Historical development

“ All the bygone ages are with us, and we look on the face of the infancy of the world. We see the first dawning of thought in man. We are present at the beginnings of cities, states, and nations; and can trace the growth and development of governments, policies, and laws. ”

“ Fills a decided gap which has existed for the past twenty years in American historical literature. The work is admirably planned and executed, and will at once take its place as a standard record of the life, growth, and development of the nation. ”

“ But the feelings of nationality against imperial control by Church or State, the growth of the towns and commerce, the gradual development of representative government, the struggles against despotism—these are things he can understand and appreciate and in connection with which he can see the present emerging from the past. Nor should the great personalities of medieval and modern history be neglected, for they have historical interest and importance and serve to give greater interest and definiteness to movements of which they are a part. ”

“ In the development and organisation of historical science, the profounder historic sense of the age was displayed in the scientific investigation of history, in the study of social life and its development. ”

“ While on the whole the unique historical character of cultural growth in each area stands out as a salient element in the history of cultural development, we may recognize at the same time that certain typical parallelisms do occur. ”

“ Moreover, the strength of our position is based upon a scientific conception of the development of the nation or people among whom survivals exist. It is not all parts of the nation which develop at the same rate, at the same time, and for the same period. There are social strata in every country, and it is the observance of these strata which has made it possible for the inquirer of to-day to use the evidence they afford for historical purposes. ”

“ Scope must be afforded for the development of the remote issues before they can be brought under the range of a philosophical apprehension; and the secret thread be discovered, running through all history, upon which its single facts crystalize in the unity of some great Providential plan. ”

“ And thus I hope even British respectability will not be overshocked if I use, in English as well as in so many other languages, the term, "historical materialism," to designate that view of the course of history, which seeks the ultimate cause and the great moving power of all important historic events in the economic development of society, in the changes in the modes of production and exchange, in the consequent division of society into distinct classes, and in the struggles of these classes against one another. ”

“ The historical value of a tradition does not of necessity vary inversely with its age, and indeed this rule-of-three test goes for very little, for some very old stories are, beyond a doubt, of greater historical value than other very new ones current in the same tribe. ”

“ But written history often becomes shot-riddled by criticism and is set away, at last, like battle-flags, after many honorable campaigns, in some museums of relics or some temple of fame. Unless such trophies continue to awaken in the living present a sort of enthusiasm and a sense of unity with the past experience of our race, then are our historic standards but antiquarian rubbish, indeed, as useless and unmeaning as the banners and symbols of heraldry.
The subject of History is the self-conscious development of the human race, the Ego of Humanity. ”

“ As the heavens are reflected in a single drop of dew, so in the thoughts of the individual human mind we may sometimes behold a reflection of the self-knowledge of Humanity. For the individual is sometimes the very best expression of the whole with which it stands in connection. The onward march of world-history seems to have concentrated itself in the development of individual peoples like the Jews, Greeks, Romans, and the Germanic peoples. ”

“ But the power which myths have of taking root the moment they are transplanted into a new country, often makes it impossible to tell whether they are of old date and historical value, or mere modern intruders. ”

“ To the study of whatever of the states of civilization we may devote ourselves, we find that, regardless of its present position of advancement, at some period of its history the personal ownership of human beings was a recognized feature of its social fabric. Nor is it true that the existence of this institution at any certain period of a people's history can be taken as an evidence of a low state of intellectual, moral or social development during such period. ”

“ Vary the theme as you may in the countless histories of countless peoples; subdivide the course of its progress as you will, allowing for different local causes and different local phenomena, the true philosophy of history teaches that no real departure from this natural development is possible. But what if by the violent intervention of some new and entirely foreign force, another development and another life is given to the inanimate ashes of the old? ”

“ On the other hand, let an individual mingle with his fellows; a race or community enters into political or commercial relation with its neighbors, the divine sparks struck off by the attrition of mind with mind kindle the fires which illumine the spiritual in man and sets in motion the machinery of human progress. What student of history fails to recognize the influence of Phoenician letters and Egyptian thought upon Greek civilization; of Greek literature and ideals upon Roman character and development ”

“ By a universal Modern History we mean something distinct from the combined History of all countries—in other words, we mean a narrative which is not a mere string of episodes, but displays a continuous development. ”

“ The historical conception of progress is founded on historical experience of the evolution of human affairs. Its object is to understand the past as a whole, to note in every age the thing that was accomplished, the ideas which clothed themselves with power. ”

“ Modern principles, that mark a new departure in human progress and in its evidence, Civilisation, took their rise during this epoch of transition, and their development underlies the history of the period, and gives the key to its meaning. ”

“ When considering the past one is inclined to ask the question: “Does the history of mankind represent an unbroken line of progress, or, on the contrary, does it reflect a series of alternating periods of development and decay?” ”

“ In the meantime it is well to bear in mind that there is one important department of history which has always been frankly and unhesitatingly accepted as history and yet which has no stronger foundation than tradition, and tradition of the most formal kind. I allude to the early laws of most of the peoples who have become possessed of an historic civilisation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ All the dreary questions of the precise order in which history should be taught—whether backwards or forwards, local first or the reverse, may be brought up if one chooses to do so. But after all, these questions are not very fruitful. What we need most is the historical spirit. ”

“ The teaching of history, during the three to four thousand years of which contemporary chronicles have been preserved, is that civilisation is gradually developed in the course of ages by enlargement and increased precision of knowledge, invention and improvement of arts, and the progression of social and political habits and institutions towards general well-being. ”

“ It may be concerned with the construction and decoration of cities, kingdoms and empires.
Social history enters the picture with travel, transportation, communication, trade. Human beings group themselves in families, clans and tribes, in voluntary associations; they compete, plunder, conquer, enslave, exploit; they co-operate for construction and destruction. Political history is but one aspect of man's group contacts and group projects.
There have been histories of particular civilizations and of civilization as a field of historical research. ”

“ The rapid changes through which the institutions of the country are now passing, and the still more stupendous revolutions in the opinions of men, remind us that we stand to-day upon the outer verge of a great historic cycle, within which a completed past will shortly be enclosed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The tendency of historians nowadays is to neglect completely the study of the influences on State of Man's domestic, social, industrial, religious, and intellectual life, and of the diverse effects on human life and institutions of the working of the political machinery. ”

“ The history of the middle ages—a subject of which lectures are promised at some future period—is a theme replete with the interest to every one who would trace the moral and political progress of society. It was then that the elements which compose our present political system, though still in a state of fusion, were beginning to shape themselves into order. ”

“ 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. ”

“ All the large and ancient civilizations, have followed the long road of their "human development" through a complex and elaborate structure of knowledge that explain and give sense to the individual life, the family, community and State. All these civilizations have invariably sought to answer three basic questions which are the foundations where all human development rises: who am I, where do I come from and where am I going? ”

“ These subordinate peculiarities will depend first on the peculiar genius, idea and work of the nation, and next on the transient circumstances, geographical, climactic, historical and secular, to which the nation has been exposed. The past helped form the circumstances of the present age, and they the character of the men now living. ”

“ It is indeed hardly too much to say that Civilization, being a process of long and complex growth, can only be thoroughly understood when studied through its entire range; that the past is continually needed to explain the present, and the whole to explain the part. ”

“ The marvelous story of humanity is enacted again for our edification, instruction, and delight. We behold civilizations begin, struggle, triumph, and decay, giving place to higher and nobler as they pass away. Poet, lawgiver, and soldier sing their songs, make their codes, and fight their battles again, while we follow the never-dying effects of song, of law, and of battle. We sit down with 'princes, potentates, and powers,' watching them, as they think, governing the world.... Shut up in a little room we can witness the whole drama of man's history played on the vast stage of the world. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No one before had so strongly urged that history should not be treated as a collection of pictures or anecdotes relating to courts or battles, but should be made a record and explanation of the true development of nations, of the causes of their growth and decay, of their characteristic virtues and vices, of the changes that pass over their laws, customs, opinions, social and economical conditions, and over the relative importance and well-being of their different classes... ”