin that may come from the mere wearing out of the\nmachine itself. The only previous civilization with which our modern\ncivilization can be in any way compared is that period of Greco-Roman\ncivilization extending, say, from the Athens of Themistocles to the\nRome of Marcus Aurelius. Many of the forces and tendencies which were\nthen at work are at work now. Knowledge, luxury, and refinement,\nwide material conquests, territorial administration on a vast\nscale, an increase in the mastery of mechanical appliances and in\napplied science--all these mark our civilization as they marked the\nwonderful civilization that flourished in the Mediterranean lands\ntwenty centuries ago; and they preceded the downfall of the older\ncivilization. Yet the differences are many, and some of them are\nquite as striking as the similarities. The single fact that the old\ncivilization was based upon slavery shows the chasm that separates the\ntwo. Let me point out one further and very significant difference in\nthe development of the two civilizations, a difference so obvious that\nit is astonishing that it has not been dwelt upon by men of letters.\n\nOne of the prime dangers of civilization has always been its tendency\nto cause the loss of virile fighting virtues, of the fighting edge.\nWhen men get too comfortable and lead too luxurious lives, there is\nalways danger lest the softness eat like an acid into their manliness\nof fibre. The barbarian, because of the very conditions of his life,\nis forced to keep and develop certain hardy qualities which the man\nof civilization tends to lose, whether he be clerk, factory hand,\nmerchant, or even a certain type of farmer. Now, I will not assert that\nin modern civilized society these tendencies have been wholly overcome;\nbut there has been a much more successful effort to overcome them than\nwas the case in the early civilizations. This is curiously shown by the\nmilitary history of the Greco-Roman period as compared with the history\nof the last four or five centuries here in Europe and among nations of\nEuropean descent. In the Grecian and Roman military history the change\nwas steadily from a citizen army to an army of mercenaries. In the days\nof the early greatness of Athens, Thebes, and Sparta, in the days when\nthe Roman republic conquered what world it knew, the armies were filled\nwith citizen soldiers. But gradually the citizens refused to serve in\nthe armies, or became unable to render good service. The Greek states\ndescribed by Polybius, with but few exceptions, hired others to do\ntheir fighting for them. The Romans of the days of Augustus had utterly\nceased to furnish any cavalry, and were rapidly ceasing to furnish any\ninfantry, to the legions and cohorts. When the civilization came to\nan end, there were no longer citizens in the ranks of the soldiers.\nThe change from the citizen army to the army of mercenaries had been\ncompleted.\n\nNow the exact reverse has been the case with us in modern times. A few\ncenturies ago the mercenary soldier was the principal figure in most\narmies, and in great numbers of cases the mercenary soldier was an\nalien. In the wars of religion in France, in the Thirty Years\u2019 War in\nGermany, in the wars that immediately thereafter marked the beginning\nof the break-up of the great Polish kingdom, the regiments and brigades\nof foreign soldiers formed a striking and leading feature in every\narmy. Too often the men of the country in which the fighting took place\nplayed merely the ignoble part of victims, the burghers and peasants\nappearing in but limited numbers in the mercenary armies by which they\nwere plundered. Gradually this has all changed, until now practically\nevery army is a citizen army, and the mercenary has almost disappeared,\nwhile the army exists on a vaster scale than ever before in history.\nThis is so among the military monarchies of Europe. In our own Civil\nWar of the United States the same thing occurred, peaceful people as\nwe are. At that time more than two generations had passed since the\nwar of independence. During the whole of that period the people had\nbeen engaged in no life-and-death struggle; and yet, when the Civil War\nbroke out, and after some costly and bitter lessons at the beginning,\nthe fighting spirit of the people was shown to better advantage than\never before. The war was peculiarly a war for a principle, a war\nwaged by each side for an ideal, and while faults and shortcomings\nwere plentiful among the combatants, there was comparatively little\nsordidness of motive or conduct. In such a giant struggle, where across\nthe warp of so many interests is shot the woof of so many purposes,\ndark strands and bright, strands sombre and brilliant, are always\nintertwined; inevitably there was corruption here and there in the\nCivil War; but all the leaders on both sides and the great majority of\nthe enormous masses of fighting men wholly disregarded, and were wholly\nuninfluenced by, pecuniary considerations. There were, of course,\nforeigners who came over to serve as soldiers of fortune for money or\nfor love of adventure; but the foreign-born citizens served in much\nthe same proportion, and from the same motives, as the native-born.\nTaken as a whole, it was, even more than the Revolutionary War, a true\ncitizens\u2019 fight, and the armies of Grant and Lee were as emphatically\ncitizen armies as the Athenian, Theban, or Spartan armies in the great\nage of Greece, or as a Roman army in the days of the republic.\n\nAnother striking contrast in the course of modern civilization\nas compared with the later stages of the Greco-Roman or classic\ncivilization is to be found in the relations of wealth and politics.\nIn classic times, as the civilization advanced toward its zenith,\npolitics became a recognized means of accumulating great wealth. C\u00e6sar\nwas again and again on the verge of bankruptcy; he spent an enormous\nfortune; and he recouped himself by the money which he made out of his\npolitical-military career. Augustus established imperial Rome on firm\nfoundations by the use he made of the huge fortune he had acquired\nby plunder. What a contrast is offered by the careers of Washington\nand Lincoln! There were a few exceptions in ancient days; but the\nimmense majority of the Greeks and the Romans, as their civilizations\nculminated, accepted money-making on a large scale as one of the\nincidents of a successful public career. Now all of this is in sharp\ncontrast to what has happened within the last two or three centuries.\nDuring this time there has been a steady growth away from the theory\nthat money-making is permissible in an honorable public career. In this\nrespect the standard has been constantly elevated, and things which\nstatesmen had no hesitation in doing three centuries or two centuries\nago, and which did not seriously hurt a public career even a century\nago, are now utterly impossible. Wealthy men still exercise a large,\nand sometimes an improper, influence in politics, but it is apt to be\nan indirect influence; and in the advanced states the mere suspicion\nthat the wealth of public men is obtained or added to as an incident\nof their public careers will bar them from public life. Speaking\ngenerally, wealth may very greatly influence modern political life,\nbut it is not acquired in political life. The colonial administrators,\nGerman or American, French or English, of this generation lead careers\nwhich, as compared with the careers of other men of like ability,\nshow too little rather than too much regard for money-making; and\nliterally a world scandal would be caused by conduct which a Roman\nproconsul would have regarded as moderate, and which would not have\nbeen especially uncommon even in the administration of England a\ncentury and a half ago. On the whole, the great statesmen of the last\nfew generations have been either men of moderate means or, if men of\nwealth, men whose wealth was diminished rather than increased by their\npublic services.\n\nI have dwelt on these points merely because it is well to emphasize\nin the most emphatic fashion the fact that in many respects there is\na complete lack of analogy between the civilization of to-day and\nthe only other civilization in any way comparable to it, that of the\nancient Greco-Roman lands. There are, of course, many points in which\nthe analogy is close, and in some of these points the resemblances\nare as ominous as they are striking. But most striking of all is the\nfact that in point of physical extent, of wide diversity of interest,\nand of extreme velocity of movement, the present civilization can be\ncompared to nothing that has ever gone before. It is now literally a\nworld movement, and the movement is growing ever more rapid and is\never reaching into new fields. Any considerable influence exerted at\none point is certain to be felt with greater or less effect at almost\nevery other point. Every path of activity open to the human intellect\nis followed with an eagerness and success never hitherto dreamed of. We\nhave established complete liberty of conscience, and, in consequence,\na complete liberty for mental activity. All free and daring souls have\nbefore them a well-nigh limitless opening for endeavor of any kind.\n\nHitherto every civilization that has arisen has been able to develop\nonly a comparatively few activities; that is, its field of endeavor has\nbeen limited in kind as well as in locality. There have, of course,\nbeen great movements, but they were of practically only one form of\nactivity; and, although usually this set in motion other kinds of\nactivities, such was not always the case. The great religious movements\nhave been the preeminent examples of this type. But they are not the\nonly ones. Such peoples as the Mongols and the Ph\u0153nicians, at almost\nopposite poles of cultivation, have represented movements in which one\nelement, military or commercial, so overshadowed all other elements\nthat the movement died out chiefly because it was one-sided. The\nextraordinary outburst of activity among the Mongols of the thirteenth\ncentury was almost purely a military movement, without even any great\nadministrative side; and it was therefore well-nigh purely a movement\nof destruction. The individual prowess and hardihood of the Mongols,\nand the perfection of their military organization rendered their\narmies incomparably superior to those of any European, or any other\nAsiatic, power of that day. They conquered from the Yellow Sea to the\nPersian Gulf and the Adriatic; they seized the imperial throne of\nChina; they slew the Caliph in Bagdad; they founded dynasties in India.\nThe fanaticism of Christianity and the fanaticism of Mohammedanism\nwere alike powerless against them. The valor of the bravest fighting\nmen in Europe was impotent to check them. They trampled Russia into\nbloody mire beneath the hoofs of their horses; they drew red furrows\nof destruction across Poland and Hungary; they overthrew with ease\nany force from western Europe that dared encounter them. Yet they\nhad no root of permanence; their work was mere evil while it lasted,\nand it did not last long; and when they vanished they left hardly a\ntrace behind them. So the extraordinary Ph\u0153nician civilization was\nalmost purely a mercantile, a business civilization, and though it\nleft an impress on the life that came after, this impress was faint\nindeed compared to that left, for instance, by the Greeks with their\nmany-sided development. Yet the Greek civilization itself fell because\nthis many-sided development became too exclusively one of intellect, at\nthe expense of character, at the expense of the fundamental qualities\nwhich fit men to govern both themselves and others. When the Greek lost\nthe sterner virtues, when his soldiers lost the fighting edge, and his\nstatesmen grew corrupt, while the people became a faction-torn and\npleasure-loving rabble, then the doom of Greece was at hand, and not\nall their cultivation, their intellectual brilliancy, their artistic\ndevelopment, their adroitness in speculative science, could save the\nHellenic peoples as they bowed before the sword of the iron Roman.\n\nWhat is the lesson to us to-day? Are we to go the way of the older\ncivilizations? The immense increase in the area of civilized activity\nto-day, so that it is nearly coterminous with the world\u2019s surface;\nthe immense increase in the multitudinous variety of its activities;\nthe immense increase in the velocity of the world movement--are all\nthese to mean merely that the crash will be all the more complete and\nterrible when it comes? We can not be certain that the answer will be\nin the negative; but of this we can be certain, that we shall not go\ndown in ruin unless we deserve and earn our end. There is no necessity\nfor us to fall; we can hew out our destiny for ourselves, if only we\nhave the wit and the courage and the honesty.\n\nPersonally, I do not believe that our civilization will fall. I think\nthat on the whole we have grown better and not worse. I think that on\nthe whole the future holds more for us than even the great past has\nheld. But, assuredly, the dreams of golden glory in the future will not\ncome true unless, high of heart and strong of hand, by our own mighty\ndeeds we make them come true. We can not afford to develop any one set\nof qualities, any one set of activities, at the cost of seeing others,\nequally necessary, atrophied. Neither the military efficiency of the\nMongol, the extraordinary business ability of the Ph\u0153nician, nor the\nsubtle and polished intellect of the Greek availed to avert destruction.\n\nWe, the men of to-day and of the future, need many qualities if we\nare to do our work well. We need, first of all and most important of\nall, the qualities which stand at the base of individual, of family\nlife, the fundamental and essential qualities--the homely, every-day,\nall-important virtues. If the average man will not work, if he has not\nin him the will and the power to be a good husband and father; if the\naverage woman is not a good housewife, a good mother of many healthy\nchildren, then the state will topple, will go down, no matter what may\nbe its brilliance of artistic development or material achievement. But\nthese homely qualities are not enough. There must, in addition, be that\npower of organization, that power of working in common for a common\nend, which the German people have shown in such signal fashion during\nthe last half-century. Moreover, the things of the spirit are even\nmore important than the things of the body. We can well do without the\nhard intolerance and arid intellectual barrenness of what was worst in\nthe theological systems of the past, but there has never been greater\nneed of a high and fine religious spirit than at the present time. So,\nwhile we can laugh good-humoredly at some of the pretensions of modern\nphilosophy in its various branches, it would be worse than folly on\nour part to ignore our need of intellectual leadership. Your own great\nFrederick once said that if he wished to punish a province he would\nleave it to be governed by philosophers; the sneer had in it an element\nof justice; and yet no one better than the great Frederick knew the\nvalue of philosophers, the value of men of science, men of letters,\nmen of art. It would be a bad thing indeed to accept Tolstoi as a\nguide in social and moral matters; but it would also be a bad thing\nnot to have Tolstoi, not to profit by the lofty side of his teachings.\nThere are plenty of scientific men whose hard arrogance, whose cynical\nmaterialism, whose dogmatic intolerance, put them on a level with the\nbigoted medi\u00e6val ecclesiasticism which they denounce. Yet our debt to\nscientific men is incalculable, and our civilization of to-day would\nhave reft from it all that which most highly distinguishes it if the\nwork of the great masters of science during the past four centuries\nwere now undone or forgotten. Never has philanthropy, humanitarianism,\nseen such development as now; and though we must all beware of the\nfolly, and the viciousness no worse than folly, which marks the\nbeliever in the perfectibility of man when his heart runs away with\nhis head, or when vanity usurps the place of conscience, yet we must\nremember also that it is only by working along the lines laid down by\nthe philanthropists, by the lovers of mankind, that we can be sure\nof lifting our civilization to a higher and more permanent plane of\nwell-being than was ever attained by any preceding civilization. Unjust\nwar is to be abhorred; but woe to the nation that does not make ready\nto hold its own in time of need against all who would harm it! And woe\nthrice over to the nation in which the average man loses the fighting\nedge, loses the power to serve as a soldier if the day of need should\narise!\n\nIt is no impossible dream to build up a civilization in which morality,\nethical development, and a true feeling of brotherhood shall all alike\nbe divorced from false sentimentality, and from the rancorous and evil\npassions which, curiously enough, so often accompany professions of\nsentimental attachment to the rights of man; in which a high material\ndevelopment in the things of the body shall be achieved without\nsubordination of the things of the soul; in which there shall be a\ngenuine desire for peace and justice without loss of those virile\nqualities without which no love of peace or justice shall avail any\nrace; in which the fullest development of scientific research, the\ngreat distinguishing feature of our present civilization, shall\nyet not imply a belief that intellect can ever take the place of\ncharacter--for, from the standpoint of the nation as of the individual,\nit is character that is the one vital possession.\n\nFinally, this world movement of civilization, this movement which\nis now felt throbbing in every corner of the globe, should bind the\nnations of the world together while yet leaving unimpaired that love\nof country in the individual citizen which in the present stage of\nthe world\u2019s progress is essential to the world\u2019s well-being. You, my\nhearers, and I who speak to you, belong to different nations. Under\nmodern conditions the books we read, the news sent by telegraph to\nour newspapers, the strangers we meet, half of the things we hear and\ndo each day, all tend to bring us into touch with other peoples. Each\npeople can do justice to itself only if it does justice to others; but\neach people can do its part in the world movement for all only if it\nfirst does its duty within its own household. The good citizen must be\na good citizen of his own country first before he can with advantage\nbe a citizen of the world at large. I wish you well. I believe in you\nand your future. I admire and wonder at the extraordinary greatness\nand variety of your achievements in so many and such widely different\nfields; and my admiration and regard are all the greater, and not the\nless, because I am so profound a believer in the institutions and the\npeople of my own land.\n\n\n\n\nCITIZENSHIP IN A REPUBLIC\n\n\n\n\nCITIZENSHIP IN A REPUBLIC[4]\n\n\nStrange and impressive associations rise in the mind of a man from\nthe New World who speaks before this august body in this ancient\ninstitution of learning. Before his eyes pass the shadows of mighty\nkings and warlike nobles, of great masters of law and theology; through\nthe shining dust of the dead centuries he sees crowded figures that\ntell of the power and learning and splendor of times gone by; and he\nsees also the innumerable host of humble students to whom clerkship\nmeant emancipation, to whom it was well-nigh the only outlet from the\ndark thraldom of the Middle Ages.\n\n    [4] Delivered at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910.\n\nThis was the most famous university of medi\u00e6val Europe at a time when\nno one dreamed that there was a New World to discover. Its services\nto the cause of human knowledge already stretched far back into the\nremote past at the time when my forefathers, three centuries ago,\nwere among the sparse bands of traders, ploughmen, wood-choppers,\nand fisherfolk who, in hard struggle with the iron unfriendliness of\nthe Indian-haunted land, were laying the foundations of what has\nnow become the giant republic of the West. To conquer a continent,\nto tame the shaggy roughness of wild nature, means grim warfare;\nand the generations engaged in it can not keep, still less add to,\nthe stores of garnered wisdom which once were theirs, and which are\nstill in the hands of their brethren who dwell in the old land. To\nconquer the wilderness means to wrest victory from the same hostile\nforces with which mankind struggled in the immemorial infancy of our\nrace. The primeval conditions must be met by primeval qualities which\nare incompatible with the retention of much that has been painfully\nacquired by humanity as through the ages it has striven upward toward\ncivilization. In conditions so primitive there can be but a primitive\nculture. At first only the rudest schools can be established, for no\nothers would meet the needs of the hard-driven, sinewy folk who thrust\nforward the frontier in the teeth of savage man and savage nature; and\nmany years elapse before any of these schools can develop into seats of\nhigher learning and broader culture.\n\nThe pioneer days pass; the stump-dotted clearings expand into vast\nstretches of fertile farmland; the stockaded clusters of log cabins\nchange into towns; the hunters of game, the fellers of trees, the rude\nfrontier traders and tillers of the soil, the men who wander all their\nlives long through the wilderness as the heralds and harbingers of an\noncoming civilization, themselves vanish before the civilization for\nwhich they have prepared the way. The children of their successors and\nsupplanters, and then their children and children\u2019s children, change\nand develop with extraordinary rapidity. The conditions accentuate\nvices and virtues, energy and ruthlessness, all the good qualities\nand all the defects of an intense individualism, self-reliant,\nself-centred, far more conscious of its rights than of its duties, and\nblind to its own shortcomings. To the hard materialism of the frontier\ndays succeeds the hard materialism of an industrialism even more\nintense and absorbing than that of the older nations; although these\nthemselves have likewise already entered on the age of a complex and\npredominantly industrial civilization.\n\nAs the country grows, its people, who have won success in so many\nlines, turn back to try to recover the possessions of the mind and the\nspirit, which perforce their fathers threw aside in order better to\nwage the first rough battles for the continent their children inherit.\nThe leaders of thought and of action grope their way forward to a new\nlife, realizing, sometimes dimly, sometimes clear-sightedly, that the\nlife of material gain, whether for a nation or an individual, is of\nvalue only as a foundation, only as there is added to it the uplift\nthat comes from devotion to loftier ideals. The new life thus sought\ncan in part be developed afresh from what is round about in the New\nWorld; but it can be developed in full only by freely drawing upon\nthe treasure-houses of the Old World, upon the treasures stored in\nthe ancient abodes of wisdom and learning, such as this where I speak\nto-day. It is a mistake for any nation merely to copy another; but it\nis an even greater mistake, it is a proof of weakness in any nation,\nnot to be anxious to learn from another, and willing and able to adapt\nthat learning to the new national conditions and make it fruitful and\nproductive therein. It is for us of the New World to sit at the feet of\nthe Gamaliel of the Old; then, if we have the right stuff in us, we can\nshow that Paul in his turn can become a teacher as well as a scholar.\n\nTo-day I shall speak to you on the subject of individual citizenship,\nthe one subject of vital importance to you, my hearers, and to\nme and my countrymen, because you and we are citizens of great\ndemocratic republics. A democratic republic such as each of ours--an\neffort to realize in its full sense government by, of, and for\nthe people--represents the most gigantic of all possible social\nexperiments, the one fraught with greatest possibilities alike for good\nand for evil. The success of republics like yours and like ours means\nthe glory, and our failure the despair, of mankind; and for you and for\nus the question of the quality of the individual citizen is supreme.\nUnder other forms of government, under the rule of one man or of a very\nfew men, the quality of the rulers is all-important. If, under such\ngovernments, the quality of the rulers is high enough, then the nation\nmay for generations lead a brilliant career, and add substantially to\nthe sum of world achievement, no matter how low the quality of the\naverage citizen; because the average citizen is an almost negligible\nquantity in working out the final results of that type of national\ngreatness.\n\nBut with you and with us the case is different. With you here, and\nwith us in my own home, in the long run, success or failure will be\nconditioned upon the way in which the average man, the average woman,\ndoes his or her duty, first in the ordinary, every-day affairs of life,\nand next in those great occasional crises which call for the heroic\nvirtues. The average citizen must be a good citizen if our republics\nare to succeed. The stream will not permanently rise higher than\nthe main source; and the main source of national power and national\ngreatness is found in the average citizenship of the nation. Therefore\nit behooves us to do our best to see that the standard of the average\ncitizen is kept high; and the average can not be kept high unless the\nstandard of the leaders is very much higher.\n\nIt is well if a large proportion of the leaders in any republic, in\nany democracy, are, as a matter of course, drawn from the classes\nrepresented in this audience to-day; but only provided that those\nclasses possess the gifts of sympathy with plain people and of\ndevotion to great ideals. You and those like you have received special\nadvantages; you have all of you had the opportunity for mental\ntraining; many of you have had leisure; most of you have had a chance\nfor the enjoyment of life far greater than comes to the majority of\nyour fellows. To you and your kind much has been given, and from you\nmuch should be expected. Yet there are certain failings against which\nit is especially incumbent that both men of trained and cultivated\nintellect, and men of inherited wealth and position, should especially\nguard themselves, because to these failings they are especially liable;\nand if yielded to, their--your--chances of useful service are at an end.\n\nLet the man of learning, the man of lettered leisure, beware of that\nqueer and cheap temptation to pose to himself and to others as the\ncynic, as the man who has outgrown emotions and beliefs, the man to\nwhom good and evil are as one. The poorest way to face life is to face\nit with a sneer. There are many men who feel a kind of twisted pride\nin cynicism; there are many who confine themselves to criticism of\nthe way others do what they themselves dare not even attempt. There\nis no more unhealthy being, no man less worthy of respect, than he\nwho either really holds, or feigns to hold, an attitude of sneering\ndisbelief toward all that is great and lofty, whether in achievement\nor in that noble effort which, even if it fails, comes second to\nachievement. A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to\ncriticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an\nintellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life\u2019s\nrealities--all these are marks, not, as the possessor would fain think,\nof superiority, but of weakness. They mark the men unfit to bear\ntheir part manfully in the stern strife of living, who seek, in the\naffectation of contempt for the achievements of others, to hide from\nothers and from themselves their own weakness. The r\u00f4le is easy; there\nis none easier, save only the r\u00f4le of the man who sneers alike at both\ncriticism and performance.\n\nIt is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the\nstrong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done\nthem better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the\narena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives\nvaliantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is\nno effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive\nto do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions;\nwho spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end\nthe triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails,\nat least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be\nwith those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.\nShame on the man of cultivated taste who permits refinement to develop\ninto a fastidiousness that unfits him for doing the rough work of a\nworkaday world. Among the free peoples who govern themselves there is\nbut a small field of usefulness open for the men of cloistered life who\nshrink from contact with their fellows. Still less room is there for\nthose who deride or slight what is done by those who actually bear the\nbrunt of the day; nor yet for those others who always profess that they\nwould like to take action, if only the conditions of life were not what\nthey actually are. The man who does nothing cuts the same sordid figure\nin the pages of history, whether he be cynic, or fop, or voluptuary.\nThere is little use for the being whose tepid soul knows nothing of the\ngreat and generous emotion, of the high pride, the stern belief, the\nlofty enthusiasm, of the men who quell the storm and ride the thunder.\nWell for these men if they succeed; well also, though not so well, if\nthey fail, given only that they have nobly ventured, and have put forth\nall their heart and strength. It is war-worn Hotspur, spent with hard\nfighting, he of the many errors and the valiant end, over whose memory\nwe love to linger, not over the memory of the young lord who \u201cbut for\nthe vile guns would have been a soldier.\u201d\n\nFrance has taught many lessons to other nations: surely one of the\nmost important is the lesson her whole history teaches, that a high\nartistic and literary development is compatible with notable leadership\nin arms and statecraft. The brilliant gallantry of the French soldier\nhas for many centuries been proverbial; and during these same centuries\nat every court in Europe the \u201cfreemasons of fashion\u201d have treated the\nFrench tongue as their common speech; while every artist and man of\nletters, and every man of science able to appreciate that marvellous\ninstrument of precision, French prose, has turned toward France for aid\nand inspiration. How long the leadership in arms and letters has lasted\nis curiously illustrated by the fact that the earliest masterpiece in a\nmodern tongue is the splendid French epic which tells of Roland\u2019s doom\nand the vengeance of Charlemagne when the lords of the Frankish host\nwere stricken at Roncesvalles.\n\nLet those who have, keep, let those who have not, strive to attain, a\nhigh standard of cultivation and scholarship. Yet let us remember that\nthese stand second to certain other things. There is need of a sound\nbody, and even more need of a sound mind. But above mind and above\nbody stands character--the sum of those qualities which we mean when\nwe speak of a man\u2019s force and courage, of his good faith and sense of\nhonor. I believe in exercise for the body, always provided that we\nkeep in mind that physical development is a means and not an end. I\nbelieve, of course, in giving to all the people a good education. But\nthe education must contain much besides book-learning in order to be\nreally good. We must ever remember that no keenness and subtleness of\nintellect, no polish, no cleverness, in any way make up for the lack\nof the great solid qualities. Self-restraint, self-mastery, common\nsense, the power of accepting individual responsibility and yet of\nacting in conjunction with others, courage and resolution--these are\nthe qualities which mark a masterful people. Without them no people can\ncontrol itself, or save itself from being controlled from the outside.\nI speak to a brilliant assemblage; I speak in a great university which\nrepresents the flower of the highest intellectual development; I pay\nall homage to intellect, and to elaborate and specialized training\nof the intellect; and yet I know I shall have the assent of all of\nyou present when I add that more important still are the commonplace,\nevery-day qualities and virtues.\n\nSuch ordinary, every-day qualities include the will and the power to\nwork, to fight at need, and to have plenty of healthy children. The\nneed that the average man shall work is so obvious as hardly to warrant\ninsistence. There are a few people in every country so born that they\ncan lead lives of leisure. These fill a useful function if they make\nit evident that leisure does not mean idleness; for some of the most\nvaluable work needed by civilization is essentially non-remunerative\nin its character, and of course the people who do this work should in\nlarge part be drawn from those to whom remuneration is an object of\nindifference. But the average man must earn his own livelihood. He\nshould be trained to do so, and he should be trained to feel that he\noccupies a contemptible position if he does not do so; that he is not\nan object of envy if he is idle, at whichever end of the social scale\nhe stands, but an object of contempt, an object of derision.\n\nIn the next place, the good man should be both a strong and a brave\nman; that is, he should be able to fight, he should be able to serve\nhis country as a soldier, if the need arises. There are well-meaning\nphilosophers who declaim against the unrighteousness of war. They are\nright only if they lay all their emphasis upon the unrighteousness.\nWar is a dreadful thing, and unjust war is a crime against humanity.\nBut it is such a crime because it is unjust, not because it is war. The\nchoice must ever be in favor of righteousness, and this whether the\nalternative be peace or whether the alternative be war. The question\nmust not be merely, Is there to be peace or war? The question must be,\nIs the right to prevail? Are the great laws of righteousness once more\nto be fulfilled? And the answer from a strong and virile people must\nbe, \u201cYes,\u201d whatever the cost. Every honorable effort should always be\nmade to avoid war, just as every honorable effort should always be\nmade by the individual in private life to keep out of a brawl, to keep\nout of trouble; but no self-respecting individual, no self-respecting\nnation, can or ought to submit to wrong.\n\nFinally, even more important than ability to work, even more important\nthan ability to fight at need, is it to remember that the chief of\nblessings for any nation is that it shall leave its seed to inherit\nthe land. It was the crown of blessings in Biblical times; and it is\nthe crown of blessings now. The greatest of all curses is the curse of\nsterility, and the severest of all condemnations should be that visited\nupon wilful sterility. The first essential in any civilization is that\nthe man and the woman shall be father and mother of healthy children,\nso that the race shall increase and not decrease. If this is not so,\nif through no fault of the society there is failure to increase, it\nis a great misfortune. If the failure is due to deliberate and wilful\nfault, then it is not merely a misfortune, it is one of those crimes of\nease and self-indulgence, of shrinking from pain and effort and risk,\nwhich in the long run Nature punishes more heavily than any other. If\nwe of the great republics, if we, the free people who claim to have\nemancipated ourselves from the thraldom of wrong and error, bring down\non our heads the curse that comes upon the wilfully barren, then it\nwill be an idle waste of breath to prattle of our achievements, to\nboast of all that we have done. No refinement of life, no delicacy\nof taste, no material progress, no sordid heaping up of riches, no\nsensuous development of art and literature, can in any way compensate\nfor the loss of the great fundamental virtues; and of these great\nfundamental virtues the greatest is the race\u2019s power to perpetuate the\nrace.\n\nCharacter must show itself in the man\u2019s performance both of the duty\nhe owes himself and of the duty he owes the state. The man\u2019s foremost\nduty is owed to himself and his family; and he can do this duty only by\nearning money, by providing what is essential to material well-being;\nit is only after this has been done that he can hope to build a higher\nsuperstructure on the solid material foundation; it is only after this\nhas been done that he can help in movements for the general well-being.\nHe must pull his own weight first, and only after this can his surplus\nstrength be of use to the general public. It is not good to excite that\nbitter laughter which expresses contempt; and contempt is what we feel\nfor the being whose enthusiasm to benefit mankind is such that he is a\nburden to those nearest him; who wishes to do great things for humanity\nin the abstract, but who can not keep his wife in comfort or educate\nhis children.\n\nNevertheless, while laying all stress on this point, while not merely\nacknowledging but insisting upon the fact that there must be a basis of\nmaterial well-being for the individual as for the nation, let us with\nequal emphasis insist that this material well-being represents nothing\nbut the foundation, and that the foundation, though indispensable,\nis worthless unless upon it is raised the superstructure of a higher\nlife. That is why I decline to recognize the mere multimillionaire,\nthe man of mere wealth, as an asset of value to any country; and\nespecially as not an asset to my own country. If he has earned or uses\nhis wealth in a way that makes him of real benefit, of real use--and\nsuch is often the case--why, then he does become an asset of worth.\nBut it is the way in which it has been earned or used, and not the\nmere fact of wealth, that entitles him to the credit. There is need\nin business, as in most other forms of human activity, of the great\nguiding intelligences. Their places can not be supplied by any number\nof lesser intelligences. It is a good thing that they should have ample\nrecognition, ample reward. But we must not transfer our admiration to\nthe reward instead of to the deed rewarded; and if what should be the\nreward exists without the service having been rendered, then admiration\nwill come only from those who are mean of soul. The truth is that,\nafter a certain measure of tangible material success or reward has\nbeen achieved, the question of increasing it becomes of constantly\nless importance compared to other things that can be done in life. It\nis a bad thing for a nation to raise and to admire a false standard\nof success; and there can be no falser standard than that set by the\ndeification of material well-being in and for itself. The man who, for\nany cause for which he is himself accountable, has failed to support\nhimself and those for whom he is responsible, ought to feel that he\nhas fallen lamentably short in his prime duty. But the man who, having\nfar surpassed the limit of providing for the wants, both of body and\nmind, of himself and of those depending upon him, then piles up a\ngreat fortune, for the acquisition or retention of which he returns\nno corresponding benefit to the nation as a whole, should himself be\nmade to feel that, so far from being a desirable, he is an unworthy,\ncitizen of the community; that he is to be neither admired nor envied;\nthat his right-thinking fellow countrymen put him low in the scale of\ncitizenship, and leave him to be consoled by the admiration of those\nwhose level of purpose is even lower than his own.\n\nMy position as regards the moneyed interests can be put in a few\nwords. In every civilized society property rights must be carefully\nsafeguarded; ordinarily, and in the great majority of cases, human\nrights and property rights are fundamentally and in the long run\nidentical; but when it clearly appears that there is a real conflict\nbetween them, human rights must have the upper hand, for property\nbelongs to man and not man to property.\n\nIn fact, it is essential to good citizenship clearly to understand that\nthere are certain qualities which we in a democracy are prone to admire\nin and of themselves, which ought by rights to be judged admirable\nor the reverse solely from the standpoint of the use made of them.\nForemost among these I should include two very distinct gifts--the\ngift of money-making and the gift of oratory. Money-making, the money\ntouch, I have spoken of above. It is a quality which in a moderate\ndegree is essential. It may be useful when developed to a very great\ndegree, but only if accompanied and controlled by other qualities; and\nwithout such control the possessor tends to develop into one of the\nleast attractive types produced by a modern industrial democracy. So it\nis with the orator. It is highly desirable that a leader of opinion in\na democracy should be able to state his views clearly and convincingly.\nBut all that the oratory can do of value to the community is to enable\nthe man thus to explain himself; if it enables the orator to persuade\nhis hearers to put false values on things, it merely makes him a\npower for mischief. Some excellent public servants have not the gift\nat all, and must rely upon their deeds to speak for them; and unless\nthe oratory does represent genuine conviction based on good common\nsense and able to be translated into efficient performance, then the\nbetter the oratory the greater the damage to the public it deceives.\nIndeed, it is a sign of marked political weakness in any commonwealth\nif the people tend to be carried away by mere oratory, if they tend\nto value words in and for themselves, as divorced from the deeds for\nwhich they are supposed to stand. The phrase-maker, the phrase-monger,\nthe ready talker, however great his power, whose speech does not make\nfor courage, sobriety, and right understanding, is simply a noxious\nelement in the body politic, and it speaks ill for the public if he\nhas influence over them. To admire the gift of oratory without regard\nto the moral quality behind the gift is to do wrong to the republic.\n\nOf course all that I say of the orator applies with even greater\nforce to the orator\u2019s latter-day and more influential brother, the\njournalist. The power of the journalist is great, but he is entitled\nneither to respect nor admiration because of that power unless it is\nused aright. He can do, and he often does, great good. He can do, and\nhe often does, infinite mischief. All journalists, all writers, for\nthe very reason that they appreciate the vast possibilities of their\nprofession, should bear testimony against those who deeply discredit\nit. Offences against taste and morals, which are bad enough in a\nprivate citizen, are infinitely worse if made into instruments for\ndebauching the community through a newspaper. Mendacity, slander,\nsensationalism, inanity, vapid triviality, all are potent factors for\nthe debauchery of the public mind and conscience. The excuse advanced\nfor vicious writing, that the public demands it and that the demand\nmust be supplied, can no more be admitted than if it were advanced by\nthe purveyors of food who sell poisonous adulterations.\n\nIn short, the good citizen in a republic must realize that he ought\nto possess two sets of qualities, and that neither avails without the\nother. He must have those qualities which make for efficiency; and\nhe must also have those qualities which direct the efficiency into\nchannels for the public good. He is useless if he is inefficient. There\nis nothing to be done with that type of citizen of whom all that can be\nsaid is that he is harmless. Virtue which is dependent upon a sluggish\ncirculation is not impressive. There is little place in active life\nfor the timid good man. The man who is saved by weakness from robust\nwickedness is likewise rendered immune from the robuster virtues. The\ngood citizen in a republic must first of all be able to hold his own.\nHe is no good citizen unless he has the ability which will make him\nwork hard and which at need will make him fight hard. The good citizen\nis not a good citizen unless he is an efficient citizen.\n\nBut if a man\u2019s efficiency is not guided and regulated by a moral sense,\nthen the more efficient he is the worse he is, the more dangerous to\nthe body politic. Courage, intellect, all the masterful qualities,\nserve but to make a man more evil if they are used merely for that\nman\u2019s own advancement, with brutal indifference to the rights of\nothers. It speaks ill for the community if the community worships these\nqualities and treats their possessors as heroes regardless of whether\nthe qualities are used rightly or wrongly. It makes no difference as to\nthe precise way in which this sinister efficiency is shown. It makes no\ndifference whether such a man\u2019s force and ability betray themselves in\nthe career of money-maker or politician, soldier or orator, journalist\nor popular leader. If the man works for evil, then the more successful\nhe is the more he should be despised and condemned by all upright and\nfarseeing men. To judge a man merely by success is an abhorrent wrong;\nand if the people at large habitually so judge men, if they grow to\ncondone wickedness because the wicked man triumphs, they show their\ninability to understand that in the last analysis free institutions\nrest upon the character of citizenship, and that by such admiration of\nevil they prove themselves unfit for liberty.\n\nThe homely virtues of the household, the ordinary workaday virtues\nwhich make the woman a good housewife and housemother, which make\nthe man a hard worker, a good husband and father, a good soldier at\nneed, stand at the bottom of character. But of course many others must\nbe added thereto if a state is to be not only free but great. Good\ncitizenship is not good citizenship if exhibited only in the home.\nThere remain the duties of the individual in relation to the state, and\nthese duties are none too easy under the conditions which exist where\nthe effort is made to carry on free government in a complex, industrial\ncivilization. Perhaps the most important thing the ordinary citizen,\nand, above all, the leader of ordinary citizens, has to remember in\npolitical life is that he must not be a sheer doctrinaire. The closet\nphilosopher, the refined and cultured individual who from his library\ntells how men ought to be governed under ideal conditions, is of no use\nin actual governmental work; and the one-sided fanatic, and still more\nthe mob-leader, and the insincere man who to achieve power promises\nwhat by no possibility can be performed, are not merely useless but\nnoxious.\n\nThe citizen must have high ideals, and yet he must be able to achieve\nthem in practical fashion. No permanent good comes from aspirations so\nlofty that they have grown fantastic and have become impossible and\nindeed undesirable to realize. The impracticable visionary is far less\noften the guide and precursor than he is the imbittered foe of the real\nreformer, of the man who, with stumblings and shortcomings, yet does in\nsome shape, in practical fashion, give effect to the hopes and desires\nof those who strive for better things. Woe to the empty phrase-maker,\nto the empty idealist, who, instead of making ready the ground for the\nman of action, turns against him when he appears and hampers him as\nhe does the work! Moreover, the preacher of ideals must remember how\nsorry and contemptible is the figure which he will cut, how great the\ndamage that he will do, if he does not himself, in his own life, strive\nmeasurably to realize the ideals that he preaches for others. Let him\nremember also that the worth of the ideal must be largely determined\nby the success with which it can in practice be realized. We should\nabhor the so-called \u201cpractical\u201d men whose practicality assumes the\nshape of that peculiar baseness which finds its expression in disbelief\nin morality and decency, in disregard of high standards of living and\nconduct. Such a creature is the worst enemy of the body politic. But\nonly less desirable as a citizen is his nominal opponent and real ally,\nthe man of fantastic vision who makes the impossible better forever the\nenemy of the possible good.\n\nWe can just as little afford to follow the doctrinaires of an extreme\nindividualism as the doctrinaires of an extreme socialism. Individual\ninitiative, so far from being discouraged, should be stimulated;\nand yet we should remember that, as society develops and grows more\ncomplex, we continually find that things which once it was desirable to\nleave to individual initiative can, under the changed conditions, be\nperformed with better results by common effort. It is quite impossible,\nand equally undesirable, to draw in theory a hard-and-fast line which\nshall always divide the two sets of cases. This every one who is not\ncursed with the pride of the closet philosopher will see, if he will\nonly take the trouble to think about some of our commonest phenomena.\nFor instance, when people live on isolated farms or in little hamlets,\neach house can be left to attend to its own drainage and water supply;\nbut the mere multiplication of families in a given area produces new\nproblems which, because they differ in size, are found to differ not\nonly in degree but in kind from the old; and the questions of drainage\nand water supply have to be considered from the common standpoint. It\nis not a matter for abstract dogmatizing to decide when this point\nis reached; it is a matter to be tested by practical experiment.\nMuch of the discussion about socialism and individualism is entirely\npointless, because of failure to agree on terminology. It is not good\nto be the slave of names. I am a strong individualist by personal\nhabit, inheritance, and conviction; but it is a mere matter of common\nsense to recognize that the state, the community, the citizens acting\ntogether, can do a number of things better than if they were left to\nindividual action. The individualism which finds its expression in\nthe abuse of physical force is checked very early in the growth of\ncivilization, and we of to-day should in our turn strive to shackle\nor destroy that individualism which triumphs by greed and cunning,\nwhich exploits the weak by craft instead of ruling them by brutality.\nWe ought to go with any man in the effort to bring about justice and\nthe equality of opportunity, to turn the tool-user more and more into\nthe tool-owner, to shift burdens so that they can be more equitably\nborne. The deadening effect on any race of the adoption of a logical\nand extreme socialistic system could not be overstated; it would spell\nsheer destruction; it would produce grosser wrong and outrage, fouler\nimmorality, than any existing system. But this does not mean that we\nmay not with great advantage adopt certain of the principles professed\nby some given set of men who happen to call themselves Socialists; to\nbe afraid to do so would be to make a mark of weakness on our part.\n\nBut we should not take part in acting a lie any more than in telling a\nlie. We should not say that men are equal where they are not equal, nor\nproceed upon the assumption that there is an equality where it does not\nexist; but we should strive to bring about a measurable equality, at\nleast to the extent of preventing the inequality which is due to force\nor fraud. Abraham Lincoln, a man of the plain people, blood of their\nblood and bone of their bone, who all his life toiled and wrought and\nsuffered for them, and at the end died for them, who always strove\nto represent them, who would never tell an untruth to or for them,\nspoke of the doctrine of equality with his usual mixture of idealism\nand sound common sense. He said (I omit what was of merely local\nsignificance):\n\n\u201cI think the authors of the Declaration of Independence intended to\ninclude all men, but that they did not mean to declare all men equal\n_in all respects_. They did not mean to say all men were equal in\ncolor, size, intellect, moral development, or social capacity. They\ndefined with tolerable distinctness in what they did consider all men\ncreated equal--equal in certain inalienable rights, among which are\nlife, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This they said, and this\nthey meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that all\nwere then actually enjoying that equality, or yet that they were about\nto confer it immediately upon them. They meant to set up a standard\nmaxim for free society which should be familiar to all--constantly\nlooked to, constantly labored for, and, even though never perfectly\nattained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and\ndeepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life\nto all people, everywhere.\u201d\n\nWe are bound in honor to refuse to listen to those men who would make\nus desist from the effort to do away with the inequality which means\ninjustice; the inequality of right, of opportunity, of privilege. We\nare bound in honor to strive to bring ever nearer the day when, as far\nas is humanly possible, we shall be able to realize the ideal that each\nman shall have an equal opportunity to show the stuff that is in him by\nthe way in which he renders service. There should, so far as possible,\nbe equality of opportunity to render service; but just so long as there\nis inequality of service there should and must be inequality of reward.\nWe may be sorry for the general, the painter, the artist, the worker in\nany profession or of any kind, whose misfortune rather than whose fault\nit is that he does his work ill. But the reward must go to the man who\ndoes his work well; for any other course is to create a new kind of\nprivilege, the privilege of folly and weakness; and special privilege\nis injustice, whatever form it takes.\n\nTo say that the thriftless, the lazy, the vicious, the incapable,\nought to have the reward given to those who are far-sighted, capable,\nand upright, is to say what is not true and can not be true. Let us\ntry to level up, but let us beware of the evil of levelling down. If\na man stumbles, it is a good thing to help him to his feet. Every one\nof us needs a helping hand now and then. But if a man lies down, it is\na waste of time to try to carry him; and it is a very bad thing for\nevery one if we make men feel that the same reward will come to those\nwho shirk their work and to those who do it.\n\nLet us, then, take into account the actual facts of life, and not be\nmisled into following any proposal for achieving the millennium, for\nre-creating the golden age, until we have subjected it to hardheaded\nexamination. On the other hand, it is foolish to reject a proposal\nmerely because it is advanced by visionaries. If a given scheme is\nproposed, look at it on its merits, and, in considering it, disregard\nformulas. It does not matter in the least who proposes it, or why. If\nit seems good, try it. If it proves good, accept it; otherwise reject\nit. There are plenty of men calling themselves Socialists with whom,\nup to a certain point, it is quite possible to work. If the next step\nis one which both we and they wish to take, why of course take it,\nwithout any regard to the fact that our views as to the tenth step may\ndiffer. But, on the other hand, keep clearly in mind that, though it\nhas been worth while to take one step, this does not in the least mean\nthat it may not be highly disadvantageous to take the next. It is just\nas foolish to refuse all progress because people demanding it desire\nat some points to go to absurd extremes, as it would be to go to these\nabsurd extremes simply because some of the measures advocated by the\nextremists were wise.\n\nThe good citizen will demand liberty for himself, and as a matter of\npride he will see to it that others receive the liberty which he thus\nclaims as his own. Probably the best test of true love of liberty in\nany country is the way in which minorities are treated in that country.\nNot only should there be complete liberty in matters of religion and\nopinion, but complete liberty for each man to lead his life as he\ndesires, provided only that in so doing he does not wrong his neighbor.\nPersecution is bad because it is persecution, and without reference to\nwhich side happens at the moment to be the persecutor and which the\npersecuted. Class hatred is bad in just the same way, and without any\nregard to the individual who, at a given time, substitutes loyalty to a\nclass for loyalty to the nation, or substitutes hatred of men because\nthey happen to come in a certain social category, for judgment awarded\nthem according to their conduct. Remember always that the same measure\nof condemnation should be extended to the arrogance which would look\ndown upon or crush any man because he is poor and to the envy and\nhatred which would destroy a man because he is wealthy. The overbearing\nbrutality of the man of wealth or power, and the envious and hateful\nmalice directed against wealth or power, are really at root merely\ndifferent manifestations of the same quality, merely the two sides of\nthe same shield. The man who, if born to wealth and power, exploits\nand ruins his less fortunate brethren is at heart the same as the\ngreedy and violent demagogue who excites those who have not property to\nplunder those who have. The gravest wrong upon his country is inflicted\nby that man, whatever his station, who seeks to make his countrymen\ndivide primarily on the line that separates class from class,\noccupation from occupation, men of more wealth from men of less wealth,\ninstead of remembering that the only safe standard is that which judges\neach man on his worth as a man, whether he be rich or poor, without\nregard to his profession or to his station in life. Such is the only\ntrue democratic test, the only test that can with propriety be applied\nin a republic. There have been many republics in the past, both in what\nwe call antiquity and in what we call the Middle Ages. They fell, and\nthe prime factor in their fall was the fact that the parties tended to\ndivide along the line that separates wealth from poverty. It made no\ndifference which side was successful; it made no difference whether\nthe republic fell under the rule of an oligarchy or the rule of a mob.\nIn either case, when once loyalty to a class had been substituted for\nloyalty to the republic, the end of the republic was at hand. There is\nno greater need to-day than the need to keep ever in mind the fact that\nthe cleavage between right and wrong, between good citizenship and bad\ncitizenship, runs at right angles to, and not parallel with, the lines\nof cleavage between class and class, between occupation and occupation.\nRuin looks us in the face if we judge a man by his position instead of\njudging him by his conduct in that position.\n\nIn a republic, to be successful we must learn to combine intensity\nof conviction with a broad tolerance of difference of conviction.\nWide differences of opinion in matters of religious, political, and\nsocial belief must exist if conscience and intellect alike are not\nto be stunted, if there is to be room for healthy growth. Bitter\ninternecine hatreds, based on such differences, are signs, not of\nearnestness of belief, but of that fanaticism which, whether religious\nor anti-religious, democratic or anti-democratic, is itself but a\nmanifestation of the gloomy bigotry which has been the chief factor in\nthe downfall of so many, many nations.\n\nOf one man in especial, beyond any one else, the citizens of a republic\nshould beware, and that is of the man who appeals to them to support\nhim on the ground that he is hostile to other citizens of the republic,\nthat he will secure for those who elect him, in one shape or another,\nprofit at the expense of other citizens of the republic. It makes no\ndifference whether he appeals to class hatred or class interest, to\nreligious or anti-religious prejudice. The man who makes such an appeal\nshould always be presumed to make it for the sake of furthering his own\ninterest. The very last thing that an intelligent and self-respecting\nmember of a democratic community should do is to reward any public man\nbecause that public man says he will get the private citizen something\nto which this private citizen is not entitled, or will gratify some\nemotion or animosity which this private citizen ought not to possess.\nLet me illustrate this by one anecdote from my own experience. A number\nof years ago I was engaged in cattle-ranching on the great plains of\nthe western United States. There were no fences. The cattle wandered\nfree, the ownership of each being determined by the brand; the calves\nwere branded with the brand of the cows they followed. If on the\nround-up an animal was passed by, the following year it would appear as\nan unbranded yearling, and was then called a maverick. By the custom\nof the country these mavericks were branded with the brand of the man\non whose range they were found. One day I was riding the range with a\nnewly hired cowboy, and we came upon a maverick. We roped and threw it;\nthen we built a little fire, took out a cinch-ring, heated it at the\nfire; and the cowboy started to put on the brand. I said to him, \u201cIt\nis So-and-so\u2019s brand,\u201d naming the man on whose range we happened to be.\nHe answered: \u201cThat\u2019s all right, boss; I know my business.\u201d In another\nmoment I said to him: \u201cHold on, you are putting on my brand!\u201d To which\nhe answered: \u201cThat\u2019s all right; I always put on the boss\u2019s brand.\u201d I\nanswered: \u201cOh, very well. Now you go straight back to the ranch and\nget what is owing to you; I don\u2019t need you any longer.\u201d He jumped up\nand said: \u201cWhy, what\u2019s the matter? I was putting on your brand.\u201d And\nI answered: \u201cYes, my friend, and if you will steal _for_ me you will\nsteal _from_ me.\u201d\n\nNow, the same principle which applies in private life applies also in\npublic life. If a public man tries to get your vote by saying that\nhe will do something wrong _in_ your interest, you can be absolutely\ncertain that if ever it becomes worth his while he will do something\nwrong _against_ your interest.\n\nSo much for the citizenship of the individual in his relations to\nhis family, to his neighbor, to the state. There remain duties of\ncitizenship which the state, the aggregation of all the individuals,\nowes in connection with other states, with other nations. Let me say at\nonce that I am no advocate of a foolish cosmopolitanism. I believe that\na man must be a good patriot before he can be, and as the only possible\nway of being, a good citizen of the world. Experience teaches us that\nthe average man who protests that his international feeling swamps his\nnational feeling, that he does not care for his country because he\ncares so much for mankind, in actual practice proves himself the foe of\nmankind; that the man who says that he does not care to be a citizen of\nany one country, because he is a citizen of the world, is in very fact\nusually an exceedingly undesirable citizen of whatever corner of the\nworld he happens at the moment to be in. In the dim future all moral\nneeds and moral standards may change; but at present, if a man can\nview his own country and all other countries from the same level with\ntepid indifference, it is wise to distrust him, just as it is wise to\ndistrust the man who can take the same dispassionate view of his wife\nand his mother. However broad and deep a man\u2019s sympathies, however\nintense his activities, he need have no fear that they will be cramped\nby love of his native land.\n\nNow, this does not mean in the least that a man should not wish to do\ngood outside of his native land. On the contrary, just as I think that\nthe man who loves his family is more apt to be a good neighbor than\nthe man who does not, so I think that the most useful member of the\nfamily of nations is normally a strongly patriotic nation. So far from\npatriotism being inconsistent with a proper regard for the rights of\nother nations, I hold that the true patriot, who is as jealous of the\nnational honor as a gentleman is of his own honor, will be careful\nto see that the nation neither inflicts nor suffers wrong, just as a\ngentleman scorns equally to wrong others or to suffer others to wrong\nhim. I do not for one moment admit that political morality is different\nfrom private morality, that a promise made on the stump differs from a\npromise made in private life. I do not for one moment admit that a man\nshould act deceitfully as a public servant in his dealings with other\nnations, any more than that he should act deceitfully in his dealings\nas a private citizen with other private citizens. I do not for one\nmoment admit that a nation should treat other nations in a different\nspirit from that in which an honorable man would treat other men.\n\nIn practically applying this principle to the two sets of cases there\nis, of course, a great practical difference to be taken into account.\nWe speak of international law; but international law is something\nwholly different from private or municipal law, and the capital\ndifference is that there is a sanction for the one and no sanction for\nthe other; that there is an outside force which compels individuals to\nobey the one, while there is no such outside force to compel obedience\nas regards the other. International law will, I believe, as the\ngenerations pass, grow stronger and stronger until in some way or other\nthere develops the power to make it respected. But as yet it is only\nin the first formative period. As yet, as a rule, each nation is of\nnecessity obliged to judge for itself in matters of vital importance\nbetween it and its neighbors, and actions must of necessity, where this\nis the case, be different from what they are where, as among private\ncitizens, there is an outside force whose action is all-powerful and\nmust be invoked in any crisis of importance. It is the duty of wise\nstatesmen, gifted with the power of looking ahead, to try to encourage\nand build up every movement which will substitute or tend to substitute\nsome other agency for force in the settlement of international\ndisputes. It is the duty of every honest statesman to try to guide the\nnation so that it shall not wrong any other nation. But as yet the\ngreat civilized peoples, if they are to be true to themselves and to\nthe cause of humanity and civilization, must keep ever in mind that\nin the last resort they must possess both the will and the power to\nresent wrong-doing from others. The men who sanely believe in a lofty\nmorality preach righteousness; but they do not preach weakness, whether\namong private citizens or among nations. We believe that our ideals\nshould be high, but not so high as to make it impossible measurably to\nrealize them. We sincerely and earnestly believe in peace; but if peace\nand justice conflict, we scorn the man who would not stand for justice\nthough the whole world came in arms against him.\n\nAnd now, my hosts, a word in parting. You and I belong to the only two\nrepublics among the great powers of the world. The ancient friendship\nbetween France and the United States has been, on the whole, a sincere\nand disinterested friendship. A calamity to you would be a sorrow to\nus. But it would be more than that. In the seething turmoil of the\nhistory of humanity certain nations stand out as possessing a peculiar\npower or charm, some special gift of beauty or wisdom or strength,\nwhich puts them among the immortals, which makes them rank forever\nwith the leaders of mankind. France is one of these nations. For her\nto sink would be a loss to all the world. There are certain lessons of\nbrilliance and of generous gallantry that she can teach better than any\nof her sister nations. When the French peasantry sang of Malbrook, it\nwas to tell how the soul of this warrior-foe took flight upward through\nthe laurels he had won. Nearly seven centuries ago, Froissart, writing\nof a time of dire disaster, said that the realm of France was never so\nstricken that there were not left men who would valiantly fight for\nit. You have had a great past. I believe that you will have a great\nfuture. Long may you carry yourselves proudly as citizens of a nation\nwhich bears a leading part in the teaching and uplifting of mankind.\n\n\n\n\nTHE THRALDOM OF NAMES\n\n\n\n\nTHE THRALDOM OF NAMES\n\n\nIt behooves our people never to fall under the thraldom of names,\nand least of all to be misled by designing people who appeal to the\nreverence for, or antipathy toward, a given name in order to achieve\nsome alien purpose. Of course such misuse of names is as old as the\nhistory of what we understand when we speak of civilized mankind. The\nrule of a mob may be every whit as tyrannical and oppressive as the\nrule of a single individual, whether or not called a dictator; and\nthe rule of an oligarchy, whether this oligarchy is a plutocracy or a\nbureaucracy, or any other small set of powerful men, may in its turn\nbe just as sordid and just as bloodthirsty as that of a mob. But the\napologists for the mob or oligarchy or dictator, in justifying the\ntyranny, use different words. The mob leaders usually state that all\nthat they are doing is necessary in order to advance the cause of\n\u201cliberty,\u201d while the dictator and the oligarchy are usually defended\nupon the ground that the course they follow is absolutely necessary\nso as to secure \u201corder.\u201d Many excellent people are taken in by the\nuse of the word \u201cliberty\u201d at the one time, and the use of the word\n\u201corder\u201d at the other, and ignore the simple fact that despotism is\ndespotism, tyranny tyranny, oppression oppression, whether committed\nby one individual or by many individuals, by a state or by a private\ncorporation.\n\nMoreover, tyranny exercised on behalf of one set of people is very apt\nin the long run to damage especially the representatives of that very\nclass by the violence of the reaction which it invites. The course of\nthe second republic in France was such, with its mobs, its bloody civil\ntumults, its national workshops, its bitter factional divisions, as\nto invite and indeed insure its overthrow and the establishment of a\ndictatorship; while it is needless to mention the innumerable instances\nin which the name of order has been invoked to sanction tyranny, until\nthere has finally come a reaction so violent that both the tyranny\nand all public order have disappeared together. The second empire in\nFrance led straight up to the Paris Commune; and nothing so well shows\nhow far the French people had advanced in fitness for self-government\nas the fact that the hideous atrocities of the Commune, which rendered\nit imperative that it should be rigorously repressed, nevertheless did\nnot produce another violent reaction, but left the French republic\nstanding, and the French people as resolute in their refusal to be\nruled by a king as by a mob.\n\nOf course when a great crisis actually comes, no matter how much\npeople may have been misled by names, they promptly awaken to their\nunimportance. To the individual who suffered under the guillotine at\nParis, or in the drownings in the Loire, or to the individual who a\ncentury before was expelled from his beloved country, or tortured, or\nsent to the galleys, it made no difference whatever that one set of\nacts was performed under Robespierre and Danton and Marat in the name\nof liberty and reason and the rights of the people, or that the other\nwas performed in the name of order and authority and religion by the\ndirection of the great monarch. Tyranny and cruelty were tyranny and\ncruelty just as much in one case as in the other, and just as much when\nthose guilty of them used one shibboleth as when they used another. All\nforms of tyranny and cruelty must alike be condemned by honest men.\n\nWe in this country have been very fortunate. Thanks to the teaching\nand the practice of the men whom we most revere as leaders, of the\nmen like Washington and Lincoln, we have hitherto escaped the twin\ngulfs of despotism and mob rule, and we have never been in any danger\nfrom the worst forms of religious bitterness. But we should therefore\nbe all the more careful, as we deal with our industrial and social\nproblems, not to fall into mistakes similar to those which have brought\nlasting disaster on less fortunately situated peoples. We have achieved\ndemocracy in politics just because we have been able to steer a middle\ncourse between the rule of the mob and the rule of the dictator. We\nshall achieve industrial democracy because we shall steer a similar\nmiddle course between the extreme individualist and the Socialist,\nbetween the demagogue who attacks all wealth and who can see no wrong\ndone anywhere unless it is perpetrated by a man of wealth, and the\napologist for the plutocracy who rails against so much as a restatement\nof the eighth commandment upon the ground that it will \u201churt business.\u201d\n\nFirst and foremost, we must stand firmly on a basis of good sound\nethics. We intend to do what is right for the ample and sufficient\nreason that it is right. If business is hurt by the stem exposure\nof crookedness and the result of efforts to punish the crooked\nman, then business must be hurt, even though good men are involved\nin the hurting, until it so adjusts itself that it is possible to\nprosecute wrong-doing without stampeding the business community into\na terror-struck defence of the wrong-doers and an angry assault upon\nthose who have exposed them. On the other hand, we must beware, above\nall things, of being misled by wicked or foolish men who would condone\nhomicide and violence, and apologize for the dynamiter and the assassin\nbecause, forsooth, they choose to take the ground that crime is no\ncrime if the wicked man happens also to have been a shiftless and\nunthrifty or lazy man who has never amassed property. It is essential\nthat we should wrest the control of the government out of the hands of\nrich men who use it for unhealthy purposes, and should keep it out of\ntheir hands; and to this end the first requisite is to provide means\nadequately to deal with corporations, which are essential to modern\nbusiness, but which, under the decisions of the courts, and because\nof the short-sightedness of the public, have become the chief factors\nin political and business debasement. But it would be just as bad to\nput the control of the government into the hands of demagogues and\nvisionaries who seek to pander to ignorance and prejudice by penalizing\nthrift and business enterprise, and ruining all men of means, with,\nas an attendant result, the ruin of the entire community. The tyranny\nof politicians with a bureaucracy behind them and a mass of ignorant\npeople supporting them would be just as insufferable as the tyranny of\nbig corporations. The tyranny would be the same in each case, and it\nwould make no more difference that one was called individualism and the\nother collectivism than it made in French history whether tyranny was\nexercised in the name of the Commune or of the Emperor, of a committee\nof national safety, or of a king.\n\nThe sinister and adroit reactionary, the sinister and violent radical,\nare alike in this, that each works in the end for the destruction of\nthe cause that he professedly champions. If the one is left to his\nown devices he will make such an exhibition of brutal and selfish\ngreed as to utterly discredit the entire system of government by\nindividual initiative; and if the other is allowed to work his will\nhe, in his turn, will make men so loathe interference and control by\nthe state that any abuses connected with the untrammelled control of\nall business by private individuals will seem small by comparison. We\ncan not afford to be empirical. We must judge each case on its merits.\nIt is absolutely indispensable to foster the spirit of individual\ninitiative, of self-reliance, of self-help; but this does not mean that\nwe are to refuse to face facts and to recognize that the growth of our\ncomplex civilization necessitates an increase in the exercise of the\nfunctions of the state. It has been shown beyond power of refutation\nthat unrestricted individualism, for instance, means the destruction\nof our forests and our water supply. The dogma of \u201cindividualism\u201d can\nnot be permitted to interfere with the duty of a great city to see\nthat householders, small as well as big, live in decent and healthy\nbuildings, drink good water, and have the streets adequately lighted\nand kept clean. Individual initiative, the reign of individualism, may\nbe crushed out just as effectively by the unchecked growth of private\nmonopoly, if the state does not interfere at all, as it would be\ncrushed out under communism, or as it would disappear, together with\neverything else that makes life worth living, if we adopted the tenets\nof the extreme Socialists.\n\nIn 1896 the party of discontent met with a smashing defeat for the very\nreason that, together with legitimate attacks on real abuses, they\ncombined wholly illegitimate advocacy even of the methods of dealing\nwith these real abuses, and in addition stood for abuses of their own\nwhich, in far-reaching damage, would have cast quite into the shade\nthe effects of the abuses against which they warred. It was essential\nboth to the material and moral progress of the country that these\nforces should be beaten; and beaten they were, overwhelmingly. But the\ngenuine ethical revolt against these forces was aided by a very ugly\nmaterialism, and this materialism at one time claimed the victory as\nexclusively its own, and advanced it as a warrant and license for the\nrefusal to interfere with any misdeeds on the part of men of wealth.\nWhat such an attitude meant was set forth as early as 1896 by an\nEnglish visitor, the journalist Steevens, a man of marked insight. Mr.\nSteevens did not see with entire clearness of vision into the complex\nAmerican character; it would have been marvellous if a stranger of his\nslight experience here could so have seen; but it would be difficult to\nput certain important facts more clearly than he put them. Immediately\nafter the election he wrote as follows (I condense slightly):\n\n\u201cIn the United States legal organization of industry has been left\nwholly wanting. Little is done by the state. All is left to the\ninitiative of the individual. The apparent negligence is explained\npartly by the American horror of retarding mechanical progress, and\npartly by their reliance on competition. They have cast overboard the\nlaw as the safeguard of individual rights, and have put themselves\nunder the protection of competition, and of it alone. Now a trust\nin its exacter acceptation is the flat negation of competition. It\nis certain that commercial concerns make frequent, powerful, and\nsuccessful combinations to override the public interest. All such\ncorporations are left unfettered in a way that to an Englishman appears\nalmost a return to savagery. The defencelessness of individual liberty\nagainst the encroachment of the railway companies, tramway companies,\nnuisance-committing manure companies, and the like, is little less than\nhorrible. Where regulating acts are proposed, the companies unite to\noppose them; where such acts exist, they bribe corrupt officials to\nignore them. When they want any act for themselves, it can always be\nbought for cash. [This is of course a gross exaggeration; and allusion\nshould have been made to the violent and demagogic attacks upon\ncorporations, which are even more common than and are quite as noxious\nas acts of oppression by corporations.] They maintain their own members\nin the legislative bodies--pocket assemblymen, pocket representatives,\npocket senators. In the name of individual freedom and industrial\nprogress they have become the tyrants of the whole community. Lawless\ngreed on one side and lawless brutality on the other--the outlook\nfrowns. On the wisdom of the rulers of the country in salving or\nimbittering these antagonisms--still more, on the fortune of the people\nin either modifying or hardening their present conviction that to get\ndollars is the one end of life--it depends whether the future of the\nUnited States is to be of eminent beneficence or unspeakable disaster.\nIt may stretch out the light of liberty to the whole world. It may\nbecome the devil\u2019s drill-ground where the cohorts of anarchy will\nfurnish themselves against the social Armageddon.\u201d\n\nMr. Steevens here clearly points out, what every one ought to\nrecognize, that if individualism is left absolutely uncontrolled as\na modern business condition the curious result will follow that all\npower of individual achievement and individual effort in the average\nman will be crushed out just as effectively as if the state took\nabsolute control of everything. It would be easy to name several big\ncorporations each one of which has within its sphere crushed out all\ncompetition so as to make, not only its rivals, but its customers as\ndependent upon it as if the government had assumed complete charge of\nthe product. It would, in my judgment, be a very unhealthy thing for\nthe government thus to assume complete charge; but it is even more\nunhealthy to permit a private monopoly thus to assume it. The simple\ntruth is that the defenders of the theory of unregulated lawlessness\nin the business world are either insincere or blind to the facts when\nthey speak of their system as permitting a healthy individualism and\nindividual initiative. On the contrary, it crushes out individualism,\nsave in a very few able and powerful men who tend to become dictators\nin the business world precisely as in the old days a Spanish-American\npresident tended to become a dictator in the political world.\n\nMoreover, where there is absolute lawlessness, absolute failure by the\nstate to control or supervise these great corporations, the inevitable\nresult is to favor, among these very able men of business, the man who\nis unscrupulous and cunning. The unscrupulous big man who gets complete\ncontrol of a given forest tract, or of a network of railways which\nalone give access to a certain region, or who, in combination with his\nfellows, acquires control of a certain industry, may crush out in the\ngreat mass of citizens affected all individual initiative quite as much\nas it would be crushed out by state control. The very reason why we\nobject to state ownership, that it puts a stop to individual initiative\nand to the healthy development of personal responsibility, is the\nreason why we object to an unsupervised, unchecked monopolistic control\nin private hands. We urge control and supervision by the nation as an\nantidote to the movement for state socialism. Those who advocate total\nlack of regulation, those who advocate lawlessness in the business\nworld, themselves give the strongest impulse to what I believe would be\nthe deadening movement toward unadulterated state socialism.\n\nThere must be law to control the big men, and therefore especially\nthe big corporations, in the industrial world in the interest of\nour industrial democracy of to-day. This law must be efficient, and\ntherefore it must be administered by executive officers and not by\nlawsuits in the courts. If this is not done the agitation to increase\nout of all measure the share of the government in this work will\nreceive an enormous impetus. The movement for government control of the\ngreat business corporations is no more a movement against liberty than\na movement to put a stop to violence is a movement against liberty.\nOn the contrary, in each case alike it is a movement for liberty; in\nthe one case a movement on behalf of the hard-working man of small\nmeans, just as in the other case it is a movement on behalf of the\npeaceable citizen who does not wish a \u201cliberty\u201d which puts him at the\nmercy of any rowdy who is stronger than he is. The huge, irresponsible\ncorporation which demands liberty from the supervision of government\nagents stands on the same ground as the less dangerous criminal of the\nstreets who wishes liberty from police interference.\n\nBut there is an even more important lesson for us Americans to learn,\nand this also is touched upon in what I have quoted above. It is\nnot true, as Mr. Steevens says, that Americans feel that the one\nend of life is to get dollars; but the statement contains a very\nunpleasant element of truth. The hard materialism of greed is just as\nobjectionable as the hard materialism of brutality, and the greed of\nthe \u201chaves\u201d is just as objectionable as the greed of the \u201chave-nots,\u201d\nand no more so. The envious and sinister creature who declaims against\na great corporation because he really desires himself to enjoy what\nin hard, selfish, brutal fashion the head of that great corporation\nenjoys, offers a spectacle which is both sad and repellent. The brutal\narrogance and grasping greed of the one man are in reality the same\nthing as the bitter envy and hatred and grasping greed of the other.\nThat kind of \u201chave\u201d and that kind of \u201chave-not\u201d stand on the same\neminence of infamy. It is as important for the one as for the other\nto learn the lesson of the true relations of life. Of course, the\nfirst duty of any man is to pay his own way, to be able to earn his\nown livelihood, to support himself and his wife and his children and\nthose dependent upon him. He must be able to give those for whom it is\nhis duty to care food and clothing, shelter, medicine, an education,\na legitimate chance for reasonable and healthy amusements, and the\nopportunity to acquire the knowledge and power which will fit them in\ntheir turn to do good work in the world. When once a man has reached\nthis point, which, of course, will vary greatly under different\nconditions, then he has reached the point where other things become\nimmensely more important than adding to his wealth. It is emphatically\nright, indeed, I am tempted to say, it is emphatically the first duty\nof each American, \u201cto get dollars,\u201d as Mr. Steevens contemptuously\nphrased it; for this is only another way of saying that it is his first\nduty to earn his own living. But it is not his only duty, by a great\ndeal; and after the living has been earned getting dollars should come\nfar behind many other duties.\n\nYet another thing. No movement ever has done or ever will do good in\nthis country, where assault is made, not upon evil wherever found,\nbut simply upon evil as it happens to be found in a particular class.\nThe big newspaper, owned or controlled in Wall Street, which is\neverlastingly preaching about the iniquity of laboring men, which is\nquite willing to hound politicians for their misdeeds, but which with\nraving fury defends all the malefactors of great wealth, stands on an\nexact level with, and neither above nor below, that other newspaper\nwhose whole attack is upon men of wealth, which declines to condemn,\nor else condemns in apologetic, perfunctory, and wholly inefficient\nmanner, outrages committed by labor. This is the kind of paper which\nby torrents of foul abuse seeks to stir up a bitter class hatred\nagainst every man of means simply because he is a man of means, against\nevery man of wealth, whether he is an honest man who by industry and\nability has honorably won his wealth, and who honorably spends it, or\na man whose wealth represents robbery and whose life represents either\nprofligacy or at best an inane, useless, and tasteless extravagance.\nThis country can not afford to let its conscience grow warped and\ntwisted, as it must grow if it takes either one of these two positions.\nWe must draw the line, not on wealth nor on poverty, but on conduct. We\nmust stand for the good citizen because he is a good citizen, whether\nhe be rich or whether he be poor, and we must mercilessly attack the\nman who does evil, wholly without regard to whether the evil is done\nin high or low places, whether it takes the form of homicidal violence\namong members of a federation of miners, or of unscrupulous craft and\ngreed in the head of some great Wall Street corporation.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe best lesson that any people can learn is that there is no patent\ncure-all which will make the body politic perfect, and that any man\nwho is able glibly to answer every question as to how to deal with the\nevils of the body politic is at best a foolish visionary and at worst\nan evil-minded quack. Neither doctrinaire socialism nor unrestricted\nindividualism nor any other ism will bring about the millennium.\nCollectivism and individualism must be used as supplementary, not\nas antagonistic, philosophies. In the last analysis the welfare of\na nation depends on its having throughout a healthy development. A\nhealthy social system must of necessity represent the sum of very\nmany moral, intellectual, and economic forces, and each such force\nmust depend in its turn partly upon the whole system; and all these\nmany forces are needed to develop a high grade of character in the\nindividual men and women who make up the nation. No individual man\ncould be kept healthy by living in accordance with a plan which took\ncognizance only of one set of muscles or set of organs; his health must\ndepend upon his general bodily vigor, that is, upon the general care\nwhich affects hundreds of different organs according to their hundreds\nof needs. Society is, of course, infinitely more complex than the human\nbody. The influences that tell upon it are countless; they are closely\ninterwoven, interdependent, and each is acted upon by many others.\nIt is pathetically absurd, when such are the conditions, to believe\nthat some one simple panacea for all evils can be found. Slowly, with\ninfinite difficulty, with bitter disappointments, with stumblings and\nhaltings, we are working our way upward and onward. In this progress\nsomething can be done by continually striving to improve the social\nsystem, now here, now there. Something more can be done by the resolute\neffort for a many-sided higher life. This life must largely come\nto each individual from within, by his own effort, but toward the\nattainment of it each of us can help many others. Such a life must\nrepresent the struggle for a higher and broader humanity, to be shown\nnot merely in the dealings of each of us within the realm of the\nstate, but even more by the dealings of each of us in the more intimate\nrealm of the family; for the life of the state rests and must ever rest\nupon the life of the family.\n\nIn one of Lowell\u2019s biting satires he holds up to special scorn the\nsmug, conscienceless creature who refuses to consider the morality\nof any question of social ethics by remarking that \u201cthey didn\u2019t know\neverything down in Judee.\u201d It is to be wished that some of those\nwho preach and practise a gospel of mere materialism and greed, and\nwho speak as if the heaping up of wealth by the community or by the\nindividual were in itself the be-all and end-all of life, would learn\nfrom the most widely read and oldest of books that true wisdom which\nteaches that it is well to have neither great poverty nor great riches.\nWorst of all is it to have great poverty and great riches side by side\nin constant contrast. Nevertheless, even this contrast can be accepted\nif men are convinced that the riches are accumulated as the result of\ngreat service rendered to the people as a whole, and if their use is\nregulated in the interest of the whole community.\n\nThe movement for social and industrial reform has for two of its prime\nobjects the prevention of the accumulation of wealth save by honest\nservice to the country, and the supervision and regulation of its\nbusiness use, and the determination of how it shall be taxed, and\non what terms inherited, even when acquired and used honestly. This\nmovement is a healthy movement. It aims to replace sullen discontent,\nrestless pessimism, and evil preparation for revolution, by an\naggressive, healthy determination to get to the bottom of our troubles\nand remedy them. To halt in the movement, as those blinded men wish\nwho care only for the immediate relief from all obstacles which would\nthwart their getting what is not theirs, would work wide-reaching\ndamage. Such a halt would turn away the energies of the energetic and\nforceful men who desire to reform matters from a legitimate object into\nthe channel of bitter and destructive agitation.\n\n\n\n\nPRODUCTIVE SCHOLARSHIP\n\n\n\n\nPRODUCTIVE SCHOLARSHIP[5]\n\n\nWhat counts in a man or in a nation is not what the man or the nation\ncan do, but what he or it actually does. Scholarship that consists\nin mere learning, but finds no expression in production, may be of\ninterest and value to the individual, just as ability to shoot well\nat clay pigeons may be of interest and value to him, but it ranks no\nhigher unless it finds expression in achievement. From the standpoint\nof the nation, and from the broader standpoint of mankind, scholarship\nis of worth chiefly when it is productive, when the scholar not merely\nreceives or acquires, but gives.\n\n    [5] \u201cThe Medi\u00e6val Mind.\u201d By Henry Osborn Taylor.\n\n        \u201cThe Life and Times of Cavour.\u201d By William Roscoe Thayer.\n\nOf course there is much production by scholarly men which is not,\nstrictly speaking, scholarship; any more than the men themselves,\ndespite their scholarly tastes and attributes, would claim to be\nscholars in the technical or purely erudite sense. The exceedingly\nvaluable and extensive work of Edward Cope comes under the head of\nscience, and represents original investigation and original thought\nconcerning what that investigation showed; yet if the word scholarship\nis used broadly, his work must certainly be called productive\nscientific scholarship. General Alexander\u2019s capital \u201cMemoirs of a\nConfederate\u201d show that a man who is a first-class citizen as well as\na first-class fighting man may also combine the true scholar\u2019s power\nof research and passion for truth with the ability to see clearly and\nto state clearly what he has seen. Mr. Hannis Taylor\u2019s history of \u201cThe\nOrigin and Growth of the American Constitution\u201d and General Francis V.\nGreene\u2019s history of the American Revolution could have been written\nonly by scholars. Such altogether delightful volumes of essays as Mr.\nCrothers\u2019s \u201cGentle Reader,\u201d \u201cPardoner\u2019s Wallet,\u201d and \u201cAmong Friends\u201d\nmay not, in the strictest sense of the word, represent scholarship\nany more than the \u201cEssays of Elia\u201d represent scholarship; but they\nrepresent more than scholarship, and they could have been written\nonly by a man of scholarly attributes. The same thing is true of Mr.\nMaurice Egan, now our Minister to Denmark--who so well upholds the\ntradition which has always identified American men of letters with\nAmerican diplomacy--in his essays in Comparative Literature, named, as\nI think not altogether happily, from the first essay, \u201cThe Ghost in\nHamlet.\u201d Mr. Egan writes not merely with charm but as no one but a man\nof scholarly attributes could write--and, by the way, his dedication\nto Archbishop John Lancaster Spalding is a dedication to a man whose\nlofty spiritual teachings have been expressed in singularly beautiful\nEnglish. In its most perfect expression scholarship must utter itself\nwith literary charm and distinction; although, I am sorry to say, the\nprofessional scholars sometimes actually distrust scholarship which is\nable thus to bring forth wisdom divorced from pedantry and dryness.\nAs an example, Gilbert Murray\u2019s \u201cRise of the Greek Epic\u201d not only\nshows profound scholarship and the profound scholarly instinct which\ncan alone profit by the mere erudition of scholarship, but is also so\ndelightfully written as to be as interesting as the most interesting\nnovel; and, curiously enough, this very fact, coupled with the fact\nthat Mr. Murray\u2019s translations of Euripides and Aristophanes are so\nattractive, has tended to excite distrust of him in the minds of\nworthy scholars whose productions are themselves free from all taint\nof interest, from all taint of literary charm. Professor Lounsbury\u2019s\nextraordinary scholarship has been fully appreciated only by the best\nscholars; and this partly because of the very fact of his many-sided\ndevelopment in the field of intellectual endeavor.\n\nBut I speak now of works of scholarship in the more conventional sense,\nof works which show scholarship such as Lea showed in his history of\nthe Inquisition, such as Child showed in his studies of English ballad\npoetry.\n\nMr. Taylor\u2019s study of \u201cThe Medi\u00e6val Mind\u201d is a noteworthy\ncontribution--I am tempted to say the most noteworthy of recent\ncontributions--to the best kind of productive scholarship. His\nerudition is extraordinary in breadth and depth, his grasp of the\nsubject no less marked than his power of conveying to others what\nhe has thus grasped. He is not only faithful to the truth in large\nthings, he is accurate in small matters also; and where he makes use\nof any statement he always shows that there is justification for it;\nalthough, by the way, I can only guess at his reason for calling Attila\na \u201cTuranian\u201d--a word which carries a pleasant flavor of pre-Victorian\nethnology, and might just about as appropriately be applied to\nTecumseh. As he expressly states, Mr. Taylor is not concerned with the\nbrutalities of medi\u00e6val life, nor with the lower grades of ignorance\nand superstition which abounded in the Middle Ages, but with the more\ninformed and constructive spirit of the medi\u00e6val time. There is, of\ncourse, no hard and sharp line to be drawn between medi\u00e6val time and,\non the one hand, what is \u201cancient\u201d and, on the other hand, what is\n\u201cmodern\u201d; but for his purposes he treats the twelfth and thirteenth\ncenturies as showing the culmination of the medi\u00e6val spirit in its\nmost characteristic form; although he also incidentally touches on\nthings that occurred in the fourteenth century, and of course covers\nthe slow upward movement through the Dark Ages (as to which he does\nrather less than justice to the Carolingian revival of learning), when\nmen were groping in the black abyss into which civilization so rapidly\nslid after the close of the second century. His mastery of the facts\nis well-nigh perfect, and he handles them with singular sympathy. In\nsuch chapters as \u201cThe Spotted Actuality\u201d he makes it evident that he\nhas constantly before his own mind the whole picture. The ordinary\nreader, however, needs to remember that it is no part of Mr. Taylor\u2019s\npurpose to present this whole picture, but merely to make a study\nsomewhat analogous to what a study of the intellect of the nineteenth\ncentury would be if it dealt exclusively with the thought of the\nvarious universities of Europe and America and of circles like that of\nEmerson at Concord and Goethe at Weimar. Indeed, this comparison is\nhardly accurate, for the universities of the nineteenth century had a\nfar closer connection with the living thought of the day than was true\nof the universities of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The latter\n(like their feeble survivals in the Spanish-speaking countries) much\nmore closely resembled the ordinary type of Mohammedan university of\nthe present day, such a university as the big Mohammedan university at\nCairo, than they resembled any modern university worth calling such,\nor, indeed, any ancient university of living and creative force.\n\nThe schoolmen of the Middle Ages and the universities in which they\nflourished are well worth such study as that which Mr. Taylor gives\nthem, if only because they represented what regarded itself as the\nhighest spiritual and intellectual teaching of the time, and because\nthey symbolized the forces which manifested themselves with infinitely\nmore permanent value in that wonderful cathedral architecture which was\none of the two culminating architectural movements of all time--the\nother, of course, being the classical Greek. But the greatest\nmedi\u00e6val effect upon the thought of after time was produced, not by\nthe schoolmen, but by works which they would hardly have treated as\nserious at all--by the Roland Song, the \u201cNibelungenlied,\u201d the Norse\nand Irish sagas, the Arthurian Cycle, including \u201cParsifal\u201d; and modern\nliterature, on its historical side, may be said to have begun with\nVillehardouin and Joinville. None of the leaders of the schools are\nto-day living forces in the sense that is true of the nameless writers\nwho built up the stories of the immortal death fights in the Pyrenean\npass and in the hall of Etzel, or of the search for the Holy Grail.\nThere are keen intellects still influenced by Thomas Aquinas; but\nall the writings of all the most famous doctors of the schools taken\ntogether had no such influence on the religious thought of mankind\nas two books produced long afterward, with no conception of their\nfar-reaching importance, by the obscure and humble authors of the\n\u201cImitation of Christ\u201d and the \u201cPilgrim\u2019s Progress.\u201d In the thirteenth\ncentury the spiritual life in action, as apart from dogma, and as lived\nwith the earnest desire to follow in the footsteps of the Christ,\nreached, in the person of Saint Francis of Assisi, as lofty a pinnacle\nof realized idealism as humanity has ever attained. But among those\nwho, instead of trying simply to live up to their spiritual impulses,\nendeavored to deal authoritatively in the schools with spiritual and\nintellectual interests, the complementary tyranny and servility in all\nsuch spiritual and intellectual matters were such as we can now hardly\nimagine to ourselves. The one really great scientific investigator,\nRoger Bacon, who actually did put as an ideal before himself the honest\nsearch for truth, was imprisoned for years in consequence; and this in\nspite of the fact that his avowals of abject submission to theological\nauthority and unquestioning adherence to dogma were such as we of\nto-day can with difficulty understand.\n\nAt first sight such an attitude in the intellectual world seems\nincompatible with the turbulent and lawless insistence on the right of\neach individual to do whatever he saw fit in the political and social\nworld which characterized the seething life of the time. But, as Mr.\nTaylor points out, the minute that a man in the Middle Ages began to be\nfree in any real sense he tended to become an outlaw; and, moreover,\nthe men who were most intolerant of restraint in matters physical\nand material made no demands whatever for intellectual or spiritual\nfreedom. The ordinary knight or nobleman, the typical \u201cman of action\u201d\nof the period, promptly resented any attempt to interfere with his\nbrutal passions or coarse appetites; but, as he had neither special\ninterest nor deep conviction in merely intellectual matters, he was\nentirely willing to submit to guidance concerning them. The attitude\nof the great baron of the highest class is amusingly shown by a\nconversation that Joinville records as having occurred between himself\nand King Louis the Saint. Among the questions which King Louis one\nday propounded to Joinville, in the interests of the higher morality,\nwas whether Joinville would rather have leprosy or commit a mortal\nsin; to which Joinville responded with cordial frankness that he would\nrather commit thirty mortal sins than have leprosy. Now, in addition\nto being a most delightful chronicler, Joinville was an exceptionally\nwell-behaved and religious baron, standing far above the average, and\nhe was very careful to perform every obligation laid upon him by those\nwhom he regarded as his spiritual advisers. The fact simply was that\nhe had no idea of the need for spiritual or intellectual independence\nin the sense that a modern man has need for such independence,\nbecause he took only a superficial interest in anything concerned\nwith intellectual inquiry. To harry a heretic or a Jew was not only\na duty but a pleasure, and no effort whatever was needed to refrain\nfrom intellectual inquiry which presented to him not the slightest\nattraction; but leprosy was something tangible, something real, and the\ninstant that the real came into collision with even the most insistent\nsupposed spiritual obligation the rugged old baron went into immediate\nrevolt.\n\nThe whole way of looking at life was so different from ours that only a\nthoroughly sympathetic and understanding writer like Mr. Taylor can set\nit forth in a manner that shall be sympathetic and yet not revolt us.\nOne of his most delightful chapters is that on \u201cThe Heart of Heloise.\u201d\nThe qualities that Heloise displayed are those which eternally appeal\nto what is high and fine in human life; as for her lover, Abelard, it\nis possible to pardon the abject creature only by scornfully condemning\nthe age which imposed upon him the rules of conduct in accordance with\nwhich he lived.\n\nMr. Thayer\u2019s \u201cLife of Cavour\u201d is another first-rate example of\nproductive scholarship. It is much more than a mere biography.\nThe three greatest and most influential statesmen, in purpose and\nachievement, since the close of the Napoleonic epoch were Lincoln,\nBismarck, and Cavour; and any account of either of them must\nnecessarily be an account of the most vitally important things that\nhappened to mankind during the period when each was playing his\ngreatest part. An adequate biography of either must therefore be a\npermanent addition to history; such a biography could be written only\nby a scholar and writer of altogether exceptional attainments; and such\na biography has been furnished by Mr. Thayer. Mr. Thayer is already\nwell known as the author of various volumes dealing with Italy, all\nof them representing work worth doing, and all of them leading up to\nand making ready the way for the really notable history which he has\nnow written. There are other books which should be read in connection\nwith it; the younger Trevelyan\u2019s brilliant studies of Garibaldi and\nthe Italian revolutionists of 1848 and the dozen years immediately\nsucceeding, and De La Gorce\u2019s profoundly interesting histories of the\nSecond Empire and the Second Republic in France, which contain the\nmost powerful presentment of the period from the anti-revolutionary\nstandpoint. Cavour not only did more than any other one man for\nItalian unity and independence, but he symbolized the movement as\nneither Garibaldi the Paladin, nor Mazzini the Republican, nor even\nKing Victor Emmanuel symbolized it. As Mr. Thayer describes Cavour\u2019s\ncareer it is not only of interest in itself, but it is of interest\nas showing that vast and complex aggregate of contradictory forces\nthrough whose warring chaos every great leader who fights for the\nwell-being of mankind must force his way to triumph. Cavour had to\ncontend against foes within just as much as against foes without. He\nhad to hold the balance between the unreasoning reactionary and the\nunreasoning revolutionist, just exactly as on a larger or smaller scale\nall leaders in the forward movement of mankind must ever do. Mr. Thayer\nhas set forth in masterly fashion the task to which the great statesman\naddressed himself and the manner in which that task was performed; his\nbook is absorbingly interesting to the general reader, and should be of\nprofit not merely to the special student but to every active politician\nwho is in politics for any of the reasons which alone render it really\nworth while to be a politician at all. Mr. Thayer is devoted to his\nhero, as he ought to be; and he is a stanch partisan; but his obvious\npurpose is to be fair, and the principles of liberty to which he pins\nhis faith are those upon which American governmental policy must always\nrest--although it is not necessary to follow him in all his views, as\nwhen he suddenly treats free trade from the fetichistic standpoint\ninstead of as an economic expedient to be judged on its merits in any\ngiven case. Every man interested not only in the realities but in\nthe possibilities of political advance should study this book; and,\nin addition to its intrinsic worth and interest, it is an example of\nthe kind of productive scholarship which adds to the sum of American\nachievement.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnything that Professor Lounsbury writes is certain to be interesting.\nAny collection by him of the writings of others is also certain to be\ninteresting. Probably when Mr. Lounsbury is doing what he himself is\nwilling to accept as work, it is both so profound and so erudite that\nwe laymen can do little but admire it from a distance. Fortunately,\nhowever, he is also willing to do what he regards as play, such as a\nLife of Fenimore Cooper, or a study of English adapted to the needs of\nthose who are not scholars; and all of his writing of this lighter kind\nadds markedly to the sum of enjoyment of laymen who are fond of reading.\n\nThe two volumes before me illustrate the good that can be done by\npeople of cultivation who at our different universities provide the\nmeans needed to foster productive scholarship--for, unfortunately,\nproductive scholarship in this country is apt to be unremunerative. The\nslender volume on the early literary career of Robert Browning[6] is\nbased on four lectures delivered at the University of Virginia under\nthe terms of the Barbour-Page Foundation, a foundation due to the\nwisdom and generosity of Mrs. Thomas Nelson Page. The \u201cYale Book of\nAmerican Verse\u201d[7] is published by the Yale University Press under the\nauspices of the Elizabethan Club of Yale University, a club founded by\nMr. Alexander Smith Cochran. It is the kind of club the possession of\nwhich every real university in the country must envy Yale.\n\n    [6] \u201cThe Early Literary Career of Robert Browning.\u201d By Thomas\n        R. Lounsbury.\n\n    [7] \u201cYale Book of American Verse.\u201d Collected by Thomas R.\n        Lounsbury.\n\nThis study of Browning particularly appeals to any man who, although\ndevoted to Browning, yet does not care for the pieces that some of the\nBrowning clubs especially delight in. Browning\u2019s great poems, those\nwhich will last as long as English literature lasts, are given their\nfull meed of praise by Professor Lounsbury. The other poems, those\nwhich especially excite the interest of the average Browning society,\nare treated very amusingly and on the whole very justly. Professor\nLounsbury insists that these \u201cpoems\u201d will not permanently last, because\nthey are essentially formless, and therefore not poetry at all,\nand indeed not literature. He holds that the attraction such poems\nexercise on certain people is the attraction of the unintelligible. Mr.\nLounsbury\u2019s writings are always full of delicious touches, and he is\nsometimes at his best in this little volume, as, for instance, where\nhe says: \u201cIn fact, commentaries on Browning generally bear a close\nresemblance to fog-horns. They proclaim the existence of fog, but they\ndo not disperse it.\u201d One of his main contentions is that fundamentally\nthe interest in those poems of Browning which are both very long and\nvery obscure does not differ in kind from that displayed in guessing\nthe answers to riddles or, to use a more dignified comparison, from\nthat employed in the solution of difficult mathematical problems.\n\nI think, however, that for the admiration of these rather obscure\nphilosophical poems of Browning there is a reason upon which Mr.\nLounsbury has not touched. He says truly that the men who admire\nBrowning are very apt to be men not especially drawn to writers in whom\nlofty speculations have found their fitting counterpart in clearness\nand beauty of expression; and he instances Wordsworth and Tennyson as\npoets to be enjoyed only by men and women who have a certain degree\nof fondness for literature as literature. Now, I think it is true of\nBrowning (as it is true of Walt Whitman) that many of the people who\nlabor longest and hardest to master his meaning are entirely mistaken\nin thinking that they enjoy him as a poet. But I do not think that Mr.\nLounsbury\u2019s explanation that they prize him only as a puzzle fully\naccounts for the enjoyment of many of these men or the profit they\nderive from their study. The fact is that Browning does represent\nvery deep thought, very real philosophy--mixed, of course, with much\nthought that is not deep at all but only obscure, and much would-be\nphilosophy that has no meaning whatsoever. In an instance that came to\nmy own knowledge, a class of college boys in a course of literature,\nafter carefully studying Browning for a couple of months, and after\nthen taking up Tennyson, unanimously abandoned Tennyson and insisted\non returning to the study of Browning. These hard-working, intelligent\nboys were not all of them merely interested in puzzles. They were not\nall of them blind to poetry as such. They did care to a certain extent\nfor form, but primarily they were interested in the great problems of\nlife, they were interested in great and noble thoughts. Doubtless many\nof them rather enjoyed having to dig out the thought from involved\nlanguage. But probably a greater number felt a larger enjoyment in\nfinding lofty thought expressed in language which was even more lofty\nthan obscure.\n\nIt is true that as a poet Browning is formless. But the poets who are\ngreat philosophers are few in number, and great philosophers who have\nany gift of expression whatever or any sense of form, or whose writings\nso much as approach the outer hem of literature, are even fewer in\nnumber. Browning the philosopher is not more deep than many other\nphilosophers, and in form and expression he is inferior to many poets.\nBut he is a philosopher, and he has form and expression. The philosophy\nhe writes is literature, even though hardly in the highest sense poetic\nliterature. Therefore he appeals to men who are primarily interested\nin his writings as philosophy, but who do derive a certain pleasure\nfrom form or expression; who, without being conscious of it, do like to\nhave the writings they read resemble literature. These men are given\nby Browning something that no other poet and no other philosopher can\ngive them; and I do not think that these men receive full justice at\nMr. Lounsbury\u2019s hands. Moreover, as compared to Tennyson or Longfellow,\nor any other of the more conventional poets--and I am extremely fond\nof these conventional poets--there is far more in Browning, even in\nBrowning\u2019s simpler and more understandable and formal poems, that\ngives expression to certain deep and complex emotions. There are many\npoets whom we habitually read far more often than Browning, and who\nminister better to our more primitive needs and emotions. There are\nvery few whose lines come so naturally to us in certain great crises of\nthe soul which are also crises of the intellect.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\u201cThe Yale Book of American Verse\u201d is an excellent anthology, and\nthe preface is one of the best things about it. In this preface Mr.\nLounsbury quite unconsciously shows why he appeals to so many men to\nwhom a college professor who is nothing more than a college professor\ndoes not readily appeal. He mentions that on the march to Gettysburg\nhe picked up a torn piece of newspaper containing certain verses\nwhich have always remained in his mind, and which he includes in this\ncollection of verse. This is the only hint in Professor Lounsbury\u2019s\nwritings that he fought in the Civil War. A professor of English\nliterature in a great university who in his youth fought at Gettysburg\nmust necessarily have something in him that speaks not only to scholars\nbut to men.\n\nThis anthology includes hymns as well as secular poems. The collection\nis good in itself, as I have already said, and, moreover, to all real\nlovers of anthologies it will also seem good because each of them will\ntake much satisfaction in wondering why certain of his or her favorite\npoems have been left out and why certain other poems have been put in.\nI suppose every man who cares for poetry at all at times wishes that he\ncould compile an anthology for his own purposes. I certainly so feel.\nI would like to compile two anthologies, one of hymns and one of those\npoems which our ancestors designated quite ruthlessly as \u201cprofane,\u201d in\nopposition to sacred. I should not expect any one else to read either\nof my collections. I should not wish the edition to consist of more\nthan one copy. But I would like, purely for my own use, to own that\ncopy! In the anthology of hymns, for instance, besides all the great\nhymns, from Bernard of Morlais to Cowper and Wesley and Bishop Heber, I\nwould like to put in some hymns as to which I know nothing except that\nI like them. Every Christmas Eve in our own church at Oyster Bay, for\ninstance, the children sing a hymn beginning \u201cIt\u2019s Christmas Eve on the\nRiver, it\u2019s Christmas Eve on the Bay.\u201d Of course the hymn has come to\nus from somewhere else, but I do not know from where; and the average\nnative of our village firmly believes that it is indigenous to our\nown soil--which it can not be, unless it deals in hyperbole, for the\nnearest approach to a river in our neighborhood is the village pond.\n\nAs for the \u201cprofane\u201d anthology, I think I should like to make one\nconsisting of several volumes. Even Mr. Lounsbury\u2019s volume of American\nverse, though it contains some specimens of verse I would not have\nincluded, omits others which I certainly should put in. And then, think\nof the many, many volumes that would be needed to include the English\npoems, and the French poems, and the German poems from the Bard of\nthe Dimbovitza, and all the other poems which no human being could\nmake up his mind to see any anthology leave out! I fear that a perfect\nanthology of the kind that fills my dreams would be as large as the\nvarious rather dismal series of volumes which contain, as we are told,\n\u201cthe world\u2019s best literature\u201d--and doubtless would be as unsatisfactory.\n\nMeanwhile, as all this represents an unattainable dream, we have\nreason to be glad that Mr. Lounsbury\u2019s particular anthology has been\npublished.\n\n\n\n\nDANTE AND THE BOWERY\n\n\n\n\nDANTE AND THE BOWERY\n\n\nIt is the conventional thing to praise Dante because he of set purpose\n\u201cused the language of the market-place,\u201d so as to be understanded\nof the common people; but we do not in practice either admire or\nunderstand a man who writes in the language of our own market-place.\nIt must be the Florentine market-place of the thirteenth century--not\nFulton Market of to-day. What infinite use Dante would have made\nof the Bowery! Of course, he could have done it only because not\nmerely he himself, the great poet, but his audience also, would have\naccepted it as natural. The nineteenth century was more apt than the\nthirteenth to boast of itself as being the greatest of the centuries;\nbut, save as regards purely material objects, ranging from locomotives\nto bank buildings, it did not wholly believe in its boasting. A\nnineteenth-century poet, when trying to illustrate some point he was\nmaking, obviously felt uncomfortable in mentioning nineteenth-century\nheroes if he also referred to those of classic times, lest he\nshould be suspected of instituting comparisons between them. A\nthirteenth-century poet was not in the least troubled by any such\nmisgivings, and quite simply illustrated his point by allusions to any\ncharacter in history or romance, ancient or contemporary, that happened\nto occur to him.\n\nOf all the poets of the nineteenth century, Walt Whitman was the only\none who dared use the Bowery--that is, use anything that was striking\nand vividly typical of the humanity around him--as Dante used the\nordinary humanity of his day; and even Whitman was not quite natural\nin doing so, for he always felt that he was defying the conventions\nand prejudices of his neighbors, and his self-consciousness made him a\nlittle defiant. Dante was not defiant of conventions: the conventions\nof his day did not forbid him to use human nature just as he saw it,\nno less than human nature as he read about it. The Bowery is one of\nthe great highways of humanity, a highway of seething life, of varied\ninterest, of fun, of work, of sordid and terrible tragedy; and it is\nhaunted by demons as evil as any that stalk through the pages of the\n\u201cInferno.\u201d But no man of Dante\u2019s art and with Dante\u2019s soul would write\nof it nowadays; and he would hardly be understood if he did. Whitman\nwrote of homely things and every-day men, and of their greatness, but\nhis art was not equal to his power and his purpose; and, even as it\nwas, he, the poet, by set intention, of the democracy, is not known to\nthe people as widely as he should be known; and it is only the few--the\nmen like Edward FitzGerald, John Burroughs, and W.\u00a0E. Henley--who prize\nhim as he ought to be prized.\n\nNowadays, at the outset of the twentieth century, cultivated people\nwould ridicule the poet who illustrated fundamental truths, as Dante\ndid six hundred years ago, by examples drawn alike from human nature as\nhe saw it around him and from human nature as he read of it. I suppose\nthat this must be partly because we are so self-conscious as always\nto read a comparison into any illustration, forgetting the fact that\nno comparison is implied between two men, in the sense of estimating\ntheir relative greatness or importance, when the career of each of them\nis chosen merely to illustrate some given quality that both possess.\nIt is also probably due to the fact that an age in which the critical\nfaculty is greatly developed often tends to develop a certain querulous\ninability to understand the fundamental truths which less critical ages\naccept as a matter of course. To such critics it seems improper, and\nindeed ludicrous, to illustrate human nature by examples chosen alike\nfrom the Brooklyn Navy Yard or Castle Garden and the Pir\u00e6us, alike from\nTammany and from the Roman mob organized by the foes or friends of\nC\u00e6sar. To Dante such feeling itself would have been inexplicable.\n\nDante dealt with those tremendous qualities of the human soul which\ndwarf all differences in outward and visible form and station, and\ntherefore he illustrated what he meant by any example that seemed to\nhim apt. Only the great names of antiquity had been handed down, and\nso, when he spoke of pride or violence or flattery, and wished to\nillustrate his thesis by an appeal to the past, he could speak only\nof great and prominent characters; but in the present of his day most\nof the men he knew, or knew of, were naturally people of no permanent\nimportance--just as is the case in the present of our own day. Yet the\npassions of these men were the same as those of the heroes of old,\ngodlike or demoniac; and so he unhesitatingly used his contemporaries,\nor his immediate predecessors, to illustrate his points, without\nregard to their prominence or lack of prominence. He was not concerned\nwith the differences in their fortunes and careers, with their heroic\nproportions or lack of such proportions; he was a mystic whose\nimagination soared so high and whose thoughts plumbed so deeply the far\ndepths of our being that he was also quite simply a realist; for the\neternal mysteries were ever before his mind, and, compared to them, the\ndifferences between the careers of the mighty masters of mankind and\nthe careers of even very humble people seemed trivial. If we translate\nhis comparisons into the terms of our day, we are apt to feel amused\nover this trait of his, until we go a little deeper and understand\nthat we are ourselves to blame, because we have lost the faculty simply\nand naturally to recognize that the essential traits of humanity are\nshown alike by big men and by little men, in the lives that are now\nbeing lived and in those that are long ended.\n\nProbably no two characters in Dante impress the ordinary reader more\nthan Farinata and Capaneus: the man who raises himself waist-high from\nout his burning sepulchre, unshaken by torment, and the man who, with\nscornful disdain, refuses to brush from his body the falling flames;\nthe great souls--magnanimous, Dante calls them--whom no torture, no\ndisaster, no failure of the most absolute kind could force to yield\nor to bow before the dread powers that had mastered them. Dante has\ncreated these men, has made them permanent additions to the great\nfigures of the world; they are imaginary only in the sense that\nAchilles and Ulysses are imaginary--that is, they are now as real as\nthe figures of any men that ever lived. One of them was a mythical\nhero in a mythical feat, the other a second-rate faction leader in a\nfaction-ridden Italian city of the thirteenth century, whose deeds have\nnot the slightest importance aside from what Dante\u2019s mention gives.\nYet the two men are mentioned as naturally as Alexander and C\u00e6sar are\nmentioned. Evidently they are dwelt upon at length because Dante\nfelt it his duty to express a peculiar horror for that fierce pride\nwhich could defy its overlord, while at the same time, and perhaps\nunwillingly, he could not conceal a certain shuddering admiration for\nthe lofty courage on which this evil pride was based.\n\nThe point I wish to make is the simplicity with which Dante illustrated\none of the principles on which he lays most stress, by the example\nof a man who was of consequence only in the history of the parochial\npolitics of Florence. Farinata will now live forever as a symbol of\nthe soul; yet as an historical figure he is dwarfed beside any one\nof hundreds of the leaders in our own Revolution and Civil War. Tom\nBenton, of Missouri, and Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, were opposed\nto one another with a bitterness which surpassed that which rived\nasunder Guelph from Ghibellin, or black Guelph from white Guelph. They\nplayed mighty parts in a tragedy more tremendous than any which any\nmedi\u00e6val city ever witnessed or could have witnessed. Each possessed an\niron will and undaunted courage, physical and moral; each led a life of\nvaried interest and danger, and exercised a power not possible in the\ncareer of the Florentine. One, the champion of the Union, fought for\nhis principles as unyieldingly as the other fought for what he deemed\nright in trying to break up the Union. Each was a colossal figure.\nEach, when the forces against which he fought overcame him--for in his\nlatter years Benton saw the cause of disunion triumph in Missouri,\njust as Jefferson Davis lived to see the cause of union triumph in\nthe Nation--fronted an adverse fate with the frowning defiance, the\nhigh heart, and the stubborn will which Dante has commemorated for all\ntime in his hero who \u201cheld hell in great scorn.\u201d Yet a modern poet who\nendeavored to illustrate such a point by reference to Benton and Davis\nwould be uncomfortably conscious that his audience would laugh at him.\nHe would feel ill at ease, and therefore would convey the impression\nof being ill at ease, exactly as he would feel that he was posing, was\nforced and unnatural, if he referred to the deeds of the evil heroes\nof the Paris Commune as he would without hesitation refer to the many\nsimilar but smaller leaders of riots in the Roman forum.\n\nDante speaks of a couple of French troubadours, or of a local Sicilian\npoet, just as he speaks of Euripides; and quite properly, for they\nillustrate as well what he has to teach; but we of to-day could not\npossibly speak of a couple of recent French poets or German novelists\nin the same connection without having an uncomfortable feeling that\nwe ought to defend ourselves from possible misapprehension; and\ntherefore we could not speak of them naturally. When Dante wishes to\nassail those guilty of crimes of violence, he in one stanza speaks\nof the torments inflicted by divine justice on Attila (coupling him\nwith Pyrrhus and Sextus Pompey--a sufficiently odd conjunction in\nitself, by the way), and in the next stanza mentions the names of a\ncouple of local highwaymen who had made travel unsafe in particular\nneighborhoods. The two highwaymen in question were by no means as\nimportant as Jesse James and Billy the Kid; doubtless they were far\nless formidable fighting men, and their adventures were less striking\nand varied. Yet think of the way we should feel if a great poet should\nnow arise who would incidentally illustrate the ferocity of the human\nheart by allusions both to the terrible Hunnish \u201cscourge of God\u201d and\nto the outlaws who in our own times defied justice in Missouri and New\nMexico!\n\nWhen Dante wishes to illustrate the fierce passions of the human\nheart, he may speak of Lycurgus, or of Saul; or he may speak of two\nlocal contemporary captains, victor or vanquished in obscure struggles\nbetween Guelph and Ghibellin; men like Jacopo del Cassero or Buonconte,\nwhom he mentions as naturally as he does Cyrus or Rehoboam. He is\nentirely right! What one among our own writers, however, would be able\nsimply and naturally to mention Ulrich Dahlgren, or Custer, or Morgan,\nor Raphael Semmes, or Marion, or Sumter, as illustrating the qualities\nshown by Hannibal, or Rameses, or William the Conqueror, or by Moses or\nHercules? Yet the Guelph and Ghibellin captains of whom Dante speaks\nwere in no way as important as these American soldiers of the second or\nthird rank. Dante saw nothing incongruous in treating at length of the\nqualities of all of them; he was not thinking of comparing the genius\nof the unimportant local leader with the genius of the great sovereign\nconquerors of the past--he was thinking only of the qualities of\ncourage and daring and of the awful horror of death; and when we deal\nwith what is elemental in the human soul it matters but little whose\nsoul we take. In the same way he mentions a couple of spendthrifts of\nPadua and Siena, who come to violent ends, just as in the preceding\ncanto he had dwelt upon the tortures undergone by Dionysius and Simon\nde Montfort, guarded by Nessus and his fellow centaurs. For some reason\nhe hated the spendthrifts in question as the Whigs of Revolutionary\nSouth Carolina and New York hated Tarleton, Kruger, Saint Leger, and De\nLancey; and to him there was nothing incongruous in drawing a lesson\nfrom one couple of offenders more than from another. (It would, by the\nway, be outside my present purpose to speak of the rather puzzling\nmanner in which Dante confounds his own hatreds with those of heaven,\nand, for instance, shows a vindictive enjoyment in putting his personal\nopponent Filippo Argenti in hell, for no clearly adequate reason.)\n\nWhen he turns from those whom he is glad to see in hell toward those\nfor whom he cares, he shows the same delightful power of penetrating\nthrough the externals into the essentials. Cato and Manfred illustrate\nhis point no better than Belacqua, a contemporary Florentine maker of\ncitherns. Alas! what poet to-day would dare to illustrate his argument\nby introducing Steinway in company with Cato and Manfred! Yet again,\nwhen examples of love are needed, he draws them from the wedding-feast\nat Cana, from the actions of Pylades and Orestes, and from the life\nof a kindly, honest comb-dealer of Siena who had just died. Could\nwe now link together Peter Cooper and Pylades, without feeling a\nsense of incongruity? He couples Priscian with a politician of local\nnote who had written an encyclop\u00e6dia and a lawyer of distinction\nwho had lectured at Bologna and Oxford; we could not now with such\nfine unconsciousness bring Evarts and one of the compilers of the\nEncyclop\u00e6dia Britannica into a like comparison.\n\nWhen Dante deals with the crimes which he most abhorred, simony and\nbarratry, he flails offenders of his age who were of the same type as\nthose who in our days flourish by political or commercial corruption;\nand he names his offenders, both those just dead and those still\nliving, and puts them, popes and politicians alike, in hell. There have\nbeen trust magnates and politicians and editors and magazine-writers\nin our own country whose lives and deeds were no more edifying than\nthose of the men who lie in the third and the fifth chasm of the eighth\ncircle of the Inferno; yet for a poet to name those men would be\ncondemned as an instance of shocking taste.\n\nOne age expresses itself naturally in a form that would be unnatural,\nand therefore undesirable, in another age. We do not express ourselves\nnowadays in epics at all; and we keep the emotions aroused in us by\nwhat is good or evil in the men of the present in a totally different\ncompartment from that which holds our emotions concerning what was\ngood or evil in the men of the past. An imitation of the letter of the\ntimes past, when the spirit has wholly altered, would be worse than\nuseless; and the very qualities that help to make Dante\u2019s poem immortal\nwould, if copied nowadays, make the copyist ridiculous. Nevertheless,\nit would be a good thing if we could, in some measure, achieve the\nmighty Florentine\u2019s high simplicity of soul, at least to the extent of\nrecognizing in those around us the eternal qualities which we admire\nor condemn in the men who wrought good or evil at any stage in the\nworld\u2019s previous history. Dante\u2019s masterpiece is one of the supreme\nworks of art that the ages have witnessed; but he would have been\nthe last to wish that it should be treated only as a work of art, or\nworshipped only for art\u2019s sake, without reference to the dread lessons\nit teaches mankind.\n\n\n\n\nTHE FOUNDATIONS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY\n\n\n\n\nTHE FOUNDATIONS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY[8]\n\n\nMr. H.\u00a0S. Chamberlain\u2019s work on \u201cThe Foundations of the Nineteenth\nCentury\u201d is a noteworthy book in more ways than one. It is written by\nan Englishman who has been educated on the Continent, and has lived\nthere until he is much more German than English. Previously he had\nwritten a book in French, while this particular book was written in\nGerman, and has only recently been translated into English. Adequately\nto review the book, or rather to write an adequate essay suggested by\nit, would need the space that would have been taken by an old-time\nQuarterly or Edinburgh Reviewer a century or fourscore years ago. I\nhave called the book \u201cnoteworthy,\u201d and this it certainly is. It ranks\nwith Buckle\u2019s \u201cHistory of Civilization,\u201d and still more with Gobineau\u2019s\n\u201cIn\u00e9galit\u00e9 des Races Humaines,\u201d for its brilliancy and suggestiveness\nand also for its startling inaccuracies and lack of judgment. A\nwitty English critic once remarked of Mitford that he had all the\nqualifications of an historian--violent partiality and extreme wrath.\nMr. Chamberlain certainly possesses these qualifications in excess,\nand, combined with a queer vein of the erratic in his temperament, they\nalmost completely offset the value of his extraordinary erudition,\nextending into widely varied fields, and of his occasionally really\nbrilliant inspiration. He is, however, always entertaining; which is\nof itself no mean merit, in view of the fact that most serious writers\nseem unable to regard themselves as serious unless they are also dull.\n\n    [8] \u201cThe Foundations of the Nineteenth Century.\u201d By Houston\n        Stewart Chamberlain. A translation from the German, by\n        John Lees. With an introduction by Lord Redesdale. In two\n        volumes.\n\nMr. Chamberlain\u2019s thesis is that the nineteenth century, and therefore\nthe twentieth and all future centuries, depend for everything in them\nworth mentioning and preserving upon the Teutonic branch of the Aryan\nrace. He holds that there is no such thing as a general progress of\nmankind, that progress is only for those whom he calls the Teutons,\nand that when they mix with or are intruded upon by alien and, as he\nregards them, lower races, the result is fatal. Much that he says\nregarding the prevalent loose and sloppy talk about the general\nprogress of humanity, the equality and identity of races, and the like,\nis not only perfectly true, but is emphatically worth considering by a\ngeneration accustomed, as its forefathers for the preceding generations\nwere accustomed, to accept as true and useful thoroughly pernicious\ndoctrines taught by well-meaning and feeble-minded sentimentalists; but\nMr. Chamberlain himself is quite as fantastic an extremist as any of\nthose whom he derides, and an extremist whose doctrines are based upon\nfoolish hatred is even more unlovely than an extremist whose doctrines\nare based upon foolish benevolence. Mr. Chamberlain\u2019s hatreds cover a\nwide gamut. They include Jews, Darwinists, the Roman Catholic Church,\nthe people of southern Europe, Peruvians, Semites, and an odd variety\nof literary men and historians.[9] To this sufficiently incongruous\ncollection of antipathies he adds a much smaller selection of violent\nattachments, ranging from imaginary primitive Teutons and Aryans to\nImmanuel Kant, and Indian theology, metaphysics, and philosophy--he\ndraws sharp distinctions between all three, and I merely use them to\nindicate his admiration for the Indian habit of thought, an admiration\nwhich goes hand in hand with and accentuates his violent hatred for\nwhat most sane people regard as the far nobler thought contained, for\ninstance, in the Old Testament. He continually contradicts himself, or\nat least uses words in such diametrically opposite senses as to convey\nthe effect of contradiction; and so it would be possible to choose\nphrases of his which contradict what is here said; but I think that I\ngive a correct impression of his teaching as a whole.\n\n    [9] Some of his antipathies appeal to the present writer;\n        I much enjoy his irrelevant and hearty denunciation of\n        the folly of treating the comparatively trivial Latin\n        literature as of such peculiar importance as to entitle it\n        to be grouped in grotesque association with the magnificent\n        Greek literature under the unmeaning title of \u201cclassic.\u201d\n\nAs he touches lightly on an infinitely varied range of subjects, it\nwould be possible to choose almost at random passages to justify what\nis said above. Take, for instance, his dogmatic assertions concerning\nfaith and works. He frantically condemns the doctrine of salvation\nby works and frantically exalts the doctrine of salvation by faith.\nMuch that he says about both doctrines must be taken in so mystical\nand involved a sense that it contains little real meaning to ordinary\nmen. Yet he is also capable of expressing, on this very subject, noble\nthought in a lofty manner. In one of his sudden lapses into brilliant\nsanity he emphasizes the fact that Saint Francis of Assisi was faith\nincorporate and yet the special apostle of good works; and that Martin\nLuther, the advocate of redemption by faith, consecrated his life and\nrevealed to others the secret of good works--\u201cfree works done only to\nplease God, not for the sake of piety.\u201d\n\nUnfortunately, these brilliant lapses into sanity are fixed in a\nmatrix of fairly bedlamite passion and non-sanity. Mr. Chamberlain\njeers with reason at the Roman Curia because until 1822 it kept on\nthe Index all books which taught that the earth went round the sun;\nbut really such action is not much worse than that of a man professing\nto write a book like this at the outset of the twentieth century\nwho takes the attitude Mr. Chamberlain does toward the teaching of\nDarwin. The acceptance of the fundamental truths of evolution are\nquite as necessary to sound scientific thought as the acceptance of\nthe fundamental truths concerning the solar system; and the attempt\nthat Mr. Chamberlain in one place makes to draw a distinction between\nthem is fantastic. Again, take what Mr. Chamberlain says of Aryans and\nTeutons. He bursts the flood-gates of scorn when he deals with persons\nwho idealize humanity, or, as he styles it, \u201cso-called humanity\u201d; and\nhe says: \u201cFor this humanity about which man has philosophized to such\nan extent suffers from the serious defect that it does not exist at\nall. History reveals to us a great number of various human beings, but\nno such thing as humanity\u201d; yet on this very page he attributes the\nhistory of the growth of our civilization to its \u201cTeutonic\u201d character,\nand he uses the word \u201cTeuton\u201d as well as the word \u201cAryan\u201d with as utter\na looseness and vagueness as ever any philanthropist or revolutionist\nused the word \u201chumanity.\u201d All that he says in derision of such a forced\nuse of the word \u201chumanity\u201d could with a much greater percentage of\ntruthfulness be said as regards the words and ideas symbolized by\nTeutonism and Aryanism as Mr. Chamberlain uses these terms. Indeed,\nas he uses them they amount to little more than expressions of his\npersonal likes and dislikes. His statement of the raceless chaos into\nwhich the Roman Empire finally lapsed is, on the whole, just, and, to\nuse the words continually coming to one\u2019s mind in dealing with him,\nboth brilliant and suggestive. But in his anxiety to claim everything\ngood for Aryans and Teutons he finally reduces himself to the position\nof insisting that wherever he sees a man whom he admires he must\npostulate for him Aryan, and, better still, Teutonic blood. He likes\nDavid, so he promptly makes him an Aryan Amorite. He likes Michael\nAngelo, and Dante, and Leonardo da Vinci, and he instantly says that\nthey are Teutons; but he does not like Napoleon, and so he says that\nNapoleon is a true representative of the raceless chaos. The noted\nItalians in question, he states, were all of German origin, descended\nfrom the Germans who had conquered Italy in the sixth century. Now,\nof course, if Mr. Chamberlain is willing to be serious with himself,\nhe must know perfectly well that even by the time of Dante seven or\neight centuries had passed, and by the time of the other great Italians\nhe mentions eight or ten centuries had passed, since the Germanic\ninvasion. In other words, these great Italians were separated from\nthe days of the Gothic and Lombard invasions by the distance which\nseparates modern England from the Norman invasion; and his thesis has\njust about as much substance as would be contained in the statement\nthat Wellington, Nelson, Turner, Wordsworth, and Tennyson excelled in\ntheir several spheres because they were all pure-blood descendants of\nthe motley crew that came in with William the Conqueror. The different\nethnic elements which entered into the Italy of the seventh century\nwere in complete solution by the thirteenth, and it would have been\nquite as impossible to trace them to their several original strains\nas nowadays to trace in the average Englishman the various strains of\nblood from his Norman, Saxon, Celtic, and Scandinavian ancestors. Nor\ndoes Mr. Chamberlain mind believing two incompatible things in the\nquickest possible succession if they happen to suit his philosophy of\nthe moment. Generally, when he speaks of the Teuton he thinks of the\ntall, long-headed man of the north; although, because of some crank\nin his mind, he puts in the proviso that he may have black as well as\nblond hair. The round-skulled man of middle Europe he usually condemns;\nbut if his mind happens to run with approbation toward the Tyrolese,\nfor instance, he at once forgets what ethnic division of Europeans\nit is to which they belong, and accepts them as typical Teutons. He\ngreatly admires the teaching of the Apostle Paul, and so he endeavors\nto persuade himself that the Apostle Paul was not really a Jew; but\nhe does not like the teachings of the Epistle of James on the subject\nof good works (teachings for which I have a peculiar sympathy, by the\nway), and accordingly he says that James was a pure Jew.\n\nFundamentally, very many of Mr. Chamberlain\u2019s ideas are true and\nnoble. I admire the morality with which he condemns the intolerance\nof Calvin and Luther no less strongly than the intolerance of their\nRoman opponents, and yet his acceptance of the fact that they could not\nhave done their great work if there had not been in their characters\nan alloy which made it possible for actual humanity to accept their\nteaching. But even his sense of morality is as curiously capricious\nas that of Carlyle himself, and as little trustworthy. He glories in\nthe pointless and wanton barbarity of the destruction of Carthage in\nthe Third Punic War as saving Europe from the Afro-Asiatic peril--pure\nnonsense, of course, for Carthage was then no more dangerous to Rome\nthan Corinth was, and the sacks of the two cities stand on a par as\nregards any importance in their after effects. Perhaps his attitude\ntoward Byron is more practically mischievous, or at least shows a\nmuch less desirable trait of character. He says that the personality\nof Byron \u201chas something repulsive in it for every thorough Teuton,\nbecause we nowhere encounter in it the idea of duty,\u201d which makes him\n\u201cunsympathetic, un-Teutonic\u201d; but he adds that Teutons do not object\nin the least to his licentiousness, and, on the contrary, see in it \u201ca\nproof of genuine race\u201d! Really, this reconciliation of a high ideal\nof duty with gross licentiousness would be infamous if it were not so\nunspeakably comic. On the next page, by the way, Mr. Chamberlain says\nthat Louis XIV was anti-Teutonic in his persecution of the Protestants,\nbut a thorough Teuton when he defended the liberties of the Gallican\nchurch against Rome! Now such intellectual antics as these, and the\nhaphazard use of any kind of a name (without the least reference to\nits ordinary use, provided Mr. Chamberlain has taken a fancy to it)\nto represent or symbolize any individual or attribute of which he\napproves, makes it very difficult to accept the book as having any\nserious merit whatever. Yet interspersed with innumerable pages which\nat best are those of an able man whose mind is not quite sound, and at\nworst lose their brilliancy without their irrationality, there are many\npages of deep thought and lofty morality based upon wide learning and\nwide literary and even scientific knowledge. There could be no more\nunsafe book to follow implicitly, and few books of such pretensions\nmore ludicrously unsound; and yet it is a book which students and\nscholars, and men who, though neither students nor scholars, are yet\ndeeply interested in life, must have on their book-shelves. Much\nthe same criticism should be passed upon him that he himself passes\nupon John Fiske, to whose great work, \u201cThe History of the Discovery\nof America,\u201d he gives deserved and unstinted praise, but at whom he\nrails for solemnly, and, as Mr. Chamberlain says, with more than Papal\npretensions to infallibility, setting forth complete patent solutions\nfor all the problems connected not merely with the origin but with\nthe destiny of man. Mr. Chamberlain differentiates sharply between\nthe admirable work Fiske did in such a book as that treating of the\ndiscovery of America and the work he did when he ventured to dogmatize\nloosely, after the manner of Darwin\u2019s successors in the \u201970s and \u201980s,\nupon a scanty collection of facts very imperfectly understood. But Mr.\nChamberlain himself would have done far better if in his book he had\ncopied the methods and modesty of Fiske at his best--the methods and\nmodesty of such books as Sutherland\u2019s \u201cOrigin and Growth of the Moral\nInstinct\u201d--and had refrained from taking an attitude of cock-sureness\nconcerning problems which at present no one can more than imperfectly\nunderstand. He is unwise to follow Brougham\u2019s example and make\nomniscience his foible.\n\nYet, after all is said, a man who can write such a really beautiful\nand solemn appreciation of true Christianity, of true acceptance of\nChrist\u2019s teachings and personality, as Mr. Chamberlain has done, a man\nwho can sketch as vividly as he has sketched the fundamental facts of\nthe Roman empire in the first three centuries of our era, a man who can\nwarn us as clearly as he has warned about some of the pressing dangers\nwhich threaten our social fabric because of indulgence in a morbid and\nfalse sentimentality, a man, in short, who has produced in this one\nbook materials for half a dozen excellent books on utterly diverse\nsubjects, represents an influence to be reckoned with and seriously to\nbe taken into account.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SEARCH FOR TRUTH IN A REVERENT SPIRIT\n\n\n\n\nTHE SEARCH FOR TRUTH IN A REVERENT SPIRIT\n\n\nThere is superstition in science quite as much as there is superstition\nin theology, and it is all the more dangerous because those suffering\nfrom it are profoundly convinced that they are freeing themselves from\nall superstition. No grotesque repulsiveness of medi\u00e6val superstition,\neven as it survived into nineteenth-century Spain and Naples, could\nbe much more intolerant, much more destructive of all that is fine in\nmorality, in the spiritual sense, and indeed in civilization itself,\nthan that hard dogmatic materialism of to-day which often not merely\ncalls itself scientific but arrogates to itself the sole right to use\nthe term. If these pretensions affected only scientific men themselves,\nit would be a matter of small moment, but unfortunately they tend\ngradually to affect the whole people, and to establish a very dangerous\nstandard of private and public conduct in the public mind.\n\nThis tendency is dangerous everywhere, but nowhere more dangerous\nthan among the nations in which the movement toward an unshackled\nmaterialism is helped by the reaction against the deadly thraldom of\npolitical and clerical absolutism. The first of the books mentioned\nbelow[10] is written by a Montevideo gentleman of distinction. Under\nthe rather fanciful title of \u201cThe Death of the Swan\u201d it deals with\nthe shortcomings of Latin civilization, accepts whole-heartedly the\ndoctrines of pure materialism as a remedy for these shortcomings, and\ndraws lessons from the success of the Northern races, and especially\nof our own countrymen, which I, for one, am unwilling to have drawn.\nThe author feels that the civilization of France, Italy, and Spain is\ngoing down, and that it owes its decadence to submission to an outworn\ngovernmental and ecclesiastical tyranny, and especially to the futility\nof its ideals in government, religion, and the whole art of living, a\nfutility so wrong-headed and far-reaching as to have turned aside the\npeople from all that makes for real efficiency and success. In his\nrevolt against sentimentality, mock humanitarianism, and hypocrisy the\nauthor advocates frank egotism and brutality as rules of conduct for\nboth individuals and nations; and in his revolt against the theological\ntyranny and superstition from which the Spanish peoples in the Old and\nNew Worlds have suffered so much in the past he advocates implicit\nobedience to the revolting creed which would treat gold and force as\nthe true and only gods for human guidance; and this he does in the\nname of science and enlightenment and of exact and correct thinking.\nHe speaks with admiration of certain American qualities, confounding\nin curious fashion the use and abuse of great but dangerous traits.\nHe fails to see that the line of separation between the school of\nWashington and of Lincoln and the school of the prophets of brutal\nforce, as expressed in the deification of either Mars or Mammon, is\nas sharp as that which distinguishes both of these schools from the\napostles of the silly sentimentalism which he justly condemns. He sees\nthat the really great Americans were thoroughly practical men; but\nhe is blind to the fact that they were also lofty idealists. It was\nprecisely because they were both idealists and practical men that they\nmade their mark deep in history. He sees that they abhorred bigotry\nand superstition; he does not see that they were sundered as far from\nthe men who attack all religion and all order as from the men who\nuphold either governmental or religious tyranny. It was the fact that\nWashington and Lincoln refused to carry good policies to bad extremes,\nand at the same time refused to be frightened out of supporting good\npolicies because they might lead to bad extremes, that made them of\nsuch far-reaching usefulness.\n\n    [10] \u201cLa Mort du Cygne.\u201d By Carlos Reyles. Translation from\n    Spanish into French by Alfred de Bengoechea.\n\n    \u201cThoughts of a Catholic Anatomist.\u201d By Thomas Dwight, M.D.\n\n    \u201cThe Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.\u201d By Henry Osborn\n    Taylor.\n\n    \u201cSome Neglected Factors in Evolution.\u201d By Henry M. Bernard.\n\n    \u201cThe World of Life.\u201d By Alfred Russel Wallace.\n\n    \u201cWilliam James.\u201d By \u00c9mile Boutroux.\n\n    \u201cScience et Religion.\u201d By \u00c9mile Boutroux.\n\n    \u201cScience and Religion.\u201d By \u00c9mile Boutroux. Translation into\n    English by Jonathan Nield.\n\n    \u201cCreative Evolution.\u201d By Henri Bergson. Authorized translation\n    by Arthur Mitchell.\n\n    \u201cThe Varieties of Religious Experience.\u201d By William James.\n\n    \u201cTime and Free Will.\u201d By Henri Bergson. Translation by F. L.\n    Pogson.\n\n    \u201cFrom Epicurus to Christ.\u201d By William De Witt Hyde.\n\n    \u201cThe Sixth Sense.\u201d By Bishop Charles H. Brent.\n\n    I need hardly say that I am not attempting to review these\n    books in even the briefest and most epitomized fashion. I use\n    them only to illustrate certain phases, good and bad, in the\n    search for truth; as, for instance, the harm that comes from\n    seeking to apply, universally, truth as apprehended by the\n    mere materialist, the futility of trying to check this harm\n    by invoking the spirit of reactionary medi\u00e6valism, and the\n    fundamental agreement reached by truth-seekers of the highest\n    type, both scientific and religious.\n\nDr. Dwight\u2019s book is very largely a protest against the materialistic\nphilosophy which has produced such conceptions of life, and against\nthese conceptions of life themselves. With this protest we must all\nheartily sympathize; unfortunately, it is impossible to have such\nsympathy with the reactionary spirit in which he makes his protest.\nThere is much that is true in the assault he makes; but in his zeal\nto show where the leaders of the modern advance have been guilty of\nshortcomings he tends to assume positions which would put an instant\nstop to any honest effort to advance at all, and would plunge us back\ninto the cringing and timid ignorance of the Dark Ages. Apparently\nthe ideal after which Dr. Dwight strives is that embodied in the man\nof the Middle Ages of whom Professor Henry Osborn Taylor in one of\nhis profound and able studies has said: \u201cThe medi\u00e6val man was not\nspiritually self-reliant, his character was not consciously wrought by\nits own strength of mind and purpose. Subject to bursts of unrestraint,\nhe yet showed no intelligent desire for liberty.\u201d\n\nDr. Dwight holds that there is an ominous parallelism between the lines\nof thought of the materialistic scientists of to-day and those of\nthe French Revolution. Strongly though he disapproves of much of the\nthought of modern science, he disapproves even more strongly of the\nRevolution. In speaking of the similarities between them he says:\n\n\u201cAmong the characters of the Revolution we meet all kinds of company.\nThere are the honest men anxious for reform, the protesters against\nwhat they conceived to be religious oppression, the dreamy idealists\nwithout definite plan, the ranting orators of the \u2018mountain,\u2019 fanatics\nand demagogues at once, the wily ones who make a living from the more\nor less sincere promulgation of revolutionary doctrines and who find\nlegalized plunder very profitable, the army of those who for fear or\nfor favor prefer to be on the winning side and follow the fashionable\ndoctrines without an examination which most of them are incompetent\nto make, and finally the mob of the _sans-culottes_ rejoicing in the\noverthrow of law, order, and decency.\u201d\n\nThis is true, although it does not contain by any means the whole\ntruth; moreover, the parallelism with the scientific movement of the\npresent day undoubtedly in part obtains. Yet the saying which Dr.\nDwight quotes with approval from Herbert Spencer applies to what he\nhimself attempts; to destroy the case of one\u2019s opponents and to justify\none\u2019s own case are two very different things. At present we are in\ngreater danger of suffering in things spiritual from a wrong-headed\nscientific materialism than from religious bigotry and intolerance;\njust as at present we are threatened rather by what is vicious among\nthe ideas that triumphed in the Revolution than we are from what is\nvicious in the ideas that it overthrew. But this is merely because\nvictorious evil necessarily contains more menace than defeated evil;\nand it will not do to forget the other side, nor to let our protest\nagainst the evil of the present drive us into championship of the\nevil of the past. The excesses of the French Revolution were not only\nhideous in themselves, but were fraught with a menace to civilization\nwhich has lasted until our time and which has found its most vicious\nexpression in the Paris Commune of 1871 and its would-be imitators\nhere and in other lands. Nevertheless, there was hope for mankind in\nthe French Revolution, and there was none in the system against which\nit was a protest, a system which had reached its highest development\nin Spain. Better the terrible flame of the French Revolution than the\nworse than Stygian hopelessness of the tyranny--physical, intellectual,\nspiritual--which brooded over the Spain of that day. So it is with the\nmodern scientific movement. There is very much in it to regret; there\nis much that is misdirected and wrong; and Dr. Dwight is quite right\nin the protest he makes against Haeckel and to a less extent against\nWeismann, and against the intolerant arrogance and fanatical dogmatism\nwhich the scientists of their school display to as great an extent as\never did any of the ecclesiastics against whom they profess to be in\nrevolt. The experience of our sister republic of France has shown us\nthat not only scientists but politicians, professing to be radical in\ntheir liberalism, may in actual fact show a bigoted intolerance of\nthe most extreme kind in their attacks on religion; and bigotry and\nintolerance are at least as objectionable when anti-religious as when\nnominally religious. But in his entirely proper protest against these\nmen and their like Dr. Dwight is less than just to Darwin and to many\nanother seeker after truth, and he fails to recognize the obligation\nunder which he and those like him have been put by the fearless\npioneers of the new movement. The debt of mankind to the modern\nscientific movement is incalculable; the evil that has accompanied it\nhas been real; but the good has much outweighed the evil. It is only\nthe triumph of the movement led by the men against whom Dr. Dwight\nprotests that has rendered it possible for books such as Dr. Dwight\u2019s\nto be published with the approval--as in his case--of the orthodox\nthought of the church to which the writer belongs.\n\nThe most significant feature of his book is the advance it marks in\nthe distance which orthodoxy has travelled. He grudgingly admits the\ndoctrine of evolution, although--quite rightly, and in true scientific\nspirit, by the way--he insists most strongly upon the fact that we\nare as yet groping in the dark as we essay to explain its causes or\nshow its significance; and he is again quite right in holding up as\nan example to the dogmatists of modern science what Roger Bacon said\nin the thirteenth century: \u201cThe first essential for advancement in\nknowledge is for men to be willing to say, \u2018We do not know.\u2019\u201d He,\nof course, treats of the solar system, the law of gravitation, and\nthe like as every other educated man now treats of them. Now, all of\nthis represents a great advance. A half-century ago no recognized\nauthorities of any church would have treated an evolutionist as an\northodox man. A century ago Dr. Dwight would not have been permitted to\nprint his book as orthodox if it had even contained the statement that\nthe earth goes round the sun. In the days of Leonardo da Vinci popular\nopinion sustained the church authorities in their refusal to allow that\nextraordinary man to dissect dead bodies, and the use of antitoxin\nwould unquestionably have been considered a very dangerous heresy from\nall standpoints. In their generations Copernicus and Galileo were held\nto be dangerous opponents of orthodoxy, just as Darwin was held to be\nwhen he brought out his \u201cOrigin of Species,\u201d just as Mendel\u2019s work\nwould have been held if Darwin\u2019s far greater work had not distracted\nattention from him. The discovery of the circulation of the blood was\nat the time thought by many worthy people to be in contradiction of\nwhat was taught in Holy Writ; and the men who first felt their way\ntoward the discovery of the law of gravitation made as many blunders\nand opened themselves to assault on as many points as was the case with\nthose who first felt their way to the establishment of the doctrine\nof evolution. The Dr. Dwights of to-day can write with the freedom\nthey do only because of the triumph of the ideas of those scientific\ninnovators of the past whom the Dr. Dwights of their day emphatically\ncondemned.\n\nBut when Dr. Dwight attacks the loose generalizations, absurd\ndogmatism, and ludicrous assumption of omniscient wisdom of not a few\nof the so-called leaders of modern science, he is not only right but\nrenders a real service. The claims of certain so-called scientific\nmen as to \u201cscience overthrowing religion\u201d are as baseless as the\nfears of certain sincerely religious men on the same subject. The\nestablishment of the doctrine of evolution in our time offers no more\njustification for upsetting religious beliefs than the discovery of\nthe facts concerning the solar system a few centuries ago. Any faith\nsufficiently robust to stand the--surely very slight--strain of\nadmitting that the world is not flat and does move round the sun need\nhave no apprehensions on the score of evolution, and the materialistic\nscientists who gleefully hail the discovery of the principle of\nevolution as establishing their dreary creed might with just as much\npropriety rest it upon the discovery of the principle of gravitation.\nScience and religion, and the relations between them, are affected by\none only as they are affected by the other. Genuine harm has been done\nby the crass materialism of men like Haeckel, a materialism which,\nin its unscientific assumptions and in its utter insufficiency to\nexplain all the phenomena it professes to explain, has been exposed\nin masterly fashion by such really great thinkers--such masters not\nonly of philosophy but of material science--as William James, \u00c9mile\nBoutroux, and Henri Bergson. It is worth while to quote the remarks\nof Alfred Russel Wallace, the veteran evolutionist: \u201cWith Professor\nHaeckel\u2019s dislike of the dogmas of theologians and their claims as to\nthe absolute knowledge of the nature and attributes of the inscrutable\nmind that is the power within and behind and around nature many of\nus have the greatest sympathy; but we have none with his unfounded\ndogmatism of combined negation and omniscience, and more especially\nwhen this assumption of superior knowledge seems to be put forward to\nconceal his real ignorance of the nature of life itself.\u201d Dr. Dwight\nis emphatically right when he denies that science (using the word, as\nhe does, as meaning merely the science of material things) has taught\n\u201ca new and sufficient gospel,\u201d or that, to use his own words, there\nis any truth \u201cin the boast of infidel science that she and she alone\nhas all that is worth having.\u201d He could go even further than he does\nin refuting the queer optimism of those evolutionists who insist that\nevolution in the human race necessarily means progress; for every true\nevolutionist must admit the possibility of retrogression no less\nthan of progress, and exactly as species of animals have sunk after\nhaving risen, so in the history of mankind it has again and again\nhappened that races of men, and whole civilizations, have sunk after\nhaving risen. In so far as Dr. Dwight\u2019s view of religion is that it\nis the gospel of duty and of human service, his view is emphatically\nright; and surely when the doctrine of the gospel of works is taken to\nmean the gospel of service to mankind, and not merely the performance\nof a barren ceremonial, it must command the respect, and I hope the\nadherence, of all devout men of every creed, and even of those who\nadhere to no creed of recognized orthodoxy.\n\nIn the same way I heartily sympathize with his condemnation of the men\nwho stridently proclaim that \u201cscience has disposed of religion,\u201d and\nwith his condemnation of the scientific men who would try to teach\nthe community that there is no real meaning to the words \u201cright\u201d\nand \u201cwrong,\u201d and who therefore deny free-will and accountability.\nEven as sound a thinker as Mr. Bernard, whose book is rightly, as he\ncalls it, \u201can essay in constructive biology,\u201d who in his theory of\ngroup development has opened a new biological and even sociological\nfield of capital importance, who explicitly recognizes the psychical\naccompaniment of physical force as something distinct from it, and\nwhose final chapter on the integration of the human aggregate shows\nthat he has a far nobler view of life than any mere materialist\ncan have, yet falls into the great mistake of denying freedom of\nthe will, merely because he with his finite material intelligence\ncan not understand it. Dr. Dwight is right in his attitude toward\nthe scientific men who thus assume that there is no freedom of the\nwill because on a material basis it is not explicable. Whenever any\nso-called scientific men develop, as an abstract proposition, a theory\nin accordance with which it would be quite impossible to conduct\nthe affairs of mankind for so much as twenty-four hours, the wise\nattitude of really scientific men would be to reject that theory,\ninstead of following the example of the, I fear not wholly imaginary,\nscientist who, when told that the facts did not fit in with his\ntheory, answered: \u201cSo much the worse for the facts.\u201d M. Bergson, in\nhis \u201cCreative Evolution,\u201d has brought out with convincing clearness\nthe great truth that the human brain, so able to deal with purely\nmaterial things, and with sciences, such as geometry, in which thought\nis concerned only with unorganized matter, works under necessarily\nnarrow limitations--limitations in reality very, very narrow, and never\nto be made really broad by mere intellect--when it comes to grasping\nany part of the great principle of life. Reason can deal effectively\nonly with certain categories. True wisdom must necessarily refuse to\nallow reason to assume a sway outside of its limitations; and where\nexperience plainly proves that the intellect has reasoned wrongly,\nthen it is the part of wisdom to accept the teachings of experience,\nand bid reason be humble--just as under like conditions it would\nbid theology be humble. A certain school of Greek philosophers was\nable to prove logically that there was not, and could not be, any\nsuch thing as motion, and that, even if there were, it was quite\nimpossible logically for a pursuing creature ever to overtake a fleeing\ncreature which was going at inferior speed; but all that was really\naccomplished by this teaching was to prove the need of much greater\nintellectual humility on the part of those who believed that they were\ncapable of thinking out an explanation for everything. Mr. Bernard\nought not to have been caught in such a dilemma, because of the very\nfact that he does not cast in his lot with the crass materialists;\nfor he admits that there are many things we do not know, that there\nis much which our intelligence--necessarily functioning in material\nfashion--can not understand. It is just as idle for a man to try to\nexplain everything in the moral and spiritual world by that which he\nis able to apprehend of the material world as it would be for a polyp\nto try to explain the higher emotions of mankind in terms of polyp\nmaterialism. Not only would it be quite impossible to conduct even\nthe lowest form of civil society without practical acknowledgment of\nfree-will and accountability--an acknowledgment always made in practice\nby every single individual of those who deny it in theory--but even\nin their writings the very men who deny free-will and accountability\ninevitably and continually use language which has no meaning except on\nthe supposition that both of them exist. Mr. Bernard, for instance,\non the same page on which he denies freedom of the will, makes an\nimpatient plea for just laws, and explains that by \u201cjust laws\u201d he\nmeans laws that are in accordance with the highest conceptions of\nhuman relationships; he complains that the legal idea of justice is\ninvariably far behind that of our psychic perceptions; and elsewhere,\nas on page 457, he speaks of the \u201cduties\u201d of man and of his \u201cmoral\nperceptions,\u201d and on page 473 he asks for perfection of the community,\nso that \u201csocial life worked out by the highest wisdom of mankind will\nat once rise to a newer and higher physical and psychic level.\u201d All\nof this is meaningless if there are no such things as freedom of the\nwill and accountability; and its goes to show that even a profound and\noriginal thinker, if he has dwelt too long in the realms where the\npure materialist is king, needs to pay heed to M. Bergson\u2019s pregnant\nsaying that \u201cpure reasoning needs to be supervised by common sense,\nwhich is an altogether different thing.\u201d A part, and an essential part,\nof the same truth is expressed by Mr. Taylor when he paraphrases Saint\nAugustine in insisting that \u201cthe truths of love are as valid as the\ntruths of reason.\u201d\n\nDr. Dwight and the many men whose habits of thought are similar to his\nperform a real service when they keep people from being led astray by\nthe mischievous dogmas of those who would give to each passing and\nevanescent phase of materialistic scientific thought a dogmatic value;\nand our full acknowledgment of this service does not in the least\nhinder us from also realizing and acknowledging that the advance in\nscientific discovery, which has been and will be of such priceless\nworth to mankind, can not be made by men of this type, but only by the\nbolder, more self-reliant spirits, by men whose unfettered freedom of\nsoul and intellect yields complete fealty only to the great cause of\ntruth, and will not be hindered by any outside control in the search\nto attain it. A brake is often a useful and sometimes an indispensable\npiece of equipment of a wagon; but it is never as important as the\nwheels. As the University of Wisconsin declared when Dr. Richard T.\nEly was tried for economic heresy: \u201cIn all lines of investigation the\ninvestigator must be absolutely free to follow the paths of truth\nwherever they may lead.\u201d\n\nIt is always a difficult thing to state a position which has two sides\nwith such clearness as to bring it home to the hearers. In the world\nof politics it is easy to appeal to the unreasoning reactionary, and\nno less easy to appeal to the unreasoning advocate of change, but\ndifficult to get people to show for the cause of sanity and progress\ncombined the zeal so easily aroused against sanity by one set of\nextremists and against progress by another set of extremists. So in\nthe world of the intellect it is easy to take the position of the hard\nmaterialists who rail against religion, and easy also to take the\nposition of those whose zeal for orthodoxy makes them distrust all\naction by men of independent mind in the search for scientific truth;\nbut it is not so easy to make it understood that we both acknowledge\nour inestimable debt to the great masters of science, and yet are\nkeenly alive to their errors and decline to surrender our judgment to\ntheirs when they go wrong. It is imperative to realize how very grave\ntheir errors are, and how foolish we should be to abandon our adherence\nto the old ideals of duty toward God and man without better security\nthan the more radical among the new prophets can offer us. The very\nblindest of those new scientific prophets are those whose complacency\nis greatest in their belief that the material key is that which\nunlocks all the mysteries of the universe, and that the finite mind of\nman can, not merely understand, but pass supercilious judgment upon,\nthese mysteries. Mr. Wallace stands in honorable contrast to the men\nof this stamp. No one has criticised with greater incisiveness what he\nproperly calls \u201cthe vague, incomprehensible, and offensive assertions\nof the biologists of the school of Haeckel.\u201d He shows his scientific\nsuperiority to these men by his entire realization of the limitations\nof the human intelligence, by his realization of the folly of thinking\nthat we have explained what we are simply unable to understand when\nwe use such terms as \u201cinfinity of time\u201d and \u201cinfinity of space\u201d to\ncover our ignorance; and he stands not far away from the school of\nMM. Boutroux and Bergson, and, old man though he is, comes near the\nattitude of the more serious among the younger present-day scientific\ninvestigators--of the stamp of Professor Osborn, of the American\nMuseum of Natural History--in his readiness to acknowledge that the\nmaterialistic and mechanical explanations of the causes of evolution\nhave broken down, and that science itself furnishes an overwhelming\nargument for \u201ccreative power, directive mind, and ultimate purpose\u201d in\nthe process of evolution.\n\nThe law of evolution is as unconditionally accepted by every serious\nman of science to-day as is the law of gravitation; and it is no more\nand no less foolish to regard one than the other as antagonistic to\nreligion. To reject either on Biblical grounds stands on a par with\ninsisting, on the same grounds, that geological science must reconcile\nitself--and astronomy as well--to a universe only six thousand years\nold. The type of theologian who takes such a position occupies much the\nsame intellectual level with the strutting materialists of the Haeckel\ntype. To all men of this kind I most cordially commend a capital book,\n\u201cEvolution and Dogma,\u201d by the Rev. J. A. Zahm, one-time professor of\nphysics at the University of Notre Dame, in Indiana.\n\nThe great distinguishing feature of the centuries immediately past\nhas been the extraordinary growth in man\u2019s knowledge of, and power\nto understand and command, his own physical nature and his physical\nsurroundings in the universe. It is this growth which so sharply\ndistinguishes modern civilization, the civilization which we may\nroughly date as beginning about the time of Columbus\u2019s voyage, from all\npreceding civilizations; and it has not only immeasurably increased\nman\u2019s power over nature, but, when rightly understood, has also\nmeasurably added to his inner dignity and worth, and to his power and\ncommand over things spiritual no less than material. This conquest\ncould have been achieved only by men who dared to follow wherever their\nlonging for the truth led them, and who were masters of their own\nconsciences, and as little servile to the past as to the present. But\nno such movement for the uplifting of mankind ever has taken place,\nor ever will or can take place, without being fraught also with great\ndangers to mankind. Our hope lies in progress, for if we try to remain\nstationary we shall surely go backward; and yet as soon as we leave the\nground on which we stand in order to advance there is always danger\nthat we shall plunge into some abyss.\n\nNaturally, the men who have taken the lead in these extraordinary\nmaterial discoveries have often tended to think that there is nothing\nto discover or to believe in except what is material. Much of the\ngrowth in our understanding of nature has been due to men whose high\nabilities were nevertheless rigidly limited in certain directions.\nOur knowledge of solar systems so inconceivably remote that the\nremoteness is itself unreal to our senses; our knowledge of animate\nand inanimate forces working on a scale so infinitesimal and yet so\npowerful as to be almost impossible for our imaginations to grasp; our\nknowledge of the eons through which life has existed on this planet;\nthe extraordinary advances in knowledge denoted by the establishment\nof such doctrines as those of gravitation and of evolution; in short,\nthe whole enormous incredible advance in knowledge of the physical\nuniverse and of man\u2019s physical place in that universe, has been due to\nthe labor of students whose special tastes and abilities lay in the\ndirection of dealing with what is purely material. Their astounding\nsuccess, and the far-reaching, indeed the stupendous, importance of\ntheir achievements, have naturally tended to make those among them\nwho possess genuine but narrow ability, whose minds are keen but not\nbroad, assume an attitude of hard, arrogant, boastful, self-sufficient\nmaterialism: a mental attitude which glorifies and exalts its own\ngrievous shortcomings and its inability to perceive anything outside\nthe realm of the body. This attitude is as profoundly repellent as\nthat of the civil and ecclesiastical reactionaries, the foes of\nall progress, against whom these men profess to be in revolt; and,\nmoreover, it is an attitude which is itself as profoundly unscientific\nas any of the anti-scientific attitudes which it condemns. The\nuniversal truth can never be even imperfectly understood or apprehended\nunless we have the widest possible knowledge of our physical\nsurroundings, and unless we fearlessly endeavor to find out just\nwhat the facts and the teachings of these physical surroundings are;\nbut neither will it ever be understood if the physical and material\nexplanations of life are accepted as all-sufficient. By none is this\nmore clearly recognized than by the most acute and far-sighted of the\ninvestigators into physical conditions. Says Mr. Bernard: \u201cThere are\npsychic elements wholly different in kind from the physical elements\n... [they] constitute, in a way impossible to define, a new character,\nquality, element--or shall we at once boldly borrow a term from\nmathematics and call it a new \u2018dimension\u2019 of our environment, hitherto\nthree-dimensional? These various mental conditions lead us to believe\nthat at any moment, while being driven through this three-dimensional\nenvironment, we may also be plunged into a psychic condition which\nhangs like an atmosphere over our particular physical surroundings.\u201d\n\nNot only every truly religious, but every truly scientific, man must\nturn with relief from the narrowness of a shut-in materialism to the\nprofound and lofty thought contained in the writings of William James,\nof his biographer, M. \u00c9mile Boutroux, and of another philosopher of\nthe same school, M. Bergson. M. Boutroux\u2019s study of William James\ngives in brief form--and with a charm of style and expression possible\nonly for those who work with that delicate instrument of precision,\nFrench prose--the views which men of this stamp hold; and be it\nremembered that, like James, they are thoroughly scientific men,\nsteeped in the teachings of material science, who acknowledge no\noutside limitation upon them in their search for truth. They have a\nfar keener understanding of the world of matter than has been attained\nby the purely materialistic scientists, just because, in addition,\nthey also understand that outside of the purely physical lies the\npsychic, and that the realm of religion stands outside even of the\npurely psychic. M. Boutroux\u2019s book on \u201cScience and Religion\u201d has been\ntranslated into English--and we owe a real debt of gratitude to Messrs.\nNield and Mitchell for their excellent translations of MM. Boutroux\nand Bergson. There is much talk of the conflict between science and\nreligion. The inherent absurdity of such talk has never been better\nexpressed than by M. Boutroux when he says that such opposition \u201cis\nthe result of our defining both science and religion in an artificial\nmanner by, on the one hand, identifying science with physical science,\nand, on the other hand, assuming that religion consists in the dogmas\nwhich merely symbolize it.\u201d M. Boutroux\u2019s book, like M. Bergson\u2019s\n\u201cCreative Evolution,\u201d must be read in its entirety; mere extracts and\ncondensations can not show the profound philosophical acumen with\nwhich these men go to the heart of things, and prove that science\nitself, if correctly understood, renders absurd the harsh and futile\ndogmatism of many of those who pride themselves upon being, above all\nthings, scientific. For, as these writers point out, the work of the\nscientist is conditioned upon the existence of the free determination\nof a spirit which, dominating the scientific spirit, believes also in\nan \u00e6sthetic and moral ideal. They see the material, the physical body,\nin its relation to other physical bodies; and back of and beyond the\nphysical they see life itself, consciousness, which is to be conceived\nof as something always dynamic and never static, as a \u201cstream of\nconsciousness,\u201d a \u201cbecoming.\u201d\n\nAs M. Boutroux finely says, religion gives to the individual his\nvalue and treats him as an end in himself, no less than treating\nhim from the standpoint of his duties to other individuals. This\nphilosophy is founded on a wide and sympathetic understanding of\nthe facts of the material world, a frank acceptance of evolution\nand of all else that modern science has ever taught; and so those\nwho profess it are in a position of impregnable strength when they\npoint out that all this in no shape or way interferes with religion\nand with Christianity, because, as they hold, evolution in religion\nhas merely tended to disengage it from its own gross and material\nwrapping, and to leave unfettered the spirit which is its essence.\nTo them Christianity, the greatest of the religious creations which\nhumanity has seen, rests upon what Christ himself teaches; for, as M.\nBoutroux phrases it, the performance of duty is faith in action, faith\nin its highest expression, for duty gives no other reason, and need\ngive no other reason, for its existence than \u201cits own incorruptible\ndisinterestedness.\u201d The idea thus expressed is at bottom based on\nthe same truth to which expression is given by Mr. Taylor when he\nsays: \u201cThe love of God means not despising but honoring self; and for\nChristians on earth the true love of God must show itself in doing\nearth\u2019s duties and living out earth\u2019s full life, and not in abandoning\nall for dreams, though the dreams be of heaven.\u201d To men such as William\nJames and these two French philosophers physical science, if properly\nstudied, shows conclusively its own limitations, shows conclusively\nthat beyond the material world lies a vast series of phenomena which\nall material knowledge is powerless to explain, so that science\nitself teaches that outside of materialism lie the forces of a wholly\ndifferent world, a world ordered by religion--religion which, says M.\nBoutroux, must, if loyal to itself, work according to its own nature\nas a spiritual activity, striving to transform men from within and not\nfrom without, by persuasion, by example, by love, by prayer, by the\ncommunion of souls, not by restraint or policy; and such a religion\nhas nothing to fear from the progress of science, for the spirit to\nwhich it is loyal is the faith in duty, the search for what is for the\nuniversal good and for the universal love, the secret springs of all\nhigh and beneficent activity.\n\nIt is striking to see how these two gifted Frenchmen, by their own\nroad, reach substantially the same conclusion which, by a wholly\ndifferent method, and indeed in treating religion from a wholly\ndifferent standpoint, is also reached by the president of Bowdoin\nCollege. Mr. Hyde\u2019s short volume combines in high degree a lofty\nnobility of ethical concept with the most practical and straightforward\ncommon-sense treatment of the ways in which this concept should be\nrealized in practice. Each of us must prescribe for himself in these\nmatters, and one man\u2019s need will not be wholly met by what does meet\nanother\u2019s; personally, this book of President Hyde\u2019s gives me something\nthat no other book does, and means to me very, very much.\n\nWe must all strive to keep as our most precious heritage the liberty\neach to worship his God as to him seems best, and, as part of this\nliberty, freely either to exercise it or to surrender it, in a greater\nor less degree, each according to his own beliefs and convictions,\nwithout infringing on the beliefs and convictions of others. But the\nprofessors of the varying creeds, the men who rely upon authority,\nand those who in different measures profess the theory of individual\nliberty, can and must work together, with mutual respect and with\nself-respect, for certain principles which lie deep at the base of\nevery healthy social system. As Bishop Brent says: \u201cThe only setting\nfor any one part of the truth is all the rest of the truth. The only\nrelationship big enough for any one man is all the rest of mankind.\u201d\nAbbot Charles, of Saint Leo Abbey, in Florida, has recently put the\ncase for friendly agreement among good men of varying views, when\nhe summed up a notably fine address in defence--as he truly says,\n_friendly_ defence--of his own church by enunciating the plea for\n\u201ctrue peace founded on justice,\u201d worked out in accordance with what\nhe properly calls one of the \u201cdearest blessings that heaven can give,\nthe spirit that springs from religious liberty.\u201d However widely\nmany earnest and high-minded men of science and many earnest and\nhigh-minded men of religious convictions may from one side or the other\ndisagree with the teachings of the earnest and high-minded students of\nphilosophy whom I have quoted, yet surely we can all be in agreement\nwith the fundamentals on which their philosophy is based. Surely we\nmust all recognize the search for truth as an imperative duty; and we\nought all of us likewise to recognize that this search for truth should\nbe carried on, not only fearlessly, but also with reverence, with\nhumility of spirit, and with full recognition of our own limitations\nboth of the mind and the soul. We must stand equally against tyranny\nand against irreverence in all things of the spirit, with the firm\nconviction that we can all work together for a higher social and\nindividual life if only, whatever form of creed we profess, we make the\ndoing of duty and the love of our fellow men two of the prime articles\nin our universal faith. To those who deny the ethical obligation\nimplied in such a faith we who acknowledge the obligation are aliens;\nand we are brothers to all those who do acknowledge it, whatever their\ncreed or system of philosophy.\n\n\n\n\nTHE ANCIENT IRISH SAGAS\n\n\n\n\nTHE ANCIENT IRISH SAGAS\n\n\nNext to developing original writers in its own time, the most fortunate\nthing, from the literary standpoint, which can befall any people is\nto have revealed to it some new treasure-house of literature. This\ntreasure-house may be stored with the writings of another people in\nthe present, or else with the writings of a buried past. But a few\ngenerations ago, in that innocent age when Blackstone could speak of\nthe \u201cGoths, Huns, Franks, and Vandals\u201d--incongruous gathering--as\n\u201cCeltic\u201d tribes, the long-vanished literatures of the ancestors of\nthe present European nations, the epics, the sagas, the stories in\nverse or prose, were hardly known to, or regarded by, their educated\nand cultivated descendants. Gradually, and chiefly in the nineteenth\ncentury, these forgotten literatures, or fragments of them, were\none by one recovered. They are various in merit and interest, in\nantiquity and extent--\u201cBeowulf,\u201d the Norse sagas, the \u201cKalevala,\u201d\nthe \u201cNibelungenlied,\u201d the \u201cSong of Roland,\u201d the Arthurian cycle of\nromances. In some there is but one great poem; in some all the\npoems or stories are of one type; in others, as in the case of the\nNorse sagas, a wide range of history, myth, and personal biography\nis covered. In our own day there has at last come about a popular\nrevival of interest in the wealth of poems and tales to be found in the\nancient Celtic, and especially in the ancient Erse, manuscripts--the\nwhole forming a body of prose and poetry of great and well-nigh unique\ninterest from every standpoint, which in some respects can be matched\nonly by the Norse sagas, and which has some striking beauties the like\nof which are not to be found even in these Norse sagas.\n\nFor many decades German, French, Irish, and English students have\nworked over the ancient Celtic texts, and recently many of the\nmore striking and more beautiful stories have been reproduced or\nparaphrased in popular form by writers like Lady Gregory and Miss\nHull, Lady Gregory showing in her prose something of the charm which\nher countrywoman Emily Lawless shows in her poems \u201cWith the Wild\nGeese.\u201d It is greatly to be regretted that America should have done so\nlittle either in the way of original study and research in connection\nwith the early Celtic literature, or in the way of popularizing and\nfamiliarizing that literature, and it is much to be desired that,\nwherever possible, chairs of Celtic should be established in our\nleading universities. Moreover, in addition to the scholar\u2019s work\nwhich is especially designed for students, there must ultimately be\ndone the additional work which puts the results of the scholarship at\nthe disposal of the average layman. This has largely been done for\nthe Norse sagas. William Morris has translated the \u201cHeimskringla\u201d\ninto language which, while not exactly English, can nevertheless be\nunderstood without difficulty--which is more than can be said for his\ntranslation of \u201cBeowulf\u201d--and which has a real, though affectedly\narchaic, beauty. Dasent has translated the \u201cYounger Edda,\u201d the \u201cNjala\nSaga,\u201d and the \u201cSaga of Gisli the Outlaw.\u201d It is pleasant for Americans\nto feel that it was Longfellow who, in his \u201cSaga of King Olaf,\u201d\nrendered one of the most striking of the old Norse tales into a great\npoem.\n\nIt is difficult to speak with anything like exactness of the relative\nages of these primitive literatures. Doubtless in each case the\nearliest manuscripts that have come down to us are themselves based\nupon far earlier ones which have been destroyed, and doubtless, when\nthey were first written down, the tales had themselves been recited,\nand during the course of countless recitations had been changed and\nadded to and built upon, for a period of centuries. Sometimes, as in\nthe \u201cSong of Roland,\u201d we know at least in bare outline the historical\nincident which for some reason impressed the popular imagination\nuntil around it there grew up a great epic, of which the facts have\nbeen twisted completely out of shape. In other instances, as in the\n\u201cNibelungenlied,\u201d a tale, adaptable in its outlines to many different\npeoples, was adapted to the geography of a particular people, and to\nwhat that people at least thought was history; thus the Rhine becomes\nthe great river of the \u201cNibelungenlied,\u201d and in the second part of\nthe epic the revenge of Krimhild becomes connected with dim memories\nof Attila\u2019s vast and evanescent empire. The \u201cSong of Roland\u201d and the\n\u201cNibelungenlied\u201d were much later than the earliest English, Norse, and\nIrish poems. Very roughly, it may perhaps be said that, in the earliest\nforms at which we can guess, the Irish sagas were produced, or at least\nwere in healthy life, at about the time when \u201cBeowulf\u201d was a live saga,\nand two or three centuries or thereabouts before the early Norse sagas\ntook a shape which we would recognize as virtually akin to that they\nnow have.\n\nThese Celtic sagas are conveniently, though somewhat artificially,\narranged in cycles. In some ways the most interesting of these is the\nCuchulain cycle, although until very recently it was far less known\nthan the Ossianic cycle--the cycle which tells of the deeds of Finn and\nthe Fianna. The poems which tell of the mighty feats of Cuchulain, and\nof the heroes whose life-threads were interwoven with his, date back\nto a purely pagan Ireland--an Ireland cut off from all connection with\nthe splendid and slowly dying civilization of Rome, an Ireland in which\nstill obtained ancient customs that had elsewhere vanished even from\nthe memory of man.\n\nThus the heroes of the Cuchulain sagas still fought in chariots driven\neach by a charioteer who was also the stanch friend and retainer of\nthe hero. Now, at one time war chariots had held the first place in\nthe armies of all the powerful empires in the lands adjoining the\nMediterranean and stretching eastward beyond the Tigris. Strange\nAfrican tribes had used them north and south of the Atlas Mountains.\nWhen the mighty, conquering kings of Egypt made their forays into\nSyria, and there encountered the Hittite hosts, the decisive feature in\neach battle was the shock between the hundreds of chariots arrayed on\neach side. The tyranny of Sisera rested on his nine hundred chariots of\niron. The Homeric heroes were \u201ctamers of horses,\u201d which were not ridden\nin battle, but driven in the war chariots. That mysterious people,\nthe Etruscans, of whose race and speech we know nothing, originally\nfought in chariots. But in the period of Greek and Roman splendor\nthe war chariot had already passed away. It had seemingly never been\ncharacteristic of the wild Teuton tribes; but among the western Celts\nit lingered long. C\u00e6sar encountered it among the hostile tribes when he\nmade his famous raid into Britain; and in Ireland it lasted later still.\n\nThe customs of the heroes and people of the Erin of Cuchulain\u2019s time\nwere as archaic as the chariots in which they rode to battle. The\nsagas contain a wealth of material for the historian. They show us a\nland where the men were herdsmen, tillers of the soil, hunters, bards,\nseers, but, above all, warriors. Erin was a world to herself. Her\npeople at times encountered the peoples of Britain or of Continental\nEurope, whether in trade or in piracy; but her chief interest, her\noverwhelming interest, lay in what went on within her own borders.\nThere was a high king of shadowy power, whose sway was vaguely\nrecognized as extending over the island, but whose practical supremacy\nwas challenged on every hand by whatever king or under-king felt the\nfierce whim seize him. There were chiefs and serfs; there were halls\nand fortresses; there were huge herds of horses and cattle and sheep\nand swine. The kings and queens, the great lords and their wives, the\nchiefs and the famous fighting men, wore garments crimson and blue and\ngreen and saffron, plain or checkered, and plaid and striped. They had\nrings and clasps and torques of gold and silver, urns and mugs and\ntroughs and vessels of iron and silver. They played chess by the fires\nin their great halls, and they feasted and drank and quarrelled within\nthem, and the women had sun-parlors of their own.\n\nAmong the most striking of the tales are those of the \u201cFate of the Sons\nof Usnach,\u201d telling of Deirdr\u00e8\u2019s life and love and her lamentation for\nher slain lover; of the \u201cWooing of Emer\u201d by Cuchulain; of the \u201cFeast\nof Bricriu\u201d; and of the famous Cattle-Spoil of Cooley, the most famous\nromance of ancient Ireland, the story of the great raid for the Dun\nBull of Cooley. But there are many others of almost equal interest;\nsuch as the story of MacDatho\u2019s pig, with its Gargantuan carouse of the\nquarrelsome champions; and the tale of the siege of Howth.\n\nIn these tales, which in so many points are necessarily like the\nsimilar tales that have come down from the immemorial past of the\npeoples of kindred race, there are also striking peculiarities that\nhedge them apart. The tales are found in many versions, which for the\nmost part have been enlarged by pedantic scribes of aftertime, who\noften made them prolix and tedious, and added grotesque and fantastic\nexaggerations of their own to the barbaric exaggerations already in\nthem, doing much what Saxo Grammaticus did for the Scandinavian tales.\nThey might have been woven into some great epic, or at least have\ntaken far more definite and connected shape, if the history of Ireland\nhad developed along lines similar to those of the other nations of west\nEurope. But her history was broken by terrible national tragedies and\ncalamities. To the scourge of the vikings succeeded the Anglo-Norman\nconquest, with all its ruinous effects on the growth of the national\nlife. The early poems of the Erse bards could not develop as those\nother early lays developed which afterward became the romances of\nArthur and Roland and Siegfried. They remain primitive, as \u201cBeowulf\u201d is\nprimitive, as, in less measure, \u201cGisli the Outlaw\u201d is primitive.\n\nThe heroes are much like those of the early folk of kindred\nstock everywhere. They are huge, splendid barbarians, sometimes\nyellow-haired, sometimes black- or brown-haired, and their chief title\nto glory is found in their feats of bodily prowess. Among the feats\noften enumerated or referred to are the ability to leap like a salmon,\nto run like a stag, to hurl great rocks incredible distances, to toss\nthe wheel, and, like the Norse berserkers, when possessed with the fury\nof battle, to grow demoniac with fearsome rage. This last feat was\nespecially valued, and was recognized as the \u201cheroes\u2019 fury.\u201d As with\nmost primitive peoples, the power to shout loudly was much prized, and\nhad a distinct place of respect, under the title of \u201cmad roar,\u201d in\nany list of a given hero\u2019s exhibitions of strength or agility; just as\nStentor\u2019s voice was regarded by his comrades as a valuable military\nasset. So, when the slaughter begins in Etzel\u2019s hall, the writer of the\nNibelung lay dwells with admiration on the vast strength of Diederick,\nas shown by the way in which his voice rang like a bison horn,\nresounding within and without the walls. Many of the feats chronicled\nof the early Erse heroes are now wholly unintelligible to us; we can\nnot even be sure what they were, still less why they should have been\nadmired.\n\nAmong the heroes stood the men of wisdom, as wisdom was in the early\nworld, a vulpine wisdom of craft and cunning and treachery and\ndouble-dealing. Druids, warlocks, sorcerers, magicians, witches appear,\nnow as friends, now as unfriends, of the men of might. Fiercely the\nheroes fought and wide they wandered; yet their fights and their\nwanderings were not very different from those that we read about in\nmany other primitive tales. There is the usual incredible variety of\nincidents and character, and, together with the variety, an endless\nrepetition. But these Erse tales differ markedly from the early Norse\nand Teutonic stories in more than one particular. A vein of the\nsupernatural and a vein of the romantic run through them and relieve\ntheir grimness and harshness in a way very different from anything\nto be found in the Teutonic. Of course the supernatural element often\ntakes as grim a form in early Irish as in early Norse or German; the\nGoddess with red eyebrows who on stricken fields wooed the Erse heroes\nfrom life did not differ essentially from the Valkyrie; and there\nwere land and water demons in Ireland as terrible as those against\nwhich Beowulf warred. But, in addition, there is in the Irish tales\nan unearthliness free from all that is monstrous and horrible; and\ntheir unearthly creatures could become in aftertime the fairies of the\nmoonlight and the greenwood, so different from the trolls and gnomes\nand misshapen giants bequeathed to later generations by the Norse\nmythology.\n\nStill more striking is the difference between the women in the Irish\nsagas and those, for instance, of the Norse sagas. Their heirs of the\nspirit are the Arthurian heroines, and the heroines of the romances of\nthe Middle Ages. In the \u201cSong of Roland\u201d--rather curiously, considering\nthat it is the first great piece of French literature--woman plays\nabsolutely no part at all; there is not a female figure which is\nmore than a name, or which can be placed beside Roland and Oliver,\nArchbishop Turpin and the traitor Ganelon, and Charlemagne, the mighty\nemperor of the \u201cbarbe fleurie.\u201d The heroines of the early Norse and\nGerman stories are splendid and terrible, fit to be the mothers of a\nmighty race, as stern and relentless as their lovers and husbands. But\nit would be hard indeed to find among them a heroine who would appeal\nto our modern ideas as does Emer, the beloved of Cuchulain, or Dierdr\u00e8,\nthe sweetheart of the fated son of Usnach. Emer and Deirdr\u00e8 have\nthe charm, the power of inspiring and returning romantic love, that\nbelonged to the ladies whose lords were the knights of the Round Table,\nthough of course this does not mean that they lacked some very archaic\ntastes and attributes.\n\nEmer, the daughter of Forgall the Wily, who was wooed by Cuchulain,\nhad the \u201csix gifts of a girl\u201d--beauty, and a soft voice, and sweet\nspeech, and wisdom, and needlework, and chastity. In their wooing the\nhero and heroine spoke to one another in riddles, those delights of the\nchildhood of peoples. She set him journeys to go and feats to perform,\nwhich he did in the manner of later knight errants. After long courting\nand many hardships, he took Emer to wife, and she was true to him and\nloved him and gloried in him and watched over him until the day he went\nout to meet his death. All this was in a spirit which we would find\nnatural in a heroine of modern or of medi\u00e6val times--a spirit which it\nwould be hard to match either among the civilizations of antiquity, or\nin early barbarisms other than the Erse.\n\nSo it was with Deirdr\u00e8, the beautiful girl who forsook her betrothed,\nthe Over-King of Ulster, for the love of Naisi, and fled with him and\nhis two brothers across the waters to Scotland. At last they returned\nto Ireland, and there Deirdr\u00e8\u2019s lover and his two brothers were slain\nby the treachery of the king whose guests they were. Many versions of\nthe Songs of Deirdr\u00e8 have come down to us, of her farewell to Alba and\nher lament over her slain lover; for during centuries this tragedy\nof Deirdr\u00e8, together with the tragical fate of the Children of Lir\nand the tragical fate of the Children of Tuirenn, were known as the\n\u201cThree Sorrowful Tales of Erin.\u201d None has better retained its vitality\ndown to the present day. Even to us, reading the songs in an alien\nage and tongue, they are very beautiful. Deirdr\u00e8 sings wistfully of\nher Scottish abiding-place, with its pleasant, cuckoo-haunted groves,\nand its cliffs, and the white sand on the beaches. She tells of her\nlover\u2019s single infidelity, when he came enamoured of the daughter of a\nScottish lord, and Deirdr\u00e8, broken-hearted, put off to sea in a boat,\nindifferent whether she should live or die; whereupon the two brothers\nof her lover swam after her and brought her back, to find him very\nrepentant and swearing a threefold oath that never again would he prove\nfalse to her until he should go to the hosts of the dead. She dwells\nconstantly on the unfailing tenderness of the three heroes; for her\nlover\u2019s two brothers cared for her as he did:\n\n      \u201cMuch hardship would I take,\n      Along with the three heroes;\n      I would endure without house, without fire,\n      It is not I that would be gloomy.\n\n      \u201cTheir three shields and their spears\n      Were often a bed for me.\n      Put their three hard swords\n      Over the grave, O young man!\u201d\n\nFor the most part, in her songs, Deirdr\u00e8 dwells on the glories and\nbeauties of the three warriors, the three dragons, the three champions\nof the Red Branch, the three that used to break every onrush, the three\nhawks, the three darlings of the women of Erin, the three heroes who\nwere not good at homage. She sings of their splendor in the foray, of\ntheir nobleness as they returned to their home, to bring fagots for the\nfire, to bear in an ox or a boar for the table; sweet though the pipes\nand flutes and horns were in the house of the king, sweeter yet was it\nto hearken to the songs sung by the sons of Usnach, for \u201clike the sound\nof the wave was the voice of Naisi.\u201d\n\nThere were other Irish heroines of a more common barbarian type. Such\nwas the famous warrior-queen, Meave, tall and beautiful, with her\nwhite face and yellow hair, terrible in her battle chariot when she\ndrove at full speed into the press of fighting men, and \u201cfought over\nthe ears of the horses.\u201d Her virtues were those of a warlike barbarian\nking, and she claimed the like large liberty in morals. Her husband was\nAilill, the Connaught king, and, as Meave carefully explained to him in\nwhat the old Erse bards called a \u201cbolster conversation,\u201d their marriage\nwas literally a partnership wherein she demanded from her husband an\nexact equality of treatment according to her own views and on her own\nterms; the three essential qualities upon which she insisted being that\nhe should be brave, generous, and completely devoid of jealousy!\n\nFair-haired Queen Meave was a myth, a goddess, and her memory changed\nand dwindled until at last she reappeared as Queen Mab of fairyland.\nBut among the ancient Celts her likeness was the likeness of many a\nhistoric warrior queen. The descriptions given of her by the first\nwriters or compilers of the famous romances of the foray for the Dun\nBull of Cooley almost exactly match the descriptions given by the Latin\nhistorian of the British Queen Boadicea, tall and terrible-faced, her\nlong, yellow hair flowing to her hips, spear in hand, golden collar on\nneck, her brightly colored mantle fastened across her breast with a\nbrooch.\n\nNot only were some of Meave\u2019s deeds of a rather startling kind, but\neven Emer and Deirdr\u00e8 at times showed traits that to a modern reader\nmay seem out of place, in view of what has been said of them above.\nBut we must remember the surroundings, and think of what even the real\nwomen of history were, throughout European lands, until a far later\nperiod. In the \u201cHeimskringla\u201d we read of Queen Sigrid, the wisest of\nwomen, who grew tired of the small kings who came to ask her hand, a\nrequest which she did not regard them as warranted to make either by\nposition or extent of dominion. So one day when two kings had thus come\nto woo her, she lodged them in a separate wooden house, with all their\ncompany, and feasted them until they were all very drunk, and fell\nasleep; then in the middle of the night she had her men fall on them\nwith fire and sword, burn those who stayed within the hall and slay\nthose who broke out. The incident is mentioned in the saga without the\nslightest condemnation; on the contrary, it evidently placed the queen\non a higher social level than before, for, in concluding the account,\nthe saga mentions that Sigrid said \u201cthat she would weary these small\nkings of coming from other lands to woo her; so she was called Sigrid\nHaughty thereafter.\u201d Now, Sigrid was an historical character who lived\nmany hundred years after the time of Emer and Deirdr\u00e8 and Meave, and\nthe simplicity with which her deed was chronicled at the time, and\nregarded afterward, should reconcile us to some of the feats recorded\nof those shadowy Erse predecessors of hers, who were separated from her\nby an interval of time as great as that which separates her from us.\n\nThe story of the \u201cFeast of Bricriu of the Bitter Tongue\u201d is one of the\nmost interesting of the tales of the Cuchulain cycle. In all this cycle\nof tales, Bricriu appears as the cunning, malevolent mischief-maker,\ndreaded for his biting satire and his power of setting by the ears the\nboastful, truculent, reckless, and marvellously short-tempered heroes\namong whom he lived. He has points of resemblance to Thersites, to Sir\nKay, of the Arthurian romances, and to Conan, of the Ossianic cycle of\nCeltic sagas. This story is based upon the custom of the \u201cchampion\u2019s\nportion,\u201d which at a feast was allotted to the bravest man. It was a\ncustom which lasted far down into historic times, and was recognized\nin the Brehon laws, where a heavy fine was imposed upon any person who\nstole it from the one to whom it belonged. The story in its present\nform, like all of these stories, is doubtless somewhat changed from\nthe story as it was originally recited among the pre-Christian Celts\nof Ireland, but it still commemorates customs of the most primitive\nkind, many of them akin to those of all the races of Aryan tongue in\ntheir earlier days. The queens cause their maids to heat water for\nthe warriors\u2019 baths when they return from war, and similarly made\nready to greet their guests, as did the Homeric heroines. The feasts\nwere Homeric feasts. The heroes boasted and sulked and fought as did\nthe Greeks before Troy. At their feasts, when the pork and beef, the\nwheaten cakes and honey, had been eaten, and the beer, and sometimes\nthe wine of Gaul, had been drunk in huge quantities, the heroes,\nvainglorious and quarrelsome, were always apt to fight. Thus in the\nthree houses which together made up the palace of the high king at\nEmain Macha, it was necessary that the arms of the heroes should all\nbe kept in one place, so that they could not attack one another at the\nfeasts. These three houses of the palace were the Royal House, in which\nthe high king himself had his bronzed and jewelled room; the Speckled\nHouse, where the swords, the shields, and the spears of the heroes were\nkept; and the House of the Red Branch, where not only the weapons, but\nthe heads of the beaten enemies were stored; and it was in connection\nwith this last grewsome house that the heroes in the train of the High\nKing Conchubar took their name of the \u201cHeroes of the Red Branch.\u201d\n\nWhen Bricriu gave his feast, he prepared for it by building a\nspacious house even handsomer than the House of the Red Branch; and\nit is described in great detail, as fashioned after \u201cTara\u2019s Mead\nHall,\u201d and of great strength and magnificence; and it was stocked with\nquilts and blankets and beds and pillows, as well as with abundance\nof meat and drink. Then he invited the high king and all the nobles\nof Ulster to come to the feast. An amusing touch in the saga is the\nfrank consternation of the heroes who were thus asked. They felt\nthemselves helpless before the wiles of Bricriu, and at first refused\noutright to go, because they were sure that he would contrive to set\nthem to fighting with one another; and they went at all only after\nthey had taken hostages from Bricriu and had arranged that he should\nhimself leave the feast-hall as soon as the feast was spread. But\ntheir precautions were in vain, and Bricriu had no trouble in bringing\nabout a furious dispute among the three leading chiefs, Loigaire the\nTriumphant, Conall the Victorious, and Cuchulain. He promised to each\nthe champion\u2019s portion, on condition that each should claim it. Nor\ndid he rest here, but produced what the saga calls \u201cthe war of words\nof the women of Ulster,\u201d by persuading the three wives of the three\nheroes that each should tread first into the banquet-hall. Each of the\nladies, in whose minds he thus raised visions of social precedence,\nhad walked away from the palace with half a hundred women in her\ntrain, when they all three met. The saga describes how they started to\nreturn to the hall together, walking evenly, gracefully, and easily\nat first, and then with quicker steps, until, when they got near the\nhouse, they raised their robes \u201cto the round of the leg\u201d and ran at\nfull speed. When they got to the hall the doors were shut, and, as they\nstood outside, each wife chanted her own perfections, but, above all,\nthe valor and ferocious prowess of her husband, scolding one another as\ndid Brunhild and Krimhild in the quarrel that led to Siegfried\u2019s death\nat the hands of Hagen. Each husband, as in duty bound, helped his wife\ninto the hall, and the bickering which had already taken place about\nthe champion\u2019s portion was renewed. At last it was settled that the\nthree rivals should drive in their chariots to the home of Ailill and\nMeave, who should adjudge between them; and the judgment given, after\ntesting their prowess in many ways, and especially in encounters with\ndemons and goblins, was finally in favor of Cuchulain.\n\nOne of the striking parts of the tale is that in which the three\nchampions, following one another, arrive at the palace of Meave. The\ndaughter of Meave goes to the sun-parlor over the high porch of the\nhold, and from there she is told by the queen to describe in turn each\nchariot and the color of the horses and how the hero looks and how the\nchariot courses. The girl obeys, and describes in detail each chariot\nas it comes up, and the queen in each case recognizes the champion from\nthe description and speaks words of savage praise of each in turn.\nLoigaire, a fair man, driving two fiery dapple-grays, in a wickerwork\nchariot with silver-mounted yoke, is chanted by the queen as:\n\n      \u201cA fury of war, a fire of judgment,\n      A flame of vengeance; in mien a hero,\n      In face a champion, in heart a dragon;\n      The long knife of proud victories which will hew us to pieces,\n      The all-noble, red-handed Loigaire.\u201d\n\nConall is described as driving a roan and a bay, in a chariot with two\nbright wheels of bronze, he himself fair, in face white and red, his\nmantle blue and crimson, and Meave describes him as:\n\n      \u201cA wolf among cattle; battle on battle,\n      Exploit on exploit, head upon head he heaps\u201d;\n\nand says that if he is excited to rage he will cut up her people\n\n      \u201cAs a trout on red sandstone is cut.\u201d\n\nThen Cuchulain is described, driving at a gallop a dapple-gray and a\ndark-gray, in a chariot with iron wheels and a bright silver pole. The\nhero himself is a dark, melancholy man, the comeliest of the men of\nErin, in a crimson tunic, with gold-hilted sword, a blood-red spear,\nand over his shoulders a crimson shield rimmed with silver and gold.\nMeave, on hearing the description, chants the hero as:\n\n      \u201cAn ocean in fury, a whale that rageth, a fragment of flame and\n          fire;\n      A bear majestic, a grandly moving billow,\n      A beast in maddening ire:\n      In the crash of glorious battle through the hostile foe he leaps,\n      His shout the fury of doom;\n      A terrible bear, he is death to the herd of cattle,\n      Feat upon feat, head upon head he heaps:\n      Laud ye the hearty one, he who is victor fully.\u201d\n\nBricriu lost his life as a sequel of the great raid for the Dun Bull\nof Cooley. This was undertaken by Queen Meave as the result of the\n\u201cbolster conversation,\u201d the curtain quarrel, between her and Ailill as\nto which of the two, husband or wife, had the more treasure. To settle\nthe dispute, they compared their respective treasures, beginning with\ntheir wooden and iron vessels, going on with their rings and bracelets\nand brooches and fine clothes, and ending with their flocks of sheep,\nand herds of swine, horses, and cattle. The tally was even for both\nsides until they came to the cattle, when it appeared that Ailill had\na huge, white-horned bull with which there was nothing of Meave\u2019s to\ncompare. The chagrined queen learned from a herald that in Cooley there\nwas a dun or brown bull which, it was asserted, was even larger and\nmore formidable.\n\nMeave announces that by fair means or foul the dun bull shall be hers,\nand she raises her hosts. A great war ensues, in which Cuchulain\ndistinguishes himself above all others. All the heroes gather to the\nfight, and a special canto is devoted to the fate of a very old man,\nIliach, a chief of Ulster, who resolves to attack the foe and avenge\nUlster\u2019s honor on them. \u201cWhether, then, I fall or come out of it, is\nall one,\u201d he said. The saga tells how his withered and wasted old\nhorses, which fed on the shore by his little fort, were harnessed to\nthe ancient chariot, which had long lost its cushions. Into it he got,\nmother-naked, with his sword and his pair of blunt, rusty spears, and\ngreat throwing-stones heaped at his feet; and thus he attacked the\nhosts of Meave and fought till his death. In the Cuchulain sagas the\nheroes frequently fight with stones; and the practice obtained until\nmuch later days, for in Olaf\u2019s death-battle with the ships of Hakon\nhis men were cleared from the decks of the Long Serpent by dexterously\nhurled stones as well as by spears.\n\nPartly by cunning, Meave gets the dun bull upon which she had set her\nheart. Then comes in a thoroughly Erse touch. It appears that the two\nbulls have lived many lives in different forms, and always in hostility\nto each other, since the days when their souls were the souls of two\nswineherds, who quarrelled and fought to the death. Now the two great\nbulls renew their ancient fight. Bricriu is forced out to witness it,\nand is trampled to death by the beasts. At last the white-homed bull is\nslain, and the dun, raging and destroying, goes back to his home, where\nhe too dies. And this, says the saga, in ending, is the tale of the Dun\nBull of Cooley and the Driving of the Cattle-Herd by Meave and Ailill,\nand their war with Ulster.\n\nThe Erse tales have suffered from many causes. Taken as a mass, they\ndid not develop as the sagas and the epics of certain other nations\ndeveloped; but they possess extraordinary variety and beauty, and in\ntheir mysticism, their devotion to and appreciation of natural beauty,\ntheir exaltation of the glorious courage of men and of the charm and\ndevotion of women, in all the touches that tell of a long-vanished\nlife, they possess a curious attraction of their own. They deserve the\nresearch which can be given only by the lifelong effort of trained\nscholars; they should be studied for their poetry, as countless\nscholars have studied those early literatures; moreover, they should be\nstudied as Victor B\u00e9rard has studied the \u201cOdyssey,\u201d for reasons apart\nfrom their poetical worth; and finally they deserve to be translated\nand adapted so as to become a familiar household part of that\nliterature which all the English-speaking peoples possess in common.\n\n\n\n\nAN ART EXHIBITION\n\n\n\n\nAN ART EXHIBITION\n\n\nThe recent \u201cInternational Exhibition of Modern Art\u201d in New York was\nreally noteworthy. Messrs. Davies, Kuhn, Gregg, and their fellow\nmembers of the Association of American Painters and Sculptors did a\nwork of very real value in securing such an exhibition of the works of\nboth foreign and native painters and sculptors. Primarily their purpose\nwas to give the public a chance to see what has recently been going on\nabroad. No similar collection of the works of European \u201cmoderns\u201d has\never been exhibited in this country. The exhibitors were quite right\nas to the need of showing to our people in this manner the art forces\nwhich of late have been at work in Europe, forces which can not be\nignored.\n\nThis does not mean that I in the least accept the view that these men\ntake of the European extremists whose pictures were here exhibited. It\nis true, as the champions of these extremists say, that there can be\nno life without change, no development without change, and that to be\nafraid of what is different or unfamiliar is to be afraid of life. It\nis no less true, however, that change may mean death and not life, and\nretrogression instead of development. Probably we err in treating most\nof these pictures seriously. It is likely that many of them represent\nin the painters the astute appreciation of the power to make folly\nlucrative which the late P.\u00a0T. Barnum showed with his faked mermaid.\nThere are thousands of people who will pay small sums to look at a\nfaked mermaid; and now and then one of this kind with enough money will\nbuy a Cubist picture, or a picture of a misshapen nude woman, repellent\nfrom every standpoint.\n\nIn some ways it is the work of the American painters and sculptors\nwhich is of most interest in this collection, and a glance at this\nwork must convince any one of the real good that is coming out of the\nnew movements, fantastic though many of the developments of these new\nmovements are. There was one note entirely absent from the exhibition,\nand that was the note of the commonplace. There was not a touch of\nsimpering, self-satisfied conventionality anywhere in the exhibition.\nAny sculptor or painter who had in him something to express and the\npower of expressing it found the field open to him. He did not have\nto be afraid because his work was not along ordinary lines. There was\nno stunting or dwarfing, no requirement that a man whose gift lay in\nnew directions should measure up or down to stereotyped and fossilized\nstandards.\n\nFor all of this there can be only hearty praise. But this does not\nin the least mean that the extremists whose paintings and pictures\nwere represented are entitled to any praise, save, perhaps, that they\nhave helped to break fetters. Probably in any reform movement, any\nprogressive movement, in any field of life, the penalty for avoiding\nthe commonplace is a liability to extravagance. It is vitally necessary\nto move forward and to shake off the dead hand, often the fossilized\ndead hand, of the reactionaries; and yet we have to face the fact\nthat there is apt to be a lunatic fringe among the votaries of any\nforward movement. In this recent art exhibition the lunatic fringe\nwas fully in evidence, especially in the rooms devoted to the Cubists\nand the Futurists, or Near-Impressionists. I am not entirely certain\nwhich of the two latter terms should be used in connection with some\nof the various pictures and representations of plastic art--and,\nfrankly, it is not of the least consequence. The Cubists are entitled\nto the serious attention of all who find enjoyment in the colored\npuzzle-pictures of the Sunday newspapers. Of course there is no reason\nfor choosing the cube as a symbol, except that it is probably less\nfitted than any other mathematical expression for any but the most\nformal decorative art. There is no reason why people should not call\nthemselves Cubists, or Octagonists, or Parallelopipedonists, or Knights\nof the Isosceles Triangle, or Brothers of the Cosine, if they so\ndesire; as expressing anything serious and permanent, one term is as\nfatuous as another. Take the picture which for some reason is called\n\u201cA Naked Man Going Down Stairs.\u201d There is in my bathroom a really good\nNavajo rug which, on any proper interpretation of the Cubist theory,\nis a far more satisfactory and decorative picture. Now, if, for some\ninscrutable reason, it suited somebody to call this rug a picture of,\nsay, \u201cA Well-Dressed Man Going Up a Ladder,\u201d the name would fit the\nfacts just about as well as in the case of the Cubist picture of the\n\u201cNaked Man Going Down Stairs.\u201d From the standpoint of terminology each\nname would have whatever merit inheres in a rather cheap straining\nafter effect; and from the standpoint of decorative value, of\nsincerity, and of artistic merit, the Navajo rug is infinitely ahead of\nthe picture.\n\nAs for many of the human figures in the pictures of the Futurists,\nthey show that the school would be better entitled to the name of\nthe \u201cPast-ists.\u201d I was interested to find that a man of scientific\nattainments who had likewise looked at the pictures had been struck,\nas I was, by their resemblance to the later work of the pal\u00e6olithic\nartists of the French and Spanish caves. There are interesting samples\nof the strivings for the representation of the human form among\nartists of many different countries and times, all in the same stage\nof pal\u00e6olithic culture, to be found in a recent number of the \u201cRevue\nd\u2019Ethnographie.\u201d The pal\u00e6olithic artist was able to portray the bison,\nthe mammoth, the reindeer, and the horse with spirit and success,\nwhile he still stumbled painfully in the effort to portray man. This\nstumbling effort in his case represented progress, and he was entitled\nto great credit for it. Forty thousand years later, when entered into\nartificially and deliberately, it represents only a smirking pose of\nretrogression, and is not praiseworthy. So with much of the sculpture.\nA family group of precisely the merit that inheres in a structure made\nof the wooden blocks in a nursery is not entitled to be reproduced in\nmarble. Admirers speak of the kneeling female figure by Lehmbruck--I\nuse \u201cfemale\u201d advisedly, for although obviously mammalian it is not\nespecially human--as \u201cfull of lyric grace,\u201d as \u201ctremendously sincere,\u201d\nand \u201cof a jewel-like preciousness.\u201d I am not competent to say whether\nthese words themselves represent sincerity or merely a conventional\njargon; it is just as easy to be conventional about the fantastic as\nabout the commonplace. In any event one might as well speak of the\n\u201clyric grace\u201d of a praying mantis, which adopts much the same attitude;\nand why a deformed pelvis should be called \u201csincere,\u201d or a tibia of\ngiraffe-like length \u201cprecious,\u201d seems to a reasonably sane view of the\npictures of Matisse a question of pathological rather than artistic\nsignificance. This figure and the absurd portrait head of some young\nlady have the merit that inheres in extravagant caricature. It is a\nmerit, but it is not a high merit. It entitles these pieces to stand in\nsculpture where nonsense rhymes stand in literature and the sketches of\nAubrey Beardsley in pictorial art. These modern sculptured caricatures\nin no way approach the gargoyles of Gothic cathedrals, probably\nbecause the modern artists are too self-conscious and make themselves\nridiculous by pretentiousness. The makers of the gargoyles knew very\nwell that the gargoyles did not represent what was most important in\nthe Gothic cathedrals. They stood for just a little point of grotesque\nreaction against, and relief from, the tremendous elemental vastness\nand grandeur of the Houses of God. They were imps, sinister and comic,\ngrim and yet futile, and they fitted admirably into the framework of\nthe theology that found its expression in the towering and wonderful\npiles which they ornamented.\n\nVery little of the work of the extremists among the European \u201cmoderns\u201d\nseems to be good in and for itself; nevertheless it has certainly\nhelped any number of American artists to do work that is original\nand serious; and this not only in painting but in sculpture. I wish\nthe exhibition had contained some of the work of the late Marcius\nSymonds; very few people knew or cared for it while he lived; but\nnot since Turner has there been another man on whose canvas glowed\nso much of that unearthly \u201clight that never was on land or sea.\u201d But\nthe exhibition contained so much of extraordinary merit that it is\nungrateful even to mention an omission. To name the pictures one would\nlike to possess--and the bronzes and tanagras and plasters--would\nmean to make a catalogue of indefinite length. One of the most\nstriking pictures was the \u201cTerminal Yards\u201d--the seeing eye was there,\nand the cunning hand. I should like to mention all the pictures of\nthe president of the association, Arthur B. Davies. As first-class\ndecorative work of an entirely new type, the very unexpected pictures\nof Sheriff Bob Chandler have a merit all their own. The \u201cArizona\nDesert,\u201d the \u201cCanadian Night,\u201d the group of girls on the roof of a New\nYork tenement-house, the studies in the Bronx Zoo, the \u201cHeracles,\u201d\nthe studies for the Utah monument, the little group called \u201cGossip,\u201d\nwhich has something of the quality of the famous fifteenth idyl of\nTheocritus, the \u201cPelf,\u201d with its grim suggestiveness--these and a\nhundred others are worthy of study, each of them; I am naming at random\nthose which at the moment I happen to recall. I am not speaking of\nthe acknowledged masters, of Whistler, Puvis de Chavannes, Monet; nor\nof John\u2019s children; nor of C\u00e9zanne\u2019s old woman with a rosary; nor of\nRedon\u2019s marvellous color-pieces--a worthy critic should speak of these.\nAll I am trying to do is to point out why a layman is grateful to those\nwho arranged this exhibition.\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber\u2019s Notes\n\n\nPunctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a\npredominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they\nwere not changed.\n\nSimple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation\nmarks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left\nunbalanced.\n\nThe illustration near the front of the book is the publisher\u2019s logo.\n\nPage 219: \u201cunderstanded\u201d was printed that way.\n\nPage 287: \u201cknight errants\u201d was printed that way.","title":"History as literature, and other essays","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":65490}