The interpretation of history

Preface

As its title may indicate, this book is an attempt to discover some underl5dng factor, in accordance with which History may be interpreted and the occurrence of all events explained. Of the ambitious nature of this attempt I am fully conscious, but it appears to be well worth making, and any apology for having made it would savour of insincerity.

Chapters I to V contain a statement of the theory that the factor is to be found in the existence of a mentad conflict as to the means by which happiness is to be attained, between the idea that content is to be found in complete submission, " Universalism," or in complete self-assertion, " Individuahsm." It is argued that this conflict determines the conduct both of individuals and of those associations of individuals which form nations.

Chapters VI to XI endeavour to show how far this theory is justified by the past history of Europe and of England, and in Chapter XII an attempt is made to interpret the tendencies of the present day.

A detailed narrative of events hardly enters into the scope of the book, and I have in general confined myself to discussing the broad current of events, only entering into detail when to do so seemed to be necessary. For a certain inevitable allusiveness, I must therefore apologise.

Since the completion of this book in the spring of 1914, events of paramount importance have occurred. I have not altered the body of the book, but have added an appendix, "The Conflict in the Future," in which an

vii via THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY

attempt is made to indicate what may be expected to be the ultimate influence of the present European War upon the future of mankind.

I am unwilling to omit this opportunity of expressing my thanks to my friend, Mr. Maurice C. Blake, for his valuable criticisms and suggestions, and to my late secretary, Mrs. H. W. Rhodes, for patient and unwearying help.

L. CECIL JANE.

Contents

PAGE

I. The Meaning of History . . . , i

II. Theories of History ..... 6

II THEORIES OF HISTORY a, ,. livu

The need for some such explanatory factor, has been ^^ generally recognised. Optimists have sought for it in a theory of consistent progress; pessimists in a theory of consistent retrogression. To one theorist every age is better than that which preceded it ; mankind advances out of darkness into Hght; there is hope that perfect happiness will be ultimately attained. To another, the condition of the world grows constantly more evil as the race falls ever further away from an original golden age; the increase of wickedness promises that the wholesale destruction, foretold by some, will be richly deserved.

The optimist draws attention to the wider diffusion of political power, the increase in the material well-being of mankind, the spread of civihsation. But if it^/i may be readily admitted that self-government is in general preferable to despotism, it must also be admitted that self-government is liable to degenerate into bureaucracy, and that the tyranny of a corrupt and selfish clique is at least as deadening and oppressive as the tyranny of a single man. Again, material prosperity > has been bought at a price. Men tend more and more to herd together in great towns, there to live in an atmosphere so unnatural and so unhealthy that the physique of the nation deteriorates and only by means of improved sanitation and increased medical skill are appalling plagues prevented. The exodus from the country has ciroused the gravest fears in the minds of

THEORIES OF HISTORY 7

statesmen. Improved means of communication have largely destroyed the original simpUcity and quiet of rural Ufe. The growth of civilisation has produced new economic wants; it has produced also new forms of disease more insidious, if less deadly, than the older plagues with which medical science has successfully contended. One of the characteristics of the present day is the prevalence of nervous diseases; that prevalence is justly attributed to the strain of modern Ufe. If progress has been made, it has not been without its accompanying evils. He would be a bold man who should assert that the world is really happier to-day than it was a century ago.

And any consideration of History makes it clear that there has been nothing in the nature of consistent progress. It is assuredly untrue to say that one century has been even generally superior to that which preceded it. The golden age of Greece was certainly a period of greater intellectual and material well-being, of greater happiness, than the vicious period of the successors of Alexander. The age of the Antonines was a happier time than that of Diocletian and Constantine; in the Dark Ages men looked back with legitimate regret even to the period of the decUning Roman Empire. If it be asserted that since the world emerged from the Dark Ages, progress has been consistent, it is easy to quote instances to the contrary. In England, there was certainly a marked deterioration in the Lancastrian period from the period of the Plantagenets. It may be contended that in most things which go to make for the good of the nation, the Stuart period was inferior to the Tudor. In France, the progress of the country was retarded by the Wars of Religion ; the age of Louis XV shows a marked decHne from that of Louis XIV. Two centuries hardly suf&ced to enable Germany to recover from the miseries inflicted by the Thirty Years' War. In Italy, the degradation of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries compares unfavourably with the age of Lorenzo de Medici. Russia had half emerged from barbarism when she was hurled back into misery by the L ime of the Troubles. In no country has there been any semblance of consistent progress. The rule has rather been that progress up to a certain point has been followed by deterioration, even if that deterioration has culminated in renewed progress. And only a shallow observer would argue that because progress has been more or less consistent for a century or so, therefore the days of deterioration have passed, that there is to be no further interruption in the peaceful development of mankind.

The obvious flaws in the theory of consistent progress perhaps served to produce the theory of consistent deterioration. But this theory is even more obviously false. It is absurd to deny that advance has been made and is being made in all the arts of civilisation, that material progress has occurred and is occurring. And if more regard is to be paid to moral than to material considerations, it is certain that human sympathy has deepened, that the present age is at worst less openly cruel than that which preceded it. The tortures of the Middle Ages, the cruelties of the Spanish Inquisition, are an impossibility at the present day. Even the pessimists themselves admit that some progress has been made. They are inclined to fix the period at which the supposed deterioration set in at some fifty, one hundred or two hundred years ago. They refer generally to their childhood or to the days of their fathers as the golden age, and each successive generation advances the date at which the " good old times " ended.

And if the theory of progress is not justified by History, still less is the theory of deterioration. A trivial

THEORIES OF HISTORY 9

instance will serve to show that the " good old times " existed largely in the imagination. At the present da37 nothing is more common than the assertion that domestic servants have become familiar, lazy and improvident, whereas some fifty years ago they were models of all that could be desired. But writing in the early eighteenth century, Defoe complains of exactly those evils which are lamented by the modern mistress. He alsu found that domestic servants were too elaborately dressed, were impertinent, and were ready rather to lose their situations than to submit to any correction. He too longed for servants such as he had known in his childhood. And no doubt Defoe's father and grandfather made precisely the same complaints.

It would be absurd to deny that the world has lost something of its original simplicity and honesty. Adva.nr - ing civilisation does tend to destroy certain virtues which are found among the savage races. But those virtues, exaggerated in themselves, were counterbalanced by vices now equally extinct; and at the same time there has been a distinct increase in the comforts and amenities of life. Indeed, the " good old times " are not improbably all the better because they exist only in memory. The most convinced pessimist would perhaps regret his fate if he found himself suddenly compelled to live in those conditions, the disappearance of which he so much deplores.

Nor is there any ground for supposing that the limit of advance has been reached or is about to be reached. Whatever evils may be discovered in the existing political system of any country, there is no doubt that open tyranny is becoming yearly less possible. In almost every state the government is forced to submit its policy to the criticism of its subjects, and though it is true that those subjects may be deceived, the dictrmi of Abraham Lincoln is also true, " You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all of the time." Justice is also more widely diffused; it is on the whole less possible for the guilty to escape or for the innocent to be condemned. Probably at no period of the world's history have the weak been so efficiently protected against the aggression of the strong. Every day some new advance in material prosperity has to be recorded; some new invention serves to increase man's power over the forces of nature. It may be admitted that the present is no golden age, that it has in it evils unknown in the past. But it must also be admitted that it certainly approximates quite as nearly to the golden age as has any other period; that there are many evils which were rampant a hundred years ago which have to-day ceased to exist.

To both the optimistic and the pessimistic theory, 'lowever, the most serious objection is that they are ilike untrue to human nature. Any view of History which disregards human nature must be unjust. A state cannot be considered apart from its members. its very existence depends upon their consent, its laws rv d institutions are expressions of their will, and if the |)olicy of the state varies, that variation must be the lesult of a variation in the ideas of the citizens. It is i t ue that the opinions of the citizens do not always, or even normally, find immediate expression; but it is also true that no government, no law, no institution can , ndure, no line of policy be long pursued, save with the consent of the members of the state. No theory of History which ignores the individual can supply the true explanatory factor.

And the life of the individual is no record of persistent progress or persistent deterioration. We escape from

THEORIES OF HISTORY ii

the ignorance of childhood by sacrificing its innocence; moral loss is the price paid for intellectual gain; " he that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow." Absolute progress and absolute deterioration are alike unknown. In any given course of action there is alike good and evil; we have to balance the good and evil, making our choice with such skill as we may. Our life thus becomes a conflict; we are perpetually weighing pros and cons, striving to choose the lesser of two evils, often failing. This conflict is the determining factor in the life of man. And since nations are but aggregations of individuals, united in a certain special manner, the determining factor in the life of nations also is this same conflict. If the nature of that conflict can be accurately determined, the factor explanatory of History will be discovered.

There is nothing new in the conception of the life of man, and of History, as a conflict. Those who have recognised the falsity of the optimistic and pessimistic theories have sometimes suggested that History is a record of a struggle between the forces of progress and those of reaction. But a question at once arises as to the meaning of " progress " and " reaction," and this question is often too arbitrarily answered. It is, for example, frequently taken for granted that progress has been made when political power is more widely diffused, the argument being that greater liberty is thus secured to the individual, and with greater liberty, greater justice and greater happiness.

But the rule of the many may be as tyrannical as that of a single man or as that of a section of the community. Legislation which penalises the rich is not uncommon where political power has been secured by a majority, and such legislation is as unfair and as pernicious as any legislation penalising the poor. In a debased democracy,

-"^corruption and jobbery are at least as rife as in an oligarchy or a tyranny. It may be doubted whether a jSystem under which legislation depends upon bribery, open or concealed, is an advance upon a system under which legislation depends upon the caprice of a despot or the interest of a governing class. Yet in every case where the legislative power is in the hands of men dependent on the will of an electoral majority, bribery

i is almost inevitable. In England to-day no sane man believes the professions of disinterestedness put forward by political candidates. No sane man believes that the would-be M.P. kisses babies from love of those babies, or subscribes his guinea to the funds of a local cricket club from genuine interest in that club's welfare. The kisses and the guinea, and the golden promises in the election address, are all a form of bribery. The candidate is concerned to persuade the electorate that they will profit individually if they elect him. They know that he wants something from them, and they hope to be paid in some manner for giving him that something. And as for the measures which he so vigorously supports and condemns, it would be the height of absurdity to imagine that the candidates, put forward by any political party, sincerely believe their own assertions, or that they hold all measures advocated by their side to be good, all those advocated by their opponents to be bad.

In the days prior to the Reform Bill, votes were bought openly, constituencies sold themselves to the highest bidder. To-day the electorate is larger; open bribery is forbidden by law, and is in any case too expensive to be practised. Candidates are forced to resort to indirect bribery. They pay the debts of chapels in the constituency which they hope to represent; they promise to patronise local tradesmen; they entertain largely, not as candidates, but as holders

THEORIES OF HISTORY 13

of some municipal office. There is here a system of indirect bribery, coupled with a large measure of hypocrisy; and it is not easy to see that the new method is any great advance upon the older and more direct. Nor does the House of Commons at the present day contain a better type of member than it did in the early years of the nineteenth century. It is at least arguable that it does not represent the true opinion of the country any more thoroughly than it did prior to the Reform Act.

And a wider diffusion of political power may result, ^" and often has resulted, in anarchy. In such a case, it is difficult to contend that progress has been made from earlier conditions when, if power was in the hands of a few, a settled government at least guaranteed security of life and property. It is equally difficult to contend that there has been any retrogression when the anarchy is ended by the concentration of power in the hands of one man or of a small minority. In England during the Lancastrian period there is no doubt that parliament had a far greater share in the government than it had possessed under Edward I or Edward III. But if progress had therefore been made, it had been made at the cost of good order; it had certainly not increased either the happiness or the prosperity of the people. Under the Tudors, the executive was strengthened ; the powers which parliament had secured under Henry IV were taken from it. Yet few will be found to assert that the age of Henry VIII and Elizabeth shows a deterioration from that of the Lancastrians.

In short, though a greater diffusion of political power ^ may be and often is a sign of progress, it is not so / invariably. On occasion the most real progress may/ consist in a limitation of the share of the people in their ^ own government. The progress of one age may be the reaction of the next; that which one man regards as reaction may to another appear to be progress. It is, perhaps, not too much to say that this must be so, that progress and reaction are merely relative terms. XI To describe History, therefore, as a record of a conflict between the forces of progress and those of reaction is in effect to say nothing. In every age there is both advance and decline; there is also a constant conflict. But the nature of that conflict has yet to be determined, and it can be determined only by consideration of the individual man. It is in the conflict which makes up the life of the individual, which determines his conduct, that the explanatory factor in History must be found. For the life of the nation is in reality a replica of the life of the individual, and that conflict which is found in the life of each man will be found also in the life of each state.

III The Conflict In The Life Of The Individual

Those who have regarded the Hfe of man as a conflict would seem to have been led into error as to the nature of that conflict. There is an apparent contrast between the animal and spiritual sides of human nature, between what are described as the higher and lower instincts. And it has therefore been concluded that the conflict is between these two sides of man's nature, between instincts which are practically those of the brute beasts and instincts which belong to a somewhat higher plane. Theologians especially have insisted upon this conflict. They have argued that in so far as man gives rein to his physical passions, he sinks to the level of the brute; that in so far as he restrains and masters those passions, he raises himself towards the divine level. The restraining motive is divine. If man does curb his natural passions, his success is attributable to the grace of God working in him. From this it follows that what may be described as animal instincts are evil, what may be described as truly human instincts are good. And the conflict in each man is between the good and evil instincts which alternately sway him.

Up to a certain point, all this is admittedly true. Man assuredly should exercise some measure of restraint over himself. If he does not do so, he certainly sinks below the human level. But it is not in a struggle between these two instincts that the true conflict which makes up man's life is to be found.

In the first place, the so-called animal instincts are not wholly evil. A man who had so curbed them that they had become extinct would be only an imperfect man; as Gibbon says, ** The virtues of the clergy are sometimes more dangerous than their vices." The end to be desired is not extinction but reasonable restraint. Nor are the animal and spiritual sides of man necessarily in conflict with each other. It is frequently the case that a man's intellect, all his alleged higher qualities, are utilised to gratify his animal passions. And there are many men in whom the animal instincts are so weak that no real conflict can be said to exist.

But the most fundamental objection to this view of the life of man is that it ignores the fact that man's distinguishing characteristic is his possession of reason. An individual may cease to use his reason, but at the moment when this occurs, he practically ceases to be a man ; he becomes a mere brute. And it is only on very rare occasions that a man does allow his reasoning faculties to become dormant. It is, therefore, in a mental conflict that the struggle which makes up man's life is really to be found. The conflict between reason and passion is not a mental conflict. It is a contest between the mind, that is, between the humanity of a man, and instincts which are only quasi-human. Such contests do not make up a man's life; they occur only when he has almost ceased for a while to be a man. The real conflict is to be found in the mind, in those forms of mental activity by which man is most profoundly moved.

And of all the activities of the mind, religion and love are certainly those by which a man is most profoundly influenced. It has always been for religion and for love that men have been most ready to die, to make the most supreme sacrifices. If, therefore, it is possible to discover the motives which determine a man's attitude towards religion, which induce him to give his love, it is possible also to discover the true nature of that conflict which makes up his hfe. ^, X .'. \. Ju

it has been said that if God did not exist, it would be necessary to create Him; in other words, mankind has always experienced the need for guidance by some higher power. Men shrink from the responsibility of facing the problems of life unaided; they would almost rather submit to a despotism than assume the burden of absolute private judgment. And there are many who, feeling the littleness of man in comparison with the immensity of the Universe, the brevity of human life in face of eternity, are driven to seek consolation in the belief that some deity orders their life and shapes them for some greater destiny than existence for a few short years on one small planet, whirling, they know not whither, in the boundless realms of space.

Dogmatic religion owes its existence and its vitality to man's reahsation of his true insignificance. " What v is man that Thou art mindful of him, or the son of man ^ that Thou so regardest him? " This is the keynote of ' all religion. It cannot be that the Universe, that all the wonders of nature, exist by some chance ; that man, whose intellect even if developed to its highest capacity still cannot comprehend a billion years, is the most highly developed being. Rather it seems inevitable that above and beyond all else there is a supreme Being, a God, to Whom men must yield complete and unquestioning obedience. And the peculiar gift of man is that he can realise his limitations, reahse that there is One far above him, in Whom he " lives and moves and has his being." Man does not lose, but gains by admitting his inferiority to God, by recognising the obligation of obedience. He finds the perfection of his own nature

B in the realisation of its limitations ; he is most truly man when he accepts the guidance of that Being to Whom he * owes his very existence. God the Creator is worshipped before God the Saviour ; the Deity Who guides us in this life is more real and vital than the Deity Who is to give us an existence when this world has passed away.

The reality of this desire for guidance, for control, is seen especially in the vitality of the Roman Church. The creed of that Church denies explicitly the right of the individual to judge for himself, and in that very denial lies its strength. Men feel that they cannot face the problems of everyday life unaided, that they are still less able to face the problems of eternity. And to such the Catholic Church brings a message of great comfort. " Only believe " has been that Church's motto; " all things are possible to him that believeth." Here is the solution of every difficulty which might trouble the mind of man ; all can cast themselves on the Church, and the Church will guard and guide them. The desire to be controlled, to submit, is gratified to the fullest extent.

And only in so far as a Church gratifies this desire can it have vitality. In the sixteenth century, the right of private judgment was asserted ; men were bidden to cast away the shackles of authority, to choose for themselves. New Churches arose, and in them the law of hberty was to prevail. Yet it was not long before the very opponents of authority themselves asserted the right to guide. Calvin was hardly less dictatorial than the Pope whom he attacked; Protestants have coerced the heretical as readily as have Catholics. Such was^;^ the necessity of the case. Those who became Lutherans or Calvinists were not less desirous of guidance than those who held to Rome. If denied that guidance, they would have drifted back to the Church from which they had parted. Dogmatic religion must gratify the desire to be ruled.

At the same time, there have always been some who have prized the right of private judgment above all things, who have resented even divine interference with their absolute liberty of thought and action. The mythology of all nations bears witness to the permanence of this desire for freedom. It led Eve to eat of the Tree of Knowledge; it led Prometheus to snatch fire from the sun. And when we pass from the age of myth to that of History, the basic force in all resistance to an organised Church, the origin of all heresy, has been the reluctance of the individual to surrender his freedom of thought. He desires to be equal to his spiritual guides, to be equal even to the Deity; he seeks to be master of his own fate. It is for this reason that the doctrine of transubstantiation has always been selected for attack by the enemies of the Catholic Church. That doctrine places the priest in a position far superior to that of any of his flock; they may be powerful in this world, but he alone can perform the daily miracle of the Mass. Those who would assert their freedom, who would refuse obedience, are forced to deny first of all the exceptional position of the priesthood. Only so can they justify their demand to be allowed to judge for themselves; only so can they satisfy their desire to rule. \

Irreligio5i is no more than the expression of that desire. Those men are irreligious who do not feel the need for guidance from without. They prefer rather to rely upon themselves and to fall into error, than to surrender their intellectual liberty and be led along the right path. To them it seems better to die in a state of mental freedom than to live in a state of mental servitude. They aspire to be as Go4; they find a certain inspiration in the thought that if they fall they fall in battle against an almighty power; that if they die, they at least die free.

When, therefore, man approaches the consideratioivi of religion, he is faced with two logical alternatives, r He may render that complete submission which Catholi- * cism demands, or he may assert that complete independence which Agnosticism claims. Anything short of complete submission or complete independence is a compromise, and as such lacks both combative force and vitality. Protestantism has succeeded just in so far as it has partaken of Catholicism. The negations of Luther would not have secured the permanence of his protest; it was the dogmatism of Calvin which in reality prevented the complete triumph of the Counter- Reformation.

And it is indeed clear that no Church can accept the logical outcome of the right of private judgment. If it did so, it would fall forthwith into a state of anarchy and its extinction would be inevitable. Lutherans, Zwinglians, Calvinists were alike forced to become illogical. Denying on the one hand the authority of the Catholic Church, they on the other hand asserted the authority of the Bible, of the Bible as interpreted at Wittenberg, Zurich or Geneva. And only by gratifying in this way the desire to be ruled, did Protestantism maintain its existence ; only, that is, by ceasing to admit that right of private judgment which had been the watchword of the original resistance to Catholicism.

The fact is that Catholicism is one logical position; the only logical alternative to it is Agnosticism. The one position gratifies the desire to be ruled to the fullest extent; the other gratifies the desire to rule. There never has been, and, unless human nature changes entirely, there never can be a time when the whole race either accepts or rejects dogmatic religion. There must always be revolt against mental servitude; the right of private judgment must always find its champions. And yet it is, perhaps, those who assert this right most emphatically who are also most prone to seek relief from the responsibility which they have assumed. In other words, men waver between their desire for external guidance and their desire for freedom from all control, and because they so waver Catholicism and Agnosticism must always exist, gratifying as they do two deep and enduring desires.