History of the World

“ World-history is no more the fairy tale whose end is death, but laden with eternal meanings, significances, intimations, swift gleams of the Timeless manifesting itself in Time. And the distinguishing function of History as a science lies in its ceaseless effort not only to lay bare, to crystallize the moments of all these manifestations, but to discover their connecting bond, the ties that unite them to each other and to the One, the hidden source of these varied manifestations, whether revealed as transcendent thought, art, or action. ”

“ The greatest part of the universe, and at the same time a civilization different but certainly as developed as that of the ancient Greeks and Romans, remained unknown to those who wrote the history of their little world while they believed that they, were setting forth the history of the world as a whole. ”

“ Each nation, as distinguished from other nations, its contemporaries, and each period in the world’s history, as compared with periods anterior to it and subsequent, has its characteristics, its moral tone, its intellectual range, and its tastes; it has its principles, its modes of reasoning, and especially its condition as a season, either of progress and expansion, or of decay and decline. ”

“ The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opinion, as geology is the record of the decay of those bodily organisms in which opinions have found material expression. ”

“ On the other hand, history serves to give us a knowlege of the universe, and the different nations which inhabit it; their prejudices, their governments, their interests, their commerce, their politics, and the law of nations. It shews us the origin of the illustrious men who have reigned in the world, and given birth to their successors. ”

“ Such were the material wonders of the ancient civilizations, culminating in their latest and greatest representative, and displayed in its proud capital,--nearly all of which became later the spoil of barbarians, who ruthlessly marched over the classic world, having no regard for its choicest treasures. Those old glories are now indeed succeeded by a prouder civilization,--the work of nobler races after sixteen hundred years of new experiments. ”

“ In other words, let us sketch the history of progress during the ten thousand years or so that have elapsed since man learned the art of writing, adapting our sketch to the same scale which we have already applied to the unnumbered millenniums of the prehistoric period. The view of world-history thus outlined will be a very different one from what might be expected by the student of national history; but it will present the essentials of the progress of civilization in a suggestive light. ”

“ Besides its interest as a record of war and adventure, this history gives the successive stages by which modern men have been made what they are. The longest known countries and peoples have, on the whole, had the deepest influence in the forming of the civilised character. ”

“ Politics, Religion, and Thought in all its many-sided fields, summed up for the future Western world all the remnants of the past which were most essential and fruitful for generations to come. They were the three great forces that made for unity and, with unity, for civilisation. ”

“ The meaning attached to the term 'world history' clearly shows how firmly rooted is the anthropocentric view of the world in connection with those matters that are of deepest concern to man. World history is regarded as the history of mankind—indeed, in a still narrower sense, as, in the last analysis, the mental history of mankind. ”

“ The eleventh and twelfth centuries were turning-points of great significance in the history of our western civilization, and with the opening of the wonderful thirteenth century the western world is well headed toward a new life and modern ways of thinking. ”

“ Every attempt to trace back the early history of civilization tends, however remotely, towards an ultimate limit—the primary condition of the human race, as regards their knowledge of the laws of nature and their power of modifying the outer world for their own ends. ”

“ So by the beginning of the third century B.C. we find already arisen in the Western civilization of the old world three of the great structural ideas that rule the mind of contemporary mankind. We have already traced the escape of writing and knowledge from the secrets and mysteries and initiations of the old-world priesthoods, and the development of the idea of a universal knowledge, of a universally understandable and communicable history and philosophy. ”

“ If we treat History as a progressive science, and lean specially on that side of it, the question will arise, how we justify our departure from ancient ways, and how we satisfy the world that there is reason and method in our innovations. ”

“ In spite of overwhelming evidence, it is most difficult for a citizen of western Europe to bring thoroughly home to himself the truth that the civilisation which surrounds him is a rare exception in the history of the world. ”

“ The subject I propose to consider is the civilisation of Europe--its origins, its progress, its aims, its character. The fact of civilisation belongs to what is called the philosophic portion of history ”

“ And many topics of quite primary interest to mankind, the first appearance and the growth of scientific knowledge for example, and its effects upon human life, the elaboration of the ideas of money and credit, or the story of the origins and spread and influence of Christianity, which must be treated fragmentarily or by elaborate digressions in any partial history, arise and flow completely and naturally in one general record of the world in which we live. ”

“ The colonization of new countries, the foundation of empires and cities, the cultivation of science, literature, art, and every sort of commerce, handicraft, and industry, all that is included in the term civilization, employed the energies of that portion of mankind whose doings find a place in universal history, until everything was accomplished which was possible to 8man and God saw fit to permit him to achieve. ”

“ In studying the phenomena of knowledge and art, religion and mythology, law and custom, and the rest of the complex whole which we call Civilization, it is not enough to have in view the more advanced races, and to know their history so far as direct records have preserved it for us. ”

“ A third approach would regard civilization as an evolving life style, conceived before the earliest days of recorded human history and matured through the series of experiments marking the development of civilization as we have known it during the five centuries from 1450 to 1975. ”

“ A Man acquainted with History may, in some respect, be said to have lived from the Beginning of the World, and to have been making continual Additions to his Stock of Knowledge in every Century. ”

“ But even when we know the general history of thought and the special histories of our own small divisions of human knowledge, we are apt to overlook the fact that, in a large sense, civilization itself is a matter of the moment, which may be viewed in the light of a broader perspective. Civilization we measure by hundreds and thousands of years. ”

“ Modern history alone, from its vast scope, from the variety and extent of its duration, offers us the grandest and most complete picture which we could possibly possess of the civilization of a certain portion of the globe. ”

“ IV Nature is the shape in which the man of higher Cultures synthesizes and interprets the immediate impressions of his senses. History is that from which his imagination seeks comprehension of the living existence of the world in relation to his own life, which he thereby invests with a deeper reality. ”

“ The same thing may be said of other histories of civilization. They stress personalities, nations and empires.
There are few books which approach the study of civilization as a stage or level of human culture. ”

“ Certainly, thousands of years before our day there were empires and kingdoms and city-states, showing considerable advancement in those intellectual pursuits which we call civilization or culture,—that is, in religion, learning, literature, political organization, and business; and such basic institutions as the family, the state, and society go back even further, past our earliest records, until their origins are shrouded in deepest mystery. Despite its brevity, modern history is of supreme importance. ”

“ The greatest changes of which we have had experience as yet are due to our increasing knowledge of history and nature. They have been produced by a few minds appearing in three or four favoured nations, in comparatively a short period of time. ”

“ To describe the earth, the abode of man, to delineate the different kingdoms of nature, and to inquire into the origin of them, or to explain the physical or mental constitution of human beings, is no part of the office of history. ”

“ That these remarks are not merely speculative, that the progress of civilization has been continuous and connected, while the races which have been engaged in the formation of it, like individuals, have had their periods of birth, maturity, and decay, is sufficiently proved by history. ”

“ To consider the world in its length and breadth, its various history, the many races of man, their starts, their fortunes, their mutual alienation, their conflicts; and then their ways, habits, governments, forms of worship; ”

“ But the main basis of the arguments are the elements of human nature itself, as they are written, not only in the venerable documents of ancient history, but on the face of every traveler's narrative, of every ancient body of laws, of every honored institution subsisting in the midst of the national life of the most advanced countries of Europe. ”

“ The influence of geography, of nations, and of great men, in history, is then stated with great eloquence, force, and subtle complication of truth and paradox. Some vigorous sketches of the historians of humanity and philosophy, in which their merits are luminously exhibited and their defects acutely analyzed, are followed by a view of the philosophy of the 19th century. ”

“ And there is no history more instructive than yours, because you have concentrated within the narrow scope of a few years that natural process of national life, which elsewhere was achieved only through centuries. ”

“ By Universal History I understand that which is distinct from the combined history of all countries, which is not a rope of sand but a continuous development, not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul. ”

“ These events, marvellous in themselves and in their accessories, and momentous from the way in which they have affected the destinies of the human race, present a study singularly and enduringly interesting, differing so strongly as they do from the characteristics of ancient history. ”

“ INTRODUCTION THOUGHTS ABOUT HISTORY AND CIVILIZATION We may think and talk about civilization as one pattern or level of culture, one stage through which human life flows and ebbs. In that sense we may regard it abstractly and historically, as we regard the most recent ice age or the long and painful record of large-scale chattel slavery. ”

“ Physical necessities, pestilences, changes of climate, and the like outer things may deflect and distort the growth of human history, but its living root is thought.
All human history is fundamentally a history of ideas. ”

“ The history of the Middle Ages and of modern times chronicles the nations and empires that have sunk in this mighty current, and the new life and new civilization that have sprung up over the ruins of the old. ”

“ On the one hand I have reviewed briefly and as accurately as possible some outstanding experiments with civilization, including our own western variant. (Part I. The Pageant of Experiments with Civilization.) In Part II I have undertaken a social analysis of civilization as a past and present life style. In Part III, Civilization Is Becoming Obsolete, I have tried to check our thinking about civilization with the sweep of present day historical trends. Part IV, Steps Beyond Civilization, is an attempt to list some of the alternatives and opportunities presently available to civilized man. ”

“ Let us, before tracing the history of the empire, take a brief survey of its extent, resources, population, institutions, state of society, and that development of Art, science, and literature, which we call civilization, in the period which immediately preceded the birth of Christ, when the nations were subdued, submissive to the one central power, and at peace with each other. ”

“ To point out the traits of analogy existing between the productions of intellect, and the ages and nations to which they severally belong, may serve to throw a clearer and more vivid light on important periods and momentous epochs of history ”

“ The common ethical and traditional basis thus established for the future development of the great nationalities of Europe is the most fundamental characteristic distinguishing modern from ancient history. ”

“ But history is not only philosophy, teaching by example; its true purpose is, also, to illustrate the general progress of society in knowledge and the arts, and the changes of manners and pursuits of men.
There is an imperfection, both in ancient and modern histories, and those of the best masters, in this respect. While they recite public transactions, they omit, to a great degree, what belongs to the civil, social, and domestic progress of men and nations. ”

“ Among the books consulted in preparation of this essay on civilization as a social institution, UNESCO _History of Mankind_ holds first place. The authors describe the work as "the first global history, planned and executed from an international viewpoint". ”

“ Modern History is the history of ourselves, of the way in which we came to be what we are, of the education of our nation, of the development of our government, of the fortunes of our fathers, that caused us to be taught and governed and placed as we are, and formed our minds and habits by that teaching, government, and position ”