Chapter 8 No.8

And, first, of its history. The recognition of this law has been reserved for comparatively recent times. Like other general laws governing the courses of Nature, it was unknown to Antiquity. The ignorance and prejudice which then prevailed with regard to the earth, the heavenly bodies, and their relations to the universe, found fit companionship with the wild speculations concerning the Human Family. The ignorant live only in the Present, whether of time or place. What they see and observe bounds their knowledge.

Thus to the early Greek the heavens were upborne by the mountains, and the sun traversed daily in fiery chariot from east to west. So things seemed to him. But the true Destiny of the Human Family was as little comprehended.

Man, in his origin and history, was surrounded with fable; nor was there any correct idea of the principles determining the succession of events. Revolutions of states were referred sometimes to chance, sometimes to certain innate elements of decay. Plutarch did not hesitate to ascribe the triumphs of Rome, not to the operation of immutable law, but to the fortune of the Republic. And Polybius, whom Gibbon extols for wisdom and philosophical spirit, said that Carthage, being so much older than Rome, felt her decay so much the sooner; and the survivor, he announced, carried in her bosom the seeds of mortality. The image of youth, manhood, and age was applied to nations. Like mortals on earth, they were supposed to have a period of life, and a length of thread spun by the Fates, strong at first, but thinner and weaker with advancing time, till at last it was cut, and another nation, with newly twisted thread, commenced its career.

In likening the life of a nation to the life of an individual man, there was error, commended by seeming truth, not yet entirely banished. It prevails still with many, who have not received the Law of Human Progress, teaching that all revolutions and changes are but links in the chain of development, or, it may be, turns in the grand spiral, by which the unknown infinite Future is connected with the Past. Nations have decayed, but never with the imbecility of age.

The ancients saw that there were changes, but did not detect the principles governing them, while a favorite fable and popular superstition conspired to turn attention back upon the Past, rather than forward to the Future. In the dawn of Greece, Hesiod, standing near the Father of Poetry, sang the descending mutations through which Mankind had seemed to travel. First came the Golden Age, so he fabled, when men lived secure and happy in pleasant association, without discord, without care, without toil, without weariness, while good of all kinds abounded, like the plentiful fruits which the earth spontaneously supplied. This was followed by the Silver Age, with a race inferior in form and disposition. Next was the Brazen Age, still descending in the scale, when men became vehement and robust, strong in body and stern in soul, building brazen houses, wielding brazen weapons, prompt to war, but not yet entirely wicked. Last, and unhappily his own, according to the poet, was the Iron Age, when straightway all evil raged forth; neither by day nor yet by night, did men rest from labor and sorrow; discord took the place of concord; the pious, the just, and the good were without favor; the man of force and the evil-doer were cherished; modesty and justice yielded to insolence and wrong. War now prevailed, and men lived in wretchedness.[244]

Such, according to the Greek poet, was the succession of changes through which mankind had passed. This fable found a response. It was repeated by philosophy and history. Plato adorned and illustrated it. Strabo and Diodorus imparted to it their grave sanction. It was carried to Rome, with the other spoils of Greece. It was reproduced by Ovid, in flowing verses that have become a commonplace of literature. It was recognized by the tender muse of Virgil, the sportive fancy of Horace, and the stern genius of Juvenal. Songs and fables have ever exerted a powerful control over human opinion; nor is it possible to estimate the influence of this story in shaping unconsciously the thoughts of mankind. It is easy to understand that the youth of Antiquity,-let me say, too, the youth of later ages,-nay, of our own day, in our own schools and colleges,-nurtured by this literature, should learn to neglect the Future, and rather regard the Past. The words of Horace have afforded a polished expression to this prejudice of education:-

"Damnosa quid non imminuit dies?

?tas parentum, pejor avis, tulit

Nos nequiores, mox daturos

Progeniem vitiosiorem."[245]

Barren as is classical literature in any just recognition of the continuity of events, any true appreciation of the movement of history, or any well-defined confidence in the Future, it were wrong to say that it never found a voice which seemed, in harmony with the Prophets and the Evangelists, to proclaim the advent of a better age. Virgil, in his Eclogue to Pollio,-the exact meaning of which is still a riddle,-breaks forth in words of vague aspiration, which have been sometimes supposed to herald the coming of the Saviour. The blessings of Peace are here foreshadowed, while the Golden Age seems to be not only behind, but also before. Thus, notwithstanding the prejudice of superstition and the constraint of ignorance, has the human heart, in longings for a better condition on earth, gone forward as the pioneer of Humanity.

To the superstition of Heathenism succeeded that of the Christian Church. The popular doctrine of an immediate millennium, inculcated by a succession of early fathers, took the place of ancient fable; and a Golden Age was placed in advance to animate the hope and perseverance of the faithful. It was believed that the anxieties and strifes filling the lives of men were all to be lost in a blissful Sabbath of a thousand years, when Christ with the triumphant band of saints would return to reign upon earth until the last and general resurrection. Vain and irrational as was the early form of this anticipation, it was not without advantage. It filled the souls of all who received it with aspirations for the Future, while it rudely prefigured that promised period-then, alas! how distant!-when the whole world will glow in the illumination of Christian truth. Among the means by which the Law of Human Progress has found acceptance, it is only just to mention this prophetic vision of the ancient Church.

All the legitimate influences of Christianity were in the same direction. Christianity is the religion of Progress. Here is a distinctive feature, which we vainly seek in any Heathen faith professed upon earth. Confucius, in his sublime morals, taught us not to do unto others what we would have them not do unto us; but the Chinese philosopher did not declare the ultimate triumph of this law. It was reserved for the Sermon on the Mount to reveal the vital truth, that all the highest commands of religion and duty, drawing in their train celestial peace, and marking the final goal of all Progress among men, shall one day be obeyed. "For verily I say unto you," says the Saviour, "till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the Law, till all be fulfilled."

There is nothing of good so vast or beautiful, nothing so distant or seemingly inaccessible, as to fall beyond the reach of these promises. Though imperfectly understood, or recognized, in the night of ignorance and prejudice, they were heralds of the dawn. In the advance of Modern Europe, they led the way, whispering, Onward forever! Long before Philosophy deduced the Law of Human Progress from the history of man, the Gospel silently planted it in the human heart. There it rested, influencing powerfully, though gently, the march of events.

Slowly did it pass from the formularies of devotion into the convictions of reason and the treasury of science. Strange blindness! They, who, repeating the Lord's Prayer, daily called for the coming of his kingdom on earth, who professed implicit faith in the final fulfilment of the Law, still continued in Heathen ignorance of the significance and spirit of the Prayer they daily uttered and of the Law they daily recognized. They did not perceive that the kingdom of the Lord was to come, and the Law to be fulfilled by a continuity of daily labor. As modern civilization gradually unfolded itself amidst the multiplying generations of men, they witnessed the successive manifestations of power,-but perceived no Law. They looked upon the imposing procession of events, but did not discern the rule which guided the mighty series. Ascending from triumph to triumph, they saw dominion extended by the discoveries of intrepid navigators,-saw learning strengthened by the studies of accomplished scholars,-saw universities opening their portals to ingenuous youth in all corners of the land, from Aberdeen and Copenhagen to Toledo and Ferrara,-saw Art put forth new graces in the painting of Raffaelle, new grandeur in the painting, the sculpture, and the architecture of Michel Angelo,-caught the strains of poets, no longer cramped by ancient idioms, but flowing sweetly in the language learned at a mother's knee,-received the manifold revelations of science in geometry, mathematics, astronomy,-beheld the barbarism of the barbarous Art of War changed and refined, though barbarous still, by the invention of gunpowder,-witnessed knowledge of all kinds springing to unwonted power through the marvellous agency of the printing-press,-admired the character of the Good Man of Peace, as described in that work of unexampled circulation, translated into all modern languages, the "Imitation of Christ," by Thomas à Kempis,-listened to the apostolic preaching of Wyckliffe in England, Huss in Bohemia, Savonarola in Florence, Luther at Worms; and yet all these things, the harmonious expression of progressive energies belonging to Man, token of an untiring advance, earnest of a mightier Future, seemed to teach no certain lesson.

The key to this advance had not been found. It was not seen that the constant desire for improvement implanted in man, with the constant effort consequent thereon in a life susceptible of indefinite Progress, caused, naturally, under the laws of a beneficent God, an indefinite advance,-that the evil passions of individuals, or of masses, while retarding, could not permanently restrain this divine impulse,-and that each generation, by irresistible necessity, added to the accumulations of the Past, and in this way prepared a higher Future. To all ignorant of this tendency, history, instead of a connected chain, with cause and effect in natural order, is nothing but a disconnected, irregular series of incidents, like separate and confused circles having no common bond. It is a dark chaos, embroiled by "chance, high arbitress," or swayed by some accidental man, fortunate in position or power. Even Macchiavelli, the consummate historian and politician of his age,-Bodin, the able speculator upon Government,-Bossuet, the eloquent teacher of religion and history,-Grotius, the illustrious founder of the Laws of Nations,-whose large intelligence should have grasped the true philosophy of events,-all failed to recognize in them any prevailing law or governing principle.

It was reserved for a professor at Naples, Giambattista Vico, in the early part of the last century, to review the history of the Past, analyze its movements, and finally disclose the existence of a primitive rule or law by which these movements were effected. His work, entitled "The Principles of a New Science concerning the Common Nature of Nations,"[246] first published in 1725, constitutes an epoch in historical studies. Recent Italian admirers vindicate for its author a place among great discoverers, by the side of Descartes, Galileo, Bacon, and Newton.[247] Without undertaking to question, or to adopt, this lofty homage to a name little known, it will not be doubted, that, as author of an elaborate work devoted expressly to the philosophy of history, at a period when history was supposed to be without philosophy, he deserves honorable mention.

Vico taught regard not merely for the individual and the nation, but the race, and showed, that, whatever the fortunes of individuals, Humanity advances,-that no blind or capricious chance controls the course of human affairs, but that whatever is done proceeds directly, under God, from the forces and faculties of men, and thus can have no true cause except in the nature of things,-excluding, of course, the idea of chance. He recognized three principles at the foundation of civilization: first, the existence of Divine Providence; secondly, the necessity of moderating the passions; and, thirdly, the immortality of the soul: three primal truths, answering to three historical facts of universal acceptance,-religion, marriage, and sepulture. Three stages marked the history of mankind: first, the divine, or theocratic; next, the heroic; and, lastly, the human. These appeared in Antiquity, and were reproduced, as he fancied, in modern times. Ingenuity and novelty are stamped upon this exposition, which is elevated by the exclusion of chance and the recognition of God.

While recognizing Humanity as governed by law, and with a common dependence, the Neapolitan professor failed to perceive that this same law and this common dependence promise to conduct it through unknown and infinite stages. Believing monarchy a perfect government, he did not see beyond the time of kings. Like others before him, and even in our own day, he was perplexed by the treacherous image of youth, manhood, and age, which he applied to nations, as to the individual man. No discovery is complete, and that of Vico, while most ingenious and fruitful, failed to grasp the whole law of the Future.

Meanwhile a gigantic genius in Germany,-whose vision, no less comprehensive than penetrating, embraced the whole circumference of knowledge and reached into the undiscovered Future, to whom the complexities of mathematics, the subtilties of philology, the mazes of philosophy, the courses of history, the rules of jurisprudence, and the heights of theology were all equally familiar,-Leibnitz, that more than imperial conqueror in the realms of universal knowledge,-the greatest, perhaps, of Human Intelligences,-enunciated the Law of Progress in all the sciences and all the concerns of life. The Present, born of the Past, he said, is pregnant with the Future. It is by a sure series that we advance, using and enjoying all our gifts for health of body and improvement of mind. Everything, from the simplest substance up to man, progresses towards God, the Infinite Being, Source of all other beings; and in bold words, which may require explanation, he says, "Man seems able to arrive at perfection": Videtur homo ad perfectionem venire posse.[248]

Leibnitz saw the Law of Progress by intuition, and became its herald. But there is no reason to believe that he appreciated its transcendent importance as a rule of conduct, and submitted his great powers to its influence. He saw more than Vico, but he did not discern the practical guide he had discovered. And yet, recognizing this law, the gates of the Future were open to him, and he saw Man in distant perspective, arrived at heights of happiness which he cannot now conceive. The vision of Universal Peace was to him no longer a vision, but the practical idea of humane statesmen, while he bent his incomparable genius to the discovery of a new agent of intercourse among men,-the aspiration of other philosophers since his day,-a Universal Language, where the confusion of tongues will be forgotten, and the union of hearts be consummated in the union of speech.

Close upon Leibnitz came Lessing, whose genius, less universal, but more exquisite, made him the regenerator of German literature. His soul was touched by sympathy for all mankind, and he saw its sure advance. Almost by his side was Herder, gifted among a gifted people, who in his "Philosophy of History" portrays Humanity in its incessant progress from small beginnings of ignorance and barbarism, when wrong and war and slavery prevail, to the recognition of reason and justice as the rule of life. "There is nothing enthusiastical," he says in that work, which is a classic of German prose, "in the hope, that, wherever men dwell, at some future period will dwell men rational, just, and happy,-happy, not through the means of their own reason alone, but of the common reason of their whole fraternal race."[249] In these last words the Law of Progress is announced, with all its promises.

In France we trace this law through a succession of master minds,-first of whom in time, as in authority, is Descartes, the chief of French philosophy. His life was crowded with triumphs of intellect, and after death his spirit seemed for a time to rule all departments of study. Like the universal soul of the Stoics, it was everywhere. Though not formally enunciating the Law of Progress, his "Discourse on Method," first published in 1637, acknowledged its influence in natural science. "The experience which I have in physics," he says, "teaches me that it is possible to arrive at a knowledge of many things which will be very useful to life, and that we may yet discover methods by which man, comprehending the force and the action of fire, water, air, stars, skies, and all the other bodies which environ us, as distinctly as we comprehend the different trades of our artisans, shall be able to employ them in the same fashion for all the uses to which they are appropriate, and thus shall render himself master and possessor of Nature." In these new triumphs of knowledge, he says, "men may learn to enjoy the fruits of the earth without trouble; their health will be preserved, and they will be able to exempt themselves from an infinitude of ills, as well of body as of mind, and even, perhaps, from the weakness of old age." As I repeat these words, uttered long before the steam-engine, the railroad, the electric telegraph, and the use of ether, I seem to hear a prophecy, the prophecy of Science, which each day helps to fulfil. "Without intending any slight," he continues, "I am sure that even those engaged in these matters will confess that all that they know is almost nothing in comparison with what remains to be known."[250] There is grandeur in the assurance with which the great philosopher announces the Future.

From Descartes I come to Pascal, never to be mentioned without a tribute to the early genius which, though removed from life at the age of thirty-nine, left an ineffaceable trace upon the religion, science, and literature of his time. The Law of Progress received from him its earliest and most distinct statement as a rule of philosophy applicable to all the sciences depending upon experience and reason. This is to be found in that posthumous work of eloquent piety and sentiment, Les Pensées, first published by his companions of Port Royal, in 1669, some time after his death; and it is not a little curious, as an illustration of the prejudices this truth has encountered, that the chapter where it is set forth, entitled Of Authority in Matters of Philosophy, was in this early edition suppressed. Not until the next century was the testimony of Pascal disclosed to the world. "By a special prerogative of the human race," says he, "not only each man advances day by day in the sciences, but all men together make continual progress therein, as the universe grows old; because the same thing happens in the succession of men which takes place in the different ages of an individual. So that the whole succession of men in the course of so many ages may be regarded as one man who lives always and who learns continually. From this we see with what injustice we respect Antiquity in its philosophers; for, since old age is the period most distant from infancy, who does not see that the old age of this universal man must not be sought in the times nearest his birth, but in those which are the most remote? They whom we call the Ancients were indeed new in all things, and properly formed the infancy of mankind; and since to their knowledge we have joined the experience of the ages which have followed, it is in ourselves that is to be found that Antiquity which we revere in the others."[251] We cannot admire too much this splendid inspiration, where the expression is in harmony with the thought. When it was said that mankind may be regarded "as one man who lives always and who learns continually," there was indeed a new discovery, as great as if a new continent or a new planet had been disclosed.

The age enlightened by the genius of Pascal was ready to discuss the question then at hand, on the comparative merits of Ancients and Moderns, involving an inquiry into the principles of Progress, particularly in art and literature. The close of the seventeenth century witnessed this memorable debate, which extended from France to England. French critics, under the lead of Boileau, espoused the cause of the Ancients. Against them was Charles Perrault, conspicuous at the time among academicians, and still remembered as author of those Fairy Tales, including "Cinderella" and "Bluebeard," which have given him a fame not inferior to that of his brother, Claude Perrault, with whom he is sometimes confounded, to whom France is indebted for that perpetual triumph in architecture, the unsurpassed front of the Louvre. In an elaborate work, published in 1688-92, entitled "Parallel between the Ancients and Moderns in regard to the Arts and Sciences,"[252] where the debate is in the form of dialogue, he vindicates the Moderns in comparison with the Ancients, and insists, that, notwithstanding the perfection at which the latter arrived, the Moderns have an advantage from prolonged experience and its necessary accumulations. Like Pascal, whose remarkable words were still unpublished, he, too, sees the life of Humanity as the life of an individual man eternal, and, though recognizing epochs of retrogression in history, asserts the continuous progress of the race, not only in the sciences, but also in morals and the arts, not forgetting the art of the kitchen.

This sentiment found similar utterance in a lively contemporary, Fontenelle, an honored academician, whose life extended to a length of days unequalled in the history of literature, having accomplished one hundred years, after devoting that century of existence to the exclusive pursuit of letters. "A good mind cultivated," says this exceptional veteran, "is, so to speak, composed of all the minds of the preceding ages: it is but one and the same mind that has been cultivated during all this period. So that this man, who has lived from the beginning of the world to the present time, has had his infancy, when he was occupied only with the more pressing wants of life,-his youth, when he has succeeded pretty well in matters of imagination, such as poesy and eloquence, and when he has even begun to reason, but with less solidity than fire. He has now reached the age of manhood, when he reasons with more force and more intelligence than ever; but he would be yet further advanced, if the passion for war had not for a long time possessed him, and given him a contempt for the sciences, to which he has at last returned.... This man will have no old age; he will be ever equally capable of the things to which his youth was fitted, and ever more and more so of those which belong to the age of manhood: that is to say,-to quit the allegory,-men will never degenerate, but the sound views of the entire succession of good minds will always be added to one another."[253]-Titian, like Fontenelle, was remarkable for unusual length of days; but the consummate artist, among his immortal pictures, has left hardly one more worthy of immortality than this brilliant statement, where the discovery of Pascal is affirmed and presented with singular clearness and precision.

Thus, in France, was the Law of Progress confessed in the sciences by Descartes and Pascal,-in literature, in arts, and even in morals, by Perrault and Fontenelle. This was before the expiration of the seventeenth century. It remained that it should be announced, not only as a special law applicable to certain departments, but as a general Law of Humanity, universal in application, guiding men in all their labors, and erecting before them a goal of aspiration and of certain triumph. This was done by another, who was not philosopher only, nor statesman only, nor philanthropist only, but in whom this triumvirate of characters blended with rare success,-Turgot, the well-loved minister of Louis the Sixteenth. It was said of him by Voltaire, that "he was born wise and just"; and this tribute has especial point, when it is considered that his acceptance of this law was first announced in an essay[254] written in 1750, at the age of twenty-three, while he was yet at the Sorbonne. Let it be mentioned in his praise, that, as he grew in years, in power, and in fame, he did not depart from the happy intuitions of early life, or forget the visions which, as a young man, he had seen. Perceiving clearly the advance already made, he drew from it the assurance of yet further advance. In reason, knowledge, and virtue he did not hesitate to place his own age before preceding ages. "The corrupt of to-day," he was accustomed to say, "would have been Capuchins a hundred years ago." He declared the capacity for indefinite improvement a distinctive quality of the human race, belonging to the race in general, and to each individual in particular. He did not doubt that the progress of the physical sciences, of education, of method in the sciences, or the discovery of new methods, would enlarge the powers of man, rendering him capable of preserving a larger number of ideas in the memory, and of multiplying their relations. Nor did he doubt that the moral sense was equally capable of improvement,-that man would become constantly better in proportion as he was enlightened,-that the advance of society would necessarily keep pace with the advance of morals,-that politics, founded, like other sciences, upon observation and reason, would advance also,-that all useful truths must be finally known and adopted, while ancient errors are by degrees annihilated, or give place to new truths,-and that this Progress, increasing always from age to age, has no term, or none at least which can be assigned in the present state of human intelligence.

The early testimony of Turgot was repeated at a later day in his precious fragment on Universal History, which, when compared with the Introductory Discourse of Bossuet on the same theme, shows how superior in the philosophy of history was the layman to the bishop. All ages, says Turgot, are enchained by a succession of causes and effects uniting the present with what has preceded, and all accumulated knowledge is a common treasure, transmitted from generation to generation, as an inheritance, augmented by the discoveries of each age. In this spirit he inaugurates Universal History, giving to it a just elevation, as the exhibition of Human Progress in all its epochs, with all its hindrances, and crowned by all its triumphs.[255]

Such testimony, commended by the earnestness of conviction, was not without influence on the great movement which culminated in the earlier revolution of France, or rather it was part of that movement. It found welcome in many bosoms, and helped stir the vast mass. Among those especially penetrated by it was the friend and biographer of Turgot, who was not behind his master in this loyalty: I refer to Condorcet. This unfortunate nobleman, conspicuous for learning and genius, particularly in mathematics, and for honest devotion to the principles of the Revolution, when at last proscribed, and compelled to flee for life,-pursued by the very dogs he had helped to arouse, but was impotent to restrain,-sought shelter with a friend, where, in concealment, he passed the last eight months before his mournful death. His first thought was, to send forth a vindication of himself, addressed to his fellow-citizens; but soon renouncing this design, he devoted what remained to him of life-during that most hateful passage of human history, the Reign of Terror-to the preparation of a work in which he brought his various powers to the development of the Law of Human Progress. It is entitled "Sketch of an Historical Table of the Progress of the Human Mind,"[256] and reviews human society in its different stages, unfolding the order of its changes and the influences transmitted from age to age, pointing out the different steps in the march towards truth and happiness. From observation of man as he has been, and as he is to-day, the author passes naturally to those new triumphs which are his certain destiny, so long as he continues to possess the faculties with which he is endowed, and to be governed by the same universal laws.

Thus wrote Condorcet, while the hand of Death yet waited. He died; but the return to reason in France was signalized by unaccustomed homage to the victim. The Committee of Public Instruction reported, that the sketch was "a classical work offered to republican schools by an unfortunate philosopher, that everywhere in it the improvement of society was recognized as the object most deserving the activity of the human intelligence, and that pupils studying here the history of the sciences and the arts would learn to cherish liberty and to detest and vanquish all tyrannies"; and thereupon the National Convention ordered three thousand copies to be distributed at the expense of the nation.[257] And here properly closes this branch of our subject.

The high lineage and authority of this law I have traced, not by the enthusiasts of Humanity, not by Fénelon or Saint-Pierre, not by Diderot or Rousseau, but by a succession of masters who are our acknowledged guides in science, philosophy, and history. In Italy the torch was held aloft by Vico; in Germany, by Leibnitz, Lessing, and Herder; in France it passed through the hands of Descartes, Pascal, Perrault, Fontenelle, Turgot, and Condorcet:-

"Et quasi cursores, vita? lampada tradunt,"[258]

till at last, at the close of the eighteenth century, its flame was seen from afar. To England we seem little indebted; and yet, when I think of Lord Bacon, I am disposed to say that we are much indebted. This law inspired his great work on the "Advancement of Learning," and is expressed in its very title. It entered into his aspiration to deliver man from present weakness by extending his power over Nature. It is foreshadowed in his great declaration, antedating Pascal, that Antiquity was the youth of the world,-"Antiquitas s?culi, juventus mundi."[259] For a time Bacon had no successors in England. At a later day this law was cordially embraced by Dr. Price,[260] the friend and correspondent of Turgot. Dr. Johnson, who surely did not accept it, shows an unconscious sympathy with it, when he says of life in pastoral countries, that it "knows nothing of progression or advancement."[261] Unhappy people, thus without visible Future on earth!

To the eighteenth century belongs the honor-signal honor I venture to call it-of first distinctly acknowledging and enunciating that Law of Human Progress, which, though preached in Judea eighteen hundred years ago, failed to be received by men,-nay, still fails to be received by men. Writers in our own age, of much ability and unexampled hardihood, while adopting this fundamental law, proceed to arraign existing institutions of society. My present purpose does not require me to consider these, whether for censure or praise,-abounding as they do in evil, abounding as they do in good. It is my single aim to trace the gradual development and final establishment of that great law which teaches that "there is a good time coming,"-a Future even on earth, to arouse the hopes, the aspirations, and the energies of Man.