Outline of Universal History | Page 5

of any particular community is modified and molded by these individual differences, so the course of the history of mankind is shaped by the peculiar characteristics of the various nations, and by their interaction upon one another. In like manner, groups of nations, each characterized by distinctive traits derived from affinities of race or of religion, or from other sources, act on each other, and thus help to determine the course of the historic stream.
SCOPE OF HISTORY.--The rise and progress of culture and civilization in their various constituents is the theme of history. It does not limit its attention to a particular fraction of a people, to the exclusion of the rest. Governments and rulers, and the public doings of states,--such as foreign wars, and the struggles of rival dynasties,--naturally form a prominent topic in historical writings. But this is only one department in the records of the past. More and more history interests itself in the character of society at large, and in the phases through which it has passed. How men lived from day to day, what their occupations were, their comforts and discomforts, their ideas, sentiments, and modes of intercourse, their state as regards art, letters, invention, religious enlightenment,--these are points on which history, as at present studied and written, undertakes to shed light.
POINTS OF VIEW.--An eminent German philosopher of our day, Hermann Lotze, intimates that there are five phases of human development, and hence five points of view from which the course of history is to be surveyed. These are the intellectual (embracing the progress of truth and knowledge), the industrial, the aesthetic (including art in all its higher ramifications), the religious, and the political. An able English scholar, Goldwin Smith, resolves the elements of human progress, and thus the most general topics of history, into three, "the moral, the intellectual, and the productive; or, virtue, knowledge, and industry." "But these three elements," he adds, "though distinct, are not separate, but closely connected with each other."
THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY.--That there is, in some sense, a "reign of law" in the succession of human events, is a conviction warranted by observed facts, as well as inspired by religion. Events do not spring into being, disjoined from antecedents leading to them. Even turning-points in history, which seem, at the first glance, abrupt, are found to be dependent on previous conditions. They are perceived to be the natural issue of the times that have gone before. Preceding events have foreshadowed them. There are laws of historical progress which have their root in the characteristics of human nature. Ends are wrought out, which bear on them evident marks of design. History, as a whole, is the carrying out of a plan:
"... through the ages one increasing purpose runs."
Augustine long ago argued, that he who has not left "even the entrails of the smallest and most insignificant animal, or the feather of a bird, or the little flower of a plant, or the leaf of a tree, without a harmony, and, as it were, a mutual peace among all its parts,--that God can never be believed to have left the kingdoms of men, their dominations and servitudes, outside of the laws of his providence."
To discern the plan of history, and the causes or laws through which it is accomplished, as far as our limited capacity will allow, is the object of what is called the philosophy of history.
FREEDOM AND LAW.--It must not be forgotten, however, that man is a free agent. History, although it is not an aimless process, is, nevertheless, not subject to the forces and laws which govern in the realm of matter. Physical analogies are not a literal image of what takes place in the sphere of intelligence and freedom. Moral evil, wherever it is a factor in history, has its origin in the will of man. In respect to it, the agency of God is permissive and overruling. Through his providence, order is made to emerge, a worthy goal is at last reached, despite the elements of disorder introduced by human perversity.
Nor is progress continuous and unbroken. It is often, as one has said, a spiral rather than a straight line. It is not an unceasing advance: there are backward movements, or what appear to be such. Of particular nations it is frequently evident, that, intellectually and morally, as well as in power and thrift, they have sunk below a level once attained.
Of the inscrutable blending of human freedom with a pre-ordained design, GUIZOT says: "Man advances in the execution of a plan which he has not conceived, and of which he is not even aware. He is the free and intelligent artificer of a work which is not his own." "Conceive a great machine, the design of which is centered in a single mind, though its